League of Legends: League of Unknowns

There were two ways you could gain notoriety.

You could, one: Collect it little by little, or two: Burst out so suddenly that the world would go silent just to see what you would do next.

Team Skycrown had always been part of the latter, from the start of the season and the LPL up until now.

They didn’t play to slowly grind up and eventually become better. No, they played for the adrenaline rush of winning a game!

During their six-month long dormancy, countless media outlets had reached out to interview the banned Team Skycrown, but the latter had disappeared without a trace. Just as the legend of the 100-kill Team Skycrown had been about to fade into history, they caused yet another tidal storm like this!

The low-profile cautious Team Daemons would never do something like this, they were too busy with practice.

Team Revelations loved stuff like this, too bad that some of the bad behaviour from their members had shifted public perception of them, plus they were infamous for taking money that wasn’t theirs.

But the recently revived Team Skycrown had always had an air of mystery surrounding them, and with their bold announcement to the media, what shocked people was the complete lack of backlash from the larger online community.

Well, there were some people who had some nasty thoughts that they decided to share, but they were quickly buried by words of praise and support.

Jian Feng had been paying close attention to the reactions toward the video, realizing that the netizens were stacking on comments like crazy!

“Did you know, only 70 percent of the comments are negative!? It looks like Luocheng did a good job this time, the popularity we’re going to gain from this video is definitely going to help us re-enter the LPL!” Jian Feng exclaimed.

“Um… 70 percent are negative comments? Jian Feng, are you sure it’s not 7 percent?” Luocheng grimaced.

The video already had a couple thousand comments, if 70 percent of them were negative, didn’t that basically mean that they were all freaking negative!? With over two thousand comments attacking him, Luocheng didn’t dare look at it! Thinking back to what he had said, he hadn’t been all that arrogant, he had just said that he would accept any challenges that he received.

“Dude, you don’t understand what the Internet is like these days. Only 70 percent of the comments flaming you is already pretty tame, alright! You haven’t seen the comments under the videos of some female streamers, the horrors they have to go through…” Jian Feng said.

Luocheng’s face twitched slightly. He kept having this nagging feeling that Jian Feng’s use of the word “only” was a bit too much. Was he supposed to find comfort in the fact that there were still 30 percent of the commenters who supported him? He wasn’t that egotistic, was he!?

“This is just what the internet has turned into, a public platform for open discussion. The people who usually comment are basically just those who enjoy flaming other people for the hell of it, so basically, the comment function attracts roughly 50 percent of the people who think negatively of the product, while only about 25 percent of the supporters spend their time leaving a comment. So, a good video or TV series has roughly 75 percent of its comments being negative, but somehow yours only has 70 percent, meaning that this video is about to go viral, and in a good way!!” Jian Feng explained passionately.

Jian Feng’s words had Luocheng’s jaw dropping to the floor. There were these f*cking types of calculations involved!? So did that mean that his radical and controversial speech had actually gained the support of the people?

Oh, whatever. You can flame as much as you want.

If he hadn’t made a clear distinction on what needed to be divided, Luocheng felt as though there would still be something weighing heavily on his chest.

Luocheng still remembered the early days of Counterstrike and Starcraft tournaments when most locals were just average players from around the country. Back then, these entertainment companies organized small competitions between some of their top players to battle against the Korean professional players.

The local contestants in the competition had lost very badly, and it was then that they had really realized the difference between them and the real professional players!

It was after that crushing defeat that people within the country started treating e-sports as a growing industry and career option. A few pioneers had even invested their own money to hold the first e-sports competition in the country, and after that, they started seeking financial support from various sponsors.

These pioneers included old veterans like Li Tuchuan who had grown alongside e-sports.

It was too bad that only a small handful of the first pioneers were able to continue on the path they had created. The rest had been pressured by family,work, or financial needs into giving up on their dreams.

LOL players had it better. They could use the rules passed down from DOTA, Counterstrike, Warcraft III, etc. as soon as they entered the industry, but the ones who had LOL as their first entrance into the world of e-sports didn’t know the struggles and hardships that those before them had had to go through in the 10 or so years prior to LOL’s conception. They didn’t know the blood, sweat, and tears that had been spent in making sure that China’s e-sports was just as good as the rest of the world.

After much suffering, the Chinese e-sports industry was finally blossoming under the rise of LOL. As he had experienced all the pain the e-sports industry had had to go through first-hand, he didn’t want to see the next generation of e-sports revert back to its previous state.

Since he wanted to get into the LoL Professional League, to get into the World Tournament, how could he not give back to the industry that he and so many others were so passionate about?

What did it matter if there were a few negative comments here and there? Before they had gotten into Worlds, there were even more anti’s who had mocked and ridiculed Team Wings, but they had been silenced when Team Wings had managed to stand on the international stage!

Luocheng was going to make this 70 percent of people eat their words!

***

Following Luocheng’s media explosion, many more people came forward in hopes of watching these masters in action or to take on Team Skycrown themselves. Every weekend was especially busy for the Demacia Cafe!

The first challengers were teams from around the Shanghai area. Of course they were upset about Demacia Café’s monopolisation over cybercafes here in Shanghai, but all they had to do to win back their customers was to beat the infamous Team Skycrown. The media would definitely love such a turn of events.

Waves upon waves of challengers came crashing down onto Team Skycrown during the weekend and soon, Luocheng and his teammates were exhausted from all the matches. They had had to play seven games in a single Saturday, and there were still more queuing behind them.

Team Skycrown took on another eight games on Sunday, they were really playing day in and day out to the point that even their lunch breaks were cut short.

Boss Lei didn’t think that the endless barrage of challengers were good for Luocheng and his team. High-stress games like the ones they were playing would tire anyone out, and if they overdid it, their reaction speed and decision-making abilities would surely deteriorate.

Money was obviously a good thing, those challengers really didn’t seem to care about the one two titans thousand yuan they had to spend, Boss Lei was happy, but he didn’t want to completely wreck Team Skycrown’s bodies!

“Let’s cancel tonight’s challenges. You guys have been playing all day, you must be tired,” Boss Lei said.

“Nope, we’re good. We’ve already issued our challenge so we’re not about to go back on our words. What are we, a joke?” Da Luo was the first to decline Boss Lei’s offer.

“Yeah, we could never find good training dummies before, and now, they’re walking right up to our doorstep, with decent quality too!” An ear-splitting smile crossed Lin Dong’s face too.

Zhou Yan didn’t say much, he just sat there continuing to play. Similarly, Wu Sen was downing the free unlimited coffee to keep him awake.

Team Skycrown really was ridiculously strong and not a single team could measure up against them. However, games like LoL also had a luck factor into which side would win. With Team Skycrown taking on almost twenty teams a week and having to maintain a 100 percent win-streak through it all, it wasn’t a test of skill and strength anymore, it was a test of Team Skycrown’s physical and mental endurance!

After a single weekend, the five players of Team Skycrown were completely drained. Returning to their small apartment, they could barely even get properly undressed before falling face-first onto their beds for a well-deserved sleep.

Facing a computer screen for 10 or so hours a day all while having to focus on the happenings of the game, they weren’t playing around for the enjoyment and thrill any longer. Now, they were going through torturous training in order to improve.

“I’ll go buy some supper, just in case they wake up hungry.” Meiqi felt sorry for the five young men as she stood over their exhausted bodies.

When she had first gotten into e-sports, Meiqi truly believed that being a professional player came with plenty of glory. You could earn the adoration of the public and all you had to do was play a few games and participate in some tournaments. What she hadn’t realized was that behind all that fame and glory were sleepless nights spent practicing after doing the same thing all day.

But still, if others worked harder than you, how were you going to beat them?

Did you really think you could become a professional player just because you played a few random games against noobs everyday? You would just be kidding yourself, after all, you were only playing the game as a game instead of treating it like a battle where your life was on the line.

One day, they would get what they had worked so hard for.

***

“Jian Feng, you’re up early.” Lin Dong had crawled out of bed to go to the toilet and saw Jian Feng designing a website in the living room with his laptop open in front of him.

As Lin Dong walked closer, he was shocked when he saw the two dark circles under Jian Feng’s eyes.

“Sh*t, you didn’t sleep?”

Jian Feng let out a soft laugh, “I wanted to get your public platform up faster. This is our own website, it has 47 videos of us against other teams. I’ve only uploaded videos that I think won’t show too many of your skills and battle strategies.”

“Didn’t our leader say to just upload whatever? It’s not like we’re worried about people seeing our strategies and stuff,” Lin Dong said.

“That’s not that great, right?”

“What are you scared of? Let them analyze us, they’ll be helping us find holes in our strategies, that way, we’ll be able to perfect them and face any challenges ahead of us with ease,” Lin Dong said confidently.

“Alright, then I’ll put some of the more interesting ones in a highlights reel, just so people who want to see our team’s special flair won’t get bored watching us match up against noobs,” Jian Feng said.

“Yeah, you’re a computer science major, right?” Lin Dong asked Jian Feng.

“That’s right.” Jian Feng scratched the back of his head awkwardly. He slightly regretted not paying more attention in university which forced him to look through his old books just to make a basic website. “I don’t have apps like Dreamweaver, Flash Professional, or Fireworks, if I did, the whole process would be much more simple.”

“That’s easy, I’ll jailbreak them for you,” Lin Dong said.

“Dude, jailbroken ones aren’t great, a lot of functions will be missing…” Jian Feng said.

A smirk crossed Lin Dong’s face, “I promise it’ll be exactly the same as the real thing.”

Lin Dong took Jian Feng’s computer and plugged in his own USB, and shortly afterwards, all three applications appeared on his desktop.

Jian Feng quickly clicked into them, realizing with a start that all three were indistinguishable from the paid versions.

Some rich kid in class had bought these three apps saying that it had cost him almost ten thousand. Jian Feng didn’t have any extra money, he couldn’t afford luxuries like those, and so, he was stuck using the crappy free sites that he managed to find online. But now, all three apps were waiting for him in his harddrive, it was a dream come true!

“Br…bro, h-how did you do that!? You have to teach me! If I sell these to those kids in computer science, I’ll be rich!” Jian Feng exclaimed.

“Hell no, I’ll be dragged to prison because of you. Remember, no telling anyone about this, just use it in secret yourself. If other people ask, just say you bought it yourself, don’t say I got these for you,” Lin Dong reminded.

Jian Feng suddenly remembered what Da Luo and the others had said, that Lin Dong was a hacker. Jian Feng hadn’t thought too much of it, he thought that hackers couldn’t really do much, only now did he realize what an expert hacker Lin Dong was! He was on his knees bowing down to his new-found God, your humble follower can not repay you for your miracles and blessings, please, take this wilting chrysanthemum instead.