Chapter 10: You Are Not Allowed to Smear Uzi

Time slipped by, and it was already early January.

The S7 season arrived right on schedule. Lin Ruo’s contract with Huya had expired, and he finally achieved his wish to start streaming on Zhanqi.

A-Guang, who had returned home to handle his father’s funeral, rejoined the team. Coach Nofe, who had helped Scout select Lucian in the third game and honorably handed over the torch after the round of sixteen, also officially reported to EDG.

The club was in the thick of preparations for the new season, and the Spring Split schedule had already been updated by the end of December.

EDG’s first opponent was the veteran powerhouse VG. Compared to S6, VG’s paper strength had improved significantly after signing SKT’s championship mid-jungle duo, Easyhoon and Bengi, at the end of the year. Given the changes to EDG’s roster, many outsiders believed VG had the upper hand. No one could have guessed that a team with a championship mid-jungle would eventually turn into such a disaster.

In the EDG training room, it was a new day, and Lin Ruo was sitting at his station, goofing off as usual. Only this time, he had his stream running, making his slacking off look surprisingly legitimate.

The "Piglets" (EDG fans) watching the stream saw that while the other teammates were busy grinding Ranked, Lin Ruo, the starting AD Carry, was playing Chinese chess on his computer. The resentment that had been building up for a long time erupted, and they flooded the chat.

"What are you doing? Why aren't you playing Ranked?"
"Are you really just going to throw? Why would EDG even want an AD like you?"
"Where’s Abu? Someone get Abu to come and handle this."
"Do you even have half the professional attitude that Clearlove does?"
"Don't you dare drag Tianye down in the new season."

"I just finished eating, I'm just taking a break," Lin Ruo countered the comments with a lukewarm attitude. Professional players had different schedules than ordinary people, often playing Ranked until three or four in the morning. This meant most of their mornings were spent catching up on sleep. It was just past noon, and he was clearly still in a daze.

Closing out the QQ game, Lin Ruo opened the League of Legends client. Instead of logging into his Korean server account, he looked at Meiko in the seat next to him.

"Tianye, send me a super account."

Shortly after the New Year, the LPL officials, in collaboration with Tencent, launched the "Ionia" (Summit) super server, restricted to Diamond 1 and above, aimed at encouraging high-level players and active pros to improve their competitive play. The subtext was a desire to compete with the Korean server. To this end, the League officials issued a directive for players from all clubs to play more on the Ionia server.

Heaven knows how it would later become famous as the "Actor's Summit."

It was a perfect harbinger of the future state of the LPL.

"Yo, you finally decided to play ranked?" Tianye quipped as usual while sending over the account details.

"Come on, the season is almost here, there's no reason not to play." Lin Ruo was adamant. The reason he had been slacking off before was that it was the off-season; now that the Spring Split was approaching, wouldn't he be asking for trouble if he kept goofing off? He was morally flexible, not brainless. He had to at least meet the club’s requirement of reaching Challenger. Fortunately, the system didn’t have any insane rules about fining him for every game he didn't play.

Now that his skill level had risen to a sufficient tier, Lin Ruo didn't need to spend his days immersed in goofing off. However, if he wanted to reach the peak of the pyramid and become a god of LOL, he still had to slack off when he could and create the right amount of chaos.

The Ionia server rules didn't allow for duo queue, so after logging into his account, Lin Ruo began a lonely solo queue. He needed to play ten placement matches to get ranked, and the first Challenger would take about half a month to emerge. Because it had just opened, there were many players eager to try it out. The current online count was nearing capacity, and the queue times were incredibly efficient, so Lin Ruo quickly entered a lobby.

This period was likely the golden age of the Ionia server. After this season passed, players would drift back to the Korean server one by one. Who would care about this "Summit" then?

He played two games casually and won both easily; it was another day of hard carrying. Fireloli took a peek during a moment when his screen was gray and felt completely defeated. He had played five games that morning and went three wins, two losses. In this current game, his Kha'Zix had run into MLXG, and his jungle had been completely dismantled. With so many professional players gathered here, the Ionia server was incredibly difficult to play in.

Comparison is the thief of joy. Seeing Lin Ruo playing so easily, Fireloli couldn't help but feel confused. Is it easier to climb as an AD?

Lin Ruo noticed the attention and joked, "Don't look at me, it's solo queue only, I can't carry you."

Fireloli shot him a resentful look and turned to the other side. A-Guang was skillfully operating Maokai, living his best life in the top lane ecosystem. There was no need to even mention Scout; he was young and full of energy, "smurfing" in every game.

*Why is it only hard for me?*

The third game started quickly, but he was unlucky and got auto-filled. Fireloli leaned over again, saw a famous ID, and his eyes lit up as he said gleefully, "Good lad, you're in trouble now, you've run into Uzi."

However, upon seeing that Lin Ruo was in the jungle role, Fireloli lost much of his interest.

"Is the opponent Uzi?" Lin Ruo’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he stared at the screen. He couldn't be sure, so he simply watched the activity in his stream. As expected, a large number of viewers poured in, and the popularity spiked. It seemed they were all drawn here by Uzi to watch the fun.

Because of the recent conflict stirred up by Old Yue, Lin Ruo had inexplicably earned the collective hatred of RNG fans. On top of that, he already had a poor reputation from his time at RNG. Now, whenever the two fanbases argued, the "Dog" (Uzi) fans would bring up Lin Ruo.

"EDG picking up RNG’s rejects."
"EDG really will take any trash, and they still dare to compare themselves to RNG."

They would drag him into every argument. Truth be told, this actually suppressed the all-powerful Piglets to a certain extent, leading to many complaints even from the Piglets, who already didn't have a good impression of him.

Watching Lin Ruo’s thoughtful expression, Fireloli bet he wouldn't know how to jungle and leaned in, laughing, "Want to learn how to jungle? Do you want me to teach you?"

Lin Ruo glanced at the end-of-game stats on the screen and looked disgusted: "Teach me how to go 1-5? Never mind."

Fireloli, having forgotten to hide his stats, was speechless for a moment. He stood up, coughed, and said, "Not in the right state today, I'm going to the bathroom."

"Brothers, what should I play in the jungle?" Lin Ruo slumped in his chair, chatting cordially with the fans and haters in the stream.

"Play what you're good at. Don't tell me you don't know how to play a single jungler."
"If you don't know, just play Lucian jungle. The enemy AD does that all the time."
"The Piglets are at it again. Good thing your AD isn't in the bottom lane, or Uzi would have beaten the crap out of you."
"Do GSL fans like visiting other places so much? You have to haunt the EDG player's stream too."
"What, is the Zhanqi stream owned by the Piglets? Can't we even take a look?"

Lin Ruo had only asked a casual question and hadn't even started any drama, but the stream had already erupted into a chaotic war.

So, after locking in Sejuani, Lin Ruo rubbed his hands together and said with interest, "Brothers, don't stir up trouble. I'm a fan of Uzi too, so let's not trash-talk him like that."

It turned out he was just stating a fact, so that didn't count as trash-talking.