Chapter 1: I, Black Iron Bro, Am Going Pro!

On the official stage of the LPL Summer Split, at the Xi'an Qujiang sub-venue, the audience seats below were empty because of special circumstances, but on the major livestream platforms, many viewers still opened the broadcast right on time, watching the screen with a mix of unease and anticipation.

This match was between IG and WE, a decisive battle that would determine whether either team had any chance of squeezing into the playoffs and earning a ticket to the World Championship.

On one side was the veteran WE, once one of the founding forces of the LPL and a team that had made a tremendous contribution to the league’s growth. Yet as the seasons turned and the patches changed, they had settled into the middle of the seventeen-team pack, occasionally producing flashes of brilliance that lifted them into the upper ranks.

But that was all. After several rebuilds, WE’s roster strength on paper could scarcely allow them to soar on the world stage.

On the other side was IG, another old powerhouse and the first team to claim a championship for the LPL region. After a massive roster overhaul in the S5 era, IG had lightened its load, bided its time, and finally fought through blood and steel to win the title in S8.

With IG having looked so depressed throughout the entire summer split, many people hoped that when he came on, he would at least make some difference.

Let alone help them seize a Worlds berth.

Surely no one really expected him to come in and turn things around, did they?

“Uh... it looks like IG’s newly subbed-in support has run into a small issue. Did he go straight to lane without buying his support item?”

After a moment, the caster finally forced the words out.

As his memories and those of the person in this world merged, Cheng Xian discovered that the version of himself in this world was actually an old support who had spent eight years playing for IG.

Compared with the torrent of abuse flooding the chat, Cheng Xian, sitting in the support seat, looked utterly dazed.

At a time like this, returning to base to buy items would inevitably cost him lane experience, causing him to fall behind in levels and snowballing into a chain of disadvantages.

The chat kept spamming support for both teams, and the atmosphere grew tense.

Then, all at once, that tension came to an abrupt halt.

He had even hinted tactfully to IG’s coach, Nofe, that his form had been slipping lately.

“The new viewers are still cursing, but the old viewers are already thanking heaven. The fact that Cheng Xian hasn’t stolen the jungler’s buff is already a blessing. Before this, he...”

The other players were even less able to carry the game.

“Oh? How bad has he slipped?”

For Cheng Xian, in the early years he had been a notorious anti-pressure scapegoat in the LPL, playing support for IG.

He gave a sharp, derisive snort.

“Didn’t his teammates notice this problem? Tell him quickly... damn it, the minions are already out. If he goes back now, he’ll lose experience.” Rita had been hoping the new substitute would realize this, but a glance at the minimap showed both waves had already met.

But now, no matter how one looked at it, this was a two-to-zero situation.

For the long-silent WE, this best-of-three meant just as much.

I, Black Iron Bro, match ID: IG-Shaqima, officially connected.

Even the casters’ voices had grown somewhat heavy.

“Good thing I didn’t have dinner tonight. Trying to kill your father with food?”

But if this thousand-game black-iron scrub actually got put on stage...

His plays had flashes of brilliance and stretches of utter collapse, but the brilliant moments were rare. When he collapsed, he dragged the whole team into his death spiral, and as a result the other four IG players had all become spotless, untouchable in the eyes of the viewers.

Nofe did not believe Cheng Xian’s excuse at all; he only thought Cheng Xian was being sarcastic about spending years on the bench.

Cheng Xian: “...”

He had entered this crucial match as the only truly black-iron-ranked player in the entire League of Legends competitive scene.

From the beginning, he had been a small-time black-iron player at the very bottom of the ladder. He couldn’t win on any role, and in the end could only make a living by playing support, with wins and losses determined entirely by his teammates.

His Bronze? Silver? He had only lied upward by a small step for the sake of pride.

The chat had a slight lull, and the two casters, Jide and Rita, also froze for a moment, staring in disbelief at the giant screen.

Though he could not make sense of the finer details, he could still enjoy which side was winning a numbers advantage, which side pulled off an absurd triple kill, and which side completed an extreme comeback.

Yet over the past two years, IG’s performance had grown worse with each passing season, until by S11 they had fallen into an ice age.

If there was a problem, all they needed to do was blame Cheng Xian.

As the saying went: there are countless posts in the anti-fans’ forum, and half of them are aimed at Cheng Xian.

Especially at such a critical point, when a single mistake could decide the match, the keyboard warriors were already fully armed and ready.

“Good lord, I came here waiting for IG to get ahead to three items, and this damned support walks on stage and gives me a kitchen set—scallion, ginger, and garlic?”

“So this is what a pro player looks like? Put me in and I could do it too, okay?”

And then he closed and opened his eyes again in a blink.

He had indeed just said, “Put me in and I could do it too.”

“???”

“Play properly. If you do well, it’s not impossible to put you straight into the starting lineup.”

Cheng Xian still had some idea of his own strength.

Once-glorious top laner TheShy kept making mistakes, and Rookie, known as the team’s pillar, could not hold onto his style in the final year of his career either, frequently committing errors.

Yet now he was sitting directly in IG’s support chair, and it was one of IG’s most important matches.

“Damn it, they’re really letting me play...” he muttered blankly.

He had crossed into the world on the eve of the S11 World Championship qualifiers.

“What, you think this is some kind of extreme challenge?”

The match began, both sides entering the ban-pick phase.

Then, hardening his heart, Cheng Xian sat down in IG’s support seat.

Even reaching the playoffs now hung above them like the Sword of Damocles, precarious and ready to fall.

The ban-pick phase continued in full swing, while the casters Jide and Rita analyzed both teams’ choices.

...

They snorted in disdain.

It would decide whether IG could barely squeeze into the playoffs or not.

“At this point, he can only grit his teeth and go in first. Find a proper chance later to go back and restock on items. Everyone should ease up on Shaqima a bit. After all, he hasn’t played in years, and now that he’s suddenly thrown into IG’s life-or-death match, maybe he got too nervous and made a mistake.” Jide hurriedly tried to smooth things over.

He should really think it over later—had he somehow seized onto some vital weak spot of Wang Xiaocong, which was why he had played so badly and still not been fired?

Before crossing over, his rank had only been Black Iron IV, but for the sake of face, he had still shamelessly claimed one tier higher.

The casters could not say much more, but the viewers watching from the livestream would certainly not hold back.

Very soon, the bans and picks were over, and the match entered the game.

He had then been frozen on IG’s bench as a support substitute for years, and nobody had expected that at this critical moment, they would put him back on stage.

He had not struggled before the match, either.

But his play had been utterly atrocious, the textbook case of more injuries than medals and a medical record thicker than a diploma. Thus he had endured pressure for eight years, taking abuse for eight straight years.

Just today, after watching the S11 group stage and seeing one LPL team suffer four consecutive defeats with performance so pitiful it was hard to watch, even Cheng Xian, a Black Iron player, could not bear it anymore.

“Uh... that, um, this... Black... Black Iron, I guess... Black Iron Three.”

Cheng Xian still inflated the report a little.

At that moment, Cheng Xian stared at the game interface, familiar to him beyond all doubt, yet his hands and feet were stiff as iron.

“Don’t panic. Even if IG loses this one, it doesn’t matter much. IG loses a slot; Cheng Xian loses a mother. No loss.”

But to his surprise, the moment the game began, it was already full of antics.

Though he was bad, he did love watching matches.

Still... setting all those problems aside for the moment.

And the side with zero was absolutely the IG team with him on it...

This match now was their final chance this year.

Although Cheng Xian usually joined the keyboard warriors in mocking pro players who underperformed in matches and lecturing the world from above.

[The author himself is Diamond on the main server, so game understanding is not a problem. Writing the protagonist as Black Iron is purely for plot needs. This kind of feel-good fiction is meant to be satisfying first, so there will be some exaggerated scenes. In theory they can all happen, though the probability in real life is very low, and even less realistic in an actual match. But since this is a system novel, please be understanding. We all have to eat. The pacing will be fast, sharp, and ruthless. I’ll try to balance things a bit for readers who have not read League of Legends fiction before, writing it somewhat more clearly without being too verbose, so that readers who have read plenty of LoL fiction won’t feel like they’re wading through an old lady’s foot-binding cloth. Love you all~]

[I have a completed six-hundred-thousand-word previous book, a premium title blending wilderness survival and technological development. If you’re interested, feel free to check it out.]

[This book is guaranteed five updates a day, with seven to eight depending on the situation. I’m aiming to hit the shelving milestone by the end of the month, so everyone please keep following. At this pace, there may not be much in the way of recommendations before it goes live, since the platform changes recommendations only once a week. So please vote a lot and keep following. If you’re satisfied with the update speed and pacing, please help spread the word as well. Booklists are welcome too~ (My last book had over four thousand average subscriptions and only one booklist, I was really...)]

[All right, enough talk. Charge!!!]

The end of the chapter.