Chapter 61: Fated Showdown! The Blood Harbor Ripper! [Thanks to "Path in the Bamboo Grove" for the Grand Patron status!]

While waiting for Jiejie to return, Ye Bo first checked the contents of the diary entry for the Rookie chapter.

To his surprise, the content this time was very brief.

[March 18, 2024]
[RoOKie-ge's LeBlanc is amazing, but actually I feel... just regarding the laning phase of this champion, once upon a time, I could have done those things too.]
[If today I hadn't played Karma, but Akali instead... would there have been a chance for me to win?]
[Of course, that would require swapping in the me from two years ago first~]
[Haha, no use thinking about it. Actually, since I haven't practiced these two champions properly in almost two years, I've long since forgotten how to play them. I might as well listen to the coach and manager, and honestly grind Karma extra. Sa and sa!]

Although there were only four lines, and even when writing a diary for himself, the old veteran was still optimistically comforting himself.

Yet Ye Bo could genuinely feel the "regret" between the lines.

Before the system was unlocked, Ye Bo's only two level-six proficiency champions were LeBlanc and Akali.

Judging by his feelings today, due to various reasons—whether it was age or champion pool development—Rookie's LeBlanc clearly no longer had the form of his own prime, at most resting at level-six proficiency.

If they could have had a "parallel matchup," even without the system, a version of himself who reached the current level in 2022 would have faced countless possibilities in this mirror matchup.

What a pity, nothing had aligned.

The old veteran had a very obvious champion pool issue at the beginning of his professional career. Later, bitter grinding of his champion pool led to his energy being divided, naturally forcing him to abandon the champions he originally loved.

He was initially a substitute because of the champion pool issue, and after finally grinding his way to a regular starter in 2024, he faded into the crowd once again because of that very same champion pool.

Followed by the cycle brought by the team throwing matches.

If the old veteran had gotten the chance to use Akali against Rookie's LeBlanc in the very first match of his career, even if he lost in the end!

Ye Bo thought, perhaps it would have been like his first match against Doinb, proving himself to everyone, and then perhaps generating the possibility of a positive cycle?

"Life, choices, luck, the order of appearance, serendipity... altering any single node seems like it could change so many things..."

Ye Bo did not have much life experience.

Yet he always seemed to glean some insight from the old veteran's experiences.

Perhaps very few people had the opportunity to witness their "other life."

Therefore, Ye Bo rejoiced and cherished everything he had now, every single day.

He thought to himself that he was already lucky enough; if he didn't cherish it and work hard now, he would truly be a scoundrel!

After finishing his reflections, Ye Bo casually claimed the chapter reward.

To his pleasant surprise, the "Hidden Quest" had been passively completed once again!

And this time, there was no prompt; it just happened naturally. Ye Bo didn't even know what the form of this quest was.

However, based on the contents of the diary, it wasn't hard to guess. It should be similar to the time with Theshy—a special matchup to "make up for regrets."

He guessed that it might be because he hadn't mastered Akshan at the time and didn't meet the conditions, which was why the system had given a prompt.

[Congratulations! Diary content unlocked: Rookie Chapter]
[Congratulations! The host has completed the "Counter-Attack" ending for this chapter. All diary functions for this chapter have been unlocked!]
[Congratulations on unlocking: Rookie (S14) Training Ground AI Simulation Object | 200 Counter-Attack Points/session]
[Obtained Hidden Quest Reward: "Fated Duel"]

"Huh?"

Ye Bo clicked to view the details of this reward with the somewhat strange name.

[Fated Duel]
[Everyone in Summoner's Rift has their own special stars of unique significance, and the moment these stars collide will also be the most brilliant moment in the sky of the Rift.]
[Effect: When specific matchup conditions are met, obtain a "Special Bonus." Select the corresponding matchup champion and secure victory to receive extra rewards!]

Ye Bo was a bit confused and didn't quite understand what it meant.

However, he did notice that this ability didn't seem to consume anything, nor did it specify any limited usage occasions; it only stated that it required "meeting specific matchup conditions."

He stopped pondering over it. Whatever was meant to be encountered would be encountered eventually.

Perhaps it was something similar to "The Double Zed Battle" or "Galio Defying the Imperial Decree"?

He closed the panel.

Jiejie was still talking smoothly on his livestream, Flandre beside him was scrolling through his phone, the bot lane duo was chatting, and Ahbu was still on the phone.

For some reason, Ye Bo felt like Ahbu kept glancing over at him from time to time.

And the moment their eyes met... the other person even flashed a very bright smile, though that look in his eyes gave Ye Bo a slight case of goosebumps.

"Bo, you're really blowing up now. Even I can scroll past clips of you—the very ones from just this match!" Flandre leaned over, holding up his phone to show him with great interest.

"So fast?" Ye Bo looked over with curiosity.

It was a video on a short-video platform, featuring the classic AI child voice announcing the title right off the bat:

[Rookie? Superstar! Various commentators and streamers watch LPL's new-generation mid laner YE face off against Rookie, saving the champion team from the brink of disaster and reversing the tide for another winning streak!]

At the beginning of the video, it cut straight to those classic clips from DYS.

"Rookie gets solo killed! Ye Wen is truly invincible!"
"Holy crap, this game is a pure slaughter. How did it turn into a tutorial against bots?"
"Not to mention, it feels like EDG is clearly much better adapted to Ye Wen's system. That old guy Dao Sheng..."

Hearing this, Flandre hurriedly used top-tier spacing techniques to cover the speaker at the bottom of his phone and turned down the volume, though it was hard to tell how much others had overheard.

DYS was notoriously vicious and abrasive with their commentary, and the fact that even the clips edited from them were filled with repeated shocks was enough to show the kind of astonishment it brought to other viewers.

The next scene cut to Zz1tai's livestream, and a bizarre howl entered the ears.

"No—wait, why are they fighting here? EDG could just slowly wait for their advantages to scale, forcing this Rift Herald is just giving them an opening!"
"Turtle, this is A-O-O-K-E-Y! This wolf-pack intimidation flanking movement, absolute god-tier awareness!"

Zz1tai loved to break down IDs and read them letter by letter, and with Rookie as his old teammate, it obviously carried a pointed edge.

This was the clip from the Rift teamfight where Yennefer—wait, Yone—blocked Poppy's ultimate.

Zz1tai was questioning it the second before, and the very second after, his expression shifted with pure profanity and a "Pyke K-secure" style transformation.

"I f***ing swear! Holy crap, Wai Yi!" Zz1tai drew out his tone and shouted in an extremely bizarre pitch, "All you haters apologize to me! Turns out he was prepared all along! No wonder he dared to fight!"
"His Yone is definitely unquestionable. First he slays Coinb, then he battles Rookie, the Greatest Yone in History! This time it's not the World Championship greatest!"

Letme, acting as a semi-insider for RNG, chimed in with a mysterious expression during the mic check:

"Let me drop a piece of lore on you, something I heard right after watching that LDL match last time."
"Word is, this Ye Wen was originally scouted by RNG early on, and they even sent him an invitation before he joined the academy, but guess what?"
"He actually rejected them straight up! And he rejected them twice in a row! He even sent a acrostic poem that made our RNG recruitment manager furious..."

At this time, RNG hadn't been exposed to so many contract controversies yet. They had just won the MSI championship, and their public reputation was stellar.

And it was Letme's revelation that let the outside world know there was such a history of entanglement between Ye Bo and RNG... which also made RNG fans look even less favorably upon Ye Bo!

As everyone knew, RNG and EDG had been "sworn enemies" since the ancient "Pig-Dog Era."

It was one thing for a rookie to reject RNG, but he turned around and went to EDG instead.

Some bullet comments were already shouting: [Let him flex for a few days, he'll sober up once he runs into Tiger General!]

The screen cut again, this time to the even more abstract Crystal哥 (Krystal).

"Damn, this triangular kill! Forcing a one-sword-three-eat? This is definitely paying tribute to the streamer!"
"This Akali wants to dive and solo kill my Rookie? This play makes zero sense!"
"If he can solo kill him, I'll do a handstand and eat three catties of dirt!"

Seeing his old teammate, Flandre couldn't help but chuckle out loud: "Yang Fan this bastard is getting more and more abstract nowadays, scamming food and drinks every day. I really need to check if there's anything hidden in the flower pot he gave me last time~"

The uploader who edited this compilation clearly had an extremely complex composition of fandoms.

Immediately following the scene came the roar of Xuanshen imitating a howling celestial dog.

"Woo—hoo! Ye Wen's Akali! Explosion-flow Akali! He's almost no less terrifying than your Dragon哥! Slurp~"
"Chopping up a sticky rice chicken is indeed light and easy." Xuanshen was extremely excited. Upon seeing the bullet comments, he couldn't help but mention his newly acknowledged godfather again: "To be honest, this Yone is just so-so. For Yone, I only recognize Zeu—s!"
"If you can't use Yone to fiercely hack apart Damo and Bin, you simply won't gain the streamer's approval! Reta~!"

The latter part of the video also featured numerous tier-two commentators and retired players.

Ye Bo even caught sight of a familiar figure.

"The streamer's vision! Leave aside the LDL, Ye Bo is an absolute genius player even in the LPL! Look and see if I'm right!" Chu Jun patted his chest proudly in front of the screen.
"As for Letme saying RNG wanted to sign him before he went to the academy, is that true? Well, it seems I did hear him mention it in passing."
"True or not, it doesn't matter, because back then Ye Bo received invitations from all the clubs, and Coach Ahbu went to look for him personally!"
"To tell an unvarnished truth, it wasn't EDG that chose him, it was him who chose EDG!"

Watching various people evaluate him from different angles and perspectives, Ye Bo found the feeling quite novel.

Compilation videos like this usually focused on trending players, and clearly, after this match, Ye Bo had been forcefully made known to quite a few people.

The video had only been posted for a short while, but its popularity and the comment section were already exploding.

[Just checked, Ye Wen was born in '04! Invincible, feels like I'm seeing a second Zeus!]
[Does the LPL even have anyone born in '04 right now? This really is a future to look forward to!]
[Still a future to look forward to? Things are already like this now, how much further into the future can we look? This is the future leader of the LPL!]
[No need to hype him up like that. Didn't you guys notice? He still only pops off when he gets those three standard axes. Fundamentally, he's still a one-trick specialist—just a smart one. The moment the patch changes, he's done for!]
[Rational neutrals can stop right there. Zeus next door has only played for half a year and they're already hyping him as the greatest top laner in history, how is calling this a future to look forward to considered hyping? Praising outsiders is politically correct, but praising your own people is hyping, right?]
[I think if Ye Bo can learn professionalism from his predecessor Scout and stay single throughout his career, he really has a chance to become the hope of domestic mid laners within three years at most!]

The current year was 2022. Being born in 2004 meant he was right on the minimum age line for professional play.

He was a "pure rookie" in the truest sense of the word.

Globally, the only '04-born player who had successfully broken out so far was T1's new top laner, Zeus.

As for the LPL side, let alone having broken out, if you only counted those who had successfully made it into the LPL league, there was only Ye Bo.

The closest ones were Tangyuan and YSKM who performed brilliantly in the LDL, as well as EDG's other substitute mid laner, Fish. Beyond that, there were no other IDs people could name.

This was why bullet comments would inexplicably compare Ye Bo and Zeus together.

Because at least this year, the LPL had no other options when it came to comparing in the "rookie domain" with the LCK.

As for that final comment...

It came from a golden quote Scout had uttered on his livestream two years ago, which was frequently used by his fans as evidence of his "professionalism."

"You can't date while playing professionally! Anyway, during my professional career, I definitely won't date!"
"I'll say this right now: if I have a significant other and get caught, I'll retire on the spot!"

At the time, those words had gained him countless fans and laid the foundation for the birth of a most loyal faction of Scout fans.

There were also jokes online calling this Faker's admonition to him before his departure: "SKT's mid laner has no girlfriend, that's a rule passed down from the ancestors! Remember, breaking it will bring retribution!"

Seeing the screenshots uploaded in the comment section, Ye Bo was deeply moved by the words spoken by the other party.

"Rui Can-ge truly has professional spirit!"

Actually, Ye Bo himself didn't have much of an opinion on whether one could date while playing professionally.

After all, although there was the successful precedent of the "Tiangang Child Prodigy" skill, in reality, players like Doinb and Rookie had also been in relationships when they won their championships, and it hadn't seemed to affect anything.

However, Ye Bo deeply realized that human energy was limited.

At any rate, as for Ye Bo himself, he had also resolved to follow Scout's words and Faker's practice, pouring all his energy into his professional career!

A professional career was short—two or three years at minimum, and at most reaching the peak, currently amounting to less than ten years in total.

For someone like himself who needed to rely on hard work to make up for the gap in talent, wasting even a shred of energy would make it harder to climb toward the target he truly wanted and pursued.

After finishing the video, Jiejie returned.

With Ahbu around today, they didn't need to deliberate over where to eat; they went to a high-end hotel to celebrate their victory.

V5 had quite a few problems, but they were still the first place team in the spring regular season and among the frontrunners in the summer.

Winning against V5 basically meant that the obstacles blocking this EDG team were reduced to at most two or three teams. At the very least, playoffs were secured.

Halfway through the celebration banquet, Ahbu even came over to find Ye Bo to talk about a "salary increase."

The gist of it was that EDG's boss, Edward, thought very highly of Ye Bo.

And knowing full well that Scout had a very high probability of leaving the team after this season concluded, he wanted to renew his contract with Ye Bo in advance.

If Ye Bo was willing, his contract could be directly upgraded to a starting-tier seasonal contract, with a salary at least double his current one!

However, Ye Bo politely declined.

This wasn't out of any false sense of noble detachment—in fact, Ye Bo wanted to make money too.

There were many reasons, and even if it were purely a desire to make money, it was the most normal human nature.

Ye Bo hadn't forgotten that in the initial old veteran's memoir, it was recorded that 'parents frequently quarreled because of his initial choice.'

If he made a lot of money and proved that his choice wasn't wrong... then Mom and Dad wouldn't argue anymore, right?

Dreams were important, but if he ended up like the old veteran who played for ten years and still owed money on Huabei, that wouldn't do either!

Though Ye Bo seemed to owe Huabei right now as well...

The reason why Ye Bo still refused was simple: the other party wasn't running a charity either. Their purpose was to alter the contract and lock in matters for 2023 in advance.

However, when it came to matters involving the future and choices, Ye Bo was always very cautious.

For now, he still just wanted to take things step-by-step and go at a steady pace; after all, his current situation was already satisfying enough.

Ahbu himself was merely conveying intentions anyway. After all, they still had a 1+1 contract. As long as they could bid the highest price in the market next year, the outcome would remain the same.

The more important thing was to express goodwill.

"Livestreaming?"
"Right, don't overthink the contract thing, it was just a casual mention. But as for livestreaming, that actually counts as a disguised salary increase." Ahbu explained the reason, "And if I recall correctly, didn't you used to stream yourself before?"
"Yeah, I did, but later I was afraid it would delay my training, so I streamed less." Ye Bo nodded.

He actually considered himself half a former streamer; he had no reason to be resistant to livestreaming.

It was just that upon initially joining a professional team, Ye Bo held everything in awe, let alone EDG, a team where everyone around him was a world champion.

Ye Bo didn't want to become a drag on the team, so at the time he only wanted to pour all his time into training.

Yet now he knew that professional players didn't spend their entire day doing anything other than eating, sleeping, and training. In fact, his training volume was definitely at the very front of the entire professional circle, and streaming wouldn't have any so-called negative impact at all.

"We have good partnerships with several streaming platforms. You can see which platform you'd like to stream on, any of them is fine," Ahbu asked, while offering a reminder, "Douyu's revenue should be a bit higher; they just signed T1, they have money."
"Bilibili, I guess. I promised those old fans before that I'd definitely come back and stream for them later." Ye Bo replied almost without thinking.
"...That's fine too, our relationship with Bilibili is also pretty good." Ahbu didn't say much more.

Though he vaguely remembered that the other party's Bilibili presence used to be essentially invisible, and even if there were 'old fans,' they were probably just a handful of people.

Still, since EDG was just helping to bridge the gap, respecting the other party's wishes was best.

That very night, the matter was quickly settled.

Although Bilibili was the financial backer behind the BLG team, they didn't exclude other teams and even had deep ties with EDG.

Because BLG's predecessor was the IM team, formerly known as IMAY—which was once the "EDG Academy Team"!

However, due to Ye Bo's special request, what he signed wasn't the traditional hourly wage contract, but an incentive-based contract.

To put it plainly, there was no fixed salary; earnings were settled based on viewership data depending on how much he streamed.

Because of this, there were no monthly hour requirements. He could stream whenever he wanted and skip whenever he didn't, without affecting the arrangement of his training energy.

While the revenue might be slightly lower, it fit Ye Bo's requirements perfectly.

The dinner ended, and they returned to the base.

Ye Bo didn't walk back to the dorms; instead, he headed toward the training room.

"Bo, grinding again?" Flandre, walking alongside him, joked as he watched Ye Bo suddenly change direction.
"It's still early anyway, and I need to figure out livestreaming for a bit later. It's been so long since I did it, I'm a bit rusty. Bilibili's operations said we're doing an event for the premiere tomorrow, so I'm setting it up now so I don't disturb you guys later~"

Ye Bo's execution has always been very strong. Since he had decided to start streaming tomorrow and fix it for the evenings, he simply debugged the setup right there on the training room computer.

Since scrims were usually scheduled during the daytime, evenings were naturally personal training time and relatively free.

They had to play against TES in a week.

The few days leading up to it would definitely leave no time, so if he wanted to stream, these couple of days were the only window.

"Alright, go grind then. Call me if you run into anything you don't understand."

Flandre finished speaking and headed back to the dorms, leaving Ye Bo alone in the spacious training room.

Ye Bo glanced at the time; it wasn't even 10 PM yet, so he simply queued up for a Korean server ranked match.

Queue popped successfully.

Unfortunately, he got auto-filled to support this game, and couldn't get his preferred role...

The good news, however, was that when he checked his teammates' IDs, he spotted several familiar ones!

"Deft? Supporting Deft is not bad!"

Just as Ye Bo was preparing to exchange some friendly banter with this former EDG legend, a prompt box suddenly popped up before his eyes.

[Ding! Specific matchup conditions can be triggered!]
[Obtained temporary proficiency bonus for "The Bloodharper Ripper"]
[Available for selection: "The Bloodharper Ripper" to complete the challenge]

"Huh? Supports can trigger fated duels too? Is that even reasonable?"

Ye Bo hadn't expected this unknown ability he had just acquired today to take effect on the very same night.

Still, it was fine—this way, he could see what kind of effect this thing actually had.

As the match entered the loading screen, Ye Bo abruptly realized something—the IDs of the opposing mid and bot laners also looked extremely familiar!

[Hide on bush]
[biedaiwoleqql]

After checking them on the op.gg match history site, Ye Bo's eyes lit up fiercely.

"I actually queued into Faker! I just mentioned it this afternoon, my words have manifest power, my luck is really great~"
"It's just a pity I didn't get to swap roles, but laning against JackeyLove will do too!"
"Wait a minute? Then this support Pyke... whose fated duel could possibly be this thing?"