Chapter 26

The honor of being the first King doesn’t affect Jiang Ming’s promotion campaign for topping the national rankings, but if he could get it all, that would be even better.

The first match around 2 p.m. went smoothly; many night-owl grindmasters had probably already fallen asleep, and those who wanted to sabotage Jiang Ming never expected he and YY would settle things so quickly and begin their climb-to-top live stream that afternoon.

【666, one hundred wins clicked!】

【Strongest King, Strongest King, go for it, Ming! Ming’s army is the best.】

【F***, streaming at noon? Lao Jiang, you’re the one, bro, I’m with you in spirit, but don’t play games with me.】

【To be fair, JM is a night-activity streamer with the added bonus of being a college student—his schedule is terrifyingly regular.】

【Up there, does the college student eat your rice? Our schedule is perfectly regular, thank you very much.】

【JM, get in line fast—other pro players’ streams all seem to be online, ready to ambush you.】

Ambush me?

Jiang Ming frowned at the chat.

Under YY’s big push, the pro players and high-ranked players from other platforms couldn’t possibly have remained silent, but he hadn’t expected them to react so fast.

Indeed, from a pro player’s perspective, letting him loudly snatch the first King in Division One and livestream his ascent would be a serious loss of face.

“Bro Ming, we’re queuing too!”

“Better if we queue with Ming. F***, if they want to ambush our boss, they better ask us first.”

On WeChat, several members of his own NXG team sent messages.

Since Riot launched Season 3 and updated the ranks, Jiang Ming had assigned everyone the mandatory task of climbing to Division One King.

A hard requirement—must be completed.

First, to secure better terms for the upcoming exclusive livestream contract with YY’s newly restructured Tiger TV team; second, for external promotion.

He didn’t want NXG’s players to be introduced on livestreams during the LPL regular season as “Diamond player from some region.”

A high-rank player isn’t necessarily a pro, but a player who can’t even climb the ranks definitely can’t become a pro.

That famous nonsense about rank being useless? Just listen to it and forget it.

GodV, the Diamond II emperor who crushed the second-ranked player in Korea with his left hand, did so because he had real skill—not because Diamond II could crush Korea’s second.

…

“YY platform makes bold claims: Can a casual King outmatch pro players?”

“Who will claim the title of China’s first King—and China’s strongest player?”

“Pro players announce ambush on JM; countless casual Kings join the challenge queue.”

“Newly launched Shark Live platform announces huge reward for climbing to top; the title of ‘Strongest King in LOL’ sparks fan frenzy.”

Online, industry insiders marveled at YY’s sensitivity to traffic trends while also being stunned by the decisiveness of their leadership.

Investing so many promotional resources on a single streamer—even at the cost of squeezing traffic from other platform streamers—can they even break even?

And the various doubts about Jiang Ming’s skill weren’t baseless.

The discussion spread from the WE forum; WE fans thought it absurd to promote a casual streamer as China’s top mid-laner, especially since he’d never faced their beloved world-class card master. Disgruntled WE fans began leaving comments on pro players’ social media and livestreams, aiming to undermine the claim that JM was China’s strongest mid-laner.

As for the casual Kings who joined later, some wanted to crush JM to gain fame, others were pure bounty hunters, or simply chasing personal rank gains.

“Got in!”

That day, countless players gathered in Jiang Ming’s livestream; when he entered the draft mode room, their spirits lifted instantly.

“Hurry, check who else is in the match—streamers or pros!”

“Damn, PDD and gogoing are in too!”

“Let me check—Changzhu, Smile, UZI all got in. Holy shit, are they all in one game?”

NXG basement.

“Who got in?”

“Damn, it’s all pro team members—they really came to ambush our boss.”

“Wait, doesn’t it feel like the game company rigged this? What are the odds? Boss is one win away from King, and now everyone shows up.”

“It’s normal—there are only so many high-rank players; matching together has high probability.”

“Didn’t anyone from us get in?” AD Xu Tao sighed; he had WE’s entire team’s livestreams open, hoping to face off against the top AD.

“I queued with Ming!”

Suddenly, jungler Shi Zhenyu pulled off his headphones and spoke to his teammate.

“Oh? Really?”

“Awesome, Stone! If you pull off this escort, promotion and raise are right in front of you.”

The others lost interest in queuing—some dragged over chairs behind the jungler, others found his ID and waited to OB once he entered the game.

The jungler getting in helped Ming far more than any of them entering.

Coincidentally, the opposing mid and jungle were exactly WE’s duo: Ming Kai and Ruofeng.

(gogoing: Hey JM!)

(tabe: Queued with JM? Lucky, Doggy! After the game, can JM add us as friends?)

(JM: Hey both, I’ll add you.)

“Classic plot.”

Looking at the chatbox with all those familiar IDs, Jiang Ming shook his head.

Aside from his own NXG jungler Stone, the top laner was OMG’s gogoing, and the bottom lane was Royal’s UZI + tabe.

On the enemy side, from audience feedback, the top laner was IG’s PDD, and the other four were all from WE.

“Truly—an all-star match.”

Jiang Ming felt a headache coming.

It wasn’t that he worried WE’s four-man squad plus PDD’s ultimate combo couldn’t be beaten—his own top, mid, and jungle were all strong players; even if the other two were casuals, as long as the jungler was his own man, winning this crucial game wasn’t a big problem.

It was just that after this game, he’d likely earn the early hatred of WE’s fanatics.

As the most terrifying group in the 2013 LPL, they’d even forced players to form anti-pressure forums just to resist them—clearly formidable.

“Ban Zed. Ban JM’s Zed.”

On the red side, Smile typed quickly in chat.

As an AD player, he knew better than anyone how dangerous a skilled assassin could be to him.

Ruofeng on the first pick had no objection—he himself wanted to play his favorite card master, and Zed was a mandatory ban for him.

He knew his own limits; after practicing for a while, he still hadn’t grasped the assassin’s essence, and he hadn’t been fooled by a few fan compliments into thinking he was invincible.