League of Legends: League of Unknowns

Last night, Yu Luocheng had added Yang Qianqian as a friend on QQ, as well as in the game.

They were still in the Iron Solari server, which meant that Yu Luocheng had to continue using that Level-13 noob account.

Of the thousand bucks they’d won last night, five hundred of it had been spent on their victory feast, while the remainder had been split evenly between the five teammates.

Yu Luocheng immediately converted the one hundred that was his share into Q Cash ¹ , and used it to purchase the champion Thresh for use on that account.

“Hey, invite me in.” Yang Qianqian sent him a QQ message, punctuated with a mischievous smiley face.

“Sure, I’m just buying a champion now.” Q Cash in hand, he surfed onto the QQ marketplace and unlocked the new champion, Thresh.

Yu Luocheng often watched gameplay videos from abroad. In other countries, this champion had been out for a while now. It was supposedly intended for the Support role, and was both versatile and formidable.

Playing with his usual compatriot Snowfall, they usually dominated the Bottom lane, with the Support handling the lion’s share of combat.

And now, he was finding out that Yang Qianqian was an ADC too. Yu Luocheng felt a tinge of despair in his heart. Was this his lot in life? To provide Support to hot ADC girl gamers?

But then again, there were any number of people out there who kept getting stuck with fat loser ADCs. Here he was, the hand-picked bodyguard of two fair young maidens. Seeing things from this perspective buoyed his spirits greatly!

Remembering the sweet dream that all men aspire to, his passion as a Support player was renewed!

Yang Qianqian was Level 23, not too bad. At least he wouldn’t have to go over the basics with her. She’d also told him that she often watched her older brother playing, and she looked up gameplay videos too. It was a fair guess that she should be somewhat above the average for her level.

Doot… doot…

As they were selecting their champions, he got an incoming voice call from Yang Qianqian’s QQ.

Voice call? Yu Luocheng hesitated for a moment.

“Pick up!” Yang Qianqian commanded over the text chat.

“Right, sure, fine.” The new microphone he’d bought, he’d been planning to save its first time for Snowfall. To think that he’d be cuckolded by Yang Qianqian.

Never mind. It would save him trouble to just go with the flow.

“Can you hear me?” A gentle voice strummed playfully across his heartstrings!

“No, I can’t,” Yu Luocheng answered immediately.

“Oh? Let me check my microphone…” There was a buzz of static from her end, until she apparently caught on to his deception, at which point she hissed, “What are you playing at? You wanna die?”

“Heh.”

Yang Qianqian seemed to particularly favor ‘Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover’, because she insta-locked ² that champion right away.

Come to think of it, Yu Luocheng could certainly see some similarities between Yang Qianqian and Caitlyn. For one thing, they both possessed a pair of long, statuesque, alabaster-white, killer legs!

Caitlyn wore a European-style one-piece dress, ending in a miniskirt. The most eye-catching detail was the nylon straps adorning her porcelain-smooth thighs, which only seemed to enhance their taut, nubile appeal.

Now a fantasy had begun to play, in the theater of Yu Luocheng’s mind:

Yang Qianqian, standing before him in Caitlyn’s outfit, teasing a finger through her hair, a lilting voice saying, “Sorry, kid. I keep the fuzzy cuffs at home.”

Nosebleed!

What a dream come true that would be ! ³

“Hurry up and choose someone!” Yang Qianqian urged him.

Startled from his reverie, he hurriedly picked ‘Thresh, the Chain Warden.’

There was little glory to be had in playing Support, so there was little worry that someone would fight with him over the position. Playing in Normal games, the last person to make a choice would typically get stuck with being Support.

During Ranked games, this could lead to some strange situations.

If you came into Champion Selection howling something like, “Give me Mid, or else I’ll feed!” your teammates would surely give you an earful about squabbling over positions, and even threatening your own team!

On the other hand, if you instead said, “Let me Support, else I’ll feed!” your teammates would probably chortle good-naturedly, thinking you a kind-hearted and charitable soul, who also had a healthy sense of humor.

Why was there such a difference, here? Could anyone kindly explain?

“Ah, isn’t that the new champion?” Yang Qianqian asked.

“That’s right.”

“You’ve played him before?”

“Nope, so I’m trying him out,” Yu Luocheng replied.

“Learned his skills yet?”

“I’m reading a champion guide ⁴ right now.”

This left Yang Qianqian speechless for a long moment. Finally, she fumed, “How can you be so infuriating! I ask you to lend me a hand, and you’re trying out new champions? At least play one round as Blitzcrank!”

“It’s fine, let’s try things out first. Maybe I’ll be amazing!” Yu Luocheng scrambled to redeem the situation.

It sounded like Yang Qianqian was losing her temper, and she was silent for another while, but in the end she couldn’t hold it in after all, and muttered two venomous words over the voice chat:

“You trash!”

***

“Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!”

Thresh’s character model looked pretty neat, like a cross between Ghost Rider and the underworld judge of Chinese legend.

It was a skeleton topped with a flaming skull, shrouded in a gray cloak, skeletal hands twirling a hook-and-chain, all the while emitting a constant, otherworldly moaning.

Each champion in League of Legends had their own distinctive feel, derived from myths and folk tales from around the world, or perhaps characters from blockbuster movies. Many of the champions would probably seem rather familiar to you right away.

After a moment’s inspection, Yu Luocheng was of the opinion that Thresh was positively bad-ass!

“What are you doing?” Yang Qianqian hissed. She’d already raced Caitlyn over to a clump of brush ⁵ in the Bottom lane as quickly as possible, only to discover that Yu Luocheng was still hanging around the Fountain.

“I didn’t quite get the skills just now, so I’m reading a little further,” Yu Luocheng explained.

“I’m so tired of you.”

“I’ll be right over. Careful of an ambush in the brush.”

“Hmph! I’m not a child. I’m not poking into the brush for no reason.”

***

Reading the description alone was not enough to fully understand a skill. One had to get some hands-on experience with them as well.

Yu Luocheng bought himself some items, and then headed down the lane himself.

Typical starting equipment for a Support champion: one Faerie Charm, one Vision Ward, two Stealth Wards, and one Health Potion.

He arrived on the scene just as the minion waves met in the middle. At least Yang Qianqian had been smart enough not to run through all the bushes, and instead held back to farm the minions.

“Good, you know how to farm.” Yu Luocheng offered her a word of praise.

“I’m quite good at it!” Yang Qianqian laughed.

“Is that right? How many do you have by the ten-minute mark, on average?”

“If there hasn’t been too much fighting, around fifty to sixty, I guess.”

“Mm, that is quite good.” Yu Luocheng nodded in approval.

It was rare for a Level-23 player to be able to achieve such efficiency. It was a far cry from that idiot Shane, who seemed completely oblivious to the whole concept of farming, and just stood around randomly attacking the minions.

Random-farming referred to the practice of simply allowing your champion to keep using their basic attacks on enemy minions, instead of timing it carefully to be sure of getting in the last hit.

Doing things this way, you would only pick up a minion kill entirely on random chance, otherwise it would be taken by one of your own minions instead. It was basically to leave things in the hands of fate!

“How am I doing?” Yang Qianqian asked, fishing for more compliments.

“Oh, yeah,” Yu Luocheng responded at first, and then hurried to add, “My lady Yang Qianqian, your farming skills are remarkable! Last night, Shane hadn’t even managed to get forty minions after ten minutes. You’re so much better than him!”

“That’s more like it.” Yang Qianqian laughed with delight.

Yang Qianqian was obviously the sort of girl who threw little fits all over the place without really meaning it. One compliment from Yu Luocheng, and all the unpleasantness from earlier was wiped clean, as though it had never happened at all, and she was all smiles once again.