Legends Rise - Chapter 2 The Golden Ticke

Steam rose from the bath tub, slightly obscuring the monitor near it.

Li Ming had just gotten back to his dormitory and he hoped to hop into the bathtub straight away without taking a shower.

Li Ming had walked back to his dormitory in the rain, not bothering to cover himself. If anything, the cold rain drops on him only helped to keep him from wandering listlessly, as it drove him to hurry back to his dormitory to hop into a hot bath.

He laid in the tub after putting on his favorite stream on the monitor: The Leo Corporation’s Legends Rise Stream, which normally provided commentary and lessons when it wasn’t broadcasting Live Games.

Legends Rise was the Virtual Reality Multiplayer Online Battle Arena created by The Leo Corporation global phenomenon of competitive gaming that overtook the former most popular game type of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Out of all the activities Li Ming had tried out in the past, this one video game was the only one that he was ever mildly successful at, achieving a ranking of top 2% of the competitive rankings.

Legends Rise currently had about hundred million concurrent players, so ranking in the top 2% of the rankings meant that he was better than 98 million players across the globe. Despite being pretty decent at the game, he never had the time to play competitively, and that was one of his greatest dreams. However, he knew that despite the ever growing scene of eSports, he would never be able to make a proper living with it.

“Welcome to a special announcement by The Leo Corporation, bringing the world championships live to your home!”

Li Ming bolted straight up in his tub, splashing water all across the bathroom floor.

He had been busy with his part time job and his studies so much that he hadn’t been able to play Legends Rise or even keep up with its competitive scene!

“Stay tuned for a special announcement coming up right after our regular broadcast! We’ll be hosting a giveaway that you won’t wanna miss! And now, we resume our regular broadcast!”

Li Ming immediately turned off the bath and pulled the drain to let the water out and hopped out into the shower. He could not miss this event! He scrubbed his scalp and skin so hard and fast they felt as sore as if he was slapped all over for an entire day.

Striding out of the bathroom, he threw on his bathrobe and sat down at his desk. Li Ming shook his mouse to wake up his desktop. He immediately logged onto The Leo corporation’s website and brought up their stream yet again. It was currently the semi-finals between the Beijing Tigers and the Seoul Gladiators. The Beijing Tigers were up 4 kills to 0, but the Seoul Gladiators had destroyed more parts of the Beijing Tigers base. It had been an extremely close game in terms of the amount of wealth that both teams have been able to accrue during this 45 minute game.

“As expected of the semi-finals between the two powerhouses of the eastern world!” Li Ming exclaimed.

Li Ming had been an avid fan of the Beijing Tigers. One of his former classmates that he’d eat ice cream with was a substitute player on that team, and the team had performed extraordinarily well the past 4 years.

Then, all of a sudden, the Live Commentators all drew a collective breath together with the crowd behind them. The entire tension of the arena rose tenfold and could be felt by Li Ming even though the competition was taking place thousands of miles away. His attention was once again drawn into the broadcast.

As he observed closely, he saw what the casters and the crowd were so tensed up for. A member of the Beijing Tigers, named XueBai, was closely stalking the core player of the Seoul Gladiators: Mato. Mato was the one who would always carry the Seoul Gladiators to victory, so the Seoul Gladiators would always push all the resources on the playing field towards her. Despite her young age, she was a strong mechanical player, ranking in the top 0.01% of players globally.

Meanwhile, XueBai, despite being a comparatively old player in the scene, he still could not be underestimated. XueBai was a 2 times finalist in the world championships and had never won. However, he had come extremely close to winning. With how dominant his team looked this year, it was undoubtedly their year to take it all.

XueBai stalked Mato for another 3 seconds. He was waiting for a little more space to open up between her and her teammates for him to jump in. With his Damage-Focus assassin character, he should be able achieve an instant kill on her, provided that she was isolated.

And sure enough, Mato’s teammates slipped up.

Within just a second, XueBai pounced on Mato, and slashed at her until her health bar plummeted to a 0. Mato’s teammates could not react in time to save her, and losing their sole player, they turned into nothing but lumps of meat for the rest of XueBai’s Beijing Tigers to eat up. Sure enough, the Seoul Tigers had finally fallen after a long and tense 47 minute game.

Li Ming was exuberant. Despite just being told that he was a failure who couldn’t even attend an American Community College, he was still overjoyed that his favorite team won!

“And that concludes the broadcast of the game. Before we continue to the Analysis Desk, we are going to hold a quick give away!” A young female announcer appeared on the screen, “As soon as I say so, we are going to randomly give out 100 free tickets to the Finals of the Legends Rise Championship!”

100 free tickets?

That’s basically nothing! There was over 60 million viewers right now! One would have to be stuck by lightning several times before they could even manage to win a ticket!

But that didn’t matter much to Li Ming. He watched the entire tournament every year from his dorm anyways. Even when the tournament came to Japan, he would still watch it from the dorm. With the amount of money it would cost to get a decent seat, he could already pay for a 3 months worth of rent at his dorm! With just a part time job, he simply could not afford such a luxury.

“And the lottery starts… Now!”

*DingDingDing*

Li Ming stared at his monitor, waiting to see who the lucky 100 would be. But to his surprise, another sight awaited him.

‘Are my eyes playing tricks on me’ he thought, ‘There’s actually a Golden Ticket on my screen!’