By the time it was 11 p.m., Lin Fan had already climbed to Platinum I.
At this pace, he was already comparable to players like Honglian, Shenchao, and Xunge—Shenchao himself had only reached Platinum II on his first day of climbing.
And with today's environment, everyone was familiar with Set 7. Comps were adapted more flexibly too. It wasn't like the early days when everyone had to constantly check guides—especially not at a high "eat-first" frequency.
Aside from being an ultra-lucky player, the only thing you could say was that Brother Infinite Borders' understanding of the game was extremely high.
The stream had been spamming one phrase nonstop: "Dog-luck streamers don't go far."
But he'd already gone all the way to Platinum I.
At this rate, "Master in four days, Challenger in five" really did feel possible…
"Damn, Brother Infinite Borders actually styled on us!"
"I feel like we got scammed. With that kind of win rate, there's no way Brother Infinite Borders never played before. Golden Scale transitions, then Adventurer Xayah, then Dragonmancer Nunu—everything was smooth as hell."
"Yare… believing him is the real trap. Who says they've never touched it, then immediately wants to enter the TOC global?"
"At the end of the day, it's still the same word: TALENT. Brother Infinite Borders has talent in every game—he's just good."
After successfully winning another lobby and touching the promotion zone, even Lin Fan felt tired from the high-intensity grind.
"Tomorrow I'll stream TFT again. I'm tired. I played over ten hours—still got results. Not every game was first, but every game was points." Lin Fan looked into the camera with a confident smile.
"Platinum I, brothers."
"I can't accept it. Seeing Brother Infinite Borders show off makes me irritated. I suggest tomorrow we get a squad and queue-snipe him."
"We really should queue-snipe. Otherwise he'll casually hit Challenger and you TFT players will look useless."
"But what I keep thinking is… if Brother Infinite Borders put those ten-plus hours into Summoner's Rift, he would absolutely grind out a new champ."
"Holy… that's actually possible. With that talent, one champion per day is easy."
"You can't envy it. He's just built for this. Talent. I seriously suspect Brother Infinite Borders has some kind of meditation training technique."
"Didn't JackeyLove say it in an interview? Brother Infinite Borders' Varus—he learned it in Honor of Kings."
"Holy shit, besides Genshin Impact, Brother Infinite Borders also plays Honor of Kings? Isn't that betraying the organization?"
"That's a small problem… but training League through Honor of Kings is way too abstract. Did JackeyLove get scammed? Brother Infinite Borders is good at tricking kids."
"Xu Ke'ai got tricked into spinning in circles."
The chat was scrolling like crazy. Lin Fan waved goodbye and got ready to end the stream.
"I started really early today—6:30—and I've been streaming until now. Over ten hours. Rest, rest. We'll be back tomorrow. There are no matches for the next half month anyway—we've got plenty of time to meet…
Bye bye bye."
With that, he ended the stream immediately.
Leaving a bunch of people in the room utterly confused.
At the same time, "Brother Infinite Borders plans to enter TOC" quietly climbed onto the trending list—right next to "JDG defeats WBG."
Anyone who knew TFT well understood that TOC was a global TFT event.
But Brother Infinite Borders was a League pro. What the hell was he entering for?
Wasn't he supposed to be preparing properly for the elimination match against V5?
Where was his head at?
People flooded TES's official Weibo to complain, demanding Luo Sheng "do his job as coach" and discipline him.
Nothing major happened, but the comments still broke ten thousand again.
The social media team panicked and hurriedly contacted Guo Hao.
The moment Guo Hao heard Lin Fan was involved again, he went to learn what happened.
After reading it, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
You're a pro—why do you have so many whimsical ideas?
But with the team's current results… they really were on a win streak.
And he'd been "not doing his job" for a long time already, yet it was hard to say anything about Lin Fan.
Still, it was better to be prepared.
It was time to notify Luo Sheng and tell him to rein it in a bit—at least don't be so flamboyant. If word spread, it wouldn't look good for the club.
While things were blowing up outside…
On Douyu Live.
In the Wuhan eStarPro player Yi Zheng's stream,
the words "DEFEAT" were hanging bloody across his phone screen.
"Gongsun Li is really bad this patch, but the enemy Yu Ji was insane."
Seeing viewers ask, Yi Zheng explained.
"She was so cracked. Her first skill was insanely accurate, and her damage calculations were super precise. She kited me until I was numb. I've never heard of such a monster—at least at this rating, I'd been cruising. This is the first time I've run into opposition this intense."
"Honestly, losing lane like that is hard to accept." Yi Zheng's mentality was a bit shattered by that game.
If he'd had any chance to fight back, he wouldn't be this tilted.
But from start to finish, he got strung along.
His final score was 0–7—fully 'feeding streak.'
With that kind of showing, how was he supposed to play the World Champion Cup?
Getting brutally beaten by a random player made him doubt his own strength.
Seeing Yi Zheng's tilt, a bunch of girls in chat started comforting him.
After all, Honor of Kings targeted a broader audience, meaning the share of female players was much higher than in League.
In a pro player's stream, more than half the viewers were female fans.
With a large base, Honor of Kings players also had plenty of gossip and side stories—if the player looked good, some female fans would be proactive.
"Dine is really strong. Before, EDG's Ming got blown up by his Wu Zetian."
"I saw that game too. His Wu Zetian was ridiculous. The ultimate's full-map cleanup… the fact that at 1900-something points he could match into Ming at 2400-something points says a lot."
"I checked his match history and it's crazy—pages of green, win streak after win streak. Absolute beast. He plays five or six games a day, but the quality of the lobbies is high. He's winstreaked all the way to 2100 points—legit strong!"
"A bunch of high-rated streamer gods have gotten stomped by him. Zhang Daxian even invited him to join XYG recently. I just came from his stream, but he still hasn't added him back."
Yi Zheng glanced at chat.
Some people were comforting him, but most were talking about how strong this 'dine' player was.
So he tentatively tried to check the match history.
He didn't expect much—at high ratings, players often hide their match history.
But when he clicked in… it really was rows and rows of wins.
And the matches he won were almost all MVP.
Flipping further back, the records got even more brutal.
Even as one of the top-tier KPL pros, Yi Zheng was shocked.
This guy was truly insane.
One word: strong.
And from the hero pool, it looked like he could play anything.
He randomly opened a match record—and saw a very familiar ID: Yinuo.
"Hahahaha…"
He glanced at Yinuo's 0–11 and couldn't help laughing.
So you got educated too.
Instantly, Yi Zheng felt better.
But this dine guy was seriously cracked.
If someone like that played in the league… Yi Zheng shivered at the thought. With a bit of team synergy, wouldn't it be a straight massacre?
No, he had to mention this to the coach.
"I'm guessing this person might already be a pro. Five or six games a day means the rest of the time is spent on team scrims."
"Otherwise, how could he maintain such a high competitive level? He's insanely good!"
Once Yi Zheng checked the records, chat saw it too.
"Holy—when did a 'low-IQ' become this strong? This ID feels meaningful. Is it because everyone he beats is 'low-IQ'?"
"Zhang Daxian got in touch!"
"Holy—go watch Daxian!"
Yi Zheng's stream instantly lost half its viewers.
Gossip was basically a built-in human instinct.
And it wasn't just girls—guys could gossip nonstop too.
Yi Zheng felt itchy too.
His friend request still hadn't been accepted, so he couldn't get answers himself.
And since he wasn't on the same platform as Zhang Daxian, he couldn't "visit the room"—doing that could get him flagged by platform moderators.
So he could only wait for his viewers to come back with intel.
…
Over on Huya Live.
Zhang Daxian looked excited.
"He replied! I successfully added him as a friend!"
His fingers flew across the screen.
"Bro, are you a pro player?"
"If you're not, are you interested in going pro?"
"My team XYG is already playing in the KPL league—we need a player with your kind of strength!"
Zhang Daxian wished he could type ten messages per second, dumping everything he wanted to say.
Faced with a pro like this, it was impossible to stay calm—especially since he was also the boss.
If he could bring in a top-tier solo-queue monster, the returns would be unimaginable.
A few seconds later, the barrage of questions finally got a reply.
"I'm a pro player."
Seeing those words, Zhang Daxian's overheated brain instantly cooled down.
Right—someone this outrageous couldn't possibly not be a pro.
The moment there was a hint of talent, a professional team would've already picked them up.
No choice.
Compared to the top-tier pro orgs, his team still lacked resources—he didn't even have analysts dedicated to scouting the leaderboard.
So the boss had to do it himself.
Efficiency was naturally worse…
He'd have to pull in more investment and build a more complete staff.
Still, his hands didn't stop—first, build rapport and probe for info.
"Can you say which team you're on?"
"I'm on TES."
"TES? TES is a strong team. With a player like you, they're probably a Spring Split title favorite again."
Saying that, Zhang Daxian felt a little sour.
But his team was still in early stages. If he kept operating, they'd get what they needed eventually.
Still… there wasn't any 'dine' on the publicly known TES roster.
So was this player not announced yet?
Or were they holding him as a trump card for Spring Split?
Zhang Daxian quietly made a note of it.
Yi Zheng soon received the info too.
"So he's a TES player… but I haven't heard any news lately. Looks like TES is hiding him deep. They really are treating him like a sealed-up ultimate weapon."
"Good thing he doesn't have much scheming. One question and he exposed himself. I'll go ask Xiaopeng later and probe a bit."
After all, he'd been bullied so hard that game—he had zero room to breathe.
The pressure was too high, so he had to take it seriously.
"Alright, I'm out. Tonight I just wanted to play a couple games to relax. It's about time to rest."
Seeing that reply, Zhang Daxian felt unsatisfied.
He wanted to dig deeper, but since they were friends now, there would be plenty of chances later.
Then he checked the match history again.
"Tsk tsk tsk… this is too insane."
His eyes screamed two words: Want!
Anyone would drool over a treasure like this.
"Too bad… no fate."
Seeing the avatar go dark, Zhang Daxian sighed, then queued for another game. Missed or not, life went on.
At the same time, another trending topic quietly appeared:
"KPL TES dine—who is it?"
A bunch of night owls saw it and were completely confused.
Brother Infinite Borders is trending again?
How is it possible someone still doesn't know him?
"TES dine is TES's mid laner, nickname Brother Infinite Borders. You can see any game in his stream—except League of Legends."
"What's going on? Since when did KPL get tied to Brother Infinite Borders?"
"Who's Brother Infinite Borders? The dine we're talking about is a Honor of Kings player. He's insanely strong—like he appeared out of nowhere. In two months, he already has a 114-win streak!"
"Honor of Kings? If I remember correctly, TES dine is a League pro. Don't 'steal' him. If you keep stealing, that's too much. Don't you have your own memes and IDs?"
"Hahahaha… bro, don't rush to flame. Look into it—it really might be Brother Infinite Borders."
"I also think they're talking about Brother Infinite Borders. I'm dying. The guy who stomped multiple KPL pros is actually an LPL mid! I can't take it!"
"League players are disgusting. Where does your superiority come from? We're talking about KPL. It has nothing to do with you."
"I suggest you go search TES dine. After you read it, come back and delete your comment—otherwise you'll become a clown."
"Is it possible that TES's Honor of Kings division has a player named dine?"
"I think in the same club, the League division is bigger than the Honor of Kings division. Stealing an ID shouldn't happen."
"Most importantly, Brother Infinite Borders only blew up this Spring Split. It shouldn't be old enough for someone to 'steal' the ID."
"The moment I saw dine, I knew it was him. Good grief—being recruited by so many teams… who else could it be?"
"This is great. Even if League doesn't work out, he doesn't have to retire—just transfer the contract to the Honor of Kings division."
"League players have no brains, huh? You bind a person just from one ID?"
Honor of Kings players and League players already didn't like each other.
Now, because of this ID, they really started fighting—mutual flaming everywhere.
That night, Weibo's trending list went absolutely wild.
But a trending topic wouldn't lie:
Who exactly is TES dine?
Is dine a Honor of Kings player or a League player?
Brother Infinite Borders transfers to the Honor of Kings division!
When people who didn't participate in the "discussion" woke up, they were totally confused.
What the hell happened overnight?
Why were Honor of Kings players and League players fighting again?
Why did Brother Infinite Borders trend again?
TL: If you want to read ahead by at least ten chapters, patreon.com/EdibleMapleSyrup