CH 1

London, England.

Esports peak top match — GDL World Finals Scene.

Thousands of people filled the stadium, gathering for such an unprecedented and magnificent event. The brilliant and dazzling stage lights lit up the venue, with the sound of cries and cheers of the entire audience engulfing the area. 

Five people wearing the same uniform stepped onto the podium, causing thousands of eSports fans to shout madly, their deafening roars echoing within the arena for a long time.

The five men on the podium held the trophy up high, allowing it to shine under the spotlight and finally evoked the arc of glory1

The first gold medal won globally in the history of domestic eSports was held in Black Rose Team’s hands on this night.

***

Such a scene kept replaying over and over again in Lin Xiao’s mind. He slowly narrowed his eyes, and a loud “pah!” sounded when he tossed the phone to the side, burrowing his whole body into the quilt.

The phone’s screen light was still on, and the words from the news report could clearly be seen. Team Black Rose’s captain, Old Ghost 2, who won the trophy at China’s first eSports Championship Trophy in the UK, while on his way to the airport suffered in an unfortunate car accident and was declared dead upon rescue. 

Time of report, 5 years ago.

As Lin Xiao turned over, he couldn’t help using his hand to smooth out his ruffled hair.

‘If Old Ghost, Team Black Rose’s captain died five years ago, then who was he?’

Several days passed since he woke up, and strange memories would always surface in his mind from time to time, making him unable to come to terms and accept his new identity. The original body owner was an avid gaming enthusiast. It was a pity he wasn’t some outstanding gaming talent, and could only be labeled as an ordinary player in the game ‘Zone’.3 He spent all his savings in crazily chasing celebrities as well as collecting numerous merchandise.

In his last memory, he was thrown out of the venue at a fan meeting because of showing too much public display of affection towards a particular male All-Star God player. Suffering this double blow of not only having his confession rejected by his favorite idol but also having it done in public, when he got home he took some sleeping pills and committed suicide. 

The man’s name was also ‘Lin Xiao’. Both had the same name and both lived a short life, however, when comparing their journeys, they were worlds apart.

Since that deity’s death, his own soul was able to occupy the body.

After several days of recollection and trying to understand the memories, Lin Xiao was already clear that compared to 5 years ago, the eSports League now was more serious and could be said to have undergone tremendous amounts of change. Pro-players who usually lived in utility rooms and survived only on instant noodles had become a thing of the past. Today’s pro-players were treated as the precious darlings of their clubs, from league matches and individual branding, to countless advertising endorsements, their worth was even comparable to that of popular movie stars.

This was undoubtedly the ideal environment for Lin Xiao who had suffered in an era full of hardships in eSports; he couldn’t help but feel excited.

Although the original owner had squandered almost all of his finances, he still had some money left. As long as he could return to the league before the credit card was maxed out and successfully finds a club to sign with, any life issues in the future could naturally be solved.

He touched some clothes by his side, and strolled around the room

Obviously there wasn’t much in the single flat, most of the space was taken up by small objects, except for a small space in the corner that a computer desk and a desktop computer occupied.

Even though the original owner was a worthless otaku4, fortunately the basic ‘job hunting’ tools he needed right now were pretty much there ready for his use.

Lin Xiao sat down in front of the computer with his legs crossed, he opened the browser on the desktop and started to go through Zone’s official website.

In the span of five years, Zone had already undergone several updated versions, and it took him two days to get a brief understanding and to make adjustments to the changes of the game content over the years. On the third day, he finally opened the game’s login interface slowly.

He certainly couldn’t use his Old Ghost’s account from back then as it would not be available. Lin Xiao thought for a bit, and in the end decided to use the Ghost Priest5 account, ID: Adorable Ghost 6. Due to not logging in for a long period of time, his original Second Division Ladder leveled7 character had already fallen to the Tenth Division, he had 800 points which were 200 points lower than the initial default of 1,000 points for new players.　　

In the last two days, Lin Xiao had long come up with a feasible plan. In the current bursting age of the eSports industry, the youngsters that wanted to enter a club’s training camp were all racking their brains on how to enter, but without hard work, these clubs surely wouldn’t even spare them a glance. It was similar to the way the pro-circle dug him up back then. What he needed to do now was to rush up the leader-boards as soon as possible.

As long as he could get back to the Second Division, he wouldn’t have to worry about grabbing the attention of all the clubs that were scouting everywhere for newcomers.

The game’s lobby was filled with various groups of people advertising for their parties. One could obviously see that during the past five years, the development team had added a lot of new maps as well as a variety of new equipment with new attributes for players to collect and upgrade.

According to what he’d learnt in the previous two days, these equipment were much more diverse than they were in the past, and there were great improvements from operations to mechanics. He glanced at his own equipment library that was filled with antiques and he suddenly felt extremely shabby, truly poor and pitiful.

However, when it came to Zone, a game that specialized in accumulating a variety of equipment, the collection and training of new materials could not be done overnight, let alone dividing up resources according to its attributes. It was better to spend more time leveling up.

Lin Xiao decided to firstly put the matter of collecting equipment aside, and with a click left the lobby, directly entering the Arena interface.

To get familiarized with the current PvP style of the game, he directly double-clicked at the gauge skills option from the ladder, which was undoubtedly the best choice.

He adjusted a few shortcut keys in his keyboard settings, clicked on the ready button and entered the queue.

At the same time streaming live on a certain platform, another person joined the queue at that exact moment.

***

In Room 1001 of the GY streaming platform, the number of viewers had already reached 400,000 people. The well-known funny streamer Little Monkey Master was actively interacting with the audience: “I’m glad to see everyone on time for Monkey Master’s live show, today Monkey Master will give you a demonstration of the ‘Summoner’ class. In order to allow everyone to appreciate the essence of this class better, Monkey Master lowered his moral standards to use a Tenth Division Ladder smurf 8, most cases used deceptively. account, to give everyone a detailed and accurate analysis of the skills.”

A barrage of messages suddenly filled the screen—

“Monkey Lord is too shameless to be torturing noobs!”

“Can’t reach the higher divisions, goes to the Tenth Division, shame on you.”

“Today’s bullying targets are too low-level, bad review, refund!”

***

Looking at the barrage flood on the screen, Little Monkey Master was in a good mood. After swiping the messages from his screen, he readily accepted the window prompt and joined the room. During the pre-match phase, he began to slowly discard each dungeon map, then equipped himself with the most common summoner equipment from his collection. After doing a final check and confirming everything was good, he said stupidly without thinking: “Seeing everyone always so enthusiastic, today Monkey Master must claim 100 blood9 so everyone will be happy.”

The barrage exploded in boos.

While one party ridiculed the other, the game preparations had ended, and both characters had spawned on their respective resurrection points.

Each corner of the screen showed the avatars of both players.　　

Little Monkey Master immediately pointed out the opponent’s whole appearance, habitually looking for ways to ridicule the other’s avatar: “As you can see, the opponent’s avatar is a small female Ghost Priest wearing dark clothes, just like a tiny crow. The hell! He actually bought a small red hood, and high red boots? Does he think this is a cosplay for Little Red Riding Hood?! And his nickname is also… Oh, it’s called ‘Adorable Ghost’, too fitting, so adorable indeed, the player himself must be an adorable ghost.”

While interacting with the viewers, the Little Monkey Master couldn’t help but grouse in his heart.

It could be said that he had been in contact with the game Zone for a long time now, and because of personal interests he normally took note of official fashion notices the most. Now looking at the costume set in front of him, this was clearly the Little Red Riding Hood [limited edition] one that was released seven years ago, and was on the market for only a month back then before being sold out and no longer available in the mall.

Is this opponent actually an old player?

Little Monkey Master was startled by his own thoughts.

Playing for more than seven years yet staying in the Tenth Division? Was there someone who had such horrible gaming talent, huh?!

There were some old players that were viewing the broadcast who also discovered this, causing the comments to erupt in cheers. Monkey Master was amused by their lively atmosphere and deliberately typed mockingly on the general chat: “Hey, brother at the other end, are you an old player? It’s not easy climbing up the ladder to score points, should I put some water out for you?”10

Almost at the exact moment he sent it, he received a response from the other party, who had only four words to say, “Don’t think too much.”

When he saw those words, his heart jumped.

This opponent, his hand-speed was too fast…

This time, tens of thousands of anti-fans who saw Little Monkey Master’s face slapped suddenly flooded the screen again—

“Monkey Master has been left out, I’m in shock!”

“Monkey Lord, you can do it, huh? Even a Tenth Division player dares to look down on you, huh!”

“My distressed monkey, don’t think too much.”

“Don’t think too much +1.”

“Don’t think too much +2.”

“Don’t think too much +10086.”

***

Based on the typing speed just now, the opponent was probably not a rookie but more like an expert using a smurf account.

During today’s first live broadcast he crossed paths with such an unknown hidden expert, Little Monkey Master had an inexplicably sour feeling. However, he’d already lost face in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and under their piercing gazes, he had to swallow back his own grievances and maintain his image!

After all, he was also an expert from the Second Division Ladder, as long as the other wasn’t a pro-player or a ‘passerby king’ at the top of the food chain, as an ordinary passerby master, there was no need to pay attention to him. So with a grim face, he silently erased the “Don’t mention it” words he had already typed in the chat box, switching those three words with: “Just you wait!”

At the other end of the screen, Lin Xiao stared at the words in the general chat, and touched his chin blankly.

Had even low-ranked players become so wild? Thinking back, when was the last time someone had said those same three words to him? Too long, it seems he can’t remember. 

T/N: This took forevvver to translate however I had fun translating just as how I hope you all have fun reading. LOL, 1 chapter down and ahhhh 1..5..2.. 152 chapters to go. (^‿^｡) 

Victory Smile

Old Ghost – Lin Xiao’s nickname as well as his gaming character when he played in the League.

Zone – The name of the game they are playing. Just like Glory or League of Legends (LOL).

Otaku –  (in Japan)  they can be considered a young person who is obsessed with computers, anime and games

Ghost Priest – Account Lin Xiao created in his earlier days before joining the pro-league.

Adorable Ghost – ID for Ghost Priest account. Author originally had ‘Gui Meng Meng’. 

Second Division Level – Ladder levels go from 1-10 with 10 being the lowest 

Smurf – Alternate account experts normally use to play in lower levels

Blood – Kill(s).

A taunting way of asking someone if they would like your help.