“Hey,” Yuel called out. “Could you move to the ter?”

  “Huh?” John cocked his head.

  “I’ll pass you the ball,” Yuel expined. “Then, you pass it to Robert.”

  “Wut?” John raised an eyebrow. The heck was Yuel talking about? He didn’t even have the ball right now.

  Oher side of the court, far away from both of them, Alex was in the middle of dribbling through the enemy defenders. That’ll likely turn into a goal, aher John nor Yuel will py any role in it.

  “It’ll work.” Yuel insisted, stig to his alien reasoning. The kid was a weirdht.

  “Well, okay.” John shrugged. It’s not like he had anythier to do anyway, so he might as well head toward the ter. Alex gonna score soon anyway... or not?

  The enemy defenders surrounded Alex on all sides. Breaking through with a dribble was no longer an option, even with his skill. The only option was to pass the ball to somebody else, but even that was difficult. The enemy defenders were prepared to intercept any pass.

  “Over here.” Yuel raised his hand. He was in an unguarded area, which erfect for receiving a safe pass from Alex. With enemies about to steal the ball, Alex had no choice but to pass to Yuel.

  Perfect. Yuel got the ball and passed it toward the ter, toward John. At least, that was the iion...

  “Huh, the ball’s really here.” John o himself. Did Yuel predict this? Nah, probably just a lucky guess. Either way, acc to the “pn”, Yuel was going to pass the ball to Joh.

  “Wait, what!?” John excimed. The ball did sorta roll in his general dire. As in, a VERY GENERAL dire. It actually rolled ast the ter, toward the enemy side of the court! “Move to the ter” he said, “I’ll pass you the ball” he said. John cursed internally as he chased the ball.

  “Huh.” Yuel knotted his brows as the ball roll in an awkward direissing its target. Well, to deceive the enemy, you first have to deceive your allies, right? So, it’s all part of the pn! Yeah...

  Thankfully, John reached the ball before it was snatched by the enemy. Phew, that was close. The whole pn nearly went dowoilet.

  Okay, what’s ? John looked around after seg the ball. Yuel said something about passing the ball after getting it. Pass it to who, again? ht. To Robert.

  For some reason, Robert was pletely unmarked, even though he stood so close the enemy goal. Well, John didn’t pin. It was an easy and safe pass, so he kicked the ball toward Robert.

  The ball effortlessly cut through the enemy defenses and reached Robert. A moment ter, it was ihe enemy goal. They scored!

  Yes! Yuel pumped a fist. He barely touched the ball in this whole py and he wasn’t even the one who passed to the kicker. heless, it felt amazing. The pn he weaved was executed to perfeinus his lousy pass.

  Back then, when all enemy defenders were leaving their posts to surround Alex, Yuel spotted the fatal opening in the enemy’s formation. He deduced that, once all defenders gather around Alex, they’ll leave the other side of the court pletely open. That’d leave Robert unmarked and i position to score.

  So, if Yuel could quickly get the ball to Robert, it was assured to be an easy goal. For that, he found a safe position for receiving a pass from Alex. In addition, he arranged a middleman in the ter for passing the ball Robert.

  With that, the chess pieces were set in pce. Before the enemy defenders even got to surround Alex, Yuel already visualied this sequence of pys in his head. He perfectly calcuted that goal.

  “Great pass!” Rrinned and raised his hand for a high five. But, it wasn’t meant for Yuel.

  “No problem.” John high-fived Robert aurned a smile.

  “Man, that was close,” Alex shook his head as he approached Yuel. “You almost lost that ball. What’s with that shitty pass?”

  “Ah, that’s-”

  “Hey, guys!” Alex grabbed everybody’s attention. “Yuel ’t hahe ball for shit, so don’t pass to him unless you’re in deep shit. And even then, I rather not pass to him, haha!”

  “W-Wait, I-” Yuel’s words drowned in the wave of replies.

  “Yeah, Yuel sucks.”

  “I think he’s pying for the other team, haha.”

  Yuel ched his fists, but didn’t utter a word. He wao tell them about the amazing pn he crafted, about how he found a weaknesses in the enemy’s formation and exploited it to let Robert score an easy goal. But, nobody was going to listen.

  It’s nothihey were all kids, it was just grade school soccer. There’s nobody here to appreciate Yuel’s sophisticated tactics. The other kids simply couldn’t prehend the firategies of soccer.

  They only saell somebody sprinted, dribbled, passed or kicked. Alex was sidered the “ace”, because he peed through enemy defenses with his masterful dribbling and fired bzing shots. He was on a junior soccer team, so he stomped everybody at school through sheer strength. All the boys looked up to him.

  As for Yuel? He had the fitness of a slug, dribbled like a three-legged frog, passed like a drunk and his shots were as strong as a todder’s. Indeed, he was a kid of many talents.

  Because of that, his achievements in sports always went unnoticed, overshadowed by his poor performan court. He uood soccer strategies better than anybody, but it meant nothing to the other kids. He was just dead weight, a “yer”.

  Whehe kids decided on teams for a match, Yuel was alicked st. Nobody really wanted him oeam.

  At first, he had the freedom to py anywhere on the field. However, over time, everybody learned how bad he was and “demoted” him to py as a defender oalkeeper. For them, soccer was about chasing the ball and sg goals, so the passive bae positions were b. Nobody openly stated so, but these positions were effectively reserved for the “useless pyers”.

  Yuel didn’t share the same view, because calcuted defense created ces for ters and those led to goals. But, that’s only in coordieams, way above the level kids pyed at grade school. Nobody bothered cooperating with Yuel in the bae, so he was pletely useless most of the time. And, even when he achieved something, the credit usually went to somebody else anyway.

  The same thied in every other team sport he tried. In basketball, he was too weak to stop aggressive pyers, his throws barely reached the basket and a single sprint exhausted him to death. In volleyball, his arms were nearly torn apart whenever he did a receive and his knees stantly threateo buckle over after a jump.

  No matter what team sport he tried, he was always a yer. A useless pyer. Dead weight.

  Still, Yuel wao put his skills to practice, to pete against others and win. Sinone of the sport clubs worked, he turo chess. There, his talent was quickly reized.

  Chess had no execution bar, so any idea he came up with could be immediately executed. There’s o sprint, dribble or ki order to move a chess pie the board.

  Also, chess was a 1v1 game, so anything Yuel achieved was directly associated with him. There was nobody in the middle to take credit for the tactics he devised.

  “Wow, did you see that move?”

  “Man, Yuel is legit genius.”

  Praise like that became onpce. Yuel destructed his oppos’ strategies, predicted their moves and struck at their weakest spots. With enough experience, he learned how to stomp most oppos his age. He even won the regionals oopping every other kid from the region. He couldn’t quite wiional championship, but he finished as a runner-up.

  Dominating in chess felt emp and fulfilling, but only at first. Cssmates called him “genius”, which was a wele ge from being called “useless” all the time. However, eventually, he soon grew desensitized to such praise

  With that sense of fulfilment gone, Yuel started questioning why he even pyed chess so much. Everybody sidered chess a game for “intellectuals”, trary to soccer which was a game for “hyperactive brats”. But, Yuel disagreed.

  Chess was indeed a deep and plex game, allowing for tless possible developments and iing situations to analyze. It required reading the oppo’s pns, predig their future moves and finding the optimal moves in every situation. There was a lot of fun to be had with it, for sure.

  But ultimately, it was a 1v1 game. It had many pieces on the board, but they were all trolled by a sirategist. In other words, Yuel had only one eo analyze during a match. Either Yuel was stronger, or his oppo was strohat’s what most matches boiled down to at his level..

  pared to that, strategy in soccer was much more dynamic. Eadividual pyer had his own strengths, weaknesses, quirks and thoughts. Predig the movements of so many different pyers was way more ied than destrug a single oppo.

  Therefore, despite his success in chess, Yuel felt unsatisfied. In team sports he was a useless pyer, whereas in chess he didn't get to destru eeam of pyers. Wasn’t there anything else? Wasn’t there any team sport which was both challenging and accessible for somebody like him?

  During his st year of elementary school, an ued possibility preseself. Special lessons were scheduled for his css, teag about a new “sport” which had been on the rise: Cssmancers. It was a MOBA (Multipyer Otle Arena) video game, which had been turning into an official team sport in many tries retly.

  “Uher MOBA games out there,” The teacher expined. “Cssmancers is reized as a sport even in schools. No matter which middle school yoing to atte year, it’ll surely have a dedicated Cssmaeam which represents it in tours.”

  A video game as a sport? Really? Yuel had his doubts, but it piqued his i.

  The popur video games among his cssmates were mostly braindead as far as he was ed, so he didn’t hold video games in high regard. But, the idea of a video game team sport ark of hope. Even though a video games required a certain degree of meical skill, they weren’t nearly as physically demanding as real sports. A team sport without a fitness barrier was exactly what Yuel yearned for!

  “Before a match begins, each pyer selects which css they want to py as,” The teacher expined. “There are csses like Warrior, Archer and Wizard. Those of you who like role-pying games will feel right at home. It’s very important to pick the right bination of csses to form a strong team, but we’ll cover that topic ter. For today, piy of reended beginner csses”

  Following the teacher’s instrus, the students split into trios. Yuel formed a team with John and Jim. He wasn’t particurly close to either of them, but John retty reasonable fellow and Jim... well, he was John’s friend.

  For their first taste of the game, each team was told to py against puter-trolled enemies on the lowest difficulty. Yuel wao py against others right away, but he uood the importanastering the basics.

  Do we really o start from “Easy”, though? Yuel made a face. To his knowledge, the “Easy” difficulty in video games was usually meant for inpetent pyers. It’s like an insult. His team could surely do better than that, right?

  Yuel g his teammates and the teacher. Nobody aying attention to his monitor. He was in charge of figuring the game room, so he sneakily dialed up the difficulty to “Intermediate”. He sidered going even higher, but decided that’d probably be too obvious. Besides, with all things sidered, it was still his first time pying this game, and MOBA in general.

  After logging into the game room, the “Css Sele” s appeared. Each teammate had to pick the css they’ll py during the match. Duplicates weren’t allowed among teammates and it’s impossible to ge one’s css after the match begins.

  John picked Archer and Jim went for Warrior, both were beled as “Easy” csses. The teacher reend these beginner-friendly csses, sihey were easy to pick up and learn. Of course, Yuel also followed that advice... NOT!

  Let’s see what “Intermediate” has to offer. Yuel messed around with filter. When he pressed “Intermediate”, the list of generic RPG csses was repced by a much more iing roster. It featured more plex-sounding csses like Pyromancer, ancer and Aeromancer. Seriously, the game had “mancers” for days.

  Based on css tags, Jim’s Warrior hysical bruiser and John’s Archer hysical damage dealer. So, their team cked in the magical department. Yuel applied another filter to show only “mage” csses and started reading each css’s description.

  “You do?”

  “! Everybody is already pying!”

  “Just a moment...” Yuel sighed. He wao read some more, but he realized everybody else already started their games. So, he went with Pyromahe first mage on the list.

  Before log-in, Yuel disregarded the teacher’s advice more by uncheg “Auto-Buy”. The teacher warhere were many items to buy in Cssmancers and that a new pyer would be fused by the variety But, Yuel didn’t fancy leaving such important decisions to an automatic system. Besides, he had a little experieh RPGs and strategy games, so how hard could it be to buy items by himself?

  Finally, the match began. He and his teammates spawned inside blue team’s base, behind a giant Colossus.

  Likewise, the enemy bots (AI-trolled pyers) started off in the red base, located oher end of the map. At least, that’s how it worked acc to the teacher’s expnation. The mini-map was shrouded in a fog of war, so they couldn’t see what was happening in areas without allied forces.

  The goal in Cssmancers, and MOBAs in general, was to ihe enemy base aroy the main objective. In Cssmancers, said objective was the Colossus ihe enemy base.

  The spawning point ihe base doubled as an item shop for pyers. John and Jim kept Auto-Buy on, so they dashed out of the base without even cheg what was sold there. Oher hand, Yuel had to manually spend the 1,000 gold he started with.

  Thankfully, there’s a 40 seds tdown until the a begins. He had enough time to check out the shop and figure out-

  W-What’s all this stuff? Yuel flihere were items, ables, items, utility skills, items, items and even more items! The variety was staggering!

  A-Alright then. No problem. Easiest purchase of my life. Yuel gulped. 40 seds? He’d least two hours to figure all this out! It was nuts!

  Demonic Arm, Nei, Staff of Ages, attack speed, cooldowion, magietration... So many names. So many stats. So many effects. By the time he figured out oem, he nearly fot everything about the previous one.

  “Yo, Yuel!” Jim called out. “The game’s starting! Get over here!”

  “ing...” Yuel sighed. He barely went through four items and didn’t even uand how to pare them. Did he need more magic power or more cooldowion early on? How was he supposed to know!? Ugh...

  In the end, he found the option to filter items by “reended” and picked the first item on that list: Demonic Arm. It provided 20 magical power and 10% attack speed. Was that good? Heck if he knew!

  He had 200 gold left after buying Demonic Arm, but there was no time to find anything else spend them on. The tdown hit zero and a message appeared at the top of the s:

  Minions have spawned!

  A gate opened in front of the base and soldiers charged out of it. The teacher called them “minions” or “creeps”. They were weak AI-trolled allies who fought for his team.

  The way Yuel uood it, they were the disposable pawns of this game. Their whole purpose in life was to push toward the enemy base until they die. It sounded like a suicidal game pn, but it’s not a big deal because new waves of minions will keep periodically spawning throughout the whole game. No matter how many of them die, there will never be a she. If only chess pawns worked that way.

  As soon as the minions came out of the gate, they charged straight ahead along the paved road. Their destination was the ter of the map, where they’ll collide with enemy minions. Yuel hurried after them and effortlessly outran them.

  Look how athletic I am now! Yuel chuckled. It’s a childish rea, but for him this meant a lot. After being stantly held back by his poor athleticism, moving freely like this in a “team-sport” was huge. Finally, a game where he started on equal footing with everybody else.

  Before long, Yuel approached the ter of the map. It didn’t take long, sihe map was small and straightforward. It had only one main road, stretg all the way from the blue base to the red base.

  The teacher referred to this road as a “ne”. In order to reach the enemy base, Yuel’s team had to push their minions forward along the ne.

  In addition, there were two curved paths stretg on the sides of the ne. Based on the mini-map, these routes had various obstacles and narrow passages. They’re probably difficult to maneuver in and their curved shape made them less effit for traveling.

  The teacher only briefly mentiohese side paths were called “jungle” and advised to stay away for now. Yuel was still rec from the traumatic shopping experience, so he decided to heed the teacher’s advice this once. He ighe jungle and ran along the ne like a good boy.

  Before long, he arrived at the ter of the map. John and Jim, the Archer and Warrior, were already waiting there.

  The eeam also gathered he ter. Their group sisted of three characters: Warrior, Archer and Wizard. In a normal match, the enemies would also be pyer-trolled characters. However, in this practice match, they were mere bots. Hopefully, they’d pose at least a little challenge on intermediate difficulty.

  “Yo! Let’s hit these guys!” Jim grinned and charged straight at the eeam.

  “Wait,” John objected. “Teach said it’s best to wait for the minions before attag.”

  “I agree,” Yuel nodded. “Let’s py it safe for the first minion wave a used to our csses.”

  “Boo.” Jim made a face as he retreated.

  The same way allied minions spawned from the blue base, enemy minions spawned from the red base. The two minion waves were identical to each other in every way, except allied minions wore blue uniforms and enemy minions wore red. It’s like the two sides were fighting over their fashion statements.

  After crossing half the he two minion waves collided into each other in the ter. Each side sisted of three swordsmen and three bowmen. The swordsmen took the front line, whereas the bowmen stayed behind and fired arrows from a distance.

  Both minions waves used the exact same battle formation and it’s impossible to manually order them around. Therefore, if left to their own devices, the two sides will wipe each other out and no minions will remain on the ne. In other words, her blue team nor red team would gain any advahe same would repeat for any subsequent waves, maintaining a status quo.

  Pyers had to actively interfere with these fights to break the deadlock. As soon as the minions cshed, the eeam advanced forward and attacked the blue minions. Likewise, Yuel’s team attacked the red minions.

  Yuel slightly advanced his Pyromao get the enemy swordsmen within attack rahe Pyromancer’s basic attack fired a small fireball, its le allowed Yuel to stay in the bae while shooting. John’s Archer had the same advantage. Only Jim’s Warrior had to move to the frontlio hit enemies with his sword.

  Each css in Cssmancers had one passive ability, unlocked from the beginning of the match. For Pyromancer, it was the ability. On top of the standard health and mana gauges, it gave Pyromahe heat gauge.

  Heat was filled up by hitting enemies with basic attacks and gradually decreased over time. The more heat the Pyromancer had, the more damage his spells dealt.

  It’s weird to build attack speed on a mage, but it works well with this passive. Thanks to the reended Demonic Arm he purchased, the Pyromancer’s basic attacks were 10% faster. This allowed to charge heat faster.

  In RPGs, and apparently in MOBAs too, magical csses usually had weak basic attacks. Therefore, they didn’t be much from increasing their attack speed. Point in case: John’s Archer dealt way more damage than Yuel with basic attacks.

  However, due to the passive, the Pyromancer had an unusual be from attack speed. Attag faster charged heat faster, which allowed to cast stronger spells faster. It took about 20 hits to max the heat gauge, so it seemed pretty much mandatory to build some attack speed on Pyromancer.

  Intermediate css, huh. N-No problem. Easiest thing I ever pyed. Yuel twitched. On top of being a mage, he also had to focus on nding his basic attacks and maintaining his heat. This implied his bat tactid item build will have to be unventional for a mage, and he had no idea yet what’s even sidered “ventional” for a mage here in the first pce. Great.

  Oh, and that’s just the passive. Pyromancer had four more abilities: three active skills and oimate ability. These abilities were locked at first and required SP (Skill Points) to unlock. Each pyer begach at Lv.1 and gained 1 SP with every level.

  At Lv.1, Yuel already had 1 SP. He spent it to unlock the skill Fme Wave. Based on the skill’s description and parameters, it was the Pyromancer’s main damaging spell. It sounded like an AoE (Area of Effect) attack, so it should be able to hit multiple minions at once.

  But, Yuel didn’t use it right away. Activating a skill spent mana and put the skill on cooldown for a while, making it unusable. He couldn’t carelessly shoot the only damaging spell at his disposal.

  To make the most out of Fme Wave, he first had to fill up his heat. The more heat he had, the more damage Fme Wave will deal. In addition, when the heat bar hits 80%, Fme Wave will also burn its targets, making them lose HP over time.

  With all that sidered, it’s best to grind some heat first. Thus, he only spammed left-clicks on his mouse to repeatedly fire basic attacks.

  trary to him, the enemy Wizard had no qualms about casting his AoE spell. A fierce gust of wind shot through the blue minions, hitting all of them in one fell swoop. That’s bad. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time until the blue minions are wiped out.

  heless, Yuel stuck to basic attacks and didn’t respond with a spell of his own. Soon. 49%. 54%. 59%. Very soon.

  “Say, Yuel,” John called out. “You don’t have any skills you could use? They gonna push us back at this rate.”

  “I o charge it first. Any moment now.” Yuel was almost there. 73%. 78%. 83%. That’s it! It’s time! He activated Fme Wave and directed it toward the enemy minions.

  The Pyromancer charged fmes in his palms and shot them forward in a form of a wave. The fme torched all the enemy swordsmen... but that’s it. The fme died out before reag the enemy bowmen.

  I see. So, hitting a whole minion wave from afar is a privilege of “easy” csses, huh. I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself, Wizard. Yuel cursed. The bot trolling Wizard ying cheap!

  The Wizard’s wind spell had the perfect width and distance for hitting aire minion wave from afar. pared to that, the Pyromancer’s Fme Wave only had det width. Its poor traveling distance preve from reag all the way to the enemy’s bae. What a pain.

  If Yuel wao hit a whole minion wave, he’d have to advao the frontline and cast Fme Wave from there. That’s incredibly risky for a squishy mage. Pyromancer was an intermediate css alright.

  Due to Yuel’s failure to wipe out the enemy bowmen, the red minions won the csh. All blue minions fell , while the enemy still had three bowmen standing. With no blue minions to fight anymore, the red bowmen targeted the closest blue pyer.

  “Yo! They’re shooting at me!” Jim excimed. He was the only oh melee attacks, so he was the closest to the enemy forces. Fortunately, Warrior was a frontline bruiser, so he had more HP and defehan Pyromancer and Archer.

  Even so, Jim was only Lv.2. He wasn’t strong enough to endure many hits from minions. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, the enemy bots also focused their attacks on him.

  “I’mma show them!” In this grim situation, Jim decided it was a brilliant idea to charge straight at the enemy. He clearly fot to equip his on Seem.

  “Retreat!” Yuel called out. “You ’t fight them right now. Run back. Me and John will take care of the bowmen.”

  “Yeah,” John tuned in. “Don’t be stupid, Jim.”

  “Bah, okay!” Jim turned around and dashed like his life depended on it.

  The bowmen and bots chased him down, shooting his back. Meanwhile, Yuel and John shot down the bowmen. Yuel synized his attacks with John, to ehey were fog the same target every time. The faster they take out eadividual enemy, the less damage Jim would eat overall.

  Level Up!

  A message popped up after the first bowman colpsed. Yuel hit Lv.2, which granted him 1 SP. This was his ce to up the mess he created!

  He spent the SP to unlock his sed spell: Pilr of Fire. It was another damaging spell, which should help them defeat the bowmen faster.

  Without further ado, Yuel cast Pilr of Fire in the bowmen’s dire. Fire erupted from the ground, ing the bowmen in fmes. However, they didn’t actually receive that much damage.

  Pilr of Fire was a DOT (damage over time) ability, which dealt tinuous damage in small doses. A circle of fire stayed on the ground where Yuel cast the spell, slowly burning the enemies inside.

  But, this position... Yuel realized his aim was a little off. He created the fire around the bowmen’s current position, but that wasn’t optimal. The bowmen were busy chasing Jim, so they didn’t stay in one pce for long.

  The bowmen shortly escaped the circle of fire, after getting hit by only three ticks of damage. Yuel should have summohe fmes further along the bowmen’s route, but his usual clumsiness struck again. Even in a video game, his rea and coordination were poop.

  The extra damage from Pilr of Fire still helped defeating the bowmen a little faster, but not fast enough. Ultimately, Jim’s Warrior was shot down.

  An ally has been killed!

  “Weeeeelp.”

  “Pft, great job. 10/10.”

  John and Jim ughed at the result. The whole i was ed up as Jim’s blunder. And well, that’s really the case for the most part. Had Jim retreated right away, he would have survived.

  But, much of the bme id with Yuel too. It all started when he failed to hit the enemy bowmen with Fme Wave. As a result, the red minions received far less damage in total, which allowed them to outst the blue minions. So, his poor Fme Wave was the beginning of the domino effect which led to Jim’s death.

  “Heh. Haha.” Yuel didn’t feel bad in the slightest. In fact, he rejoiced. Yes, he was gd Jim died! That was the best oute!

  Just by casting his spells a little iively, Yuel caused a teammate’s death and put the whole team at a disadvahat proved mistakes could be heavily punished in this game.

  This time, Yuel got punished. ime, he’ll punish his ewice as hard. He was really gd, because Cssmaurned out to be far from a braindead video game.

  Even though the match barely started, Yuel could already tell: this game will suck him in. The plexity of the Pyromancer’s kit, the staggering variety of items, the punishable mistakes and the importance of coordieamwork - he wao learn them all! He wao master them all!

  His heart raced iement from a match for the first time in ages. Maybe, just maybe, he finally found the team sport he had been looking for.