Everyone Can Grow

The next match was three days away, also in Suzhou. Since it was nearby, they had the next two days to prepare properly, and everyone could get some rest as well.

By the time they returned to base that evening, it looked late, but by a pro player's schedule, the night had only just begun.

"Shy," Lin Heng called, walking over to pat TheShy, who was watching a replay.

"Hmm?" TheShy took off his headset, a questioning look on his face.

"Get in game," Lin Heng said.

"Oh? Is there another scrim now?" TheShy asked, a little puzzled.

"No, I'm inviting you to play ARAM. Coach Danny told us to keep our hands warmed up, so we've got to play ARAM," Lin Heng said with a smile.

"Sure. Can we ask Danny to play too?" TheShy looked a little happy.

"Sure, I'll invite you both." Lin Heng quickly created a game. After logging in, he saw that Shi Yue was playing a game of Hextech ARAM, but Lin Heng wanted to play regular ARAM, so he didn't invite her.

Lin Heng created a game in classic ARAM mode, then invited TheShy and Danny.

He asked his other teammates. Wei was watching replays of BLG's two most recent matches and said he was going to play ranked in a bit.

Rookie had stayed in his room without coming out, while Ning and Uzi had also chosen to play ranked to practice champions.

Only TheShy and Danny were willing to play ARAM.

"Are we playing regular ARAM?" Danny asked.

"Of course. Hextech ARAM changes how strong the champions are too much. It wouldn't help us keep our hands warmed up or practice champions," Lin Heng explained.

"Right, you're absolutely correct," Danny said with a smile.

"Professional," TheShy added.

The three of them then started playing regular ARAM.

In the first game, TheShy got Ezreal, while Danny got Diana. Lin Heng played whatever he rolled, and in the first game he rolled Demacia's Wings, Quinn, whom TheShy had played many times in matches.

"You really like playing AD champions, Shy," Lin Heng said.

"AD, fun. But AD bot, not fun," TheShy said, giving his opinion.

The three of them were skilled enough that they didn't need to coordinate. Each playing on his own was enough to leave the other team unable to play.

TheShy in particular played extremely aggressively with a champion like Ezreal, who offered plenty of room for mechanics. He was never afraid to go in and deal damage.

"Lin Heng, you know how to play Quinn," TheShy said after watching Lin Heng make a few plays.

After spending some time with TheShy, Lin Heng knew that saying he knew how to play meant TheShy was praising him for playing well. Pleased, he said:

"I know a little of everything."

The three played in a relaxed mood. While Danny played, he often paid attention not only to the damage and items of the champions on his own side, but also kept checking the enemy champions' items, rune choices, and so on.

He seemed to be thinking about what those champions could do at different levels and with different items.

The first game ended after twenty minutes.

After leaving the game, Lin Heng saw that Shi Yue had sent him a message:

"Bro, want to play together?"

"I'm playing regular ARAM, not Hextech," Lin Heng said.

"Without Hextech, it's a bit boring," Shi Yue replied.

"It's got Hextech."

"? What? Regular ARAM has Hextech now too?" Shi Yue seemed a little confused.

"Stillwater Hold," Lin Heng said.

"..." After a moment of silence, Shi Yue replied, "It really does. You go ahead and play regular, then. I still prefer Hextech ARAM. It's more fun."

"Okay." After quickly replying, Lin Heng immediately started his second game.

Seeing Lin Heng quickly turn her down and start his second game, Shi Yue was left somewhat speechless.

She had invited him to play Hextech ARAM together several times, but the guy was always either playing ranked or watching replays.

This time, he only wanted to play Hextech ARAM again, and she had come to him and asked three or four times, making herself look like a simp.

She just thought Lin Heng was interesting to talk to. The kid was young, handsome, and funny, and with his playstyle on top of that, he was a very likable person.

Shi Yue had to admit that she did want to be friends with him, but the guy was a little different online and offline.

These days, many pro players chose to play a few games of Hextech ARAM when they were relaxing, but this guy didn't play it at all.

Today, she had finally caught him playing a casual mode, only for him to play regular ARAM.

"Tch, I'm not asking him to play anymore," Shi Yue muttered, a little unhappy.

Lin Heng, meanwhile, knew nothing about it. As he played ARAM, he chatted with Danny and TheShy about the strength of the champions appearing in their games and possible ways to play them.

Neither Danny nor TheShy was all that fluent in Chinese.

Danny in particular still couldn't say many things and couldn't understand a lot of what he heard, but TheShy's Chinese was now good enough for him to handle translating.

The three of them had a great conversation, and Lin Heng also learned more and more about TheShy's champion pool.

He also increasingly noticed a trait of TheShy's: he had a very distinctive understanding of the relationships between champions.

He would often say that one champion was strong, but that another would have an easy time against them.

Some of his comments were even hard for Danny to understand. Lin Heng also had some disagreements with TheShy, but the two of them didn't need to start a solo match.

They only needed to describe what runes to take, how to play the lane, and how to manage the wave to get a general idea.

It was rather like a martial arts movie, where two people didn't need to actually fight; they only needed to cross their spiritual senses to determine the winner.

All in all, although Lin Heng had the system and already possessed a tremendous advantage in understanding and champion pool,

TheShy's descriptions were much more detailed when it came to handling certain champions in particularly fine details in the Top Lane.

The three of them having fun in ARAM made the others in the training room willing to come watch for a little while in their spare time, and their conversation left everyone amazed.

Especially when Lin Heng said that a certain champion was really good in the current patch.

Uzi would prick up his ears and listen, then imagine what it would look like if Lin Heng played that champion as his support.

The current Invictus Gaming was completely different from the Royal Never Give Up of the past. They no longer needed him to hard carry to win games.

In fact, in the current patch, as long as he didn't make mistakes, Invictus Gaming could gain an advantage.

But he had played as the absolute core in matches for so many years that, even after all this time, he still had some trouble accepting a multi-core playstyle when he first joined Invictus Gaming.

But after playing with Lin Heng for a while,

his problem was completely resolved. It was as though Uzi had experienced an epiphany.

There were no weak champions, no weak team compositions.

Every composition, once put together, had its own period of strength. As summoners, as five professional players, their job was to find every way possible to bring out that composition's strengths during that period.

That was exactly what Lin Heng, the junior, the rookie who constantly judged champions' strength in ARAM, had taught him.

League of Legends wasn't a one-person game, and there were more than just those few dozen champions.

So when Uzi heard Lin Heng judge those champions' strength, what he was actually thinking about was which champion he should use to match the other man's imaginative ideas.