League of the Unkillable Demon King

Falling asleep with one yawn followed by another, Chen Mu realized that he would no longer be able to live a comfortable life from then on. Most champions had techniques and combos that were specific to their skill sets. If he trained with two champions each day, he would not be able to finish his training in just a few months.

Even the seemingly easy god of war, Pantheon, had the function of spamming his shield three times. Hence, what more when it came to the Deceiver, Le Blanc’s complicated set of abilities. Not to mention, champions like Jayce and Leopard Lady[1] who had two different sets of abilities.

Chen Mu was forced to sit through tests in his dreams. The stats of the champions was a major reason for Chen Mu’s unacceptance since League of Legends received new updates rather often. On average, there were small changes every two to three weeks and major changes every two to three months.

Chen Mu did not need the System to tell him that he had to memorize all the patch changes when the time came. It posed a great challenge to Chen Mu’s brainpower. To become the strongest professional League of Legends player, Chen Mu still had a very long way to go.

“Our lesson tonight is titled ‘Team Compositions’. The objective of the lesson is for the Host to understand the different types of team compositions, champion counters, and how to take advantage as well as fill in the weaknesses of each team composition.

“The most taboo things is a damage-dealing mid laner. In solo queue matches, it is easy to spot a noob team composition when the enemy team has chosen five damage-dealing champions. Once a champion with high armor points shows up on the opposing team, the noob composition will end up being crushed.

“Now, we shall watch a video on what a bad team composition looks like. The video originates from a professional match.”

A screen appeared in front of Chen Mu’s eyes, it seemed like a tournament match where Rockman was attempting to take down a turret. Defending against Rockman was Frost; the latter could be seen spamming her basic attacks on Rockman.

The amount of damage Rockman took was displayed each time on top of his head. -29. The critical hits were in red, -46.

Rockman had more than four thousand health points. If things continued, he would have to be hit more than a hundred times before he died. Moreover, Rockman had a shield that was equal to ten percent of his health. It would take around fifteen hits for Frost to destroy his shield alone.

Chen Mu asked, “This is a professional match? I can’t believe someone was beaten so badly. Anyone who hears about it will for sure feel bad for them; anyone who witnesses this will cry for them.”

“Affirmative. This is a classic example of a failed team composition. There are too many AD champions in this match. The team’s top laner is an AD Merman. Their jungler, Burrower[2]—who only appears in the future version of the game—is also an AD champion. Rockman is just being dumb and accumulating armor. Frost is constantly being killed to the point that he’s becoming a Legendary Feeder. He poses no threat to Rockman. Their only AP damage dealer, Viktor, has to be given the center position as their main damage dealer to kill the opposing team’s carry. It would be a waste for him to attack Rockman.

“Here is your question-calculate how many basic attacks would it take for Frost to kill Rockman,” the System gave Chen Mu his problem.

“There’s a formula to solve this problem. I’ve once looked into it a long time ago. The armor mechanism in League of Legends works in this manner—each point of armor provides the champion the equivalent of one more percent of health to tank physical damage. That is to say, if a champion has four thousand points of health and a hundred points of armor, it would take eight thousand points of physical damage for someone to kill him or her if no form of armor penetration is present. If the champion has three hundred points of armor, twelve thousand points of physical damage would be required to take them down. Therefore, that is why you should never play a bad team composition in tournaments.

“On the other hand, if one is facing a fully AP champion and aimlessly stacks magic resistance, the results of calculation would be the same. In fact, one would find themselves in a relatively worse disadvantage. They wouldn’t have enough damage and would most likely lose the match,” said Chen Mu. A damage-related problem as such was nothing to Chen Mu.

Therefore, a reasonable team composition required reasonable damage distribution. Otherwise, it would be too easy for the team to get overturned by their enemies.

“The Host has provided an acceptable answer. Now, we will simulate making a team composition. The Host should look at the enemy team’s lineup and come up with a team composition that can counter them. You must not create a team composition that will land you in a great disadvantage,” chimed the female voice from the learning system.

“Next up, you will undergo BP [3]training. A simulation will be provided for early game team compositions, mid game team compositions, global ult team compositions, and poke team compositions.

When Chen Mu woke up the next day, his head was full of champion portraits.

After eating some breakfast, Chen Mu left with Chen Yifei. After coming down the flight of stairs, Chen Mu dragged Chen Yifei straight to a breakfast shop. Steamed stuffed buns, soy milk, and youtiao—the three big breakfast bosses were present in each of their set meals.

“There. This breakfast shop used to be our favorite place,” said Chen Mu as he drank the freshly made soy milk.

“You earned this much by renting out your account?” asked Chen Yifei.

“Relax. When there’s a will, there’s a way. How hard can earning money be to me?” Chen Mu appeared to be at ease.

Chen Yifei knew Chen Mu was the type of person who always tried to keep up with his appearance and decided not to burst his bubble. In the same year that she was in Year 3 Junior, Chen Mu kept stabbing himself with his compass in order to study through the night and earn the scholarship reward pertaining to his Senior High School Entrance Examination. It was carried out similar to the traditional method of stabbing oneself with an awl. He improved his ranking by more than a hundred in under a month by doing so.

One day, Chen Mu fell asleep without covering himself with his blanket. It was then when Chen Yifei walked in on him and saw the scars on his thighs and realized how much he had sacrificed for it.

Looking at all the money of unknown origin now, Chen Yifei could not help but wonder what Chen Mu had done to earn it. At the same time, Chen Yifei felt useless. She was keen to do something too—to work hard for their family as well.

Chen Yifei shook her head and discarded the thought. Chen Yifei and Chen Mu had agreed to play games together that night or her internet credit would expire. Chen Yifei was not particularly talented in games. She barely managed to achieve Legendary once every twenty matches. Without Chen Mu’s intentionally giving her kills, she had no chance to earn internet credit from the cybercafe’s promotional event.

Chen Mu had agreed because he wanted to watch over Chen Yifei more closely. There were just too many perverts going about. Rumors had it that luxury cars would lurk outside university gates and tempt people into doing the nasty in exchange for heinous money.

In the case where the ‘chance to make money’ Chen Yifei mentioned had been introduced to her by ill-intentioned people, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

All Chen Mu could do was to think of where else he could participate in tournaments. He managed to earn five hundred from a single day tournament—it was a deal that was hard to come by.

After reaching his classroom, Chen Mu mulled over whether he should consult Shi Geng about cybercafe tournaments. There had to be many similar tournaments in Chuzhou. With Huaxia’s booming economy, everyone had a computer at home. It would be tough for a cybercafe to increase in business unless they organized promotional events.

Hearing Zhuo Xiaobai’s sorrowful sighs, Chen Mu smiled and asked, “What’s wrong with you? You look like you have kidney deficiency[4]. Did you find a few island country teachers to study with you yesterday night?”

“You pervert. I never expected you to know about island country teachers. Are you more familiar with Ms. Yui[5] or Ms. Yoshizawa[6]?” asked Zhuo Xiaobai.

“Neither. I’ve never heard of them,” Chen Mu replied. He was most familiar with Ms. Momotani[7] who had been unfortunately deleted by the System permanently.

“Sigh, I’m lamenting for the Huaxia team here. They were pwned by the European team three to zero. Everyone is raging on the internet. After all, I could have gotten a score of three to zero if they sent me too. What a bunch of trash,” complained Zhuo Xiaobai.

“It’s normal that they were unable to beat Europe. Nobody made a rule saying that Huaxia is stronger than Europe,” Chen Mu commented.

“You have no idea. The deeper the love is, the harder the whip lands. We are the great Huaxia. Our population is much larger than the entire continent of Europe combined. It’s too embarrassing to get trashed three to zero by them just like that,” continued Zhuo Xiaobai.

“Then, Africa has a population of more than three billion people and it doesn’t seem like they made it to the top sixteen either. Did they say anything about it?” Chen Mu said. Internally, Chen Mu was leaning toward the side of the professional players. He thought that if he managed to become one of the top eight players, he would not feel nice if he were to be criticized in such a way too.

“I won’t talk to you anymore. You play way too little. Once you start watching championship matches, you’ll understand.” Zhuo Xiaobai, a player with six hundred ELO points, was acting like he knew more about the game than Chen Mu.

Without further ado, Chen Mu struck up a conversation with the System, “Are the top eight players that bad? With hundreds of millions of players in the game, becoming one of the world’s top eight players should be alright, shouldn’t it?”

“The Host has yet understood the cruelty of esports. Anything other than the champion will be disregarded. The first runner-up in the other dimension was booed on for more than a year. Until the moment people realized it was hard to become even one of the top four players of a region did people start missing the first runner-up.

“The level of stress you will shoulder will be a hundred times greater than when you’re studying or sitting for examinations. One of them requires you to pass a threshold while the other requires you to become the champion to put on the crown. Even so, if your empire falls even once, all your past glories will be disregarded completely. On the other hand, all your mistakes in the past will be dug out and relentlessly bashed. The Host should prepare yourself mentally for that,” the System said.

“That terrifying? Even number two is considered trash?” Chen Mu felt the weight of a mountain press down on his shoulders as he thought about how it would feel like to receive hate from tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people. It would be exhilarating.

[1] Refers to Nidalee, the Bestial Huntress.

[2] Refers to Rek’Sai, the Void Burrower.

[3] ‘BP’ is the acronym for ‘ban and pick’.

[4] Also known as ‘shenkui’, it is a culture-bound syndrome native to Chinese that exists globally. It is a syndrome in which individuals suffer withdrawal-like symptoms including painful brainfog, chills, nausea, and also flu-like symptoms with anxiety. It is believed to be caused by the loss of semen and orgasms.

[5] Refers to Hatano Yui, a Japanese AV idol, model, actress, and idol singer.

[6] Refers to Akiho Yoshizawa, often known simply as Acky, is a Japanese former adult video actress, who also appeared in pink and mainstream film as well as television.

[7] Refers to Erika Momotani, an AV pornstar and idol.