The King's Avatar

The King's Avatar is a long-running esports novel by Butterfly Blue, serialized on Qidian from February 2011 to April 2014. Set in the world of the online game Glory, it follows Ye Xiu, a professional player hailed as a "textbook-level expert," who is forced into retirement after refusing to cooperate with his club's commercial agenda. Leaving the professional scene, he takes a night-shift job as a network administrator at Xingxin Internet Cafe. With a decade of gaming experience, he never lets go of Glory. Returning to the newly opened Server Ten under a new account, Lord Grim, and wielding the self-made Silver weapon Thousand Chance Umbrella left to him by Su Muqiu, he uses his mastery of all classes to pioneer, break records, and conquer the Realm of Gods, while befriending Tang Rou, Steamed Bun Invasion, Qiao Yifan, Wei Chen, and others. Together they build the grassroots team Xingxin from scratch and ultimately lead it back to the professional league to contend for the Season Ten championship. Grounded in the rules, classes, skills, and team ecosystem of the Glory Professional League, the book is briskly paced and brimming with humor, bringing to life a host of sharply drawn characters including Ye Xiu, Su Mucheng, Huang Shaotian, Wang Jiexi, Zhou Zekai, and Yu Wenzhou. It is a milestone work in Chinese online gaming fiction. In August 2020, the book was permanently archived by the National Library of China. This edition is the collector's edition released by Tianwen Kadokawa and Yuewen Group to commemorate the work's original serialization (Yangcheng Evening News Press, 19 volumes), with the author personally reviewing the worldbuilding and illustrations by the popular artist Maoshu.