Chapter 3 — Middle Road Rules

The first thirty seconds of the game passed in strange silence.

In MOBA games, the Laning phase requires players to destroy Minions to earn gold and experience. Any player knows the basic rule: farming minions is the number one priority.

But when the first wave of soldiers poured out into the middle of the map and rushed to kill each other, Hải Đăng - who was controlling Assassin Zeta - was surprised to realize that his opponent did not appear.

General Goliath of Bảo Châu did not stand to eat soldiers, nor did she hide in the tower. On the mini-map, there was absolutely no signal from her.

"What the hell is she doing?" Đăng frowned and muttered.

With the experience of a former player, Đăng immediately calculated the cases. She went to rob the forest talisman? Impossible, a level 1 Tanker general fighting a jungle monster will only commit suicide. Was she hiding in the bushes waiting for an ambush? Catching a highly mobile Assassin champion with a level 1 slow Tanker champion was a myth.

Đăng quickly took out the first wave of minions with Zeta's skill set, gently leveling up to level 2. He pushed the tall minions close to the enemy tower. He still did not see Châu coming out to defend.

At the same time, Bảo Châu was sweating all over her palms. It's not that she had any superior strategies, it's that she's... lost.

Because she was so shaken, she mistakenly pressed the movement key, causing the Goliath to run straight into the deep forest, get entangled in some virtual rocks on the map, and spin around in the bushes without finding its way to the middle lane.

"Miss Châu, the soldiers are entering the headquarters! Come clear out!" The boy sitting outside watching screamed impatiently.

"I know, I know, I'm coming!" Châu frantically clicked the mouse. Goliath slowly walked out from the bushes right next to the mid lane tower, with only half of his health remaining because he accidentally passed by the jungle monster camp and was punched a few times by them.

Đăng saw the prey appear. A level 1 Tank champion, unequipped, with only 50% health remaining, dared to leisurely walk out into the middle of the road clearing minions in front of a level 2 Assassin with full damage.

An insult to Shadow's skills.

"It's over," Đăng muttered. His fingers danced on the keyboard. Zeta's combo key combination is activated perfectly: Release a shadow to approach, unleash a stun skill, ending with an enhanced normal attack.

But at that exact moment Đăng rushed forward...

*Clack.*

A dry sound rang out from the ridiculously ancient MITSUMI computer mouse that the school equipped in the computer room. Đăng's left mouse button suddenly got stuck due to not being cleaned for a long time, plus the spring inside had aged. It automatically activates double-click.

Instead of launching an enhanced normal attack at Châu, the disastrous double-click command canceled the action, causing Zeta to pause for an ungainly moment right at the edge of the defensive tower's range on Bảo Châu's side.

At the same time, Bảo Châu was so panicked when she saw Đăng rushing in like a god of death, she closed her eyes and blindly slammed both hands on the keyboard. "Ah ah ah ah ah!"

She randomly pressed the D key (Flash skill) and the only skill key she had just learned at level 1 of Goliath: "Splash".

A series of "blind" operations with unconditional survival reflexes occurs.

Châu's General Goliath suddenly blinked, flashed straight forward, hitting Đăng's Zeta who was stuck in a mouse trap. Immediately, the "Huc Vang" skill activated, sending Zeta flying straight into the depths of the Pearl's Guardian Tower's range.

Everything happens in less than a second.

Đăng's professional brain was completely overloaded by this "not following any human logic" processing. Why did a player flash... straight into the face of an Assassin with higher damage than him instead of running away?

*BANG! BANG!*

The Châu faction's guard tower, realizing that an enemy had entered and caused damage to an allied champion, immediately changed its target, firing two bright red lasers, hitting Zeta who was as fragile as a piece of paper.

Đăng was startled and tried to press the Flash key to get out of Tru's range. But...

The word PING in the top right corner of Đăng's screen suddenly jumped from a smooth blue 15ms to a bright red 999ms. The school's Wi-Fi network - known for its stability that rivals the moods of teenage girls - decided to go on strike at the exact moment of life and death.

Zeta stood frozen in place, twitching as if having an epileptic seizure, unable to move. The Pillar's third laser descended.

Hải Đăng's screen darkened and turned gray.

The system sound was loud, cold, and extremely psychologically damaging:

**"FIRST BLOOD!"**

The entire engine room was in silence. Scary silence. The only sound left was the whirring sound of the ventilation fan.

The two boys standing behind watching were petrified, their mouths open so wide they could fit an egg.

Bảo Châu opened one eye. On her screen, the terrifying Assassin of Hải Đăng was lying on the ground, next to her bull Goliath was waddling away as if there had never been a separation.

"I... I won?" Châu blinked, looking with disbelief at the message announcing that she had just claimed her first kill.

She turned sharply to look at Đăng.

Hải Đăng sat stiffly in his chair. His usually cold eyes opened as wide as possible, glaring at the "Defeat" screen. He looked at the mouse with a stuck button, at the Wi-Fi signal column flashing red, then at the clueless girl who had just defeated him with a "blind key scratch" combo.

The man who once stood at the pinnacle of the professional tournament, the man known as the Magic Hand, was just killed solo (1vs1) by a girl who used a level 1 Tanker, had no equipment, and pressed the wrong button.

A feeling of humiliation, resentment, and... extreme amusement welled up in Đăng's heart.

He took off his mask and threw it hard on the table. He tilted his head up to the ceiling, laughing out loud. Not a forced smile, but a loud, refreshing laugh, something that had not appeared on Hải Đăng's face for a long time since the day he left the E-sports world.

"Teacher is right," Đăng smiled and stroked his face. "A master is not as good as fighting, but fighting is not as good as... someone who doesn't know how to play."

Bảo Châu jumped up and cheered loudly. "I won! I won! You promised!"

She pulled out the prepared Club Membership Application form from her bag, slammed it on the table in front of Đăng, and brought a ballpoint pen.

"Sign, my Mid lane friend!" Châu lifted her chin proudly.

Đăng looked at the application and sighed deeply. He lost in the most ridiculous way in history, but he had to accept the loss. Furthermore, looking at this little girl's bright, hopeful smile, his boredom with E-sports seemed to have been shaken by some small ray of light.

Đăng picked up a pen and scribbled a signature on the bottom corner of the paper.

"Welcome to HD E-sports, Hải Đăng," Châu carefully put the application in his briefcase like a treasure. "From tomorrow, you are officially mine."

Đăng frowned at the class representative's misleading use of words, but was too lazy to correct her. He stood up, took off his coat and hung it on his shoulders.

"Tomorrow, six o'clock in the evening here," Đăng ordered, his tone suddenly carrying the authority of a former professional captain. He glanced at the other two members who were standing with their mouths open. "Tell all the other members to be present. If I have to carry this circus to compete, you guys better prepare yourself for some hellish training."

Having said that, Đăng turned around and walked out the door, leaving behind three bewildered and extremely excited people.

News of the "blind key-scratching" that defeated the prodigy Shadow spread throughout the school chat groups that afternoon, although no one knew exactly who Shadow was — for most students, it was just a nickname heard in the gaming community. For the two members who witnessed it with their own eyes, it was an unbelievable moment: the cold, domineering captain whom they had just stood trembling to listen to instructions, turned out to be defeated by a mouse with a stuck key and a female manager who had never won a game.

Đăng spent the whole evening sitting in the computer room, not to practice, but to disassemble the MITSUMI mouse that harmed him, carefully cleaning each microchip inside with alcohol and cotton swabs. This was the first time in eight months that he cared for a gaming device with the same meticulousness as he did when he was at Gaming House. Bảo Châu sat next to him, curiously observing, occasionally giving him a tool whose name she didn't even know.

"Do you hate losing so much?" Châu asked, breaking the silence.

"I don't hate losing," Đăng replied, his eyes still glued to the unfinished mouse. "I hate losing for such a stupid reason like this. If you lose, you must lose because your skills are inferior to your opponent, not because of cheap equipment."

That statement, although blunt, is the clearest explanation for the entire coaching philosophy that Đăng is about to impose on the team in the coming weeks: there is no room for blame, only room for preparation. Châu quietly wrote down that sentence in her notebook, under the brand new headline: "Things the Captain said that I must not forget."

The campaign to rescue the bottom club had officially begun.