Chen Mu followed Zhuo Xiaobai and the rest of the gang to the cybercafe and waited for the bot lane twins there.
From afar, they saw two young men dressed in white shirts walking over toward them. Both of them looked nothing but ordinary, but since they were walking together, the sight was quite the head-turner.
As expected of twins, both of them looked utterly alike except for some minor differences in their hairstyles. People who were not familiar with them would not be able to recognize one from the other.
Chen Mu had always been eager to have a twin brother. With the existence of a twin brother, they could split the workload—one of them could focus on a number of subjects while the other could focus on the remaining subjects that the first twin did not cover. When NCEE swung by, one of them would attend school earlier and the other would attend it later. They would take on the subjects that they had mastered respectively. Then, did it not mean that both of them would eventually get admitted to Royal Capital University?
All in all, it was only in Chen Mu's head. He would probably not do that even if he got himself a twin. There was just too much to cover and arrange for. Even so, the advantages of it might not even be enough. Nobody could guarantee that they would become good at their allocated subjects even if they studied for them.
Chen Mu greeted the two of them while Zhuo Xiaobai threw himself into the twins' path for a bearhug. The twins were rather enthusiastic to see Zhuo Xiaobai. After being introduced to each other, they could start calling each other friends.
"Chen Mu, right? I forgot to ask that day. How many ELO points do you have right now?" asked the elder brother, Ao Wen.
During their ice-breaking session, Chen Mu managed to register the differences between the twins in his head. The elder brother's fringe touched his eyebrows and was shorter than the younger brother's fringe that instead covered his eyebrows. Remembering details like such made it much easier to differentiate between similarly dressed people.
Chen Mu was not sure if it was because of their parents or their own sense of humor that they were both wearing the same type of clothes from head to toe, including their socks. It was as though they thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of being mistaken for each other.
Chen Mu involuntarily recalled a story he had heard. A couple invited the husband's elder twin brother to come over for a meal. At one point in time, the elder brother entered the kitchen and offered to wash the vegetables… When there were only two people left in the kitchen, the wife said, "Hubby, we haven't been intimate in a long time now. I really want you tonight!" The man turned around and replied, "I'm sorry, sis-in-law. I'm your elder brother-in-law." ...Awkward… After the meal, the wife said while doing the dishes, "Just now I mistook your elder brother for you and told him that I really wanted it tonight! It was so awkward…" The man turned around and replied, "I'm sorry, sis-in-law! I'm still your elder brother-in-law!"
Chen Mu did not want to deceive them. Hence, he answered, "I just reached Level 30. I haven't played any ranked games yet."
His words made the twins turn their heads. Ao Wen and Ao Xuan exchanged glances with each other, and both of them had expressions similar to that of a confused Nick Young. 'What the hell? A person who has no rank wants to form a team for a tournament that has twenty thousand bucks as its prize pool?'
Both of them felt annoyed. They thought that the person in front of them was treating them as fools. However, since Zhuo Xiaobai was there, it would not be polite for them to walk off just like that. After all, the twins used to hang around and eat with Zhuo Xiaobai's money.
The twins communicated with their gazes. The elder brother raised his eyebrow once to mean, 'Let's stay for Zhuo Xiaobai's sake. We'll leave after two rounds.'
The younger brother blinked to show understanding. After this, they were going to freeload on drinks, food, and internet credit. Then, they would be on their way. As for the tournament, they would feign being ill and lie that they had to sit out of it. A person who had never played ranked games wanted to participate in a cybercafe tournament? There was nothing he would do but feed. What an embarrassment.
After communicating with each other, the twins nodded simultaneously. Although Chen Mu noticed what went on between them, he failed to realize how much information had been exchanged between the two via a single glance. He turned on his device and invited them to sit down. Then, he asked Shi Geng and the rest to come over so that they could get to know each other.
Shi Geng brought a fresh face over with him. However, based on the person's looks, he did not look young—probably around twenty-five or twenty-six years old.
"This is Liu Wei, my DOTA bro in the past. He's now a League of Legends goalkeeper1 at two thousand ELO points," Shi Geng introduced him to everyone.
"How dare you make fun of me. You only have a thousand nine hundred and eighty-five ELO points," Liu Wei retaliated with an insult hastily.
Hearing their exchange of words, Ao Wen and Ao Xuan flinched upon a realization. The two had quite impressive ranks. It was unfortunate that they had a blind pick mid laner, though. Otherwise, they might stand a chance. Although League of Legends had shot up in popularity, the game had not been running for a long time. Hence, most of its players came from games similar to it.
Examples of such similar games included Warcraft, Dynasty Warriors, DOTA, Qi Fan Three Kingdoms, Three Kingdom Dreams, etcetera. It was apt to say that those games had at least seven to eight years of history in Huaxia. After familiarizing themselves with the skills League required, the pro players who had switched from those games would transform into game gods in League. For instance, the top players in the Chinese server that had the highest ELO points were players from those games. Nevertheless, there were a few prodigious exceptions.
To further illustrate that, the number one ADC in Huaxia—who was also known as the CS machine—started as a professional gamer in Qi Fan. He was a legend in farming CS from his very first AI match. On the internet, there was a video of a ranked game that featured a player not missing a single CS for ten minutes. The video was widely spread and the player quickly became the ultimate ADC god in countless players' hearts.
Everyone logged into their accounts, added each other as friends, and started a blind pick match to test out their compatibility. The twins felt their enthusiasm start to wane. To them, it was a complete waste of time.
Without any hesitation, they instantly locked in the power couple, Gun Dude and Sun Lady—ready to launch a massacre.
Chen Mu chose Clockwork since he was planning to play in a more team-orientated manner.
As they waited for the match to load, Ao Wen casually hit the hotkey that displayed everyone's match history. Recently, many players had acquired the habit of checking out their enemy team's win rate. Using the information they obtained, they would come to a conclusion whether their enemy was stronger or weaker than them.
After all, a player's win rate was a clear indication of their skill. Ao Wen gave it a casual scan and noticed that their enemies' win rates were all above sixty percent. Ao Wen thought that their enemies would do quite alright. They would not surrender at twenty, at the very least. Then, he scanned his teammates' match histories. True to their words, the top laner had two thousand ELO points while the jungler had a thousand nine hundred and eighty-five ELO points. The two should be around the same standard. The mid laner, Clockwork, had no ELO points at all, and his stats appeared in the form of pitch black. He could not believe that they had let a noobie play along.
Nevertheless, Ao Wen glanced at Chen Mu's win rate and thought, 'Uh-huh. Ninety-two percent. Not bad, I guess.'
...
Wait a minute!
Ninety-two percent!!!
What the hell, people with such win rates existed?!
Ao Wen looked at the number of matches Chen Mu had played—sixty-eight matches!
"Lil Bro, come over and help me take a look at this. My eyes might be playing tricks on me. Is this number nine or six?" asked Ao Wen.
"Let's see. It's obviously a nine, isn't it? Do you want me to buy you some eye medicine?" Ao Xuan offered.
"Are you blind? You have nothing to say about his win rate?" Ao Wen was speechless. He wished that his younger brother would focus on the main point.
"Eff me, ninety-two percent win rate! How is that even human?" Epiphany finally hit Ao Xuan. How many people dared to say that they could achieve a win rate of ninety-two percent in blind pick matches? For years, the twins played blind pick games on countless accounts all the way to Level 30, and they only ever managed to achieve a win rate of sixty-seven percent. They had only encountered Level 30 monsters that had win rates of ninety-two percent if those monsters had played less than thirty matches. The more they played, the harder it got as they would end up being matched against high ranked players in blind pick games.
"Big Bro, this can't be the ultimate, legendary tailcoat now, can it? Ao Xuan appeared to be fearful.
"Calm down, my idiotic otouto2. He might've used some tactic to get his current win rate, like five pro players using smurf accounts to play blind pick games or something like that. Let's observe him carefully during this match. We'll find out once we see how good he is when he plays," Ao Wen made a thorough analysis. He had heard of the idiom, 'blindsided by a single leaf'. Hence, he understood that not everything one saw was real.
On the Chinese server, there had been a streamer who wanted to bully noobies and thus asked pro players to lower their ELO points intentionally. They started beating up noobies around the two hundred ELO points pool in an attempt to obtain a hundred consecutive victories. Although the crowd was considered very OP among the noobs, they were nothing to the twins who had two thousand and three hundred ELO points. If one started playing from two hundred ELO points using a useless account, one could only increase their ELO points by five each time they won. It would take at least fifty consecutive victories before one could return to receiving the normal amount of ELO points. Moreover, one would only get to one thousand six or one thousand seven hundred ELO points after achieving a hundred consecutive victories.
It was something to deceive the audience. The twins thought that it would not be too hard for them to achieve a hundred consecutive victories as long as they did not meet a booster. However, they wanted to ridicule those people anyway. After all, it was undeniable that many people liked to watch noobies get beat up. There was nothing they could do about it.
Now, it was time to see whether Chen Mu was the real deal.