Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 127

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 127

To explain the tier system for Lios participants, it works like this.
A.
Participants with the skill level of a Challenger to Grand Master can earn this tier—the undisputed leaders of their respective teams.
While the team captain handles the leader role outside the game during the auction, this role falls to the A-tier participants once play begins.
If you don’t listen to the orders of those with the highest game sense and the best mechanical skill, whose instructions would you follow?
Of course, it isn’t strictly mandated—if someone else is better at calling shots, the team can defer to them instead.
B.
Streamers with the skill level of Master to high-Diamond earn this tier.
If they face lower-tier participants in their lane, they can experience explosive growth.
If that happens, they have the potential to become an ace rivaling A-tier players.
Normally, A and B tiers are chosen with meticulous care—never allowing primary positions to overlap between them.
C.
Streamers in the low-Diamond to high-Platinum range earn this tier.
They’re simply above-average by ordinary standards.
If they can hold their own against A or B players, that alone counts as pulling their weight—even carrying.
D.
Streamers from low-Platinum to Gold earn this tier.
Even though they’re lower-tier, the skill level is unremarkable enough that they’re neither hot commodities nor players everyone avoids.
E.
Bronze to Silver.
Simply staying alive and playing it safe makes you a hot commodity at this tier.
Hugging towers and staying out of fights is the name of the game.
That’s their goal.
Occasionally, E-tier players get lucky and face each other in lane phase.
In those cases, it’s fine to step out from the tower and fight.
After all, even if one of them gets massively ahead, neither reaches a level that could swing the game, so other laners simply let them be.
Even obsessive viewers don’t really flame E-tier matchups. They just laugh.
Lios has six teams, thirty participants total—one player per tier per team.
Additionally, the number of participants in each tier varies by team captain.
For instance, if all the pre-recruited team captains are A-tier, then Challengers and Grand Masters from the applicant pool automatically can’t participate.
Of course, that’s why the operations team exists—to prevent such situations.
“So all the team captains have confirmed, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
A man and a woman answered simultaneously.
The operations team’s leader, the Lios director, had just stopped the discussion these two had been having.
“So that leaves just this streamer unaccounted for. You didn’t pre-recruit anyone except the captains, right?”
“That’s correct.”
They always pre-recruit all six team captains.
Partly because how many players they need in each tier depends on the captain.
But more than anything, since a captain is the team leader, they have no choice but to select experienced streamers.
If they didn’t ask beforehand and then tried to pick a captain from applicants later, things could go sideways.
The man spoke.
“Well, we decided not to pre-recruit anyone except the captains anyway, right? Isn’t that so, Lee Young-ju?”
In fact, this tournament also had only one pre-recruited participant besides the captains—Seo Jun.
“That was just a general guideline. So you tell me, Kim Ju-hwan—if that streamer applied, would you have rejected them?”
And the woman called Lee Young-ju fired back.
“We’d naturally have accepted them if they applied. But whether we absolutely had to go out and recruit them—that’s a different question entirely, isn’t it?”
“Let’s not forget our purpose: running a tournament that doesn’t just avoid disaster, but one that actually thrives. One that draws crowds.”
“I agree. But wouldn’t avoiding disaster be the most important thing? The tournament will draw an audience anyway.”
…….
She had a point.
“So what’s your argument?”
“Let’s say we assign Seo Jun to A-tier. But what if he can’t perform? What if his failure eliminates a whole team from group stage? Who gets the blame?”
Obviously them.
With other ranked game players, those with established tiers, it would be unambiguous—that streamer’s fault for underperforming.
But Seo Jun is Unranked.
If they assign him to A-tier and he can’t deliver A-tier performance, then the team that won him plays without a real A-tier player.
Because of the operations team.
They had to prevent this scenario.
That’s how Kim Ju-hwan saw it.
But Lee Young-ju had her counterargument.
“And what if he’s assigned B-tier but plays better than the A-tier player? That’ll cause an uproar too, won’t it?”
If Seo Jun was placed in B-tier and he outperformed A-tier level players?
The team that won him would effectively have two A-tier players.
A team with two A-tier players would win the championship barring some fluke.
If that happened?
The woman continued.
“Actually, this is the more reasonable approach. If we do it my way and we’re wrong, we just hear complaints from one team’s fans. But if we do it your way? We’d have to handle complaints from the five other teams’ fans when they lose to a team with two A-tier players. Can you stomach that?”
Hmm…….
The operations director stepped in.
“Lee Young-ju has a point there.”
“Right?”
“But that doesn’t mean we give him A-tier just because we’ll get flamed less if he fails. That doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“Fair enough.”
“What we really need to know is just how well that person actually plays in the League…….”
It’s ambiguous.
Lee Young-ju was confident, though.
“Look, they say he’s at least Grand Master level. Right now he’s beating Wind Blade’s Kael one-on-one.”
“Again, Wind Blade’s Kael is only Master level. And in a one-on-one without minions, that’s not representative of real skill.”
“Everyone’s watched For the Sect anyway, haven’t they?”
Lee Young-ju was clearly frustrated that they were agonizing over something so obvious, her voice rising slightly.
But the director and Kim Ju-hwan only responded with:
“I haven’t actually played For the Sect, so I’m not sure. Heh.”
“It’s certainly a unique game.”
That was all.
Kim Ju-hwan spoke.
“I’ll admit his physical skill with the blade and his practical ability warrant A-tier placement.”
“So will I.”
“But there aren’t many good sword heroes to begin with, and our Challengers have such deep game knowledge that pure mechanics alone won’t carry the day. Game skill isn’t just physical play. Actually, the higher the tier, the more important the mental game becomes.”
Kim Ju-hwan tapped his head with his finger.
There was another problem.
Up until now, Seo Jun had only played one hero: Kael.
What if Kael got nerfed, the meta shifted, or he was banned? Would Seo Jun still be Challenger-level then?
More proof was needed.
“We’re running out of time. There are other things we need to see.”
“Right. To prove himself, he’d have to climb to Challenger in ranked, but by then the season would be over, the tournament would be over, and the whole year would be done.”
“If he were just decent, we’d throw him in C or D and call it a day.”
“Then it wouldn’t matter whether he’s a jackpot or a dud.”
Lower-tier wildcards with unpredictable skill levels were part of what made each tournament interesting.
But A and B tiers were too crucial to the outcome—gambling on those slots was unacceptable.
Ultimately, it was Seo Jun’s unexpectedly strong performance that sparked this whole debate.
The original plan was B-tier.
High-Diamond to Master level.
But watching him play made them nervous—afraid things might actually go sideways.
“Is there any way to verify? I feel like if we could see him face a Challenger in actual lane phase, we’d get a clearer sense.”
“Hmm. Should we ask for a scrim?”
“A scrim?”
“You know, like the Showcase they used to do.”
The Showcase.
A friendly match held before past tournaments, a kind of debut ceremony to see various sides of the participants.
It became something of a festival that even non-participants enjoyed, and with scrim periods already built in, it became redundant and was discontinued.
“You want to bring that back? Really? Hmm…….”
“No, I’m not saying we should hold one officially. Streamers getting together for casual games is perfectly natural and happens all the time anyway.”
The two deputies suddenly caught what the director was suggesting.
Ask another streamer to arrange it naturally!
“Who would you ask?”
“Someone who’s perfect for this situation. An MCN boss, someone who just naturally loves hanging around with streamers.”
He was also one of this tournament’s team captains.
“Ah!”

* * *

“Ugh…….”
Wind Blade, thoroughly beaten by Seo Jun, slumped to the floor in exhaustion.
The streaming session had finally ended.
The moment of being overwhelmed by pure one-on-one mechanics was mercifully over.
“You’re really incredible.”
Actually, that part would be fine.
Even if his skill gap was exposed, it wouldn’t diminish his absolute standing. Being worse than Seo Jun didn’t lower his position.
The problem was.
“Could you stop hitting me quite so hard? Really…….”
Sure, taking damage in virtual reality shouldn’t hurt much.
Yet phantom pain rippled through him.
Genuinely.
This had never happened before.
“I was just giving you real-world experience.”
“I suppose…….”
Either way, Wind Blade’s day had been productive.
Seo Jun had carved the feeling directly into his body.
Through real-world experience.
Real-world experience.
Real-world.
Ugh.
His head hurt.
Anyway, now came Wind Blade’s turn to ask questions.
This was the real reason for the collaboration.
He could reasonably be called Seo Jun’s number-one viewer.
“Seo Jun.”
“Yeah?”
“Why’d you disappear for so long?”
If he’d been at that level before, it could only be called talent.
But why on earth did he vanish?
Wind Blade had spent so much time searching for his old videos, so curious.
Yet Seo Jun’s answer was surprisingly simple.
“College entrance exams.”
“Ah……I see!”
That made sense.
“So back then, did the mechanics feel the same?”
Wind Blade fired off several follow-up questions in rapid succession.
“Oh, the mechanics? There was one time they changed.”
“Really?”
“While I was playing back in the day, someone seemed to be targeting me, so the mechanics suddenly shifted.”
“And then?”
“I played one more match and adjusted, then played normally. The next day it reverted to the original.”
If viewers had heard this conversation, the chat would have been flooded with laughing emotes.
Wind Blade laughed heartily at the developer’s plight before asking several more things.
About the blade.
About streaming.
Wind Blade was a streaming senior, though his scale was a tenth of Seo Jun’s.
“Last question—and it’s a bit delicate—but why did you ask people not to mention your past? When I uploaded your old videos to the community back then, no one recognized you. I’m sure they would now, but the point is, barely anyone knows what you were like seven years ago.”
“Simple. Someone asked me to hide my strength.”
“What?”
“I got recruited for Lios. If I’m bid for with too many points in the auction, they said to hide how strong I am.”
“Ah. I see…….”
Then what was today’s stream?
That’s hiding his strength?
Seo Jun was a truly enigmatic streamer.
He had the power to make contradictory statements somehow coherent.
Probably just part of his broadcast persona.
“By the way, Wind Blade.”
“Yeah?”
“Where do you live?”
At that sudden shift, an eerie chill crawled up Wind Blade’s spine, and he found himself lying.
“Oh, I’m from out of town! Out of town!”
“Shame. I’ve got two Gym Memberships left over.”
Phew.
He let out a sigh of relief and decided it was time to leave.
“Seo Jun, thank you so much for today. Hope we can meet again sometime.”
“Thanks for your time.”
“Ha, thank you.”
After leaving the capsule, he thought for a moment, then submitted an application to join Lios.
Work would make things tight if he got accepted, but.
Somehow he felt like it’d be fun.

* * *

At that same moment.
In the room next to Seo Jun’s, Tae-woo was finishing up his game and talking away at his computer.
“Yeah, I’m one of the team captains this time. Hehehe. We’re definitely winning this one!”
Tae-woo, who’d been eliminated outright in the previous tournament.
“The team captain’s a dud? What do you mean? Don’t worry about the auction. Just because I’m not great at studying doesn’t mean I’m not smart. This time I’m going to build a balanced team……. Huh? Hold on a sec.”
A message came in suddenly, and Tae-woo tilted his head in confusion.
‘Boss?’
Surely.
He’s not asking to play a horror game, is he?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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