Chapter 9: Brothers

After bantering with his viewers for a bit, Jiaoyang chose to end the stream and began to appraise his spoils of war.

Just as he had envisioned with his placement matches against the viewers, these nine games only activated the system's Training Mode, and the tasks he drew did not feature an SSS ji rating like the first time.

Excluding the "Desperate Struggle" task he failed to complete, he finished a total of 3 D+ ji, 3 C ji, and 2 B ji tasks.

He obtained a total of 150 allocatable Talent Points and two items.

To do a good job, one must first sharpen one's tools; after each match, he immediately added his Talent Points to 【ZywOo's Dungeon Imprisonment】.

The 150 Talent Points were just enough to upgrade 【ZywOo's Dungeon Imprisonment】 from level 2 to the maximum level of 6.

The effect now became: when teammates perform poorly, all attributes are temporarily increased by 10 points, and self-state is improved by 100%.

For someone like him who is climbing the ranks at lightning speed, this talent is truly practical.

If teammates perform well, he can be carried; if teammates perform poorly, he can rely on himself to carry, and random players have no way to come up with a counter-strategy in a short time.

As for the two items, they are:

【Unscientific Computer Accessory: When used, the computer will automatically Overclock and will not be affected by external factors to cause malfunctions, such as network disconnections.】

【Dried Banana of the Otherworld Priest: Restores mental energy and increases nervous sensitivity; must remain in a seated position when used.】

The effects of these two items were already quite miraculous, and what was even more miraculous was that these two items could actually be taken directly out of the item warehouse.

With a thought, a USB drive and a banana that looked very hard appeared in his palm.

After plugging the USB drive into the computer, there was no reaction other than a prompt sound.

To test it, Jiaoyang directly unplugged the network cable from the port, yet the computer's web pages were still able to function normally; watching videos and playing games were both fine.

Is this f***ing alien technology?!

He looked again at that 【Dried Banana of the Otherworld Priest】; there were even mysterious runes carved on its surface, which completely dispelled Jiaoyang's desire to eat it.

On the other side, in the hotel, the members of the VG Dota 2 division had already gathered together.

Captain Panda and Yang Hai were huddled together studying the attire and figures of women in short videos, and were having a heated discussion based on their tastes.

Meanwhile, star player Zhang Jun was in the corner watching Naruto; it was the exciting moment of Jiraiya versus Pain...

"Hasn't Jiaoyang come yet?" Coach Bai Jie shouted, pulling the few of them back from their respective worlds.

"He should be here soon." Ding Yu replied, putting away his phone.

"Oh? Having conflicts again?" Behind Bai Jie, the two big bosses of VG walked over.

The one in the lead looked slightly plump, but exuded an air of capability.

The one beside him had more of a rich second-generation's playfulness; he was tall and thin, dressed in exquisite clothing.

"Hello, Boss Ding, Boss Qing." The five people on the team called out in unison.

"You guys are being a bit too dramatic." Aqing sat down with a smile and said, "Let's talk about the red envelopes once everyone is here."

Lao Ding, however, was not so easily fooled: "Didn't you guys just win the championship? What temper is Jiaoyang throwing?"

Seeing the few of them stammering and having no intention of answering, Lao Ding turned serious and scolded: "You guys need to wake up, what other mid-laner in the country can you switch to?"

Yang Hai had a sharp tongue and muttered: "Just tell A-Jun to play mid."

Zhang Jun on the team was one of the rare players who was very capable as both a carry and a mid-laner; many fans even thought his mid-lane was far stronger than Jiaoyang's on the team.

"Then who plays carry? How will you guys build synergy? The Major qualifiers are coming up soon, and in a few months it's Ti9; can you guys be better than you are now?"

Lao Ding saw much further than these players; for a team, the most important thing in business is stability.

Having good results and still listening to players to switch people around at will—that is a decision that could only be made if one's brain was broken.

"Hey, don't get angry, Lao Ding. Didn't A-Jun also threaten to quit the team before? In the end, he settled down and won a Major directly. It's the same this time; who knows, maybe they'll win another Major soon?"

Aqing knew Jiaoyang's general thoughts, so he was not worried at all.

With Jiaoyang's CS level, he could easily crush anyone himself; it was just a temper tantrum.

He let advent handle it, just wanting to let this guy understand how high the threshold for professional play really is, and to let him play Dota with peace of mind.

"Besides, what do you mean there's no mid-laner to switch to? These guys are the championship lineup; you can't be missing a single one."

"Sigh—anyway, you guys keep it in check a little; don't f***ing turn this into team bullying." Because Aqing was closer to these players, since he didn't take it to heart, Lao Ding didn't continue to discipline them.

After all, today was the celebration banquet for the team winning a Major again after five years; the VG club was built on the Dota project, so there was no reason to cause unhappiness on such a day.

Jiaoyang, who had just arrived outside the door behind the wall, had heard the gist of it and sighed slightly.

If it weren't for the fact that VG was good enough to its members, he probably wouldn't have chosen to stay at VG.

He calmed his mood a little and walked into the room.

"Hello, Boss Qing, Boss Ding."

"Damn, you kid are doing this too? Sit down quickly!"

"Waiter, serve the food!"

……

At the celebration banquet, no one provoked the bosses, and everyone just chatted and ate properly.

Not long after, a few veterans of drinking games completely let loose and started competing in their alcohol tolerance.

After three rounds of drinks, except for Aqing and Jiaoyang—one with an absurdly high tolerance and the other who didn't understand social nuances—everyone else had collapsed.

Aqing called Jiaoyang away.

Watching the two leave, Lao Ding, who was slumped on the table, narrowed his eyes slightly.

"How was the tryout at noon?" Aqing leaned back against the railing on the roof, enjoying the night breeze.

"It was alright, Liang Dui told me to try again later." Jiaoyang replied, looking at the neon lights of the city flickering.

Aqing felt this was just advent's way of comforting someone, so he followed up with comfort: "It's fine if you go play for fun."

Playing for fun here meant asking professional players to take him along for casual matches.

"It seems there's no coach on the CS side?" advent hadn't introduced one in the morning, so Jiaoyang had looked it up.

"There isn't, but that's a long story..."

After thinking for a moment, Aqing took two cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to Jiaoyang; seeing that Jiaoyang didn't take it, he remembered that this guy didn't smoke, so he put the cigarettes away, lit one for himself, and continued:

"Jiaoyang, you think of being a professional too simply; not everyone has it as smooth as you do."

"Liang Zhouxiang, that is advent, the current captain of the CS Division."

"When he first came to VG in '16, that guy was down on his luck, struggling for years with two brothers and having nothing to show for it."

"After coming to VG, the situation improved a little, and he could win some small tournaments. But you also know that for a club, those small tournaments are actually meaningless besides being 'vegetable-crushing' matches."

"If they don't break into the major tournaments, these people don't deserve to stand in the spotlight as professional players."

"It's the same for advent; if you can't get results, you either retire or become a Coach. He must have been very unconvinced at the time; he only lasted a while as a Coach before running off."

"And then? Did he think he could get good results just by not holding his brothers back?"

"Sometimes, team building is just that metaphysical; it requires a bit of luck. The right people just have to be with the right people; it's not something you can just do by comparing data."

"That's why I always say Lao Ding is an outsider; if team building were really as simple as throwing money at it, what would be the point?"

"In short, after advent left, VG didn't get any better; in fact, it got even worse."

"Lao Ding was already angry because of the lack of results on the League of Legends side, and he didn't want the CS side to be any better, so he wanted to sell it off immediately to recoup his losses."

"Hearing about this, advent came running back, begging us to believe in him one more time."

"He didn't want to be a Coach, he didn't even want a salary; he just wanted to try one more time with his brothers."

"Just that one time, he made it to the Major and got his Sticker..."

Speaking to this point, Aqing exhaled the smoke, and the evening breeze quickly blew it away.

"If he had lost that time, perhaps no one would remember that such a player ever existed."