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Chapter 376: EZ Champion

A Phantom Dancer gave increased critical attack chance, making her attacks even more deadly. A Support Sona chasing down a jungling Xin Zhao, how haunting was that image!

“You guys play, I’m done!” the Jungler Xin Zhao was the first to stand up, leaving just like that.

D*mn it, wasn’t this embarrassing enough? Coconut Head himself waited until he lost to a Sona that had built 3 God-tier ADC items before calling it quits.

Qinjin’s face grew even darker as he saw his mid laner flee as soon as he got the chance.

“Don’t go! I’m fed, we can still beat them!” Coconut Head called out after the mid laner.

Qinjin gave Coconut Head the stink-eye, who the f*ck cared if you were a little fed, the Sona had just solo-ed their Support, ADC, and Jungler, what was there left to beat!

Qinjin stood up to leave as well, turning his back on more than just his teammates.

“Boss, don’t forget to unregister your team name! And you’d better not show up here to harass the female staff ever again, otherwise you’ll be taken down in a 1 vs 1 too!” K chased after Qinjin who looked as though he wished that the Earth would just open and swallow him up.

Hearing this, the bold and confident Qinjin faltered a bit as he climbed the escalator steps, almost tripping over!

“D*mn it, don’t get too excited! I’ll get Team Revelation to come here and teach you guys a lesson!” Qinjin was at his boiling point.

“Go ahead!” K shooed him away, not caring in the slightest.

Xiao Ya’s face lit up in delight as she saw Qinjin sulkily skulk out the door, giving Luocheng a peck on his cheek before she could think twice!

“Ohh!!!” The surrounding crowd went wild.

Xiao Ya was blushing too, suddenly finding the floor very interesting.

Luocheng laughed awkwardly while saying, “I have a girlfriend, you know.”

“It’s not like it meant anything, I just wanted to say thanks.”

“Then what about me, what about me!?” Da Luo exclaimed.

All of a sudden, Lin Dong, Wu Sen, and Da Luo, turned their faces to the side, asking for kisses. Poor Xiao Ya was almost burning up from the embarrassment.

Anyhow, Xiao Ya really was grateful to these bunch of boys, she didn’t think that they would stand up for her like that after only playing a few games with them, if it were any other scaredy-cat, they would have probably run away as soon as they saw rich brats like that Gao Qinjin.

“Back to the topic, Qinjin and Team Revelation are pretty close, don’t know if he’ll actually be able to invite them over,” Xu Ben noted.

“He won’t. Even though Team Revelation is based in Hangzhou, they wouldn’t meddle with petty stuff like this since they are our country’s A-list players and all that jazz. Don’t worry about it,” Luocheng said.

“Yeah, ACE has pretty strict regulations for current professional players, even banning certain top players from participating in non-regulated competitions above grade two, because if they didn’t, any random sponsor could use fifty or sixty thousand RMB to host a competition and they would participate. This would just devalue these top-tier pro players, and although this was obviously done to increase their value, this is what has been happening. Without any restrictions or net worth, professional players would just be like the rest of us!” Jian Feng said.

The others looked at Jian Feng quizzically.

Why would ACE have regulations for professional players? And also, didn’t they disband?

Jian Feng knew these guys didn’t understand what he was saying, and so, he continued to explain, “ACE is the abbreviation of the Association of China E-sports. It is a union of various esports companies in China, created with the main goal of furthering the esports industry, and their core values are to protect the rights of esports companies and the pro players in those companies. Teams and entertainment companies like Team Revelation, Team Daemons, and Sky Club, are all a part of ACE, and they aren’t allowed to partake in non-official or non-recognized competitions, so unless Qinjin is able to convince ACE, he will never be able to get Team Revelations to come here.”

“Is that so? I’ve been playing for so long but I’ve never heard of ACE,” K said.

“Yup, the association manages e-sports, team registration, member relocation, player punishment, team management, and overseeing competitions. As Team Revelation is a part of the association, they won’t appear so easily. Also, even if Qinjin had the patience of a Buddhist monk and managed to get them to help…” Jian Feng rubbed his chin, his following words abbreviated into a sly “hehe”.

So what if you got Team Revelation, our 3 to 0 match against Team Revelation during the LPL was an undeniable fact, and besides, it had been awhile since Team Skycrown had gotten to face off against one of the top teams.

“Jian Feng, since you know so much, is our master’s team a part of ACE as well?” Xu Ben asked.

“No, we’re not even in an entertainment club, how could we be in ACE?” Lin Dong answered.

“We’re just a bunch of mercenaries in the e-sports world, no restrictions, bar hopping around a few of the more famous cybercafes in the country I guess, haha.” Da Luo laughed.

Luocheng vaguely remembered Li Tuchuan mentioning something like this to him, that years ago there was already an organization created to handle matters regarding esports under the National Sports Administration Bureau, but for whatever reason, it had faded into non-existence.

The establishment of ACE was probably to play the same role as the previous organization, both wanting to solidify the place esports had in society and to regulate the rules regarding the competitions. This was clear from the way they handled their affiliated professional players.

Unfortunately, ACE was still largely built around already-established Entertainment Companies, not an open e-sports association for all professional or semi-professional players.

The differences between e-sports Entertainment Companies and E-sports associations were basically the same as the differences between private schools and public schools.

“What’s wrong?” Zhou Yan asked, seeing the tense expression on Luocheng’s face.

“Taiwan already has their own e-sports association for their professional players, I wonder when we’ll get one too. I don’t even know who’s the head of this ACE thing, can they really shoulder the weight of the entire industry?” Luocheng mused.

Their livelihoods as e-sports players were influenced directly by these Entertainment Companies, and as long as they managed the industry well, more and more sponsors would view esports as a worthy investment.

If scandals or other unfavorable situations popped up left and right, it wouldn’t just affect competitions, but also the outcome of the sponsors’ investments.

Team Skycrown had kept failing to secure a true sponsor, all because they had had an incident during the LPL, getting banned from the competition and making them unstable in the eyes of sponsors.

As such, Team Skycrown had mostly given up on looking for big mainstream sponsors, opting to make cameo appearances in famous cybercafes around the country, challenging various teams to a battle on the rift to build up their notoriety and skills. If their opponents were too weak, Luocheng would manually increase the difficulty by giving their team handicaps, such as adding an inexperienced girl to the team. In doing so, even if they weren’t able to find a worthy opponent, they would still have to give it their all if they didn’t want to face defeat.

As for Entertainment Companies, Team Skycrown already had their own disdain toward them, so either way, they wouldn’t be joining an Entertainment Company anytime soon. They believed that they were their own people and they weren’t going to put their futures in the hands of greedy businessmen. Even if it meant living a less stable life, they would find their own path.

“Actually, what was going on inside your heads while you were fighting? It was amazing to watch!” Xu Ben couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice.

“Yeah, yeah, you guys were so cool, pummeling them to the ground while still having to carry a girl!” K said.

Team Zhejiang were basically semi-professional level players. Aside from the spoiled brat Qinjin, the rest of them had been doing really well and they shouldn’t have lost as badly as they did.

Thinking back to how they were mocking them as nobodies from the countryside, who would’ve thought that they were all bark and no bite, so little respect!

“You’ll figure it out.” Jian Feng laughed, not bothering to elaborate further. All great masters had to keep a few secrets up their sleeves after all.

K and Xu Ben were jumping in anticipation, what kind of team were they? They had the potential to participate and win in 2nd-level pro competitions, it would be the same as taking on a bunch of kids from grade school and winning the title of Champion, just like taking candy from a baby!

***

After the provincial and district competitions, K and Xu Ben re-confirmed the peculiarity of this team.

Normal teams would train days and nights for weeks in hopes of winning, and those that do were revered as the best of the best in their district, destroying all opposition.

But these “best of the best” teams were nothing but mere distractions in the path of glory that Team Skycrown was walking upon.

K, Xu Ben, and Xiao Ya, had thought that their Team Birdie would start playing seriously once they got to the district competitions, showing the other teams what they were really made of, but Luocheng was still playing around with the champions he picked for Support, all of them off-meta choices.

In fact, their mid lane, top lane, ADC, and even jungle was filled with non-conventional champions, leading K and Xu Ben to believe that they were running the off-meta champions on purpose to throw their competition off. Teams couldn’t just rely on whatever was mainstream to win their games, their tactics would be figured out sooner or later.

Thus, K and Xu Ben came to the conclusion that they didn’t care if it was a provincial competition, district competition or whatever else, they still thought that their opposition was too weak and not worth breaking out their best champions!

Realizing this, their interest in this Team Birdie only grew, trying to search them up online, but to no avail. This wasn’t too strange seeing as information regarding Team Skycrown online had been heavily restricted by Sky Club due to Xu Pingyang invoking his power at ACE.

Of course, this harmed Xu Pingyang as well. He could’ve had the chance to become the main acting secretary of ACE, yet now, he was not even the vice secretary, just one of ACE’s nameless members.

Poor him. He had held an important position in his previous e-sports Entertainment Company, but now, he was nothing, and it must’ve dealt a heavy blow to him.

“Has something been on your mind recently?” Zhou Yan asked.

Easily taking first place, even if it wasn’t worth celebrating, Zhou Yan didn’t think Luocheng would have been this down, after all, they had just won over 30,000 RMB and five high-specs computers!

“It’s nothing,” Luocheng said, “It’s just that back then, I only knew how to win and how to lose. But now, things are different, and if I think of things as simply as I did back then, everything would be the same and we would still have to give up e-sports for one reason or another…”

The appearance of Team Zhejiang had made Luocheng think of what Tuchuan had said before.

Tuchuan had looked at the bigger picture, noting all the fundamental problems. No matter how passionate you were, how hard you worked, you still had the chance of losing everything in an instant.

But wanting Luocheng to give up, for them to give up esports, that was impossible.

If so, why not try to make a change?

“I want to go to the General Administration of Sports,” Luocheng said.

Finally, Luocheng had said what he’d been wanting to do.

“You won’t be able to change anything. That’s a national department we’re talking about, they won’t approve of an e-sports association just because you ask nicely.” Zhou Yan said.

“Well, it’s better than doing nothing, right?” Luocheng replied.

“Even so, this should be handled by ACE and the LOL Committee,” Zhou Yan argued.

“Not entirely.” Luocheng shook his head.

Zhou Yan looked at Luocheng, suddenly not recognizing the person in front of him.

He still remembered the days when Team Wings was still around. Luocheng only craved victory, wanting to defeat any and all who dared stand in his path.

But now, he wanted to do so much more…