The League

CH.02

The other player didn't seem to care about that bit of lost HP. May swiftly began to slay an incoming wave of minions.

In the blink of an eye, she rose to Level 2 and gained her Q skill, Sigil of Malice'. She accurately predicted her opponent's movements and used this skill to root her opponent in place, after which she used her Q skill again to shave off more of her opponent's HP.

This time, her opponent's HP dropped by 30%.

The fighter seemed to sense that his enemy was stronger than him. He didn't dare emerge from beneath his tower.

The two of them coexisted peacefully for a while, farming minions and leveling up without harassing each other.

The peace lasted until the three-minute mark, at which point May's champion became the first on the field to light up with the glow indicating a promotion.

Her LeBlanc had reached Level 6.

As in League of Legends, reaching Level 6 was a critical turning point. Every champion in League of Legends had three basic skills, and at Level 6 they gained their ultimate move—their ult. LeBlanc Ult was named Mimic. When activated, Leblanc can cast a mimicked version of her recently used abilities, applying similar effects. However, it inflicts modified magic damage. LeBlanc's W skill, ‘Mimic Sigil of Malice', and her Q skill, ‘Mimic Ethereal Chains', were perfect complements to this Ult. When used together to good effect, the three skills could wreak havoc.

This was an extremely basic combo for mages. May had grown familiar with it a long time ago.

The enemy fighter was still cowering under his tower. May hid in the bush on her side of the lane, waiting for the opportunity to strike. At that moment, a system notification rang out in her ears—

'First Blood!"

"Double Kill!"

A team fight had suddenly broken out in the bottom lane.

The pair of lovebirds on their team had been butchered by an enemy assassin!

Mark fled swiftly, making it back to their base in critical health.

A barrage of messages popped up in their team chat—

[Her Heartbeat]: Can you noobs not play ranked? @[Little Mark]

[His Heartbeat]: You obviously must know you suck, so can you please not drag us down when we're trying to play ranked? A.I. matches are better suited for you.

[Her Heartbeat]: The opposing support knows all about teamwork, but our support just knows how to run away, huh?

[His Heartbeat]: Stupid support! Let's forfeit at the six-minute mark and hurry on to the next game.

When Mark saw those hurtful words aimed at him, his expression became a little uneasy.

He bit his lower lip as he returned to the fountain to recover his health, then headed back to the bottom lane.

The couple continued to insult him.

[Her Heartbeat]: We're up ahead fighting a whole team. Are you just going to stand there and watch the show? Aren't you ashamed, of selling out your teammates like this?

[His Heartbeat]: Besides running away with your tail between your legs, what else do you know how to do?

[Her Heartbeat]: You aren't some cowardly, timid little gay, are you? All you know how to do is run?

[His Heartbeat]: Seriously. If you just give us some heals, we wouldn't die. You're being such a coward, just look at yourself!

[Her Heartbeat]: I suggest you uninstall the game. Stupid ****.

The two of them were getting harder and harder to listen to.

May's biggest flaw was that she always protected the weak. If those two had been dissing her, she might not have cared. But they were making her little brother's eyes go red. That was something she couldn't tolerate.

May looked at Mark. "You won't fight back?"Mark just nods his head.

May raised her eyebrows. "…is that so?"

In the next instant, she let her hands fly across the keyboard. She tore into those two—

[It's May]: All you know how to do after dying is blame your support. Don't you have any idea where your skills stand?

[It's May]: What? Do you want my support to be killed with you?

[It's May]: You're lagging behind the enemy in gold, yet you're still stubbornly charging into team fights. Your skills are all on cooldown, your handling is all over the place. It's honestly hard to watch.

[It's May]: Hurry and just shut up. Go AFK by the fountain and watch. I'll take care of my support.

Those four messages popped up in the blink of an eye. The couple were momentarily rendered speechless. Their brains couldn't keep up with the speed of May's hands.

May said, "Little Mark, come find me on the top lane."

Mark remained frozen for a second, then instantly rushed into the jungle and scampered up towards the top lane without thinking twice. At that time, their top lane minions were already advancing. The enemy fighter really couldn't resist sticking his neck out to farm some minions. But before he could kill a single one, LeBlanc's E "Ethereal Chains" skill cast. When casting Ethereal Chains, Leblanc will fling an illusory chain in a target direction, latching onto the first enemy unit it hits. It will then inflict magic damage while forming a tether between Leblanc and the enemy unit for 1.5 seconds, during which the target also gets revealed. If the tether doesn’t get broken by the set duration, the target will receive bonus magic damage, and will also be revealed and rooted for 1.5 seconds. beneath his feet. Followed by Leblanc's W "Distortion" and Leblanc's Q "Sigil of Malice"

The fighter's HP plummeted, quickly zeroing out.

A message popped up on the screen—

[It's May] killed [Prince]!

When Little Mark arrived, he was just in time to see the fallen fighter lying in a pool of his blood.

He looked over at his sister with some disbelief on his face, but he found that May's expression was perfectly calm.

After taking down the enemy fighter, May ventured into the jungle to harvest some resources. Then she returned to their base to restore her health and purchase new equipment. When she returned to the top lane, the enemy fighter was farming minions again. May swiftly threw out a WQREQ combo and knocked the fighter down once more.

[It's May] killed [Prince]!

The couple had finally come back to their senses. They were busily dissing It's May in the global chat now, filling up the chat box with endless strings of censored characters. May and her previous eighteen generations of ancestors were all insulted. Their other teammate, [Dumpster], had adopted a ‘hear no evil' attitude. He remained calm and stayed out of the fight, not supporting either side or bickering with any of them. Ever since the start of the game, he had been minding his own business in the jungle.

May didn't waste time arguing with the couple either. She focused on the game.

The same message popped up on the screen again and again—

[It's May] killed [Prince]!

[It's May] killed [Prince]!

By the five-minute mark, May had cleared a path down the entire top lane.

The opposing team realized that things were looking bleak. They all rushed to group up on the top lane. May preemptively hid out in the bush near the base tower on the top lane, while Mark hid with her and continuously replenished her HP.

All five opponents passed right before her eyes in a single-file line.

These newbies didn't know how to keep some space between themselves, and they didn't know how to use their skills to scope out the nearby bush. They marched straight into the thicket.

May instantly hit a few keys—

She fluidly executed that three-skill combo within one second. Her precise predictions of the opposing team's positions allowed her to instantaneously turn all five enemies into death. May's Leblanc was wearing a complete set of high-level equipment, and she had already built up a dominating gold advantage. They were struck, and their team was immediately wiped out!

A stream of system notifications flooded the screen—

[It's May] killed [Prince]!

[It's May] killed [Lemon], double kill!

[It's May] killed [Snow Maiden], triple kill!

"Legendary"

[It's May] killed [Eve], quadruple kill!

"Legendary"

[It's May] killed [Rippling], pentakill!

"Ace!"

"Wipeout!"

The couple fell silent.

What the hell???

They had planned on forfeiting the match when the option popped up at the six-minute mark but before the sixth minute of the game…

They were winning!

They were winning?!

The couple had been too engrossed in talking sh*t in the chat. They didn't even understand how the top lane had been cleared.

May swiftly sold all her equipment and bought the Magic damage weapon with the highest stat. She led her minions forward and started to attack the crystal at the enemy base.

While auto-attacking the crystal, she typed out a message

[We're going to win. Happy?]

The couple remained silent.

Happy??? While they were busy swearing up a storm, their teammates dragged them to victory. They weren't happy about that at all!

[It's May]: I led my support to victory. Does it have anything to do with the two of you?

[It's May]: You die once and spend the next five minutes complaining. Are you playing this game with your mouth?

[It's May]: Anyway, bye. See you never.

She typed at the speed of light, and she timed her three-hit attack perfectly. Just as that ‘see you never' appeared on the screen, the enemy team's crystal exploded with a big boom!

The game ended. Golden letters spelling out

‘VICTORY'

Appeared at the center of the screen.

The chat interface was disabled; it was no longer possible to continue typing.

Even if the couple wanted to lodge more complaints, they had no way of making themselves heard.

This was May's ‘hitting you in the face when you can't hit back' technique.

Mark was speechless.

He twisted his head around to stare at his Sister, with disbelief written all over his face. "Sis, when did you become so powerful? Didn't you just start playing this game yesterday?"

May was thick-skinned. She deadpanned, "I may have only been playing for a day, but I've realized that I have a sort of natural talent for gaming. Thanks for pulling me into this pit."

The aggrievement Mark felt after being insulted had already dissipated. He looked at his Sister with adoration in his eyes. "Sis, you're so strong. Can you take me up to Diamond? I've been stuck in Gold for a month already."

"Sure," May agreed right away.

The only problem was that her account only had five heroes unlocked so far. They were the fighter, assassin, mage, marksman, and support that came unlocked by default. Of all the mage-type heroes, she only had the Leblanc unlocked. This kind of champion, which flourished in the late-game, after gearing up with top-tier equipment, wasn't suitable for carrying someone up the ranks. Plus, too many new players knew how to play these default heroes. If another player chose Leblanc, May would be left in the awkward position of having no heroes to choose from. It would be better to pick up a lesser-known hero.

"Wait for me for a minute, I'll go buy a hero." May pulled up the in-store game.

"Sis, I'll buy it for you," Mark actively offered.

May didn't hold back. "Alright, then send me the Azir."

"Azir?" Mark sounded confused.

He turned and whispered, "Sis, are you sure you want to buy this one? It's one of the most difficult champions to play. Looks super complicated." "Just buy him," May said. "Everyone else will be running into this Champion for the first time too. This way, I can stand at the same starting line as them."League of Legends had over a hundred playable heroes. Professional players had already studied the older heroes thoroughly, learning their play styles inside and out. May wouldn't be able to get very creative with them.

May had taken notes on all the heroes. In her spreadsheet, she'd divided the mid-lane heroes into three categories—

Artillery mages, assassin mages, and utility mages.

Artillery mages were mid-lane heroes who dealt extremely powerful magic damage. Under normal circumstances, just one skill combo from these heroes could move heaven and earth. In team fights, these heroes would act as the main DPS. But the shortcomings of these mages were very obvious as well—they were slow, they had no displacement crowd control skills, and they died easily. To stand there and dole out huge amounts of damage, they needed teammates who could create the ideal environment for them.

Assassin mages were well-suited for seeking out opportunities to initiate team fights. They could launch sneak attacks to take out the opposing team's carry, or they could mercilessly take heads after their teammates got the enemies down to low health. Assassin mages were known for being agile, but hard to operate perfectly. When used to good effect, they were explosively strong. But they were very susceptible to crowd control skills; their performance depended heavily on their player's strategic awareness of the field and hand speed.

As for utility mages, they typically filled gaps in team comps when it was necessary to field a mid-laner with high survivability and lots of crowd-control skills. They were in charge of controlling the tide of the battle during team fights, acting almost like second support. When a team ran a utility mage in the middle lane, most of the DPS came from the jungler and marksman.

May could play all sorts of mages, but she liked assassin mages the most because assassin mages could take the initiative to seek out opportunities to turn the tide of the battle. He skimmed through her spreadsheet, then said, "Akali, Katarina, and Fizz. I'll take these three for now. I won't get a chance to play them all if I get too many."

"Okay."Mark looked up the heroes May had named and found that they were all magic-based assassins with a high difficulty rating. He couldn't help but ask, "Sis, why are you buying the hardest ones?"

"The more difficult a hero is to play, the higher their potential is. They're more suitable for setting the rhythm of a game," May said while scrolling through her cousin's battle records. It was no wonder Mark had been stuck in Gold for so long. He played support in every match, and sometimes received scathing lectures from his teammates. It would have been weirder if he'd managed to climb higher in the ranks.

Her cousin didn't truly understand how support was meant to be played in high-ranked games. Based on what he'd observed during the last game, May found that her little cousin always exercised extreme caution while playing. Maybe that had something to do with her little cousin's nature. But as long as May personally coached her little cousin in the art of playing support, her cousin could climb to Challenger without any problems. In the future, he at least wouldn't be scolded by his teammates anymore.

"How many support heroes do you have?" Ye Shaoyang asked.

"All of them." Mark opened his list of heroes. "Which ones are better?"

May brushed her nose and silently heaved a sigh. She returned her focus to the game and continued, "You play Sona, and just keep following me later."

"Okay." Mark clicked open Sona's profile and checked the descriptions of the hero's skills. The Maven of the string, Sona, only had a low difficulty rating, making her very suitable for newbies.

Her Q was "Hymp Of Valor", which sends out bolts of sound, dealing magic damage to two nearby enemies, prioritizing champions and monsters. Her W was "Aria of Preservance". Sona plays the Aria of Perseverance, sending out protective melodies, and healing Sona and a nearby wounded ally. Sona gains a temporary aura that grants allies tagged by the zone a temporary shield. Her E was "Song Of Celerity". Sona plays the Song of Celerity, granting nearby allies bonus Move Speed. Sona gains a temporary aura that grants allied champions tagged by the zone bonus Move Speed. Her Ultimate R "Crecendo" Sona plays her ultimate chord, stunning enemy champions and forcing them to dance and dealing magic damage to them. Each rank reduces the base cooldown of Sona's basic ability skills, where an attack power buff for teammates, shields, a hp restoration spell, and an AoE haste spell respectively.

"This is one of the most powerful support," May said. "Keep that attack buff on me at all times. When you see I'm out of hp, use your W to replenish it for me. As for the other skills, listen for my commands before you use them."

"Got it!" Mark paused for a second, looking at the white marker in the upper left corner of the hero's portrait. "Sis, I've never played this Champion before. My proficiency level is still at zero. I can't participate in ranked matches."

"My proficiency with my new heroes is also at zero. We'll just play a few games against A.I. teams first," May said as she opened up the team formation interface. She pulled her little cousin into her team again, then headed off to the training game mode to play a few games against the computer.

Games against the A.I. didn't add or subtract from ranking points, but they did add to a player's proficiency with a champion. It was the perfect place for players to play a new champion. After a few rounds of A.I. games, players can hit a proficiency of one hundred with their champion and go on to play in ranked matches with that character.

May also took this as an opportunity to familiarize herself with her new Champion's skills. She played a few rounds with Azir and quickly discovered that this Champion really did suit her well.

This champion's Q skill, "Conquering Sand ", sends all Sand Soldiers toward a location. Sand Soldiers deal magic damage to enemies they pass through and apply a slow for 1 second.

Azir's W " Arise", summons a Sand Soldier to attack nearby targets for him, replacing his basic attack against targets within the soldier's range. Their attacks deal magic damage to enemies in a line. Arise! also passively grants attack speed to Azir and his Sand Soldiers.

Azir's E "Shifting Sand", shields himself briefly and dashes to one of his Sand Soldiers, damaging enemies. If he hits an enemy champion, he instantly readies a new Sand Soldier for deployment and halts his dash.

Azir's Ultimate R, "Emperor's Divide", summons a wall of soldiers that charge forward, knocking back and damaging enemies.

Didn't this hero perfectly fit the mold of a multi-target mage?

The summoned sands deployed by the Q skill could penetrate shields, and the E skill could allow the hero to dash places with a sand summons. The WQE combo could be used for three forms of movement. It allowed the hero to give chase, assassinate, and flee—it was extremely versatile. Combined with equipment that could reduce the cooldown times of these moves, a very skilled player with fast hands.

Theoretically, Azir was the type of hero that grew stronger the longer he remained in play. As long as he could set a rhythm, he would be unstoppable! He would have to pay close attention to his positioning. If he were to be stunned or otherwise immobilized by the enemy, he would die very easily.

After playing a few rounds against the computer, May began to understand this champion's skills.

This kind of challenging Champion was exactly the type she liked. The ones that were hard to play were the ones that could truly shine.

May stretched and said, "Come on. Let's try a real battle."

Mark queued up for a ranked game with her.

During the preparation stage, May instantly chose [Azir]. Mark followed her instructions and chose [Sona]. Soon enough, the match began. Mark obediently followed his sister to the middle lane.

Less than two minutes into the game, the mid-lane [Azir] got a solo kill on the enemy mage.

Immediately after that, she started to race around the map.

At the four-minute mark, she wandered into the bottom lane and killed the opposing bottom lane duo. While there, she destroys the other team's outer tower.

At the five-minute mark, she drifted up to the top lane and killed the opposing top laner. She knocked down the outer tower on the top lane as well, then marched into the enemy's jungle to harvest resources.

At the ten-minute mark, a group fight broke out in the middle lane. Azir took three kills!

The other players were all baffled. They could only think that this Azir was super powerful!

She could get a kill no matter where she went. She was like a walking, human-shaped weapon of war!

May's teammates all started typing in the chat.

[Is the champion that strong? I want to buy one too.]

[Is this a gaming God on a new alt account? Carry me, please!]

[How do you play the champion? Please teach me!]

May traversed the whole map and quickly established a dominating gold advantage over her opponents. In the blink of an eye, she became the best-equipped player on the field. She seized the perfect opportunity to wipe out her enemies in a team kill.

Little Mark stared at what his sister said about natural talent… looked like it was all true.

May had only practiced with this champion for an hour. And she could already rampage across the map, freely killing enemy champions.

However, although Little Mark was filled up with surprise and admiration, May didn't take much joy in this victory—the difference in skill level between her and the others was simply too big. Winning a silver-ranked match was no challenge for her, and beating a group of newbies was nothing to be proud of.

In order to improve, she had to play against the best.

May silently make up her mind—

She needed to reach the Challenger rank as quickly as possible, and he needed to charge into the national leaderboard with champion Azir. Only then would she be able to match up against the world's top players and attract the attention of major esports teams.

She wanted to find out exactly how wide the gap was between gaming masters of this world.

11:00 p.m. Team Dock's HQ.

When Captain Blaze reached Training Room 1, his teammates were already sitting in front of their computers and doing their daily drills. As he passed behind Coach Yap, he saw that the coach just so happened to have the profile page of the [Azir] Champion on his monitor. Coach Yap was the starting mid-laner in the first generation of Team Dock. He was a very mild-mannered person who'd stayed on as the head coach after retiring as a player. Because he used to be a professional player himself, his coaching philosophy was different from that of many other coaches—he prioritized each player's own will, and he didn't put on airs just because he held the title of ‘coach'. He rarely forced players to sit out as benchwarmers, unless a player truly made an egregious mistake and remained unrepentant about it.

Every time a new hero was added to the game, Coach Yap personally practiced with that hero first. He believed that coaches couldn't just be experts on game theory. They had to know each of the heroes inside and out, in order to choose the best lineup for every game. As a result, out of all the head coaches in the league, Coach Yap was the strongest player.

Captain Blaze stopped behind him and leaned down to look at his computer monitor. "How strong is that champion looking?"

"Should be a mid-liner," Coach Yap said. "This hero is a bit hard to operate well. His displacement skill has a very short range. If the player's control isn't spectacular, it's easy to hit a wall. They can do decent damage in group fights or one-on-one matchups. Very good versatility. His attack power is bound to grow explosively in early and late-game. The more he kills, the stronger he'll become."

"A kill-oriented Champion?" Captain Blaze took a seat next to the coach. He booted up his computer as he continued, "This champion has been officially released on the tournament server.

Coach Yap smiled and said, "As soon as he officially goes live, it's very likely that this hero will basically live on the ban list. But we should prepare for all possibilities. Just in case our opponents don't ban him, we should practice some team comps using him."

Captain Blaze nodded. "I'll play some ranked matches with you tomorrow and get a feel for this champion."

Professional players had to familiarize themselves with this champion in advance. Otherwise, how would they cope if their opponents chose this champion that had been added to the tournament server?

Therefore, every team's players and coaches-not just the ones belonging to Team Dock's—would definitely practice with this champion.

This was precisely the "starting line" May had spoken of.

May continued to play ranked games with her little cousin, using the Azir. Choosing a champion that was well-suited to her had an obvious benefit to the development of her own skills. Even if her teammates were useless, she could still carry them.

After four hours, she'd won fifteen games. And she has been named the MVP in every single one of those games. Each win in their winning streak granted more and more points. In the blink of an eye, May's little cousin Mark had reached the rank of Platinum I. May had also shot straight up from Iron III to Gold I.

The game's ranking system granted more points for consecutive wins. As long as a player kept winning, they would continue to gain bonus points. Five consecutive wins granted one star, ten granted two, and fifteen consecutive wins granted three extra stars. Players could ride a winning streak straight up the rankings, zooming upwards like they were riding on a rocket.

When she saw that it was already past midnight, May rubbed her aching shoulders and turned around. "Let's get some sleep. We can pick this up tomorrow."

She had already been sitting in front of a computer for nine hours by then.

Mark was already tired. He exited the game and turned back to look at May. "Sis, you're really good at this game. Way better than my classmates. They used to play with me, and we would always lose. You carried me straight through fifteen consecutive wins."

This little brother was so excited that his cheeks were glowing with a bit of red. "I've never won so many in a row before!"

"How long have you been playing the game?" May asked.

"Four Months," Mark said. "After my college entrance exams, I made an account with some classmates. Some of them are already Diamond-ranked. I was the only one stuck in Gold. They said I was dragging them down, so they didn't want to play with me anymore."

"Do you want to get to Challenger rank?" May suddenly asked.

"Huh?" Mark completely froze up. He'd played for two months without managing to get out of Gold, and he was still frequently insulted by his teammates. In his mind, even the Diamond rank was too far out of his reach. The [Challenger] rank that was reserved for players at the pinnacle of the game was totally out of the question for him. None of his classmates had become Challenger.

Even his strongest classmate, a powerful player, was stuck in Diamond I. That classmate couldn't win the promotion games he needed to clear in order to get into the Master rank.

"Challenger?" Mark echoed dubiously. He scratched at his head. "Can I really do it?"

"If I say you can, then you can." May smiled at her little cousin and patted him on the shoulder. "Starting tomorrow, I'll teach you a bit more about game sense. As long as you know how to protect your teammates, it'll be a breeze for you to rank up with me."

Mark was speechless. He felt like he'd grabbed hold of the pie in the sky.

He had grown up as a meek and obedient boy. He'd always been an outstanding student in his teachers' eyes, but he was always dissed when he played this game. His self-confidence had taken more than a few hits.

He truly didn't know much about this game. So, even if people said extremely rude and ugly things to him, he didn't feel like he had any right to talk back. Today, Sis helped him shoot down some people who were swearing at him. That alone was a huge relief to Mark. And then Sis May took him on a fifteen-game winning streak! For the first time ever, Mark truly experienced what it was like to let the game get his heart pumping. He finally knew how cool it felt to win!

Mark had already become May's devoted little fanboy. He gazed adoringly at his sister and asked, "If I learn from you, I can reach the Challenger rank?"

"That's right," May said. "We'll double queue again tomorrow, and this cousin of yours will take you to the Challenger rank."

"Awesome!" Mark cheered.

"Let's go. Go shower first, then sleep."

Mark also turned off his laptop. The smile on his face was glowing even more brilliantly than before. "Mm. Good night, sis."

May picked up the white dog that was napping on the sofa. She stroked its fur and got it settled in the dog bed on the balcony, before turning to take a shower and head to bed. That was an exhausting Game.