Chapter 1: Drunken Transmigration

It was Saturday, and every internet café near the university town was packed. After wandering around and checking several places, Luo Yuchen finally found one with an open seat tucked away in a small alley.

“Open a computer for me,” Luo Yuchen said, placing his ID card on the counter.

The front desk clerk was a girl with a ponytail. She stared at Luo Yuchen’s face for a while before nudging the facial-recognition machine beside her. “Please look over here.”

Luo Yuchen did as instructed.

“All set.” The girl handed back his ID card. “Pick any computer yourself. The password is your ID number.”

Taking his card, Luo Yuchen headed inside.

The café wasn’t large. The front area was the open hall, while the back had cubicles. The cubicles cost two yuan more per hour than the hall seats.

Since Luo Yuchen disliked having people right next to him, he chose a single cubicle by the window.

From the front came a barrage of curses:

“Go, go, go! Push, push, push! Support, use your ult, use your ult! Damn it!”

“Does the support even know how to play? Where’s your ultimate?”

“F***! A bunch of trash! Four versus one and we still got counter-killed. What the hell are you even playing?!”

Luo Yuchen had barely sat down when he heard the colorful language. Curious, he leaned forward and saw the guy was playing Sacred Alliance, in the ADC role. Checking his stats: “0-10-1.”

　　“So pitiful. No wonder that guy was raging,” Luo Yuchen thought as he powered up the computer.

He slipped on his headphones, leaned back in the cubicle’s sofa, and began to reflect on everything that had happened recently.

He had time-traveled — on the night of yet another crushing defeat in the S-series finals, after getting drunk.

As a professional e-sports player, he normally never drank. But that night, he simply couldn’t hold back.

Nine years in e-sports, from age eighteen to twenty-seven, he had led his team into the S-series finals three times. Yet not once had they claimed the championship.

He was retiring. There would be no more chances to chase that golden trophy. So that night, he drank heavily.

Coming back to his senses, Luo Yuchen thought: people always say drinking leads to trouble — looks like it’s true. Just one time drunk, and he ended up time-traveling. Worse yet, he had transmigrated into a novel.

It was the world of an esports story called The All-Round Captain. Inside was a character with the exact same name as him — and he had become that person.

Rumor had it The All-Round Captain was written by one of his anti-fans. Now, Luo Yuchen felt nothing but gratitude toward that author. At least they hadn’t saddled him with the role of some idiotic villain.

He now had the identity of a rich second-generation heir. Both his parents were famous entrepreneurs, and according to the novel’s setup, he was destined to inherit their business empire and become a domineering CEO.

Thinking of this, Luo Yuchen couldn’t help but recall the moment he first transmigrated.

Back then, everyone around him — including his parents — seemed like soulless machines, running only on preset scripts.

But as his involvement with this world deepened, those “machines” gradually came alive.

He could clearly feel them changing from flat “paper characters” into real people.

The world was becoming more and more authentic — and that was a good thing.

No matter what, after transmigrating into a book he had family, friends, and a young body again. In the end, he was lucky.

Finishing his thoughts, Luo Yuchen sat up straight and opened Sacred Alliance.

The novel’s main plotline wouldn’t begin for another ten years. For now, he was free to do whatever he wanted.

The familiar entrance music filled his ears, and Luo Yuchen’s eyes curved with a smile. This was another thing he appreciated about that anti-fan author: in this world, people played Sacred Alliance too, not some made-up game.

The game interface fully loaded. Luo Yuchen entered his account and password. Seeing that familiar screen, he let out a long breath of relief.

The game hadn’t changed — it looked just like the one in the real world… Wait! Luo Yuchen’s eyes locked on the version number at the top of the screen. Compared to reality, this version was five patches behind!

He opened the hero list and, sure enough, seven or eight champions were missing.

“Looks like I’ll have to relearn the game,” Luo Yuchen sighed. Being ahead of the curve didn’t always mean having an advantage — especially when the game had gone through major updates.

“Who bothers to memorize all the details of old patches anyway?” He shook his head.

After confirming the version, Luo Yuchen checked the account itself. It was one of those “rich kid” accounts he had bought — every hero unlocked, every skin available. The only downside was the rank: just Gold III.

He spent some tokens to change his ID to ‘Time Traveler,’ then began queuing for ranked matches

There were plenty of players stuck in Gold rank, so Luo Yuchen quickly found teammates and entered the champion selection screen.

This version didn’t have the modern pre-select system, so everyone had to type in chat to claim their roles. Just as Luo Yuchen was slowly typing, his teammates had already divided them up:

Father of Earth: “Second and third pick, locked.”

YYOU: “First pick jungle.”

Son of Dragon: “Fifth pick top.”

“Oh, nice!” Luo Yuchen deleted the half-written message. He was lucky — in his very first match he got the mid-lane position.

But after three bans, he realized this game was already going off the rails.

First pick chose Mordo, the Dark Mage, as jungle. Third pick locked in Raya, a melee assassin, as support.

As soon as those picks appeared, fifth pick started cursing, and second pick joined in, the two flaming each other in chat.

It seemed that low-rank games in Sacred Alliance were the same no matter what world you were in.

Adjusting his mindset, Luo Yuchen decided: since everyone was messing around, he couldn’t fall behind. He locked in Figo, a warrior, for mid-lane.

“Fourth pick, what’s that supposed to mean? Trying to steal a role?” Fifth pick turned his fire on him.

“No, I’m mid,” Luo Yuchen typed back.

“This is some @**#$ nonsense…” Fifth pick unleashed a string of curses, then added: “Fourth pick, just quit!”

So just because I hadn’t spoken up, they thought I was the easy target? Luo Yuchen raised his hand and typed a firm “No!” in the chat box, then muted the chat entirely.

Finally, the world was quiet. He flexed his wrist as the game moved into the loading screen.

Because everyone had been trolling, their team composition was bizarre: the jungler and support were both mages, the mid-laner was a warrior, and both the top-laner and marksman were short-ranged champions with no mobility.

The enemy lineup looked much more standard. Luo Yuchen glanced at the opposing mid-laner.

On the screen, a beautiful woman flickered in and out of the mist — Mist Master, Mo, a newly released mage-assassin.

The game was loading slowly; someone on the opposing team had lagged out. Luo Yuchen switched away from the screen to browse the latest game updates.

Meanwhile, at the TYG team base in Jin City, the team manager Xiao You came out of the bathroom. He walked to the computer desk and saw the game still hadn’t finished loading.

He adjusted the webcam, making sure his handsome face was fully in frame, then started chatting casually with the livestream audience.

“Brother Xiao You, the Spring Split is about to begin. Has TYG’s roster changed for the new season?”

“At present, there are no personnel changes. If there’s any news, the club’s official website will announce it.”

“Yu Hua had a car accident and injured his hand. Substitute Shao Bei was banned for fighting. Isn’t the mid-lane position left unfilled?”

Xiao You ignored that comment in the barrage.

“Xiao You, you can keep looking in-game. Maybe you’ll find another Cheng Ming.”

“And then sell him to a rival club for 100,000, let them crush TYG 3–0, hhhh…”

The chat was filled with laughter. Xiao You showed an awkward expression, coughed, and said, “The game has finished loading. Let’s get into it.”

“Talk with us! Figo mid, Raya support, and you even picked Mordo jungle — this match is doomed.”

“Mordo clears jungle quickly with a magic blade, and his passive makes his ability power scale higher the more kills he gets. Later I’ll go mid to share some farm; guaranteed late-game damage will explode.”

Xiao You bought a jungle blade and drifted toward the jungle.

“Ugh, I hate it when junglers steal lane farm.”

“No choice — someone has to carry. The enemy mid-laner is the new hero, Mo, and she’s insanely strong. Figo can’t handle her.”

“Figo can’t handle anyone. The designers must’ve been brain-dead to create such a trash-tier hero!”

“Xiao You, just take the mid-lane farm, there’s still a chance.”

“Chance my ass. Our top-lane hothead already went AFK.”

“…”

Xiao You noticed the situation in top lane too, and immediately felt this match was slipping away. Just as he absentmindedly soloed Blue Buff, a kill notification rang out from mid-lane.

“What the hell! What just happened?” Xiao You was stunned. “Figo solo-killed Mist Master?”

“Xiao You, stop spacing out. Switch the camera over — Blue Buff isn’t worth watching, you’ve been hitting it forever and still haven’t killed it.”

Xiao You moved to a safe spot to recall, and at the same time shifted the camera to mid-lane.

Luo Yuchen had no idea he was on stream, and even if he did, he wouldn’t care. After solo-killing Mo, his Figo still had half health left. He drank a red potion, and his HP gradually refilled.

He cleared the minion wave perfectly, not missing a single last hit, and leveled up to 4.

With three skills unlocked, Figo had entered his small power spike in the early game.

The enemy mid-laner clearly hadn’t realized the seriousness of the situation. After respawning and returning to lane, he controlled Mist Master to hop around while farming, showing no concern for the kill he had just given up.

Luo Yuchen seized the opportunity — Q-A-Q-A-W-A-Q-A — without even pressing his E skill, Mist Master fell again.

“What’s going on?” Xiao You, who was spectating, gaped. “Does Figo really deal that much damage?”

“No way! When I play Figo, I dump all my skills and still can’t kill anyone — let alone without an ultimate.”

“Is he cheating?”

“Probably.”

Not only did the viewers in Xiao You’s livestream suspect him, even Luo Yuchen’s teammates thought he was cheating.

Battle Axe (Son of Dragon): “Fourth pick’s a script-running cheater.”

Ranger (Father of Earth): “Fourth pick is cheating?”

Not only were his own teammates asking questions, but even the enemy team was cursing — though all the swear words showed up as special characters.

Luo Yuchen opened voice chat: “I’m not hacking. Figo hard‑counters Mo.”

Mordo (YYOU): “You’re joking, right?”

YYOU didn’t understand, which Luo Yuchen thought was normal. Even in the real competitive scene, Mo had dominated most of Season 5 until Figo was finally introduced to restrain her.

“Figo is actually very strong.” Maybe it was a novel bug, or maybe the author was a hater who never played him, but in this fictional world Figo’s potential was almost completely ignored — buried like dust.

“Figo’s passive is Lone Warrior. It can detect invisibility.” Luo Yuchen explained, “Mist Master’s W skill pulls mist from the jungle to hide herself. But when she approaches Figo, his greatsword trembles three times.”

“Who would ever notice such a tiny detail?” Xiao You was shocked. He decided he’d test it himself after this match.

“Besides Mist Master, Figo can reveal other invisible heroes too — like Tiny Bot, or Ugly Duke…”

The voice of Figo’s player was very pleasant to listen to. Soon Xiao You’s livestream chat was flooded with fans swooning over his voice, and it took a while before new comments appeared.

"This still doesn’t explain why Figo’s damage is off the charts!"

Xiao You copied and pasted that comment.