Glory [e-sports]

Gary: “Captain…”

Yuan Ze: “I’m going to go smoke.”

He picked up the lighter on the table and walked out of the training room.

There was an observation platform at the end of the corridor. The afterglow from the setting sun was a haze over the blue sea water, like fire on a cold field of snow, burning up the sea and sky.

Yuan Ze lit his cigarette. The flame turned into smoke, but his palm felt extremely hot.

He inhaled a heavy puff of the cigarette and then looked down at his palm through the smoke from his exhale.

His palm was empty, holding thin calluses from countless matches played over the years.

Training games, the regular season, playoffs, domestic finals, global shortlist, global elimination matches, global finals.

Countless matches, countless games, countless victories and defeats…

He’d thought that he’d gotten used to it, adapted to it, and was now numb to it all.

Now, in a simple doubles game, a fire had ignited in his palm.

He wanted to win, wanted to win the game.

He wanted to defeat that wild and arrogant little bastard!

Yuan Ze spat out a ring of smoke and calmed down his restless heart.

He was starting to look forward to this year’s global competition.

Really looking forward to it.

When he got back to the training room, Yuan Ze immediately pulled out his chair and sat down, “Old G, let’s score.”

Gary’s eyes lit up, “We’ll play with FTW tonight?”

Yuan Ze: “Yes.”

They would obtain first place in the scoreboard. He wanted to teach this little friend a lesson in the 5v5 team competition.

FTW had won against L&P. This news exploded over the internet.

The melon seed eating crowd who didn’t know what had happened all asked, “What’s the situation? The domestic competition hasn’t even started yet, so why has the international competition started up ahead of time?”

“L&P? Last year’s world runner up? Are you FTW fans crazy and daydreaming in broad daylight?”

“That’s not right, at this hour, the points competition hasn’t even started yet in the training camp. What win are you guys talking about.”

The fans who were spiraling up into the sky immediately started to push and sell enthusiastically:

“Don’t walk by, don’t pass by, don’t miss out, Close and Quiet’s doubles match is worth watching!”

“The great demon king and little demon king’s wonderful counter attack, overturning a desperate situation, I could watch it ten thousand times!”

“Quiet career fan reporting in. Forget the CP; Quiet, fight hard for mama and hammer Old Dog Yuan to death!”

It was a free match game, a game that held no incentives or rewards, as common as an entertainment game between players. However, due to the wonderful plays that the four people involved had made, the audience’s senses were fully ignited.

There were many senior analysis emperors in the Glory circle, and one of the most famous ones was Brother Fang.

Brother Fang lived up to his name. He had a way with words, he was a professional critic, and his commentary in his replay videos could easily flame players into space and out of the solar system.

Brother Fang, who had such a serious commitment to making all contestants enter seclusion, sent out an analysis video. He was objective and calm all the way until the last wave of operations in the doubles match.

“… Did you think that the shadow thief merely used the immunity buff to link up his moves and charge up light arcs to kill Old Dog Yuan?”

“Wrong! Close’s hidden maneuvering and operations also factor in here, as well as Quiet’s desperate move. Their lives are tied together with a thread, and they have absolute trust in each other!”

“Feel it for yourselves, experience it in detail. Close’s timing in entering the jungle, the control over the damage dealt by his skills, the manipulation of that last bit of health on the monster. Even a computer can’t calculate as accurately as he did!”

“Go on, keep watching it, look at Quiet’s movements and flash. Moving one second earlier would have alarmed Old Dog Yuan, but he would have missed out on the immune monster if he was one second later. The shadow thief’s margin of error was less than 0.01 seconds!”

“I know that someone’s going to start flaming with stuff like: isn’t this a normal level of operations for a professional player? F*ck your mother’s normal operations; take a look at the situation, the poor farming, and the one-sided competition. It’s precisely in this certain loss situation that Quiet, a newcomer, dared to rush up and counter kill Old Dog Yuan, and he even succeeded!”

“Oh, but you’re going to say that it’s just a free match, and it doesn’t matter if they lose. Why don’t you say it another way? As you’ve said, it’s a free match, and you only get six points if you win, and losing doesn’t hurt, but Quiet has been trying his best to win from the first second all the way to the last second of the game. Do you f*cking have the same kind of serious attitude?”

“I know what else you’re going to say: Brother Fang, how much money did you charge FTW to blow out such fragrant rainbow farts? I won’t lie, your Daddy Fang actually wants to pay out money instead. Laozi has long been interested in FTW’s new jungler, Laozi wants him to accompany Close to win the championship, and Laozi believes that he can realize FTW’s world championship dream!”

Brother Fang was a well-known critic in the Glory circle, and he was very influential. As soon as these harsh words were released, FTW was pushed all the way to the top of the storm.

The haters were all going crazy launching attacks.

The old fans had all burst out into tears.

The rational fans were very confused, “About that, we haven’t even had the qualifiers in the domestic competition, so isn’t it too early to discuss whether or not we can win the world cup!”

If they ended up with another round trip home, wouldn’t it be so shameful that they’d have to toss their dignity into the Pacific Ocean!

On FTW’s side, Xiang Liu’s phone was about to explode from all the calls from golden-thighed investors.

Every club had a team who was responsible for marketing, and FTW’s PR department had always been very Buddhist-like in style––

Advertising? No thanks, no thanks.

Water army? No need, no need.

Fan control? Forget it, forget it.

But today––

Xiang Liu explained over and over, “We didn’t buy any marketing!” Even if they were to pay for advertising, they wouldn’t have bought a thoroughly blackened hater like Brother Fang!

“We didn’t buy the hot search!” F*ck it, he actually wanted to spend money to remove the hot search!

“We didn’t buy a water army!” What water, what army? Wasn’t the current situation already chaotic enough?!

The golden thighed investors were also very sorry to hear this; they’d actually thought that FTW had been ‘reformed’ and had begun to market themselves seriously.

Xiang Liu’s tongue was dry from all the explaining he had to do. He had already had a hunch that signing Wei Xiao into FTW might usher in a new bloody storm, but he hadn’t expected that it would happen so soon!

It was just training, couldn’t these ancestors just stop for a while?

Our FTW really isn’t short on money, we’re just short on a world championship cup.

No matter what it was like outside, the atmosphere in FTW’s training room was a little strange.

Lu Fang and Wei Xiao had won, but Bai Cai was really unhappy. The 20,000 yuan that had almost landed in his hands had just flown away like that?

He asked tentatively, “Brother Xiao, look at how you really enjoyed yourself while playing. How about…” 10,000 yuan was acceptable too if the 20,000 was really gone.

Wei Xiao turned to stare at him, “Enjoyed myself?”

Brother Cai blinked, “No?”

Wei Xiao’s tone was unhappy, “Old Dog Yuan was taking it easy!”

Bai Cai: “???”

The entire internet had already praised you up to heaven, yet you’re saying that Yuan Ze was taking it easy on you?

Wei Xiao ignored Brother Cai and turned to Lu Feng, “Captain, is he looking down on me!”

His tone was a little aggrieved and tickled the tip of Lu Feng’s heart, making it itchy, “Mm. The dog wasn’t acting like a man.”

Chen Feng: “…………”

Wei Xiao found someone to comfort him and felt better, “Exactly! Old Dog Yuan isn’t a man!”

In the last exchange of attacks in the game, Lu Feng and Wei Xiao had cooperated perfectly. Just like how Brother Fang had analyzed; they’d fought for every maneuver, calculated all the damage and skills, precisely grasped the timing and positioning, and dealt out the highest amount of damage they could with their perfect cooperation.

However…

It wasn’t to the point where Yuan Ze would fall.

It was hard for a layman to understand this, but it could be sensed by an expert.

In particular, Wei Xiao, who was in the game, who’d been crushed by Yuan Ze for a full 20 minutes, had a very keen understanding of this man’s strength.

There was no “resurrection or “blood equipment, but Yuan Ze’s berserker warrior still had a chance to trigger his passive ability that would allow him to avoid injury.

The conditions for triggering this passive ability were harsh, and for ordinary players, if the shadow thief rushed up with a series of moves, they’d be unable to react in time.

However, the player behind the berserker warrior was Yuan Ze!

Yuan Ze had won the Global MVP in 2018 with the berserker warrior!

Wei Xiao was so angry he could die, “No wonder he doesn’t use his own champion skin. He’s too ashamed to use it!”

Global MVPs had their own champion skins, just like how Lu Feng’s shadow thief had the Red Sky Blade exclusive skin. Yuan Ze had his own berserker warrior skin.

It was just that he hadn’t used it during this match.

Chen Feng couldn’t help saying, “He can also make mistakes.”

Wei Xiao clung to his convictions, “It’s because he subconsciously believed that the captain and I couldn’t win.”

Chen Feng: “……”

F*ck, how can you even say that someone else wasn’t acting like a man? You’ve just won against the second place team in the world, and you’re still angry. Aren’t you the one not being a man!

And yet, there was someone who actually coaxed him.

Lu Feng: “Continue queueing first. I’ll accompany you to solo before dinner.”

Wei Xiao’s expression was full of surprise, “Really?”

Lu Feng: “Mm.”

Wei Xiao’s heart was super itchy, “You’ll use the berserker warrior?”

Lu Feng’s lips curved, “Yes.”

Wei Xiao was excited, “Okay!”

For the matches that came after, Caicai, who hadn’t been able to get any money, refused to help them click the matching button.

The demon king team’s demonic aura was too heavy, and they steamrolled the remaining three games they played together without suspense.

The free matching ended, and the rankings for the day appeared on the scoreboard.

1st place: L&P.

2nd place: Black Knights.

3rd place: Pro.

The entire training camp was in an uproar, what happened to Pro? Why had they dropped to third place!

Was the Black Knights team so amazing? They actually suppressed Pro?!

It was unknown if the Black Knights team was amazing or not, but they were definitely confused.

They hadn’t done anything… they’d simply lay there and ended up second.

In the second half of the day’s games, L&P’s luck had pushed the limits. Yuan Ze and Old G had run into Kim Sung-hyun and Li Heran in a 5v5 game. Three people from the Black Knights team had been Yuan Ze’s teammates.

They’d witnessed with their own eyes what it meant to abuse a proud flower.

Yuan Ze took the death knight, Old G took the shadow thief, and these two players latched onto Proud Flower Kim like mad dogs.

Kim Sung-hyun’s luck was really bad. He’d matched up with an unknown team from a mediocre competition zone, and his teammates were so bad that it made people feel suffocated.

No matter how tacit the cooperation between the koi combination was, it was unable to stop these two beasts who seemed to have been injected with chicken blood!

Kim Sung-hyun never wasted time typing during a match, but in this game, he even went so far as to knock out a line of text in Chinese, “Old Shit, did you take a f*cking aphrodisiac or something?”

Yuan Ze: “Call me Old Teacher.”

Kim Sung-hyun: “F*ck!”

There was no suspense in this game. Yuan Ze and Old G scored 6 points, and the Black Knights’ 2+1 combination took 9 points.

After that, likely because they all clicked to queue at the same time, the Black Knights’ 2+1 combination ended up in the same team as Yuan Ze and Old G once again!

The opposite side wasn’t Kim Sung-hyun and Li Heran anymore, but it was still Pro’s starters: their mid-lane and jungler.

This time, Yuan Ze changed heroes and used a berserker warrior, and he even used his own champion skin. Old G took the berserker thief, and this double berserker combination was a famous killing combination in the canyon. These two exploded and attacked like crazy, smashing Pro’s mid-laner and jungler into pieces.

Pro’s mid-laner was dumbfounded, “Bro, what kind of provocation did Marshal receive?”

Kim Sung-hyun was very polite, “He’s probably brokenhearted.”

That motherf*cking Old Bandit Yuan, he’d hammered their Pro into third place!

Who would’ve dared to think that the Black Knights, who’d originally been in 5th place, had taken advantage of their small bit of luck to make it all the way up to second place?!

The Black Knights who’d been beaten up for two days became proud and self-satisfied just like this. They’d also never thought that this would happen!

The audience had already started to cheer in advance when they saw the scoreboard.

There would be something good to watch that night!

L&P would definitely choose FTW!

Wei Xiao invited Lu Feng into a game room almost as soon as free matching ended.

To hell with eating dinner. Was it as attractive as soloing?

The other people in FTW also weren’t in a hurry to have dinner, and they all crowded around to watch the fun.

Lu Feng took the berserker warrior and Wei Xiao used the shadow thief.

This was recreating the fight between Yuan Ze and Wei Xiao during the doubles game.

Just like Wei Xiao had said, in the last wave, Yuan Ze hadn’t played to the best of his abilities. When the shadow thief’s eight light arcs smashed into his face, the berserker warrior did have a way to survive.

For example, at this time, Lu Feng perfectly reproduced Yuan Ze’s actions, and at the same time, he triggered the damage immunity passive skill at the last moment.

The lower the remaining health was, the higher the damage immunity would be. The berserker warrior who had less than 100 health points left could actually hold on!

Lu Feng wielded his blade lightly and took away the life of the shadow thief who’d fallen back down from the sky.

Wei Xiao turned his head swiftly and looked at Chen Feng, “Look, the captain wouldn’t make mistakes.”

Chen Feng: “…………”

Wei Xiao turned his head excitedly and spoke to Lu Feng, “Sure enough, the captain is the best!”

Lu Feng took advantage of this opportunity and asked, “The best?”

Wei Xiao didn’t hesitate at all, “10,000 times better than Yuan Ze!”

Lu Feng was satisfied and stood up, “Let’s go. Dinner.”

Wei Xiao hurriedly followed behind him, “Captain, do you want to be 100,000 times better than Yuan Ze?”

Lu Feng glanced at him from the corner of his eyes.

Wei Xiao was really a clever little brat, “If we have another solo game, you’ll be 100,000 times better than him, if it’s two games you’ll be 1,000,000 times better, with three games…”

Lu Feng laughed, “That’s no good.”

Wei Xiao: “???” Did the problem lie with using Yuan Ze as a unit of measurement?

“A heart is the size of a fist. Can it all fit?”

Lu Feng felt that he couldn’t hold the enormity of Wei Xiao’s ‘best’.