Rise

The Shanghai 16 School Tournament was the pathway to the professional League of Legends scene for the high schoolers of Shanghai.
This was the big stage where everyone wanted to play and perform at! But there were also many people, both young and old, who wanted to watch the games.
This was their chance to see the next generation of professional players! Some of them went to the venue, but there were far more who couldn’t make it.
There were, after all, only 700 seats.
So the Shanghai Esports Association had done the only logical thing.
They’d approached different live streaming platforms and signed broadcasting deals with them.
The Shanghai 16 School Tournament would be on the frontpage of every big streaming website for the Semifinals and Finals!

Chu Fang, who was the vice president of the Shanghai Esports Association, had put time, money, and effort into promoting the broadcast for the Shanghai 16 School Tournament.
He had prepared targeted ads and bought mentions on the streams of influencers.
All that hard work proved to be worth it.
When the stream went live on Huya TV, it opened with 5,000 viewers and that number kept climbing higher with every passing second.
Family, friends, and fellow students who couldn’t make it to the venue tuned in.
Diehard League of Legends fans took this high school tournament as an appetizer for the Season 5 Worlds Finals that was scheduled the next day.
Then there were the trolls who opened the stream just to make fun of the players.
They believed that high schoolers were too young to be any good at the game, so they were rubbing their hands together in anticipation, ready to start trolling and riling people up.

「LEL 5k peepz watching nubs play XD go watch lovelyrose, maybe you’ll GIT GUD」

「shit i was watching smutsentinal vids and got bored, so i hopped on huya.
Think this might even be worse.
At least i can get a laugh out of that cupnoodles guy.」

「Can’t believe there are so many idiots who want to see high schoolers play… Bunch of pedos if you ask me.」

「go watch lspl or lpl replays.
better waste of your time morons」

The first game between Shanghai High School and Tonji Affiliated started.
More and more people joined the stream, curious to see what so many others were watching.
It was a high school tournament.
Most scoffed and thought about clicking away.
But they quickly changed their minds when they saw how well the two teams were playing.
These weren’t kids fooling around.
These were full fledged players, displaying high level tactics and gameplay! In fact, it was almost indistinguishable from professional games in the LSPL, and maybe even the LPL!

「Are these guys really still in high school? They’re so good!」

「hoho woww, man, you’d almost feel bad for those tonji kids.
They’re getting dumpstered XDDDDDDD」

「OH SNAP! look at the shanghai high school support’s name! HE”S A CHALLENGER!!!!! I KNOW HIM!!! HE”S FRIGGIN GOOOODDDDDD」

「KEK UwU UwU CARRY ME DADDY」

Shanghai High School and Tonji Affiliated both showed impeccable individual and team play.
This quickly garnered respect from the viewers.
More people kept joining the stream, many of them sticking around to see how the series would end.
They found it hard to believe a group of high schoolers were this good.
But the evidence was right in front of them.
They watched until Shanghai High School won 3-0 over Tonji Affiliated High.
And then they kept watching as the second Semifinal series got underway.
High School 13 versus Shanghai International.

「I heard Shanghai International is about as good as Shanghai High School.
someone confirm?」

「yo i watched them last year! Pretty sure their ad-carry got scouted for an LSPL team!?」

「WOWA.
Forreals? That good????? We got more of this coming? SWWEEETTTTTT」

「pls let hs13 be better than tonji .