The guys yelling in chat are right! These games are boring. It’s boring to play and dull as hell to watch. I need to get out of Platinum, obviously. But I don’t know… Diamond games also feel kinda boring. And they keep saying they want high ELO games… Lin Feng sat there thinking about what to do to make the stream more exciting for the viewers and himself. But he did not realize that his thoughts were on a completely different track from the viewers. There was an easily identifiable point of divergence too, the word ‘challenge’. To the every-day League of Legends player, high Platinum and Diamond ranked games were challenging and exciting. Most of them would never climb that high on the ranked ladder, so watching someone who was that good on stream was an experience. Lin Feng, on the other hand, was not your every-day run-of-the-mill League of Legends player. In his mind, an ‘interesting high ELO game’ was at the Challenger tier. He didn’t consider anything below Challenger as high ELO, and he wanted to test his skills against current professional players in a genuinely challenging game.

Man! Just thinking about playing a game against a pro player gets me all amped up! But… hm. How do I get there? I don’t have a Challenger account I can use right now… maybe I should make my own account and climb up? No, no. The guys on stream aren’t going to stick around and watch me climb on a fresh. That’s just going to be hours of boring gameplay. Hm… While Lin Feng thought about how to solve the problem of playing Challenger ranked games without a Challenger ranked account, the viewers on the stream started getting more and more excited. They thought Lin Feng would finally switch over to his own account. He was definitely Diamond. Maybe even Diamond 1 if they were lucky! Chat exploded with a bunch of people speculating how high his account was ranked and others arguing or agreeing to it.

Lin Feng turned and looked straight at the webcam. “Hey! Listen… this is kind of awkward. But. Any of you guys have a Challenger-ranked account I can borrow for a bit? Please?”

Chat died. The people watching the stream sat there staring at Lin Feng on their screens, trying to figure out what this guy was thinking. It took all of them a collective minute to process his request. The chat in a stream with 1,500 viewers was completely silent for a full minute. And then one viewer broke the silence.

「LOL!!!1 challenger account? why the fuk would we be here if we got a challenger account?」
「im here for the sick plays!!!! if i could play like that myself, why would i need to sit here and watch???? i would stream myself!!」

That’s all it took to revive the chat. Hundreds of messages in a similar vein followed after that. Lin Feng read through the walls of text in the stream chat, hoping there would be at least one person out there who could help him out. But it started to look less and less likely. Not one of the 1,500 viewers had a Challenger account. Or even one close to it. Lin Feng started to worry. It just did not look like he’d have an account that was higher ELO than Su Xue’s, the one he was already playing on. The excitement he felt moments ago was quickly being replaced by disappointment. Then he remembered! Water Wraith! I almost forgot about that guy! He was Diamond 1… I think. He opened Su Xue’s viewer group chat on QQ and sent a message to Water Wraith.

EveningSnowfall:「Yo Wraith! It’s Lin Feng. Gimme your account! I needa play on it for a bit. Please?」

Water Wraith was one of Su Xue’s faithful viewers who’d been around long before her popularity had surged. He was also the highest-ranked out of all her viewers at Diamond 1. The most important thing was that he was a nice guy, and he knew Lin Feng. Water Wraith’s account was the best that Lin Feng had a realistic shot at getting his hands on right now. Lin Feng sent the message and waited. Hoping that Water Wraith was around and that he would see the message.

Luckily for both Lin Feng and the people watching Su Xue’s stream, Water Wraith just so happened to be looking at his QQ messages right then. He saw the message from Evening Snowfall and opened it. When Water Wraith read what Lin Feng wanted, he immediately sent over his account information and password. There was no hesitation. He liked both Lin Feng and Su Xue and trusted them. If he could help Lin Feng, he’d do it. Then he paused for a second and started typing out a second message. He paused again halfway through typing and thought about the message. Then he sighed, finished typing out the message and sent it.

Water Wraith:「hey lil bro. ive been stuck at like 20lp for the longest time. plz help me climb. thanks!!!」

Evening Snowfall:「No problem man! I’ll get you some wins!! Trust me!」

Lin Feng used the login information Water Wraith had sent him and logged into the Diamond 1 account. Then he queued up for a ranked game. It was a moment of tense anticipation for both him and the people watching the stream. Diamond 1 was definitely up there on the ranked ladder, and that meant that a lot of well-known and famous players could potentially show up. There was also the chance that something even more special could happen. Every now and then, the professional players would jump onto their alt accounts to play in what they considered to be a low ELO. Either to experiment a little without getting a loss streak on their main accounts or to play a more relaxed and casual game. To the Challenger ranked professional players, Diamond 1 was low ELO and everything below that didn’t even exist. If Lady Luck was on their side, Lin Feng could get to play against a professional player and the people watching the stream would be in for the game of a lifetime.

The queue popped. Lin Feng entered champion select. He was fifth pick and on the Blue team. This meant that the other four players on his team could choose their champions and roles before him. It wasn’t an ideal situation, being at the mercy of four other people. If they didn’t want to be accommodating, there was a chance that you could end up with a champion or role you just didn’t know how to play well. This was more of a problem in low ELO than it was at Diamond 1, where everyone understood that having a teammate play something they weren’t good at would end up costing them the game. When the player who had second pick called out mid, Lin Feng sighed. He could play other roles besides mid just as well, but he didn’t want to end up playing support. He needed to do something. Lin Feng quickly typed out a message to his team.
Water Wraith:「anything but support plz!」

Lin Feng didn’t hate support or anything like that. He’d been playing support a lot recently with Tang Bingyao and enjoyed playing the role. It was just that carrying as a support in Diamond 1 was significantly more difficult than it was in Gold or Platinum. Teamwork and tactics were way more important in Diamond. At this level, his performance in the game as a support just didn’t matter as much. If his ad-carry was having a bad game, his team would lose. Especially once they got into mid and late game. A single screw up from the ad-carry could flush every little advantage they built up until then away.

The guy at third pick locked in on Jarvan IV. With his pick, Jungle, Top, and Mid were taken. Lin Feng hovered his mouse over an ad-carry champion while he waited for third and fourth pick on Red team to lock in. The second they did, Lin Feng smashed down on his mouse and locked in on Jinx before the player at fourth pick on his team had a chance to decide.

ColdCoffeeEnema:「the hell dude! why the fuck would you do that? im no fucking good at support………..」

Water Wraith:「Don’t worry! I’ll carry you. I’m really good at ADC!」

The chat exploded the second they heard Lin Feng say what had become his catch phrase. He’d just pulled a dick move. One that everyone, regardless of ELO, knew was poor game etiquette. It was a rude thing to do to another player, and then he used his catchphrase as an excuse.

「pfft, is there anything you’re not good at? pro role stealer」
「So crafty! HAHA I LOVE IT! show that dude who’s boss!!!1!!」
「haha there he goes again, I’m really good at!」

✹

《Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!》

The bottom lane matchup was Jinx and Thresh on the Blue team versus Ezreal and Janna on the Red team.

Lin Feng decided to go with the skill Switcheroo at the start of the game. This allowed Jinx to switch between her minigun and her rocket launcher. The minigun had a faster attack speed and dealt single target damage while the rocket launcher was slower but had a longer attack range with area-of-effect and splash damage. The other drawback with the rocket launcher was that it required mana to use.

When the first minion wave arrived in lane, Lin Feng used Jinx’s rocket launcher to kill them as fast as possible. He was going for full wave clears. He also used positioning to his advantage with the rocket launcher. Red team’s Ezreal was his opponent in lane. Every single time Ezreal stood too close behind or near one of Red team’s minions, Lin Feng would target that minion so he could use the splash damage from the rocket launcher to get some poke in.

Red team’s Ezreal wasn’t a terrible player who would stand there and take the poke, though. He figured out what was happening, and tried to counter. Ezreal searched for an opening between the Blue team’s minions that the Jinx was using as a shield so he could use the skill Mystic Shot. This was a skillshot with a long attack range. Ezreal could shoot out a damaging bolt of energy that would explode when it hit the first minion, monster or enemy champion in its path.

Mystic Shot was a powerful skill, but its primary drawback was that it was a skillshot that moved in a straight line. Lin Feng predicted the line that Mystic Shot would travel down, and his Jinx easily juked around it. Then he had his Jinx move forward a little bit to launch a rocket at the Ezreal. He cancelled the last part of the animation and pulled his Jinx back a little to make sure that she remained outside the Ezreal’s attack range. This three-step dance, this waltz was one Lin Feng did over and over again with the Ezreal.

Red team’s Ezreal was starting to feel the pressure. He tried over and over to get some poke in back, but Lin Feng’s Jinx continued to waltz around him while carving his health down. The pressure was starting to build on the Ezreal player. His champion had lost a giant chunk of health and he had nothing to show for it! At the level they were playing at, it was obvious that the Ezreal player knew that Jinx had a range advantage over his Ezreal with her rocket launcher. But he had no idea how to counter a Jinx who pushed that advantage to the extent that Lin Feng was currently doing. Backed into a corner, all he could do was try and push his minion wave out as fast as possible before recalling back to base.

Lin Feng, on the other hand, continued to dance around the Ezreal. As the game continued on and he fell deeper into the dance, more and more immersed in the flow of the game, his Jinx’s aggression and pressure mounted. An unending barrage of rockets rained down. He whittled both the Ezreal and Janna down to the point where they absolutely had to recall back to base. Then the game changed. One of his rockets landed on a minion with low health, killing it immediately. There was another minion that was also at low health next to it, and the splash damage from the rocket killed that one also. Jinx and Thresh both hit Level 2.

Lin Feng immediately started pinging on the nearly dead Ezreal. They had to go in now! If they waited any longer, the Ezreal and Janna would recall back to base and their chance for a kill would vanish!

The Thresh understood and knew what needed to be done. He flashed towards the Ezreal while simultaneously using Flay and Ignite in quick succession. The Thresh’s chains swept out and pulled the Ezreal towards him while also slowing him, and Ignite set the Ezreal ablaze. Then the Thresh used Death Sentence to throw out his scythe and hook the Ezreal, stunning him and pulling him in even closer.

Lin Feng’s Jinx followed up immediately after without losing a millisecond. She launched another rocket and then threw three Flame Chompers down on top of the Thresh. The combo crowd control play synergized perfectly! The moment the Ezreal broke free of the stun from Death Sentence, he was rooted again by three exploding grenades.

The people watching the stream were awestruck by the precision of the play! It was seamless! They were starting to understand that Lin Feng was just as spectacular playing in Diamond as he was playing in Platinum, and that blew their minds even more.

「6666666666666666!」
「awesome engage and follow up!」
「HOLY DAMMMNNN!!!!! that’s first blood for suurreeee!!!」

Right after that perfect engage play, Lin Feng continued to shred the Ezreal’s health. Every attack that landed made it seem more and more likely that the Ezreal would be giving First Blood away. To Lin Feng.

Red team’s Janna tried to save Ezreal with a Howling Gale that she threw at Jinx. The intended outcome was that it would knock the Jinx up, which should hopefully give the Ezreal enough time to escape. The Ezreal saw the animation for the skill and understood what to do. Before the tornado from Howling Gale even touched the Jinx, he flashed towards his tower. As long as he could get under the safety of its turret, he would live. He didn’t think the Jinx would tower dive. He also used the summoner spell Heal to build a little bit more of a buffer between him and death. But the Ignite that the Thresh hit him with was still active, which greatly reduced the healing.

Lin Feng saw animation for Janna’s Howling Gale start up. He saw the tornado forming, and watched the Ezreal flash away. But none of it bothered him. He was calm, serene, and detached. He was in control here, and all he had to do was wait for the perfect moment. His finger hovered over the D key, waiting. The tornado howled towards him, and he still waited. Still calm. Just as the tornado from Howling Gale was about to touch his Jinx and knock her up, he hit D. His Jinx flashed through the tornado and now stood safely on the other side. And the Ezreal was also in attack range. What a happy coincidence, Lin Feng thought before firing another rocket at the Ezreal.

Meanwhile, the Ezreal had run to the point where he was only a single step away from safety. One more step and he’d be under the protection of the tower. One more step and the Jinx would have to give up. The Ignite had ended and the Ezreal no longer had to deal with continuing burn damage thankfully. He had less than 10 health remaining. He was going to escape death! Then a final rocket spiraled towards him.

《First blood!》

The chat on Su Xue’s stream exploded! They were cheering, raving, congratulating Lin Feng, and spamming. It was an epic play and an edge-of-their-seats kill!

「6666666666666」
「OMG THAT WAS SO SICK!!!1!1!!」

The sound of a minigun rang out across bottom lane. “Everybody get excited!” Jinx’s shrill laugh cut through the smoke and gunpowder. Jinx had gotten First Blood, and this triggered the activation of her passive skill–Get Excited! Whenever an important objective, like an enemy champion, tower, or dragon, was taken down within three seconds of her damaging it, she would gain an enormous burst of movement speed and a slight increase to her attack speed for six seconds.

Coach Lin Feng was ready! But he wouldn’t just be training a few people in the club who also happened to be his friends. Absolutely not! The esports club had to become stronger. That was the only way to fight through the Shanghai 16 School Tournament. There’d be a lot more people grumbling in Coach Lin Feng’s Legends Bootcamp. Not just Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou. For starters, Tang Bingyao needed to show up too. She was the main ad-carry of the esports club and as ad-carry she needed to be strong enough to carry. She’d already played a ton with Lin Feng, and had fought her way to Diamond 1. But that was far from enough. Odds were that they would face far stronger opponents in the upcoming 16 School Tournament, and it was up to Coach Lin Feng to make sure she’d be ready. There was no way he’d be letting her slack off!

“That’s why you need to train too!” Lin Feng stated.

Tang Bingyao nodded. She’d been a part of ‘Coach Lin Feng’s Legends Bootcamp’ for a while now, before it was even called that. She knew the drill.

Beyond Tang Bingyao, the other members of the main team would be attending the Legends Bootcamp. Including the substitute players. There was, however, one minor issue with that plan. The list of players. Ren Rou hadn’t had time to finalize the list with all the new people from the tryouts the esports club had just held. That would take her another day or two.

“Just leave it to me!” Ren Rou said, reassuring them that it would be handled as quickly as possible.

“I can help!” Ouyang exclaimed. He was riding the wave of euphoria now that it looked like things would turn around for his esports club, and wanted to volunteer and help out as much as possible.

Ren Rou shot Ouyang a mean glare. “You, help? Please. Actually? You can help. How about you help me by not starting any more problems or causing trouble? Oh! And you’d better be taking training seriously! If I so much as hear a whisper about you slacking or goofing off, I swear…”

Ouyang scratched his hair, looking sheepish at her response. He did have a minor gift for making any situation bad or taking a bad situation and making it worse, he knew that. But he couldn’t help himself right now! He hadn’t felt this good in a long time, he was all fired up! “Don’t you worry, dearest Rou Rou! I’m not just going to give it everything that I’ve got! NO WAY! You just keep-on-keepin’ and watch me! I’m going to surpass my limits! I’m gonna stake a claim on my spot on the team!”

There was another minor issue that Ren Rou, Yang Fan, and Ouyang needed to consider. Lin Feng had dubbed himself “Coach” Lin Feng once he decided that he’d be training them. The three of them were more than willing to let Lin Feng help them get better. But they knew Lin Feng. The other members of the main team and their substitutes, they did not know him. So the three had to consider if they’d even accept Lin Feng as their coach and train with him. Then they dismissed the concern completely from their minds. When the list was finalized in two days, they would inform the team of Lin Feng’s true skill level. Between the godly LeBlanc plays that Lin Feng had shown off the other day and the title of Challenger, there shouldn’t be anyone who objected to him. Even Diamond and Master would fall in line.

✹

These days, Lin Feng’s normally chill schedule had become way more packed. School started early in the morning and that took up most of his day. The afternoons were dedicated to his bootcamp, where he was training the esports club team. Then he’d rush home for dinner, and quickly finish up his homework after that. The next thing was helping Su Xue out by filling in for her on her stream while she napped. That’s when he’d finally be done with everything and go to bed.

“EAT! Come on, come on–Hurry it up! Stop taking such dainty bites. Girls eat like that when they’re on a date cause they want to look cute. I know you can eat faster!” Su Xue urged Lin Feng. “Finish already! You need to take over my stream for a bit!”

When Lin Feng shoveled the last spoonful of food into his mouth, Su Xue grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him into her bedroom. “Alright! Good enough! Let’s go!”

“Hrey! I hafunt frinishud!” Lin Feng protested.

“Eat eat eat! Is that all you can think of? Do you dream of food too? You’re going to explode if you keep eating so much!” Su Xue raved while struggling to drag Lin Feng into her bedroom. “Please, help me stream. You can always finish the leftovers later!”

“But I want to eat chicken cutlet later.”

“Fine! You’ll have your chicken cutlet. I promise! I’ll get it for you when I wake up, alright? But first you have to help me with my stream!” Su Xue persuaded. She finally managed to get Lin Feng inside her bedroom and shoved him down into her gaming chair. “Hahhh, finally.” She let out a deep sigh and clapped her hands. “Alright, stream is all you for the next couple of hours. Mama’s finally going to get some sleep!”

Lin Feng was sitting in the chair and someone would be entertaining her viewers. The only thing on Su Xue’s mind now was sleep. Nothing mattered more than sinking into her soft cloud of a mattress. She completely forgot that Lin Feng was now in her bedroom and whipped off her clothes. She sorta pulled on some pajamas and leapt into her bed. The soft and comfortable mattress bounced a little, gently rocking her to sleep. She burrowed her head into her pillow. Pure bliss. “Ahhhh, how I missed you!”

Lin Feng heard Su Xue mumble something and turned around to ask her what she said. Then he froze. He stared at Su Xue sprawled out on her bed practically naked without a care in the world. It took him a couple of seconds to figure out what to do in this awkward situation. Then he yelled at her, “Hey!”

“Phwaat!?” Su Xue’s muffled voice came from behind her pillow.

“You should probably get underneath your comforter, or pull up your blanket. Basically, uh, cover yourself up a bit more before I turn the webcam on,” Lin Feng advised.

“Hm? What? Oh my god! HEY! You little pervert! Turn around! Don’t look!” Su Xue screamed while she scrambled to dive under her blanket.

The exhaustion from the past couple of weeks finally caught up to Su Xue. She relaxed again once she was under her blanket and the comfort of her bed lulled her to sleep in seconds. Locks of her long hair fell over her face, some swaying rhythmically and peacefully from her breaths. In sleep, she was relaxed and untroubled. Even without her make-up on, she was beautiful. Her eyelashes were long and gracefully arced up, and they fluttered every now and then. Even asleep, Su Xue was just as captivating as she was on stream.

Lin Feng turned around to look at Su Xue one more time, just to make sure it was safe to start the stream. Then he turned back around to face the computer. He opened up the browser and used the information Su Xue had written down to log into her Huya account. After he clicked on the button to go live, viewers immediately started flooding the stream. A good 70 within seconds, and more than 200 a few minutes later.

Su Xue’s stream had grown quite a bit recently. There were many more viewers than before, and a portion of them had never heard of or seen Lin Feng before. So it was easy to imagine their surprise when they opened the stream and saw a young man in the webcam feed. A young man who looked nothing like their beautiful host!

「who r u!? HACKER??」
「what did you do with our xue xue!」
「why’s it a guy!?」

In stark contrast to the angry and confused messages from the viewers who didn’t recognize Lin Feng, there were many more who did know him and were happy and excited to see him.

「lil bro! you’re back!」
「we missed you! where’d you goooo???」
「We were getting tired of watching the maid play! Thank god you’re back!」

Lin Feng chuckled and waved at the camera. “Hey, guys! Long time no see. How you guys been? Everything good?”

「who dat? I thought xue xue was the streamer?」
「He the nephew of xue xue’s landlady! our respected lil bro streamer!」
「xue xue is just the maid. he’s the real streamer!」
「he’s really fcking good at the game!!」
「this kid is better than snowfall?? Really?」
「he a qtpie… but he’s got the look of a feeder」
「STFU BISH!!! HES NOT MORE CUTE THAN SU XUE!!!」
「Defo not cuter than xue xue」
「Probably sucks at the game too. Su Xue keeps him around for eye candy!」
「just wait, you’ll understand when you see him play」

“Oh, right. Let me explain. Su Xue needed a small nap, so I’m filling in for her until she wakes up. She’s sleeping right now,” Lin Feng explained. Then he pointed the webcam towards Su Xue’s bed and added, “Can you guys see? She’s fast asleep.”

「woah is that our xue xue!???」
「sleeping so early! Is she deranged>?????」
「haha she’s become a sleep streamer! I wish I could make money by pointing a camera at my bed!!!!」
「ahaha! Screenshotted!」
「this is brilliant! we’ll never let her live this down!!」
「this pic of sleeping beauty will go up above my bed!」

Su Xue was most definitely not one of those streamers. She never did ‘sleeping streams’ or any other stream of that sort. In fact, if she’d known that her viewers had taken screenshots of her sleeping, she would have flipped out on them! She’d find every nasty word she could in the dictionary and give the perverted scumbags who did that something way more spicy to remember! But she wasn’t awake. She was peacefully asleep, unaware of what Lin Feng had just done.

Lin Feng turned the webcam away from Su Xue and back to himself. He then looked through it at his viewers and declared, “Alright! Enough of that! Let’s play some League!”

Lin Feng logged into Su Xue’s League account. She’d managed to climb all the way to Platinum. He queued up for a ranked game. The first game popped up, and he decided to go with Yasuo. Even at Platinum, the game was too easy for him. There just wasn’t any challenge to it at all. Lin Feng’s Yasuo toyed around with the opposing team. He managed to intimidate them so much that they surrendered in 20 minutes. It was short, easy, and carrying that hard made things a little boring for Lin Feng. So when the second game popped up, he decided to change it up. Instead of Yasuo, he locked in on Lee Sin. Even with the change, the same thing happened in the second game too. 20 minute surrender. Two short games where he carried his team. Hard.

The new viewers watched in shock as Lin Feng outplayed his opponents and picked up kills and assists left and right. Finally, they couldn’t hold it in anymore and erupted in excitement.

「woah dude! you’re friggin amazing!!!」
「screw the maid! I only wanna see you play now」
「Seee? What did we say? Is our lil bro a god or what!」
「the other day he wrecked a master」
「our lil bro here is definitely at the challenger level!!!!!!!! he’s also funny as hell, and he’s like way better than most of the streamers out there. you guys really lucked out popping into the stream today!!!!!」

The new viewers were sold. They completely forgot all about the hot girl they’d come to see. Now they’d given themselves heart and soul to the Cult of Lin Feng. Watching a pretty girl try her hand at gaming was fun. Watching a pretty girl who was actually decent at playing a game was even better, that’s the kinda girl they fantasized about wifing up. But watching someone play the game at a god-like level? That was an entirely different electrifying experience!

Over the next two games, the number of viewers kept climbing until 1,500 people were watching Lin Feng stomp all over Platinum players. The chat was frenzied from all the excited viewers trying to talk to Lin Feng, each other, and sometimes just trying to say something to be part of the fun. It eventually turned into walls of 666 spam every time Lin Feng did something insane or outplayed his opponents. But there were also a few who started complaining. It was a small minority at first. But their complaints started to gain steam, and it soon turned into a vocal minority. More and more people started joining in. This was boring to watch. Lin Feng was just too good. There was no thrill in watching these games, no suspense. There wasn’t another player who could make Lin Feng sweat a little. There was no pressure! The people watching the stream wanted to see Lin Feng actually trying! They wanted to witness him struggling to win and finally clinching it at the last second!

「STOP SMURFING BRO」
「go play on your main!!!!」
「GO KICK ASS IN CHALLENGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!」

“You guys want me to stop smurfing?” Lin Feng asked the chat. Then he smiled. “Alright.” Then he smiled a little bit more. “Yeah. That sounds way more fun, right guys?” His smile grew until it was positively beaming. “Alright! Yeah! That sounds like a plan! I agree! Let’s go play some higher ranked games and make this more exciting!”

Ren Rou was President of the high school esports club. She handled the logistics and day-to-day operations of the club, making sure that everything was in order. But when it came to actually playing League of Legends, that’s where she took a step back. Not because she hated playing the game or anything like that. She loved playing League! It was more that she wasn’t very good at it, definitely not good enough to represent the team well. She’d been hardstuck in Silver for more than a year. Sure, she could have pushed herself onto the team if she wanted to. She was the President. But she wanted the esports club to succeed, and her playing the game would not accomplish that. So she helped out as best as she could, taking care of the other things so that all of the other people in the club who loved the game just as much as her could keep playing on the team and keep fighting for glory.

Ouyang found himself on the same boat as Ren Rou. He loved League of Legends, he was all about gamer culture, and he loved the esports club. There was nothing that made him happier. But he also never made it onto the main team because he was never one of the best players in the club. His Gold 3 rank placed him solidly in the middle of the pack within the club. The role that he took on was similar to Ren Rou’s, where he assisted the club in administrative ways. It also gave him the opportunity to keep playing the game he loved with other members of the club.

Yang Fan was a little different from the others. He did have administrative duties within the club, but he also made it onto the main team. He was a Platinum player, and participated in the qualifiers for the 16 School Tournament last year.

“We have to take part in the training too?” Ouyang asked in surprise. He figured that Lin Feng would devote his time to people who would be representing the club at the tournament, and that he wouldn’t be included at all.

Ren Rou was similarly startled. She pointed at herself and asked, “Even me?”

“Correct!” Lin Feng said. Then he jabbed his finger on his chest and said, “I’ll be in charge of your training plan!”

Yang Fan looked at Lin Feng, hesitant. “The tournament starts in a couple of weeks. Don’t you think we’re a little bit late with this?” He trusted that Lin Feng really was a Challenger and he understood that being trained by a Challenger was sure to see their skill improve by leaps and bounds. The issue, the one that worried him, was about the time constraints. Or to put it more bluntly, he simply didn’t see how Lin Feng could turn them into contenders for the 16 School Tournament. He definitely didn’t see how Lin Feng could get them to the point where they’d be in the Top 4 in a little more than half a month.

“I can get you to Diamond! No problem-o!” Lin Feng said. Then he pounded his chest and added, “Trust me! I already have coaching experience!”

Lin Feng really did have experience coaching. He’d recently taken two students under his wings and they were both performing phenomenally after receiving his guidance. The first was Tang Bingyao. She’d been playing with him at the NetCowCafe, and gone from Diamond 4 to the point where she could hold her own against players who were Diamond 1. Then there was Su Xue. She was struggling in Gold when he first met her. Then she spent some time playing and learning from him. Now? She’d spent the last two days climbing from Gold to Platinum 5. And she was still playing phenomenal games. She could get even higher!

Ouyang stared at Lin Feng in disbelief. “Two weeks to reach Diamond…? WHAT? OKAY! Alright. Hold on for a second, pump the brakes. BRO! You tellin’ me your plan is to boost our accounts? What’s that going to do? WE STILL HAVE TO P-L-A-Y AT THE TOURNAMENT!”

Yang Fan was still skeptical. He adjusted his glasses and argued, “Lin Feng, I know my level. I know my skill. I’m realistic and pragmatic. There is no conceivable way—”

“Don’t wanna hear it!” Lin Feng cut him off. “All I want to know is if you trust me. Do you?” He looked over at the three of them, just standing there in silence. “Do you trust me, Princesses?” He waited for a couple of seconds, and then the corners of his mouth started twitching. “Don’t you want to take a magic carpet ride with me? See a whole new world?”

Ren Rou and Yang Fan stared at him.

Lin Feng giggled and said, “Sorry, sorry, so sorry. The joke was just there, I had to make it! But let’s be serious about this.” He giggled again, and composed himself. “Don’t you guys want to take home the trophy?”

Ouyang stammered. “O-of course we want to! bu—”

“Good! That’s all I needed to hear.” Lin Feng pumped his fist in triumph, then continued in a more serious tone, “Now, I don’t want to hear any more what-ifs. Don’t tell me something is impossible if you haven’t even tried it! You don’t know if it is impossible unless you try it and give it your all. So let’s do that!. Let’s give it our all!”

It was the same mantra that Lin Feng kept on repeating. If it wasn’t something amazing and worth achieving, could it really be called a dream? Dreams were meant to be giant! They had to be huge! They had to be so big that they set your soul on fire when you thought about them! It didn’t matter if you tripped. It didn’t matter if you had to take a step back. It didn’t matter if you failed once. Or twice. Or three times. All that mattered was that you never gave up, that you kept on trying no matter what! As long as you kept on the path, kept travelling through the journey, all of it would be worth it in the end.

“Haha! At the very least you guys will look cool!” Lin Feng cheered on. “Give it your all! NO REGRETS! FORRRRRR DEMMMAAAAACCCCCIIIIAAAA!”

Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou felt Lin Feng’s infectious passion and determination blazing through them. All three of them had dreams they’d given up on, regrets they nursed, and things about themselves that they wished they could change. But they never believed they could. Somewhere along the way, they’d given up. They still talked about their dreams, still had those dreams, but they’d stopped chasing after them.

Yang Fan remembered the qualifiers from last year. How helpless and frustrated he felt as his team was losing, how he could do nothing to change that. How nothing he did was enough back then. How he wasn’t enough back then.

Ouyang also knew that gnawing pain. He was a founding member of the club, but his mediocre skills had him sitting in the bleachers. He was a background character in the story of the club that he helped to create. Even though he was all smiles on the surface, behind all that enthusiasm was an intense desire to stand in the spotlight and raise the team on his shoulders.

Ouyang gnashed his teeth. “Dammit! Lin Feng is right! How will we know if we don’t try? We gotta try! Lin Feng bro, this is cringe. But I’m feelin’ it! FOOORRRRRRRRRR DEEEEEMMMMAAAACCCIIIAAA!”

Yang Fan adjusted his glasses. He still appeared calm, but his face radiated unbending determination. “Yes. We’re not going to end this with regret! I am not going to shout Garen’s battle cry though. I’m with you. But I am not doing that.”

Ouyang and Yang Fan turned to each other. They read the same resolve in each other’s eyes. A quick nod. An unspoken understanding between two best friends. They cried out in unison,
“We’ll do it!”
“DEEEMMMMAAAACCCIIIAAAA!”

Lin Feng turned to Ren Rou, who rubbed her temples in frustration before gritting her teeth. “Fine! What’s there to be afraid of? I’m your president anyway. I might as well keep you guys some company.”

“Good!” Lin Feng smiled. “Then that’s settled. Don’t worry. I’m really good at coaching!”

✹

After leaving the NetCow Cafe, Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao walked home in the same direction. Tang Bingyao looked down at the pavement, counting the bricks before putting her foot down on them. Suddenly, she asked, “Do you really think you can do it? You know, helping the club win the trophy?”

“Oh, hm. That. Well, I guess–haha.” Lin Feng scratched the back of his head, then smiled. “No. Not at all.”

Tang Bingyao looked up at Lin Feng. “Then what you said before…” she said, puzzled.

“I don’t know how things will turn out. But it’s because I don’t know how things will turn out that makes the future interesting!” Lin Feng replied. He raised his fist into the air. “IT’S A DREAM! That’s enough! All we can do is try, and maybe one day we’ll achieve it!”

“Then what’s your dream?” Tang Bingyao asked.

“I’m going to become the best professional League of Legends player in the world!” Lin Feng replied without the slightest hesitation.

“Oh,” Tang Bingyao replied. She then lowered her head back down and continued counting the bricks she passed.

They walked on in silence for a while until Lin Feng turned to Tang Bingyao and asked, “Tang Tang, what’s your dream?”

Tang Bingyao seriously considered the question before ultimately shaking her head. “I don’t have one.”

“Really? How can you not have a dream?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t.”

“Eh…” Lin Feng solemnly reflected on her answer, then suddenly halted his steps. He slapped his thigh and shouted, “I know!”

Tang Bingyao also stopped when she heard Lin Feng shout out behind her. She turned around to look at the young man, slightly tilting her head.

“Since you don’t have a dream, I’ll lend you mine! At least until you’ve found one for yourself. No need to thank me!” Lin Feng said with a bright smile.

Tang Bingyao quietly thought about Lin Feng’s words for a minute. Then she shook her head. “How can you lend me your dream?”

Lin Feng dismissed the question completely, “It’s fine! Don’t even think about it. I’m lending it to you, and that’s that. No need to give it back!”

“How can there be two best pros in the world?”

“Easy. You can be the world’s best ad-carry!”

“What a boring dream…”

“Just give it a try. Who knows, you might end up liking it!”

“I won’t.”

“Well, we won’t know unless you try!”

“I won’t.”

“Oh, right, Tang Tan—”

“The answer is still no.”

“Hey! I haven’t even asked anything yet!” Lin Feng complained.

Tang Bingyao started walking again. She didn’t look back at Lin Feng as she said, “I won’t join your team.”

“Ahhh, how did you know I was gonna ask that…?” Lin Feng asked, dejected. But he quickly returned to his cheerful self as he caught up to her. “That’s okay too. I never give up! You’ll be my team’s ad-carry!”

The Shanghai 16 School Tournament was incredibly important to the high school esports clubs in Shanghai. There were three reasons for this. First, this was the only official sanctioned League of Legends high school esports tournament in all of Shanghai. Some schools organized smaller events, like the Haiwan 4 School Tournament or the Pudong 8 School Cup, but those were local events for friendly competition. The 16 School Tournament was an entirely different sort of event. It was comparable to the national University tournaments in terms of scale and production value. The venue was huge! It had plenty of room for fans to come and watch, and the gaming equipment was of the highest quality. This was the stage to compete on for the high school students in Shanghai. It was a real professional tournament, nothing like their locally organized events. Victory on this stage also held meaning. Winning meant everything from further opportunities to team rewards. There was also the moment when they’d hoist a trophy up in front of hundreds of screaming fans. A trophy which would become the most valuable treasure in their club’s cabinet.

The second reason the different esports clubs put such importance on this 16 School Tournament was the prize money. The Shanghai Division of the Chinese Esports Association was the organizer for this tournament, and they sponsored a huge cash prize that would go to the teams who made it to the semifinals and finals. First place would earn a whopping ¥80,000. Even the fourth place prize was nothing to sneeze at, a respectable ¥20,000. On top of that, there was also the individual MVP award with a prize of ¥20,000 attached to it.

The third and final reason was that this tournament was the stage for any young player who dreamed of making it to the professional competitive circuit to showcase their skills. This was the tournament where they could get scouted. The tournament organizers invited famous professional analysts, players, and coaches to make guest appearances as commentators. Just last year, one of the members of the winning team had caught the eye of a top LSPL team’s coach.[mfn]The LSPL is the League of Legends Secondary Professional League with the LPL serving as the main professional league in China.[/mfn] That player was now part of that coach’s second team and a real professional gamer! This was THE dream for countless high school students in Shanghai.

The Shanghai 16 School Tournament was the first step on the path to glory. If they got scouted by an LSPL coach or player, an LSPL team might pick them up. From there, they could qualify for the LPL. Once they made it into the LPL, the World Championships were only a step away. That’s where they could fight on the highest stage in the world, playing at the highest level, millions of fans cheering them on. To fight for the highest glory and take home the biggest trophy, this was the dream of every avid League of Legends player!

The funny thing was the name of the tournament was a bit of a misnomer. It had grown considerably since its inception. The Shanghai 16 School Tournament currently had far more than 16 schools participating. There were roughly 200 high schools in Shanghai, and 70 of them participated in the 16 School Tournament. The sheer number of schools and teams required the introduction of a qualification series before the official tournament could begin. During the qualifiers, teams from the 70 participating schools would duke it out to earn one of the coveted 16 spots in the official tournament.

“So. What you’re saying is that we didn’t even make it out of the qualifiers last year?” Lin Feng asked, eyes wide in shock.

Ouyang awkwardly coughed. “Well… if you really wanted to be technical about it, yeah bro… you could say that.”

Yang Fan adjusted his glasses. “There is no other way to put it, Ouyang. It’s not a technicality. Correct, we were knocked out in the first round of the qualifiers.”

The first round of the qualifiers for the Shanghai 16 School Tournament was a group stage between four teams. The top two from each group would move on to the next round and the losers would go home. Last year, High School 13 only had one win and did not make it through the first round of the qualifiers.

“BRO! I know! Okay. I know. But it’s still embarrassing to admit!” Ouyang said.

Ren Rou patted Ouyang on the shoulder. “It wasn’t entirely our fault. I mean, we got really unlucky in the draws. Our group was basically impossible. First we had to play against those jackasses who sent a spy to steal our strategy. We lost that game before it even started. And the second match was even worse. We had to play against the team who went on to place 2nd in the main tournament. We had no chance against them.”

Yang Fan nodded and sighed with a complicated look on his face. “Yes. I suppose that’s just how the cookie crumbles. Those guys from Shanghai International were absurdly good.”

“Hell yeah! We had shitty luck! That’s why it’s a technicality! I read something online about something called the return of Mars causing shitty luck. That’s what probably happened. If Mars didn’t return and our luck was better, we’d have been in the main tournament!” Ouyang exclaimed. He then shot out of his seat, blazing with fighting spirit. “With you and Tang Tang joining us, it won’t matter if Mars, Venus, or even Neptune returns! We’ll wash away the stink from last year’s disgrace! This year, we’ll get that trophy! I can already taste it in my mouth, before I even kiss it!”

“How good were last year’s champions?” Tang Bingyao asked.

Ouyang froze. Tang Bingyao’s question stole all the thunder and bravado he had moments ago.

Ren Rou shot Ouyang a disdainful glare before turning back to Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao. She took a deep breath and then started explaining the League of Legends scene in Shanghai. Specifically the high school esports club scene.

Shanghai was known for being the heart of China’s esports scene. Most of the professional teams in the LPL and LSPL had set the city as their base of operations. Riot Games had even held a League of Legends All Star event in Shanghai. The city’s competitive environment allowed the high school esports clubs to evolve until they were better than anywhere else in China. The teams who managed to qualify for the Shanghai 16 School Tournament reflected that evolution.

“So, for example, Shanghai International had a Challenger and Master on their team. Their weakest player was Diamond 2,” Ren Rou explained. “Even with a stacked team like that, they only got second place. The champion was Shanghai High School. They had two Diamond 1s, two Masters, and a Challenger. Their best player is called Tiny Teacup. I heard he climbed all the way to the top 10 on Ionia. He’s a prodigy at the game…”

Yang Fan nodded and sighed. “Comparison really is the thief of joy.”

“Then what about our team?” Lin Feng asked.

Ren Rou’s expression turned awkward. “Well. That. Look, it’s obvious that we’re nowhere near Shanghai International or Shanghai High School.”

Ren Rou found it difficult to admit but High School 13 and the top schools in Shanghai were simply on different levels. They were so far apart you couldn’t even compare the two. Before Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao joined the team, the average skill level of High School 13 was low Platinum. Yang Fan was currently their best player. It wasn’t always like this. They used to have several Diamond rank players, but those guys either graduated or quit the esports club to focus on their studies. Only the weaker players like Ouyang and Yang Fan stuck around, refusing to let go of their dream of winning the Shanghai 16 School Tournament.

“So how are we going to win?” Tang Bingyao asked, intense as always.

Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou looked at each other, but none of them opened their mouths. Although the tryouts a few days ago were a massive success and they’d recruited several promising players, they needed a lot more than that to beat the likes of Shanghai International or Shanghai High School.

“I think even getting into the Top 8 will be hard,” Tang Bingyao said.

Ren Rou sighed. “All we can do is try our best. I don’t want to leave any regrets behind.”

“NO!” Ouyang gnashed his teeth. “That isn’t enough! I won’t settle for just doing our best. This is our final year! Screw the Top 8, we have to get into the Top 4! At the lowest! I want to leave something behind for the club. Something they can be proud of!”

Yang Fan shook his head. His eyes betrayed the sadness he felt inside. “I understand how you feel. I feel it too, Ouyang. But statistically speaking, Top 4 is impossible. It’s so far away that you cannot even consider it a pipedream. We’ll never get that far.”

Lin Feng listened to the exchange with a puzzled expression. “Is it that hard?”

“I know you’re amazing Lin Feng. But even if you’re a Challenger, the rest of the team can’t keep up with you. And we can’t count on you to hard carry us to the Top 4, can we?” Ren Rou said.

Ouyang and Yang Fan nodded. The euphoria of finding out Lin Feng was an actual Challenger had clouded their judgement. Reality was kicking back in. At the end of the day, their team consisted of a Challenger, a Diamond, and then some random low rank players. If they got lucky, they might possibly make it to the quarter finals. But anything more was just wishful thinking. League of Legends was a team game. They didn’t have a team. They had two talented individuals. Nothing more.

In the background, the sound of other customers at the internet cafe chatting could be heard. But Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou kept quiet. Their expressions were sombre as they stared at their hands. Lin Feng rubbed his chin, looking at his three friends, then suddenly broke the silence. “I don’t think it’s too hard!”

“I don’t mean to offend you here or sound like I doubt how good you are. I know you’re a great player. But if you think about it for a second you will understand. Think about it and tell me what it is you can do? You’re a Challenger. A Platinum player like myself would end up dragging you down once we get deep into the tournament.” Yang Fan sighed. “You know… I would really like to have the skills of a Master or Challenger and help out the club, but I don’t. I’m a Platinum player. There’s nothing I can do to change that fact.”

“Well, if you’re not good enough, just get better!” Lin Feng said as a matter-of-factly. Then he swept his gaze over Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou. “I can help you guys come up with a training plan!” Feeling as though that didn’t sound convincing enough, he pounded his chest. “I’m really good at coaching too, you know! Isn’t that right Tang Tang?”

Tang Bingyao slightly tilted her head. Then, thinking seriously for a moment, she nodded. “Mhm.”

Yang Fan, Ouyang, and Ren Rou stared at Lin Feng, dumbfounded. A training plan? Coach Lin Feng?

Very few players still remembered the early days of League of Legends. The days before it turned into a world-wide sensation. Even in those days though, there was a group of professional players who were better than anyone else; the Unrivalled Ten. But that title, that group, had long since lost all meaning. People that were into League today wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if someone talked about the Unrivalled Ten from back then. If anyone bothered to even engage with that now, they’d say that “Unrivalled Ten” didn’t mean anything since there were probably only ten professional players back then. There really weren’t many players back then, and being the best of that small group just didn’t mean much. The argument had an internally consistent logic to it, and common sense validated its truth. Then they’d go on to talk about how much the competitive scene had changed since the Season 1 days. If you happened to be having this debate with someone who was into both webnovels and League of Legends, then they might add some profoundly douche-adjacent flavor to the argument like, “Monkeys proclaiming themselves Kings on a mountain with no tiger.” Or even exclaim that, “those early pros were nothing more than big fish in a small pond!”

Lin Feng knew guys like that. Guys who thought they were 200IQ every time League was brought up, believing that they knew everything about the old days just from a few highlight clips and what they’d heard about the players back then. Lin Feng belonged to the small group of players who knew how wrong those guys were, who understood how misguided this belief was. It goes without saying that a lot of the professional players from Season 1 no longer played competitively or had quit League of Legends completely. But there were also a few who continued to play at the highest level. The most important thing to know, though, was that six players from the Unrivalled Ten still continued to play League of Legends. Four of them ranked among the Seven Kings and Four Emperors. The most famous ones were the midlaners Rake and Phoenix, who ranked first and third in the Unrivalled Ten. They still competed in every big event, and they were both in the Four Emperors. The other two were part of the Seven Kings, one being from Europe and the other one from North America. They weren’t just celebrities in the esports world, they were Gods. Everyone who knew even the tiniest bit about the competitive scene knew their names, and even people outside esports knew of them.

Thinking about the Unrivalled Ten reminded Lin Feng about his old team, and he thought about them while scratching the back of his head. His old team had some amazing players now that he thought about it. One of them was Fatty, who was given the loving nickname of “God Roundy” by his fans. He ranked 13th, just outside of the Unrivalled Ten. Then there was the support who made it onto the Unrivalled Ten list in tenth place. Finally there was Lin Feng himself. Until the finals of the Season 1 World Championships, he shared the number one position with SSK’s Rake.

✹

Now that the teams and groups for the Season 5 League of Legends World Championships were announced, people started counting down the days until it started. The excitement and competitive spirit of the event was infectious, and many Chinese players caught the bug. They tried climbing the ranked ladder to show their friends how high they could get before the season ended. Of course, there were also those who were more interested in the spectator side of esports. They didn’t really care all that much about playing ranked games or climbing. Instead, they spent every minute of their free time on Huya, memeing around in chat or getting into intense debates as they watched their favourite streamers climb up or down the ranked ladder.

This also led to a massive influx of new viewers on HuyaTV. Everyone wanted to get in on the fun. Su Xue was one of the many streamers whose viewer count skyrocketed as Worlds approached. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses though. Getting a bunch of new viewers during a temporary surge wasn’t worth much. Retaining them, converting them into permanent viewers required a lot of effort. Su Xue worked a lot harder than the majority of the other streamers. She was willing to grind, build up her viewership, instead of treating it as a casual hobby. But she was getting run down trying to entertain all of these new viewers while still keeping her old ones. Before the surge, she’d start her stream in the afternoon and end around 1 or 2 AM. But all the new people jumping on wanted more, they wanted her to stream more than the 10 hours she’d been doing. Every time she announced that the stream was going to end soon at 1 AM, they’d plead with her to stay longer. Some even started demanding that she continue longer.

「Nooooo! Don’t goooo!」
「One more game! Pplssssss pls pls pls one more game!!!!」
「how about an inhouse?」

Su Xue didn’t have the heart to refuse such passionate appeals from her viewers. But her eyes refused to stay open. She nodded off in the middle of a game. So she ordered delivery at a 24-hour shop and gobbled down the food for some extra energy. Then it was back to playing until the clock finally hit 3 AM. She could barely keep her eyes open. When the game ended, she stretched her back against the seat and yawned, “That’s it, guys. It’s 3 AM. Ima sleep.”

「sleep is for the weak!」
「you already up till 3, what’s another few hours! Come on, keep going!」
「The sun will rise soon, my beautiful Su Xue. Shall we watch it together?」
「The rays of dawn will make you radiant」
「Dawn is special…」
「Its the time when all that’s best of dark and bright」
「meet in your aspect, in your eyes」
「mellowed in that tender light」
「On that cheek…. Over that brow」
「….」
「that guy ^ … wtf?!?!?!?!?! Goin in too hard」
「HAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH」
「This guy forreal?」
「two more games and i’ll send you a gift」

By the time 4 AM rolled around, Su Xue was teetering on the edge, on the verge of mental collapse. She flopped forward over her desk and begged her viewers, “AAHHHHH! Please guys, let me sleeeeep! I don’t care about the gifts anymore… stop sending them. I’m so tired! Wahhhhh!”

「no sleep, only leagueeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!」
「the true pros sleep in queue! Iv seen it!」
「Ye! DO THAT! WE’ll wake you when queue pops!!!」

Despite the lack of sleep, Su Xue couldn’t be any happier. It wasn’t too long ago that she quit her old job to become a League of Legends streamer. The first few weeks were the hardest. She didn’t really make any money and couldn’t even afford to pay her rent anymore. But the past few days had changed all of that. All her grinding was starting to pay off. After putting in many, many hours of work to bring her viewers entertainment, she consistently hit 800 viewers in every stream. There were even times when she peaked as high as 1,600 viewers!

✹

“Oh? Sho, ur shtream ish doin pre’ey goo—?” Lin Feng asked, shovelling the food from his bowl into his mouth.

“Yeaaahhh… But I’m dying!” Su Xue suddenly grabbed Lin Feng by his arms and forced him to look at her exhausted face. “Look at these bags under my eyes! The dark circles are getting so dark that makeup can’t hide them anymore! Lin Feng, you gotta help me! I’m going to start getting wrinkles! Listen… maybe five hours. I haven’t gotten more than five hours of sleep a night in the past few days… I can’t keep this up!”

“Eh? How am I supposed to help you?” Lin Feng asked.

“Take over the stream for a bit! Please?” Su Xue immediately replied. Then she stared at him with what she thought were sad puppy dog eyes. They looked more like sad raccoon eyes at this point though. “Don’t you have a bit of free time every night after you finish your homework? It’s just for a bit! I just want a small nap, and I’ll take back over at midnight!”

“Oh, Hm… I dunno… I don’t really think I want to be a streamer and… there’s nothing really in it for me.” Lin Feng looked troubled.

Su Xue bit her lips. She knew what had to be done. “I’ll make you one extra dish every night!”

Lin Feng stuck out two fingers. “Two!”

Su Xue glared at him. “One! Take it or leave it!”

“Done!” Lin Feng agreed and put his hand out to shake on the deal. After they shook hands, Lin Feng thought it over again. He was too hasty. He realized that he probably could’ve gotten more out of her if he’d haggled better. His negotiation skills needed improvement. Tang Bingyao does this all the time! He’d go to Tang Bingyao later and ask her to teach him. Also. Now that he was thinking about Tang Bingyao, there was something strange happening with their duo sessions at the NetCow Cafe these days. A few uninvited guests kept tagging along.

✹

“Come on, Lin Feng bro! Let’s do a 5-man!” Ouyang called out, sticking his head out from behind the computer the next row over. “We have exactly five people too! Think about it! Is there anything more awesome than playing a game with all your friends at an internet cafe?”

“I’m duoing with Tang Tang. She has to fulfill her orders,” Lin Feng replied.

Tang Bingyao nodded in affirmation.

“Orders? Hot diggity-dawg! Tang Tang, you boost people?!” Ouyang asked.

Yang Fan adjusted his glasses and sighed in admiration. “No wonder you’re so good. A professional ELO booster, hm…?”

Ren Rou glanced at Yang Fan. “Putting the chicken before the egg there, buddy. She’s a booster because she’s so good. That’s why she gets orders.”

Yang Fan shrugged. “Sure. But boosting accounts probably helps you get better.”

“That depends on what kind of accounts you’re boosting and to what rank.” Ren Rou looked over at Tang Bingyao and asked, “What are your orders usually like?”

“Platinum and Diamond for the most part,” Tang Bingyao replied. But her voice had a slight tinge of regret as she replied. The higher the rank, the more money she made. She really wanted to take orders to boost up to Diamond 1. Maybe even Master. But when she brought it up to Lin Feng, he refused to help. The conversation went something like this:
“Can we take Diamond 1 orders?”
“Mhm… huh? No!”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not good enough.”
“But you are. Can’t you carry me?”
“You’re right. I am and I could. But I charge a fee for that.”

Just the thought of having to pay Lin Feng was enough for Tang Bingyao to drop the subject. She’d have to get better if she wanted to take on higher-paying orders. Then she wouldn’t have to rely on Lin Feng and she could keep all the money!

Tang Bingyao’s thoughts drifted back to the esports club tryouts. The team had gladly accepted her as their main ad-carry after her stellar performance against Luo Tianming. As for Lin Feng, he became the club’s secret weapon. After Ren Rou, Ouyang, and Yang Fan had recovered from the initial shock, they quickly came up with a plan. They decided to spread a rumour that Lin Feng had just gotten lucky during tryouts and that he was a LeBlanc one-trick pony. They also added that Luo Tianming wasn’t all that good. They said everything they could to convince the crowd of first years and anyone else who’d seen the game that Lin Feng wasn’t nearly as good as he looked during that game. For now, they wanted to keep his skills and identity under a tight heavy lid.

“We gotta keep this on the downlow! And we gotta make sure to keep telling people that Luo Tianming is a shithead, it’s for the sake of confidentiality!” Ouyang said.

Ren Rou and Yang Fan agreed with Ouyang. News of a Challenger appearing in their esports club would spread like wildfire without some damage control.

“In the last Shanghai 16 School Tournament, our strategies got leaked and our opponent crushed us. We were out before the first round even ended,” Yang Fan explained. “We later learned that one of our members had a big mouth and talked about what we were planning to his friend. That friend? He was a spy! Our first opponent sent him in to gather information!”

“Wow! So extreme! Sounds like something straight out of a spy movie!” Lin Feng exclaimed.

Tang Bingyao nodded in agreement.

“We might be going a bit overboard, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful, especially after last year,” Ren Rou said. She clenched her fists. “We’ll definitely get our revenge this year!”

News of the group stage draw took away all hunger from Lin Feng. He abandoned the rest of his meal and brought his chair to sit next to Su Xue. Then he tilted his head towards her shoulder to look at her phone’s screen. She had the official Riot Games website open.

“What are you doing? Don’t you have your own phone that you can look at this on?” Su Xue asked, annoyed.

“Nah, nah. That’s too much of a hassle for this,” Lin Feng said, waving her complaints away. Then he leaned over even more, basically leaning on Su Xue, and asked, “Hey, can you move your screen over a little? It’s a little hard to see right now.”

“Really! Are you really that lazy?” Su Xue exclaimed. But she still tilted her phone screen so that Lin Feng could see it better, and ruffled his messy hair.

Lin Feng reached over and tilted Su Xue’s phone a little more. Then he scrolled down a little until he got to the groups for the Season 5 World Championships of League of Legends. His eyes jumped across the groups, searching for the Chinese representatives. There were three of them. KG in Group A, Hand of God in Group B, and Dust in Group D.

KG, which was the only Chinese team composed exclusively of Chinese players, had gotten a little bit lucky with Group A. Their real opponents were Europe’s first seed–Legend and North America’s third seed–Flash. The final team in group A was a wildcard team, and that was the small bit of luck that KG received. Wildcard teams came from smaller regions with less competition, so they were considered weaker teams.

Things were a little bit more difficult for Hand of God in Group B. The other teams in Group B were their old Korean rival Fate, the second seed from North America–COG, and the second seed from Europe–Gold.

That said, both Group A and Group B were difficult groups to be in, and it was an uphill battle for the Chinese teams to make it through to the next round. But Group D, well, Group D was something else. If Groups A and B were considered ‘uphill battles’, winning in Group D could only rightfully be described as scaling a mountain. The Chinese team Dust had to face two of the best teams in the entire world. Both from Korea, Warrior and SSK. Between the two, SSK was the one to watch out for. They were the reigning world champions returning to defend their title.

“Oh my god. Dust! I feel so bad for those guys,” Su Xue sympathetically exclaimed. “Everyone online is talking about how the Korean teams are the strongest. How unlucky! How did Dust get so terribly unlucky that they got pulled into a group with both of them?”

Lin Feng nodded. “Hm… Yeah. Yeah, that’s uh… Yeah, that is a bit unlucky.”

Since the start of Season 4, Korea was recognized as the strongest region by fans, players, and analysts. To put it more bluntly, they had several teams who could challenge the best teams from around the world and win. The rules of the World Championships stipulated that only three teams from the four large regions [NA, EU, CN, KR] could enter. So the three Korean teams that were playing were the best in the region. The selection process in Korea to get one of those three spots was especially bloody. The three teams that made it through were all considered title contenders at Worlds.

What made the Korean teams so much better than the teams in the other regions? That was the natural question. The one that everyone who played, watched, and was involved in the competitive league scene constantly asked and considered. And it always came down to the same answer. The teams from Korea were good as a whole, but that wasn’t what put them over the edge. Of the 11 players in the Seven Kings and Four Emperors, each of the Korean teams had at least one. SSK even had an Emperor and a King. And their Emperor wasn’t just any Emperor. He was The Emperor. The one that sat on the throne as Sovereign. Rake.

Lin Feng read over the team names in Group D. When his eyes landed on the name SSK in the bracket, they paused. He clenched his fist. Rake! Just you wait. I’ll climb all the way back up to where you are now! And this time? This time I’ll win!

Su Xue ruffled Lin Feng’s hair again, making him snap back to reality, and said, “Look at Group B. HoG’s luck isn’t that great either. Fate has an Emperor on their team. I mean, HoG has Hermes, but he’s only a King. There’s a huge difference between a King and an Emperor.” Su Xue was a huge fan of the Four Emperors and Seven Kings. Their biggest fan, in her mind. From their strengths in-game to their favourite foods to their preferred keyboards, Su Xue knew it all. She watched every interview, read every article, followed their socials.

Lin Feng scratched the back of his head. “I dunno about all that. Maybe. Maybe not? I think it’ll be a close game.”

Individual talent was important. That was true of any competitive sport, and esports were no exception. But just because one team had an Emperor and the other team only had a King, that wasn’t particularly decisive. At this level of play, an Emperor could not hard-carry a team to victory. It wasn’t a matchup between an Emperor and a King. It was a match between two teams. If a team wanted to win on the world stage, at the highest level of competitive gaming, team synergy was far more important than individual skill or having one great player.

A similar matchup occurred during the Season 5 Mid-Season Invitational, and was the best example of this. It was Hand of God against Fate in a best of five series. The two teams played against each other in three games where Hand of God won two and lost once. The tense fourth game would decide if Fate would mount a comeback or if Hand of God would be the victor. Hand of God’s midlaner, Daybreak Hermes was one of the Seven Kings. Fate’s midlaner Moon was one of the Four Emperors. It was a head-to-head between an Emperor and a King in midlane! Hermes’ impressive performance with Orianna proved that he was worthy of his Crown. He kept Moon’s Viktor at bay long enough for the rest of his team to get to the mid-game phase relatively unobstructed. This allowed Hand of God an advantage, a small one, which they used and pushed into the late-game phase until they ultimately destroyed the enemy nexus.

The Chinese fans went wild over this victory. They spammed Hermes for days and talked about the series for weeks. The legendary match was known as the “Battle of the Star and Moon Emperor”. Star Emperor was the nickname Chinese fans had given Hermes. Winning the MSI series didn’t actually make him an Emperor. Fate’s Moon, on the other hand, was a real Emperor and ranked 3rd out of the 4. The Mid-Season Invitational where HoG had triumphed over Fate was the first time that a team with a King had beaten a team with an Emperor. It also shattered the myth that the 4 Emperors were undefeatable and gave all of the players in China hope.

Su Xue rubbed her chin. “Hmm, I guess you’re right.”

Lin Feng continued, “Besides, HoG is coming into Worlds after beating Fate in the MSI. That’s bound to put some pressure on Fate.”

Su Xue looked up at Lin Feng with a hint of surprise, “Oh, that actually sounds kinda logical. You know a lot about this stuff, huh?”

Lin Feng squared his shoulders, puffed up his chest and thumped it. “I’m really good at being an analyst too!”

Lin Feng’s nonchalant bragging washed away the surprise and admiration Su Xue had felt a moment ago. She pursed her lips for a second and then shoved her phone into Lin Feng’s face. “Alright then Mr. Smartypants Analyst! Take a look at Group A and analyze that for me!”

“Group A? Hmm… okay. Group A, huh?” Lin Feng looked at the teams in Group A. Then he took a quick look at the other groups and considered it for a second. “Alright. Hm… I’m going to say Group A and Group B are about the same.”

Su Xue looked at Lin Feng, perplexed. “No way, right? Look at Group A! Those are all second rate teams, and none of them have a single Korean! That North American team is basically the same as a wildcard team. And the wildcard team is a wildcard team! They’re both easy wins! The European team, that one isn’t bad. Actually, maybe they’re even a little good. But that doesn’t really matter. They don’t even have any Koreans either!”

Lin Feng shook his head. “Nah, nah. Don’t look at it like that. You can’t underestimate North America and Europe. They aren’t weak. And they’re really not all that far behind compared to Korea…” Lin Feng shook his head again. “Besides… you really shouldn’t look down on the wildcard teams either. They can be really strong! No one pays attention to them, right? So you never know when a dark horse will show up.”

Few players remembered this, especially in the current Korean-dominated scene, but way back in Season 1 neither China nor Korea were big names in the competitive circuit for League of Legends. The early days of competitive League of Legends were dominated by North America and Europe. In the Season 1 World Championships, both China and Korea received a single wildcard slot while North America and Europe got three tickets for a final roster of eight teams.

Reading the team names and recognizing some of them made Lin Feng reminisce on the past. On the Season 1 World Championship. Memories flooded his mind, flipping open like the pages of an old book. The good times. And the bad times. Memories of both joy and pain.

The Chinese League of Legends player base was still small back then. Lin Feng played for the best Chinese team in those days. They even qualified to represent China at the World Championships! The Chinese fans and players all supported them, cheered them on. There were even some who bought plane tickets and flew across the world to watch them play at Worlds!

The Season 1 World Championship was nothing like the grand events Riot held nowadays. Back then, the event took place in a small convention center in London. The stands weren’t packed full of cheering fans. The stage didn’t have fancy lights. There were no insane displays for the people watching or showmanship. There were only two rows of five computers set side by side. It looked exactly like the small local tournaments held in most internet cafes. The scale of the event was small. The rules weren’t all that strict either, nor were they heavily enforced. Lin Feng didn’t meet the minimum age requirement of 16, but the event organizers and officials compromised and allowed him to compete.

At the Season 1 World Championship, Lin Feng stood on the stage that nearly every person who played League of Legends dreamed of standing on. He got to play against the strongest teams in the entire world. Even now, years later, his memories of those European and North American teams remained crystal clear. One European team was particularly difficult to forget about. He played a best of 5 series against them that was etched into his mind. It was one of the hardest series he’d ever played. One he’d almost lost. But also the one that saw his team go through to the semifinals. The European team’s midlaner had left a deep impression on him!

Many people felt that League of Legends had changed significantly since those ancient times back in Season 1. They believed that the World Championships back then were an inconsequential event, and that the players who competed back in Season 1 were nothing compared to the professional competitive gamers of today.

But Lin Feng knew they were completely wrong. They had no idea how wrong they were. Not like him. Phoenix, the European midlaner, the one who’d given him some of the most trouble in all his time playing League, still played competitively to this day. And at the very highest level! Phoenix was one of the Four Emperors, and the only European in their ranks!

Luo Tianming was rendered speechless once the Tristana player pointed out his mistakes. All his rage turned impotent. Only 9 minutes into the game, and his Orianna was at a pitiful 0/2/0. He didn’t even have an assist! There was nothing he could say. No defense of his play. He wanted to blame someone else. His teammates, the LeBlanc, literally just anyone else. But those would all be hollow lies. The only one he could blame was himself.

Lin Feng’s LeBlanc completely dominated mid lane. She pushed every minion wave relentlessly forward, and Luo Tianming could only hunker down underneath his tower. If he went back to base, he’d lose out on gold and experience. And it would put his tower’s health into jeopardy. Then he decided to try roaming, going up to top or down to bot lane. That didn’t work out well for him either. Not to mention that every time he tried this, all of the enemy champions seemed to be aware of his incoming gank the second he left mid lane.

Lin Feng was to blame for all of this. Besides making life hell for Luo Tianming in lane, he also spent gold on vision wards and sight wards. They were placed all around mid lane, and everywhere else his teammates failed to ward. On top of that, whenever Orianna left the lane for even a few seconds, he would ping both bot and top lane that an enemy was missing. A flashing red exclamation point that served as a warning to be careful and retreat to tower safety.

Lin Feng kept the pings going for the entire time that the Orianna wasn’t in mid lane. It was an annoying thing to do. Lin Feng knew it was annoying. But this was honestly the best way to make sure that Silver-ranked players were aware of the incoming threat and constantly wary. One or two pings could be missed. Or just ignored. But a constant and steady stream of pings was enough to force even the worst League players to follow common sense and get to safety. Even the ones that decided to be stubborn.

In the end, it was only Luo Tianming who lost out. His time spent away from mid lane was wasted. He had quite literally nothing to show for it. Not only did he fail to find any opportunities to gank, but he also lost out on all the gold and experience from the minion waves in mid lane. The gap between his Orianna and the LeBlanc only continued to widen in every facet of the game.

✹

The first dragon went to the blue team. Luo Tianming could only watch it happen after retreating to a safe distance. The LeBlanc was still extremely dangerous. She could turn around at any moment and burst him down. He gritted his teeth, his pent up rage overwhelming him. He wanted to murder someone! Then the target of his hatred turned to himself. Inconsolable and indignant, this was the perfect way to describe his current mental state.

11 minutes into the game. Luo Tianming pushed the minion wave in mid lane. He wanted to snag some extra gold and experience, so he went to the Wraith Camp and started attacking the jungle monsters there. Little did he know that the LeBlanc was already there, invisible in the brush nearby, waiting for the right moment to ambush him. Luo Tianming scrolled across the map to check on the other lanes and keep an eye on the flow of the game while his Orianna attacked the wraiths. Then his screen turned grey with no warning.

Dead. Again. Luo Tianming had to look at that grey screen again and count down the seconds until his revival. He now had three deaths and still nothing to show for it. Metaphorical dark clouds gathered around his head and thunder and lightning came crashing down on him. His dream of making the esports club main team was crushed. He started muttering, “This can’t be possible. This can’t be. It wasn’t supposed to go like this…”

Luo Tianming wanted nothing more than for all of this to be a bad dream. A very, very bad dream. But it wasn’t. This was real life, and it was harsh. His Orianna kept dying over and over again. Soon, she would be worth no more than a cannon minion, while the LeBlanc was just a few kills away from becoming Legendary.

《Double kill!》
《Dominating!》

Every time the game announcer announced LeBlanc’s next kill, it would be accompanied by gasps of shock from the crowd of first years. Lin Feng’s LeBlanc was putting on a really good show for them!

LeBlanc snowballed so hard that a three-spell combo with her ultimate could kill just about anyone on the enemy team. Especially a squishy ad-carry like Tristana. Even a two-skill combo from the LeBlanc was enough to surgically cleave away half of Tristana’s health. But the Tristana refused to give up. She tried her best to turn the tide for her team. After all, the LeBlanc was only one champion in a team of five and League of Legends was a team game! She played well, she really did. And she continued doing well, but that just wasn’t enough. She couldn’t compete against the LeBlanc. This enemy was too fed and constantly popped out of nowhere to burst her down. It didn’t matter how careful she was, she would always end up being picked off right before a teamfight started. So as far as this game was concerned, there never were any teamfights. This game never entered the teamfight phase. There was no way to win based on teamwork.

《Legendary!》

When the game announcer’s voice rang out across the rift to announce Lin Feng’s Legendary status, the red team unanimously voted to surrender. The game lasted a little more than 20 minutes. In these 20 minutes, the blue team secured a one-sided victory. Lin Feng had made sure that not just his LeBlanc got fed, but that his entire team did. After helping the Darius in top lane, the player had pushed Rumble all the way back to his fountain, taking down three towers and an inhibitor in the process. All the while, Lin Feng himself was pushing hard in mid lane. He’d taken down three towers and was attacking the inhibitor when the surrender vote went through.

The red team never stood a chance to mount a comeback. The game was too far gone. After they surrendered, the chaotic energy in their nexus twisted and warped before exploding. The second game was over. The blue team had achieved victory.

Luo Tianming slumped back into his seat with a dazed look on his face. His eyes were locked on his stats in the post-game lobby. 0 kills. 5 deaths. 3 assists. He simply couldn’t believe this just happened.

Ouyang was ready. There was no possible universe in which he’d miss this opportunity to rub salt all over Luo Tianming’s bleeding ego. He walked over to Luo Tianming and looked him right in the eyes while asking, “Ho? What’s this? No, this can’t be possible, right? Surely my eyes are telling me a lie. Didn’t you tell my Rou Rou not to worry? That you would carry? Show us all how good you are? What was the bullshit you were saying again?” Ouyang flashed a bright smile, “That you would hardcarry your team? Right? Actually. I understand now. I get it! I’m a dumbfuck! I completely misunderstood what you meant. That was my bad, I sincerely apologize. See, I was stupid and thought you meant that you’d be carrying your team to a win. I should have understood that you were saying that you were planning to HARDCARRY them to a loss. I’m so, so, so sorry about that misunderstanding. I should apologize to your teammates too. If I wasn’t so stupid, I would never have made them play with a loser like you. They might have actually had a shot at winning that game if you weren’t there. But you were right. You are a hard carrying loser.”

“Who the hell is your Rou Rou?” Ren Rou interrupted, shooting Ouyang a glare. Then she turned her attention to Luo Tianming. “We gave you your second chance. You failed again. You have no more complaints, correct?” Her impression of Luo Tianming was already pretty low in the first place. So she’d quite enjoyed watching him being put in his place.

Luo Tianming’s face alternated between various shades of red. He didn’t look up at Ren Rou or Ouyang. Rather, his eyes were still staring at his screen. He simply couldn’t believe it. It felt like his entire world came crumbling down around him. Finally, he pushed his chair back, knocking into several people behind him. But he didn’t care. He pushed harder, then got to his feet and forced himself through the crowd. The shouts of the angered first years didn’t even reach his ears.

“Hey hey! You’re gonna leave just like that? WAIT! WAIT! What if there’s another team that wants to be hard carried to victory? They might need you!” Ouyang reached out his hand.

“Enough!” Ren Rou smacked Ouyang’s hand down. “It’s over. Let’s move on to the next game.”

✹

The third tryout game for the esports club started. The 10 new players entered the game and were ready to show off their skills. But no one in the crowd was really looking. Instead, they kept shifting their gazes towards Lin Feng. His Legendary LeBlanc had stolen their hearts! She dealt an insane amount of damage, while also making all sorts of godly plays! It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that she could jump into the heart of the enemy team, kill any one of their champions, and jump back out unscathed! They couldn’t help but feel a sense of reverence towards this upperclassman of theirs!

Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou promptly wrapped up their business and ran up to Lin Feng. They were completely amped up from his game! They crowded around him and bombarded him with questions.

“Bro, your LeBlanc was hella cool! Like damn! Even the Changbai Waterfall can’t rain down that much water on that guy! You gotta teach me how to play like that! You got any tips?” Ouyang exclaimed animatedly.

Ren Rou rolled her eyes and pushed Ouyang’s head aside. “Yeah, that’ll work out great Ouyang. But even if he gave you tips, you still wouldn’t be good.” She turned to Lin Feng, “Lin Feng, I never knew you were such a good mid! Why didn’t you tell us?”

Lin Feng scratched his head. “I did. Multiple times. But you guys wouldn’t believe me…”

Tang Bingyao came over and nodded in agreement.

Yang Fan adjusted his glasses with a wry smile. “You have to cut us some slack. How do you expect anyone to believe you’re a Challenger at face value?”

“So, you really are a Challenger? Damn! Really?” Ouyang gasped.

“Err, not exactly. But back when I played I pretty much had the same rank.”

“You stopped?”

“Mhm, I played a lot in season 1. Back then they used the elo-system[mfn]It is basically the same as the current ranked system. You won/lost x amount of points each game depending on whether you won or lost the match. But rather than giving certain point-ranges a rank, back then you just saw your points.[/mfn],” Lin Feng explained.

Ouyang sucked in a cold breath of air. “Holy crap! You already played back in season 1?”

Yang Fan stared at Lin Feng in shock. Not because Lin Feng played League of Legends in season 1, but because of the rank he reached back then. “So you really got to Challenger back then?”

Ren Rou’s eyes lit up. “If that’s true, then we actually have a chance of winning the 16-school tournament!”

✹

The tryouts for the esports club ended close to dinnertime. Lin Feng grabbed his bag and rushed home. When he opened the front door, the smell of dinner welcomed him. Su Xue was already putting the steaming dishes on the table. He sat down with her and started wolfing down the food, telling her about his day between bites.

“So what you’re saying is that you finally got to show off your skills, right?” Su Xue said.

Lin Feng was gobbling up the food like a whirlwind, not even emptying his mouth before replying, “Hyup! Hyup!”

Su Xue chuckled, “How does it feel? They underestimated you for so long, I’m sure it felt great to see their faces, right?”

“Eh, it’s okay. But Ouyang and the other guy said we’ll have to keep it a secret. They want to keep me as a trump card for the upcoming tournament,” Lin Feng said after swallowing his food.

Su Xue nodded, “Makes sense.” Then she paused for a moment before adding, “Though I suppose that with your skills it doesn’t really matter. You’re so good, winning first place in that little inter-school tournament should be easy.”

Lin Feng shifted his focus to a delicious piece of pork cutlet. He put some into his bowl before replying, “Oh, that’s not guaranteed. I heard the other schools taking part are really strong. Our team is a bit unbalanced, so it’ll be difficult.”

Su Xue shrugged, “Just try your best. I believe in you.”

“It’s still a while away though. The tournament starts in like the third week of October.”

“That far away? Group stages for Worlds should be almost done by then!” Su Xue exclaimed. Thinking of Worlds, she suddenly recalled an exciting piece of news. “Oh right! They just finished the group stage draw and announced the groups!”

Lin Feng stopped shovelling food into his mouth, his spoon pausing halfway to his lips. He raised his head with an excited look and said, “They announced the groups? Show me!”

The blue team’s bottom lane needed help. After the failed gank from Rek’Sai, the red team’s Tristana was pulling ahead, dangerously so. She now had two kills under her belt and also had a constantly growing CS lead over Kalista. Everyone watching the game figured that Lin Feng would use his advantage over the Orianna to go down to bot lane and help them out. Prevent them from losing the lane and shutting down the red team’s ad-carry. As far as they knew, an ad-carry with an advantage over the one on the opposing team would only continue to push that lead and widen the gap. That had to be stopped, and Lin Feng’s LeBlanc was the only champion on blue team that could stop that. But Lin Feng knew better, he wasn’t about to win a few skirmishes just to lose the game. Short term gains at the expense of long term losses was not a good strategy, or how games were won. Lin Feng had something completely different in mind.

About a minute earlier, red team’s Jarvan IV had ganked top lane and helped the Rumble kill the Darius. This wasn’t a huge issue for the Darius. He could afford to fall a little behind, especially in the early game. As long as he safely farmed under his tower and scaled into mid game, a single teamfight could see him jump back ahead. This was because of his ultimate skill—Noxian Guillotine. He could leap to an enemy champion and strike a lethal blow with his axe. If he got the kill, the cooldown on his ultimate would reset and he could go again. But the enemy champion he was up against, red team’s Rumble, could not be allowed to snowball. In the early-to-mid game, Rumble only needed a single completed item to decimate the opposing team in a teamfight using his ultimate skill—The Equalizer. He’d fire off a volley of rockets that exploded into a wall of flames, damaging and slowing enemy champions. Hell, even a pair of Sorcerer’s Boots was enough to turn Rumble into a pain for the team he was against.

There was another reason why it was vital not to let the Rumble pull ahead. That was because of the current state of League of Legends, the meta of the game. Some people referred to the current meta as “League of Toplane”. The top laners held so much weight over the direction of the game that they were an even greater threat than the ad-carry. Lin Feng knew that shutting down the Rumble in top lane early and preventing the snowball was an essential objective in winning the game.

At 5:50 minutes into the game, the Orianna was forced out of lane again and recalled back to base. Lin Feng used this opportunity to push out the minion wave, and then disappeared into the fog of war. He roamed through the red team’s top-side jungle and made his way top. Rumble still hadn’t reached level 6 and wasn’t much of a threat without his ultimate.

Lin Feng approached the tri-brush, and started pinging the Darius to engage. The Rumble hesitated for a second, and then started backing up. It looked like he knew something was about to happen, almost like he could sense it or hear Lin Feng’s pings. But he was too far out in the lane. He couldn’t make it back to the safety of his tower before Lin Feng engaged him. “Oh, looks like it’s warded,” Lin Feng mumbled. “Eh… doesn’t matter.”

LeBlanc swiftly passed through the tri-brush and flanked the retreating Rumble. Lin Feng’s pinky and index finger pushed down almost simultaneously, the former a fraction faster. Two malevolent balls of energy—The first a Sigil of Malice and the second a mimicked version—came flying out from LeBlanc’s staff. In the milliseconds before they connected, Lin Feng used Distortion to have his LeBlanc jump onto the Rumble. The two sigils exploded almost simultaneously, and the final crescendo in this orchestra was the splash damage from Distortion. The Rumble’s health dropped to somewhere south of 25%. Then came the Ethereal Chains, wrapping around the Rumble and rooting him in place after a brief delay.

The Darius arrived in the nick of time and hooked the rooted Rumble with his axe. Then he pulled the Rumble back, further from the safety of the red team’s tower, while also slowing him. This was the skill Apprehend. Darius used the time gained from the hook-and-pull with a slow to charge up and spin around, cutting into the Rumble with the sharp edge of his axe which had bonus armor penetration. But it wasn’t enough! The Rumble still had a sliver of health remaining, a brief glimmer of hope, and a chance to escape. But a well-timed auto attack from Lin Feng’s LeBlanc crushed that hope.

《You have slain an enemy!》

This was LeBlanc’s second kill of the game! Lin Feng looked up at his KDA in the top right corner of his screen–2/0/0. “Awesome! I got it!” he exclaimed happily. There was both joy and art in making sure you got the kill, even in team fights and ganks.

✹

Luo Tianming heard the announcement of the Rumble’s death. He glanced at the minimap and saw the LeBlanc’s icon sitting in top lane. He knew exactly what happened. Storm clouds rumbled on Luo Tianming’s forehead. It took every last drop of self-restraint that he possessed to prevent him from screaming at the rest of his teammates. Only bot lane was doing ok for themselves. But both jungle and top lane were screwing up left and right! Stupid fucking Rumble! Why did you have to throw away your advantage? How can you be so fucking stupid? ARE YOU BLIND? Luo Tianming couldn’t understand how this Rumble fell for the gank. It was so obvious she was coming for you! GOD FUCKING DAMNIT! You’re almost as fucking stupid as that Jarvan who fucking walked away from the real LeBlanc to go chase a clone. Fucking trash players. Both of you!

Luo Tianming wanted nothing more than to unleash his ire on his teammates. But all of Luo Tianming’s bottled up rage was about the mistakes his teammates had made. His arrogance prevented him from thinking about his own mistakes. Luo Tianming had been the one who gave LeBlanc her first kill and first blood. He was the reason why Lin Feng’s LeBlanc had started snowballing. But his inability to both perceive and accept his own shortcomings, that didn’t really matter. Not while Lin Feng was there and more than willing to point them out over and over again.

After picking up a kill in top lane, Lin Feng returned to mid lane. Luo Tianming was wary and playing far more cautiously, his Orianna retreated to the safety of the tower. Right now, his Orianna was a level behind the LeBlanc. And he was behind in terms of items too. But Luo Tianming wasn’t too worried. He believed that as long as he continued to play it safe, he could avoid dying at the hands of the LeBlanc. He’d eventually catch up and scale, and that’s when he’d turn things around. The sad part about this was that Luo Tianming genuinely believed this simple-minded strategy would work.

Luo Tianming persisted with his play-it-safe strategy for nearly a minute. His Orianna only needed a third of an experience bar to hit level 6. But she also only had a third of her health bar remaining. This was because a moment ago, Luo Tianming had moved just a step outside of tower safety to last hit a minion. Lin Feng punished him for that right away, chaining LeBlanc’s skills together into a combo that ate a chunk out of his Orianna’s health.

A big minion wave was now pushing towards the red team’s outer tower. Luo Tianming wanted to stay underneath the safety of the tower, soaking up experience. But he was also scared. He wasn’t particularly safe, even under the tower’s protection. The LeBlanc could still jump onto him with Distortion and kill him, then jump back out before the tower got too many hits in. But he’d calculated that her ultimate was still on cooldown, so there was no way for her to burst him down. It was risky to stay and soak up the experience from this minion wave before going back to base and healing. But it was an acceptable amount of risk to Luo Tianming. He was determined to stay, determined to seize every opportunity to turn things around on the LeBlanc!

Suddenly, a figure came burrowing out of the jungle wall behind the wraith camp—located in red team’s top side jungle, just behind the tower. It was Rek’Sai, the blue team’s jungler! He’d come in for a gank! Before Luo Tianming could even react to this act of aggression from a hostile party, the Rek’Sai flashed forward, dug into the ground, and popped up underneath the Orianna. Rek’Sai had knocked Orianna up into the air!

“Oh nice!” Lin Feng exclaimed. His hands blurred into action as he immediately followed up. He jumped on the Orianna with Distortion and then cast both Sigil of Malice and Ethereal Chains on her.

《Killing Spree!》

Lin Feng’s LeBlanc was now up three kills without a single death! But another announcement sounded before Lin Feng could bask in the glory of his third kill.

《Killing Spree!》

The red team’s Tristana in bot lane got another kill. Blue team’s Kalista. The Tristana’s KDA was now equal to Lin Feng’s LeBlanc.

“Oh, not bad!” Lin Feng remarked. He didn’t appear the slightest bit worried. In fact, he even had a smile on his face. Perfect! The stronger she is, the more I can show everyone how good my LeBlanc is! There was a more practical reason for why Lin Feng wasn’t worried, too. They were still in the early-game phase right now, and a LeBlanc with 3 kills could do a lot more right now than a Tristana with 3 kills.

✹

9 minutes into the game. Both teams converged at the dragon pit. This was the first team fight objective. Players on both teams arrived at different times from different parts of the map. The ones that got to the dragon pit first poked at each other, waiting for the rest of their teammates to arrive. Or for one of the opposing players to make a mistake and go in too deep. Whichever happened first.

Tristana had just finished buying items. She passed through her own jungle and was making her way towards the dragon pit. As she passed by the Blue Buff camp, a ghostly silhouette brimming with menace dashed out from behind the wall.

Two malevolent balls of energy came flying out from LeBlanc’s staff, dealing magic damage and marking Tristana. Then the Ethereal Chains hit. The two marks from Sigil of Malice and Mimic—her ultimate skill that mimicked the last skill she cast—detonated. Lin Feng cast Ignite on the Tristana before jumping away with the second part of Distortion.

《Rampage!》

The crowd of first year students gasped, yet again. That sharp collective intake of air was becoming a very frequent sound in the classroom. They were awestruck! The play wasn’t just fantastic, the execution of it was a work of art!

With their ad-carry now dead, the red team had lost the ability to contest the first dragon. After watching his jungler and top laner screw up earlier in the game, Luo Tianming was already close to snapping. And now the only player on his team he thought was decent ended up dying to the LeBlanc! He couldn’t take it anymore! “FUCK ME! Do you even know how to play? I swear you’re griefing! Learn to fucking ward! Retard.”

The Tristana player shot Luo Tianming an angry glare and retorted, “Griefing? You think I’m the one on the team that’s been feeding? Do you even know what you’re talking about? Look at your own damn score before yelling at everyone else!”

“T-that…” Luo Tianming choked on his words. His face turned red from embarrassment.

The second game of the esports club tryouts had started. Ren Rou, Ouyang, and Yang Fan huddled together around a screen to watch. Though there were 10 players, 5 on each team, they weren’t really interested in watching all of them. Their eyes were locked on mid lane, taking in everything that was going down there.

“Oh damn! You guys seeing this? It’s starting to feel like Lin Feng is beating Luo Tianming…?” Ouyang half-muttered.

Ren Rou nodded. “You’re right. If Orianna keeps taking hits like that, she’ll have to go back to base or give LeBlanc the kill. Was Lin Feng always this good in mid?”

“I figured it out! Whole thing finally came together. Listen, that fucker Luo Tianming probably got his account boosted! I’ll even bet on it. I mean, sure, Tang Tang is really good. I can see how he’d lose to her. But this… what is this? The fucker’s playing like a Silver! If that’s a Diamond 3, then I could be one too!” Ouyang exclaimed.

Yang Fan adjusted his glasses and looked at the screen again. He shook his head, disagreeing with Ouyang’s analysis. “Sorry man. But if you were in his shoes, you would probably look like the worst League player in all of history. Watch the game more closely. There! See how Orianna is going for CS? And right there! Look at how she’s trying to get some poke in. You see that? Luo Tianming isn’t playing poorly at all…it’s just that Lin Feng is playing really, really well. Absurdly well.”

It took quite a bit of experience and understanding of the game to fully understand what was happening in mid lane during this game. Yang Fan was Platinum ranked, he could see beyond the hype and spectacle. He could see that Luo Tianming wasn’t making too many mistakes. Every last hit was well-timed and solid. Every poke was planned out and designed to deal maximum damage while taking very little back in return. Luo Tianming was not bad at the game at all. He was better than most people.

The reality of the game was that Lin Feng played better. Not a little bit better. Significantly better. In every aspect and facet of the game, Lin Feng outplayed Luo Tianming by a considerable margin. From the moment the game started, the Orianna never stood a chance. Lin Feng used his LeBlanc to clear minion waves with the splash damage from Distortion, while also positioning to let the splash damage deal poke to the Orianna. Once Lin Feng hit Level 2 and learned Sigil of Malice, the situation went from bad to worse for the Orianna. Yang Fan’s eyes had a peculiar gleam to them as he stared at Lin Feng’s back. Was he telling us the truth this whole time? Is he really a Challenger…?

✹

Luo Tianming knew he had to do something. This LeBlanc was far better than he expected. She was quickly taking control of the lane. He could feel his scalp tingling from apprehension. SHIT! I can’t lose another one! But there wasn’t anything he could do. Every time he tried to last hit a minion for the gold and experience, the LeBlanc would already be there, lying in wait. The second his Orianna walked into the LeBlanc’s attack radius, she would jump out and hit him with her entire combo for a ton of damage before jumping back out. He tried to counter using Orianna’s Ball, but the LeBlanc was just too damn fast. And LeBlanc’s skills could chain together faster than Orianna’s Ball could move. If the game kept going this way and at this rate, his Orianna’s health would continue to plunge until he was forced out of lane and back to base.

Luo Tianming was thinking, searching for a way to turn things around on the LeBlanc. That was when the Jarvan IV, the jungler on his team, sent a ping on midlane to announce that he was coming up for a gank. This was exactly what Luo Tianming needed, and he felt the pressure around his forehead loosen. The Jarvan IV was walking up to mid lane from the Red Buff jungle camp, which meant that the jungler had both Red and Blue Buff up. Luo Tianming used a health potion to recover some health and let the minion wave push back towards his tower. He was getting ready to bait the LeBlanc into a position that would end her reign of terror over him.

The Blue team’s minions started pushing toward the red team’s outer tower, just as Luo Tianming and his jungler had planned. Lin Feng followed after them, focusing on last hitting the minions. The Jarvan IV hid in the river brush right above the mid lane. Three and a half minutes into the game, the ambush was ready. All that was left to do was to throw out the bait. Luo Tianming had his Orianna walk out of from the safety of Red team’s outer tower under the pretense of last hitting a minion. The deception was flawless, and the LeBlanc took the bait.

Jarvan IV ran out of the brush and straight towards the LeBlanc. He threw his Demacian Standard down on top of her. Then he thrust out with his lance towards the flag. When they connected, Jarvan IV was pulled to the flag! The Jungler could see the entire animation play out in his mind before it happened in the game. The LeBlanc that stood between him and the flag would be knocked up. Then he and the Orianna would gang up and remove whatever remained of the LeBlanc’s health. That would be the end of LeBlanc. There was no way to avoid the might of Jarvan IV’s Dragon Strike!

… Except that’s not what actually happened. Lin Feng’s reaction time was simply too fast for the plan to work. While the Jarvan IV was still mid-dash, the LeBlanc had safely jumped away using Distortion. It turned out that there was indeed a way to avoid the might of Jarvan IV’s Dragon Strike.

YOU IDIOT! Luo Tianming screamed in his mind. Great fucking job, you NOOB! Why would you waste your combo like that? Look what you did! Now she got away… Luo Tianming shook his head in frustration. Every fucking game. These goddamn noobs! Why me? Why is it always me? He took a deep breath and tried to focus back on the game. Shit! His Orianna was still in danger. Shit! Shit! She stood outside of her tower’s range with relatively low health. Shit! Shit! SHIT! He clicked towar—

Lin Feng had that look on his face. The one he always got when there was an opportunity for a kill. The Jungler had burned his combo and Luo Tianming’s guard was down while his Orianna was outside the safety of the tower. Lin Feng quickly recast Distortion, activating the second half of the skill. His LeBlanc jumped back to the place she had initially jumped from. This is it! The Orianna was exposed, there were no minions in the way. LeBlanc branded the Orianna with a Sigil of Malice, then shot out Ethereal Chains. The chains wrapped around Orianna while also triggering the Sigil and dealing additional magic damage! Then Lin Feng used his Ignite on the Orianna.

“Oh my god!”

“The turn around!”

“What a sick play!”

The crowd of first years that had gathered in the esports clubroom let out a collective gasp. The play was electrifying, phenomenal, amazing!

The alarm bells, missile attack sirens, and nuclear bomb warnings in Luo Tianming’s head all went off at the same time! He didn’t expect the LeBlanc to turn his gank back around on him, never even thought about the possibility! T-this… did he already calculate all this…!? But there was no time to think of all that. He needed to escape before the Ethereal Chains managed to snare him! His finger smashed down onto the keyboard trying to send his Orianna panic-flashing towards the tower. But he wasn’t fast enough, the Ethereal Chains had already rooted him down. Crap! Fuck! SHIT! I’m dead! Despair, regret, and irritation started washing over Luo Tianming. But before he succumbed to the emotions and started wallowing, he smashed his teeth together. I’m going to take that fucking LeBlanc down with me! Or force him to use his flash! I’m going to get something out of this! He sent Orianna’s Ball towards the LeBlanc, then slowed and damaged her with Command: Dissonance. But before he could pull off the rest of what he was planning, his screen turned grey. The final tick of Ignite had burned up the last of his Orianna’s health.

《First blood!》

The Jarvan IV was still standing there. He watched the LeBlanc jump away from his flag toss combo and just stood there confused. Then he watched the LeBlanc jump back and seamlessly flow into a combo that led to the death of the Orianna. He didn’t really know what happened, the entire exchange was too fast for him to follow. But he did notice that the Orianna had gotten some damage in before she died. This was his chance! The LeBlanc had less than half her health left and she was standing right next to him! He hit her with an auto attack that was empowered from the Red Buff.

LeBlanc’s health dropped below 30% which triggered her passive skill–Mirror Image. Two LeBlancs materialized out of thin air. One stood idly by in the middle of the minion wave, right next to Jarvan IV. The other LeBlanc ran down, towards the bottom side of the river and bot lane. The Jarvan IV was too clever for something like this. He’d never be fooled by lies and deceit. Without stopping to consider things for a second, the Jarvan IV decided that the LeBlanc standing right next to him was a fake and pursued the one that was running away.

A long second later, Lin Feng had the real LeBlanc, the one that had stood idly next to the Jarvan IV in the middle of the lane, move up towards the top part of the river and top lane. When Luo Tianming saw this, he finally lost it. For the first time this game, he opened his mouth and loudly cursed, “You dumbass! Are you fucking blind or something? The real one is heading top. Fucking hell…” How can someone be this bad? Why do I always have to play with these idiots? It’s so easy to tell which one is the real one…

Lin Feng took a detour around his jungle, enjoying the scenery, and returned back to the safety of his outer tower. He’d picked up first blood and kept his Flash. This was a huge win! “Man, my LeBlanc is really good!” he happily muttered to himself. His voice was barely audible. Quiet enough that aside from himself, no one heard it. That was probably for the best. If Luo Tianming had heard him, he would’ve probably passed out from anger.

Ouyang, Ren Rou, and Yang Fan all stared at their screen slack-jawed.

“What the fucking fiddlesticks was that? This is still Lin Feng playing, right? He’s that good? That play was so fucking sick that even Lux’s panties would be soaked! Lin Feng is slick!” Ouyang stammered.

Ren Rou was so shocked that she didn’t even bother smacking Ouyang for saying something like that. Instead, she exclaimed, “Oh my god! That was amazing!”

Yang Fan was so taken aback he forgot to adjust his crooked glasses. He couldn’t help but mutter, “When Lin Feng told us he was a Challenger… are we sure that wasn’t true?”

✹

With First Blood and a kill in hand, Lin Feng’s LeBlanc was now in a position to completely dictate the pace of mid lane. A LeBlanc needed to get that early advantage and snowball from it. If she could, she’d become an unstoppable force. Then it didn’t matter anymore what anyone else on the opposing team did, she would just rip through them and hard-carry her team to an easy win. Luo Tianming’s primary job in the early game was to make sure this didn’t happen, which he had failed at. He not only handed Lin Feng a kill, he also gave away an entire minion wave’s worth of experience and gold. Luo Tianming had gotten himself into a terrible predicament. Now his purpose in the game had changed. What he needed to do was distract and restrain Lin Feng’s LeBlanc as much as possible so the rest of his team could salvage the situation. So after reviving in the fountain, he quickly teleported back to lane using the summoner spell Teleport.

Lin Feng, on the other hand, had gone back to base to spend the gold he’d gotten from killing the Orianna on items. He then closed the shop and had his LeBlanc walk back to mid lane. He was in a great mood and started planning out how he would play the lane next. Hmm. What to do, what to do? Should I kill Orianna two more times? 

Unfortunately, a good mood wasn’t exactly deadly. And kills didn’t come just because you wanted them. Luo Tianming was still a Diamond 3 player with excellent instincts, deep game knowledge, and map awareness. Despite the pressure that Lin Feng put on him, Luo Tianming managed to avoid dying again.

“Ah, if I had ignite, it would’ve been another kill…” Lin Feng said regretfully after forcing the Orianna back to base for a second time in just as many minutes. But although he didn’t pick up the kill, he did continue to increase his advantage over the Orianna. She could barely step into lane, and the two times she tried to last hit a minion, he’d forced her back to base. Luo Tianming could do nothing but try and soak up experience from underneath the safety of his tower. But he had fallen too far behind in both experience and gold and was no longer a match for Lin Feng’s LeBlanc. Luo Tianming had lost the lane.

As bad as the game was going for Luo Tianming, it could’ve been much worse. If the Blue team’s jungler, Rek’Sai, had come to gank mid then his Orianna would have died again. But the Rek’Sai was busy helping another lane, though not necessarily his own team. Five minutes and forty seconds into the game, the game announcer’s voice rang out from bottom lane.

《An ally has been slain!》 

《Double kill!》

Rek’Sai had roamed to bot and failed the gank. The Tristana and Leona duo had somehow managed to turn the gank around, killing both Rek’Sai and Kalista. Red bottom lane’s duo was doing great for themselves!

Lin Feng’s eyes lit up. Bot lane’s losing? That’s great!

“… moment!”

Everyone in the room paused for a second, waiting to see what would happen next. They saw no reason to stop the next game in the tryouts. Unless there was something important that was about to be brought to light…

“Just… wait… for… a… bit!”

The person yelling had to push through the crowd to get to the front. No one wanted to give up their spot by moving after they’d seen Tang Bingyao’s spectacular Draven plays. They didn’t want to risk missing out on more amazing plays or the chance to watch another fantastic player.

“Wait a moment!”

The person yelling and forcing his way through the crowd all the way to where Ouyang was standing, it was Luo Tianming! He had vanished after being disgraced in his game, and no one had noticed because all of the attention was on Tang Bingyao. Luo Tianming had slunk off into the shadows, but decided now was the moment to make a truly dramatic reappearance.

Ouyang turned to Luo Tianming. What does this fucker want now? The interruption annoyed him. The unnecessary drama annoyed him. More than that though, Luo Tianming irritated the shit out of him. It didn’t start out that way, his first impression of this first year was pretty good. This guy was a real Diamond 3 player! That was impressive. All of that changed after the last game. This asshole spent so much time showing off before the game started, flexing his rank on everyone. But he spent more time at the fountain respawning than actually playing once the game started! The esports club team only needed one ad-carry, and Tang Bingyao locked in on that position with her kickass Draven in the previous game.

It wasn’t just the showing off and poor gameplay that made Ouyang want to gag every time he saw Luo Tianming. Fucker also keeps hitting on every single girl here! He even tried walking over to Ren Rou, smiling like his shit don’t stink. What a jackass! Yes, it was true. Luo Tianming hadn’t just been trying to impress Tang Bingyao. He’d also been trying to approach Ren Rou. This especially was unforgivable to Ouyang. You walk around thinking you’re good looking? Well, I have news for you. Those looks don’t mean anything here! You should be looking at how you got your ass handed to you by Tang Tang instead of looking at yourself in the mirror. Also, you’re not that good looking! Ouyang wanted nothing more than for Luo Tianming to vanish and never be seen again. And yet, he was here! Yelling and interrupting the tryouts.

“What do you want now?”

“I want another chance! Let me play again!” Luo Tianming demanded.

Ouyang stared at him, unblinking.

“Look. Listen. I just got unlucky last game, okay? I wasn’t even playing seriously! Just give me one more chance. Please?” Luo Tianming begged.

“Unlucky? Didn’t play seriously?” Ouyang snorted. “Aren’t you embarrassed to be saying shit like that? Don’t you have any shame? Do you really believe those flimsy excuses are why you lost the game? You want to tell me that it had nothing to do with Tang Bingyao just being way better than you?”

Everyone had seen what happened last game. Tang Bingyao had completely outclassed Luo Tianming in every facet of the game. The crowd could see how deeply each death cut into Luo Tianming’s ego. His reactions spoke volumes. That frustration and anger wasn’t something a person who wasn’t playing seriously would feel. Luo Tianming clearly had trouble accepting reality.

Luo Tianming’s face flushed red, but he kept pushing. “I deserve a second chance! My support was bad last game. It was his fault that we lost! Now that I think of it, the Jungler wasn’t great either. Zero map awareness!”

Luo Tianming paused, gathering his thoughts again. He could see this line of protest wasn’t working and he needed to pivot to something else, “I know! How about I play a solo lane like mid this time? Then I can show you how good I really am!” A peculiar glint appeared in Luo Tianming’s eyes as he turned to Lin Feng. “You’re going to play mid, right?” He then turned back to Ouyang and flashed a bright smile. “He’s a Challenger! I saw it myself on the sign-up sheet. When I beat him, that should qualify me for the club’s mid position, right?”

When Luo Tianming mentioned playing Mid and Lin Feng, the whole thing became blindingly clear to Ouyang. It was too obvious to miss. The only reason Luo Tianming wanted to join the esports club was for the prestige of being on an official team. Initially, he figured that he was a shoe-in for a spot as a Diamond 3 ad-carry main. But in a twist that he did not expect or predict, there was someone else who was just as good as he was. Maybe even a little better. Luo Tianming would never admit it out loud, but he knew that Tang Bingyao had beaten him fair and square. If he tried to push for a rematch against her for the ad-carry spot, it probably wouldn’t happen. And even if it did, he didn’t know if he could actually win. So instead of trying to get a rematch for the ad-carry position, he chose to try for his second best position. The mid lane.

Most of the time, Luo Tianming played ad-carry. But he also spent enough time developing his skills as a mid laner. He wasn’t as good at it as he was at ad-carry, but he could play at the level of a Diamond 5 mid laner. And, more importantly, he would be up against Lin Feng. The “Challenger” who didn’t even know his own summoner name! He’d noticed that Lin Feng was on good terms with several members of the board of the esports club. This made him the perfect target. All Luo Tianming had to do was make his request loud enough so that everyone in the classroom could hear him. That would put Ren Rou, Ouyang, and the other members of the board in position without a leg to stand on. They couldn’t take Lin Feng’s side in this, because why would they need to protect a Challenger from someone who was clearly not as good at the game? If they refused to let him play, he could complain that the club board was being unfair and trying to force their friend into a spot he did not deserve.

Luo Tianming’s cunning play had worked, the dart had landed where it was meant to. Once the topic shifted to Lin Feng, Ouyang frowned. “That was a typo. We were going to correct it later.”

“It wasn’t a typo…” Lin Feng muttered.

Ouyang shot Lin Feng a glare. “Goddamn! Can you please shut up for once?”

Luo Tianming immediately latched onto this opportunity. “See! He even says so himself. Tell me, what’s the harm in letting me play against him?”

This had blown up and gone beyond reasonable proportions. It got to the point where even Yang Fan felt that he needed to get involved. He was responsible for the technical aspects of the tryouts and providing technical support. He was the man behind the scenes keeping the whole show running, keeping the train running on the tracks. And right now, it was off the rails. He had plenty of other things to take care, a never-ending list of things that required his attention. But the commotion was loud enough that he could no longer ignore it. He walked over and adjusted his glasses, annoyed. “So what? That still isn’t an excuse to let you play twice. That wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.”

Luo Tianming confidently smiled. “Of course, of course, you’re right. I agree. Everything should be fair. It’s just that when I looked at the sign-up sheet earlier, I saw that only three students were Diamond or higher. Since I’m a Diamond 3 and I didn’t get to show off my skills in the first match, I think it’s only fair I get another chance.”

Luo Tianming did bring up a valid point. Plenty of low rank players were looking to join the esports club, but only a few high rank players had signed up. So, the several board members of the esports club, including Ouyang, Yang Fan, and Ren Rou exchanged glances. “Alright, give us a minute. We’re going to put tryouts on hold while we have an emergency meeting.” Ren Rou said, finally caving. Then she and the other members of the club board walked out.

Meanwhile, Lin Feng and Tang Bingyao stood at the side like none of this had anything to do with them. Tang Bingyao tossed a glance at Luo Tianming, then turned to Lin Feng and said, “That guy is really annoying.” It was strange to hear her say these words. She was usually more reserved but Luo Tianming had really rubbed her the wrong way.

“Eh? Really? I don’t think he’s that bad…” Lin Feng scratched his head.

Tang Bingyao shot Lin Feng a doubtful gaze. “You’re not mad?”

“Of course not. Why would I be mad?” Lin Feng shook his head. He then paused and smiled, his eyes lighting up. “The stronger the opponent, the more I’ll get to test my skills and show off as I beat them! What could be better than that?”

Tang Bingyao’s jaw dropped. She was speechless. She’d finally understood. The only thing on Lin Feng’s mind was to find a better sandbag to beat down! Once she figured out what Lin Feng was thinking, a spark of sympathy bloomed in her heart for Luo Tianming. It was in his best interest if the club board rejected his request to play against Lin Feng. He had no idea what was coming for him.

✹

Ren Rou led the several board members of the esports club back into the classroom where Lin Feng and the others were waiting for them. Luo Tianming immediately looked over, hopeful. Ren Rou nodded at him and said, “Fine, we’ll give you your second chance.”

Luo Tianming flashed what he believed to be a dashing smile. “Thanks! I just knew a pretty club president like yourself would come to a fair decision!”

Ren Rou shot Luo Tianming a cold glare. “Don’t thank me just yet. If you don’t win, you’re done here. You’re never going to be allowed anywhere near the esports club.”

Luo Tianming barely even heard the warning at the end. His face lit up with joy. He gave Ren Rou a wink and said, “Don’t worry, prez! I’ll show you how good I really am. Just watch me!”

While Ren Rou talked to Luo Tianming, Yang Fan and Ouyang walked over to Lin Feng with worried looks on their faces. “Hey bro, you sure you’ll be ok? That guy is Diamond 3…” Ouyang asked.

“Hehe! Don’t worry! He’s going to get rekt! Just watch the fun!” Lin Feng laughed.

Ouyang patted Lin Feng on the shoulder. “I’m liking the confidence, bro. Just play it safe, though. Wait for the jungler to come in for the gank. You’ll be fine. Oh! Go for a farm and scale champion. Someone like Ziggs. Even a Diamond 3 can’t do shit back!”

Lin Feng scratched his head. “Uh, I have my own plan.” He’d already decided what champion he was going to play. Since he was going to go all out, he’d play his best champion! Her skills and his playstyle made for a perfect match to pick off enemies and carry!

✹

After the slight delay caused by Luo Tianming, both teams found their seats behind their monitors and joined the blind pick lobby. Everyone locked in their champion of choice and picked their Summoner Spells. Then, the lobby timer hit zero and the client opened up. Finally, with the loading screen open, everyone could see the lineup for both teams.

On the blue team, led by the self-proclaimed Challenger Lin Feng playing LeBlanc in mid lane, Darius in the top lane, Rek’Sai prowling through the jungle, and the deadly combo of Kalista and Braum in bottom lane!

On the red team, led by Diamond 3 Luo Tianming playing Orianna in the mid lane, Rumble would be up in top lane, Jarvan IV shredding through the jungle with his lance, and last but not least down in bottom lane were Tristana and Leona ready to show true teamplay!

Luo Tianming had picked Orianna, an overall balanced champion in every stage of the game. Her auto attacks were empowered with magic damage, making it relatively easy compared to other common mid lane champions to farm minions. But the bulk of her damage, and all of her crowd control, came from her ball—aptly called the Ball.

This was the complete opposite of the champion Lin Feng chose. When Luo Tianming noticed the champion icon above Lin Feng’s summoner’s name, his lips curved into a sneer. LeBlanc? You idiot… You wanna show off with her? You think it’s that easy? You think I’ll give you some kills so you can snowball? Ha! Idiot. I’ll make sure you won’t get your early game lead. LeBlanc is useless once she gets behind in early game. You’re not going to be able to use LeBlanc to pop off and blow people up mid game! I’ll show everyone how useless you are! The scene of his grand victory already played through his mind. He wouldn’t just settle for beating Lin Feng. No, he would completely crush him! I’ll make them all see how good I really am! Hehe. He was filled with anticipation.

If only Luo Tianming knew what happened the last time Lin Feng played LeBlanc. If only he’d known that Lin Feng had completely destroyed a Diamond 1 mid-main while playing LeBlanc.

Somewhere off in the distance, Aqua Wraith felt a chill down his spine the minute that Lin Feng locked in on LeBlanc. Aqua Wraith was still one of Su Xue’s most loyal viewers. But he was confused as to why he suddenly felt like someone had walked over his grave.

《Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!》

Two minutes into the game and the first minion wave from both teams had arrived at the middle of all the lanes and clashed. Over in mid lane, Luo Tianming discovered that Lin Feng was much better than he expected in their first exchange of pokes. Every time he tried to attack the LeBlanc with Orianna’s Ball using the skill Command: Attack, she easily sidestepped it. What made laning even more difficult for Luo Tianming was that Lin Feng played his LeBlanc hyper-aggressively. At Level 1 he’d learned the skill Distortion, which he used to jump onto Orianna and deal splash damage. Lin Feng did this every single time the skill went off cooldown. After a single minute of this intense laning phase against Lin Feng, Luo Tianming wiped the sweat from his forehead. Wasn’t this guy supposed to be all talk?

Lin Feng’s playstyle with LeBlanc only got more aggressive after reaching level 2. He used the level to learn the skill Sigil of Malice. This skill allowed LeBlanc to mark enemy champions, minions and jungle monsters. If LeBlanc managed to hit a marked target with another one of her spells, the mark was consumed and dealt additional damage. He kept marking the Orianna with a Sigil of Malice and jumping on her with Distortion, piling the damage on. If Luo Tianming didn’t watch out, he’d soon find all of his health whittled away.

Dammit! Isn’t he supposed to be bad at the game? I thought he only knew how to brag! Why is he so good! Luo Tianming cursed. This was starting to look like it would be a difficult game. Another one… But just then, a chance presented itself. A ping from his jungler, Jarvan IV, in the mid lane. He was coming for a gank! Luo Tianming’s eyes lit up. There’s my chance!