Chapter Five

The next morning Yufei woke up rather early. He took a shower and got dressed. He wore a black T-shirt and a black jeans. After putting on his socks, he pulled on the same black and white Nike. He headed down the stairs and took his black leather jacket from out of the couch slipping it on. Finally he grabbed his phone off the table counter and headed out the apartment.

He decided to walk down and stop by the convenience store. When he entered he greeted the woman.

"From your smile I'm guessing you start the job today." The woman spoke making Yufei nod his head in agreement.

"Have you eaten yet?" she then asked.

"I'll buy something on the way." Yufei answered.

The woman then lifted a container from behind the counter and handed it to him saying, "I figured you will say that and end up not eating anything, so I prepared this for you."

Yufei babbled, "Oh, you shouldn't have but thank you."

"But what made you came to see me so early in the morning?" The woman questioned.

He then frowned, "I came to see you, because I'm not coming back tonight. From today I'll be living at the base with the boys."

The woman then smiled, "Why the frown. You don't have to worry about me, I'll be fine. Just remember what I told you last night."

Yufei took a look at his watch to see that the time was already 8:00 a.m. He got up from his chair and took the container from the counter which the woman handed him. Before bidding her farewell he said, "I won't forget it. Promise I'll visit."

He left the convenience store and headed for the main road. When he arrived he flagged down a taxi. When he got into the car he told the driver the destination.

When they arrived at the gate of the base Yufei paid the driver and exited the car. He walked to the barrier as it opened for him when he passed he waved and greeted a good morning to the security guard.

He walked up the hill and around the bend to the base. He walked to the doors and pushed them to open but they didn't budge so he ended up bumping his face. He tried pushing the door again but it didn't open.

He took out his phone from his pocket and called Li Wei. When Li Wei answered, Yufei snarled, "Li Wei, I'm at the base and the doors are locked."

"What do you mean they're locked?" Li Wei yawned, hinting that he had just woken up.

"Locked as in not opening." Yufei scoffed.

Li Wei remained quiet for a while then said, "The boys are probably still sleeping, walk around the left side of the base and you'll see stairs leading to the roof. Walk up those stairs, and on the other side of the helipad there should be door there. It should also be open."

Yufei thanked the still half asleep Li Wei and and followed his instructions. When Yufei entered the base he checked his watch once again. It read the time 9:15 a.m. Yufei then sighed, "I'll give them thirty more minutes."

He headed down the stairs in the base and walked towards the kitchen area and sat around the counter. He placed the container that the woman gave him and opened it revealing to be his favorite food, which was chicken noodles and egg.

He dug into the food and hate everything out of the container. By the time he was done he saw the it was already 9:50 a.m. so her closed the container, wiped his mouth and headed back up the stairs.

He walked towards the the room doors with numbers and started to bang loudly on each and every one of them shouting, "Rise and shine boys, your first day of training starts today."

He started to hear the loud moans of the boys as he continued banging and banging shouting, "Up and at 'em boy boys, up, up, up."

The four room doors opened as each member walked out yawning and dragging their feet on the ground. First there was Fenhua and Sile who came out from the door numbered 3, then Daoming and Si Cong coming from behind the door numbered 2, next there was Suchang coming out from room number 1, and after Xu Ke and Yang Yang coming from behind the room door numbered 4.

"Lao Yufei, what's happening?" Suchang asked stretching his arms.

Yufei clapped his hand, "Training. Alright, you all have exactly 30 minutes to take a shower, get dressed then come down for breakfast."

Everyone moaned and wined. Sile then complained, "We went to bed late last night. Lao Yufei; it's nine in the morning at least let us sleep a little more."

Yufei then turned and headed back to the stairs saying, "Be down in 30, anyone who's late, I'll double up the training for you." He looked at his watch and started the timer saying, "Your time starts now."

At hearing this everyone ran back into their rooms. Except for Suchang the other six boys were wrestling in their rooms about who was going to shower first.

While Yufei was downstairs he ordered croissants for the boys. The doorbell rang and he went to the door and opened it. He took the boxes from the delivery man and paid him saying, "Thanks."

Yufei took the boxes inside to the kitchen and placed them on the counter. He took a huge plate from out of the cupboard and set it on the counter next to the boxes.

After opening the boxes he took the croissants out one by one positioning them on the plate.

It was a total of 20 croissants piled up on top of each other. He removed the boxes and threw them away in the trash.

When he came back he placed the plate at the center of the dining table in front of the kitchen. He looked at his watch to check if the time was up yet and saw that there was exactly one minute left.

Yufei headed to the bottom of his stairs and started to watch at the time dropped. He soon heard the loud footsteps of the heard of guys rushing down the stairs.

"Out of the way." Daoming grunted pushing Fenhua aside to make way for him.

"If you keep pushing someone might fall." Sicong barked at Daoming. As the last few second counted down on the timer Yufei watched them chuckling.

Beep! Beep! Beep! The timer went off at the exact moment the last person, which was Suchang arrived down the stairs.

"Suchang how come you're the last one when you share a room with no one?" Fenhua panted.

Suchang then smirked, "Kat, that's the reason why I'm the last one to get down. Since I don't have to share a bathroom with anyone, I took my slow little time."

Xu Ke then voiced, "Wait, can someone remind me again, why did Suchang get a room to himself?"

"We all lost in the league against him when we played for the room." Yang Yang coughed.

Everyone lamely nodded their head including Yufei who was listening to them.

"Wait." Fenhua ordered sniffing the air. "What's that smell?"

The other boys started sniffing the air too and they all followed the smell all the way to the kitchen. When they saw the croissants they each rushed at plate and each boy grabbed at least two croissants.

"Slow down boys, they aren't going anywhere." Yufei laughed as he appeared in the kitchen.

They all ate and reminisced about their game yesterday. When they got down to the last croissant, they all looked at each other and then back at the last croissant at the center of the plate.

The atmosphere became filled with the essence of war. They all stretched at the same time for the croissant and started to pull and tug each other, each of them trying to prevent the other from getting the croissant while trying to reach for it themselves.

Suddenly they all stopped. The kitchen became quiet and they all turned to Yufei who had stretched over them and took the last croissant.

He took a bite of it as he read a paper that was in his hand. Wondering why it was so quiet he took his eyes off the paper and turned to them asking, "What?"

"Nothing." Suchang clicked his tongue and they all crouched down into their chairs. Yufei turned back to reading the paper and took another bite of the croissant.

"What are you reading?" Daoming then asked.

Yufei shook the paper, and started circling them "This? Oh, right, I asked Li Wei to send me a list of the teams that's playing this year. For today and tomorrow I'm going to have you guys watch about 3 matches of each team and I want you to analyze their plays. Look for where you see they made mistakes, the areas in which they are weak and strong. Example: are they strong on offence and weak on defense, or the other way around? Maybe they could be strong on both offence and defense. Look to see the simple opportunities they missed. Anything that could help you in having the upper hand when playing against them."

"Ahh, so you're saying to beat your enemy you, must know your enemy." Si Cong implied.

"More or less but there's this saying that's my favorite. It was spoken by Sun Tzu in The Art of War, which said 'If you know your enemy and yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know your self but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also struggle a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.' I want you all to think about what I just said, and tell me what's this weeks training objective for you?"

The boys reflected on what Yufei said, then Suchang answered, "To know ourselves and the enemy."

"Bingo." Yufei skipped pointing at Suchang, He then continued, "After analyzing the other teams plays and tactics you guys are going to watch your own recordings, and analyze your plays and tactics. Look to see where you can improve and what are the risky habits you need to quit doing. You are going to know yourself. Then we can move on to the real training."

Daoming then choked, "I thought this was the real training."

Yufei then threw a flash-drive unto the table top in front of them, "No, this is analyzing and collecting data. On that flash-drive there are at least 2 to 3 videos of each of the 16 teams. Li Wei said there's a display screen in the teams tactic's room, go and watch the videos, meanwhile I need to go home and start packing my clothes. Suchang you're the captain, so you're in charge while I'm gone."

Yufei folded the paper and headed out of the kitchen heading for the front door.

The boys listened to hear when the doors close and looked at each other and then the flash-drive.

"I'm going back to sleep." Fenhua chippered and some of the other guys agreed with him. The got up out of their seats and was about to head back to their rooms when the base's front door flew open, as Yufei ran in.

"I'll know if you watched the entire videos or not, because I already watched all the videos and I will quiz you on what you observed."

Everyone groaned as Yufei exited the base again. Suchang snatched the flash-drive and headed up the stairs to the room of the far righthand corner of the hallway. In the room there was their team logo on the wall. It spelled the word 'Legends' in gold with a blue glow behind it. There were 8 blue and yellow gaming chairs around a white rectangular table with the League of Legends 3D map built into the middle of the desk for strategy planning.

Each on of them sat down in a chair and Suchang walked up to the T.V. He plugged in the flash-drive and used the remote to click on the file that said Awake Tyranny. When he did, three video files popped up and he clicked on the first one, and sat down on the chair closest to the front.

Hours passed as they watched the videos, wrote down things they wanted to remember, and even up and down to the kitchen for snacks and went to pickup the delivery for the pizza they ordered.

Soon it was already night and the boys were down to their last video. As the video finished the boys yawned as they stretched their arms and legs.

Fenhua got up from his chair and fell straight to the ground, "My feet is so numb." he cried.

Daoming and Sile came to his aid and lifted him off the ground placing him back on his feet. When they left the tactics room, and arrived down the stairs they heard a car pull up in front of their base.

It was Yufei and Li Wei. Yufei got out of the car and took his suitcase from behind the trunk, while Li Wei shut down the car's engine.

They both headed inside the base and greeted the boys.

"Are you guys done?" Yufei asked dragging his suitcase behind him.

Suchang responded, "Just finished up the last video."

Yufei smiled, "That's good. Now let's call it a day."

He picked up his suitcase and started heading up the stairs, when he arrived at the top Yang Yang questioned, "Didn't you say you would quiz us?"

Yufei stopped and placed the suitcase next to his feet. He then stretched his head over the staircase railing and explained, "Not now. Later in training when you start to practice your playing styles. You would need to remember how a certain player from a certain team plays so you can be prepared for them. Most teams wait until they figure out which team they'll be up against. But when they do that they barley have enough time to be prepared and they lose. So when the competition starts; you guys will already know how to play defense and offence against every team. While they're just starting to analyze their data, you guys will be perfecting and building up on what you know. You will already be two steps ahead of them."

With that he picked back up his suitcase and headed to the room door numbered five. He opened the door and closed it behind him, leaving the boys thinking.

They looked at Li Wei who smirked, "There's a reason he never lost a single game on purpose."

Everyone then scattered around the base. Suchang, Sile, and Xu Ke went to the gaming room, Li Wei along with Fenhua and Daoming went to the kitchen, while Si Cong and Yang Yang went to the living room and planted themselves in the sofa turning on the T.V.

Yufei was in the room unpacking his clothes and took out the picture he was looking at the other night. He then took it and placed it between an old black journal, which on the cover wrote, 'Team Heroes training schedule'.

He then whispered to himself, "Let's do this."