Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The first week of the Media War was held in Huahe Electronics Mall. This electronic city was built not too long ago, and there weren’t enough shops rented out yet and the floor space was fairly large.
The officials didn’t need to invest too much money in here as Huahe Electronics Mall themselves needed the traffic and publicity. The entire second floor of the mall had been transformed into a stadium.
Simple tables, chairs, and five computers on each row had been placed, together with a stage in the middle for the referee’s computer.
Area A, B, C and D, a total of four areas had been divided. Each area had been divided into eight stages, which is to say, thirty-two games could be run simultaneously in this huge mall.
The competition schedule would start from 10 am in the morning all the way until 8 pm at night, and there would be no interruption during the games.
There were more than a thousand teams participating in this competition, and each team had five members. This meant there was a total of 5,000 participants, and if all of them were to be present at the same time, it would overcrowd the entire mall. Moreover, this was a nationwide qualifiers competition.
Shanghai was holding the largest competition area here, then there was one in North China, another in South China, and lastly, one in Shenzhen. There were a total of four divisions and no one could accurately say how many teams were participating.
Of course, not all of the participating teams were professional teams. There was no requirement to enter the qualifiers, as long as you held the rank of Platinum and above, any five people could join the competition as a team.
The other divisions were different and they had rewards with it. It was most likely the sponsors who had contributed in order to attract more people to gather for the competition.
Some of the teams were not aiming for LPL, if they could get enough fame from the competition, that was also a form of honor for them already.
The main battlefield was in Shanghai, as the teams came with the intention to go pro. This was why the competition here would be so much more fierce, and you would really taste the situation of where kings would stay and losers would get kicked out!
Team Skycrown had registered very early, any team that had won first to third place in any competitions were exempted from the three elimination matches. Team Skycrown didn’t have any of those glories, so they had to start from the most tedious knockout phase.They would also be facing three different teams in matches in this one week.
On the first day of the competition, Team Skycrown would have to play. The match was around 3 pm in the afternoon and they would be notified of the specific time later.
Team Skycrown had reached the location at around 12 pm and were looking for a place to eat nearby. There were a lot of shops nearby but they were all really crowded by the members of teams from all over.
E-sports competitions had always been held in not a high standard, even when they were held, there wouldn’t be much of a crowd. Rarely would people travel a thousand miles for a game where the rewards were low. Generally, once you subtracted the traveling expenses and accommodation, there would be very little left of your rewards.
Luocheng had played professionally before this and had also experienced embarrassing moments with his team. He knew that for the organizer who wanted to gather a lot of players at one location, it was really hard.
And then, LOL had managed to make an amazing breakthrough in the industry as could be seen from the surrounding eateries where so many different professional teams were gathered.
“Luocheng, where’s your team? We have space here, come over and eat with us.”
The phone call was from Qin Ying, whom he had not heard from for quite a while. Qin Ying was still managing LOL teams and it was spreading into the teams from major internet cafes.
The last time they had spoken, he had mentioned that as long as it was any LOL competitions and players hosted by Lecheng, it was all under his management.
This time, he had come to Shanghai with a LOL team that he had been training for more than six months. There were changes in the members and it was certain that their strength was stronger than before.
“Sure, we happen to have nowhere to eat anyway. We’re coming over.” Luocheng said, nodding his head.
Following Qin Ying’s directions, Luocheng found the restaurant. There were two tables in the private room, and the people inside were discussing as they ate.
“I saw the members of Team Shadow Wind just now, but that’s weird. Weren’t they exempted from the elimination matches? Why did they appear?” Huang Yu said.
“It seemed like Team Shadow Wind was quite well known but they have changed their name. They changed clubs and sponsors too, so even though their members are still the name, they appear to be a new team to the organizers. So they’re basically restarting from the beginning.” Xiao Dao explained.
“Haha, since we won the championship in the Champion War, we also managed to skip two elimination matches.” Xiao Tongtong said as he laughed.
As Tongtong laughed, he looked up to see somebody walking in.
“Shit, Luocheng!” Tongtong smiled brightly.
Huang Yu and Qin Ying also saw Luocheng, and they greeted him enthusiastically. The table was relatively large, so they just needed to squeeze a little and there was enough space for Team Skycrown to join them.
“Boss, could I get a menu, we’ll be ordering some more.” Qin Ying called out.
“Boss Qin, let me introduce you to the original members of my team. Da Luo, Zhou Yan, Lin Dong, Wu Sen and Xiao Bei, they’re the ones competing today.” Luocheng said.
“I thought you were joking when you called me the other day, so you really did make a team and even became their coach, haha! Ah, I don’t have to introduce you to Huang Yu, Xiao Dao and Tongtong again, right. I’ll introduce you to our two new members, our ADC—Tuo Niao, and Bin Bin who took over your role as Support after you left. Hai Yang went on to study properly in a university already.” Qin Ying said as he laughed.
Luocheng glanced at Tuo Niao, who looked a bit bored. When he was introduced, Tuo Niao merely looked at Luocheng but didn’t say a word. Whereas Bin Bin looked at Luocheng and asked, “You were Team Scarlet’s original Support?”
“Yeah.” Luocheng nodded his head.
“I don’t get it, why would you be a coach? I thought players couldn’t be a coach until they retired from playing?” Bin Bin asked.
“Him? He’s more than qualified to be a coach. If he were to flash out his previous ID to the professional teams, they would be scrambling over themselves to take him as their own coach.” Qin Ying said and chuckled.
Bin Bin ignored Qin Ying’s praises and continued, “Since you’re here today for the match, it would mean that you hadn’t gotten any titles before today.”
Team Scarlet had recently taken the champion title in the Champion War, so they could skip two elimination matches. As long as they won the third match, they could advance to the second stage.
Team Scarlet’s match would be five days later, and Qin Ying had brought them earlier to familiarize themselves with the location.
To be honest, seeing so many teams busy within the crowd of people trying to qualify by winning three elimination matches made Bin Bin felt like they were superior because they only had to play one match.
“Yeah, our team is newly formed.” Luocheng said.
“If you’re newly formed, you should have joined other competitions to gain more experience. This is a professional competition, it isn’t suitable to be used as a training experience.” Bin Bin said as he took a sip of her beer, talking like a veteran player.
“Let’s eat, let’s eat.” Qin Ying interjected, somewhat embarrassed.
Luocheng glanced at Qin Ying and the latter explained quietly to him, “Bin Bin was originally a professional player, and you could say that the reason we won the Champion War was because of him. Apart from being a little arrogant and a show-off, the rest of him is fine.”
“Have a good match in the afternoon, we’ll definitely be watching. Ignore that guy, he’s full of shit.” Huang Yu said as he patted Lin Dong’s shoulder, his expression friendly.
Lin Dong nodded his head.
“F*ck, who’re you calling full of shit. If it wasn’t for me, how would you have gotten champion in the Champion War. You really have no standards like those other shitty teams out there.” Bin Bin said, his voice full of satisfaction.
Huang Yu ignored the guy and proceeded to share some experience with Lin Dong as mid laners.
