All-Round Mid Laner

The aggrievement Qin Rui felt after being insulted had already dissipated. He looked at his gege with adoration in his eyes. "Ge, you're so strong. Can you take me up to Diamond? I've been stuck in Gold for a month already."

"Sure," Ye Shaoyang agreed right away.

With his experience, taking a newbie up to Diamond was no challenge. Plus, double queueing with a support was beneficial to him as well. He could get Qin Rui to scout out the wilderness and report their enemies' movements to him, so that he could win each match as quickly as possible.

The only problem was that his account only had five heroes unlocked so far—they were the fighter, assassin, mage, marksman, and support that came unlocked by default. Of all the mage-type heroes, he only had the Frost Goddess unlocked. This kind of hero which flourished in the late-game, after gearing up with top-tier equipment, wasn't suitable for carrying someone up the ranks. Plus, too many new players knew how to play these default heroes. If another player chose the Frost Goddess, Ye Shaoyang would be left in the awkward position of having no heroes to choose from.

It would be better to pick up a lesser-known hero.

"Wait for me for a minute, I'll go buy a hero." Ye Shaoyang pulled up the in-store game.

"Ge, I'll buy it for you," Qin Rui offered giddily. "I still have a lot of credits on my account that I haven't spent yet."

Ye Shaoyang didn't hold back. "Alright, then send me the Abyssal Lord."

"The Abyssal Lord?" Qin Rui sounded confused. "There's a hero by that name?"

Ye Shaoyang pointed to the version number of the game. "It's the new hero that came out in this version. The one in the opening animation."

"Geh, I skipped the opening movie. I didn't notice it." Qin Rui opened up the in-game mall and saw that the heroes category had a 'NEW' symbol next to it. The new addition added in the 9-3 season was the Abyssal Lord - Locke.

As a demon from the abyss, this character's figure was wrapped up in a black cloak. A huge hood covered his face, and his body was shrouded by a fine, black mist. The weapon he held in his hands was a staff made of skulls, and the eye sockets of those skulls were still continuously leaking blood.

The new hero looked pretty cool. There was an extremely long passage dedicated to describing his skills. Qin Rui studied it for ages without really understanding much. He turned and whispered, "Ge, are you sure you want to buy this one? Its difficulty rating is five stars. Looks super complicated."

"Just buy him," Ye Shaoyang said. "Everyone else will be running into this new hero for the first time too. This way, I can stand at the same starting line as them."

Gods War had over a hundred playable heroes. Professional players had definitely already studied the older heroes thoroughly, learning their play styles inside and out. Ye Shaoyang wouldn't be able to get very creative with them.

New heroes, however, were unfamiliar to everyone. Ye Shaoyang could be the fastest one to get results with this new hero.

Qin Rui bought the Abyssal Lord, then asked, "Are there any other heroes you want to play? I can send you a few more. I still have over 100,000 credits on this account."

Ye Shaoyang had taken notes on all the heroes. In his spreadsheet, he'd divided the mid lane heroes into three categories—

Artillery mages, assassin mages, and utility mages.

Artillery mages were mid lane heroes that dealt extremely powerful magic damage. Under normal circumstances, just one skill combo from these heroes could move heaven and earth. In team fights, these heroes would act as the main DPS. But the shortcomings of these mages were very obvious as well—they were slow, they had no displacement crowd control skills, and they died easily. In order to stand there and dole out huge amounts of damage, they needed teammates who could create the ideal environment for them.

Assassin mages were well-suited for seeking out opportunities to initiate team fights. They could launch sneak attacks to take out the opposing team's carry, or they could mercilessly take heads after their teammates got the enemies down to low health. Assassin mages were known for being agile, but hard to operate perfectly. When used to good effect, they were explosively strong. But they were very susceptible to crowd control skills; their performance depended heavily on their player's strategic awareness of the field and hand speed.

As for utility mages, they typically filled gaps in team comps when it was necessary to field a mid laner with high survivability and lots of crowd control skills. They were in charge of controlling the tide of the battle during team fights, acting almost like a second support. When a team ran a utility mage in the middle lane, most of the DPS came from the jungler and marksman.

Ye Shaoyang could play all sorts of mages, but he liked assassin mages the most because assassin mages could take the initiative to seek out opportunities to turn the tide of the battle. He skimmed through his spreadsheet, then said, "Moon Mage, Destiny Goddess, Illusionist. I'll take these three for now. I won't get a chance to play them all if I get too many."

"Okay." Qin Rui looked up the heroes Ye Shaoyang had named and found that they were all magic-based assassins with a five-star difficulty rating. He couldn't help but ask, "Ge, why are you buying the hardest ones?"

"The more difficult a hero is to play, the higher their potential is. They're more suitable for setting the rhythm of a game," Ye Shaoyang said while scrolling through his didi's battle records. It was no wonder Little Rui had been stuck in Gold for so long. He played support in every match, and sometimes received scathing lectures from his teammates. It would have been weirder if he'd managed to climb higher in the ranks.

This didi didn't truly understand how supports were meant to be played in high-ranked games. Based on what he'd observed during the last game, Ye Shaoyang found that his didi always exercised extreme caution while playing. Maybe that had something to do with an omega's meek nature. But as long as Ye Shaoyang personally coached his didi in the art of playing a support, his didi could climb to King without any problems. In the future, he at least wouldn't be scolded by his teammates anymore.

"How many support heroes do you have?" Ye Shaoyang asked.

"All of them." Qin Rui opened his list of heroes. "Which ones are better?"

Ye Shaoyang scooted over and took a look at Qin Rui's screen—tsk! His little omega cousin was actually a rich kid! Qin Rui had every hero unlocked, and he had tons of skins too. He also had the 'Elite VIP' marker, which was a clear sign of the power of money!

Ye Shaoyang grinned and teased, "Buying more than a hundred heroes must have cost a lot, huh?"

"I don't have any income," Qin Rui explained. "My papa added the funds to my account so I could buy these. My father doesn't approve of me playing video games, he thinks it's a waste of time. But my papa has always been very supportive of my hobbies. This laptop was a gift from my papa too."

Ye Shaoyang was practically dizzy after listening to that explanation. A question mark slowly popped up from the top of his head.

Papa? Father?

Didn't these mean the same thing?

When Ye Shaoyang gave it some more thought, he quickly understood—Qin Rui had two dads. One was an alpha dad, and one was an omega dad. Qin Rui's omega dad had given birth to him, and Qin Rui grew up to be an omega.

Was that right?

Ye Shaoyang brushed his nose and silently heaved a sigh at the mysteriousness of the A/B/O world. He returned his focus to the game and continued, "You play the Blessed Priest, and just keep following me later."

"Okay." Qin Rui clicked open the Blessed Priest's profile and checked the descriptions of the hero's skills. The Blessed Priest only had a two-star difficulty rating, making him very suitable for newbies. His Q, W, and E skills were an attack power buff for teammates, a mana restoration spell, and an AoE haste spell respectively. His R, the priest's ultimate move, was a team-wide shield.

"This is one of the most powerful shields for a support," Ye Shaoyang said. "Keep that attack buff on me at all times. When you see I'm out of mana, use your W to replenish it for me. As for the other skills, listen for my command before you use them."

"Got it!" Qin Rui paused for a second, looking at the white marker at the upper left corner of the hero's portrait. "Ge, I've never played this hero before. My proficiency level is still at zero. I can't participate in ranked matches."

"My proficiency with my new heroes is also at zero. We'll just play a few games against A.I. teams first," Ye Shaoyang said as he opened up the team formation interface. He pulled his didi into his team again, then headed off to the training game mode to play a few games against the computer.

Games against the A.I. didn't add or subtract from ranking points, but they did add to a player's proficiency with a hero. It was the perfect place for players to practice new heroes. After a few rounds of A.I. games, players could hit a proficiency of one hundred with their hero and go on to play in ranked matches with that character.

Ye Shaoyang also took this as an opportunity to familiarize himself with his new hero's skills.

He played a few rounds with the Abyssal Lord and quickly discovered that this hero really did suit him well.

This hero's Q skill, Dark Emissary, sent out black shadows that could penetrate shields and deal a small amount of magic damage to an enemy. The shadows would also brand the enemy with an 'abyssal mark'. A maximum of three shadows could be sent out, but they moved independently of one another and each had an HP pool that was 30% of its owner's health at the time of deployment.

The W skill, Abyssal Glare, locked onto a target and dealt magic damage while applying an abyssal mark as well.

The E skill, Shadowshift, allowed the hero to switch positions with a shadow of its choice.

And the R skill, Bloody Vengeance, detonated all abyssal marks and dealt a wide range of black magic damage. Upon successfully getting a kill, the hero's Q, W, and E skills would all instantly come off cooldown, and the hero would go into 'vengeance mode', during which his attack power would be improved while his defense would be reduced.

Didn't this hero perfectly fit the mold of a multi-target assassin mage?

The shadows deployed by the Q skill could penetrate shields, and the E skill could allow the hero to switch places with a shadow. The QE combo could be used for three forms of movement. It allowed the hero to give chase, to assassinate, and to flee—it was extremely versatile.

The Q and W skills could both inflict abyssal marks, which would perfectly create the conditions under which the battlefield could be wiped clear. Combined with equipment that could reduce the cooldown times of these moves, a very skilled player with fast hands could inflict up to eight marks at once.

And with the final R skill to detonate those marks, death for the enemy would be inevitable.

The most fearsome thing about this hero was that killing an enemy with the R skill could immediately refresh all three of the other skills. Plus, the Abyssal Lord would enter a 'vengeance mode' in which his attack power was buffed. He could continue to kill.

Theoretically, the Abyssal Lord was the type of hero that grew stronger the longer he remained in play. As long as he could set a rhythm of 'vengeance', he would be unstoppable!

But 'vengeance mode' had a downside as well—while it buffed the hero's attack power, it debuffed the hero's defense at the same time. The Abyssal Lord would become extremely fragile. He would have to pay close attention to his positioning. If he were to be stunned or otherwise immobilized by the enemy, he would die very easily.

After playing a few rounds against the computer, Ye Shaoyang began to understand this hero's skills.

This kind of challenging hero was exactly the type he liked.

The ones that were hard to play were the ones that could truly shine.

Ye Shaoyang stretched and said, "Come on. Let's try a real battle."

Qin Rui queued up for a ranked game with him.

During the preparation stage, Ye Shaoyang instantly chose [Abyssal Lord]. Qin Rui followed his instructions and chose [Blessed Priest]. Soon enough, the match began.

Qin Rui obediently followed his gege to the middle lane.

Less than two minutes into the game, the mid lane [Abyssal Lord] got a solo-kill on the enemy mage.

Immediately after that, he started to race around the map.

At the four-minute mark, he wandered into the bottom lane and killed the opposing bottom lane duo. While there, he destroyed the other team's outer tower.

At the five-minute mark, he drifted up to the top lane and killed the opposing top laner. He knocked down the outer tower on the top lane as well, then marched into the enemy's jungle to harvest resources.

At the ten-minute mark, a group fight broke out in the middle lane. The Abyssal Lord took three kills!

The other players were all baffled. They could only think that this Abyssal Lord was super powerful!

He could get a kill no matter where he went? He was like a walking, human-shaped weapon of war!

Ye Shaoyang's teammates all started typing in the chat.

[Is the new hero really that strong? I want to buy one too.]

[Is this a gaming god on a new alt account? Carry me, please!]

[How do you play the new hero? Please teach me!]

Ye Shaoyang traversed the whole map and quickly established a dominating gold advantage over his opponents. In the blink of an eye, he became the best-equipped player on the field. He seized the perfect opportunity to wipe out his enemies in a team kill.

Qin Rui stared.

What his gege said about natural talent… looked like it was all true.

Ye Shaoyang had only practiced with this new hero for an hour. And he could already rampage across the map, freely killing enemy heroes like he was simply chopping vegetables?

However, although Qin Rui was filled up with surprise and admiration, Ye Shaoyang didn't take much joy in this victory—the difference in skill level between him and the others was simply too big. This was like an NBA professional playing basketball with elementary school students. Victory was meaningless.

Gods War was a brand new game to him, but all the basics of MOBA games were the same. Plus, he had spent an entire afternoon reading up on the game in great detail. Winning a Silver-ranked match was no challenge for him, and beating a group of newbies was nothing to be proud of.

In order to improve, he had to play against the best.

Ye Shaoyang silently made up his mind—

He needed to reach the King rank as quickly as possible, and he needed to charge into the national leaderboard with this Abyssal Lord hero.

Only then would he be able to match up against the world's top players and catch the attention of major esports teams.

He wanted to find out exactly how wide the gap was, between his reborn self and the gaming masters of this world.

 

Author's Notes:

Locke, the Abyssal Lord, will be one of our main character's most famous heroes.

Every professional player has a hero they're famous for playing. We can't skip past this segment, ha~

To answer some questions from the comments section—

No secondary CP. The whole story is about the main CP fighting side-by-side and falling in love~No pregnancy. Ye Shaoyang only wants to play the game, he's a hot-blooded gamer through and through. When body and mind unite, it'll be after the two are in love~