League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“Me too, me too!” Xiao Bei stepped forward.

The one thing he couldn’t tolerate was someone showing disrespect towards Yu Luocheng. Not even the Blood Eagle could be allowed to get away with that!

Zhao Tinghua glanced at Xiao Bei with disdain. “Kid, you’ll need to have set foot on an international stage before you can talk about challenging me.” He turned back to the others with a sinister grin. “Alright, I’ll cut my way through every one of you. That’s exactly what I was hoping for!”

This was a clash between world-class gamers. Those who’d never even been out of the country before had no right to interfere! Knowing this, Wu Sen remained silent the whole time.

***

“What’s going on?” Ai Ke, the manager of event operations, noticed that things had taken an unusual turn on stage.

Xi Xi, who was in charge of handling the contestants, was already hurrying towards the stage to try and get the situation under control.

Sensing that a serious conflict was brewing between Blood Eagle and Team Skycrown, Qi Qiao and Su Mei expertly diverted the crowd’s attention.

They’d overheard the entire exchange. What they’d thought would just be a simple solo duel was turning out to be far more than they’d bargained for. They still hadn’t figured out what exactly was going on, and their heads were swimming with questions, but above all they had to prevent this from becoming a public fiasco.

It was time to shake up the mood a little. They began distributing gifts to members of the audience, in a bid to draw attention away from the squabble between Blood Eagle and the Skycrown players.

As Xi Xi was just about to step onto the stage, Zhang Aijing suddenly decided to tag along as well.

“Let me sort out the situation,” Aijing said to her. “It looks like this may actually be an international e-sports matter.”

Xi Xi nodded, and brought her along up to the stage.

The camera was presently focused on Qi Qiao and Su Mei, who were walking around the stage handing out LOL-related gifts to the audience.

“What’s all this?” Xi Xi interjected. “Skycrown coach, couldn’t you just accept Blood Eagle’s challenge and fight a solo duel with him? It’s all just for show anyway, so it shouldn’t be any big deal.”

“Unacceptable!” Da Luo shook his head resolutely.

“And why is that?” Xi Xi snapped at him. “See here, you’re on stage right now. There are cameras pointed at you. Please try to play along, or else you’ll cause a great deal of trouble for us.”

“Just keep calm a moment, Xi Xi. Let me find out more,” Aijing suggested.

In hushed voices, she conferred with the members of Team Skycrown, and soon found her way to the crux of the issue. Once she understood what was really going on, her heart swelled with excitement!

So there were prerequisites to challenging F-Hawk… especially when there was any kind of media attention!

“Well, what’s the issue? Have you gotten an answer out of them yet?” Xi Xi pressed.

“It’s a complicated matter. We’ve still got some time to spare. Let’s discuss it with Ai Ke.”

“Are you serious?” This was doing nothing to improve Xi Xi’s mood. Why couldn’t everyone just stick to the plan? Why did there always have to be more complications cropping up everywhere? Zhao Tinghua was indeed proving to be a headache to deal with. No wonder there were a few broadcast stations which had reported having trouble with him.

Backstage, Aijing and Xi Xi met up with operations manager Ai Ke.

“What’s up, then?” Ai Ke asked.

“Blood Eagle is challenging Team Skycrown’s coach to a duel, but it turns out that guy’s a special case,” Aijing explained. “He used to be known as ‘F-Hawk’. Have you ever heard of this player, Ai Ke?”

“F-Hawk?” Ai Ke thought for a moment, and realization began to dawn on him. “The captain of Team Wings? That would make him a former teammate of Blood Eagle.”

“Yup. They once made it to the finals of an international tournament. It’s an achievement that China has yet to match in ‘League of Legends’. F-Hawk, the coach of Team Skycrown, is of particular note: He took part in the World Cyber Games Solo Championship—a really huge, one-time event organized by the IPL. Playing in all three of the available games, F-Hawk placed second in one of them, and first in the other two. As a result, the International E-Sports Federation hailed him as the world champion among gamers.”

As a seasoned organizer of such events, Ai Ke didn’t fail to grasp the magnitude of what Aijing was describing. Catching on right away, he said, “In light of this, Blood Eagle’s challenge against F-Hawk has transformed our demonstration game into a contest for the crown of the world champion.”

“Exactly. According to the Federation’s regulations, any public challenge made against the current world champion means automatically upgrading the classification of the event to a duel for the title. If the challenger is victorious, they should be able to declare themselves as the new world champion of gaming.

“However, it’s not actually as simple as that: Besides needing to be an internationally recognized player, the challenger will also have to defeat all the champion’s bodyguards beforehand—and every one of those is a world-class player in their own right.”

Hearing all this, Xi Xi was struck dumb where she stood!

A contest for the title of the greatest gamer in the world… now that was an eye-catching tagline. The clicks would go straight through the roof!

She’d never even suspected that Team Skycrown’s coach was a figure with such an impressive history. If they spread this around a bit, drummed up some hype on major streaming sites… this could be massive!

“No, wait…” Xi Xi cut in, “Earlier, it looked to me like Blood Eagle intended to take on three of the Skycrown players as well.”

“If Blood Eagle and F-Hawk have both resurfaced, then it could very well be that three of the five players on Team Skycrown are none other than Sky Swan, Lone Gull, and Gale Crane. Those three are also world-renowned pro gamers, so obviously they’re the bodyguards.” Ai Ke seemed delighted by all this.

“You’re right, they’re all there.” Aijing nodded.

“A world-class series of duels… who would have thought that our LPL pre-season tournament would conclude with such a momentous spectacle?” Ai Ke murmured to himself.

One of his assistants nearby, with short hair and leather shoes, spoke up: “Let me go in there and ask Zhao Tinghua to stop at once.”

Ai Ke shook his head. “Why would we stop them?”

“There’s no way we can handle such a big affair all of a sudden. It’ll throw the whole program into disarray. Anyway, we’ve made zero preparations for it. If we’re really going to do something this big, there should be an appropriate period of advertising beforehand…” the assistant made his case.

“For each one of our events, we’ve always tried to build up plenty of hype, but it’s always just the same crowd. Interest in e-sports isn’t exactly mushrooming everywhere,” Ai Ke said in response. “This suggests that doing things by-the-book isn’t all it’s cut out to be. Right now, we’ve got five legendary professional players gathered up on that stage, and they’re looking to rumble. Isn’t this exactly the sort of surprise that gets people’s notice?

“Xi Xi, Aijing, Li Jun… make it happen. We’ll keep calling it a demonstration match, as befitting a cadre of world-class players.”

“But their fame was in DOTA, not LOL,” the assistant pointed out.

“Achievements in gaming carry a universal value. No one makes such a big deal out of whether you’re talking about DOTA or LOL.¹ Let them fight it out!” Ai Ke watched those five players on the stage, a glutton drooling at the sight of a buffet.

The assistant remained persistent. “How are we going to explain to the audience why Blood Eagle is dueling several people in a row?”

“We won’t have to. Let them guess for themselves. Isn’t it more fun that way?”

“Let me handle it!” Aijing declared. Besides being an analyst, she also had experience as an MC for LOL tournaments.

Ai Ke knew what she was capable of, and gave her the nod, meaning that she could go ahead and take over this contest for the world champion’s title!

“Looks like F-Hawk’s leaving the stage. I should speak with him first, ask if he’s okay with being in the spotlight again.”

“Whenever the camera is on him, have the editing team obscure his face. For someone like him, an air of mystery will only drive our spectators even wilder.”

There was a set delay before a live broadcast actually went on the air, approximately thirty minutes. This afforded the editing team some time to touch things up before uploading the video to the internet.

That meant the only people who got to saw Yu Luocheng’s real face were those three thousand people in the hall.

Aijing continued to present it as an exhibition event. Only the people on the inside knew that this was in truth a contest for an international title!

***

As she watched Aijing leave, Xi Xi inquired out of confusion, “Why aren’t we announcing this as a solo challenge for the place of world champion of gaming? Wouldn’t that get us a lot more attention? It could even be a front-page headline for e-sports news! Although we still don’t have LOL players of international renown, world-class DOTA players switching over to play LOL would be a tremendous boon to us, wouldn’t it?”

“Team Skycrown has already made it into the LPL. We’ll definitely be revealing this information about them. If they hail from such an illustrious legacy, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to unveil it within the LPL itself?” Ai Ke said.

“But… F-Hawk is the main highlight, here. He probably won’t be taking part in the LPL itself.”

“Once a gamer, always a gamer. He’s returned to the professional scene as a coach for Team Skycrown. I have no doubt he’ll give us even more to see in times to come. I feel it’s best to let him make his own entrance.”

Ai Ke had seen every kind of pro gamer there was. They had no choice but to pass over this spectacular opportunity, because if F-Hawk only made one public showing, and then faded back into the shadows afterwards, whatever hype they built up would fall flat.

If F-Hawk continued to show up in the world of professional gaming, his legend would grow into a rising storm. Then, the time would be ripe to fully cast the spotlight on him, and let him carry ‘League of Legends’ to the next level of fervor!

The only question lay with this F-Hawk, this world champion pro gamer…

Which would he choose: to remain in the shadows, or to return to the spotlight?

***

Ai Ke handled a lot of LOL tournaments across the country.

Previously, Team Daemons and Team Sky had both fallen early on. Not only did this mean he’d lost the chance to get involved in higher-level, international events, it also meant there was still no one flying their flag out there.

He’d been working really, really hard to promote e-sports and spread its appeal.

If, by chance, someone like F-Hawk appeared in the LOL professional scene, and led his team to take on the world… it would galvanize how LOL was played within the nation, and draw the scattered fragments into a united whole.

In all honesty, Ai Ke fervently hoped to see F-Hawk’s full return. He needed an icon like him to strike a spark within the soul of the gaming world, start a blazing fire that would sweep across the nation—across the entire globe!