The Mischief System

The [Mischief System] bound to Lin Heng had a very simple set of criteria.

He could earn points by [making mischief] in an official game or match, then spend them on skill points to improve his various abilities.

Lin Heng had actually studied quite a few games to figure out how to "make mischief."

Simply put, it meant "catching people off guard, leaving teammates speechless, and tilting opponents."

If he could tilt an opponent or leave a teammate speechless through his play, he could generally earn some points.

The simplest way was actually to pick unexpected champions. That was the easiest way to earn points.

Ever since getting the system, Lin Heng had become adept at flashing emotes and using all kinds of tactics to annoy his opponents in games.

The number of points he earned depended on the weight assigned to the target of his "mischief."

For example, targeting a pro player would definitely earn him more points than targeting a one-trick on Summoner's Rift.

And targeting Faker, the six-time world champion, would definitely earn him more than Brother Bin, the self-proclaimed successor.

That was the logic behind it, which meant the points available in pro matches far exceeded those in ranked games.

Outside of games, Lin Heng was actually a very shy kid.

But because of the system, the temptation to grow stronger had turned Lin Heng into what he was now.

League of Legends turned people into devils!

He could never resist messing with other people's mental or making jokes to annoy them to their faces.

He firmly believed that last year had been the year he earned the most points.

When he still had his Korean server account, he often got matched with pro players.

The LPL had produced one viral quote after another last year, giving him another way to tilt his opponents in games.

For example, he had been matched with the famous Creme.

After successfully annoying him, Lin Heng could earn a ton of points just by typing "gouzao."

Of course, that didn't make him happy. As everyone knew, Lin Heng was a shy kid.

But when he saw the points tallied up on the system interface after each game, he was genuinely happy.

The system would occasionally issue prompts and missions, which awarded relatively large amounts of points upon completion.

For example, there was the mission that cost him his Korean server account: tilt Faker in ranked.

It was incredibly difficult to tilt Faker through outside factors. A pure person like Faker generally only got tilted when he himself played poorly.

Lin Heng only completed that mission after being matched with Faker seven or eight times in a row.

Lin Heng was a consummate professional. He would never do something like going AFK to take a shower.

But he had his own approach.

Whenever he was up against Faker, Lin Heng would pick some bizarre champion and constantly gank Faker in mid.

But when he was on Faker's side, he would pick an enchanter support and follow the AD around, shielding and healing him.

There wasn't really much wrong with playing that way, but whenever Faker saw him on his side, he would expect him to pick something weird and help him gank mid. Instead, the kid would just pick an enchanter and heal from the back.

It wasn't much of an issue for the first two or three games. But when Lin Heng was matched against Faker for the seventh time, just as Faker was about to pull off a solo kill, Twitch's laughter suddenly rang out beside him:

"Hey~ hello~"

Faker completely lost it. He was also certain that the kid was deliberately annoying him, so he reported Lin Heng and got his account banned.

That move earned Lin Heng enough points to buy two skill points.

The system's points shop sold more than just skill points. It also offered special skills.

For example, there was Night Owl, a skill Lin Heng had bought with points he saved up over nearly half a year of ranked games.

Night Owl: What's the most important quality for an esports player? The ability to stay up late and grind, of course! This skill lets the host stretch one day into two. With just three hours of sleep a day, the host can be full of energy and face matches in peak condition.

Of course, there were plenty of other skills besides that one, but Lin Heng currently needed to spend most of his points on skill points, so he couldn't allocate many to buying these special skills.

For example, skills like Iron Fist, Iron Neck, Iron Back, and Iron Butt, which strengthened an esports player's body, were very tempting to Lin Heng.

There were also skills like Gold Medal Lecturer and Data Expert... which enhanced analytical and coaching abilities.

In the more than three years since getting the system, Lin Heng had raised his various stats considerably.

In particular, his four stats for mechanics, awareness, teamfighting, and game understanding were only at 90 points for now, but that already put him above 95 percent of pro players.

Especially with both his champion pool and mental at an absurd 100 points.

Under this double-sided fearless draft format (global pick/ban), being able to pull out some weird picks was a huge advantage.

Especially in a best-of-five: after three games of picks and bans, the champions a player could still bring out were their true pocket picks.

Over the past few years of competition, people had actually come to understand more and more how important the support position was to a match.

At least as far as S15 was concerned, the support's impact in a game could even rank second or third.

The jungler, mid laner, and support were always the ones who controlled the tempo of a match.

Top laners and ADs were like eggs and air conditioners; their influence on the outcome of a match was growing smaller and smaller.

A good support could greatly, greatly raise a team's ceiling.

Lin Heng had held himself back quite a bit during his Invictus Gaming tryout. After all, it concerned whether he could land this valuable job opportunity.

But Lin Heng certainly couldn't deceive the club either.

Being able to play all kinds of champions as support was itself one of his strengths. There was no need to hide it.

"Teammates?"

Apart from himself, his teammates could truly be called an "old-age canoeing team." Other than Wei, who rotated in, the remaining four were all pretty old.

"There are benefits to being older~"

Lin Heng comforted himself. At the very least, their mental was good, they were mature, and they had plenty of experience.

If it were TheShy, Ning, Rookie, and Dog at their peaks, that would be pretty sweet.

But if he had to say, Lin Heng thought the current lineup made a little more sense.

With the nasty tempers Dog and Ning had back in the day, how could either of them have put up with the other?

If they were on the same team, wouldn't there be another locker-room war over something like "What championship have you won?"

Now, aside from Brother Ning still occasionally making some outrageous remarks, the other three had truly matured.

But Brother Ning was straightforward and stubborn, and streaming always required a bit of showmanship. Lin Heng understood that fairly well.

In any case, although the team's lineup was very much geared toward attracting attention, for Lin Heng as he was now, it was an opportunity that couldn't have been better.

Over the next few days, the club continued using this lineup for another seven or eight scrims.

As the transfer window neared its end, LPL fans, haters, trolls, and spectators looking for entertainment were all waiting in anticipation...

No, it wasn't just ordinary viewers. The teams that had scrimmed against them were looking forward to it too.

They were simply focused on different things.

Ordinary viewers were eager to find out whether the much-hyped "Dog + Ming" duo would happen, and whether "TheShy + Rookie" would renew their contracts.

The clubs, meanwhile, wanted to know who that "talented" support of theirs actually was.

On the final day, IG's official Weibo dropped a bombshell!