League of Legends: League of Unknowns

When they returned to their place, Luocheng and Jian Feng took another good look at the gorgeous garden in their residence.

The aromatic and quiet garden decorated by a pebble stone path looked exactly like those portrayed in the romantic scenes of movies.

They had bought supper to eat at home, and as soon as the three of them settled down, Meiqi called the others with a cheerful tone, “Come on out. I have some good news to announce.”

A while passed, and there was still no response. Meiqi took a deep breath and then screeched, “Get your asses out in the living room right now! I told you I have some important things to say!”

Da Luo, Zhou Yan, Wu Sen, and Lin Dong, hurriedly scrambled out from their rooms and sat obediently on the sofa in front of Meiqi in an instant.

Meiqi began to talk after everyone had come out, “We are now the official team of Demacia Café. The owner has requested for us to be present in the café at least three time per week. It’s up to us what we want to do there, be it training, team ranking, taking up challenges, self-training, etc., as long as we stay there for a minimum of two hours each time.”

“But we’re going to Hangzhou for the monthly matches later on,” Lin Dong reminded her.

“It’s alright. I have informed the owner and he will not restrict us from taking part in tournaments,” Meiqi explained.

“That’s better.”

“The owner didn’t provide us with a lot of money. He’s only offered 2000 RMB for the entire team per month, however, there’s one rather attractive benefit.” Meiqi told them about the endorsement.

“Benefit? Do we get to meet attractive ladies?” Da Luo’s eyes shone in expectation.

“So, you think there are others who are more attractive than me?” Meiqi smiled and asked flirtatiously.

“No! Of course not!” Da Luo was taken aback.

“The benefit I am talking about is the open challenge. If we can defend the money for a week, then 5% of the cumulative prize will be given to us. The owner has set the prize directly at 10,000 RMB this time. In other words, we will be given 500 RMB if we can get through the first week. If we manage to hold on for a month, there will be an extra 2000 RMB of monthly income. Basically, as the prize money grows, so does our commission.” Meiqi said.

“Wow! That’s such a huge bonus!” Jian Feng was excited.

First of all, they didn’t have their own computers at the moment.

They would need to fork out extra money if they needed to pay to train regularly in a café, not to mention, high-end café’s like Demacia would cost a few tens of RMB a day!

Allowing them to use the VIP room itself was already a huge gain to the team. They didn’t expect the café owner would even reward their performance by using a commission system.

If the prize money kept snowballing and multiplied to several ten thousand, then 5% would become more than 1000 RMB. 1000 plus RMB per week added up to over 6000 – 7000 RMB per month. This way, they would no longer need to worry about their housing rental!

What a rewarding job!

Furthermore, the owner had not placed any restrictions on them and asked only for 2 hours per day, 3 days a week.

“If the prize money is claimed, our bonus will be reset together with it. The commission would then pitifully drop back to 500 RMB, so you guys better not lose a single match!” Meiqi warned.

“Don’t worry, we won’t lose unless it’s those from the LPL that challenge us.” Da Luo declared confidently.

In fact, they would not sway even if their opponents were of the LPL level. They believed that no one could stop them now after more than half a year of intensive training, and more importantly, with the return of Luocheng.

“Great. This will sort of be our stable income for the moment and we have to hold on tightly to it. After we manage to enter the LPL and set up our own social platform, I’m going to negotiate a new deal with him,” Meiqi told them her plan.

The fame they would bring to Demacia Café would be enormous once they managed to return to the LPL. If they advanced further into the international championship, then the name of Demacia Café would even reach the world stage. Any successes Team Skycrown achieved in the future would be directly translated as the success of Demacia Café. Chances were that it may even become the most illustrious LOL internet club in Shanghai or even China.

Mr. Lei had certainly foreseen such potential, which was why he had been willing to invest even though Team Skycrown were refusing to reveal themselves at the moment.

“Our main mission for the next few days is to rack up our ranking to smash the previous record.” Luocheng gave his order.

“I remember that that challenge was worth a few thousand too,” Jian Feng recalled.

“This is going to be easy. Today our Team Rank jumped straight into the Diamond tier after seven win-streak,” Lin Dong said.

“Diamond Rank after only seven games? That’s quick,” Luocheng thought that he had misheard Da Luo’s words.

“That’s right. Among the five of us, Shallow Dream was the highest rank in Challenger. She is currently ranked no. 12 in server 1. Da Luo and I had also entered the Challenger rank although we are still at the bottom of the pack, around position 45-46. Wu Sen and Zhou Yan are almost there too as they are now sitting at the top of Diamond rank. They should already be in the Challenger Rank if it weren’t for you asking them to try out different champions. Playing Team Rank with such a line-up is destined to be ranked high, even if we lose five games straight,” Lin Dong clarified.

“I see.” Luocheng nodded.

Team Rank positions would be determined after five games. This positioning, to a certain extent, was decided by the team’s individual rankings. Seven straight wins were undeniably an excellent performance. If they could keep the win streak alive, it was only a matter of time until they overtook those frontrunners.

“Oh yeah, Shallow Dream asked when you would like to take a stroll in the Korean Server again.” Lin Dong relayed the message.

“Hmm… Indeed, the Korean Server is more challenging.” Luocheng nodded again.

Due to the lack of a stable network, it had been awhile since Luocheng had played in the Korean Server like he used to do back during the winter break. He heard that after JX’s video was uploaded online, many players from the Korea site were infuriated. A lot of popular players had been hunting for Shallow Dream and Luocheng ever since then. Unfortunately, the both of them had not emerged after that, and this only served to further irritate those Koreans.

“I am too lazy to play those low-tier Team Rank games. Simply slotting in an amateur will do. The internet speed of the Demacia Café is pretty decent. I will be hanging out in the Korean Server with Shallow Dream after this. It’s time to see what kind of new strategy the Koreans have developed during my absence,” Luocheng said.

“Amateur?” Lin Dong, Da Luo, and Wu Sen opened their eyes wide.

“Yes, you heard me right. It’s not like I’m asking for the top spot. The 47th place should be easily attainable even without me.” Luocheng was firm.

“Well, bringing an amateur means we would be playing 4 vs 5. Though it’s a little difficult, I guess we can still manage.” Wu Sen smiled bitterly.

“4 vs 5? Nah. The girl from Netfish Café contacted me asking us to carry her in Team Rank. I think her rank is around silver or bronze, so bringing her along probably means you guys are playing a 4 vs 6,” Luocheng said.

“Be real!”

“Stop kidding!”

Jian Feng and Meiqi could only smile helplessly. Their coach, Luocheng, was extremely harsh. This was the first time they had heard that a professional team was asked to carry an amateur player in Team Rank. More so, they were specifically asked to charge all the way up to the top 50 while compromising with his ridiculous demands.

4 vs 6!

Sigh! The other members had given up on protesting.

“Before this, not a lot of players were interested in playing Team Rank, but recently, the number has gone up dramatically. I bet it’s due to the introduction of the new rewarding system,” Da Luo said.

LOL servers in China had a lot of subdivisions, and as a result, the number of players queuing for a 5 vs 5 team game were usually sparse. If they started queueing at dinner time, it was common to see that the system would still be looking for an opponent after they came home from supper.

Surprisingly though, the amount of Team Rank games had peaked greatly in the past week. This must be owing to the server expansion, the new rewarding system, as well as the rush for the pre-season qualifier spot.

Joining earlier before the battle intensified would give the team positional advantage.

XXX

The next day, the team went to Demacia Café right after they had finished their dinner.

Jian Feng and Meiqi tagged along and brought their notebooks. They also needed the internet to build up more connections and contact potential sponsors to help the team. They had vowed to sacrifice their time to help Luocheng and his team, and their first task was to master team management.

The group immediately felt the heat the second they stepped into the café.

“D*mn! The prize money has been raised to 10,000 RMB!”

“I remember it was still at 5000 RMB yesterday, so there could only be one reason—An extremely strong team has been recruited by the café.”

“Hey, Ben, call our mates. Tell them that the prize here has just increased to 10,000 RMB. Let’s get the money and go enjoy ourselves later tonight!”

A group of people surrounded the glass cabinet and drooled over the cash money that was placed neatly inside. The red-colored banknotes in it had become the center of attention as expected.

“Hey! Stop pushing against me. Go and queue up if you want to take on the challenge. Scram!” A guy with curly hair who was holding an iPhone in his hand scowled at Lin Dong.

This was the same guy who had called his friends and bragged about claiming the money, making it sound as though the large stack of notes were already in his pocket.

“Hi, Fei, they are… our defender team,” Xiao Duo Duo walked over to them and said to the guy politely.

His expression changed as he turned and stared at the five of them, obviously unhappy about their late arrival.

The café was in a buzz. A lot of old customers had called in their friends and were clamoring non-stop about beating down the defender team. It caused Duo Duo a great headache that the defender team had not appeared after the promised time.

The iPhone guy named Fei turned around and measured the five members of Team Skycrown. He smiled insincerely and asked, “So it was you guys? Where did you guys bang around before this?”

‘Bang around? Why does a LOL team sound like a gangster group coming from this guy’s mouth?’ Luocheng was displeased.

“We banged around Shanghai,” Luocheng replied sarcastically.

“That’s not it, I’m asking you what kind of competition have you entered before, duh?” Fei rolled his eyes.

Duo Duo was dejected. He had a bad feeling that the 10,000 RMB would not last more than a day. He, too, was entitled to take a part of the commission.

“Just one. The LPL,” Luocheng declared calmly.

“Bullsh*t. In that case, my Team ILUN has even played on the world stage before!” Fei did not believe what Luocheng had just said.

Luocheng was wearing a pair of spectacles today. Considering that he would be facing a lot of LOL fans that paid close attention to E-sports development from here on out, he reckoned someone might eventually recognize him, and so, he had decided to put on a disguise whenever he reported for duty at the Demacia Café.

Luocheng didn’t want unnecessary attention as fame would only bring misfortune to his team now. That being said, it wasn’t as if he needed to hide since these people here were not going to believe him anyway.