Undefeated - League of Legends - Book 1: Chapter 1

Book 1: The Return of the Lost King

Chapter 1: It's Not Bad Being an Amateur Player

At the DOTA Competition in London, England.

Inside the arena, dazzling neon lights flashed about.  Multicolored LED spotlighted the podium.

Five English players on the podium raised a trophy with excited smiles.  A long-legged lady next to them popped open the champagne bottle, which sprayed over the team to celebrate their victory!

The one in the center among the five was a brown haired, good-looking British young man.  With a glaring grin that could charm any girl, he fixed his eyes on another young man in the audience.

He was the core of the championship team without any doubt.  He was only 17 years old, the true little prince of the British esports!

“I’ve learned a Chinese idiom.”  The champion didn’t give a victory speech, rather he directed his words at one person in the audience and said, “The idiom is ‘one word has the weight of nine cauldrons’[1].  Please keep your promise to retire from DOTA after being defeated!”

The young man in the audience had black eyes, black hair, and a slim build.

Faced with an overbearing smile from this shining star, an esports prince, he could only nodded quietly.

“Come, Eagle[2], the genius player.  Please give us a smile to remember you by.”  A photographer walked in front of the black haired young man and spoke in Mandarin Chinese.

The black haired young man grinned to the camera.

But the smile broke his heart!

At that moment, he realized something.

Most of the time, there was no reward for getting second place.

Just like on the battlefield.

In his eyes, esports was the battlefield.  There were no gun smoke, no blood; but once you were defeated, you were like a corpse, buried in the yellow sand gradually rotting away……

It wasn’t just esports, any competitive field was like this.  Only a few people would remember who won second place.

His name was Yu Luocheng, game ID: Eagle.

But he had to retire from the DOTA professional stage which he loved deeply, not just because of the bet he had with this British genius……

……

One year later

……

The green leaves of evergreen plants swayed lightly in the breeze from the river on the balcony of an ordinary house.  It would be a nice, bright morning for Yu Luocheng if the breeze didn’t bring the stinking smell of the polluted river.

With black short hair, a white tank top, oversized basketball shorts, and a pair of flip-flops, he was dressed in the standard attire of a diaosi[3].

Luckily he had a somewhat nice-looking face, plus with his usual melancholic look that he purposely put on, uhm, he could pass as handsome in a decadent way!

Yu Luocheng was holding an English book and took his time as he memorized new vocabulary words.

Actually his English grades were pretty good.  He had a special talent for dirty words and phrases in particular.

It couldn’t be helped.  If you wanted to curse in England, could you curse in Chinese?

“I told you that little Cheng was definitely capable of catching up in school.  He’s in the top 30 in the school mock exam.  Little Cheng is a genius, a genius in every aspect!”  A woman’s voice came from the kitchen with obvious comfort and pride.

“Hum, his grades would be even better and wouldn’t be a problem for entering Qinghua or Bei Da (abbrev: Beijing University) if it weren’t for you encouraging him to play that lousy game.  Top 30?  It’s still far from qualifying for Qinghua or Bei Da.  If he dares to make it into just an ordinary key universty[4], I will crush his computer!”  The voice of a middle aged man was heard.

“I dare you to crush it.  I will throw all of your cigarettes and liquors into the garbage if you dare!  So he plays games, he got a sponsored trip abroad.  Have you ever been out of the country?”  The woman instantly went ballistic.

“You…...all because you spoil him.  You take full responsibility if he doesn’t have a bright future later on.  What kind of future is there in playing games!”  The middle aged man said annoyedly.

“So what if I am responsible?  What can you do about it!”

“I don’t want to bother with you!”

Yu Luocheng could hear the old couple’s argument.  Every morning, if he wasn’t woken by the alarm clock, then it’s usually the old couple fighting.

The house was only 80 square meters, there was no place to escape the sound of their voices.

Naturally, the woman was Yu Luocheng’s mother, Li Yun, a typical mother who spoiled rotten her son.

The middle aged man was Yu Luocheng’s father, Yu Jing.  Though he sounded very strict and angry, he was the father, just like every other father.

“Ba, Ma, I’m off to school.”  Yu Luocheng packed up his English book, changed into the ugly school uniform, put on his backpack, and went to the door to put on his shoes.

“En, be careful on the road.”  Li Yun stuck her head out from the kitchen and watched her son leave, then went back to washing the dishes.

After she tidied up the kitchen, Li Yun went to clean up her son’s room.

When she walked over to his room, she saw the computer screen was still flickering.  Apparently, he had forgotten to turn the computer off.

“This kid, sneaking around to play this early in the morning.”  Li Yun said somewhat reprovingly.

She quietly closed the door after she spoke so that Yu Jing would not see it, otherwise, he would become angry again.

Li Yun saw the computer screen still showed a game, there were big letters on top of it, “League of Legends.”

“What is this game?”  Li Yun questioned.

Then she saw ‘RANK 1900 points’[5], without knowing exactly what it meant, she used the mouse to close the game and then shutdown the computer.

……

One gets extra points for winning Olympiads, academic awards, or provincial level athletic events, but not for winning the second place in an international esports event…...The school principal might even reconsider whether the school should take in the kid or not.

Yu Luocheng was good at many games.  Since middle school, he was the champion in games like bnb, Kart Racing.  Later he fell in love with Warcraft, and even later, DOTA.  The amount of award money he had earned could crush all those so called academic geniuses.

But, you should know that no matter how much glory you earn in esports, a majority of parents and family elders would consider you as a good for nothing.

Yu Luocheng’s high school was a key high school in the city.  His family had spent several years’ worth of savings to get him into this school.  Originally he was at a much worse school, but that was the reason why he could have time in his tenth and eleventh grades to be a professional player.

The DOTA International Tournament he attended was in June of his eleventh grade.  Afterwards, he returned to become a good student……

The award money for the first place of the DOTA International was three hundred thousand RMB, but there was nothing for the second place.

As for why, you would have to ask the British Esports Association.

He had disregarded nearly two years of schoolwork, but his family still spent a large amount of money to buy him a place at this key high school.

His family wasn’t rich and he couldn’t bear to watch Yu Jing’s gloomy look, so he had diligently studied hard for the past year.

A talented person usually has talents in many areas; studying also needs talent.

Yu Luocheng was a gifted person.  In one year’s time, he not only made up all of his school work, he even surpassed some of the good students.  The result of the mock exam was the best proof of that.

Certainly, being a good student did not mean he would give up playing games.

For some people of this generation, games are their second life.

Just as Garen had said: “I stay the tower stays”.

Something is worth guarding with everything on the line, including esports.

Yu Luocheng kept his promise to that Englishman; he had never touched DOTA again.  But LOL

which had lately gained popularity made him feel alive again.

He could not be a professional player, but being an amatuer wasn’t too bad either?

---

[1]:  The idiom was:  一言九鼎 (pingin: yi yan jiu ding).  In ancient China, important inscriptions (such as oracles) were placed on bronze cauldrons (that had three legs, so you might see a translation say “nine tripods” instead of cauldrons).  In this case, he is asking the other person to keep his promise.

[2]:  His nickname is Ying (鹰) which means Eagle in English.

[3]: The Chinese is: 屌丝 (pinyin: diao si). It is a Chinese slang term that means a young male of mediocre appearance (and life in general). There’s actually a wikipedia article for it so here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaosi

[4]: In China, and other Asians countries like Japan and Korea, tests are the only deciding factor in getting into a university.  Schools are grouped together in ranked categories.  You are only able to enter any university that is within your score range and below.  Based on our understanding, a “key university” is already a very good school (like a very good state school in the US).  But his father wants him to go to the top universities in China (like an Ivy League school if you live in the US).

[5]:  If you play League of Legends, you can probably see that this is ELO.  They are probably using the new ELO system as it was written in 2013 and the new ELO system came out with season 2 at the end of 2011.  Regardless of which system, for those of you who don’t know, a person with an ELO of 1900 is basically within the top 0.2% (in the old system) or top 1.5%-0.1% (in the new system).