Chapter 3: Why Not Pursue a Professional Career and Make a Name for Yourself...

Entering his room, he found the match had already ended, and his mother was still squinting at the damage statistics.

“Lost again.”

“Yeah... this one’s too hard to play. I’ll stick to the Nine-Tailed Fox.”

Ye Bo was now fully focused on studying the system, only giving a casual word of encouragement to his mother.

Ye Ying didn’t think much and gave up the spot, closing the door behind her as she left.

Alone again, Ye Bo sat back down at his computer.

“Uh... so what exactly does ‘reopening League of Legends’ mean?”

He tried to interpret it literally.

He casually closed the still-open desktop client of “40-Year-Old Aunt Wants to Go Pro,” then clicked on the automatically popped-up WeGame to restart it with one click.

At the very moment the client finished reloading, golden sparkles suddenly flashed before Ye Bo’s eyes!

[Despite suffering a heavy blow, the moment you reopened League of Legends, you instantly recalled the joy of first discovering this game twenty years ago. You are convinced that chasing your dreams back then was never a mistake!]

[Reward: Rebirth Privilege]

[Congratulations on obtaining the “Hero Compendium”]

[Congratulations on acquiring the “Proficiency Assessment Ability”]

[Congratulations on gaining {369 Comeback Points}]

“Let me take a look at these big treasures!”

Staring at the three newly unlocked items, Ye Bo eagerly clicked on the most impressive one first: the “Hero Compendium.”

[Hero Compendium: Enhances the ability to comprehend heroes. Whenever you fully master a hero and maintain proficiency, your overall capability increases by 1%.]

[PS: As a failed veteran of ten years, the only praise-worthy asset you likely have is the hero pool experience accumulated over twenty years. But that’s alright—just make full use of it! This is your greatest weapon!]

“...”

Ye Bo was now thoroughly convinced this broken system had come at the wrong time.

If this thing really belonged to the reborn Ye Bo, it would be a perfectly tailored, super powerful weapon!

Even if his veteran skills had declined, the compendium’s boost from two decades of hero pool experience should easily catapult him back to a godlike realm.

After all—

There surely aren’t any veterans who’ve been mid-laners for years but only know a handful of heroes, right?

The problem is... the current Ye Bo is still just a specialist!

He can only truly call three heroes his “specialties,” and all of them are assassins!

For ordinary players aiming to climb ranks, specializing in one or a few heroes is the best strategy, which is also the most common among top-tier players in China.

Luckily, Ye Bo was not worried.

According to the system’s description, if he could still practice those heroes at “thirty years old,” how could he not do it now?

Moreover, the newly acquired Hero Compendium’s “ability comprehension enhancement” would surely make things twice as effective.

The “Proficiency Assessment” was the complementary ability to the Hero Compendium.

As for the “Comeback Points,” the system’s explanation was somewhat abstract:

“Consume Comeback Points to actively trigger {Missions}, {Challenges}, {Choices}, {Rewards}...”

But when Ye Bo opened his panel and examined it carefully, he quickly noticed two very “strange” things!

[Old Account Name: Ye Bo]

[Age: 32]

[Current Rank: Silver 1]

[Physical Talent: Average of retired pros at 32]

[Overall Skill Level: Unknown]

[Comeback Points: 369]

“Huh??”

“Silver 1? Me?”

“And... bro, I’m a handsome eighteen-year-old in my prime—how could my physical talent be that of a thirty-two-year-old? This has to be a misdiagnosis!”

“System, you quack!”

The problem with his panel was glaring.

If it was a system mismatch causing his physical talent to be inaccurate, that was somewhat reasonable.

But how had it detected “Silver 1” rank?

At that moment, a few lines of small text popped up before his eyes.

[You clearly remember the deep pit you once fell into. So, to seek other opportunities into a professional career and to skip the agonizing substitute period to get early playing time, you must find a way to prove yourself to everyone—this time, they must beg you to play!]

[Mission: Break into the top ten ranks on either the Summit of the Rift or one of the two Korean servers, and expand your influence as much as possible.]

[Reward: Comeback Points, Special Skill Experience Cards...]

Ye Bo suddenly felt a surge of joy. He had been wondering, after turning down the original RNG offer, how he could step back into the professional scene.

But he hadn’t even finished reading the system description.

Then, a crisp “ding!” sounded behind his mind.

[Cooldown Triggered: “Humanitarian Basic Aid”]

[It’s hard to imagine that your skills have declined this much. For you now, reaching the top ten may already be difficult. You should first recover some of your “former self.”]

[Congratulations on obtaining the heroes Ye Bo practiced in 2022…]

[Congratulations on reaching level 5 proficiency with the Enlightened One]

[Congratulations on reaching level 5 proficiency with the Colossus of Justice]

[Congratulations on reaching level 5 proficiency with the Starry Songstress]

[Congrat...]

“Damn! I’m dirty now!”

“What the hell was that 2022 me doing in RNG?!”

Back then, the chuunibyou Ye Bo swore in front of classmates:

“Even if I starve! Even if I never get to play a match in my life! Even if I jump off Summoner’s Rift!”

“I’d never become a jack-of-all-trades!”

Even now, as a specialist assassin, he still secretly disliked so-called “jack-of-all-trades” or “utility” heroes.

But from the system’s implication,

Perhaps after officially going pro, Ye Bo, in his desperate fight for playtime, had completely changed his stance.

“Whatever, whatever~”

“Let’s go! Let’s do this!”

The optimist Ye Bo refused to dwell on things he hadn’t truly experienced.

Why think so much?

Now he had not only avoided a huge pitfall but also gained a clear goal and direction.

That alone was enough to fill him with motivation!

All along, Ye Bo felt his biggest gap with pros was formal system training.

Now, with the ability to see his growth in real time, every kill participation in each match brought clear, visible increases in hero proficiency.

Others might find playing the same hero boring.

But Ye Bo found it exhilarating!

He came back to his senses, realizing he must have just logged back in with his mother’s account, triggering some inexplicable “system bug.”

Normally, the reborn Ye Bo would only have his original King-tier account on the Rift.

If it were the reborn Old Deng Bo, he should be much stronger than Little Deng Bo now, easily completing this mission thanks to the Hero Compendium.

But since the system detected “Silver 1,” the gap was too large.

That triggered the strange “humanitarian aid.”

However, Ye Bo had no intention to immediately improve those heroes further.

Thanks to the “Proficiency Assessment,” he now knew that Akali, whom he thought he had mastered, was only just past level 6, far from level 7!

According to the prompt, reaching max level 7 proficiency would unlock “complete understanding of all hidden hero techniques,” and using the hero in matches would grant an additional 5% overall skill boost.

What really piqued Ye Bo’s curiosity was...

What unknown secrets could these heroes, whom he had played over a thousand games with, still hold?

And so, over the next few days,

A new account named “40-Year-Old Aunt Wants to Go Pro” started from the novice tier on the Summit of the Rift, carving a bloody path upward!

Because the login ID was locked by the system mission, to complete the task, he had to use an account no higher than his original rank.

It was somewhat embarrassing.

But unexpectedly, this became a blessing in disguise...

“Got it!”

Another match finished, with Akali scoring 10/2/10.

With the kill participation over 20 and the 10x multiplier for matching his rank, he earned a total of 200 proficiency points that match.

[Isolated Assassin: +200 XP]

[Progress Control: (100000/100000) MAX]

[Congratulations! Isolated Assassin has reached peak level 7!]

The next moment, Ye Bo suddenly shuddered.

A warm current flowed through his mind, and Akali’s graceful figure seemed clearer, more detailed in his memory...

Thanks to the Silver 1 rank’s peculiar linkage, every match from the new account up to the current King tier counted as “matching the current rank.”

Thus, every match enjoyed a tenfold points bonus!

This allowed him to rapidly accumulate a large amount of experience during the low-rank sprint phase.

Otherwise, completing a level 7 hero in just a few days would be impossible.

According to the description:

Level 5 equals the heroes Ye Bo had transformed and trained in his past life—barely good enough to “get by” in matches.

Level 6 is the signature skill—roughly equivalent to a player’s “two marks and one chicken” concept.

But max level 7

Means being the world’s foremost expert on that hero, bar none.

He might even surpass the original designers, discovering insights and mechanics even they never knew!

So the colossal experience needed for level 7 was entirely justified.

Ye Bo roughly calculated that ideally, he could train a mastery-level hero from scratch to level 7 in fewer than a thousand games—a true signature skill.

How many people can barely even climb ranks after a thousand games?

Of course, for a pro, a thousand games is a luxury of time they can’t spend solely on one hero.

But then again,

This wasn’t the only way to improve oneself...

In any case, Ye Bo was very satisfied with his current progress.

[Streamer at Summit Rift? Lagging?]

[I just came from the opponent’s stream, guessed it might be this auntie by the hero pick—and sure enough, it is!]

[Incredible! New account with 78% win rate and over a thousand points in a week! What a transcendent master!]

[Seriously, why not go pro and make a name?]

[Just arrived, what rank are you? One more win to top ten?]

[Forty-year-old auntie, say something! Forty-year-old auntie!]

As he climbed ranks, this account reached many well-known streamers and even some pros.

Although Ye Bo couldn’t promote his stream due to the ID restriction,

His hero choices were iconic, and in high ranks somewhat famous, so long-time viewers of high-rank streams found him and followed the trail.

“Ahhh~ just lagged.”

“Again, again! No stream end until top ten today!”

“And hey, that guy in chat who spotted me earlier, nice eye! Wait for it! The streamer’s gonna go pro for sure!”

The addictive real-time positive feedback on progress, coupled with being just one step from completing his mission, made Ye Bo eager to start the next match.

The Summit of the Rift ranked queue was recruiting opponents.

At that moment,

Douyu TV.

“Momma!”

“Hey, not many people joining now, brothers~ wow, the odds of winning are high...”