Chapter 17

Jiang Ming’s lips curled slightly as a string of mysterious numbers flashed through his mind—not out of mockery, but because the S3 era’s Blind Monk still had merit; the farming mechanics hadn’t yet declined, and combined with his signature stream-of-consciousness playstyle, even a Blind Monk in the early jungle skirmishes remained a formidable weapon in his hands.

It was simply that today’s League players were still in the exploratory phase and unfamiliar with many Blind Monk techniques, such as R-flash, spinning kick, or W-flash.

“JM, need me to pick Jax for you?”

In the purple team’s chat channel, the player on first floor—a sharp-eyed individual—immediately asked upon spotting his teammate’s strength.

In League of Legends, floor rankings are mostly determined by hidden MMR, but occasional exceptions occur.

In this match, Jiang Ming, despite having the highest hidden MMR among the five, was assigned to second floor.

Jiang Ming typed back, “No need. You and the support pick what you’re comfortable with.”

Seeing this, the first-floor jungler didn’t hesitate and swiftly picked his signature jungler: Lee Sin.

The second-floor curly-haired player considered briefly, then chose Lulu.

He’d originally planned to practice the new champion Thresh, feeling it was a more versatile support with a similar role to Blitzcrank.

But it was banned by the blue team, so no choice remained.

The pick rights returned to the blue team’s second and third floors, where barrels and Ashe appeared on the pick screen.

“Going first with a barrel? Pretty confident.”

Seeing the opponent had no intention to hide their picks, Jiang Ming locked his champion instantly.

“Invisible Blade—the deadliest of all!”

After Jiang Ming locked in Shaco, both teams’ compositions were quickly finalized.

Blue team: Top Draven, Jungle Blind Monk, Mid Barrel, Bottom Ashe + Soraka

Purple team: Top Zac, Jungle Lee Sin, Mid Jax, Bottom Ezreal + Lulu!

With the composition locked, Jiang Ming didn’t stop his hands—he still had to serve his livestream audience.

“For Jax, use the rune setup I posted in my tutorial video—it’s universally effective. Runes: 21-0-9. Fixed attack and armor penetration are enough; no need for scaling cooldown big essences—the return is too low.”

“From the composition standpoint, neither side has a clear advantage. The enemy mid-jungle is stronger early, but we have more crowd control. However, Ashe and Soraka have long range, making it hard to close in during teamfights—this combo specifically counters Jax.”

Jiang Ming didn’t look down on today’s “King of Kings” just because he understood the game better. As a bottom-laner in an assassin meta, being able to instantly think of pairing long-range Ashe with Soraka to counter Jax showed innate game talent far beyond ordinary players.

【Feels hard to play!】

[Barrel is super annoying in mid—has sustain. Jax won’t gain any advantage. Ming should not force Jax; just climb to Master faster.]

【The enemy mid and jungle are both pros—mid is Cool from OMG, jungle is WE’s Clearlove.】

【Oh wow, bottom has Smiley and Curly! If mid holds steady and we drag to late game, with Big King on our side, we’re guaranteed to win.】

“Smiley!”

As the game loaded, Jiang Ming watched his bottom lane duo with interest.

Ezreal and Lulu—classic picks for these two veteran WE players.

After the Korean Dragon Cup and IPL5 ended, Smiley had earned titles like “World’s Best AD,” “Last-Hit Machine,” “Late-Game God,” and “The Man Who Made ADs C,” and the chat was right: at Smiley’s current competitive level, once Ezreal’s items came online in mid-game, the blue team’s Ashe simply couldn’t match his damage output.

But Jiang Ming had no intention of riding coattails.

If the opponent were Faker, he might worry about his teammate’s performance—but facing Cool, the famous originator of the Shockwave Theory, he felt zero pressure.

In Jiang Ming’s view, this Cool was still just a fledgling “Little Red Wave,” and his future title as World’s Best AD was purely the result of corporate hype.

But the real World’s Best Shockwave? This man right here.

In the original timeline, Cool rose to fame in S3 Worlds by landing a solo kill on Faker via network lag, earned the title of World’s Second Mid, then truly believed he possessed world-class skill—only to be humiliated by Zilean with his Yasuo, then spiraled into harem drama with his jungler girlfriend, cutting ties abruptly, which sank OMG’s Galaxy Team in S5.

His later career grew even stranger: he joined FPX, mocked LWX as weak, refused to practice champions or attend training matches, got scolded by coaches, failed miserably in the Old Man Cup, blamed his champions for his failures, had no honors, no skill, and the shockwave boomerang ended up stabbing himself—so much so that even black traffic couldn’t make sense of it.

The game began. All five players moved at lightning speed, bought their starting items, and took their positions.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Jiang Ming, starting with Long Sword and three Health Potions, pinged several signals on the map, signaling Lee Sin to place a ward.

In an era where double buffs allowed level-three rushes, the early-game invasion power of Blind Monk was immense, and before level three, it was nearly impossible to gain lane dominance against Barrel in mid.

Unlike later versions, in S3, Gragas’s Q didn’t require delayed activation to deal maximum damage; his W didn’t add extra damage but granted damage reduction and bonus physical attack—a skill that made early last-hitting and trading extremely comfortable. His E didn’t grant stun, but its displacement, slow, and damage far surpassed later iterations.

Curly and Smiley, seeing the ping signals on screen, exchanged a glance.

They both thought the same: “This guy’s playstyle… feels more professional than ours.”

Blue team.

“Ban Jax? Are you kidding? Just some random player.”

Cool, controlling Barrel, sneered. In his view, top-tier ladder ranks meant nothing—he and his peers spent most time on pro matches; if they truly focused on climbing, top ten would be their personal backyard.

Time ticked by. Neither side showed intent to fight a level-one teamfight.

Cool, with the minion wave arriving in mid, spotted Jax and immediately cast Q, aiming to hit both champion and minions.

But due to the distance between them, just before the rolling barrel reached its endpoint, the shadowy Jax stepped nimbly, sidestepping it entirely.

“Face the shadows. Seek the truth!”

Swish!

Jax, having dodged the barrel, spun and hurled his blades—【Shadow Technique: Blades of the Shadow】!

The sound of blades piercing flesh rang out; a sliver of health vanished from Gragas’s head.