Chapter 19: CH 19

Meeting VIT this time made Qi Su very angry.

After returning, the members of RS were all in a bad mood.

“No matter what, we don’t need to bother with them. Easy has already left, and even with YIN in VIT, they have to start playing from the B group. They’re not qualified to be our enemies.”

Qi Su picked up his phone, checked the data again, and issued a new command: “Xiao Yun, add one more hour to your streaming time every day. Practice playing Earth Mother support and find a weak team to play a public training match. Make sure to play with high-level operations, so it’s easy for our team to edit and operate for popularity later.”

Xiao Yun remained silent and fidgeted with his fingers, looking somewhat uneasy. “What about training time?”

“We have plenty of training time. We’re playing regular matches in Group A. Aren’t we afraid of not having matches to play?” Qi Su said calmly. “But if you can’t become a star player and shine on the stage, it will affect the whole team. We are an all-star lineup, and if you can’t become a star player, you may not be able to stay in RS. Do you understand?”

Xiao Yun gritted his teeth and nodded heavily.

RS’s ability to create stars was beyond doubt. As long as their strength was decent, their appearance was passable, and they worked with the team’s promotion and connections in the league, accumulating popularity was a very easy thing.

Currently, Xiao Yun was leading in the fan vote for the popularity star, but he had yet to pull away from the competition.

If they wanted to widen the gap, they needed a lot of casual fans.

Although the relationship between the league and RS is quite good, there is no room for falsification in this critical data. Endorsement companies require real data and popularity, and the proportion of team fans is very small compared to the vast majority of casual fans.

VIT completely ignored the popularity star event this time.

The regular season has started, and in the first week, as a stable team in the new league, they have three consecutive matches in two weeks, which is very tight.

There is only one qualification for promotion in Group B, which means that they must directly win the first place in Group B in the early stage of this season, and then enter the A group competition and win at least the top four positions to obtain tickets for the domestic finals.

This year, VIT is also the only team that is expected to play all the way from Group B to S Group.

Group B, the bottom of the league, is jokingly called the “feeding group” by commentators and players.

Except for a few strong teams that have been eliminated and newly formed teams, most of them struggling in the group are old teams who are past their prime.

They once had glory, and even stood on the award podium at the beginning of the league. Many players and audiences still remember their names, but they can no longer see their present.

Perhaps the only thing left for them is a vague mention when chatting.

“Do you remember a certain team’s certain player?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Are they still playing?”

“I don’t think so.”

In professional competition, winning can give people a new lease on life. If you can win, you can keep playing. No professional player can bear the consequences of always losing, but winning and losing is precisely the only inevitable thing.

Rong Yi was looking at the schedule, and Xiao Yin pulled a chair and sat next to him. “Do you have any teams you care about?”

“Not really, it’s just the first time we’ve entered the B group. I see a lot of familiar faces from before, so it’s a bit sentimental.”

Rong Yi looked at the paper in front of him and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Xiao Yin nodded and didn’t ask any further. “The game is about to start. Do you have anything to say to everyone?”

Everyone in the training room put down their mouse and keyboards and looked over.

Rong Yi lowered his eyes slightly. “We’re playing in the B group, which isn’t difficult. It is very normal for us to have zero seals against all teams, so I don’t make too many demands on the competition.”

“But I only have one requirement: always compete with a respectful attitude. You can practice heroes, you can practice skills, but you can’t use absurd heroes or mocking tactics.”

“For example, if you take LeBlanc to play against an AD carry, it’s not a new tactic, but if you’re just fooling around, I won’t allow this situation to exist.”

“On and off the court, you can talk tough, but you must never insult your opponent’s players.”

“If you think your opponent is too weak, then end the game as quickly as possible.”

Rong Yi lifted his gaze, the corners of his peach blossom eyes lifting with a more chilling coldness than usual, scaring the other three into silence.

Xiao Yin said, “I agree. Although you guys don’t have a record of misconduct, I agree that these rules need to be written into the team’s code of conduct. It’s not just us today who need to follow them, but all future members of VIT as well.”

“Agreed!”

“No problem! We’ll abide by them!”

The others became serious and reliable about the matter at hand, and everyone unanimously agreed to these team rules and decisions.

They had scheduled three matches very tightly, playing three rounds within 15 days, followed by nearly a month-long break in matches.

The regular season began, and the heat of the matches this season was unusually high compared to previous ones.

Xiao Yin’s return to the country had brought many retired old players back into the game, renewing their attention to e-sports events. VIT’s start in the B group also made many people abandon the S group matches and begin watching the games from the B group.

The fans of those strong teams also kept a close watch and vigilance on VIT- they were likely this year’s dark horse, and their main team would eventually meet VIT one day!

On the first day of the competition, VIT faced the MIX team.

Before entering the arena, Rong Yi pointed to the team rules that they brought with them, and everyone nodded in agreement without speaking. Then they all went to their respective seats.

The players from both sides met backstage, and Rong Yi still wore his hat and mask, deliberately avoiding the cameras of the staff.

The black hat and black mask made his skin look even whiter, and his whole demeanor was cold.

He and Xiao Yin were the only ones on the team wearing masks. They both wore black T-shirts with work shorts, but Rong Yi looked refreshing and clean, like a college student, while Xiao Yin looked like a ruthless gang leader.

Before the Hui Mao took his seat, he whispered to Ci She, “Do you think they’re wearing couple outfits?”

“They both look like gang leaders,” Ci She replied.

The referee issued a notice, and the team fell silent, focusing their attention on the game.

During the ban/pick phase, Rong Yi handed the counterpick stage over to the Hui Mao.

This was a phase that they had not practiced in their training matches before. Hui Mao took a deep breath and quietly voiced his thoughts.

Among the whole team, Hui Mao was the youngest and had the least practical experience. Ci She had played in the intercontinental tournament with Xiao Yin, and Wu Dao Gu had struggled in the professional circle both domestically and internationally. Only Hui Mao was playing in a real competition for the first time.

In the first round of Ban-Pick, Hui Mao appeared relatively immature, as he was completely unfamiliar with the domestic system. VIT suffered a bit in the Ban-Pick phase.

The opponents immediately banned Li and Yin.

Audiences in the live streaming room started discussing.

“VIT’s Ban-Pick seems a bit random, not quite random, but a bit messy.”

“The idea is good… wait, who is their coach? VIT doesn’t seem to have a list of coaches, that’s so weird.”

“Right! Their coach wasn’t even featured in the small variety show last weekend.”

After chatting for a while, the viewers quickly turned their attention to the game.

In the face of absolute strength, the lineup issue was a minor one. VIT played more fiercely than anyone expected in this round, with Rong Yi getting a double kill in the middle lane in the first minute. The opponents were caught off guard and directly snowballed out of the game.

Rong Yi didn’t even pick Li this time, but instead picked another common support mid laner, Monololo. With the most basic micro-management, he was able to carry out a massacre.

With the mid lane taking the lead in this wave, Rong Yi also did not hesitate to push forward whenever he could.

As long as he’s on the field, he never loses focus. To him, the enemy is just a part of the competition, and he always pursues the answer closest to the limit.

Even though countless people made predictions of a complete shutout before the match, even the commentators didn’t expect VIT to hold back at all. From the moment Rong Yi started, everyone played with extreme seriousness.

“VIT is playing more seriously than… than MIX on the other side!”

A small commentator accidentally revealed his true feelings.

It’s a fact that the B group has been getting worse and worse over the past few years. Even when a strong team occasionally descends to the B group, they just play their way into the A group.

And yet, this is the first strong team that’s playing this seriously in the B group.

VIT’s style is already sharp and completely invasive. Rong Yi alone set up three lanes, and the game was almost over when he finished his opponents off.

The game ended in just twelve and a half minutes, setting a record for the fastest game ever played in the B group of the league.

Meanwhile, Rong Yi also broke a record: the record for the highest damage output per minute by a mid-laner in professional league play.

Throughout the game, Rong Yi dealt 67.7% of the damage, while Xiao Yin and Ci She only got assists, and Wu Dao Gu Lian didn’t even get a single assist.

“This isn’t a game, it’s a slaughter,” the commentator accurately noted. “Facing Easy, it’s really hard to fight back. As I’ve said before, there’s nothing you can do against absolute strength.”

More and more viewers flooded into the live broadcast.

In this game, they saw a completely new team with a style, composition, and tactics that the league had never seen before.

At the same time, Rong Yi, as VIT’s invisible mid-laner and former captain of RS, VIT’s current captain, had his search and click rates skyrocketing.

In a corner unnoticed by him, his vote count quietly started to rise.