Chapter 14: Is he really a genius?

After the centaur revealed its position and level last-hit information, now his jungle route finally became clear.

Liang Yan thought it was probably like this:

Both sides' jungle routes

The centaur started jungling from the Stone Armor Beetle, then cleared the red buff, then skipped F4 and the Three Wolves to clear the blue buff; on a whim he thought to go counter‑jungle Liang Yan's F4, but found it was already gone, thus guessing Liang Yan had gone to the lower half, afraid his own F4 would be counter‑jungled by Liang Yan, so he looped back from behind mid lane to take his F4, then returned to the upper half, cleared the Three Wolves and Magic Swamp Frog; at that point he had enough gold to craft a tier‑2 jungle knife, preparing to recall, but discovered Liang Yan was ganking in the bottom lane, remembering he himself was a jungler, so he went to top lane to show his face, waved a presence, and recalled again……

Beet!

Liang Yan's train of thought amused him to no end.

Buying items while heading out.

Although the bottom‑lane gank didn't net a kill, the 20 jungle creeps plus salary and assists left Liang Yan with over a thousand gold when he returned home.

Liang Yan didn't craft the tier‑2 jungle knife; instead he directly built the item colloquially called "Little Sunfire", "Bambi's Molten Shield", then after weighing the jungle talisman against the boots for a few hundred gold, he finally built the jungle talisman.

In this version, the excavator has two early‑game jungle build paths: one requires the Crafted Warhammer path for the Warrior's Blade, the other follows the Little Sunfire path for the Molten Shield; the former gives 60 attack damage, the latter gives 400 extra health.

Some think building the Warrior's Blade is an offensive build and building the Molten Shield is a defensive tank build, but that's not the case.

Because the Molten Shield adds health and also has an extra burn effect, similar to Sunfire, dealing continuous damage to nearby enemies.

For champions that can stick to enemies, the damage from the Molten Shield isn't much less than that from the Warrior's Blade, while tankiness gets a huge boost.

The excavator's strength in this version mainly comes from its synergy with the Molten Shield jungle knife—a conclusion you can reach with a quick calculation.

Many people just play games lazily, instinctively thinking my Rek'Sai needs raw damage and go straight for offensive items; it's not necessarily wrong, but the cost‑effectiveness drops a lot, amounting to abandoning the champion's strong point.

Liang Yan also likes raw damage, but he knows better what it means to have output while staying alive.

This game the enemy has Karthus and the Fish‑Man, and Rek'Sai has to dive in for team fights; some damage is unavoidable, so he really needs some health to stay upright.

When he left base he saw the Fish‑Man top lane already tower‑diving to block the minion wave; Liang Yan hit Tab to check and saw the Fish‑Man was indeed building tanky.

This made Liang Yan lose his appetite for him even more.

Originally he wanted to counter Karthus at the start, but the enemy was too slippery and AP was pressuring too hard, keeping them pinned under tower; Liang Yan's current gear doesn't support tower dives, so he can't do anything in mid lane either.

Fortunately the enemy bottom lane cooperated well.

After clearing his team's second Stone Armor Beetle and F4, he nonstop rushed to the lower half; just as he ate the Magic Swamp Frog, the enemy duo pushed the lane into tower.

Liang Yan visited again, greeted the bottom lane in advance, then came to the mountain‑wall corner and rode over the wall with Bard.

Ezreal was shocked, Arcane Shift leaping back to flee.

Liang Yan tunnelled over, knocked him up, combined with Lu Xi An's combo to instantly kill him, luckily snagging the kill, then burrowed to keep chasing Fan Mom, flashed to knock her up and took another kill.

Double kill secured.

Liang Yan knew he had officially taken off this game.

After additionally clearing the second river crab, he recalled again, spending 825 gold to directly craft the Molten Shield, then picked up double boots and two control wards.

Following his ultimate straight flight to the upper half, he landed from a tunnel left at the Stone Armor Beetle camp, cleared starting from the third Stone Armor Beetle group and kept clearing downward.

After mid‑lane Karthus hit level and gained wave‑clear ability, Liang Yan lurked in the brush for a few seconds, but Karthus was too slippery and positioned very carefully.

Moreover AP seemed unsure of his own chicken‑drift R flash, even with distance he had no intention to engage, so Liang Yan decisively left, ran into the enemy jungle, planning to place a ward and then take the first dragon.

After all, it's a water dragon, still worth something.

He didn't expect to run into love at a jungle corner, meeting the Fan Mom who came to give herself up.

Liang Yan, however, reluctantly took the kill.

As a result, Ezreal was quite righteous, wanting to flee after eating my support clean; you won't get away unless you kill me!

Liang Yan felt ashamed and quickly took Ezreal's kill as well.

【DoubleKill！】

【Rampage！】

The system announced Rek'Sai's quadruple kill rampage.

When the alert sounded, our mid laner, G2's big thigh, the team's soul, the rising new law‑king of Europe—Perkz—typed slowly in all chat:

【？】

He didn't think Liang Yan's gear was explosive, only that the enemy was feeding.

The rookie jungler was going crazy with kills.

His so‑called big thigh reaped nothing.

This makes him look like a mess!

Are you deliberately targeting my AP?!

Liang Yan has no clue about AP's inner thoughts, nor does he understand what that question mark means, but the enemy seems to get it.

The centaur replied "ok" in all chat.

AP was wondering what that "ok" meant when an angry centaur burst from the river, its Shadow Strike hooves stomping straight onto AP's face.

Karthus immediately turned on his Defile aura, flashed in and kept dealing damage.

Shah's health poured down.

AP yelled "Oh shit", broke free of fear, then did an R‑D double, shoved the centaur away and flashed down the river.

After killing Ezreal, Liang Yan, who was about to counter‑jungle the Stone Armor Beetle, arrived in pursuit, first throwing a long‑range Object Search, then tunneling from behind the river wall to knock up the chasing centaur, WQQE four claws in one second, directly crushing the centaur's skull.

Suddenly a barrage of light bolts came from behind.

Since the enemy duo had fallen, the restless Lu Xi An, after pushing the lane, unexpectedly showed up and fired off Holy Spear Baptism at Karthus with a rapid tat‑tat‑tat‑tat‑tat.

【DoubleKill！】

【Dominating！】

It's a pity the kill still belonged to Liang Yan.

It's a shame he didn't follow up the previous double kill; otherwise it would have been a "god‑like catch Q".

The low‑health AP twisted left and right, actually dodging several of Karthus's Qs before his death.

Moreover, Death Song actually forgot to activate his R to secure the kill!

Liang Yan helped clear the Zhong Lu minion wave, while shockedly watching AP run out of Death Song's skill range and immediately press recall.

This guy—if the enemy had made even one fewer mistake, he would have died.

In the end, he miraculously survived.

You dare to believe this?

S04's top laner Steve, seeing his teammates' icons mysteriously turn black four times, couldn't hold back and typed a string of ellipses in the public chat.

「Wahahahaha……」

AP's wild laughter echoed in Liang Yan's headset.

Behind everyone, Ka Lao Si stroked his stubble-covered chin, glancing at the backs of several non-starting players, his expression somewhat subtle.

What's going on? Isn't this a rag-tag team?

How did it turn into a chaotic slaughter?

Finally, his gaze lingered on the back of Liang Yan's head, once again lost in thought.

He recalled the sentence Liang Yan had said in the car; back then he had only taken it as a joke.

Could it be that...

This kid really is a genius?