League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“I know of a shortcut that can allow us to directly enter the second seed and participate in the pre-season. As long as we participate in the pre-season, I have confidence that we can enter the LPL.” Lin Dong said.

“What’s the shortcut?” everyone asked, looking at Lin Dong.

Professional leagues definitely had their rules and regulations as well as ladders to climb. The team that Lin Dong formed was just one of the thousands of teams out there, how could they stand out from the crowd?

The only way was to participate in various competitions. Professional leagues have thresholds, including some third seed competitions. However, if they were to begin from non-professional competitions, it would take a long time before they were able to enter a third seed professional competition.

LPL would start in March of the following year, and out of all the teams in the whole country, only eight teams would be qualified to enter.

The second seed team would amount to about thirty or forty teams, and the third seed teams would be in the hundreds. Non-professional teams would easily amount to thousands.

If their newly formed team wanted to climb step by step, it would require a lot of time. It may not even be possible for them to enter LPL as one of the eight teams next year.

They were different than the other professional teams who needed to climb step by step, they had more experience in big competitions as compared to them. They had the strength and confidence in taking part in world competitions which the others didn’t have, the only thing they lacked was the stepping stone that would allow them to take a short cut up the stairs.

Lin Dong believed that with their skills, they only needed to train two or three months before they would be able to compete with those long term third seed professional teams. Once they reached a certain understanding, they could even compete against second rate teams easily.

They couldn’t be wasting time in the non-professional games, their training time was already so little. It couldn’t be wasted in some non-professional competition, not even third seed competitions.

“What I mean is, we have the experience in competitions. We don’t have to go through those competitions to gain experience again. We just have to train hard and go directly into a second seed competition and stand out from the inside. It will give a massive shock to the audience,” Lin Dong explained.

Da Luo nodded his head in agreement, the few of them had managed to obtain the highest recognition in the E-sports industry before, making their way successfully onto the world’s stage. The competitions within the country weren’t anything to be compared with, there wouldn’t be any stage fright or playing below par in those situations.

In that case, they would forgo the small competitions, using the time to engage in more practice sessions and head directly toward the more heavy-weight competitions!

“Wouldn’t it be too complacent, thinking like that?” Zhou Yan asked. “If possible, we could use some of the competition matches to feel out the strength of the LOL professional teams and measure our own strength. Wouldn’t it be arrogance and ignorance by thinking we own the sky?”

Zhou Yan was a person who was more cautious in nature and he also pondered more in situations like this.

“Zhou, I’m not dismissing what you say, but the funds that we have pooled together are only so much and we can only choose from these two roads in front of us. One is that we start with competitions that offer prize money to win some funds to stabilize the development of our team, but then we definitely won’t make it in time for the coming LPL.” Lin Dong said. “The other is that we rely on our current funds, go straight into pre-season in December, and play our way into LPL. Once we get into LPL, we should have sponsorships and that would solve all our problems.”

“I feel like the step by step is not necessary and the fast route is better.” Da Luo said. “After all, we’re not some half-baked team formed by newbies or rookies.”

If you didn’t have confidence after making it to the world championship, how would you qualify to go against the strong professional teams which were in the current E-sports circle?

You must understand that Team Daemon who had stood at the same placement as their Team Wings in their country were also now the leading team in LOL and they were basically the strongest right now!

Their ex-teammate—Zhao Tinghua was the captain of Team Sky, and their ranking had consistently been in the top three in the country. That being said, it would be hard for them if they were to lower themselves too much!

“I think we can go for the fast route and forgo the slow climb.” Luocheng said, as he believed in the strength of his team.

Since it was Luocheng who had spoken, the rest of them agreed unanimously. The remaining time would be used for training and they would directly enter the pre-season, shocking the nation by heading straight into the spotlight!

“If we don’t participate in any competitions, we won’t qualify to enter the pre-season, are we at least participating in the pre-seasonal qualifiers?” Zhou Yan asked.

“The pre-seasonal qualifiers won’t take up much of our time, just take it as a warm up session.” Lin Dong replied. “It should happen around November, so we have one month of practice to shine in the qualifiers.”

“Lin Dong, didn’t you say there was a short cut?” Da Luo asked.

“Ah, it’s a bit of a risk, so I think we’d better forget about it. We’re entering the pre-seasonal qualifiers in November and after that, we’ll resume practice.” Lin Dong explained. “We’ll then participate in the knockout rounds into the finals, win the finals, and get the qualification to enter LPL as a first seed team.”

“Well, that sounds like a plan. It’s not too late to start either, so we should get started as soon as possible.” Zhou Yan said. “Will there be any problems on Xiao Bei’s side?”

“There won’t be.” Lin Dong replied. “He’ll come over as soon as everyone has gathered.”

“What about Wu Sen?” Luocheng asked.

“He’ll come any time when he’s called, he’s unemployed now anyway.” Zhou Yan replied.

A lot of professional teams usually chose to participate in some competitions to increase their experience and also to increase their fame and funds.

It would look ridiculous to outsiders if they saw what this team was doing, choosing to directly participate in second seed pre-season competitions. However, as long as it could produce results, this would definitely silence those people!

“We’re not even sure if we can still play up to the world’s stage…” Zhou Yan said solemnly.

The world’s stage?

Everyone in Team Wings would never forget the scene which had happened on the world’s stage. Representing the Chinese, representing the highest honor and reputation, competing with the top E-sports masters of various countries. The cruel society could not comprehend the insult and hot-blooded feelings they had felt.

Everyone also fell silent after hearing Zhou Yan speak those words.

The world’s stage…

In the past two years, none of them had ever imagined that they would return to this scene which was full of countless cheers and support in their dreams.

However, they had wasted away for more than a year. LOL had a lot of strong competitors, could they really stand out from the countless teams and head toward the world’s stage?

They knew that it would be a difficult road.

More importantly, the two strongest players of Team Wings were not in this team. Blood Eagle Zhao Tinghua was the sharpest knife in their team, he had killed countless of powerful opponents with his powerful strength!

Fighting Hawk Luocheng was the soul of the team, using his most creative playstyle and shocking techniques to defeat the teams that were thought to be unbeatable.

Without them, could they really enter into the world’s stage?

Looking at Luocheng, they wished he would return to the team. Let him lead this reformed team toward the LPL and toward the world. They were well aware that only the Fighting Hawk Luocheng had the strength to let them stand again on the world’s stage.

However, if even Zhao Tinghua had refused to return to the team, even vowing to stand against Luocheng, wouldn’t Luocheng be the hardest person to persuade back into the team?

Was it the failure he had experienced in England that made him lose his confidence in conquering the world’s E-sports, or his family’s embarrassment and his current status in the university that prevented him from taking this step forward?

Zhou Yan, Da Luo and Lin Dong didn’t understand. Luocheng was their leader. There were a lot of times they were unable to understand the deeper things in Luocheng’s heart, and the only one who could—Tinghua, was against him to the bitter end.

Unknowingly, this had become an infinite loop.

“There won’t be an issue, Xiao Bei plays really well.” Luocheng smiled reassuringly. “He’s not that much different from me, I can vouch for that.”

Luocheng had met Xiao Bei, and his ADC was as big a threat as Luocheng was. There weren’t many who could pose a threat to him, and for Xiao Bei to be able to do so was a testimony of how good his skills were. It was no wonder that first-rate teams were offering to take him in!

Luocheng had the confidence that Xiao Bei could become the team’s core!

***

“Oh right, so what’s your team name going to be?” Qianqian asked. “Will it still be Team Wings?”

This question halted everybody in their thoughts.

In fact, they had been discussing for so long but they had never touched on the name of their team at all!

Team Wings was in the past, how could they still use the same name?

The four of them fell into a deep silence, and Lin Dong’s smile said that he had forgotten the most crucial thing.

“Boss, why don’t you pick.” Da Luo and Lin Dong said.

Zhou Yan nodded his head, agreeing with them, indicating that Luocheng should pick the name of their team.

Luocheng contemplated for a while, thinking hard.

“LM, let’s call it Team LM.”

“LM?” Everyone parroted. “Is there a meaning behind it?”

“Nothing, I just thought of these two letters.” Luocheng said with a straight face.

“LM…”

“LM doesn’t sound too bad, let’s go with Team LM then!”

Luocheng was their leader, and the name they chose didn’t have to have a specific meaning after all. They agreed with him out of habit, because only by following his leadership had they managed to step foot into the world’s stage. That was their intuition and they felt that the name Team LM would surely resound throughout the country in the future!