With the next match not far off—they would be facing KSV head-on tomorrow afternoon, the team that had stepped over them to become world champions just two months ago—SKT's training atmosphere remained tense.
kkOma had scheduled many scrims today, running from morning until night without pause. It was Xu Junyan and Faker's first time playing together, yet surprisingly, the scrims went very smoothly.
Just days ago, Faker had still seemed out of place within the team.
And this was Xu Junyan's first time scrimming with them.
But! They slaughtered everyone!
Starting with the first game at 10 a.m., they played sixteen scrims against different teams in total: eight AGs, eight wins, with an average game time of around twenty-five minutes.
kkOma, who had been stationed in the coach's seat observing without even shifting his butt, finally let out a breath at seven in the evening, after the final scrim ended.
"The results are even better than I imagined."
kkOma muttered to himself. The heavy weight in his heart since last night quietly eased considerably at that moment.
KSV, last year's Samsung, had just won the championship and still retained its championship roster. However, with the changes to the rune keystone system and the removal of the Ardent Censer meta, he believed this team was much weaker than it had been at last year's Worlds.
So this should be enough to win, right?
kkOma's gaze moved back and forth across the post-game data analysis chart from the final scrim, looking at Xu Junyan's stats one moment and Faker's the next.
As for the current evaluation of SKT on the Korean internet, he had not looked at it at all, nor did he want to.
There was no need to think about it. SKT was definitely being cursed to hell right now. The team manager—and kkOma himself—would be getting called out by name and cursed as well.
As a region that had completely dominated League of Legends, a region whose surplus of talent had led Korean imports to spread across the world, they had actually activated an import player for the first time!
It was impossible for that not to cause an uproar. Still, this matter was indeed easy to deal with, just as he had thought last night: break the previous two-game losing streak and keep winning, winning, winning.
"As long as we keep winning, whose mouth can't be shut? As long as we can bring home championships, who can keep yapping about this?"
kkOma withdrew his gaze from the data chart, and the confidence in his heart grew firmer.
He was a legendary coach, the ultimate template among all League of Legends coaches in the world. Yet few people probably knew that he was actually a true gambler!
It was precisely because of his series of crazy decisions that S3 saw the rise of the invincible Demon King Faker; S5 saw veteran top laner MaRin borrow another thirty seconds from heaven, and Easyhoon become the strongest shield with all life behind him; and S6 saw Duke, the split-pushing monster and foremost of the LCK's four great top laners, who was not actually weaker than anyone.
Now, without question, he was still gambling.
And once again, he was betting on a top laner: Silence Xu Junyan, SKT's—and the entire LCK's—first import player!
"Coach, I'm going to study Korean for a while."
Xu Junyan came over to ask for leave.
kkOma looked at him and said with a smile, "Actually, Junyan, your Korean is already good enough to compete."
"The more the better."
Xu Junyan did not get carried away by a little praise. After receiving kkOma's permission, he left and returned to the dormitory.
Since it was too late, it was not suitable to go study at Kim Min-ah's home again. Besides, she had a shift today and needed to host the match. After discussing it, the two decided to study through video calls. As for the payment—the meal could be made up another time when they had the chance.
Xu Junyan studied until ten that night. With Kim Min-ah's assistance, he felt that his Korean had taken another big step forward.
His learning ability truly was strong. He had been able to memorize most vocabulary through rote learning within half a month before, and now, with the help of a professional bilingual host, he could accomplish even more.
"My pronunciation is still a little off when I speak, so people can easily misunderstand me. But as for what others say, even if the sentence is a bit long, I can understand most of it."
Xu Junyan silently assessed his current Korean level.
Since it was late, he did not return to the training room. He simply made himself a cup of instant ramen in the dorm, turned on his computer, and logged in.
The moment he logged in, the client chimed, displaying an invitation from "Hide on bush" to join a game!
In the private chat window, Faker greeted him: "What a coincidence. I just finished playing. Want to duo queue?"
Xu Junyan's lips curled up. He joined immediately, continuing SKT's miraculous mute duo queue journey between mid and top!
Back home, the League of Legends section on Weibo—or rather, the LPL events section—had unexpectedly few topics today.
After the huge explosion of discussion at nine in the morning, it seemed as though no one visited the League section again. An absurd and rare event had occurred: not a single topic appeared throughout the entire day.
Confused passersby, only getting off work and taking a break at night, went on Weibo hoping to browse some topics and enjoy the spectacle. Upon seeing this, they asked in the comments, "Why is no one here today?"
Those in the know immediately replied, "Hahaha! Silence bombarded the LPL this morning and slaughtered the little Royal Hooligans. He shut every last one of them down."
These were clearly Xu Junyan's newly born diehard fans today. Having seen through everything after things reached an extreme, these people had gradually become fans of Xu Junyan. They were now the only group in exceptionally good spirits.
Everyone else, even RNG—the club most skilled at pretending to be innocent white lotuses—had remained silent all day without saying a word.
The passersby were still confused and had no idea what was going on.
The Royal Hooligans and those LPL fans still furious that Xu Junyan dared to directly bombard the entire LPL had not all disappeared, of course. Some of them were still lurking on Weibo, but they did not know how to start.
It was awkward! Too humiliating!
Though they usually had no shame at all, Xu Junyan had cursed them too viciously today. They were completely stunned and could not lift their heads. Even the face they usually did not care about had been slapped by Xu Junyan until it rang, burning with pain.
Another reason they did not dare show themselves was that Xu Junyan had been strange today—especially strange!
Before, Xu Junyan would curse everyone directly. Even when tagging someone individually, he would tag RNG. But today, he had actually started calling people out by name!
He would randomly tag a particular comment, then curse its author.
Uzi, for example, as well as several gsl who had originally been speaking with righteous indignation, were all singled out by Xu Junyan for public execution. He cursed them into a daze, leaving them unable to retort with even a single word.
Those two individually singled-out IDs were immediately disowned by the gsl. Quite a few gsl declared that those two were not their companions. How could their companions possibly be such spineless trash, mocked like that by Xu Junyan? It was hilarious.
Therefore, they were afraid. They feared that if they acted as the first bird to stick its head out now, Xu Junyan would call them out again.
Although none of them wanted to admit it, that was simply the truth. They seemed never to have been able to out-argue Xu Junyan. Every clash ended with Xu Junyan achieving a crushing victory, while they could only rage impotently! Like dogs emboldened by their master, they could only hide in the crowd and curse back.
Ding!
Suddenly, many Royal Hooligans with dreadful expressions, who had been lurking on Weibo all along, received a Weibo update notification.
At midnight, Letme posted on Weibo: Oh, come on, someone should know when to stop. Do you really think paying SKT to make some random official announcement means you can play today? SKT has three championships—would they want you? An import player? Hilarious. We were teammates for so many years, who doesn't know your family has money...
Less than a minute after this post went up, it was deleted instantly!
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