With just three hours of slacking time, all spent in a single morning, the task was successfully completed.
After that, Lin Fan greeted everyone and left the training room ahead of schedule.
He then took out the Shiny Beef Noodles from the system space. Since he hadn't eaten lunch yet, this bowl of noodles would serve as his meal.
And honestly, system-produced items really were premium goods.
No wonder it was called Shiny Beef Noodles—ordinary beef noodles couldn't even compare.
Gaining ten points of Endurance after eating it… that really did live up to the word "enduring."
At the same time, no one knew who it was, but screenshots of Lin Fan's livestream from that morning were posted all over and uploaded to Anti-Pressure Bar.
A single post triggered a wave of heated discussion across the internet.
[Ying Zheng can beat Heimerdinger? Never joins team training, daily rank slacker? How should we evaluate TES mid laner dine?]
Many people also learned something from that post.
At the current stage, whether on the Korean server or the Chinese server, the rampant Heimerdinger support meta had been started by Lin Fan.
It began with him supporting Uzi's Kai'Sa for one game, with unexpectedly great results. Then, the Blitzcrank who got completely smashed in that match started spamming Heimerdinger support…
After that, professional players began learning it as well, and eventually it turned into what it is now.
If you put it that way, the bot lane environment was ruined by this guy.
Every game you have to ban Heimerdinger support! Damn it!
And no one has figured out a proper counter yet, but this guy comes out and casually says "Ying Zheng can beat him." That was just begging to draw aggro.
Damn you, dine—come out here and take a beating!
Some content creators also sharply noticed something else.
Although everyone was flaming dine for never training, his on-stage performance was undeniably absurd.
One game he nearly went godlike, another he actually did go godlike while dealing thirty-eight percent of the team's total damage.
Given TES's situation at the time, calling him a savior was not an exaggeration at all.
Whether on Tieba or Weibo, you could see his ID everywhere, or news related to him. His popularity completely exploded. If you didn't ride that wave and farm some coins, it'd almost feel like a waste.
—
As a result, many creators dug up footage from yesterday's TES vs TT match and began watching it frame by frame, preparing to slowly analyze the details of his gameplay.
In less than a single day, Bilibili was already flooded with videos related to Lin Fan.
And the titles were getting more and more outrageous.
"Another Syndra one-trick god—his understanding even surpasses Rookie!"
"Low IQ? No, it's beyond your comprehension! A powerful breakdown of dine's terrifying awareness and solo kills."
"The savior of TES—frame-by-frame analysis of dine's god-tier plays. He completely read Ucal."
…
While others were farming popularity and traffic, Lin Fan himself was struggling desperately inside Naraka: Bladepoint.
He'd only heard others talk about this game before and had never played it. In the afternoon, he didn't feel like playing other games, and he'd just watched a Naraka: Bladepoint tournament on Douyu. Watching teams fly around together, fighting over map resources—it actually looked pretty fun, so he bought it.
But once he actually jumped in… it was pure slaughter.
"That Fire Man popped his ultimate and one combo'd me to death? I couldn't even land? Is he that insane?"
"No, why is my Fire Man so trash? I ult and just go sightseeing…"
"Tch—"
"It's over."
"This game is way too unfriendly to beginners. Why am I matching against nothing but pros?"
Completely numb.
If playing PUBG at least lets you feel good being a rat, then playing Naraka: Bladepoint is a matchmaking simulator—matching from start to finish.
Practice blades!
If you can't win, then you have to practice blades!
First, go to Bilibili and find a few tutorial videos. Watch how they chain Rising Dragon combos. Then he'd let these guys experience what "Infinite Moonlight Combo" really meant.
Inside the training room… Lin Fan's keyboard was clacking loudly.
Clack-clack-clack—pure operations!
The people in the training room were already used to it. When he was in a good mood, he might play one or two games of League of Legends to warm up… so playing any other game in the training room was totally normal.
Knight still couldn't help but glance over.
You don't train at all—what are you using to compete with me? My current form is maxed out…
But right at that moment, the phone on the desk vibrated. Knight picked it up and glanced at it. The smug smile on his face instantly disappeared, replaced by an ugly expression.
How is that possible? It worked in one try?
His mind was in chaos. His hand on the mouse couldn't even hold steady anymore.
He hurriedly grabbed his phone and started tapping nonstop.
"Mission accomplished! After practicing blades all afternoon, I'm invincible now. Time to find a couple of noobs to test my skills."
So he casually entered a blade-practice room, ready to show off…
Only to find that none of the things he'd learned from videos could be used at all. Once someone stuck to him, he'd only know how to panic-parry. Instant steps to dodge skills and counterattacks? Completely forgotten.
For combos, he only knew how to keep right-clicking, forgetting that three basic attacks would trigger blue armor.
The weapon in his hands was directly knocked away by the opponent.
Holy crap!
What is this—why is the opponent so cracked?
No way, you can't just enter blade-practice rooms randomly. There's zero game experience.
He'd have to go find some little haters in his livestream. There were definitely plenty of black fans there—surely their Naraka skill level wouldn't be very high.
He immediately set a title and started a livestream: Solo duels—if you're not convinced, log in and challenge me.
"Just because you're too beautiful~"
Let's see how many little haters are in the stream…
"I've hated this guy for a while now. I thought it'd be League solo, didn't expect Naraka: Bladepoint. As a Unrivaled Asura, I guess I should teach him a lesson."
"Damn, I just logged in—how is the room already full? One by one, like animals."
"Missed a chance to educate a pro player."
"Honestly, someone who can't even beat black fans at Gomoku—how good could he be at Naraka?"
"These two things don't really relate, but I just want to say dine is hilarious."
"Hahahaha, I'm dying—so he really is a noob. Parry! Parry!"
"Greatsword him! Take the greatsword! Jump slash! Jump slash!"
Through friendly interactions with his viewers, Lin Fan finally confirmed one thing—those three to four hours of blade practice were basically practicing air. At best, his key presses were more familiar. In the end, he was still trash.
He exited the practice room, reopened training mode, and started interacting with bots again.
At his current level, he wasn't worthy of playing against real people.
This practice session lasted another two hours…
"Damn, if Rise of Kingdoms Bro used the time he spent practicing blades on actual training, he'd probably already have won a World Championship by now, right?"
"You're thinking too much. But at least he'd be stable as a starter."
"It's just because he ate dumplings during New Year—does he really think he's strong?"
"Wait until the match the day after tomorrow. We'll see then…"
In reality, all of Lin Fan's haters were waiting for that day.
As long as he went on stage and lost, even better—they'd flame him straight into retirement. Weak skills and no training, what right does he have to act cocky?
Even if he won, as long as his performance was bad, they'd still chase him down and flame him!
…
And amid everyone's anticipation, February 19th—Week Four, Day Six of the matches—finally arrived!
The schedule was extremely packed.
3:00 PM – OMG vs WE.
5:00 PM – BLG vs AL.
And at 7:00 PM, the highlight match of the day: TES vs JDG.
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup