You've only been playing for half a year, and you've already reached the finals?

Chapter 145 Unstoppable

When Mingjing returned to Wuhan, it was already December 20th.

Since returning from the World Championship, Ming Jing has been constantly on the go, with tryouts, award ceremonies, and All-Star events, traveling between Shanghai and Chengdu.

Fortunately, everything was finished, and Mingjing had nothing left to do.

He just needs to play some ranked games casually, expand his mid-lane champion pool as much as possible, have a peaceful and quiet New Year, and then participate in the national training team's training.

Once the national tournament ends, his professional career will officially begin.

At this moment, a message came from the boss, Lan Baiqing, but this time it wasn't to ask for a contract renewal: "The documentary about winning the championship is finished, and I've already tagged you on Weibo. If you have time, please help to repost it."

Documentary?
Ming Jing does have some recollection of him.

Because he hadn't been at the club recently, the club even specially found a photographer in Wuhan to take photos of Ming Jing and then send the footage back to the club.

Mingjing replied with "OK" and then opened Weibo to take a look.

While following the blogger's updates, I indeed saw JD.com's official Weibo account just posting its 2020 annual documentary.

Mingjing retweeted it on Weibo, but still clicked on Bilibili to watch it.

Unstoppable

After a brief black screen, Miller's voice rang out: "Well then, let's congratulate IG! They defeated JD Gaming 3-2 and advanced to the next round! As for our JD Gaming team, it's a pity they missed the 2019 World Championship. We hope they can do better next year!"

In the S9 qualifying tournament, IG and JDG battled fiercely for the third seed spot, with five games. In the final game, JackeyLove used Kai'Sa to secure a pentakill, personally sending all five JDG players out of S9.

The screen went black, and Zoom's chubby face appeared on the screen.

"It must have been really tough back then," Zoom said with a laugh as he listened to the question. "After all, I've been a professional player for so many years and I've never even made it to the World Championship. I was thinking to myself, is this pretty much the end of my career?"

At this moment, the narrator's voice continued to ask: "You certainly didn't expect that your record would be so good in the next season."

Zoom laughed: "Of course I didn't expect that."

The scene switches to Season 10, and the Spring Split begins right at the start.

It's JackeyLove vs. JDG again, and it's the final decisive game.

But this time, JDG is the winner.

"When we won, we felt like we were getting revenge." Toothpaste also appeared in the video, talking candidly to the camera. "After all, he was the one who sent us away last year. Before the game, we felt that we had a chance to win."

At this moment, the narrator's voice rang out again: "Back then, did you think you would win the S10 championship?"

"No, not at all." Toothpaste shook his head with a smile. "Because it was still too far from the World Championship. And the team had a lot of problems back then, which we could all feel."

Then the scene cuts back to the MSC, where JD Gaming was eliminated by FPX in the semifinals.
The documentary is nearly an hour long, but the story of JD.com's team before the finals has nothing to do with Ming Jing. Ming Jing simply dragged the progress bar to about halfway through.

At this point, JD Gaming had just lost the Summer Split finals, and it was JackeyLove again.

At this point, Kanavi gave another interview, saying that the loss in the Summer Finals was a big blow to him. He thought that even if the team went to the World Championship, it would be difficult to achieve any decent results, and he felt that this year was about to end.

At this point, Kanavi changed the subject and laughed, "But fortunately, the team also made changes at that time."

At this moment, the sound of drums began to ring in my ears, and the scene cut to Ming Jing appearing on the stage of the talent show. All the teams cast their votes for him and gave him the maximum price of 50!

At this point, the interview was finally given to Ming Jing.

Ming Jing sat in the small dark room, listening to the narrator's questions.

When you joined JDG, did you ever imagine that you would eventually win the championship?

“Of course.” The boy replied without hesitation, “I came here for the championship.”

The scene then cuts to the second game of the group stage, JDG vs. DWG.

The team had a bad start and fell into a huge disadvantage, with the economic gap quickly widening to 10,000.

At this moment, the team's voice chat was quite chaotic, with several people talking at once.

But then, Ming Jing's words stunned the entire audience.

"Protect me, and we'll win."

In a team fight where Aphelios was 10,000 gold behind, he walked through a sea of ​​skills unscathed, finding a glimmer of hope amidst the overwhelming barrage of abilities. He used his fully equipped red, white, and green swords to clean up the team fight, securing victory and Baron Nashor!

"At the time, I felt that this player's team fight ability was too strong, which perfectly suited our team's needs."

Redmi also appeared in the video, and he said in Chinese, "But later I realized that I had underestimated him."

The scene then cuts to the patch meeting held by the team at the end of the first round of the group stage.

At that time, Redmi judged that the focus of the game was gradually shifting towards the bottom lane.

At this moment, Ming Jing also spoke up, saying that he had the ability to focus on the lower half of the bracket, but Redmi shook his head and denied it.

“What if this really is the version?” Ming Jing said directly at the time, “Do we have to fight against the version? We clearly have the ability to adapt to the version.”

"I don't dare to gamble."

Redmi's words dissuaded the boy who was trying to take the lead in the team.

Ming Jing was somewhat surprised by the exchange before him.

Should this scene be included in the final cut?
At this moment, the screen was filled with comments.

[Holy crap, it was a problem with Redmi?]

When I saw JDG get swept by DWG, I genuinely thought it was the AD carry's fault. I apologize to Xiaofei, sob sob.

It seems we had no choice but to change things after losing in the end.

Indeed, Redmi's manager is stubborn and insists that all the players listen to him, only realizing his mistake when things are about to go wrong.

The scene then shifts to the second round of the group stage, where JDG faced DWG again but suffered a double defeat.

At the time, Redmi apologized directly in the rest room, believing that he had made a mistake in his judgment and had harmed the team.

At this point, the team's strategy began to shift, moving towards the lower half of the map and the dragon.

But the results were absolutely remarkable.

Congratulations to JD Gaming! They swept aside Europe's No. 2 seed 3-0 to advance to the semifinals!

Congratulations to JD Gaming! They defeated Top Esports 3-1 and advanced to the finals!

At this point, the same question was asked to the five members of JDG again.

"At that moment, did you think you could win the championship?"

This time, the answers were all the same.

"of course."

The finals have begun.

In the first game, Mingjing said in the voice chat, "I have a resurrection item, I can trade lives with him." Then Kai'Sa flew into the fray and killed Ghost with three critical hits, winning the first game.

Ming Jing's words also filled the entire screen.

Although they lost the second game, JDG was full of ambition. Mingjing came up with a brilliant draft strategy, using Jayce's flexible nature to set a trap for the opponent that was easy to spot but would lead to victory if it succeeded.

"To be honest, I didn't expect it to actually succeed at the time." Ming Jing chuckled. "I just thought that even if we failed, it would still be a normal game, and we wouldn't lose anything."

At this point, the live chat was filled with question marks again.

The draft picks in the third game have been a hot topic among viewers. Redmi, which is not usually good at draft picks, was able to play such a role at a crucial moment.

But unexpectedly, this was also Mingjing's idea?
Next up was the deciding set after the score was tied again.

All the preparations made for the finals were cracked, and JD.com also found itself on the brink of elimination.

Before the match, the boss, Lan Baiqing, spoke heartfelt words to the players, thanking them for their contributions throughout the year and telling them to relieve the pressure in this final game and leave no regrets.

In such a tense situation, the boy, who was the core of the team, stood up.

The boy's tone was gentle, yet his words were firm and resolute.

"Watch me in this last round."

"I will lead you to the championship."

Upon hearing this, the live chat instantly reached a fever pitch.

Holy crap, this is giving me goosebumps!

This is the responsibility of an FMVP!

That last line was so cool!

[It's just so convincing! Even if the sky were to fall, I wouldn't panic after hearing that!]

Next came Jinx's pentakill, bringing this legendary best-of-five series to a close.

Ming Jing fulfilled his promise and led his team to the top of the world.

"In the end, JD.com prevailed! Congratulations to JD.com for defeating DWG 3-2 and becoming the ultimate champion of the 2020 League of Legends World Championship!"

The camera pans to the audience, where the cheers of eight thousand spectators are thunderous.

Ming Jing couldn't help but smile as he watched this scene, as if he had returned to the evening of October 31st.

Although he didn't spend much time with his JDG teammates, the experience of reaching the top together will surely be unforgettable for Mingjing.

"Di Di-"

At that moment, the WeChat notification sound brought Mingjing back to reality.

I checked WeChat and sure enough, it was a message from Wang Hao.

On the very day he returned, upon hearing the news, Wang Hao immediately arranged to play duo queue with Ming Jing.

Since Wang Hao also entered the national team, his parents have greatly reduced their control over him and hardly care about his gaming anymore. Every day after school, Wang Hao plays games intensely, enjoying himself immensely.

Of course, if you're just having fun like this, you're basically giving up on competing for those six international tournament spots.

However, seeing Mingjing carry the team in the All-Star game while he himself could only suffer as a solo AD carry in the harsh environment of the Mythic version, Wang Hao felt extremely uncomfortable.

Upon seeing Ming Jing join the team room, Wang Hao immediately began to complain in the voice chat.

"Is this B-rank version even playable by humans?" Wang Hao complained. "Everyone's damage is so high, killing AD carries is too easy, right?"

Wang Hao has been completely exhausted from being killed these past few days.

Luden's Echo with magic penetration, Dark Claw with dash and damage amplification, Divine Shield with 12% healing and recovery effect, and Bloodthirst that automatically restores full health with a single press and also has high damage, can all be considered AD dematerializers.

Looking at the equipment, Wang Hao really couldn't understand what the designer was trying to do.

It's gotten so distorted now. Red Kayn builds armor penetration, and his combo can one-shot even tanks. Blue Kayn builds Bloodthirst and is incredibly tanky, you can't kill him no matter how hard you try, but then he just flashes and uses WQ to kill both the AD carry and the support, while also healing himself to full health.
Of course, AD carries also benefited from the Mythic item, which made their glass cannons even more noticeable, dealing more damage, but they also became more fragile.

"That'll teach you to not follow the meta." Ming Jing chuckled in the voice chat, "Why don't you just play Samira with the shield and bow?" Samira was an AD carry that was released on the live server in the World Championship version, but as usual, she didn't make it to the World Championship.

However, this hero hasn't been out for long and is still at her strongest. Coupled with the high shield from the Mythic item Shieldbow and the Collector's Execute, Samira is like a dragon in team fights, making her one of the few AD carries who can go head-to-head with all kinds of gods.

"Heh, I could never play an AD carry like Samira," Wang Hao sneered. "She has no AD carry spirit!"

Wang Hao's AD carry is a pure traditionalist, only playing high-speed auto-attack style. He doesn't like playing Samira, or even Ezreal or Aphelios, but prefers Jinx.

Upon hearing this, Ming Jing stopped talking and simply said, "Alright, enough with the nonsense, I'll take you flying today!"

Mingjing plans to use the Korean server account provided by the club to climb the ranks in the Korean server in the new season. However, it is still in the preseason and ranked matches will not start until January 9th. So Mingjing can still play with Wang Hao in the Rift.

Now that Mingjing has moved to the mid lane, the two no longer conflict in their positions. They've taken on both carries, and it's hard to imagine how they could possibly lose.

Amidst the joyful times, December quickly passed, and 2021 began.

On January 9th, the LPL Spring Split began, with the rebuilt EDG team as the focus, kicking off the regular season by facing OMG.

Come on, let's get spicy!

[Wait, why isn't Xiaofei playing? Why is he still a junior?]

[Xiao Fei is still three months shy of 17, let's get this done, juniors can handle it for now]

[No problem. Although my junior has been a bit off these past two years, he used to be a top-three mid laner in the LPL. Let's see if he can find his old form again.]

It doesn't matter anymore, as long as my junior can make it to the semifinals of the playoffs, that's a success.

Even though Mingjing hasn't played yet, countless viewers are still focusing their attention on this match, wanting to see how strong EDG is now.

Fortunately, the result was quite reassuring.

The top laner, Flandre, is known for his stability. He doesn't play recklessly and plays a team-oriented style, displaying remarkable skill in team fights.

Although jungler JieJie's performance last year was not good, it was more due to his inability to adapt to the jungle carry meta. His traditional rhythm jungler style could not adapt to the jungle carry playstyle.

Now that the jungle carry meta has finally faded, JieJie's experience has gradually matured, and he has finally begun to show his talent.

Needless to say, Viper is an AD carry who has been to the World Championship before. Although his highest achievement was only the quarterfinals, he is definitely much more mature than last year's AD Hope.

With three positions consistently stronger than last year, Scout's laning dominance has gradually returned, and Meiko has stopped ganking in the river. The team's overall strength has increased by more than one level.

In the first game, EDG exerted pressure on all three lanes and steadily secured points.

However, problems quickly arose in the second game.

When EDG came to the blue side, they locked in Samira for Viper, hoping to win by relying on Samira's teamfight stats. However, OMG had a counter-strategy. The mid-jungle duo of Taliyah and Galio was picked and immediately countered by Samira, while OMG frequently ganked the bottom lane.

Ultimately, Viper's bot lane suffered a minor setback, and in team fights, they were unable to perform effectively due to various crowd control effects, leading to their eventual defeat.

Seeing this, Ming Jing shook his head slightly.

All I can say is that AD carries like Samira, who need to engage to deal damage, might be useful in ranked games, but against the coordinated play of professional teams, the difficulty of playing her is still too high. If she gets caught in a crowd control effect while engaging, she'll die instantly.

He is not optimistic about the hero's prospects in professional leagues.

In today's two matches, both sides prioritized Shamira extremely high, mainly because the Spring Split has just started and many things are still uncertain. They were more focused on win rates in ranked matches and were thus misled.

Fortunately, they quickly adjusted their strategy in the third game, choosing a teamfight combination of Aatrox, Orianna, and Jhin, and steadily exerted their strength in teamfights, winning the BO3.

Seeing the victory before him, Mingjing nodded slightly.

At this moment, Wang Hao in the voice channel was still chuckling and nitpicking: "Oh, we can win without you? You won't be left without a spot in the end, will you?"

"Hehe, this counts as a win." Ming Jing didn't seem to be under any pressure: "I feel like they still need me quite a bit."

OMG can hardly be considered a strong team. They don't have a single star player from top to bottom, and they're about the same level as EDG last year.

In Ming Jing's opinion, the level of competition between the two sides today was not high, and it was incomparable to the world-class competition he had experienced in the previous two months.

During the World Championship, JDG and DWG fought tooth and nail for control of the Rift Herald at the eight-minute mark, resulting in fierce competition.

But today, in one game, the vanguard even survived for ten minutes, because both sides played too carelessly.

It can only be said that this EDG team has become accustomed to being a pushover, lacks the awareness of a strong team, and its action is far from sufficient.

If this is all the strength they have, then this EDG team won't even last until his return!

But it shouldn't be a big problem.

It should get better soon as the game continues.

Without much thought, Ming Jing simply started playing duo queue with Wang Hao.

The designers have adjusted the stats of Mythic items based on preseason data, and also nerfed some heroes who were overpowered by Mythic items. Now the game has entered the official 11.1 version, and ranked matches have finally started.

In the following days, Ming Jing was quite diligent. During the day, when Wang Hao was at school, he would solo queue on the Korean server. When Wang Hao came back at night, he would duo queue on the Chinese server to climb the ranks. After playing a few games, he would go to sleep.

Through numerous ranked matches, Mingjing's skill level in the mid-lane began to rise rapidly.

The ranking scores on both sides also rose, and under his influence, even Wang Hao quickly reached the Master rank by the end of the semester on January 30th.

At the beginning of this season, Master was already among the top ranks on the server, just one step away from King, which was Wang Hao's highest rank in history.

However, their duo queue ended there, because of the new rules in Season 11, Master rank and above can only solo queue.

The final stretch to becoming a king is a path that only Wang Hao can walk alone.
Fortunately, winter vacation has officially begun, and Wang Hao plans to use the entire winter vacation to climb this last stretch of road.

Of course, Wang Hao was already quite talented, and he was someone who reached Master rank while competing in tournaments. Now that the game is more intense, it's only natural that he would reach King rank.

However, Ming Jing couldn't empathize with this, because after Wang Hao entered solo queue, Ming Jing also started a full-on ranking-up mode on the Korean server and reached the Challenger rank that same day.

As for the Chinese server, I'm too lazy to play it. There are too many trolls and too few professional players. Playing it too much is just a pain.

By February 7th, Mingjing had already reached the top 2 in the King of Glory rankings, and was still steadily climbing!

It has to be said that mid laners are easier to win against than AD carries.

An advantageous AD carry may not necessarily be a good match, but an advantageous mid laner can truly dominate the entire game.

Meanwhile, the LPL also reached its last match day before the new year, and the EDG team also faced their last opponent before the new year.

RNG.

RNG also underwent a minor rebuild this year, bringing in Cryin and Wei for the mid and jungle positions, and their core player Xiaohu moved to the top lane.

At first, countless viewers thought RNG was just trying to be funny this year.

After all, this roster doesn't show any signs of being a strong team, let alone the World Championship, it would be a failure even in the playoffs!

Even in the initial roster ratings, the commentators mercilessly gave RNG a low score of B+, a stark contrast to EDG's only S+.

However, in this lopsided match between B+ and S+, TOP Tiger performed exceptionally well. He first played a small cannon, coordinating closely with the mid and jungle to dominate the top lane and help the team secure their first victory.

After the score was tied, he decisively pulled out his signature Gnar.

Xiaohu's Gnar didn't have a smooth laning phase in this game because the team was focusing their attacks on the bottom half of the map, and he was playing a defensive role.

However, Xiaohu performed exceptionally well under pressure, even maintaining a lead in CS after the laning phase ended.

In the mid-game, Xiaohu further demonstrated his superb split-pushing ability and rage control skills. During every resource team fight, he could use the side lane to push the lane and force Flandre to defend the tower, and then control Gnar with 90+ perfect rage to participate in the team fight head-on, maximizing his deterrent power!

Ming Jing was amazed by what he saw.

This skill in controlling the line and managing rage is truly top-notch.

With Xiaohu's perfect maneuvering, the team effortlessly subdued all the Elder Dragons.

In the final team fight around Baron, Xiaohu's Gnar made a dramatic entrance, stunning three opponents with a powerful palm strike. His two carries, who had the advantage, followed up to clean up the battlefield and win the game!

At this moment, the screen was filled with messages like "Fly, team in danger, return quickly!"

This has become a new meme in EDG's recent matches.

Whenever Scout puts up a great performance, the chat will start spamming "[Fly, team safe, don't worry]", but once Scout starts feeding, or the team loses a game, the chat will start spamming "[Fly, team in danger, come back quickly]".

Of course, EDG's record so far is still pretty good. They had a six-game winning streak before, and even if they lose this game, they are still 6-1 and firmly at the top of the regular season standings.

Seeing the gloomy expressions on his teammates' faces, Ming Jing shook his head, closed the live stream, and went back to ranked play.

Soon, it was February 13th, and the new year began.

Although Ming Jing has earned millions in recent months and just signed a 20 million contract, making him quite wealthy, his life hasn't improved much. He still eats a simple New Year's Eve dinner with his parents, just a pot of vegetables and a few side dishes.

After the second day of the Lunar New Year, Mingjing started visiting relatives with his parents, almost running himself ragged.

Because Mingjing was so successful last year, winning the championship and getting into Peking University, his parents were much more eager to visit relatives. Hearing all the aunts and uncles praising Mingjing made his parents feel proud.

Mingjing was indifferent to this, and even somewhat resistant, but seeing his parents so happy, he could only endure it and be a good child who would be praised obediently.

Cousin Mingkai, who was obviously experienced in this matter, simply watched with a smile and remained silent.

At this point, someone even came over to ask my cousin which of the two cousins ​​was more capable.

Even his older cousin was embarrassed by the question and quickly said that his younger cousin was more knowledgeable.

But the relatives around him just thought that his cousin was being modest.

After all, my cousin has been working in the e-sports industry for many years and has made a name for himself. He is well-known in the surrounding area. How could he be surpassed by my younger cousin who has only been in the industry for half a year?

Only my cousin knows the bitterness in his heart.
After everything calmed down and the parents started playing mahjong, the two cousins ​​lay on the sofa, watching a replay of the Spring Festival Gala while chatting about Mingjing's upcoming plans.

"Are you going back to the club in April?"

“Yes.” Ming Jing nodded: “I will be going to the national training team in mid-March for a week or two, and it will end at the latest by the end of March. I should be able to return to the club on April 1st. Anyway, I will definitely be able to play on time.”

The national team is divided into two stages. After the first stage ends, the top fifteen performers will be selected to enter the second stage. The final selection for the International Olympic Committee will be made in the second stage, which takes one or two weeks.

Although it's a bit far-fetched for Ming Jing, who's ranked 51st, to want to get into the second stage, who knows?
If Ming Jing works hard, he might actually make it into the top 15.

However, Ming Jing has no hope of getting a top-six spot in the International Olympic Committee.

Ming Jing had already felt the gap between him and the top six during his previous role as CMO.

The problem he struggled with for hours but couldn't solve, was finished by someone else an hour earlier.
There's even an ultimate genius who got a perfect score right after entering high school, someone who's on a completely different level from Ming Jing.

"That's good." Mingkai patted his cousin on the shoulder. "Everyone's waiting for you to go on stage, so get ready."

"Don't worry," Ming Jing said with a smile, "We're preparing."

In the following period, Mingjing's score continued to rise steadily, and he quickly entered the top ten in the Korean server.

Even in the Korean server, where there are many skilled players, Mingjing is still like a god with an extremely high win rate.

However, the first plan had to be put on hold for the time being, because it was already March 14th. Mingjing and the other students in his class who were selected for the national team landed in Hangzhou and took the official shuttle bus to Wenyuan Middle School.

The first phase of the national team's studies will take place here.

(End of this chapter)