The battle for lane control continued in Bot.

After being scolded so many times, Ronald stopped showing off his early-game damage. Instead, he focused on delivering as much damage as possible while relying on minimal resources.

I don't wanna be completely useless during laning, but I can't allow myself to run outta MP either. Ronald had no choice but to settle on the middle ground. I hope this is good enough for Captain Stalin.

Instead of placing Ray of Light on the entire enemy wave, Ronald placed it only on the enemy's frontline. There were multiple benefits to doing so.

Firstly, the spell’s AoE now stretched all the way to the allied swordsmen as well. so it gradually regenerated their HP.

Secondly, the AoE was now placed in the very center of the lane. Therefore, Chessmaster would have to overextend in order to reach the AoE and get hit by it, which wasn’t exactly an attractive offer for him.

Yep, like I thought. He doesn't have the balls to do it. Ronald snickered.

The new approach worked wonders. Chessmaster stopped suiciding on Ronald’s Ray of Light, so farming like this was pretty chill and ez for Ronald.

On the other hand, William and Gunz continued wrestling nonstop. They didn’t exchange any direct blows, but they contested each other in terms of positioning and spacing.

William wanted to summon Assault Drones that’ll help him farm faster, whereas Gunz insisted to shoot down every drone before it even had a chance to be born.

The two kept going back and forth. Gunz stalked William at every step, whereas Wiliam tried his best to outsmart and shake off the pesky stalker.

Surprisingly, so far, Gunz has been successfully shutting Willaim down. The guy didn’t allow a single drone to live for longer than a couple of seconds if even that.

Wow. This is really something. Ronald thought. I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen bro struggle this much with basic farming, especially with Droid.

Normally, William was the type to dominate the lane. He had tons of game knowledge and experience, so he knew how to make the most out of every situation.

All these complicated stuff like spacing, optimizing damage, and so on - these were a breeze for Willaim. That’s how he was able to play a wack class like Droid with such proficiency.

Meh, I can’t for the life of me get used to this class. Ronald admitted. But, bro makes it look like a legit top tier. At least, usually, he does…

Unlike in most matches, Willaim’s Droid didn’t seem that impressive this time. On the contrary, it looked like a vulnerable class that was easy to shut down.

Every Assault Drone cost 2 batteries, but it took Gunz only three hits to shut down such a drone. So, every time Gunz successfully eliminated a newborn drone, he effectively made William waste batteries on nothing.

Each wasted battery had a cooldown of 15 seconds until it went back online, so losing an Assault Drone was equivalent to being smacked in the face with a 30 seconds cooldown without gaining anything in return. It felt terrible.

Of course, when it does work, then these drones can pack a serious punch. Ronald thought. So, all things considered, I guess the skill is balanced overall, even though it must feel horrible to use it in this game.

In theory, the Assault Drones were a great help for farming, especially for a class like Droid that didn’t have any damage skills whatsoever. When the drone didn’t die immediately, it stayed on the field for a prolonged period of time, continuously supplementing the Droid with steady DPS.

The few times William successfully outplayed Gunz, he reaped decent benefits from having an operational drone around. The little bots barraged the minions with lasers! ... for 3 seconds or so, and then Gunz usually destroyed them.

Nevertheless, for the brief time during which the drones were operational, they were a substantial DPS increase. That’s why Gunz was so frantic about shooting them down. 

As some dead uncle once said, “with great power comes great responsibility”. That was a good way to summarize the Assault Drones and Droid as a whole.

It was a class with incredible potential, but it had to be wielded carefully and responsibly. Droid had the ability to utterly demolish opponents who didn’t know how to counter it, but it was always an uphill battle against stronger opponents.

It demanded a conservative and calculated playstyle. This suited Willaim very well, but not so much the younger brother.

Meh, I prefer to have more freedom in how I play. Ronald thought. Though, sometimes this “freedom” tempts me to do dumb things, haha...

Even though Ronald was using his spells more conservatively now, he couldn’t erase the mistakes of his past. The MP he wasted earlier didn’t magically return. This wasn’t some happy-go-lucky cartoon in which the hero causes a miracle by conquering his weakness.

“Welp, I’m pretty much spent,” Ronald said. “I gotta recall soon.”

“No problem,” William responded. “I can hold them down on my own.”

“You sure you’ll be fine? I can hang around a little longer if you need.”

“Unnecessary. You’re not going to be any help without MP.”

“Hey, I still got my basics!”

“They deal zero damage.”

“Haha, true that.” Ronald smiled wryly. Even with his power build, the damage of his basic attacks was nothing to write home about. Such was the sad life of mages.

“I’ll be right back.” Ronald started recalling. “I’m gonna build even more power so we can clear the minions even faster!”

“Sure.”

On that note, Ronald teleported from the lane and returned to the base.

Other than buying wards, his top priority was to power himself up. The plan was to return to the lane stronger than ever and wreak havoc with his spells!

Unfortunately, until then, William will have to defend Bot all by himself. And, the enemy had their own ideas for how to take advantage of this situation.

"Yo, the Lumi dude left," Lars said. "So, can I duel the Droid? Pretty please? Their Jungler is on the other side of the map and all that."

"Hoh, I see you’ve learned how to make good appeals." Yuel smiled meaningfully.

Lars’s request sounded risky at first glance, but then he pointed out that the enemy Jungler was nowhere nearby. It meant that nobody from the enemy team could possibly gank the lane for the time being, so Lars will be free to fight to his heart's content.

"Hmm. This does seem like a good opportunity to test out the waters," Yuel said. "Winner seems to be the strongest fighter of their team, so it’s important to know whether you can handle him."

"Yeah, exactly! It's a fated duel, yo!" Lars flashed his teeth. "We gotta duke it out and see who's the strongest dude around! And, I'm sure he feels the same way. I sensed it when we had our spacing contest earlier."

In truth, Lars and Winner had been “dueling” each other ever since the game started, but it was more like a cold war. Instead of attacking, they spaced and zoned each other by moving around. It wasn’t as cool as actually exchanging blows, but it nonetheless demanded a good degree of adaptation and outplaying.

Basically, instead of fighting directly, they used the drones as a proxy for resolving their conflict.

Winner's goal was to summon his drones and put them to good use, whereas Lars's job was to eliminate the drones ASAP. And, amidst all that, they had to make sure they still scored shots and last-hits on minions. 

It was an interesting contest. It utilized many of the skills required for real duels and it was pretty fun too. But, it wasn't a “real fight”. There were too many restrictions on what Lars could and couldn’t do, so he didn’t get the satisfaction of actually destroying his opponent.

I'm sure dude feels the same way. Lars smiled confidently. We're both raring to go.

Like the rest of the team, Lars also watched the replays of the Leopards’ past scrimmages. Of course, he didn’t remember much of the details, but he did get a pretty solid read on Winner.

AbsoluteWinner, as his name implied, was the kind of dude who was always eager to win. But, it’s not just winning as a team that he wanted. Nah, this dude was aiming much higher than that. He desired to dominate every game by himself, to trample over all the competition with his own two hands!

In both scrims, Winner was always out there, searching for the next target to stomp. He wanted to prove he was stronger than anybody, to establish himself as the king of the region.

I like that attitude! Lars licked his lips. Y’know, I'm also a fan of finding strong dudes to fight. So, I’m sure we gonna get along very well!

"Okay, then I'll rotate to Mid," Yuel said. "You're free to fight him during the next minion wave. Just make sure you don't overextend; the Lumimancer can return at any moment." 

"Gotcha."

On that note, Yuel entered the Jungle and headed toward Mid.

"Are you really coming over here?" Kai asked. "I'm not struggling here or anything, just so you know."

"Yes, but you’re not making much progress either."

"That's... fair, I guess." Kai grumped.

As frustrating as it was to admit, Merlin kept Mid Lane frozen ever since the game started. That pesky turtle didn't really put up on much of a fight, but neither did he allow Kai to push through him.

"I'll help you push a little so you can get some momentum," Yuel explained.

"... fine, you can come."

Meanwhile, Lars and AbsoluteWinner remained alone in lane.

The next minion wave arrived, forcing the two of them to compete once again. However, this time, there were no restrictions or distractions. Nobody else was there to interfere with their duel.

This was going to be a pure 1v1 laning contest, one between a Pirate and a Droid. And, if time permits, this bout could even transition into a proper duel after that! Which one of them will become the uncontested king of the region!?