Chapter 56 (1/2)

The competition was highly efficient. The matches were often entirely one-sided, and a lot of the teams snowballed rapidly after going upwind. No one really watched the competitions between the smaller groups, and most of the people in the cybercafe were playing their own games.

The games could be spectated by clicking on an icon on one’s desktop. It was not until the finals did the Internet cafe sound an announcement.

“Dear customers and friends, our Internet cafes’ final tournament has officially begun. Chuzhou’s first team is about to be born!”

After the Internet cafe’s system announcement, some of the players went offline to watch the match through the big screen. After all, it was merely two steps away from them, so why would they waste their money on internet credit? The cybercafe was not that cheap either; it cost one six bucks an hour in the ordinary zone.

On the other hand, rich lads who were simply too lazy to move used the monitor in front of them to watch the tournament. They even ordered cups of milk tea for ten yuan each and adjusted themselves into a comfortable posture to spectate the game.

The finals drew a lot of attention, and the boss had hired a host for it. The young girl at the front desk who had been the host of many literary performances in her university had been dragged by the owner to become the tournament’s host. She had rehearsed in advance and looked very professional.

The girl had a microphone in her hand as she introduced the competition, prize pool, and tournament system to the audience. Many were impressed by the owner’s expansiveness, mostly because the 20,000 bucks reward was enough to cover an average college student’s tuition fees and living expenses for two years.

“The teams on both sides are now in their seats. The team on the left is Moonlight, and their team has a rather expansive background. Their captain is mid lane champion of the previous provincial competition, and for the Chuzhou Championship this time around, he seems to be determined to win as well. Meanwhile, the team on the right is a new team called 20000Bucks. Their name is very straightforward and simple…”

The owner looked at the front desk girl who was hosting from below and secretly nodded, somewhat indicating that he was satisfied with her performance. He was considering promoting her to become the store manager now. Opportunities always appear inadvertently when people least expect it, and those who manage to grasp it will have the chance of walking ahead of others.

Many people in the audience started to whisper amongst themselves. The title ‘provincial champion’ sounded radical. However, around the same time the previous year, League of Legends was not that popular. A large majority of players had only started entering the pit this year; hence the title sounded formidable.

“Here’s the segmented statistics of the players present. Moonlight’s top laner has a total of 2200 ELO points, their jungler has 2100 ELO points, and their mid laner has a staggering 2500 ELO points! According to the information that we have, no one in our Internet cafe has reached 2500 ELO points before. Hence, he’s the highest-ranking player that has ever appeared in our store. Additionally, their bot laners have 2200 ELO points.”

The data was more or less only a rough summary. After all, the players’ information was only collected last week. There was also a possibility that many of the players had improved during this period, hence only a rough segment could be provided.

“Oh my god, 2500 ELO points. He should be one of the top ten thousand ranked players on the Chinese server now, right? Isn’t the players with the highest number of ELO points only at 2900?” Someone marveled at his high ELO points score.

“It’s estimated to be more than 2500 points since he qualifies for the youth training of major professional teams. He can’t be ranked just top ten thousand, he’s at least top five thousand,” the weight of his rank was explained by someone else.

“Alright, next up, we have 20000Bucks. The top laner has 2000 ELO points, and the mid laner has… well he just reached level-30 recently and doesn’t have a rank just yet… Their bot laners have 2300 ELO points each, and they’re the only ones with a slight advantage looking at how they have a little more ELO points than Moonlight’s bot laners. So, that’s it for the introduction of the two teams, let’s watch their exciting match together,” the young girl said.

“Hahaha, the audacity of entering a competition after only reaching level-30. That team’s probably crazy. I might as well join in, at least I have 1500 points,” Someone ridiculed. He felt that there was no need for them to even play this match, and Moonlight was sure to win.

Some people who had watched the previous games found it strange. Chen Mu had played very well and was the team’s carry. How was he still unranked?

Moonlight’s mid laner, Chang Hao, was adjusting his runes and was taken aback when he heard the host’s words. He wanted to gauge his opponent’s strength by finding out his number of ELO points. However, his opponent’s ELO points was not revealed!

It was an interesting situation. Solely by the inning, he was sure that the mid laner could not possibly be unranked with the latter’s CSing skills and mechanics. Could it be? Was it to cause a pretentious effect? Perhaps he hid his points to later on highlight his formidability when he performed remarkably?

Chang Hao was in a somewhat foul mood. ‘He would go as far as to pretend to be a ringer in front of me? Just watch, I’ll blow your head off!’

Chen Mu’s team advanced relatively smoothly. There was another team that advanced alongside them, but rumor had it that their support was a high school student whose father found out about his endeavor. After his father dragged him back home, his team was forced to throw in the towel.

Forfeiting the game…

Nevertheless, no matter the case, it was now the finals. The knockout system had changed to become a BO3[1]. Which meant that the winner had to win two out of three games. The fact that Chen Mu had to face someone with 2500 ELO points was even more frightening, and he was continuously contemplating whether or not he would be able to handle it.

Even after watching Chen Mu play for so long, Brother Shi was still unable to give a rough estimate of his rank in terms of ELO points. However, the scariest part was that even after they had played so many rounds, Chen Mu was the only one out the five of them who did not die even once!

That itself was sufficient to show that Chen Mu was likely stronger than the bot lane twins.

The game started!

The bans that came from both sides were naturally the popular champions of the World Championship, such as Jester, Widow, Jayce, etc.