League of Legends: League of Unknowns

The first thing he saw upon returning home was his mother Li Yun hard at work in the kitchen.

Knowing that Yu Luocheng would be returning home that day, she’d gone on a shopping spree through the supermarket, buying a bunch of stuff in order to give him a warm welcome home.

Not counting those two years he’d run away, going to university was his first time being away from home for an extended period of time. Somehow, whenever he wasn’t around, Li Yun found herself feeling profoundly anxious, always worrying that he might suddenly vanish from contact like before—except this time for good.

Many times she’d wanted to apply for leave to travel up to Shanghai and visit him, but he’d managed to dissuade her from doing so.

Luocheng wasn’t a little boy anymore. Running away from home was no longer something he would even consider.

After helping him bring in his things, Li Yun bustled right back to the kitchen.

His father Yu Jing was sitting on his revolving chair, watching TV. It was always news, current affairs, and politics. Luocheng didn’t fuss over why his interests were always so narrowly constrained.

When Luocheng took a seat, his father glanced at him once, indifferently.

But not a minute later, Yu Jing spoke up: “How are your grades? What are your marks? What’s your placing?”

“Dad, there’s no placing in university, alright? And I don’t keep track of my marks, as long as I pass everything.”

Truth be told, Luocheng was still nervous that he might have failed something. And then, if a copy of those results was mailed home… next semester, there would no longer be any hope of fooling around like he’d planned. Kiss that notion goodbye.

He owed so much to the lady Bai Feifei.

“Oh. I see.” Having never been to university himself, Yu Jing had no idea what things were like there. He couldn’t think of how to carry on the conversation.

Luocheng was similarly taciturn. Conversations with his father never went beyond inquiries about his academic performance, conduct at school, tutelage from his teachers, and advice to focus on ‘practical concerns’… topics of this nature.

It was hard to blame Luocheng for never saying much to his father. He was a dinosaur, moments away from being rendered obsolete by the modern world, and Luocheng had no idea what there was he could say to him.

It felt like entering a game to find one of your teammates hollering that the enemy had gotten First Blood by having the entire team prepare an ambush in a bush along the Top lane. You were farming in the Bottom lane when this occurred, but they shriek something like this at you: “Why didn’t you come and help? We could have gotten First Blood!”

Times like those, you could only say that not everyone plays the same game the same way.

Luocheng didn’t expect his father to be savvy about the internet and gaming. There were still a great many people like his old man, who looked upon an internet-based job with deep suspicion and contempt.

“Where’s that girl, Yu Yu?” Luocheng asked.

“She came back a few days ago. Said she’d managed to apply for something really important.”

Bringing up Yu Yu caused a smile to appear on Yu Jing’s face. She was a well-regarded girl, and even the neighbors had been talking about her, saying that the Yu family had produced a rising star.

Yu Jing had colleagues at the factory who regularly kept up with sports news. At work, some old friends had come up to congratulate him. Even the foreman had clapped him on the shoulder. He’d remained stoic as always, but his heart had been singing with joy.

Reminiscing on this, Yu Jing unconsciously reached for a smoke. As he patted around for the lighter, Luocheng got to his feet and pocketed it himself. “A sick man shouldn’t be smoking,” he muttered coldly.

“Smoking is about the lungs, not the liver,” Yu Jing retorted with a scowl.

“Yeah. Let’s not having something going wrong with your lungs, too.” Paying no heed to Yu Jing’s displeasure, Luocheng withdrew to his room.

Turning on his long-neglected computer, he logged on just in time to see Lin Dong doing the same. He’d sent Luocheng a message, lamenting about something.

“What’s going on? Shouldn’t you all be training right now?” Luocheng asked.

“Da Luo’s computer crashed.”

“Tell him to watch less pr0n.”

“That’s not it. How could he get taken down by a virus while I, Lin Dong, am here? His motherboard is fried, and the rest of it isn’t looking good. Repairs would probably set us back a thousand bucks or more.”

One computer short, how would they train?

Luocheng felt a powerful migraine coming on. The LPL was just around the corner. They only had to hold out for another two months or so, and then they’d be good for cash. And yet Da Luo’s beaten-up old fossil had tapped out before they made it there.

Then again, considering the PCs Team Skycrown was using… They were already barely a step up from toasters, making it difficult to pull off intricate techniques. As each game began, Zhou Yan’s computer would lag for five or six seconds before his champion could actually start moving, which was a serious impediment to Level-1 team fights.

In the LPL, they’d be facing formidable opponents. The slightest vulnerability could easily be the beginning of the end. If their training was constantly being bogged down by technical difficulties round after round, it would definitely show during a real game.

It looked like they would have to resolve material issues sooner rather than later.

“How much cash does everyone have left?” Luocheng asked.

“Barely enough to cover everyday living expenses. Buying a computer will be a stretch. My ideal professional-quality gaming PC would command a price tag of around four thousand RMB. The specs would be considered above average, at best. I don’t recommend going lower.”

(Translator’s Note: I’m sure he means a PC for playing ‘League of Legends’, not ‘Cyberpunk 2077’.)

Lower specs noticeably affected performance. As pro gamers, they needed response times measured in split-seconds. A few milliseconds too slow, and it could cost them the whole game. Computer specs weren’t a matter to compromise on. The best thing would be to get machines similar to what they’d be using during tournaments.

However, Team Skycrown still had four other computers which also needed upgrading. Four thousand apiece meant sixteen thousand in all. Where would they find that kind of money? There had been no other competitions going on anywhere lately, so that wasn’t an option.

The prize money Luocheng had won from the LOL University League, he’d already given it all to Lin Dong as sponsorship funds, and it had only been enough to allow them to subsist on instant noodles every day.

If the five men of Team Skycrown ate regular meals, the bare minimum would still cost a total of 150 RMB every day, coming up to 4,500 RMB monthly. Rental, utilities, broadband, and a substantial electricity bill combined to demand an additional 2,000 RMB.

That was to say, if the members of Team Skycrown did nothing every day besides play ‘League of Legends’, never buying clothes or toiletries, never drinking or going out for a night on the town, and skipping all forms of public transport… they’d still need 6,500 RMB every month!

Lin Dong still had about ten thousand RMB left, which would require many more days of a ramen diet if they hoped to survive these next two months or so.

If they sprung for a new computer worth four thousand RMB, they would really be in danger of starving to death.

“What I’m saying is, we’ll all have to get out there and pick up some odd jobs, so we’ll be able to get a new PC for Da Luo as soon as possible.”

“Out of the question. Your priority should be training. Nothing else on the side,” Luocheng sternly decreed.

What nonsense was this? The LPL was less than three months away, and Team Skycrown was nowhere near ready. They already didn’t have enough time to prepare, and they certainly didn’t have the time to hire themselves out as coaches. Were they really going to settle for last place in the LPL this year?

“I’ll have the CPU for this computer delivered over to you. Use it in the meantime,” Luocheng said. “As for buying a new computer, I’ll see what I can do about it, these next couple of weeks.”

“What are you gonna use, in that case?”

“Qin Ying has partial ownership of the Dragon Rising Cyber Café now. Using their computers is practically free for me.”

“Hmm… alright, then. Actually, our situation should improve after Chinese New Year. I’m expecting to be contacted by sponsors.

“Oh yeah, Jian Feng and Li Meiqi have set up a public Weibo account for us, saying that our team has been steadily gaining attention. I’ve sent them replays from our Ranked games, so they can clip them up into highlight reels and garner more publicity for us.”

Lin Dong continued. “The other LPL teams all have their connections, including direct links to the people behind the official website. They’re building up a lot of hype for themselves, but we haven’t been doing anything like that.”

“Are those two seriously going to manage our team for us?”

“They seem sincere enough. You know, if we make it past a hundred thousand followers on Weibo, one sponsored ad from a hardware brand and we could earn over a thousand bucks. Meiqi says she’s got a friend named Hu Yue who’s an expert on this sort of thing. Meiqi is consulting with her, and feels certain she can set up a real online presence for us.”

“That’s great. They’re really going to a lot of trouble for us.”

“And get this: We’ll have to make sure to court YY and QT as well. You can live-stream from both those platforms, I’m sure you know. If we can set up our own accounts there too, we could be like Team Daemons or Team Sky, with tens of thousands of active viewers every day. That sort of outreach alone could already pay for various everyday expenses, and we’d have a more stable source of revenue.”

“I’m not actually that good at this sort of thing…” Luocheng admitted.

“Jian Feng and Meiqi are all over it. Recently, they’ve been researching the management procedures of established entertainment agencies.”

“Li Meiqi is honestly throwing in with us?” Luocheng asked again.

Team Skycrown was planning to be in this for the long haul, so they would need committed managers and advertising staff. They were starting from zero, with nothing to their name. If they didn’t give it their all, they’d never rise above the throng.

“She doesn’t sound like she’s kidding around. Remember that she handled all sponsorship matters for the Shanghai University Gaming Society. She says that when the new semester begins, she’ll be able to lure those same sponsors over to Skycrown. There’s not a lot of money there, but they could eventually help us to draw in bigger sponsors.”

“What are you getting at? No matter how you slice it, she’s still just a third-year university student.”

“I’m suggesting we take her on as our manager. Certainly it’s beyond the five of us. Concerning her studies, she told me that her family lets her be, so she’s free to do as she pleases. I admit I’m not certain how long her motivation will hold out, and whether she’ll keep doing her best all the way.”

“Then don’t rush into anything. Let’s wait and see.”

“Yup. Do it right, or don’t do it at all. A short-lived spurt of passion will ultimately leave us in more awkward straits.”

***

Luocheng ended the voice call, and rubbed his temples.

Declining to sign on with an agency, and trying to strike out on their own instead… it seemed to involve a lot more than just five people practicing together all day and taking part in tournaments. It was hard to say how many more obstacles they’d encounter along this path.

In any event, they’d take things one step at a time. For now, that meant getting a functional computer for Da Luo.

Luocheng had forbidden them from taking up any jobs on the side, and yet gamers like them were most suited to earn money through online coaching services…

Over in the United States, strict measures had been taken to curb the practice of ‘ELO-boosting’¹. As a player of professional integrity, Luocheng himself frowned upon pro players disrupting the balance of the game like that.

But times were tough…

Luocheng found his way to the LOL forums, browsing quickly through the threads in search of ways to make some money.