In the custom training mode, Chen continued to fight two-on-one.
Li Li chose Blanka—the beast-like character who dashes back and forth with heavy strikes and full-body electrical discharges—to simulate Misha. Shadowbreaker, based on Samuro and Chen's memories, chose M. Bison; the character's fierce punching style somewhat resembled Rexxar's dual axes.
After training for two full days, Chen managed to maintain a roughly 5-5 win-loss ratio against the pair. Honestly, this performance was enough to earn the respect of everyone in the net cafe who knew how to play games or fight.
But Wayne felt this was far from enough. Rexxar wouldn't show mercy.
So, he had Arator use Dhalsim. Instead of engaging in close combat, Arator stood behind "Rexxar" and "Misha," constantly firing parabolic "Yoga Fire" orbs to simulate the long-range quills of a quilboar. Finally, there was the hawk. Since a bird that flies and spits lightning isn't easy to simulate, Wayne had little Tess choose Ibuki to jump and use "Air Kunai" to pelt Chen from above.
To be fair, Chen was truly being pushed to his limit.
Truthfully, if they were outside the game, he could likely take on all four of them at once and come out on top. After all, Tess and Arator were still young, and he was intimately familiar with Li Li's patterns; the three juniors didn't pose a huge threat. Shadowbreaker, despite his fame, had been away from the battlefield for years, and his skills had stagnated.
Chen was different. Before coming to the net cafe, he had basically fought his way across every land he wandered.
The problem was that inside the game, there were strict rules. With the four of them coordinating long and short-range attacks like a torrential rain, Chen was lucky if he could block their advances without being ground into the dirt, let alone counterattack.
The more Chen fought, the angrier he became, yet he remained powerless to retaliate. Seeing that even a good-tempered Pandaren was about to be driven to curse, Wayne realized this approach wasn't quite right. He decided to unlock Street Fighter 6 ahead of schedule through the back-end system.
In fact, the game could have been unlocked back when both he and Chen reached the Master rank on the ladder. But Wayne hadn't wanted to release the same genre of game so quickly, especially since Street Fighter 5 hadn't been out for long and was still at the height of its popularity. He had intended to save this new game for the second "World Fighting Championship."
However, now that the Horde had issued a challenge, the prestige of the net cafe's tournament would plummet if Chen lost and the "World Champion" title was seized by the Horde. Conversely, if a top-tier Horde powerhouse like Rexxar lost to Chen even while giving his all, one could imagine the result: not only would current players and the Alliance believe the tournament was truly high-level, but the Horde would surely find ways to send experts to participate in the future.
Therefore, there was no need to wait any longer.
Wayne didn't announce the game's release to everyone yet. Instead, he only allowed Chen and the training partners to unlock it first.
Street Fighter 6 was different from its predecessor. While the fifth entry had online matches and ladder modes, its overall style remained that of an old-school fighting game. The sixth entry, while maintaining original mechanics, introduced a very novel open-world mode.
Compared to mature open-world RPGs, building-survival, or battle royale games, this mode wasn't exactly "open," but for a fighting game, it was a pioneering innovation. In addition to freely exploring the "World Tour" mode to experience the story and learn from NPCs, the game's openness was reflected in another feature: players could create their own unique avatars and integrate skills from various characters within a specific skill-slot limit.
In other words, a player could simultaneously use Ryu's "Hadoken," Chun-Li's "Senretsukyaku," Guile's "Sonic Hurricane," and more in a single fight. Furthermore, multi-person brawls—one-on-many or many-on-many—formally debuted as an official combat mechanism. Different characters also now possessed attack and defense stats.
This allowed Wayne to better simulate Rexxar and the three beasts for Chen by adjusting stats. For instance, he lowered the damage of Arator's Dhalsim fireballs to more realistically mimic the damage output of a quilboar's quills. Meanwhile, the health of Blanka, simulating Misha, was significantly increased. After all, nobody in a duel against Rexxar would focus on killing the thick-skinned Misha first.
Since Street Fighter 6 didn't feature Ibuki, Amy switched to the powerful new character "JP," using his "Departure" shadow spikes summoned in mid-air to better simulate the lightning strikes of the hawk. As for M. Bison, who was also absent, Shadowbreaker switched to Marisa's heavy-hitting moves to maintain a powerful offensive presence.
As for Chen, he was finally no longer restricted to Guile's skill set. In Street Fighter 6, he discovered a new character he absolutely loved—Jamie, who never let go of his jug. For this young man from "Chinatown," the core of his fighting style was one word: drink.
This was perfectly in line with Chen's path as a Brewmaster Monk. In a fight, Jamie needs to find openings to take four swigs of his drink to enter a "drunk" state. In this state, his body turns red, his clothes become disheveled, his hair flows loose, and his Drunken Fist moves reach their complete form, boosting both damage and speed.
Thus, using Jamie as a template, combined with Guile's "Sonic Boom," Dhalsim's "Yoga Flame," Zangief's "Screw Pile Driver," and Ryu's "Shinku Hadoken," Chen's combat power increased substantially.
His record improved as a result. After ten matches, it went from the original 0-10 to 1-9...
Chen: "...I'm done! I'm not playing anymore! I'm starving! Food!"
He tinkered in the kitchen for a while and brought out a bowl of noodles to the lobby, eating huffily.
Wayne sat down beside him. Before he could speak, Chen grumbled, "That guy Rexxar isn't nearly this powerful. This training of yours is too sadistic."
Wayne simply smiled and watched him eat. Only after Chen was nearly finished—and the satisfaction of food had replaced his hunger and frustration—did Wayne speak:
"Chen, what do you think is the biggest difference between you and Rexxar?"
Chen wiped his mouth and thought for a moment. "Monks never kill needlessly. The Orcish Mak'gora tradition doesn't apply to us. For a monk, it's about 'stopping when the point is made,' making friends through martial arts, and convincing others through reason."
Wayne said, "Interesting. What about besides that? Is there anything else?"
Chen replied, "What are you getting at? You don't want me to learn his moves just to predict his actions, do you?" He waved his hand dismissively. "No way. That style of hacking and slashing... I'm not used to it."
Wayne said, "Since you've eaten your fill, come over. I'll teach you a couple of tricks."
Chen raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"