League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“I’m at a loss of words to describe the choice of lineups that Team Skycrown have decided to wing it with… nonetheless, it’s all been decided…” the commentator—Bao Jun said.

The “resurrection strategy”. Team Skycrown was probably the only team that had ever utilized this strategy in the LPL.

After enacting the “resurrection strategy” via Yorick and Zilean, players would usually opt for another Champion that possessed the ability to auto-resurrect—like Zac, the Secret Weapon, or Anivia, the Cryophoenix, or Aatrox, the Darkin Blade. On top of that, if they were to don a Guardian Angel…

Team Sky had a powerful and impenetrable line-up on their side. Without any hesitation, Vulcan opted for his Renekton despite having significant disadvantages when faced against Da Luo’s Jax…

Xie Yi, on the other hand, chose Ahri, the Nine-tailed Fox. This Champion possessed extraordinary advantages in terms of versatility, high DPS, and potential in AoE crowd controls.

As for the rest—the Jungler, ADC and Support were Kha’Zix, Varus, and Fiddlesticks.

As soon as the two teams decided on their line-ups, the loading screen kicked in!

“Well, haven’t I told you that I have some peculiar news that I’d like to share?” Bao Jun quickly started speaking.

Bao Jun always had some materials prepared for him to rile up the crowd. Originally, he had already drafted up a piece about Team Skycrown versus Team Sky to hype the crowd. However, after receiving a certain document from his assistant Ai Ke, Bao Jun knew that there was no need to do anything extra to hype this match at all.

All he had to do was to reveal a certain person’s identity!

As the match was starting, there were countless spectators discussing just who this mysterious competitor was to be able to face off with Blood Eagle alone. Bao Jun knew that this was the best time to reveal who that person was; this was the best moment to let slip the news that would shake the entire E-sport industry!

“I believe everyone who’s watching this game here has played LOL. Yet, E-sports goes way back before LOL. In fact, before LOL was popular, there were other big names like Warcraft 3, Starcraft, DOTA, and Counter-Strike!”

“During the times when these games were more popular than LOL, there was one person who held the title of the greatest E-sports player in our country. Do you know who that was?”

After pausing momentarily, Bao Jun looked straight at the screen before him, exactly at the moment when the camera was pointing at Yu Luocheng.

No matter how mature he had grown, that burning passion that was ravaging his eyes could never be appeased!

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you… the World’s Greatest… Fighting Hawk! Yes, the very same Fighting Hawk who had retired two and a half years ago!”

“International E-sports Top Players. Indeed, this is what we call them in the E-sports media. Now, everyone! Tell me, who are the Top players that are well-known in the LOL community? Who do you think could be considered as international top players amongst the competitors in the LPL?”

Bao Jun’s question sent his audience into deep trails of thoughts.

“I suppose Ancient Dust is a top player. He’s quite famous in the North American server.”

“Bai Feng is also a player there and he’s even more famous than that whatever Dust.”

“What about Asmodai? He is a top player.”

Ancient Dust, Forgetful Laughter, Asmodai, Bai Feng, Hao Yue, Charon, Xie Yi, Skygazer…

In a short time, countless top players’ names were brought up. These were all famous accomplished players within China. Their achievements were so outstanding that no other regular players could outdo them!

Looking at his audience’s confused faces, Bao Jun beamed widely as he slowly replied to them, “To become an international top player, one would need to win an “Honor” in a certain international competition, be it a “Teamwork Honor” or a “Solo Honor…”

“Yet, there are only two players from the LPL who have ever won these Honors!”

The audience present were stunned upon hearing Bao Jun’s words.

Two?

There were so many OP, god-like players in the LPL, and yet, there were only two people who had ever won the international “Honor”?

This… this couldn’t be! These players were so skillful too! And yet it was not enough for them to become international champions!?

“The first person was the captain of Team Daemon—Hades. He was the top player who posed the greatest threat to the others in the S International League back then.”

“The other was the captain of Team Sky, Blood Eagle. He was the greatest Jungler in the S International League. Although this may seem like a small achievement, it was enough for him to be considered an international Honor bearer. Blood Eagle was already a seasoned international E-sports player before LPL was a thing. His team—Team Sky was once an unstoppable force that defeated every single E-sports player in the country and advanced toward the international level, becoming the runner-up in the S International League! Sky Club is now called the top E-sports club because of this runner-up cup standing tall in their lobby!”

Blood Eagle—Zhao Tinghua was already a shining superstar the moment he stepped into the world of LOL. Due to the media giving him the superstar treatment when reporting his runner-up achievement in the international league, this directly led to Team Sky becoming known as the top team in E-sports despite not having won the first place.

However, no matter how strong or how hardworking the various teams in LPL were, when they stepped into the international league, they would always be wiped out in the play-offs. No one had ever gotten to the top—Team Sky had never gotten there… Team Daemon had never gotten there…

“I suppose everyone here already knows just who Blood Eagle is, and you would also know that he was a DOTA champion back then. However, did you know who the captain of Team Sky was back then? The Team Sky that marched into the international league and acquired the greatest honor that we had ever seen?”

Bao Jun’s voice was trembling with excitement as he spoke.

…

“What the heck? Blood Eagle was not the captain back then?”

“No way! Blood Eagle was not the captain? Then who was the captain? Who else possesses the skill and competence to be that team’s captain?”

“No way… is he saying that… that runner-up team’s captain was that guy over there…”

“Holy fuck! That’s so wicked!”

The crowd went wild!

…

Not many knew who were the top players in E-sports inside China. Thus, Ai Ke needed commentators like Bao Jun to let slip these informations to the public, and this was the best timing to announce such information.

In the meantime, a slight twitch could be seen on the owner of Sky Club, Xu Pingyang’s face.

He had spent so much effort in making the world focus on the “runner-up prestigious top player Blood Eagle”. He had even done some manipulations behind the scenes to avoid the world from knowing that the team had ever had a “Fighting Hawk”—all to stop Luocheng from using his achievement in the past to promote this new team he was with, and to also stop the news of him scamming the teens in the past from being publicized.

Yet now, this cursed Bao Jun had announced all of this live on air in a matter of minutes!

Come on! He was just a retired player, there was no need to mention this at all. Was he out of his mind!?

…

“Yes indeed. The captain of Team Sky, the S International League runner-up team, was this player over here!”

“Blood Eagle and Hades were just international Honor bearers, yet, the one you are looking at over here is the World’s Greatest! The only one who was acknowledged to be the Top Player by the International E-sports Federation!”

If one were to ask “who is the Top One E-sport player in China”, most would say it was Team Daemon’s Hades without hesitation!

Yet, Hades had never dared to call himself that. He knew that all his achievements were nothing on the international level. He knew his achievements were dwarfed by Fighting Hawk Yu Luocheng’s by miles!

He was the one. The only one!

Without having gone through the bloody and painful road of competing in E-sports, not many knew just how difficult this path of life was. The glory of countless champions many saw today were built on the countless players whose dreams were wrecked!

Bao Jun and the LPL organizer, Ai Ke, knew this very well.

This was an E-sport Emperor who had returned and was continuing to fight for his dreams in E-sports after having been utterly crushed and defeated. This man deserved the highest level of respect from everyone in the E-sports industry and communities!

Ai Ke was not going to retract the restrictions that were imposed in the LPL earlier. No league would go against the rules that it had set for itself. Of course, he would not be allowing Team Skycrown, who had broken the rules, to return to the LPL too. Yet, he hoped that this team who had the real deal inside would utilize their persistence to carry on fighting and climbing upward, all the way toward the international level and reach its summit.

For now, all he could do was to help Luocheng recover the honor that was originally his in front of this league—one with 5000 spectators and over tens of thousands of audience on the livestream.

This honor was his! No one had the right to take it away from him!

Of course, that was all in the past.

Now, show us! Show us, Fighting Hawk!

Prove to everyone here that you’ve still got it in you. Prove to everyone that you could still be an international legend again in this new field that you’re stepping into, starting from this match!

…

“Without Blood Eagle, Team Sky has only about 20 points in its average competence. Looking at how he could take on Bai Feng, his skills are probably three times stronger than Guan Langjie’s. Even after considering the fact that he needed to support the much weaker Wu Sen on the field, the team-up of Fighting Hawk and Wu Sen would still be much more powerful than Team Sky’s by 2 points.” Aijing, who was as obsessed with statistics as ever, mumbled to herself.

Excitement was running wild in Aijing’s mind—this was the first time where she would get to witness a real World-class players’ match.

Even though the Honor that he acquired had been for DOTA back then, Aijing was confident that Luocheng would still be able to become a new legend in LOL!

Oooh, she was most excited indeed!