The second game of the esports club tryouts had started. Ren Rou, Ouyang, and Yang Fan huddled together around a screen to watch. Though there were 10 yers, 5 on each team, they weren’t really interested in watching all of them. Their eyes were locked on midne, taking in everything that was going down there.


    “Oh damn! You guys seeing this? It''s starting to feel like Lin Feng is beating Luo Tianming...?” Ouyang half-muttered.


    Ren Rou nodded. “You’re right. If Orianna keeps taking hits like that, she’ll have to go back to base or give Lenc the kill. Was Lin Feng always this good in mid?”


    “I figured it out! Whole thing finally came together. Listen, that fucker Luo Tianming probably got his ount boosted! I’ll even bet on it. I mean, sure, Tang Tang is really good. I can see how he’d lose to her. But this… what is this? The fucker’s ying like a Silver! If that’s a Diamond 3, then I could be one too!” Ouyang eximed.


    Yang Fan adjusted his sses and looked at the screen again. He shook his head, disagreeing with Ouyang’s analysis. “Sorry man. But if you were in his shoes, you would probably look like the worst League yer in all of history. Watch the game more closely. There! See how Orianna is going for CS? And right there! Look at how she’s trying to get some poke in. You see that? Luo Tianming isn’t ying poorly at all…it''s just that Lin Feng is ying really, really well. Absurdly well.”


    It took quite a bit of experience and understanding of the game to fully understand what was happening in midne during this game. Yang Fan was tinum ranked, he could see beyond the hype and spectacle. He could see that Luo Tianming wasn’t making too many mistakes. Everyst hit was well-timed and solid. Every poke was nned out and designed to deal maximum damage while taking very little back in return. Luo Tianming was not bad at the game at all. He was better than most people.


    The reality of the game was that Lin Feng yed better. Not a little bit better. Significantly better. In every aspect and facet of the game, Lin Feng outyed Luo Tianming by a considerable margin. From the moment the game started, the Orianna never stood a chance. Lin Feng used his Lenc to clear minion waves with the ssh damage from Distortion, while also positioning to let the ssh damage deal poke to the Orianna. Once Lin Feng hit Level 2 and learned Sigil of Malice, the situation went from bad to worse for the Orianna. Yang Fan’s eyes had a peculiar gleam to them as he stared at Lin Feng’s back. Was he telling us the truth this whole time? Is he really a Challenger…?


    ?


    Luo Tianming knew he had to do something. This Lenc was far better than he expected. She was quickly taking control of thene. He could feel his scalp tingling from apprehension. SHIT! I can’t lose another one! But there wasn’t anything he could do. Every time he tried tost hit a minion for the gold and experience, the Lenc would already be there, lying in wait. The second his Orianna walked into the Lenc’s attack radius, she would jump out and hit him with her entirebo for a ton of damage before jumping back out. He tried to counter using Orianna’s Ball, but the Lenc was just too damn fast. And Lenc’s skills could chain together faster than Orianna’s Ball could move. If the game kept going this way and at this rate, his Orianna’s health would continue to plunge until he was forced out ofne and back to base.


    Luo Tianming was thinking, searching for a way to turn things around on the Lenc. That was when the Jarvan IV, the jungler on his team, sent a ping on mine to announce that he wasing up for a gank. This was exactly what Luo Tianming needed, and he felt the pressure around his forehead loosen. The Jarvan IV was walking up to midne from the Red Buff jungle camp, which meant that the jungler had both Red and Blue Buff up. Luo Tianming used a health potion to recover some health and let the minion wave push back towards his tower. He was getting ready to bait the Lenc into a position that would end her reign of terror over him.


    The Blue team’s minions started pushing toward the red team’s outer tower, just as Luo Tianming and his jungler had nned. Lin Feng followed after them, focusing onst hitting the minions. The Jarvan IV hid in the river brush right above the midne. Three and a half minutes into the game, the ambush was ready. All that was left to do was to throw out the bait. Luo Tianming had his Orianna walk out of from the safety of Red team’s outer tower under the pretense ofst hitting a minion. The deception was wless, and the Lenc took the bait.


    Jarvan IV ran out of the brush and straight towards the Lenc. He threw his Demacian Standard down on top of her. Then he thrust out with hisnce towards the g. When they connected, Jarvan IV was pulled to the g! The Jungler could see the entire animation y out in his mind before it happened in the game. The Lenc that stood between him and the g would be knocked up. Then he and the Orianna would gang up and remove whatever remained of the Lenc’s health. That would be the end of Lenc. There was no way to avoid the might of Jarvan IV’s Dragon Strike!


    … Except that’s not what actually happened. Lin Feng’s reaction time was simply too fast for the n to work. While the Jarvan IV was still mid-dash, the Lenc had safely jumped away using Distortion. It turned out that there was indeed a way to avoid the might of Jarvan IV’s Dragon Strike.


    YOU IDIOT! Luo Tianming screamed in his mind. Great fucking job, you NOOB! Why would you waste yourbo like that? Look what you did! Now she got away… Luo Tianming shook his head in frustration. Every fucking game. These goddamn noobs! Why me? Why is it always me? He took a deep breath and tried to focus back on the game. Shit! His Orianna was still in danger. Shit! Shit! She stood outside of her tower’s range with rtively low health. Shit! Shit! SHIT! He clicked towar—


    Lin Feng had that look on his face. The one he always got when there was an opportunity for a kill. The Jungler had burned hisbo and Luo Tianming’s guard was down while his Orianna was outside the safety of the tower. Lin Feng quickly recast Distortion, activating the second half of the skill. His Lenc jumped back to the ce she had initially jumped from. This is it! The Orianna was exposed, there were no minions in the way. Lenc branded the Orianna with a Sigil of Malice, then shot out Ethereal Chains. The chains wrapped around Orianna while also triggering the Sigil and dealing additional magic damage! Then Lin Feng used his Ignite on the Orianna.


    “Oh my god!”


    “The turn around!”


    “What a sick y!”


    The crowd of first years that had gathered in the esports clubroom let out a collective gasp. The y was electrifying, phenomenal, amazing!


    The rm bells, missile attack sirens, and nuclear bomb warnings in Luo Tianming’s head all went off at the same time! He didn’t expect the Lenc to turn his gank back around on him, never even thought about the possibility! T-this… did he already calcte all this…!? But there was no time to think of all that. He needed to escape before the Ethereal Chains managed to snare him! His finger smashed down onto the keyboard trying to send his Orianna panic-shing towards the tower. But he wasn’t fast enough, the Ethereal Chains had already rooted him down. Crap! Fuck! SHIT! I’m dead! Despair, regret, and irritation started washing over Luo Tianming. But before he sumbed to the emotions and started wallowing, he smashed his teeth together. I’m going to take that fucking Lenc down with me! Or force him to use his sh! I’m going to get something out of this! He sent Orianna’s Ball towards the Lenc, then slowed and damaged her with Command: Dissonance. But before he could pull off the rest of what he was nning, his screen turned grey. The final tick of Ignite had burned up thest of his Orianna’s health.


    《First blood!》


    The Jarvan IV was still standing there. He watched the Lenc jump away from his g tossbo and just stood there confused. Then he watched the Lenc jump back and seamlessly flow into abo that led to the death of the Orianna. He didn’t really know what happened, the entire exchange was too fast for him to follow. But he did notice that the Orianna had gotten some damage in before she died. This was his chance! The Lenc had less than half her health left and she was standing right next to him! He hit her with an auto attack that was empowered from the Red Buff.


    Lenc’s health dropped below 30% which triggered her passive skill–Mirror Image. Two Lencs materialized out of thin air. One stood idly by in the middle of the minion wave, right next to Jarvan IV. The other Lenc ran down, towards the bottom side of the river and botne. The Jarvan IV was too clever for something like this. He’d never be fooled by lies and deceit. Without stopping to consider things for a second, the Jarvan IV decided that the Lenc standing right next to him was a fake and pursued the one that was running away.


    A long secondter, Lin Feng had the real Lenc, the one that had stood idly next to the Jarvan IV in the middle of thene, move up towards the top part of the river and topne. When Luo Tianming saw this, he finally lost it. For the first time this game, he opened his mouth and loudly cursed, “You dumbass! Are you fucking blind or something? The real one is heading top. Fucking hell…” How can someone be this bad? Why do I always have to y with these idiots? It’s so easy to tell which one is the real one...


    Lin Feng took a detour around his jungle, enjoying the scenery, and returned back to the safety of his outer tower. He’d picked up first blood and kept his sh. This was a huge win! “Man, my Lenc is really good!” he happily muttered to himself. His voice was barely audible. Quiet enough that aside from himself, no one heard it. That was probably for the best. If Luo Tianming had heard him, he would’ve probably passed out from anger.


    Ouyang, Ren Rou, and Yang Fan all stared at their screen ck-jawed.


    “What the fucking fiddlesticks was that? This is still Lin Feng ying, right? He’s that good? That y was so fucking sick that even Lux’s panties would be soaked! Lin Feng is slick!” Ouyang stammered.


    Ren Rou was so shocked that she didn’t even bother smacking Ouyang for saying something like that. Instead, she eximed, “Oh my god! That was amazing!”


    Yang Fan was so taken aback he forgot to adjust his crooked sses. He couldn’t help but mutter, “When Lin Feng told us he was a Challenger… are we sure that wasn’t true?”


    ?


    With First Blood and a kill in hand, Lin Feng’s Lenc was now in a position topletely dictate the pace of midne. A Lenc needed to get that early advantage and snowball from it. If she could, she’d be an unstoppable force. Then it didn’t matter anymore what anyone else on the opposing team did, she would just rip through them and hard-carry her team to an easy win. Luo Tianming’s primary job in the early game was to make sure this didn’t happen, which he had failed at. He not only handed Lin Feng a kill, he also gave away an entire minion wave’s worth of experience and gold. Luo Tianming had gotten himself into a terrible predicament. Now his purpose in the game had changed. What he needed to do was distract and restrain Lin Feng’s Lenc as much as possible so the rest of his team could salvage the situation. So after reviving in the fountain, he quickly teleported back tone using the summoner spell Teleport.


    Lin Feng, on the other hand, had gone back to base to spend the gold he’d gotten from killing the Orianna on items. He then closed the shop and had his Lenc walk back to midne. He was in a great mood and started nning out how he would y thene next. Hmm. What to do, what to do? Should I kill Orianna two more times?


    Unfortunately, a good mood wasn’t exactly deadly. And kills didn’te just because you wanted them. Luo Tianming was still a Diamond 3 yer with excellent instincts, deep game knowledge, and map awareness. Despite the pressure that Lin Feng put on him, Luo Tianming managed to avoid dying again.


    “Ah, if I had ignite, it would’ve been another kill…” Lin Feng said regretfully after forcing the Orianna back to base for a second time in just as many minutes. But although he didn’t pick up the kill, he did continue to increase his advantage over the Orianna. She could barely step intone, and the two times she tried tost hit a minion, he’d forced her back to base. Luo Tianming could do nothing but try and soak up experience from underneath the safety of his tower. But he had fallen too far behind in both experience and gold and was no longer a match for Lin Feng’s Lenc. Luo Tianming had lost thene.


    As bad as the game was going for Luo Tianming, it could’ve been much worse. If the Blue team’s jungler, Rek’Sai, hade to gank mid then his Orianna would have died again. But the Rek’Sai was busy helping anotherne, though not necessarily his own team. Five minutes and forty seconds into the game, the game announcer’s voice rang out from bottomne.


    《An ally has been in!》


    《Double kill!》


    Rek’Sai had roamed to bot and failed the gank. The Tristana and Leona duo had somehow managed to turn the gank around, killing both Rek’Sai and Kalista. Red bottomne’s duo was doing great for themselves!


    Lin Feng’s eyes lit up. Botne’s losing? That’s great!