CHAPTER SIXTY SIX

Jason groaned.

Man!

He'd been awfully close there.

However, his Mech just wasn't fast enough - he'd come a little bit short. His control skills had been perfect, and his Mech was performing in top condition. He'd completed the complicated moves without any problem.

The real issue was that there was no way he could have ever succeeded.

The mistake was entirely due to Jason's lack of knowledge as a pilot.

He hadn't come up with a better plan, so he'd been forced to push his Mech into an impossible task.

Some machines could have circled the Scarecrow Envy and attacked from behind, but those Mechs would have focused entirely on speed. Such a Mech would have been too weak offensively for Jason's preferences.

The Factory stage - and the two coordinated opponents - made things tough, but a difficult situation was no excuse.

Unfortunately, Jason couldn't think of any better ideas during his post-game reviews.

In his opinion, the game showed his limits as a player. Whenever his best options were sealed, Jason was stuck in the mud.

He still struggled to think on the fly.

In the last few days, Jason had already learned a lot. He wanted to further diversify his gameplay by copying Paul's stationary fighting style. His opponents at the Tournament of Assassins wouldn't have any data on his new moves. He'd seem like a totally new pilot.

However, that was only an illusion.

His improvisation was still very weak. Despite wracking his brains, he'd come up with an unviable plan.

Even though he was adding new attacks to his game, he mostly copied the other players in the BAG Guild or the Good Game Shoppe and replicated their moves in practice before using them on the server.

When it came to Overdrive, Jason's best asset was hard work.

However, there were limits to remixing the same reliable moves over and over again. Jason needed to develop new techniques if he wanted to surpass a woman like Vile or star players like the aces of the Hive.

Jason shrugged.

If he couldn't think of anything, he might as well ask his friends.

He pulled off his headset, and the noise of the Good Game Shoppe replaced the silence of the Overdriver loss lobby.

The kids yelled excitedly as they battled.

Phil and Taylor were much more subdued, but they were also celebrating enthusiastically.

The two friends high-fived each other.

"Yeah!"

"Nice moves!"

Although it'd been a two-on-one, they were right to celebrate. Both of them had played well, and Jason had learned much from their crafting and creativity.

The two turned towards him with identical smiles on their faces.

Despite their outer physical differences, the smiles were totally alike - sharp grins with arced cheeks, dimples, and exposed teeth. It was funny how longtime friends often wound up imitating each other's expressions.

"You wanna rematch?"

"We can go one-on-one this time if you want."

Jason grinned back and shook his head.

"No way! That was awesome. Let's go again."

Jason, Taylor, and Phil continued battling each other throughout the night.

In each battle, Jason did his best to carefully track his performance and mark areas where he needed to improve.

In a clash between an artillery unit like the Green Envy and a melee Mech like the Red Minerva, the randomly selected stage played an enormous role.

As a result, Jason weighed his success on a relative basis.

His main goal was to grow comfortable with every kind of battlefield and to better understand the matchup.

The Scarecrow Envy preferred stages with a lot of impenetrable terrain. Fields like Cityscape or Factory were optimal.

Phil also succeeded on very large and very open stages like Void. The two Mechs would spawn far away from each other, and Jason couldn't find an avenue of attack.

The unfavorable stages pushed Jason's wits to their very limits.

To win, he needed to flank and circumvent his foe. That was his only possible option.

His increased armor meant that his machine could trade reasonably well under normal circumstances, but the Scarecrow Envy was just too statistically powerful.

The machine's blasts effortlessly melted the Antigone Armor.

It was a well-known competitive player adage that you should never try and battle a Green Envy head on. Quite a few players transformed the Green Envy from a regular Mech into a conventional 50,000 machine.

The modified Green Envy played a key role in competitive battles as an anti-metagame machine. It countered the complexity of well-built Aces with raw indomitable power. Many players considered it a gatekeeper of competitive play.

In exchange for the incredible aura, the Green Envy had one of the highest innate Credit costs in the game. The machinery needed to create the empowering energy field cost a whopping 38,000 Credits.

That meant that the machine couldn't spend much money on its other items. Competitive Green Envy Mechs were stronger than Phil's hastily created version, but they could only carry a similarly low amount of weapons.

The machine received a discount on its signature Urumi of Envy, but it had to pay full price on any other weapon.

As a result, it was generally restricted to two weapons at a maximum. However, those two items would operate at maximum efficacy.

That being said, Jason had his own favorable stages.

Jason's machine succeeded in two circumstances.

The first beneficial stages were small battlefields without much space.

Arenas like Plateau or the Ring allowed him to charge his opponents and attack right off the bat. Although he couldn't trade against his opponents long-term, the powerful Antigone Armor gave him what he needed to make the single swift assault.

On these stages, Jason really noticed the benefits of his Mech's new "heavy" playstyle.

He went all out, charging head-on and purging his searing armor in time with his enemy's strikes as he fought. He did his best to use every aspect of his new armor system, ranging from the detachable rifles to the impromptu shields.

The second kind of beneficial stage was a better fit for the old Red Minerva's fighting style. Indestructible terrain posed a serious problem, but the Red Minerva excelled when she had cover that she could manipulate.

Jason loved battling on stages like Forest or Caverns. Once, he even rolled the same ultra-rare Skyward Paradise stage he used to beat the AngryBoardMember.

Due to his familiarity with these stages, it would have been optimal to purge his armor right away.

However, Jason decided to battle with a keen eye towards improvement rather than solely winning his matches. He already knew that he could succeed on these kinds of stages.

Rather than claiming empty victories with moves he already knew, he wanted to force himself to develop new attacks on an impromptu basis. While he still followed the fundamentals of digging through terrain and ambushing his opponents, he tried to swing in from different angles or strike his opponents while he was still beneath the earth.

Sometimes, he kept the armor on just because he wanted to test himself in an adversarial situation.

Once, he even managed to win a battle by using the outer armor as a decoy. The Antigone Armor could not stand on its own under normal circumstances. However, Jason had managed to briefly get it to stand in place before ducking beneath the ground. He'd slashed Phil to pieces from behind as he blasted at the stationary armor.

The three friends had gotten a great laugh out of that one.

Taylor told Jason to make sure and use that technique at the Tournament of Assassins.

It'd taken him a lot of time, but Jason had managed to figure out some new moves.

Jason was particularly proud of a perfect ambush where he loosened the ground ahead of time before firing the Pestilent Snipe from completely under the ground.

Before, he would have had to pop out to sight his opponent. Now, he was able to defeat his foes without revealing his presence. Now, he had the benefit of the watchdog genes. He could hear and smell his opponents even if he couldn't see them.

Jason made a careful note on his phone.

Each battle with Phil and Taylor gave him more ideas for his own build.

This hidden Pestilent Snipe would become even more powerful if he learned to use remote scouting cameras.

The drones would allow him to see incoming opponents from out of range of the Red Minerva's watchdog-level sensory abilities.

Scouting drones were an excellent option for another special armor type. Like his current Antigone Armor, Jason would be able to purge it to reveal his true machine once the parts were no longer useful.

In the end, Jason finished with a poor win rate - just above thirty-two percent, not much better than his old days as a One Star Boss.

However, he learned a great deal from his encounters in the different fields. On top of that, he was able to pick Taylor and Phil's minds for crafting advice.

But in the end, they gave Jason a particularly interesting suggestion.

After their last game, a narrow win by Jason, Phil pushed back his chair.

"Alright. I got to go now, but do you have time for a quick suggestion?"

Jason nodded.

"Of course!"

"We had some really good matches today, and I loved some of the new moves you were practicing. Some of those attacks will definitely work at the tournament! However..."

Phil frowned and made a face. Jason instantly could tell that Phil was considering his next words because he was worried about Jason taking offense.

Jason waved his hand and laughed.

"Don't worry about my feelings, just let me have it."

Considering how they'd met, it'd be awfully entitled of Jason to get mad at Phil. Besides, his goal was improvement. He knew that he wasn't good enough, otherwise he wouldn't have lost any of his matches.

Phill shook his head.

"No, it's not really an insult. It's more like..."

Then he made a face and plowed through.

"Ah, screw it. It's just that it'll be tough for you to learn a ton of new moves in time for the tournament. You should definitely keep training, but you'll be a lot more successful if you focus on countering your big opponents."

Jason thought that he had a good idea of what Phil was talking about, but he still wanted to gather more information.

"What do you mean?"

"I feel like our matches weren't just about improving your skills. The results also changed because we got used to each other's mannerisms and machines."

Phil took out his phone.

"I was watching the Hive's stream earlier today. It's not just them - a ton of the big guilds like the Vermillion Fighters and the Dragon Tamers Guild are sending top aces. However, they are all streaming the games. They don't take you seriously. You can get a huge edge by researching them!"

Jason nodded thoughtfully.

Phil was right.

In fact, Jason felt foolish not realizing this himself.

With two days to go, he would gain a lot more success if he focused on learning about his opponents and their playstyles.

His old categorization system was useless against the top-end competitors.

Every single one of them was a Custom Whale.

Just like the advantage he could gain by researching the stage and its conditions, he could also gain a huge edge by understanding the psychology and preferences of the specific individuals he was fighting against.

Jason pulled out his phone and made a note.

As soon as he got home, he'd pop up the streaming sites and start researching as much as possible.

Tomorrow, he'd meet up with the BAG Guild again and acquire the Partner's Lance, the last item he needed before challenging the Tournament of Assassins.

By the time he competed in the tournament, Jason would have a much more powerful Mech with a new and improved playstyle.

The determined player said goodbye to everyone at the store and started walking home.

In the end, that was the best thing about Overdrive.

The growth in the game was infinite!