League of Legends: League of Unknowns

Luocheng and Aijing’s understanding of the Supports in the latest season was mostly identical. To begin, Leona, popularly known as the “Tank Woman” in China would become the main attraction in the next season. She would be able to handle tanking and also DPS. Not only that, if the team needed a crowd-controller, Leona could still handle it. The only Champions that could counter her would probably be Alistar and Thresh.

Thus, Zyra, Annie and Sona—these frequently used Supports would have nowhere to shine. This was especially true since Annie had been nerfed a lot this time round—she had lost her ability to do the exact 1.75-second crowd-control. Annie was not that popular amongst the mid laners, therefore, after being nerfed like that, there would be an even lesser chance for her to be picked and appear in the middle lanes. This, in turn, led to her becoming more of a burden than a support.

At the very least, most teams wouldn’t be picking her to be a Support in the matches from henceforth.

This new version had totally made the tanks the next main MVP! The more HP you had, the more likely you would win!

Aijing handed Luocheng a document which contained all the data of champions’ spots on the map and frequency of them being on those spots.

In return, Luocheng dug up all his rich experience from playing as “Trolling no.1” and told Aijing which champions that had supposedly been swept under the rug but could definitely be dug up to shine as a wild card in the next season.

After exchanging the crucial intel that they needed, both of them then started to pull away and talked less about strategies and tactics.

As Aijing was from Team 71, she obviously wouldn’t let slip of their strategies that easily since it was possible for them to face up against Team Skycrown in the next LPL.

***

Unlike Meiqi, Qi Qiao’s cooking was phenomenal!

After leaving Qi Qiao’s home, Luocheng’s cell phone rang, it was Qianqian.

“Where are you?” Qianqian asked.

“I’m still on the street.”

Luocheng hadn’t gone up on a subway yet. He was taking his time to take in all the information he had received earlier, picturing every champion and situation that could possibly appear on the Summoner’s Rift.

“My break has started, do you want me to book a ticket to go home?” Qianqian asked.

Last year, Luocheng had traveled up from Shanghai to Hangzhou to meet up with her, and then traveled back to Lecheng together. After hearing Qianqian mentioning about booking a ticket, Luocheng realized that a year had passed since.

Time flew by really fast…

“I’m not going back.” Luocheng replied.

Qianqian couldn’t say a word hearing this. She knew Luocheng and his family had a huge rift going on.

“Then… aren’t you coming to Hangzhou to see me?” after a short pause, Qianqian asked softly.

“I’ve got a few matches coming up in the next few days.” Luocheng replied.

Whenever a new season kicked in, every team would be violently researching for a new strategy to win. Thus, to gather all kinds of intel about these teams’ strategies, Luocheng would need to participate in matches and tournaments. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down because there was no doubt that the other teams would do their best to tear Team Skycrown down, and to counter that, Luocheng would need to continue fighting and do constant preparation.

“Then… perhaps I could come and visit you instead?” Qianqian asked again.

“I… I might not be able to spend a lot of time with you, though…”

“I see. I suppose I’ll head home then. Good luck with your matches.”

“Thank you. I’ll do my best.”

Luocheng felt rather guilty as he put down his cell phone. After becoming a professional player, his free time was gradually shrinking day by day.

He couldn’t even remember when was the last time he had had the time to play games casually with Qianqian like the old days. Had it been weeks? Or was it months ago…?

***

Night time.

After returning to Demacia Cafe, Luocheng noticed that there was a team waiting for a challenge.

Now that the prize money had risen up to 50,000 RMB, many teams who had participated in countless official matches wouldn’t let go of a chance that could net them each 10,000 RMB, and the teams that were coming forth to accept the challenge were also gradually stronger.

“Leader, you’re finally back.” Duo Duo quickly jogged toward Luocheng with a smile.

Luocheng looked at the team of players who wore casual outfits as they sat on their lobby’s sofa and asked, “So, who are we up against this time?”

“The second place of Beijing’s LOL League, they are second-tier leaguers. They said they were representing Noxus Cafe, an E-sport Club from Beijing.”

Luocheng stared at him with wide eyes.

Noxus!?

Come on, now! We’re in China, alright? So, what’s with all these weird fancy names? First Demacia and now Noxus? Were they trying to create a new Valoran or what?

“Noxus Cafe was actually converted from one of the biggest internet clubs in Beijing. Their experience in managing the internet cafes and clubs are greater than our boss. Now, they’ve also developed an area in Beijing to establish E-sport Clubs like ours. They saw our interview and are now trying to defeat us, you know, to “put us in our place”.”

“Are they strong?”

“I don’t know about strong but I’ve heard that their main team is strong. They did manage to defeat Team Dusk in the G League.”

“They defeated Team Dusk?”

Team Dusk was fifth place in LOL’s Top Five. So… this Noxus team could defeat them? That meant that they were indeed quite strong!

Could it be that LPL-level teams had now started to move into these high-class internet clubs?

Jian Feng walked past them, and as he saw Luocheng’s troubled eyes, he stopped and explained to him, “The main team of the Noxus Cafe is, in fact, the original Team Beijing. They have always been strong and had garnered a lot of fame, proving themselves in the LPL qualification matches. Yet, they couldn’t get through into the LPL even when there was a playoff. This year, they recruited a new player from Hong Kong, a new player with formidable skills. Do you still remember who the number one player on the national server was?”

“That should be Hades, right?” Luocheng replied.

“He’s not the number one now. I don’t know what happened to him, whether he had quit playing in the national server or he had other plans, but now? The number one player is this ‘Remember I’m the Strongest’, nickname ‘Number One’.”

The number one in the national server!

Sure, there were a lot of fluctuations in the national server’s ranking, yet, whoever could become the top of this ranking was definitely one of the top of the top!

Back then, the person who occupied this spot had been Hades!

Well… sure, Forget Laughter had occupied this space a few times too, but other than that, there was no one else who could climb up to be Number One. Even if they could, it was probably due to some dirty, unlawful means.

“Could this ‘Number One’ be some kind of hack? Why have I never heard of him before?” Luocheng asked.

In the world of the internet, there were various kinds of people trying to pretend to be someone they were not. Especially in the world of E-sports, there were always people pretending to be some hotshot in the field to bluff their opponents into yielding a match.

“Nope, it’s real. Legend has it that this guy had at least 2800 points in the hidden rank.” Jian Feng replied.

“2800! No shit? That’s really OP!” Luocheng replied in astonishment.

His “Trolling No.1” persona was strong, and yet, his points were only around 2200. Even Shallow Dream had only about 2600 points.

And now this guy had 2800 points! That was freaking OP!