London, UK.
Zone"s eSports top-notch climax match -GDL World Finals stage.
Millions of people filled the stadium for such unprecedented grand occasion, brilliant and dazzling stage lights lightning up the place, the sound of cries and cheers had engulfed the whole audience.
Five people wearing the same team uniform walked onto the awarding podium, thousands of gamers couldn"t help but shout madly, the deafening roars filled the arena for a long time.
The five people at the podium lifted the trophy up high, finally under the spotlight victorious and happy lips arched upwards.
The first eSports World Tournament gold trophy on China’s compet.i.tive history, was on Team Black Rose"s pocket that night.
Such a scene, kept replaying over and over again on Lin Xiao"s mind, he slowly narrowed his eyes, a pah! sounded when the phone fell by the bedside edge, his whole person rubbed on the decorative quilt.
The phone’s screen light was still on, the words on the news report could be clearly read -Team Black Rose"s captain, Elder Monk Ghost1, who won China"s first eSports Championship Trophy at the UK, on his way to the airport unfortunately got involved on a car accident, rescue was futile and was declared dead.
Article"s date, five years ago.
Lin Xiao turned over, he couldn"t help but unruffle his layered hair 2 with the hand he had reached to his head.
-If Elder Monk Ghost, Team Black Rose"s captain, died five years ago, then who was him?
Several days had pa.s.sed since he woke up, a strange memory would always surface on his mind from time to time, making it difficult for him to accept his new ident.i.ty yet.
The original body owner was an eSports fanatic enthusiast. Unfortunately, he wasn"t some outstanding gaming talent, he was nothing but the kind of ordinary "Zone" in-game player, spent all his savings on his frenzied chase of a celebrity as well as collecting merchandise products.
On his last memory, because at a fan meeting, he made a public display of affection towards a male All-Star G.o.d player, the other party requested for him to be thrown out from the venue. Under the double blow of both his frustrated shown of love and the rejection of his Idol, after arriving home, as such, he resorted to committing suicide by taking sleeping pills.
The guy"s name was also "Lin Xiao", the same given name as him, a short-span life like him, but looking back at the whole story, it was but an ill-starred day.
However, because of that fateful death, he somehow got to take over that body.
After a few days sorting out his memories, was already clear that, the environment of the eSports League was more serious when compared to back then, it could be said there were some earth-shattering changes. The pro-players living on storerooms, feeding on instant noodles; such things had become something of the past, nowadays all pro-players were the darlings of their clubs, be it from league matches to individual branding, to countless advertising endors.e.m.e.nts, their worth was even comparable to that of popular movie stars.
Such when compared to the eSports era full of hardships Lin Xiao came from, it undoubtedly was a sought-after environment, by just thinking about it, couldn"t help but make one feel somewhat excited.
Although the original body owner had almost completely spilled all his family belongings away, but had at least left some money to survive, as long as he could return to the League before the credit cards were overdraft, successfully finding a Club to sign with, all his future life issues would be as good as simply solved.
He touched some clothes by his side, and strolled around the room.
Obviously there wasn"t much on a single flat, most of the s.p.a.ce was used up by scale figures, except for a small s.p.a.ce left to set a computer desk, where a desktop computer rested.
Even if he was a good-for-nothing otaku, at any rate, the "job hunting" tools he needed right now were pretty much there.
Lin Xiao crossed his legs while sitting down in front of the computer, clicked on the desktop shortcut to open the browser, introducing then browsing through Zone"s official website.
After the span of five years, the Zone from earlier already had several update versions, it took him two days to get a brief understanding of the changes from the data patches on in-game content over the years, by the third day, he finally took his sweet time to click start at the interface of the game launcher.
He certainly couldn"t use the Elder Ghost account from back then, Lin Xiao thought for a bit, and at the end decided to use his own Soul Priest3 cla.s.s account from before joining the pro-league, ID: Adorable Ghost4. Due to the long time without logging in, his original Second Division Ladder character, had already fell to the Tenth Division, his match points were 800, from the initial new player"s default points of 1000 was but a full 200 bellow.
During these two days, Lin Xiao had long come up with a nice plan. Under the current bursting age of the eSports industry, the youngsters that wanted to enter a Club"s training camp were all racking their brains, without hard work, they surely wouldn"t even spare you a glance. Just on the same way as how the pro-circle dug him up back then, what he needed to do now, was to rush upwards through the ladder boards as soon as possible.
As long as he could get back on the Second Division, he wouldn"t have to worry about grabbing the attention of all those Clubs scouting everywhere for newcomers.
The game"s lobby was full of several groups of people advertising their parties here and there, it was obvious that during those past five years, the developer team had added a lot of new maps, and at the same time also added a variety of new equipment with new attributes to collect and upgrade.
According to the understanding he gained from the previous two days, such kinds of equipment had more diverse lineups that those back on the day, and had made a great improvement from playability to mechanics. Such left the him with a collection full of antiques, after a glance, feeling especially really shabby, truly poor and pathetic.
However, when it came to aiming to collect the variety of equipment in-game on Zone, the process of putting the new equipment together and upgrading them couldn"t be done on a single night, let alone needing to divide equipment according to its attributes, just picking on which direction to develop the equipment of your choice, it was enough to spend once again a lot of thought.
Lin Xiao decided to firstly put aside the matter of collecting equipment, with a click left the lobby, directly entering the Arena interface.
To get familiarised with the current PvP style of the game, he directly double-clicked at the gauge skills option from the ladder, it was no doubt the best choice.
He adjusted on a somewhat smooth way the hotkey bars, clicked on the ready b.u.t.ton, entering the queue.
At the same time, on a streaming room, another person joined the queue at almost the exact same moment.
Room 1001 of the GY streaming platform, the number of audience had already reached the 400,000 people, the well-known funny fellow streamer Monkey Lord was actively interacting with the camera: "I"m glad to see everyone just on time for Monkey Lord"s live, today Monkey Lord will give you a demonstration of the Summoner cla.s.s. In order to allow everyone to appreciate the essence of this cla.s.s the better, Monkey Lord lowered his moral standards to use a Tenth Division Ladder smurf5, to give all a detailed and accurate a.n.a.lysis of the skills."
A barrage of messages suddenly filled the screen-
"Monkey Lord is too shameless to be bullying noobs!"
"Can"t reach the higher divisions, goes to the Tenth Division, shame on you."
"Today"s bullying targets are too low-level, leaving negative review, want my money back!"
Looking at them flood the screen fellow Monkey Lord got on a good mood, readily clicked on the notice window and joined a room. During the pre-match phase, with his adversary, slowly discarding each dungeon maps, then picking some commonly used Summoner equipment from his equipment collection to wear. After a final confirmation, with a face-palming bashful face said: "Seeing everyone always so enthusiastic, today Monkey Lord must claim all the blood 6 so everyone has a good time."
The screen was suddenly flooded with booing comments. While one ridiculed the other, the game preparations had ended, and the characters had both sp.a.w.ned on each"s resurrection point.
Each side of the screen showing the image of both players.
Fellow Monkey Lord readily pointed out the opponent"s whole appearance, habitually carrying on with a series of unbridled retorts on the other"s avatar: "As you can see, the opponent avatar is a small Soul Priest, wearing dark clothes, just like a tiny crow. The h.e.l.l, he actually purchased a small red hood, high red boots? Does he think he is cosplaying as Little Red Riding Hood? And his nickname is also… Oh, is "Adorable Ghost", soo fitting, really adorable indeed, it"s estimated that the player itself it"s moe material 7."
While interacting with the viewers, at the same time Monkey Lord couldn"t help but mutter on his heart.
The time he had come in contact with the game Zone could be considered a long period, because of his personal interests, he had been taking note of the official fashion notices the most. Now the costume set he had in front of him, was clearly the Little Red Riding Hood [limited edition] one from seven years ago, and it was sold for only a month back then, it had long been no longer attainable at the Shop.
Was his opponent actually a seasoned player?
Monkey Lord was startled by his own thoughts.
-Playing for more than seven years yet staying at the Tenth Division? How much could such talented player with such ability do, huh?!
There were some seasoned players between the viewers that had also found out such thing, flooding the screen with booing comments. Monkey Lord was amused by the lively atmosphere of theirs, deliberately typing mockingly on the general chat: "Hey, buddy at the other end, are you a seasoned player? Climbing back from the ladder points" red zone is not easy huh, do you want me to help you graze (over) it?"
Almost at the exact moment he sent that, he received the opposite party reply, three words: "Don"t overthink it."
When he saw those words, his hearth couldn"t help but shook.
The opposite party, his hand-speed was fast…
The moment that, tens of thousands saw the insta-face slapped Monkey Lord, hard-core anti-fans suddenly flooded the screen again-
"Monkey Lord has been left out, I"m in shock!"
"Monkey Lord you OK, huh? A Tenth Division one looks down on you, huh!"
"My beloved Monkey, don"t over think it."
"Don"t overthink it +1."
"Don"t overthink it +2."
"Don"t overthink it +10086."
By such kind of speed when typing itself, was afraid the other player wasn"t a seasoned noob, it was more likely an expert on a smurf.
Crossing paths with such unknown hidden expert at the beginning of today"s stream, fellow Monkey Lord had this inexplicable unlucky day"s bitter taste.
However, in front of hundreds of thousands of people he already had lost his radiance, under the tens of thousands pairs of eyes watching him across the screen, 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 casual that was at the top of the food chain, he wouldn"t worry about some common casual expert. So with a grim face, he silently erased the "Don"t mention it" words he had already typed at the chat box, switching those three words with: "You just wait!"
At the other end of the screen, Lin Xiao gazing at the words on the general chat, grabbed his chin in bewilderment.
Was it that now, even low-rank players, had become easy to trigger with trash-talk? When was the last time someone said that same three words to him? Too long, it seems he wasn"t able to recall.
1. Elder Monk Ghost - Lin Xiao"s nickname/ID when on the League. Zhanglao Gui, I must point out the first half is a term of respect for a Buddhist monk.↩
2. layered hair - So it"s a kind of haircut, I have no idea how is called in English but the description basically said layered… Sorry I"m the kind of person that simply looks ups pics of Asian haircuts or just sketches it ꉂ (´∀｀) (basically the only I know is comma haircut as is my almost forever one LOL)
But hey, here are some examples (?)
Uhm, must say I can only think of Pixi haircuts when looking at those…↩
3. Soul Priest - I’m still juggling with this one, could be “Shadow Priest”… But could also switch it to “Ghost Priest” so I can get the ‘matching’ IDs and Cla.s.s…↩
4. Adorable Ghost - "Gui Meng Meng", Meng"s j.a.panese equivalent is "Moe" ↩
5. smurf - Smurf Account (Internet slang) "An alternate account used by a known or experienced user in order to deceptively self-present as someone naïve or less experienced." Wiktionary↩
6. blood - Kill(s).↩
7. moe material - Left it as Moe, can switch it also for Meng, I felt it would not be soo smooth saying "cute/adorable material", and I think that, if it was a real streamer it would probably use something similar…↩
T/N:
This took me soo long to translate LOL, ah I ended up even downloading an MMO during the process LOL (it rekindled the desire to play one that TKA fuelled), also couldn’t help but open the MMOs at my desktop to double check stuff ahaha… And HOLY F*CK! realised there are 153 chapters, 153! It could be worse, though… _(:3」∠)_
Right, what do you think about the colours? Thought that adding certain ones on certain parts could give it a slight game-like feel ( ´ ▽ ` )
Sketched and doodled Adorable Ghost~ Ah~
Might upload later a cleaner version of the first one, and maybe I’ll add some colour to it…