All-Round Mid Laner

Ye Shaoyang spent all day playing the Frost Goddess in ranked matches.

At 50 stars in King rank and up, players could earn more than five hundred points of battle power per match won. Players who lost, but were named the MVP of their team, would only have at most fifty battle power points deducted. Ye Shaoyang maintained a steady win rate of 80% with his Frost Goddess, so her battle power rose very swiftly.

For the next two days, he played the Frost Goddess in ranked matches every day.

At midnight on Wednesday, his Frost Goddess had already reached a battle power of 10,000.

The viewers in his streaming room were completely awed by the speed at which he increased his power.

Many players got stuck at the Diamond rank and couldn't advance any higher, and many players only achieved a battle power of 3,000 or so with their heroes. They would win and they would lose. No matter what they did, they couldn't raise that battle power any higher. Forget about being nationally ranked. They couldn't even become #1 in their city. However, in just two short days and a few dozen games, Xiao Bai had achieved a battle power of over 10,000 with an 80% win rate!

[Are we playing the same game?]

[Host, are you human? Oh, wait, no. You're a cat. Kitty cats really are awesome at video games!]

[Why is Xiao Bai able to unleash his skill combos as fast as a tentacle monster? While I'm as slow as if I'm handicapped?]

[My brain is telling me: You can do this. My hands are telling me: No, you can't.]

Xiao Bai's viewers flooded his chat every day, and a few more wild big spenders popped up as well, sending in lots of gifts. Lots of viewers who sent in thousands or tens of thousands of yuan in gifts started to ask to add Xiao Bai on WeChat.

Although Ye Shaoyang was very popular, he didn't yet have an official fan club. Qin Rui saw all the requests in the comments section, from people wanting to add Xiao Bai as a friend. He excitedly suggested, "Ge, you can create a few group chats on WeChat and pull your fans in. I see lots of other streamers who do that, and lots of them have set times when they help their fans rank up."

Ye Shaoyang thought for a moment, then nodded his agreement. "I don't know how to mess with all that. How about you help me set it up?"

Qin Rui instantly opened a new WeChat account and changed the pinned announcement in Xiao Bai's streaming room to: [VIP-3 and above viewers can add WeChat account XXXX, to be added to Xiao Bai's fan circle.]

Instantly, quite a few viewers added Qin Rui's new account. Some fans, in order to reach the level of VIP-3, even paid for a subscription to the channel; there were some who outright paid for a full year.

Qin Rui opened one group chat, and it reached capacity in an instant. He opened another…

In the blink of an eye, he'd opened ten group chats, and they were all at maximum capacity.

Qin Rui giddily said, "Ge, your popularity is super high!"

Ye Shaoyang had also been added to these group chats by Little Rui. He changed his own nickname to 'Streamer Xiao Bai', then stuck his head out from under the water to greet everyone: [Thank you everyone for your support. I'm busy charging the national leaderboards these days, so I won't have time to help you guys rank up. Once I've taken eight heroes to the national leaderboards, we'll see what the situation is like, and I'll play ranked with you guys then.]

The fans in his group chats were all dumbfounded—

[Eight heroes? Nationally ranked?]

[Xiao Bai, are you serious? TremblingEyes.jpg]

[Holy shit, have I followed a monster?]

[It seems I've invested in a stock with good potential? Xiao Bai, when you have time, take me up the ranks~]

[If I remember correctly, Whale Streaming's #1 games host Xiao Wei only has four national rankings. Xiao Bai, you want eight?]

[Xiao Wei got another one these past few days, he has five national rankings now. They're all marksman-type heroes.]

[Host, good luck, work hard to surpass Xiao Wei. I'll be watching you!]

There were too many people in the chat. Staring at the flood of messages for too long could make your eyes go blurry. The chat was inundated with reaction memes too.

Ye Shaoyang left Little Rui to take care of the fan groups. He continued to stream.

At the same time, in a group chat titled [Streamers' Alliance~]—

[Streamer Yuzhou]: Holy shit, the newbie is wild!

[Streamer Yuzhou]: Screenshot.jpg

The contents of that screenshot just so happened to be the words Ye Shaoyang had spoken in his fan group chat.

[Once I've taken eight heroes to the national leaderboards, we'll see what the situation is like, and I'll play ranked with you guys then.]

It also included the fan who'd responded: [Host, good luck, work hard to surpass Xiao Wei.]

This message in the Streamers' Alliance group chat drew an explosive reaction. Lots of people stopped lurking to discuss—

[Streamer Yulin]: What's the deal with this Xiao Bai? He's actually got the guts to contest our Wei-ge's position?

[Weiwei]: Seems to be the newest talent on Whale Streaming. I've seen him promoted on the newcomers' board.

[Cutie Bear]: He talks way too big. Does he think the national leaderboards are his own garden? He can pluck as many flowers as he wants?

[Streamer Miqi]: @Brother Fish Isn't this the guy who took your #1 Illusionist spot before?

[Brother Fish]: ……

Brother Fish felt himself getting angry as soon as he was reminded of this matter. On Monday, despite his Illusionist still sitting at a battle power of 12,000, the system had informed him that he'd been booted to the #1 spot on the national leaderboards because Xiao Bai's Illusionist had better average stats than him.

Although the Top 10 in the country were all considered 'nationally ranked', only the #1 position received that dazzling gold trophy marker. From #2 onwards, their badge would be changed to silver.

The Illusionist… that was Brother Fish's signature hero! How long had he spent getting the Illusionist to the maximum battle power? Then, after reigning as the National #1 Illusionist for just over a month, he was squeezed out of the spot without ever even getting a chance to bask in the warmth of that glory?

Brother Fish had already thoroughly cussed Xiao Bai out in his heart several times. He felt like this Xiao Bai was specifically targeting him. Regardless of whether it was that taunting 'Good game. ^_^' or if it was stealing away his Illusionist's #1 spot on the national leaderboards, Xiao Bai was always coming after him. He just couldn't let Brother Fish live?!

Brother Fish sneered and typed—

[Brother Fish]: It's just a newb who still thinks the sky is the limit.

[Brother Fish]: I can't even be bothered to argue with him.

[Brother Fish]: He shows off a little cat when he streams, not bad at generating hype. Tons of people in his streaming room aren't even there to watch him play games. They're just there to see the cat.

[Brother Fish]: He'll really do anything to hype himself up.

[Streamer Miqi]: Holy hell, really?

[Streamer Miqi]: It's the first time I'm hearing about a games host putting a cat in front of the camera! This guy will really resort to any trick to climb the ranks!

[Streamer Miqi]: I've seen him trying to get on the national leaderboards with the Frost Goddess this week. If I remember correct, the #1 Frost Goddess is @Cutie Bear, right?

[Cutie Bear]: ……

[Cutie Bear]: I got it ages ago. I haven't played this hero lately.

[Streamer Miqi]: It looks like the newbie is pretty ambitious. The newcomer rankings for the year will come out in December. Is he trying to race to the #1 spot on the list?

[Brother Fish]: Don't joke around, he's got just that little handful of fans. If he can get #1, I'll stream myself eating my keyboard!

Just as everyone was heatedly discussing the topic, a voice that didn't quite go with the flow spoke up in the chat.

[Mumu]: Are you guys talking about the streamer Xiao Bai?

[Mumu]: His cat is really pretty cute~

Very quickly, a few more people popped up in the chat.

[Streamer Xiao Wei]: Mu-jie, help me out in ranked today. Be my support.

[Streamer Xiao Wei]: I keep losing in ranked lately. They're beating my pants off, ffs.

[Mumu]: I won't be playing ranked tonight, I'll be playing in the summit tournament.

[Streamer Xiao Wei]: Oh, that's right. The summit tournament is starting on Wednesday. I almost forgot!

[Streamer Xiao Wei]: I'll play in the summit tournament tonight too.

All sorts of people were mixed up in this group chat. Streamers from various platforms were there, forming a group with over five hundred members. This discussion had even caused the #1 male streamer and #1 female streamer of Whale Streaming to pop in for a moment. Everyone else also popped up to offer them a greeting.

However, the strange thing was, these two big names didn't insult Xiao Bai with the others.

Instead, they seemed to be changing the subject?

It was midnight, which was exactly when the night owls of the streaming community were the most active. After the subject in the group chat shifted, everyone started to discuss the summit tournament. Meanwhile, Ye Shaoyang had already gone to bed.

When Ye Shaoyang woke the next morning and logged in to the game, the interface suddenly showed him a new alert—

9.3.16 Version Update size 1.02G, currently downloading the patch, please wait momentarily.

Such a big patch?

Ye Shaoyang instantly opened up the patch notes.

This update included skin optimizations, skill optimizations, and a whole slew of complicated new in-game missions and tasks. The rewards would be in-game currency, like gold and credits to redeem new skins.

In his previous life, Ye Shaoyang would always just skim over these events then proceed to ignore them. His main focus had always been on competing in tournaments and training up his heroes. These cosmetic things just seemed like a hassle to him.

However, one part of the patch notes did attract his attention—

After the Wednesday update, a server-wide tournament was set to begin. The summit tournament.

The rules of the summit tournament weren't the same as the rules of ranked matches. Every night from 8:00 PM to midnight, tournament scoring would take effect. Only Ultimate Kings could sign up to participate. Players weren't allowed to form teams in advance for the tournament, so players would enter the tournament solo and be matched randomly with other players on the server. Everyone started with 1,000 tournament points. Players gained points when they won and lost points when they lost. And every week, new rankings from the summit tournament would be put out.

Bonuses for using specific heroes and the specifics of how points would be awarded and deducted were all listed out in a table.

Ye Shaoyang carefully studied the table, then realized that playing in the summit tournament would increase your battle power much more quickly! If he could get up to 2,000 tournament points, then the hero he used in winning tournament matches would gain much, much more battle power! That was because battle power was awarded with a multiplier in the summit tournament. The higher your rank in the tournament, the bigger that multiplier would be.

This was very easy to understand. If you stayed in Bronze rank and killed off ten newbies who didn't know what they were doing, you obviously wouldn't be encountering the same level of difficulty as if you killed off ten experts in the summit tournament. So, the higher you were ranked in the tournament, the more battle power you would be awarded for winning a match.

Of course, it wasn't all that easy to get to 2,000 tournament points.

After the day's update went live, the current season's summit tournament began. All King-ranked players were allowed to register, and that meant all King-ranked players on the server would be starting out at the same starting line.

Ye Shaoyang couldn't help but feel some excitement.

The summit tournament was much more severe than regular ranked matches. Because players couldn't form teams before competing, there wouldn't be any instances of best friends or couples teaming up together. The inexperienced newbies who couldn't usually play very well and needed friends to carry them typically wouldn't appear in these tournaments to torture themselves. And because the tournaments had a points system in place, it was relatively less common for people to steal positions, flame, and go AFK in these games.

It could be said that the summit tournament was like a fair and just tournament for all amateurs.

Compared to national leaderboards, ranking in the weekly summit tournament was much more likely to attract attention from major esports clubs in the country.

To see each hero's national leaderboard rankings, a coach or scout would have to actually click into that specific hero's information page. However, the champions of the summit tournament would be displayed front and center as soon as you opened up the summit tournament page.

If Ye Shaoyang could get the name [Xiao Bai] onto that list of champions, wouldn't that help him prove his own might? Taking that into consideration, Ye Shaoyang instantly changed his streaming room name to [Tonight at 8PM, Summit Tournament Sprint].

After seeing that name change, his fans instantly blew up their group chats.

[Xiao Bai is playing in the summit tournament?]

[The start of the summit tournament is always terrifying. You don't even know how many demonic masters you'll run into!]

[Everyone starts out at 1,000 tournament points, and lots of them will be experts. Host, why don't you wait a few days? Let the masters climb to 1,500 points or so, then you start playing at 1,000 points. It'll be much easier.]

[That's right. Today's the very start of the summit tournament. You'll be running into tough opponents at 1,000 points tonight!]

Since only Ultimate Kings could participate in the summit tournament, the entry requirements were very high.

At the start of the tournament, everyone would start at 1,000 points. Even world-class players like Chi Shuo and Fang Zhengqing would start there if they decided to play in the summit tournament. They would all have to start climbing slowly from 1,000 points.

This meant that at the very beginning of the tournament, there would be many crouching tigers and hidden dragons at the 1,000 point mark.

Ye Shaoyang wasn't at all afraid of this situation where he might run into swaths of experts, though. On the contrary, if he could carve a path through these masters of the game, he would find it much more interesting than easily claiming another national ranking through ranked battles. It would also be a better means of honing his skills.

Besides, playing in the summit tournament didn't conflict with his goal of getting more national rankings.

The summit tournament would also be a huge boost to his heroes' battle power.

After the update finished downloading, Ye Shaoyang spent half an hour training with heroes in practice mode. Then at 10:00 AM, he started to stream ranked matches. By the time he got offline at noon, his Frost Goddess was already at the maximum battle power of 12,000. Although the system hadn't officially notified him of it yet, his average rating with this hero was over 15—out of a maximum of 16 points. The National #1 Frost Goddess title was guaranteed to become his.

He took a look at the leaderboards. The current #1 Frost Goddess was played by another streamer named Cutie Bear. By stealing away these titles from other streamers, Ye Shaoyang knew he was bound to offend some people.

But he couldn't do anything about that. This was something he had to do. Besides, these national hero rankings were all fairly judged. If you couldn't keep the #1 position, it just meant you weren't the best.

Ye Shaoyang didn't stream in the afternoon. He followed his own set schedule and continued to watch recordings of old professional games. After eating dinner, Ye Shaoyang washed his face and sat back down in front of his computer at 7:45 PM.

There were fifteen minutes left before the start of the summit tournament. He spent some more time practicing with other heroes, then at exactly eight in the evening, he saw the 'Summit Tournament' marker pop up at the bottom left corner of his screen. After clicking it, a pop up appeared—

The 9.3 Summit Tournament has begun. Would you like to participate?

Ye Shaoyang hit the button to sign up.

Your current tournament standing: 1,000 points.

One win will award 20 points, one loss will deduct 20 points.

At the end of the tournament season, all participants with 2,000 tournament points or more will be awarded 10,000 gold pieces and a summit tournament exclusive skin. The Top 100 players will be awarded 10,000 skin credits. The Top 10 will be awarded limited edition merchandise and a custom trophy badge.

With such bountiful rewards, there would definitely be a lot of people playing in the summit tournament.

Ye Shaoyang closed the info window and hit the button at the middle of the screen, to begin queueing for a summit tournament match.

Currently searching for your teammates and opponents.

Your match has been set. Please get ready.

Ye Shaoyang clicked into the game room and saw that the summit tournament had one extra ban slot than regular ranked matches. In regular ranked games, each side could ban two heroes. In summit tournament games, each side could ban three, sealing away a total of six heroes. Of course, in professional games, each side could ban four heroes for a total of eight heroes on the ban list. Professional games were even more of a test of your hero pool.

Due to the anonymous nature of the summit tournament, teammates' names showed up as Player 1, Player 2…

Ye Shaoyang was Player 5.

As the fifth player, he would be the last to choose his hero.

Ye Shaoyang was just about to type 'I play mid laner' into the chat when a teammate immediately banned the Abyssal Lord.

Of course, a brand new hero that had just gone live being banned was understandable. A lot of people weren't familiar with this hero.

Immediately afterwards, the opposing team banned the Illusionist. A top-tier hero with burst potential like the Illusionist could very easily pressure the enemy in early-game. Regardless of whether a team running the Illusionist chose to slowly snowball to an advantage or to end the game swiftly, the other team wouldn't have a good experience.

Then, Ye Shaoyang's side banned the Frost Goddess.

Ye Shaoyang didn't understand why one of his teammates would ban the Frost Goddess. It was possible that this player had just run into an especially demented Frost Goddess while playing ranked, and had been psychologically impacted by that game?

Xiao Bai's viewers were laughing their asses off in his streaming room—

[Poor Xiao Bai, all three of the heroes he knows how to play have been banned!]

[Abyssal Lord, Illusionist, Frost Goddess… have these people taken a peek at Xiao Bai's hero pool?]

[Xiao Bai, they can definitely feel that Player 5 is emitting a killing aura. They're specifically targeting your heroes.]

[Hahaha, even his teammates are spies sent over by the enemy. They're only banning Player 5's heroes.]

Ye Shaoyang was silent.

The other players had banned all three of the heroes he'd achieved national rankings with. Ye Shaoyang was caught between laughing and crying. He just remembered that before entering the game, he seemed to have forgotten to set up his 'Preferred Heroes' column.

Luckily, for the sake of his ranked matches, he had taken all six Goddess heroes to a proficiency of 100 in training mode.

If the Frost Goddess was banned, he could take the opportunity to play someone else.

Author's Notes:

In this game, there are 25 mid lane heroes. Ye Shaoyang is an all-round mid laner, so he'll definitely be a player with comprehensive skills who can play all those heroes.

I won't write him practicing all 25 of those heroes, that would make the pace too slow.

I'll just pick a few of his more famous heroes to write about~