Yuel spread the word about practig at the club and ihers to join in. Roi, Dan, Gilbert, Taison, and Gregory all dropped by from time to time to help with the grind. It was a huge boost, since pying with a five-man premade was a world apart from pying as a three-man premade. No more praying about being matched with det teammates. Everybody in the club were skilled pyers and they all cooperated with Yuel's shot-calling, so the team was sistently strong in every game.

  In particur, Roi and Dahe most wele visitors. They filled in the need for a Top Laner and a Jungler, and they were the best in the club at these roles.

  Though, Dan was a little problematietimes. He was a good pyer, but his desire to master every Jungler css ience made him pi unventional Jungler from time to time. Bottom tier csses like Rogue, plex csses like aster and even ht memes like ancer.

  Needless to say, these experiments didn’t always go well. No matter how well Dan pyed, csses like Rogue were bottom tier for a reason and the Challenger division wasn’t oo mess around in. Everybody who pyed at this level came a long way from the bottom, so they knew how to deal with memes and gimmicks. Still, Dan-of-all-Trades insisted.

  “’t you experiment in Casual?” Yuel asked after they suffered another defeat, in part because Dan pyed Druid Jungler. Why would anybody even do that...

  “I experiment in Casual too,” Dan said. “But, there ain’t anywhere better than Rao test stuff for real. You know the matchmaking in Casual is fiesta.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” Yuel didn’t like it, but he didn’t have any good retorts. The matchmaking of Casual indeed worked in mysterious ways unbeknown to humankind. It supposedly matched pyers based on level, pytime aimated skill. But in practice, there were huge skill gaps and games often snowballed. It may be because people used Casual to try hings, but bottom li made Casual very unreliable and unpetitive.

  There’s no choice, Yuel had accepted Dan’s dedication to pying a billion different csses in Ranked. It surely slowed the team’s progress on the dder, but it was still leaps and bounds beyond pying in a three-man premade.

  All in all, Roi and Daly helped. Thanks to that, Yuel and Lars climbed to Challenger V by the end of the first month. Just one more rank and they’ll catch up to Howard and Ellen!

  Unfortunately, there were also some slowdowns the way. Unlike Roi and Dan, Taison and Gregory weren’t as helpful. They insisted they were “da best” Bot duo and demao py Support and Carry. As a result, Yuel and Lars had to take turns pying their main csses.

  “Saw this shit?” Taison pumped a fist after sg a kill. “We’re da best duo, yo!”

  Admittedly, Taison and Gregory weren’t terrible. They gged behind on ranks because they didn’t py Ranked as often, but they were definitely around Challenger level in term of skill.

  Still, Taison wasn’t Lars. He cked the explosiveness and snowballing threat. The best thing about Lars in Ranked was how difficult it’s to stop him once he starts rolling. At least 20% of the time, matches were single-handedly decided by Lars snowballing to victory. It crushed the spirit of the eeam ao an early surrender. Easy rank grinding. Everybody wanted Lars to carry for that reason.

  But, Yuel agreed to eain Taison and Gregory because a five-man premade was that valuable. Having Taison and Gregory in Bot was still better than not having them at all. So, Yuel and Lars altered between pying their main roles and pying Top and Jungler. It was an alright arra for Yuel, but not so much for Lars.

  An ally has been killed!

  “Gah!” Lars excimed. “I almost got him! Sneaky dude.”

  “That gank was a terrible idea.” Yuel shook his head.

  “But he was about to get away with no HP! I had it, yo!”

  “The result begs to differ,” Yuel poi the defeat message. “You have to keep in mind whether your target has its ult ready. You ’t just attack everybody who has low health.”

  “But, how was I supposed to know whether his ult is up? I ’t keep track of that stuff when I’m not even on ne.”

  “You ask others.”

  “Oh, didn’t think of that. Smart!”

  “Literally basic logic.” Yuel sighed. In term of meical skill, Lars’s ganks were amazing as expected. However, his ckluster map awareness and subpar deaking were fatal for pying Juherefore, as far as pying Jungler was vened, his skill was stuewhere in Gold rank. Yuel ended up pyed Jungler instead most of the time, leaving Top to Lars.

  There was also the option of letting Julia py Jungler, but that was an even bigger disaster. She was already struggling to bance her offensive and defensive sides, so adding the plexity of jungling on top of that didn’t do her any favors.

  However, Julia was det as Top so Lars sometimes got to py Mid, his sed best role. With access to burst damage, he mao snowball and carry the team to victory from time to time. Still, he wasn’t nearly as effective as when he pyed Carry. Ugh, such a waste...

  Fortunately, they only had to deal with this whole headache on a while, because Taison and Gregory didn’t visit the club that frequently. These troublemakers were also fih pying Jungler and Top at least half the time, and they were actually det at these roles. In particur, Taison’s aggressive jungling dominated in some games. Even though it wasn’t his main role, he was likely among the top three Junglers in the club, sed only to Dan and Ellen.

  The seniors who graduated also caught wind of this summer camp and paid a few visits.

  “Hey there!” Trever ihe clubroom and smacked Yuel on the back. “Heard you’re throwing a party! Lemme in.”

  “Ugh,” Yuel massaged his KO’d back. “Who called you?”

  “Roi said you were having fun here, so I decided to che ya. You’re throwing a party and don’t even invite your dear seniors. So cold, man.”

  Okay, so it’s Roi. Yuel o himself. Now he ko whom to send a medical bill in case his back breaks from repeated smacks over the summer.

  “Yo, dude,” Lars greeted his older self with some fake gangsta moves. “The Carry role is already taken.”

  “Seniet priority, kid.” Trever puffed his chest. Gangsta iations began. “I came here to help ya grind, so you better be thankful.”

  “Yeah, it’s awesome,” Lars nodded. “We’re missing a Juoday, so you came at the best time, dude.”

  “Heh, you think you carry better than me? Don’t fet I’m already Challenger IV.”

  “It’s because you’re a geezer, so you grinded for a billion years.”

  “Wha-!? I’m only two years older!”

  A you call us “kids” all the time. Yuel retorted mentally.

  “Okay then!” Trever thrust a fi Lars. “Let’s settle who gets Carry with a 1v1!”

  “You’re on!”

  Aaaaand they went to fight each other for the wo hours. Sigh. This summer sure was going to be noisy...

  In the end, every time there was petition for the Carry role, it was decided with a 1v1 betweewo goofs. On some days, it was a 1v1v1 with Taison in the mix. Fortunately, Taison never came on top in 1v1v1, so it was always between Lars and Trever. Oher hand, in 1v1 Taison won a lot. Sigh The team was supposed to spend this summer grinding, but somehow these blockheads tur into a 1v1 tour...

  The good news: Trever’s performance as Carry was more than satisfactory. In fact, as long as he maintained his cool, Trever was eveer than Lars thanks to his robust experiend superior deaking. Trever even sometimes dispyed the same snowballing potential as Lars, but only when he was “on a roll”, as he called it.

  Based on statistics, on average it took loo win a match with Trever as Carry than it took with Lars as Carry. The difference was about five minutes, nothing to s. Oher hand, the win ratio with Trever was higher by almost four pert, so hard to say which of the two was a better Carry frinding ranks.

  Ohing for sure, Trever was a better Carry than Taison and Yuel alyed Support for him, so it worked out fine. When Trever wasn’t Carry, he was usually a very petent Jungler, so all in all, they steadily grinded rank points with his help. Eventually, they hit Challenger V.

  “This is where the grind begins for real,” Trever said. “I’ve been stuck at Challenger V for like a year.”

  “A year is too long.” Yuel ched his fists. Challenger IV was the goal. Ohere, he rightfully challenge Howard for the Support spot. It was just one rank away! It ’t take a year. No, I won’t let it.

  The first half of summer break ended, but there was another half to go. By the end of it, they’ll reach Challenger IV. They had to. To aplish in a month what took Trever a year... Ambitious, to say the least. At their current level, it was borderline impossible.

  The promotion from Diamond to Challenger wasn’t reflected only in the amount of grinding, there was also a noticeable difficulty spike. They came aore and more oppos with golden names, either pros or fellow petitive teenagers. Especially, when pying a five-man premade, almost every game was against a premade team of golden names.

  The games became fiercer than ever. Eeams had airtight defenses and even when Yuel found a way to break through - they weren’t rattled at all and immediately adapted. These enemies also never missed a ce to punish Lars’s extensions and risky pys, making his dominating snowballs much rarer.

  So, Yuel and Lars not only had to grind more points than before to rank up, but they couldn’t even grind as quickly as before. Even if given a year, was it even possible to reach Challenger IV at this pace...?

  One day, Aron dropped by the club along with Trever. Howard mentioned how Aro members to the clubroom over the summer, so it wasn’t THAT surprising. Still, Yuel couldn’t believe somebody as strid by-the-book as Aron would sneak into school without permission, especially now that he graduated. He teically wasn’t even a student here anymore.

  “I had my flicts about it at first,” Aron expined his side of the story. “When I became the captain, Trever and Howard nagged me about how we should use the clubroom instead of meeting at others’ houses.”

  “You used te group meetings over the summer?” Yuel asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Trever ughed. “The good ol’ days. We picked a victim every time and raided their pce, haha.”

  “A ‘victim’ is a bit extreme.” Aron frowned. “But yes, we gathered a group of five every time and practiced at somebody’s pce. It wasn’t optimal, I admit. But, I couldn’t possibly let them sck off for two months. We pyed ooo with voice chat, but it wasn’t quite the same.”

  “Yeah,” Trever nodded. “Because you couldn’t lecture us for hours after every game. Everybody just muted you without telling, haha!”

  “Reviewing games is as important as pying them.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that’s when The Great Trever came up with a brilliant idea: Let’s use the clubroom!”

  Reminds me of a certain goof. Yuel smiled wryly.

  “I had my s,” Aron admitted. “But, he kept begging and got Howard and others on his side, so I gave it a shot. Turns out nobody cares about us using the room, so I just went along with it. The first couple of days I was still on the fence, but after a week it became a routine.”

  “I know the feeling,” Yuel nodded. On the first day, he and his aplices infiltrated the school as if it was mission impossible. A few days forward and it became as natural as going to school every day. The few teachers at school were occupied with other matters, so nobody was ied in polig students who illegally visited their clubs without a supervisor. Clubrooms were locked, so it’s not like unauthorized individuals could easily get in. Besides, they didn’t e here to cause trouble so it's not a big deal.

  “I heard you’re stuck at Challenger V?” Aron said.

  “Well,” Yuel crossed his arms. “Not stuck, but it’s sure tough. We overall move forward in points, but it feels like we’re crawling.”

  “I know that feeling,” Aron nodded as a proud Challenger IV who overcame this great obstacle before. “The surefire method is to py with the same coordieam and with a game pn in mind.”

  “So, like a petitive team.”

  “Yes, like the way Howard is training with the first string right now.”

  “Huh...?” Yuel’s brain short-circuited for a moment. “Like the way Howard is doing what?”

  “He takes the first string online and makes sure to practice with the same lineup all the time. Why the surprise? That's the most logical thing to do.”

  “Well, sure...” Except, I heard nothing about it! Yuel ched his fists. her Howard nor Ellen paid a single visit to the club so far, so Yuel thought they were zing around because it's a vacation. But, they were actually practig hard too? And with the whole first string!? No wilbert, Roi and Dan only showed their faces at the club on rare occasions. And, their visits became rarer and rarer as time went by.

  Why Yuel hadn’t heard any of this? Was it supposed to be some sort of secret training? A ploy by Howard to rise to Master rank before Yuel could catch up to him!? Yuel had to know the details. He had to know everything!

  The ime first string members came to the clubroom, Yuel interrogated them.

  “Yeah,” Dan said. “We’ve beeing at Howard’s pce to practice every now and then,” he admitted without the slightest hesitation.

  “How es nobody ever mentio?”

  “Hmm, I guess because Howard asked to not talk about it too much.”

  “Wha...” So, there was something fishy after all! Howard told Yuel to chase his rank, then proceeded to abuse his position as captain to grind rank points faster than Yuel with the stro lineup! Ugh!

  “So,” Yuel said, holding back his irritation. “You grind online a lot?”

  “We grind, but I wouldn't say ‘a lot’.”

  “Really? Then what do you do?”

  “Howard es up with the menu, so we just go along. Practig stuff, reviewing matches and... Well, you get the idea.”

  “I see,” Sounded like standard first string training. Maybe there’s nothing to worry about after all? He thought there was some huge secret, but it sounded very normal.

  Still, as the vice-captain, Yuel would have liked to be informed about the club’s activities. But, Horobably didn't deem it necessary. After all, Yuel was just a sed string pyer. Howard made his stance clear when Yuel became the vice-captain: “I ’t babysit everybody. My job as the captain is t the team to nationals.”

  That’s fine, for now. Yuel was in no position to overthrow Howard, not yet. But by the end of this summer, Yuel and Lars should have enough experieo do so. They’ll seize their spots on the first string ao py in tours, no matter what.

  But first, they had to actually get said experiend grinding ranks was the most straightforward way to go about it. With Aron joining the summer camp, their win ratio fired upwards. He was StormBlitz’s former Jungler and one of best Junglers iire region, sed only to the Leopards’ Fenrir. Aron’s sistency, knowledge and deakiop-notch.

  On top of that, his te game was brutal. He destructed eo the ti bits throughout the match, gathering even more data thahen, ie game, he unleashed all that knowledge and decimated every oppo on his path. He became a killing mae without a single fwed move.

  His effectiveness was further enhanced with Trever oeam. When Trever picked a Carry like Ranger with good jungle clear, the two of them pyed a “Two Junglers” formation. Trever strolled throughout Bot Jungle, whereas Aron focused on Top Juhat way, they greatly optimized jungle farm.

  In addition, they used coordinated pitacks. They gaheir prey from two opposite dires, leaving no ce to escape. Whearget through they escaped Aron’s gank, they ended up running into Trever instead. A and powerful tactic.

  If Yuel and Lars get into Ivy High as phey might get a ce to face Aron and Trever in the high schionals. Shivers danced on his skin from the mere thought. How would Yuel ter Aron’s unstoppable te game? How will Lars’s skill pare against Trever’s by then? Sadly, there were still two more years ahead of them before any of that be answered.

  Before long, the summer break roag its end. They made huge progress with everybody’s help, but... Yuel and Lars didn’t make it. They were still stuck at Challenger V. Trever didn’t joke when he said it took him a year to get to Challenger IV. The grind was REAL.

  Did Yuel and Lars get any closer to overthrowing Howard and Ellen? It’s hard to tell. They needed some sort of opportunity to test their mettle against Aegis and Athena. The ce will surely e ohe school year begins. Worst case, Yuel will have to create one himself.

  A week and a half before school resumes, these were everybody’s standings:

  Challenger III - Aron

  Challenger IV - Howard, Ellen, Trever

  Challenger V - Yuel, Lars, Roi

  Diamond I - Julia, Gilbert

  Diamond II - Dan

  Diamond III - Taison, Gregory