Chapter 134  : Untitled

Seeing that his opponent’s speed was so fast, Ji Zhiyao instantly became slightly panicky, his mind blanked out, and he relied solely on his subconscious to resist his opponent’s combined abilities.

Thus

“First Blood.”

First blood, emerged.

Ji Zhiyao blinked blankly, his mind only able to think about one thing.

How could the opponent be so fast?

How was that possible?

If he had to compare, usually his fans in the livestream room all said that his hand speed was from being single for 20 years, in comparison, the opponent before him would probably have been single for 30 to 40 years.

A few seconds of respawn time passed quickly.

Ji Zhiyao’s left hand that laid on the keyboard trembled uncontrollably, he even couldn’t attend to checking on Mo Huaifeng and Heng’s current situation, inhaling deeply, steadying his fingers, he controlled his champion to set off once more.

Yet less than ten minutes later, the same thing reoccurred.

Staring fixedly at the gray screen before him, Ji Zhiyao felt that his throat was a little dry.

That encounter with the opposite jungler just now, where had he gone wrong again?

Used his abilities too early?

Or did not retreat enough distance when he was fighting, that led to the opponent successfully catching up to him?

Or his second ability’s stun was zero point something second slower because he had been too nervous?

Ji Zhiyao felt as if he had sunk into a weird hole, as if he couldn’t match up to his opponent in any aspects, resulting in his mind being cold and blank throughout even before they finished the match.

Respawn time ended once more, Ji Zhiyao heard Mo Huaifeng’s voice by his ear. “Don’t be anxious, play slowly, we stand a chance.”

Yet Ji Zhiyao quickly realized that he was completely deaf to those words.

The more he was singlehandedly killed by the opposite jungler, the more he wanted to show that he had the ability to kill his opponent singlehandedly, to prove that his existence was an indispensable one to the team.

Then he fell even harder.

At the end, the top lane that he defended was ganged up upon and successfully pushed down by the opponents, when his team’s crystal was hammered till it was left with that last trifle of health, Ji Zhiyao seemingly heard the voices of the opponents and at the same time, with tacit understanding, automatically translated those words that came with traces of a smile into Chinese to himself.

“Look at the opposing jungler, what a joke, virtually the lousiest player I’ve seen in my career, which outdated, cheap battleteam is he a member of? The Chinese battleteam to enter the international league this year, absolutely wouldn’t be them.”

Swallowing several times with difficulty, Ji Zhiyao could clearly feel that there was cold perspiration sliding down the side of his face.

Until a glass of 7UP with ice added and a straw was placed before him—

Ji Zhiyao’s vision followed along the arm of the big hand that was placed on the outside of the glass and gradually met Mo Huaifeng’s face.

Mo Huaifeng’s expression was a peacefulness that he had not expected.

Ji Zhiyao could not help but drop his gaze.

He did not reach out to touch that glass.

A proper 3v3 match, and it ended this way because of him. He felt especially sorry towards Mo Huaifeng.

7 2.

Mo Huaifeng stared deeply at Ji Zhiyao and didn’t say anything else, but picked up his phone and spoke a line of Korean into the ear-mic.

While so, Heng reached over and patted Ji Zhiyao’s shoulder twice.

And this action seemed to have woken Ji Zhiyao, he reluctantly tugged up the corner of his lips towards Heng, then wrapped his right hand around the mouse and looked at the results that had flashed out.

His results were 2/6/0

Moving upwards, Heng’s results were 3/5/1 and Mo Huaifeng’s 6/3/2.

As expected, he was the worst of them all.

Comparatively speaking, Heng’s results weren’t too good too, it seems that when they were laning earlier, he had had quite a bit of trouble.

Ji Zhiyao looked down and happened to see the glass that Mo Huaifeng had placed, the carbonated drink in it formed a small layer of bubbles on the side of the glass and looked very pretty.

He kept silent for a few seconds, leaned forward, his teeth biting on the straw as he sipped, his entire person felt as if he had sobered up instantly.

Finishing the large glass of drink without stopping, Ji Zhiyao hiccuped from being filled by the air bubbles. He pushed the glass aside and squinted at the computer screen.

Just when he thought he had made great improvements and was feeling pleased with himself, reality mercilessly gave him a head-on blow.

There were still many aspects where he had to improve in.

The opponents that he faced earlier might not even be a battleteam that had a placing in the international league, and in the future, as long as Mix makes it into the international league and gets thrashed again like, it would be too embarrassing.

For now, he was merely a little reserve in the team with no reputation, a newbie on the competing stage, such results weren’t considered embarrassing, but if he played like this in the future...

Ji Zhiyao thought, even if it’s simply for the sake of not letting others feel that Mo Huaifeng’s judgment was problematic, he would have to pull himself up and use his capabilities to prove himself.

Having reflected with a level mind, Ji Zhiyao felt much better at heart. He stared seriously at the results on the screen, analyzing the difference between the equipment bought by himself and the opposite jungler, wanting to find where else his opponent had surpassed him, other than in hand speed.

After a detailed comparison, he then realized that the opponent for the sake of enhancing his speed, had bought three pairs of accelerating boots.

This also meant that out of a total of eight equipment spaces, there were three that the opponent dedicated to speed.

Speed from the accelerating boots is accumulated through addition, in order words, earlier on, his opponent was fast not only because of his hand speed, but also included the increase in speed for the champion itself due to the equipment. But Ji Zhiyao was a little confused, if too much equipment was to increase speed, other aspects would be neglected, such as mana, or damage, wasn’t the opponent’s jungler worried about these problems?

If he could, he wanted to try...

Ji Zhiyao was pondering over these questions when he heard Mo Huaifeng stop his conversation with the few people from earlier and turned to ask them. “What thoughts?”

After a few seconds of silence, Heng said, “Earlier on the technique of the opposing mid-laner was very special, I recognized it. Captain, he is Korea’s King battleteam’s Boxer right?”

Hearing the name King, Ji Zhiyao’s pupils involuntarily contracted.

King Battleteam!

As Korea’s very first eSports battleteam formed for Heroes, they were the fully deserving kings of Heroes.

Once, the champions for three seasons of the international league.

An existence that made North America, Japan, Chinese and numerous more competing regions tremble in fear upon hearing about them.

Earlier, their opponent was them?

Ji Zhiyao looked toward Mo Huaifeng and heard him say, “Yes, the three people earlier, were King battleteam’s jungler, mid-laner and ADC respectively.”

“How do you feel now?”

Heng was the first to reply with a bitter smile. “Where would there be any feeling? We’re not lacking just a tiny bit.”

Then both of them looked towards Ji Zhiyao together and found that he appeared rather puzzled

Ji Zhiyao said, “Their playing habits are quite different from our usual ones, we need to think over it in detail.”

Heng was surprised. “Damn, brother, earlier on I even thought you would just burst out crying, I didn’t expect that you actually thought about all these?”

“Don’t accuse me, I’m not, I didn’t, don’t spout nonsense, please take note.”

Mo Huaifeng did not speak, Ji Zhiyao secretly looked over a little nervous and saw Mo Huaifeng with his lips slightly curled up, looking at him with a vague smile.

Ji Zhiyao’s heart skipped a beat and he intentionally acted as if nothing had happened. “Captain, why are you staring at me? Was I wrong in what I said?”

“Nothing, just kind of missing the times when you cried over other battleteams.”

“Captain you’re so perverted.”

Mo Huaifeng’s reply was neither soft nor harsh. “Tsk.”

He sat upright and said in all seriousness, “This 3v3 match is considered to be a wake-up call for us. Right now, to be greatly lacking as compared to King battleteam, is very normal. As the primary damage dealing positions, you guys have to adjust your mindsets properly.”

Heng nodded. “Don’t worry Captain.”

Ji Zhiyao also nodded his head. “Mm, I will continue to work hard.”

“Good.”

Heng suddenly asked, full of interest. “Captain, how did you and King get to know each other. I remember I’ve never heard you mention that.”

Ji Zhiyao also looked towards Mo Huaifeng with curious eyes. Mo Huaifeng squinted at them, then said, “We knew each other from the previous national qualifiers. Their Captain is also an ADC, I’m more familiar with him.”

Heng was in awe. “Cool. I suddenly feel like my Captain is a treasure boy, there’s nothing he can’t do.”

Mo Huaifeng grinned. “Would you like to have a taste of the treasure boy’s little fists?”

Ji Zhiyao who witnessed the entire course of things snorted out loud.

The three of them chatted for a while and returned to continue with training.

Ji Zhiyao chose to do the colored blocks practice.

In the match earlier, he then realized how great a difference there was between his hand speed and that of King’s jungler, who ranked 5th internationally. Perhaps the difference between then wasn’t totally because of hand speed, but it was definitely a big part of the reason.

Since he couldn’t match up, then he would practice.

There would come a day, where he would be able to catch up.

...

Two days later.

Kang Kyung Chwa entered the training room and began with a retest for the colored blocks program.

As professional players, from being completely unfamiliar to gradually adapting to it, there should be an increase in everyone’s results.

The first to be tested was Mo Huaifeng, as he began with a large base number and had also gone through such program training in Korea previously, his change was the smallest, only increasing by three seconds to hit 45 seconds.

Next was Heng, he improved by four seconds, reaching 35 seconds.

Followed by Xiaofei and K, both of them added six seconds.

Ji Zhiyao improved by eight seconds.

Last was Nuo, perhaps because Kang Kyung Chwa’s words that day touched him very deeply, he worked especially hard during training these past few days, the amount of time he hung on for increased by nine seconds, as he hit 28 seconds.

Although this result was still the bottom one within the team, Nuo was still very happy. Even Kang Kyung Chwa, after seeing his result, had very surprisingly praised him, “Very good.”

Just as Nuo was feeling pleased, Mo Huaifeng, Mo Huaifeng glanced at him and said quickly after Kang Kyung Chwa. “Not too bad, as the only person in the team to not go above 30, you provided a source of consolation for the rest.”

Nuo’s laughter instantly became sobbing.

Actually the one who surprised Kang Kyung Chwa the most was probably Ji Zhiyao, because as a damage dealing position, to improve this much so quickly, he must have put in painstaking effort to practice. But Mo Huaifeng wanted Ji Zhiyao to continue maintaining his mentality of working hard and specially did not translate this portion.

When the colored blocks test ended, Ji Zhiyao did not return to seat to train like the others, instead he said to Mo Huaifeng, “Captain, I have a question that I would like to ask Coach Kang.”

“Go ahead.”

Ji Zhiyao said, “In that 3v3 match with King a few days ago, I realized that their jungler gave three out of eight equipment spaces to speed. I would like to ask Coach Kang, is such playing style currently very popular in Korea? And giving too many spaces to speed, will it affect the other skills?”

Kang Kyung Chwa listened to Mo Huaifeng’s translation very seriously, then gave a very long reply.

Ji Zhiyao heard Mo Huaifeng say, “He said, in Korea, the eSports industry is considered developed, every player is bold enough to make attempts in the directions that they wish to. For example, speed flow which you mentioned, there are many professional players who have made attempts in this direction and there are also many who have achieved good results, you can of course try it out too. As for the impacts you spoke about, he said he’d heard of a common saying of China, known as, “Amongst all the martial arts in the world, only swiftness is invincible”. If you think about it carefully, was the jungler champion that the player had picked deviated towards speed in the first place? The modeling of Heroes is very intact, since each role has different attributes, there would definitely exist a meaning that matches it. If you’re interested, you can by all means explore by yourself.

Ji Zhiyao stood quietly and thought for a while, then nodded his head, saying as if absorbed in thought, “Thank you coach, I will be sure to make proper attempts.”

Watching Ji Zhiyao return to his seat, Kang Kyung Chwa suddenly spoke up and conversed with Mo Huaifeng, entirely in Korean.

“I heard he hasn’t even played an official tournament at the moment? If that’s the case, then his gift is really not bad. He could actually sense the difference between various schools of playing in China’s slightly backward eSports scene. You must know, even in Korean, this is also something that a portion of professional players do not have.”

“Yes, he is indeed a very talented being. Perhaps at present his skills have yet to reach the extent to rank amongst the top few in the world, but I believe that there will be a day where he will reach there.”

“He’s a reserve?”

“That’s right, he’s not part of the starting lineup at the moment.”

“I think Korean’s eSports environment is more suited for his development, since that’s the case, how about giving him up to Vita battleteam?”

“Haven’t you already left Vita?”

“Though I’ve left, but adding a reserve for them is still something I can do. What do you think? Do think about it.”

“Don’t assume that because you are a coach, I will agree to your request. No matter how many times you repeat yourself, I will only have one answer, impossible.”

“Hey, you rascal. Virtually too disrespectful to elders.”

...

[Title: The little cutie pie who also has gossip about the eSports scene to share today.

As an experienced fan of eSports, if you ask me which battleteam is my favorite, I will say the name “King” without hesitation.

Okay, here comes the problem.

This afternoon, I was watching King battleteam’s Boxer darling’s livestream replay and suddenly found a problem, not sure if there are friends who caught the same thing as I did.

In darling’s list of match results that flashed, I think I saw the few letters, Mix.Fi.

To prove that I’m really not blind, I specially went on my alternate account and went to dig Fi-god’s match results from yesterday afternoon (speaking about this you guys must praise me, you totally wouldn’t know what a difficult task it is to go through the match history of a professional player QAQ), then I saw the truth.

Fi-god and King, really played against each other yesterday!]

[1st comment: ? ? ? Where’s the gossip you promised? What’s with the sudden lag after reading till here?]