In the same way Kai obtained a power buff to dominate her lane, Lars also got himself the red buff at game start.

It was unusual for a Carry to possess this buff early on, as it was universally agreed that mages put it to better use. Nonetheless, a marksman benefitted greatly from this buff as well.

ZAP! Headshot! Lars sniped a bowman straight in the forehead from his laser rifle.

Yes, he had a rifle, not a bow. It fired laser beams instead of arrows and it made a totally different sound. It was a sick skin that allowed Lars to ditch the basic bow in favor of this slick sci-fi rifle!

But, not everybody thought as highly of this skin.

"I'm amazed that this skin is tournament-legal," Yuel commented. "Not only does it look totally different, but it also has different animations and sound effects."

"Yep, they sure put a lot of work into this one!" Lars grinned. "That's why I coughed up that cash to get it. Ya know how I usually don’t buy the stuff they shove into our faces on banners, but this was one skin I totally had to get, yo!"

"It looks nice, I agree. But, I feel like these laser beams sound a little louder than the arrows. Doesn’t that put you at disadvantage in fights?"

"Hmm. Maybe?” Lars shrugged. “I guess it might be a little easier to react to.”

"What do you mean 'a little easier'?" Kai interjected. "This loud sound cue helps a ton. Usually, you can barely hear the Elf releasing his arrows, but this rifle makes so much more noise in comparison.”

"Really?" Lars cocked his head. "I can't say I feel that much difference."

“Indeed, indeed!” Vincent made noise. "It is only the Rhythm Reader who can sense such delicate differences!"

"'Delicate' my ass," Kai said. "This thing literally goes ZAAAP with every shot. It’s like a whole different weapon."

"Yes, it truly is.” Vincent nodded. “However, I read the designers exercised utmost caution when making this skin. They were aware of the glaring differences between this skin and the default, so they worked extra hard to ensure the skin felt as close as possible to the original on a mechanical level. They desired for it to be tournament legal, no compromises.”

“Well, then they sure messed up in the sound department.”

“Hmm. Perhaps that holds true when we consider players with acute hearing such as yours,” Vincent conceded. “Nonetheless! On all other fronts, the rifle should indeed feel very much like the bow!”

"Yep, it’s true, ya know?" Lars attested. "I remember taking the gun to training mode, thinking it gonna shoot faster than the bow and stuff. That was some hopium, haha."

"I told you it won’t possibly happen," Yuel said. "If the rifle really fired faster than the bow, then it would have been a pay-to-win skin."

"Meh, they could've balanced that out by making the shots hit harder to hit or something. Or better yet, they could turn this into a real shooter and add limited ammo!”

"Now you're completely changing the class’s kit."

"It'd be so cool, tho!"

The rifle was both cool and a little disappointing at the same time. It looked and sounded totally different from the default bow, yet functionally, it was exactly the same in terms of speed of power.

The animation of nocking an arrow took exactly as long as pressing the trigger on the rifle, as unrealistic as that sounded. Naturally, pulling the trigger in real life was much faster than nocking an arrow, but the devs stretched out the animation in order to make the two motions match.

It felt a little lame aesthetically, but it made life a lot easier. Lars was already used to Elf’s shots, so it took him absolutely no time to get used to the laser beams, despite how different they looked and sounded.

"In conclusion," Vincent summarized. "It is clear that lots of blood and sweat went into masking the differences between the two weapons. The devs were certainly intent on making the two weapons functionally indistinguishable, yet the Rhythm Reader easily exposed a glaring difference!"

This was such a nonchalant conversation, one that didn't befit the situation at all. After all, they were currently playing on this grand stage, challenging none other than the regional champions.

And yet, they were talking away about trivial matters as if this was just another Ranked match where they could take things easy. That’s how reassuring their strong early start was.

Kai was dominating Mid because she had a power buff, unlike her opponent. Likewise, Lars was enjoying his power buff as well. It allowed him to clear minions much smoother than Elf usually could in the early-game.

With the power buff, Lars needed only 3 hits to kill one bowman, instead of the usual 4 hits. This difference didn’t sound like much at first glance, but it was actually an increase of about 30% in his farming speed.

Instead of killing all the bowmen in 12 hits, now Lars only needed 9. Over time, this advantage accumulated further and made a big impact in the lane.

This is good. Yuel nodded in satisfaction. I wasn’t sure whether to give the buff to Lars or Luke, but I believe I made the right choice.

Dark Knight was already plenty strong in the early-game, and its overall damage potential didn’t scale that greatly with the power buff. Most of his damage came from Dark Blast’s base power, therefore gaining more Attack Power wasn’t going to add much, given Dark Blast’s poor scaling.

On the other hand, giving the buff to somebody who relied on basic attacks had a huge impact. Lars was able to utilize the buff’s effect in full, now farming ~30% faster.

With the buff in hand, Lars and Yuel were able to clear minions just as fast as the enemy duo, if not faster. However, the opponents had no intention of taking this lying down.

"Wow. Bro, do you see what this guy is doing?" Ronald asked. "He's totally flexing with these headshots, haha."

"Yes, he does." William frowned at the topic. It shouldn't have concerned him at all, yet it still ticked him off a little.

Gunz was utilizing his Elf to snipe bowmen from across the lane, without the need to extend in order to reach them. That by itself was a standard Elf tactic.

However, what stood out was the way Gunz fired at the bowmen. For starters, he was using a laser rifle instead of a bow, which was already a little unusual. But more importantly, he landed his laser beams square in the forehead of each and every bowman.

It's not like he gets any bonuses for it. William thought. So, why go out of your way and increase the risk of missing shots? For style points? Hmph, this is dumb.

At best, Gunz’s shenanigans could be considered a questionable tactic for applying psychological pressure. By showing off his shooting skills, Gunz might've been trying to instill fear in William and Ronald. His shots were screaming "Look how good I am!"

If that’s what he’s going for, then it’s a childish taunt at best. William scuffed. Am I supposed to be impressed by how you’ve wasted hours of your life practicing these headshots? Sorry, but it doesn’t bother me at all.

Then again, was Gunz even the type to use psychological tactics like this? He really didn’t seem like the type to think too hard.

So, perhaps this was just the way Gunz liked shooting? Maybe, for him, landing these headshots was as natural as breathing.

Thinking of it, he was landing headshots on the minions with his Pirate, too. William recalled. Can he actually do it with any class...?

If Gunz was truly the kind of player who could land headshots so consistently, without even having any sophisticated agenda, then THAT was indeed impressive. And, perhaps even a little scary, too.

Accuracy of this level meant that it was practically impossible to dodge Gunz’s shots in a fight except with a Korean Cancel.

No, even KC didn't fully work. William remembered. My mess-ups aside, it felt like Gunz adjusted to my KC toward the end. So yeah, as far as the guy’s combat skill is concerned, I gotta hand it to him.

At this point, there was no longer denying that Gunz had superior mechanical skills to William. Of course, there wasn't a BIG difference between them, but it was nonetheless a noticeable gap that William had to respect. In other words, in a 1v1, William would have no choice but to play from behind like an underdog.

Hmph, that's nothing new. William thought. I'll just have to defeat him through superior spacing and decision-making. Mechanical skill is just one facet of the game and it's far from being the most important one here.

In real-life sports, the gap in physical ability knew no bounds. It easily allowed some muscle-heads to shut down tactics through sheer strength.

However, in Classmancers, all the players were bound by their in-game stats. No matter how mechanically gifted a player was, their attacks couldn’t deal more damage than their Attack Power allowed.

This fact dethroned physical ability from being the most dominant factor in competitions.

As long as my decision-making is better, I can outplay him. William asserted. Rather, I WILL outplay him. It's a promise.

And so, William accepted his fate as the underdog in this case. He was ready to hold an uphill battle against Gunz, just as he has done so many times before in tennis.

On the other hand, the younger brother had a very different take on things...