Chapter 38: Talent Freak. Gatekeeper: Is This Right? This Isn’t Right, Is It?
Zuo Chi hadn’t played solo matches much. Usually, when he had the cubs do 1v1s with the same hero, it was to let them get familiar with a new hero’s skills; he didn’t use it for regular training at all.
For a moment, he didn’t know what to pick, so he simply asked: “What hero did you pick? I’ll use the same as you.”
The gatekeeper’s eyes widened: “The same as me? Are you sure? I’m playing ‘Moon Phase,’ a mid-laner. Do you know how to play it?”
“Moon Phase” had high burst damage, but her skills were flashy. Once one was even slightly unfamiliar with her skills, it would lead to hilarious and embarrassing scenes, like reverse dashes, basic attacks hitting air, or ultimates hitting defense towers…
“…About that?”
Zuo Chi locked in Moon Phase and picked a set of system-default equipment.
The arena wasn’t like a formal match venue; it was separated from the spectator area by railings and a considerable distance. The crowd of spectators here could hop onto the stage with a random jump. Their words were naturally heard clearly by everyone.
“A Bronze should just pick a tank. At least you’d be tanky enough to last a bit longer.”
“Forget Bronze, many at the Grandmaster rank can’t necessarily play Moon Phase well.”
“No interest, no interest. I think this arena isn’t sincerely wanting to let people win the thousand-yuan prize. To arrange a Top-500 National server gatekeeper—who can beat that?”
The heroes respawned in the fountain. Zuo Chi first threw a skill to get familiar with the feel before following the minion wave toward the first tower.
The minions gathered, and both sides began clearing the wave.
Whether he wanted to clear minions faster or it was a simple mechanical error, the gatekeeper had surprisingly started with the Q skill instead of W.
The Q skill was AoE damage, allowing for fast wave clearing, but its level-one cooldown was very long. The W skill had damage and a dash. Although its damage was minimal, it made the hero more flexible. Most importantly, every time it hit an enemy hero unit, the skill’s cooldown would reset.
The moment the gatekeeper’s Q skill landed on the minion wave, Zuo Chi controlled Moon Phase to charge forward.
With a small movement, he grazed the edge of the gatekeeper’s Q skill range to dodge the damage, then used Flash followed by W to get in the other’s face.
After dealing damage, he used the next dash to pull back, exiting the minions’ aggro range.
The gatekeeper’s expression grew serious instantly. He stopped sitting with his legs crossed and began trading basic attacks with him.
Zuo Chi kited with basic attacks while retreating. When his own minions took aggro and began attacking the gatekeeper, he pressed the W skill again, predicting the other’s move to dodge to the right, and hit again!
After one trade, the other’s health bar was a chunk lower than his.
“What’s going on? This Little Red Hat is playing Moon Phase quite decently!”
“Good luck, right? Both W skills hit.”
Three times, four times, five times…
Except for the time the gatekeeper used Flash, not a single one of the other skills was missed.
Although the crowd of onlookers might not understand the relationship between skill hits and movement, they could directly see the comparison between the health bars. The sounds of random chatting below quieted down, and the cheers grew louder bit by bit.
“Nice! Little Red Hat! Hit him! Take the thousand-yuan prize!”
The nickname “Little Red Hat” was too prominent, and many voices were shouting it. Zuo Chi looked up in a split second. At the very front of the crowd, he saw the mouth movement Ning Luzhao had just made.
“Little Red Hat.”
The youth wearing the little red hat realized late—that was his new nickname for the arena match.
His exposed ears grew hot, but his fingers tapping the keyboard grew a bit faster.
He held the advantage in health, but the advantage in wave-clearing speed belonged to the other.
Only a sliver of health remained on the last minion. Zuo Chi decisively retreated to hide under the tower, watching the gatekeeper reach level 2 first.
While clearing the wave under the tower, he observed the other’s movements.
The gatekeeper watched covetously for a while. Seeing him slowly clearing minions under the tower without any intention of coming out to be “sassy” again, he turned around to start farming the small jungle monster first.
A small jungle monster’s health was 1000 points.
Moon Phase’s level-two Q damage was 250 points, W was 75 points, and a basic attack without physical attack equipment was 35 points…
In short, even with the other using skills, it would take a dozen-odd seconds to finish it.
He finished every last-hit perfectly and reached level 2; only six seconds had passed.
Zuo Chi pressed “Recover” to refill his health and walked unhurriedly toward where the small jungle monster was.
Passing through the brush, he wiggled his movement.
Passing through a vision blind spot, he wiggled again.
With those two wiggles, he dodged two skills. He gave a light laugh and locked onto the gatekeeper’s position.
“First Blood!”
The solo match rules could be taking First Blood, taking the first tower, or pushing down the crystal—the challenger could choose.
He had chosen First Blood earlier.
Zuo Chi retracted his hand and stood up, hearing the loud cheers from below the arena.
The gatekeeper stared at the screen for a while longer, appearing somewhat incredulous. After a good while, he stood up and reached out a hand to him: “You’re very strong… Little Red Hat?”
“…Zuo Zhao.”
“Oh, Brother Zuo. You’re very strong, your mechanics are good, and your awareness is exceptionally powerful. With this Moon Phase in ranked, you’d at least be much stronger than me—are you a Moon Phase one-trick?”
He was embarrassed to say he mainly played support. As for game awareness, as coaches who reviewed matches and guided players, their awareness was naturally developed.
“I’ll transfer that thousand-yuan prize to you right now! Is Brother interested in adding me? Our power-leveling studio really needs a talent like you who can handle high-tier power-leveling…”
Zuo Chi waved his hand and smiled: “The thousand-yuan prize is unnecessary. I actually came for the wooden puppet.”
“Wooden puppet?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated. “Can I have a few more?”
He originally thought of taking two, one for him and one for Ning Luzhao. But then he thought, if the other cubs knew only Ning Luzhao had one and they didn’t, they’d surely throw a fit when they returned from the holiday.
Most importantly, this wooden puppet really was quite cute, and being able to draw the facial features oneself made it even more interesting.
“Of course, no problem!” The gatekeeper agreed instantly. “How many do you want? I’ll pack them for you.”
“Seven, I guess.”
“Alright! You really don’t want the thousand-yuan prize?”
“I’m mainly responsible for getting the wooden puppets. Leave the thousand-yuan prize for the next challenger.”
The gatekeeper handed him the seven packed wooden puppets and some watercolor paints. Hearing this, he looked toward the next challenger—who was also dressed strangely; he was a “Little Black Hat.”
“Do you know each other?”
“We’re quite familiar.”
“Is he also a one-trick?”
He might be a bit stronger than a one-trick.
Zuo Chi didn’t have the heart: “You aren’t a mid-lane main, right? To play against him… you’d better pick your best hero.”
“No problem! My jungle is a bit stronger than my mid!”
Zuo Chi returned fully loaded with seven wooden puppets. When he walked to Ning Luzhao’s side, he called out with a hidden smile: “Little Black Hat, it’s your turn to go up.”
Five minutes later.
“First Blood!”
The gatekeeper had built up some mental preparation this time, so he didn’t space out for too long. He gave a bitter smile and muttered to himself: “Could it be that after leaving the youth training camp, I’ve become this ‘noob’???”
Zuo Chi opened the system and glanced at the gatekeeper’s attribute entries.
[Black Entry: Afraid of Choosing the Wrong Career (What’s more terrifying than having no esports talent is having talent but choosing the wrong position. He clearly has more talent for mid-lane, but he chose the jungle position. It would be a miracle if he made a name for himself).]
The gatekeeper had just finished transferring the thousand-yuan prize when he saw the “Little Red Hat” from earlier go up on the arena again. He quickly said: “You can only participate in the arena once!”
“I know! I wanted to tell you, if you still want to pursue the path of a professional player, why not try changing positions? Try playing mid-lane.”
“Me? Mid-lane?” The bewildered gatekeeper thanked him. “Alright… thank you. I’ll try it when I get back tonight…”
They left the arena. Seeing that someone had actually gotten the thousand-yuan prize, the number of people registering to participate in the challenge suddenly increased, and a long queue formed at the registration point.
Only the gatekeeper was still muttering in his seat: “Mid-lane? Try mid-lane…”
Squeezing out of the crowd, Zuo Chi held up the bag of wooden puppets in his hand: “We’ve got the gifts for everyone for the New Year. I specifically asked for blank ones. Let’s go back and paint them, shall we?”
“Alright… Coach bought one for everyone?”
“Mm. But I don’t have the energy to paint one for everyone.”
He glanced at Ning Luzhao’s side profile and, as if possessed, added: “I can help you paint yours.”
Ning Luzhao suddenly curved his lips: “Let’s paint each other’s. As for Fugui and the others’, let them do it themselves when they return from the holiday.”
“Alright.”
“With an extra thousand yuan in my phone, what does Coach want to eat? My treat.”
“Let’s look around while we walk. I had a dream when I was a kid to try all the food on a whole street in one day.”
“Then I’m afraid you’d need the appetite of a competitive eater—there’s mango coconut sticky rice ahead. Want some?”
“Eat till we burst!”
[Nancheng New Year Fair, a Top-500 National server ‘Road King’ gatekeeper was defeated by two mysterious people in succession (video attached below).]
[I was on-site and saw it with my own eyes. It was a Little Red Hat and a Little Black Hat. They used mid-lane and jungle respectively.]
[Watched the video. This solo was indeed full of detailed micro-mechanics. But these two mysterious people are truly mysterious, wearing masks and hats. Those who didn’t know would think wanted criminals had come to play in the arena.]
[A professional match watcher intruding: I don’t know why, but I feel that Little Red Hat’s voice sounds very much like Coach Zuo… even the eye shape is very similar. Our Coach Zuo has these kinds of gentle and elegant almond eyes.]
[That Little Black Hat’s voice also sounds like Land’s, and the build and everything matches.]
[Did no one see the names on the big screen? One is Zuo Zhao and the other is Ning Chi. If this isn’t Coach Zuo and Land, I’ll eat it!]
[Holy crap, you discovered a key point!]
[Top-500 National ‘Road King’ gatekeeper: You mean to tell me that I, this unlucky bastard, encountered an esports coach and a professional player as challengers today?]
[Wait a second. It’s not strange that Land could win, but why could Coach Zuo win? Isn’t he a coach? Even if he plays the game well, doesn’t he mainly play support?]
[You don’t understand. A true talent freak is someone who clearly could be a player but insists on being a coach.]
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