ARML CH52

The next morning, Ye Shaoyang woke up according to his usual schedule and turned on his computer to practice heroes. Exactly at 10 AM, he punctually opened his stream on the Whale platform.

He had bought a lazy sofa for the kitten online, which was very similar in style to the sofa at his home. Therefore, with the camera focused on the kitten on the sofa, the netizens didn’t realize he had already moved.

Many people in the stream greeted him.

[Morning Xiao Bai, why didn’t you stream yesterday?] [No stream the whole day yesterday, a day of missing the kitty.] [What happened to the streamer? Disappearing suddenly, were you kidnapped by meow-aliens~]

Ye Shaoyang explained, “I’ve been quite busy lately, so my streaming hours will be reduced. From now on, I will stream ranked matches from 10 AM to 12 PM every morning. I have other arrangements for the rest of the time. Apologies to everyone.”

The training time for most esports teams is in the afternoon and evening. In the future, he would only be able to stream for 2 hours in the morning. These viewers had been watching his stream since his noob days, so he ought to let everyone know. Ye Shaoyang casually changed the stream announcement to “Streaming 10-12 AM” and no longer included the words “pushing for national server.”

[Xiao Bai, you’ve drifted. Are you satisfied with just 8 national server badges?] [Are you not going to use new heroes to push for national server badges anymore?] [And here I thought the streamer was going to collect all the Mid Laner national server badges!]

He had initially pushed for national server badges to attract the attention of major teams. Now that his goal had been achieved, the national server badges were no longer important to him; he definitely had to cooperate with the team’s training.

“Not going for national server badges anymore, just playing casually.” After playing ranked matches for two hours, Ye Shaoyang used the excuse of having things to do and went offline.

At 12:30 PM, he went to the cafeteria on the first floor.

The players of the Tianhuan team had just woken up. Cheng Xing and Xie Xiaotian each sported a pair of dark circles under their eyes. Clearly, they hadn’t slept well after getting hammered the night before. Ye Shaoyang found it amusing and proactively greeted them, “Come, have a seat.”

Holding his tray, Cheng Xing sat beside him, his head bobbing up and down like a chick pecking at rice.

Xie Xiaotian also walked over, looking at Ye Shaoyang with a complex expression, hesitating to speak.

Ye Shaoyang asked in confusion, “What’s wrong? Speak up if you have something to say.”

Xie Xiaotian asked quietly, “Are you, are you the streamer Xiao Bai?”

Using the respectful “you” meant that Cheng Xing must have educated Xie Xiaotian about the origins of the streamer Xiao Bai after going back last night. Ye Shaoyang looked at the young man in front of him with a faint smile, “What, did you learn your [Abyssal Lord] operational techniques from streamer Xiao Bai’s tutorial videos?”

At this, even Xie Xiaotian’s ears turned red, “Ahem, yeah.”

He had truly been an utter idiot! Not knowing that this great god in front of him was Xiao Bai, the streamer with the number one [Abyssal Lord] in the national server, he actually dared to use [Abyssal Lord] to duel him yesterday. Ending up getting hammered—didn’t he completely deserve it?

Ye Shaoyang consoled him, “Actually, your operational foundation is very solid, and your reaction time is fast. It’s just that your thinking isn’t flexible enough. The triangular transposition technique for [Abyssal Lord] isn’t played the way you do it. You transposed counterclockwise every time; it was very easy for me to guess where you would go next. The triangular transposition technique requires random transposition. Don’t let your opponent catch onto your pattern.”

Xie Xiaotian stared at him blankly. Was this face-to-face coaching?

Seeing that Xie Xiaotian was listening intently, Ye Shaoyang continued, “What a mage assassin focuses on is catching the enemy by surprise and attacking when they’re unprepared. If I see you hiding in the brush, then you can’t possibly succeed in a sneak attack. You must pay attention to blocking the enemy’s vision. Usually, when there’s no minion wave, at what distance can the opponent see you?”

Xie Xiaotian answered subconsciously, “About 5 body lengths.”

Ye Shaoyang said, “You were too impatient yesterday. When you hid in the brush, you were 4.5 body lengths away from me. A corner of your clothes slipped through my vision. A player with sufficiently strong dynamic vision would instantly discover your position. These details can be fatal during a match. Mage assassins actually require even more calmness than control-type mages, understand?”

Xie Xiaotian: “…I, I will pay attention to this in the future.”

When Chi Shuo walked over with his tray, he heard Ye Shaoyang educating the rookie.

It was very strange. Clearly, Ye Shaoyang was the rookie of this team, yet when he imparted these concepts to the second team’s young player—he seemed more like the captain of the Tianhuan team guiding his younger brothers’ growth, and it didn’t feel out of place at all.

A hint of doubt rose again in Chi Shuo’s heart. He always felt that Ye Shaoyang didn’t seem like a rookie, but rather someone who had weathered great storms. After returning yesterday, Chi Shuo had also reviewed the recordings of Ye Shaoyang’s duels with Xie Xiaotian and Cheng Xing. It wasn’t that Ye Shaoyang’s raw skill was overwhelmingly stronger to the point of a 3:0 crushing victory; after all, those two were also very outstanding professional players from Tianhuan’s youth camp. It was just that Ye Shaoyang was better at calmly seizing opportunities.

In a duel between experts, winning or losing is decided in an instant. If you lose mentally, then naturally you cannot win. Therefore, at the end, Ye Shaoyang had also pointed out the problem with the two rookies—their talent was decent, but their mentality easily collapsed. They still needed to experience more beatings.

Chi Shuo’s mood was complex. He hadn’t expected Ye Shaoyang to proactively help the rookies of the Tianhuan team.

Noticing Chi Shuo walking over, Ye Shaoyang immediately stopped talking.

Ahem, his professional habit had acted up again. Having been accustomed to being a captain in his past life, seeing the problems of these young kids made him unable to resist pointing them out. His actions were overstepping his bounds a bit; in Tianhuan, Chi Shuo was the captain.

He thought Chi Shuo would be unhappy, but after sitting down at the table, Chi Shuo said mildly, “Xiao Tian, learn more from Shaoyang in the future. The reason the coach doesn’t let you play on the main squad isn’t because your skill level isn’t good enough, but because your psychological endurance is still lacking. Playing in the professional league, it’s easy for you to drag your teammates down to a collapse.”

Xie Xiaotian nodded profusely, “Understood, Captain Chi. I will learn from Brother Yang.”

Chi Shuo looked at Cheng Xing, “And you too.”

Cheng Xing: “Yes, Master! I will also learn from Brother Yang!”

Previously, the only Boss of the Tianhuan team was Chi Shuo. Would there be another big Boss, Ye Shaoyang, in the future? Anyway, they couldn’t afford to offend either of them, so just being obedient was the right thing to do.

Xie Xiaotian and Cheng Xing quickly finished their lunch and ran off with their trays. Only then did Ye Shaoyang look at Chi Shuo and cough lightly, “Captain Chi, did I overstep my bounds just now? I shouldn’t have criticized them.”

Chi Shuo’s gaze was gentle, “It’s fine. These rookies indeed have many problems; feel free to point them out. You are Tianhuan’s starting Mid Laner, and you should also establish some authority within the team.”

Ye Shaoyang laughed, “As long as Captain Chi doesn’t mind. I wouldn’t dare say much about other roles, but for Mid Laner, I do have some thoughts that I can share with Xiao Tian. This kid’s talent is indeed quite good. In the future, when we are no longer in Tianhuan, he will have to shoulder the burden of Tianhuan.”

Chi Shuo: “…”

Cultivating the next generation of players was something many responsible captains would do. The fact that Ye Shaoyang was willing to share his insights with Xie Xiaotian showed that he already had a sense of belonging to the Tianhuan team. Therefore, he was willing to cultivate the next generation of Mid Laners for Tianhuan.

Was this considered buy one get one free? Buying a new Mid Laner, and the new Mid Laner would also teach the next generation of Mid Laner successors for Tianhuan?

Looking at Ye Shaoyang, Chi Shuo couldn’t help but feel a sliver of warmth rise in his heart. The most correct decision he had made in these past few years was to act swiftly and pull Ye Shaoyang into the Tianhuan team.

Shaoyang truly was the greatest treasure he had discovered.

After lunch, everyone went to the training area to begin their daily training.

Coach Lin brought the 5 players of the main squad to the small training room. The small training room was quieter, more conducive to focused training. The five players sat at their computers according to their seating arrangements during matches.

Coach Lin handed Ye Shaoyang a printed schedule, placed it on the desk, and said, “Shaoyang, our coaching staff has specially customized a training plan for you. It’s mid-October now, and the next season will officially start in January next year. There are still two and a half months left. I believe you can quickly catch up to the team’s tempo.”

Ye Shaoyang opened it and took a look— It was October 15th now, and the S10 season would officially begin on January 15th next year. Excluding the New Year holidays in January, the time left for Ye Shaoyang was only two and a half months. The coaching staff had divided his training into three phases.

For the first month, he needed to expand his hero pool. His hero pool was indeed Ye Shaoyang’s biggest weakness. He currently only knew how to play 8 Mid Laner heroes, which was far from enough. He had to master others as quickly as possible and understand the composition synergies and strategies for all mid-lane heroes.

For this one-month period, the coaching staff selected Chi Shuo as a sparring partner to help Ye Shaoyang familiarize himself. Every afternoon from 2 to 6 PM, for a full 4 hours, Ye Shaoyang needed to practice independently, specifically practicing the heroes he didn’t know how to play in the training camp’s nightmare mode. From 6 to 7 PM was dinnertime, followed by an hour of rest. Starting at 8 PM, he would duo-queue ranked matches with Chi Shuo to practice the synergy of new heroes. The Mid Laner would first coordinate well with the Jungler, and then integrate into the entire team.

“For this month, you just focus on practicing heroes. Details like wave clearing and last-hitting should also be perfected while practicing heroes in the training camp.” Coach Lin opened a software program on the computer. “This is an independent training camp, a software independently developed by our team, with data synchronized with the official servers. It will automatically calculate your minions per minute, gold acquisition speed, and daily training duration. You can check it yourself, and our coaching staff can also see it at any time.”

With this, players couldn’t slack off even if they wanted to, as the coaching staff’s backend could track everyone’s training time. Professional training software was much better to use than the game’s built-in training camp, especially regarding gold acquisition speed per minute, which is an important metric for evaluating a professional player. On the tournament stage, if your gold acquisition speed is lower than the opposing Mid Laner‘s, you would very likely be crushed by their equipment during fights.

How to accumulate gold in the fastest time was also a skill.

Coach Lin said, “For duo-queueing with Chi Shuo at night, I’ve listed a table here. It contains Mid Laner and Jungler pairings, for example, [Bloodstained Assassin] + [Abyssal Lord], [King of Fighters] + [Goddess of Destiny], [Stealth Rogue] + [Illusionist], [Trap Hunter] + [Flame Goddess], etc… These are all pairings that will be used on the stage in the future. You two should familiarize yourselves with them in advance.”

Ye Shaoyang nodded in understanding, “En, I understand. I will strictly execute the training arrangements.”

There were many schemes for mid-jungle pairings, such as the burst-oriented double assassin mid-jungle synergy, or one providing control while the other bursts and roams, or a utility Mid Laner paired with a jungle core, a utility Jungler paired with a mid-lane core, and so on.

Tianhuan’s tactics couldn’t be too singular. If they wanted to be comprehensive and well-rounded, Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shuo had to master all mid-jungle combination modes. In the future, the entire team would then have more choices when adjusting compositions.

Tianhuan’s coaching staff was very professional. The one-month first phase was for Ye Shaoyang to expand his hero pool and practice coordination with Chi Shuo. At the same time, Qu Jiang, who had transitioned to the Support role, also needed to build synergy with the new Marksman, Cheng Xing. Every night, Chi Shuo and Ye Shaoyang would duo-queue, Qu Jiang and Cheng Xing would duo-queue, and Qin Yizhu would go play by himself. The Top Laner also played solo most of the time.

In the second phase, after the mid-jungle and marksman-support duos finished building their synergy, the whole team would gather for group training. During this month, more emphasis would be placed on the entire team’s composition synergy and shotcalling coordination, arranging scrims to identify team issues.

The third phase’s targeted pre-match training would be planned and laid out according to the match schedule.

In other words, Ye Shaoyang would have to step directly onto the tournament stage two and a half months after joining the team. The timeframe was actually quite tight. Many teams required at least half a year of synergy building to develop unspoken coordination. Having coordination solely with Chi Shuo wouldn’t be enough; if his coordination with teammates like Qin Yizhu and Cheng Xing was disjointed, team fights could still collapse.

Since time was tight, he would give it his all to improve himself as much as possible and adapt to this team.

Ye Shaoyang opened the training software and began practicing earnestly.

Chi Shuo would occasionally look back at him and always saw his serious expression. Once he opened the game, Ye Shaoyang would focus entirely, staring at the computer screen, his long, fair fingers rapidly striking the keyboard and mouse.

Having talent and being willing to calm down and work hard, Chi Shuo believed that Ye Shaoyang would quickly catch up to the pace of the Tianhuan team and integrate into this squad.

According to the arrangement on the training schedule, Ye Shaoyang needed to master 6 major mages first— [World-Ending Mage] · Lord; Holy Spirit Mage · Oston: Sun Wheel Mage · Holman: Moonlight Mage · Lin: Flying Mage · Moore: Earth Mage · Bruno.

These 6 male mages were not simple. Among them, [World-Ending Mage] was an artillery burst hero that required accuracy; Holy Spirit Mage was a utility Mid Laner; Sun Wheel and Moonlight dealt magic damage through basic attacks and required extreme mechanics; Flying Mage was the only Mid Laner mage assassin capable of flight; Earth Mage was a terrain control hero with very difficult mechanics.

To master so many heroes in a short period was also a huge challenge for Ye Shaoyang. But what he loved most was a challenge.

In a single afternoon, he had roughly familiarized himself with the basic combos and operational techniques of the 6 mages.

To improve further, he needed practical combat practice.

At 8 PM, the “Duo Synergy Time” arranged by the coach began.

Qu Jiang and Cheng Xing logged into their alt accounts and went duo-queueing in ranked as Marksman and Support. Ye Shaoyang was just about to log into the alt account Chi Shuo had given him when he heard Chi Shuo say mildly, “We’re going to the international server.”

Ye Shaoyang was startled and turned to look at him, “The international server?”

Chi Shuo said, “There are only so many routines in domestic ranked matches. Low-star matches won’t help us improve our level much. King-tier matches on the international server will be harder to play. There are many professional players from different regions, leading to chaotic playstyles and routines, but also more novel coordinations.”

He paused, then said seriously, “Back then, Zhou Jiawen made a name for himself on the international server, and he also brought many new tactical ideas to the Huowen team.”

Ye Shaoyang agreed readily, “No problem, then let’s go to the international server.”

The Gods’ War international server was a globally shared server. This meant that they were very likely to run into professional experts from other regions on the international server, and they could also encounter more fresh composition synergies.

Chi Shuo said, “I don’t have an international server alt account on hand. Let’s create new ones and climb up from the Bronze tier as fast as possible.” Ye Shaoyang nodded, “Okay.”

The icon for the Gods’ War international server was right on the desktop. The two opened the client and registered.

Ye Shaoyang casually registered an English ID: Sunshine. As a result, when he turned to look, Chi Shuo had also registered an English ID: Moonlight.

The two of them: “…”

Ahem, how did this turn into a couple’s name again?

Ye Shaoyang joked, “Representing the sun and the moon to eliminate international friends?”

Chi Shuo: “…”

On this day, a pair of strange IDs suddenly appeared in the Bronze tier of the international server. One Sunshine, one Moonlight.

Netizens who bumped into these two had question marks all over their faces: Which country’s experts came running to the international server to smurf for fun?