Chapter 188: National E-Sports Competition

In class, there were a few other high ranking players, but they were only able to join the club as a member for free at most. No one expected someone like Luocheng, who was quiet, to be recruited into the E-sports club from the inside!

They definitely needed to interrogate this guy after class, he was too much, they couldn’t let him ruin their red-haired goddess!

***

Once Luocheng had reached the club room, he immediately knew something was different. Normally there were a bunch of people being rowdy while playing, and you could hear the occasional shouts. This time, the club room was silent, everyone sat in a line, and the atmosphere was heavy.

Yang Ying, Xiao Jia, and Zheng Xia all stood underneath the projector screen.

The three club members were familiar faces to Luocheng, but the other two beside them were not. It was a beauty with hair that mirrored a crimson waterfall on her head and a more dull-looking guy.

He hadn’t seen the red-headed senior around before but recalled his classmates talking about her. Looking at her carefully, he found her to be quite an amazing beauty.

The long crimson hair, a fair white face, wearing the same outfit as the other girls but managing to look extraordinarily different—gorgeous and refined.

This made Luocheng think of those 2D beauties from comics and he thought that this girl must frequently cosplay as she exuded an aura just like those beauties in the comics.

No wonder those animals kept talking about her, indeed there were a lot of materials worth digging and researching.

“Luocheng, just pick a place and sit down.” Yang Ying said.

Luocheng nodded, it was obvious that a meeting for core members of the club was about to begin and there was nothing funny about it.

“He’s the newbie facilitator that was recruited?” The beautiful senior asked.

Her voice was soft and sounded lazy, like someone who had just woken up from bed, Luocheng couldn’t help but feel mesmerized by it.

“Yeah, his skills as a Support is outstanding.” Yang Ying nodded as he said, seemingly used to her mesmerizing voice.

“Everyone here knows that with the arrival of new students, facilitators will either be promoted to assistant manager or withdraw from the E-sports management. Of course it would be best to become an assistant manager, otherwise you will become a senior member. Considering the new recruits won’t know the rules of our club, it’s up to you senior members to lay down the rules and teach them well.” Yang Ying started.

Luocheng was not familiar with the E-sports club system and culture, he only knew that Yang Ying was the president of the club, and Xiao Jia and Zheng Jia were vice presidents.

The red-haired beauty and the dull guy were standing together with Xiao Jia and Zheng Jia, so he would assume that they were also vice presidents. Under the vice presidents would be the management members of the E-sports club, also known as facilitators.

A retired facilitator or a loyal member of the club would become senior members.

At today’s meeting, the president, vice presidents, facilitators, and senior members were all present. It looked like the most important meeting since the beginning of the term.

This was an excusable reason to skip class.

At the assembly, the principal had made an emphasis on this matter. In addition to academic improvement, all major entertainment competitive competitions must be grasped tightly.

The four major subjects were basketball, football, swimming, and E-sports. These were the key items to winning glory for the university.

Badminton, ping pong, track, and other sports in Shanghai University were not very satisfactory. These items didn’t even enter the top fifty, and the principal, knowing that the university’s team in these events were not very good, did not mention them at all.

E-sports was listed as a priority training item in the university this time, one of the reasons being that the E-sports club had achieved outstanding results in the last National University Competition. The other reason was that the country now recognized E-sports as an official competitive sport and would arrange for competitions for this industry.

The Universiade would include E-sports, using the National University League as the rankings and would have the same incentives as the other major items.

Meaning if they could achieve excellent results in the field of E-sports, then Shanghai University would definitely climb up at the Universiade meeting!

That was also the reason why the principal placed special emphasis on this industry.

On the academic side, it had slowed down and even reached a bottleneck. The only way to compete with other universities was via these sports competitions, improving their ranking. Only then would the university receive more funding from the state.

As Yang Ying explained these, Luocheng found himself getting more and more surprised.

During the time he had been playing DOTA, E-sports was described as just playing games. Parents, teachers, and everyone else looked at it with contempt and anger, even treating it like drugs. It was more of a forbidden thing that the children were not to touch.

Who knew that E-sports would eventually gain more recognition over the years and spring had come to universities with an open mind!

Could you ever imagine that a video game would become one of the most important sports to promote the ranking of universities?

This made Luocheng feel slightly elated.

“The secretary of our Student Union has said it before, if we can obtain top five in the next competition, the team members can directly obtain the title of an outstanding graduate. The first tier team members need to be fully engaged in training and academics can come later.” Yang Ying said.

“There aren’t many classes going on anyway so I’m okay with it.” The student wearing glasses sitting beside Luocheng said.

“I’m okay too, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get my diploma or degree certificate. Didn’t expect this good luck to happen. What about the competition prizes, are we keeping it for ourselves?”

“Yeah, in addition to that, there will be school awards. There are also companies like Mobile, China Unicom, Telecom, China Netcom, Mengniu, Yili and other companies that are waiting to talk about sponsorships with us. Some of these sponsorships will flow into the university but most of them will be used to fund our E-sports club.” Yang Ying explained further.

Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Netcom were the companies that dealt most frequently with universities, you could see their banners and logos all over the campus in the beginning of the term.

The best contribution to their brand marketing would of course be E-sports which had been appearing frequently on the internet.

The number of sponsors toward the university wouldn’t be low either, and Luocheng initially thought that E-sports in university would merely be casual playing. Listening to Yang Ying’s explanation, he realized that for Shanghai University who had managed to get into the top ten ranking, they were actually no less than a professional team who was somewhat famous in China!

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“We’ll talk about Ah Si first then, are you sure you want to take a postgraduate degree?” Yang Ying asked, looking at the handsome student sitting in front of Luocheng.

The boy nodded his head.

“When I was in Year 1 and Year 2, I could still play casually, but it won’t put food on the table. I’m already in Year 3 and I’ll be preparing for my postgraduate studies. I will be going abroad after that so I won’t be able to train with everyone.”

“I think everyone more or less knows about Ah Si’s situation, so now, our first tier team has an opening. We will be picking someone from the second or third-tier team to replace him. I was thinking about letting Jian Feng join.” Xiao Jia said.

The student named Jian Feng’s face brightened, his eyes sparkling. He had already been hungering for that position early on.

He didn’t have much interest in academics, instead, he saw a future in earning money through the sponsors who kept appearing in E-sports.

Everyone could clearly see that E-sports was very profitable. Jian Feng was already short on money, and he believed that with the fame of being in the first tier team, he would definitely have a windfall!

“I was actually thinking of Qin Ting due to his better compatibility with our first-tier team…” The dull vice president said.

Qin Ting was sitting on Luocheng’s left side, and although he didn’t seem as enthusiastic as Jian Feng, you could see that he was eager to join the team as well.

There was a clear difference in strength between the first and second-tier teams, even the treatment toward them was as clear as night and day. No one would pass off this opportunity!

“President, what do you think?” The red-haired senior asked awkwardly.

“Luocheng, no explanation needed.” Yang Ying said matter-of-factly.

Yang Ying had already intended for Luocheng to replace Ah Si from the beginning. He had also already informed the few vice presidents of his intention, but they were skeptical about allowing a freshman to take on such a big role.

When Yang Ying spoke Luocheng’s name, all thirty students in attendance turned their attention to him.

Letting a freshman serve as a first tier member?

Yang Ying’s mind must have encountered some problems after the summer vacation.

Didn’t this guy understand how much attention the university was paying to their E-sports club? If they couldn’t even maintain their position in the top ten, they would be better off disbanded!

“Let’s take a vote then?” Zheng Xia said lightly.

“Alright, let’s vote on it.”

“Vote.”

“Vote on what, how many times must I say it, Luocheng’s skills are very strong. He won’t have a problem in the first tier team, I’ve personally played against him before, are you saying that I don’t know his skills?” Yang Ying was getting peeved.

As the president, he had certain rights he could exercise, but these vice presidents had their own agenda and wouldn’t cooperate with him.

Vote?

Nonsense, the moment they consented to vote, they would definitely vote for someone who normally could hold their own that they all agreed among themselves on.

What they needed in the E-sports club now was strong candidates to join, otherwise, how would they be able to compete with other universities?

Yang Ying knew that Luocheng was the most suitable person to join them!

“Aiyah, President, don’t be angry.” The red-haired beauty said softly. “You say he is good, but we’ve never seen his skills…”

“A freshman and he’s played over the summer vacation, even if he is good, if you play badly in a big competition, who will take the responsibility?” Xiao Jia said.

“Well, Fudan University will be having a friendly match with us soon. How about we let Luocheng play one match and let everyone see his skills?” Zheng Xia suggested.

“Why not let Jian Feng play instead?”

“It’s not like we don’t know Jian Feng’s skills, since the president has said Luocheng is good, let him play and we can judge for ourselves.”

“Fine, I don’t have a problem with that.” The dull vice president said as he nodded.

“Little junior, you’d better perform well then.” The red-haired beauty gave Luocheng a wink, startling him from his seat. That was damn surprising!

“Alright.”

“Luocheng, do you have a problem with that?” Yang Ying asked, looking at him.

Luocheng did, in fact, have a problem with it.

“Actually, you guys didn’t even get my opinion on this…I didn’t say I wanted to join the first tier team.”

“What the f*ck!”

“Go die!”

“Throw him out!”

The entire meeting which had been in the state of a heavy atmosphere was broken by the swearing of the students. The red-haired beauty started giggling, unable to hold in her laughter.

“What a cute little junior.”