Does Love at First Sight Exist in E-Sports?

Ch.1 - Does Love at First Sight Exist in Esports?

The eyes of everyone in the room focused on the young boy whose head was nervously bowed. The face of that green youth who was only fifteen years young was flushed red. Finally, he clenched his fist, and with eyes blazing, he summoned up the courage to say: "I want to become a member of Titans's main team!"

Song Mingzhe was one of the main team members of 'Titans', a professional e-sports team of the worldwide renowned multiplayer shooting game "Alarm Dawn", commonly shortened to AD[1]. He listened to the boy's words and patted him on the shoulder admiringly, and earnestly wished him, "Keep what you said today in mind and train well in the youth training team, you hear me?"

The boy made a deep bow. "I do! Thank you, Song ge!"

The boy turned to face the man sitting on the gaming chair beside him and bowed once more. "Thank you, Captain!"

Hearing the boy's words, the outer corners of the captain's eyes narrowed slightly, and a charming smile arose from the curve of his mouth. "You're welcome."

The boy's eyes shone. He blushed and bellowed "Yes!" excitedly, then puffed up his chest and left.

Having sent away the child from the youth training team who had wanted to see the captain's elegant demeanor, Yao Sen stretched his body and turned his chair to face the computer. He clicked on the game icon with a practised ease, and then leisurely logged into his side account.

More than two years ago, Yao Sen was recruited by the Titans Club, who had made an exception and allowed him to join the third team after spending only a week in the youth training team. Before he even had the chance to warm the third team's bench however, Yao Sen overpowered the members of the second team in the selection matches and officially became the fastest Titans member to join the main team since the club was first established.

After finishing school, e-sports was Yao Sen's full-time job. He took over as captain not long after the former captain retired, taking on a team that was dropping in rankings, losing sponsors, and had low morale.

Even so, it was precisely this team that won the Asia Championship last year with a victory that shocked the Alarm Dawn e-sports circle's gods, launching a counterattack from a weakened position[2] to obtain the crown.

Yao Sen's personal rank reigned at the top of the Asian server, and the two characters of his name flattened the Chinese AD e-sports circle, turning the previously low-ranking Titans into a legend that reached the top of the Asian server overnight.

This 'God Sen' who was the talk of town tore open a bag of potato chips, preparing to rank up his side account.

Wang Yuxi, who had been teammates with Yao Sen for two years, leaned over from his seat next to him and said, "Why do you suddenly want to go rank your side account today?"

"The account's rank dropped." Yao Sen, who was holding his bag of potato chips, said indifferently, "I'm going to see if there are any girls around and carry one."

Yao Sen's side account was neither ranked high nor low, so it was easy to rank up. He chose the four-member team queue and swept a cursory glance at his teammates' IDs. His gaze fell onto the player named 'Shao Mengmeng' and quickly locked a target in his heart.

Yao Sen was relatively thick-skinned and directly tapped out a message.

Five Elements Lack Wood[3]: Shao Mengmeng

The other party also replied very quickly: Hello?

Five Elements Lack Wood: I'll carry you

Shao Mengmeng: Ok

The other two teammates made fun of how Five Elements Lack Wood hit on a girl after barely meeting her, but Yao Sen didn't talk nonsense and directly entered the game. This kind of amateur match was not without difficulty——the difficulty lay in how one was able to make it look as if winning was not effortless.