"So, let's talk about the blades and cartridges model," I said addressing my class. "Who here buys single use razors?"

I waited for half of the class to pay attention. It was a lazy Monday, so I wasn't expecting much. They were paying tuition or were on scholarship, so they were going to hear my theories about the world and business practices.

"Why are you paying for single use razors, Mr. Reinoso? And I should be clear... I'm talking about the whole thing comes together."

"They're convenient. I just need to bring one. I don't need to bring the cartridge and the razor itself wherever I'm going."

"Mr. Reinoso… has given me my next point. The blade and cartridge model. If we get to buy the razor for cheap, then you're going to be locked into using our cartridges, correct? This is like you buying Nintendo games because you bought a Nintendo. It makes you more likely to, right?"

The class chuckled.

"If there's someone here who says I'm going to buy a video game system and not buy any games for it then what are you even doing. Unless you know that Grandma's going to go out of her way to get you something. And we both know that Grandma is not going to give you Grand Theft Auto five."

The fact that that game had been on three PlayStations so far had nothing to do with why I pulled it out as an object lesson. The kids were interested in the video games, industry, and media in general. I wanted to make sure that they understood parts of how to Market that business. If you were selling with blades and cartridge model, you had to give the unit at a lower cost to lock them in.

That sunk cost fallacy really stung.

But it worked wonders for businesses across the world.

All these offers that are sales that will expire at some point in time. They all play on human psychology. If it's a digital product? They can offer it to you at any time. They might have a season when they're marketing it, but there's no real reason why they can't just give it to you whenever they want to. That right there? That's a well know marketing tactic.

The limited time offer will always be something that can move someone on the fence.

Always be wary of someone offering you a course for a limited time. There might be a cohort window but otherwise it's just playing on people's FOMO. Speaking of FOMO, the shop had offered me a tantalizing new option that morning.

After Rachel locked in, I had no idea what was going to happen and if the system would recognize her as something. But I got my answer when the shop offered me...

Coaching Menu 500 points

So of course, I had to wonder if this would relate to me acquiring Rachel and investing my time into her.

This hadn't shown until I had texted her and then venmoed her some money.

Then, of course when it popped up, all my plans for getting anything for a thousand points were down the drain. I would find it out later. The new shiny thing demanded my attention

That Monday class was in session again and it was second mini class that was brand new. My dean had strong armed me with the one thing that motivated me.

Money.

Oh I didn't mind being paid. It was just that it disrupted my regular Monday flow.

Monday afternoons I had been just doing some play-by-plays and watching some white guys talk about DOTA on YouTube. I found myself back in another class and starting all over again.

It was refreshing. It was brand new. It was more of the same.

I gave my normal speeches to the new class about first day and drop week, but it was my specific Fall two talk. They had forgotten to register for the regular 15-week fall semester. This semester was a bit abbreviated and had less options.

They didn't offer every class, but my Marketing class was a hit, so they asked me to run it. Several majors required it, especially in the business field. Plus who didn't want to spend time with me?

The FOMO was strong with the patch shop though. I had scrimped and saved and finally realized that whatever this was? I needed it.

When I bought the coaching menu, I got another screen. In the menu, I had grid of my teeth to their right Rachel Lewis as the coach.

Was I was giving her my power? The patch had to be using her as a conduit for my power. It had to be. The screen showed a five by three grid. Each player was a row and there were three redacted columns.

Rachel was something else.

There were a few things that were redacted that I wanted to see, and I was pretty sure they would all go live at some point in time the next day when we were all in game.

My phone buzzed.

Kelly: Can't wait to see you guys!

Amir: I'm ready to dominate.

Stacey: Bot

Amir: Top

Kelly: I guess I can jungle.

Amir: Leigh called mid.

It would have been perfect to have Rachel join us, but I knew she was working. She was a bit younger than us, and I was already asking her a lot. Gaming happened after hours. I didn’t want to take up her free time with my requests.

Kelly: Rachel the new coach said she was going to bring out some of her advanced tips and track mix for the crew.

Amir: Are you going to spread some of that love around?

Stacey: Game recognize gamer.

Kelly: She's expensive.

Stacey: So are we!

I thought about it.

Kelly: If she misses work like this, she might not make enough money. I can ask her to join us when her shift is over.

Stacey: Taco Emoji

Amir: Pedro Pascal Emoji

Rachel and I had been texting back theories all day. She had been talking about the difference between DOTA and League. I was just glad that we had finally gotten onto the same page. Especially since she and Esther had been texting back and forth.

Esther had Rachel join the group chat and had been very enthusiastically praising Rachel and making it seem like they are both about to run off together. I encouraged him honestly, even if we lost this week. I would consider this a win.

If my semester ended up at a lesbian wedding, I could honestly see it.

Union County was supposed to be pretty good. They were great.

The thing about the patches that it wouldn't let me see face off previous games.

One of the Union County gamers had put their last game on stream. I can see the game. I can watch it. I was going to be able to go out there and watch to play especially if all the lead games are on Thursdays

We don't have a bye week but otherwise, we had to work what we had.

This gave me the idea that I was going to have to start having the scout for me. Where do I get a scouting part?

It was a drag that I was going to have to go and see them in person to correctly play against them online. In a higher-level play how, we did depended on how much of a miser the patch was going to be to me. So far it had been mean.

There was the lack of information that I had on their other competitors which is a big thing. Then there were unknown unknowns. Seeing this guy’s clips was giving me some issues. This was a ringer. But he was only one guy.

I also wondered if I could get somebody from Institute of learning and retirement. They were technically Burton County students, but would they be able to do this? I would have to leave. There was an eligibility window. I could imagine somebody who was top-tier player taking one class to see if they could do this lower-level league for fun.

I think that my mother if aimed correctly could dominate in this game. She wouldn’t, because games are the devil, but it would have been awesome.

I would love to apply or grab someone who could just come in and help me sweep the league. Either way, whatever happened next was going to have me look at those rules of conduct because I was about to figure out a way to get some rules put in there myself.

Would the administration look at that oddly? I didn’t care.

If you ever have a chance to be the reason someone adds a new rule to the employee handbook, I suggest that you do. It. Was going to be one of my proudest moments whenever this happened. Your skills to be a bot or a mid laner

But we'll see.

Monday night, I played a few games with Amir and Stacy. They're both talkative and as it turned out, Lee played too. I was happy to have her join us on this adventure.

She was not a huge fan, but she was doing it for us. After morning yoga, she had decided that she wanted to get to know us better.

Draw, Stacy and I had all the dirt on the mirror. She wasn't threatened by us. Or at least I didn't think so it was my goal that she'd not be threatened by us and I was going to do my best to see if we could get there.

So I took my roll up as a jungle that night and moved around supporting Stacy Amir as they ran bottom Lanes support but mostly I was helping out with Lee. She was doing something incredible with her Lane.

I felt like I was directly coaching her or managing her. And every time I told you something, he was on point.

Thanks for and it was at a five.

Mechanic score and it was about five. When we have started playing that evening, she had a AP of 35 and an AC of one. Her mechanics had been a one. This meant that just by working with mechanics.

Also, her office had gone up as well. Her office had got off from a 1:00 to a three which after three games? That felt more like her dusting off rust than anything else.

Are you sure that you haven't played this lot? I asked.

Well, the problem is that I couldn't play much during physician's assistant school. It's just not something that I was able to do so I had to quit playing

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I can understand a single-mindedness that someone must have to work in the healthcare professions. She gave up six years of her life to make a very good living where she could work 3 days a week. Honestly, I was super proud of her. I was working four days a week and felt like a lot but three? Hers were all 12-hour shifts.

They sounded harder than what I did but that was the state of things wasn't it? Leigh probably would be getting a side hustle after hanging with us.

It was only by the grace of Stacy allowing us above her off this that we. As soon as she got off, she left the hospital and showered. Then she come over and joined us and celebrity that evening by getting dinner together as a group

For that he thinks.

Stacy had told us that she had finally set up the whole Team room above her office on the underutilized third floor. She had that fiber optic internet that everyone loved. What she also had was a fully stocked fridge and drinks.

We brought our food there. We talk a bit and then we got into the game. Honestly? It felt good. What exactly what I needed? Thanks, Kellie

Stacy and Amir caught me up on Mister Mean. Leigh explained what she did for the third time. Then we went back into politics and everything else that was going on with the looming elections. We got into it.

At the end of our three games, was when I saw her score rise.

She was dusting off her old play style. A lot of change in 5 years but she played the same mouse druid that she had before. Freya the mouse avatar was strutting around as if she owned the place.

Soon it was all over, and I had to walk back home. My heart fell full, my belly felt full, and everything was great.

I needed more of that.

---

Tuesday morning I had an idea what was going on. All the rows became the people that were going to play that night. I got five confirmations and then Rachel and I were going to be fighting against them with some of the B team.

It was going to be a friendly match just like every one of our matches. And as soon as Rachel and I started talking that morning, things started unlocking. Suddenly, I had three kinds of blocks. Each player had three blocks in their row. Each player had three columns.

It was like a tile game. I could put regular training in every tile. But I also had three specials. One was offense and defense; one was mechanics and teamwork, and the third one was redacted. I was wondering how much this patch would do for me.

This whole practice would give me 180 points. Three points per minute managing, over 60 minutes of play.

I would be close to recouping what I had spent getting this coach buff. I couldn't wait. Eventually that Basic Profile two would unlock. But not today. Throughout the day, I thought about how I would use my tiles. Obviously, I want to figure out what redacted was. I had an idea that it was going to work towards my favor to have the person that was lowest at it get to work with it. That was Bob. He was the lowest at whatever redacted was.

I got the feeling that he would be happy about whatever it was and then he would let it slip.

The writing was on the wall. There were only so many things could be. I was hoping that it was assists or something like that. Maybe it was something intangible like friendship. If only the friendship, we made along the way was a statistic that we could look at and calculate.

So, tiles.

I had three different tiles that were not just general training. It looked like I could earn more tiles with time. Knowing the patch, I would have to buy them piecemeal.

I had two tiles for offense and defense. I put those in Bob's. He had the most to work on.

I can also give one of the redacted ones. He might be the most even player I had so I wanted to see what that would do. Then I gave him one of my three redacted tiles.

I had two mechanics tiles to train with. So, of the fifteen blocks I had available for training, seven were taken up by things that we're not just basic training.

However, when I set the mechanic tile down, I realize that the system wanted me to put them adjacent to each other. I found out what little difficulty that I could move people around in the rows and columns so to get the same two now people working mechanics and they work together. They kind of snapped and moved next to each other wherever I willed them to go.

So of course what it did was put Murph and Raquel together for one of their blocks each. Their other two columns just had the regular training blocks.

They were already great at teamwork and mechanics. I wanted to see what this was going to do for them. I tried to give Raquel both blocks but that didn't work.

Some of the training had to come in pairs.

It made sense. It could only train some things together with another person. It made less sense that I had to move people around to get these things to work. But if it fit? It fit. I wanted my support laner to be the best supporting good. And if that meant that his stuff focused on that? I would take it.

It was hard enough for me to make those little decisions while I was at lunch. I couldn't wait to see Rachel online that evening and talk it through with her. I had already been texting her about it.

Rachel: You want me to lean into Raquel and Murph's strengths? I can do that.

Kelly: Well that's something that we have as an established canon in our team. Murph backs up his girls.

Rachel: Bob is going to work on something special for me and I think I have the idea right for him as well. He's going to do great, I think. What are you thinking about for Esther’s focus?

Honestly, she really made me think. I had to step back a little bit and think about what she was good at. She was good all around. Honestly, she will be a first-round draft pick if there was a fantasy DOTA league. However, what you really needed to do was get out of Rochelle and ask for help. I'd seen it time and time again. She was quiet almost to a fault. Opened to the right people or she waited to open up the people she wanted to open up to, but other than that, she left well enough alone.

Kelly: I think she's already a high performer. I want to see what you can do with her. Nothing specific.

This is good because I hadn't put anything specific on her training arrangement. She didn't need the things that the rest of the team needed. She needed us to put in work on her behalf so that she could take advantage of the situations that she was so good at predicting came up.

Like seriously, she would be a great detective. I was betting that a favorite type of TV show that wasn't girl on girl Yuri love was crime procedural. Heck she could be a lawyer. I have a new two lawyers. I would give her a letter of recommendation, just based on her DOTA prowess.

It might be unethical to think that somebody would give you a letter of recommendation just because you were good at the game. But its what people have been doing for years except the game was knowing people.

There was never going a list of things that I wanted to do and seeing how I could just talk to Rachel about the strategies that I wanted her to implement made this so much easier. I knew what I wanted them to do and anyway they needed to work on. All I needed them to do was to sit down and engage with it. And I need to see whether there were hard caps to their abilities and if by using her I would be able to unlock those hard caps.

Whoever or whatever had given me the patch, they had made my life so much more interesting in a way that I'd never really appreciated up to that moment where I needed a second person in order to use it.

I wanted if I could get the coaching menu with a different coach. It made sense for me to be able to do that, but I didn't know if I was going to be spending some metaphorical coach Juju that only Rachel had just to upgrade my guys.

What if I wanted to make my team with Lee, Stacy, and Amir. Would I be able to train myself and Rachel with that? That was a question. Especially since Rachel was so eerily perceptive of our strategies after just spending 10 minutes with each person.

When I asked her what she wanted to play as, she said that she was more of a fill. And we both kind of had a moment where neither one of us was able to back down.

It was like being aggressively helpful and then not taking someone else's help. Clearly, we both wanted to be the one who gave the hell for filled in the last roll. But what the universe was telling us was that we couldn't do that. We had to talk it out. Stacy in the mirror knew each other very well. When we worked that one out, things fell into place.

I was taking top Lane and Rachel, haven't flipped a coin took Middle Lane. This worked out extremely well and, in the games, we played together, she was leading the charge almost as much as I was. Her mechanics were tight. Lee was Rusty and the rest was finally coming off fully and I could see that she had about as much current ability as she had potential ability.

This meant that she was already a high-level player, she just got sidetracked for a few years while she was in school.

I started to think of how good she would have been if she had had the time to work on it. But seeing Lee that day, it was the first time I'd seen somebody who's probability potential had increased. It only gone up two points, but I was thinking that it would go back up to a very high level as well. Based on how close it was. Initially, I thought that ability potential would never go up. I had only seen it be static on every other person. But this proved that there was a way for somebody to have a high Chrome ability and hat be able to go back to a potential that they had previously. It didn't make it clear how that would work.

Nothing about the patch was clear.

It was clear as mud.

I just wish it was clearer at that exact moment. What the heck was happening inside of the game mechanics. See that would have been nice to know. But instead, what I got was ridiculousness problems.

Ridiculousness with a side of mango.

So that was our first training plan with Rachel. In my mind's eye, I would have to see how it worked out. By the end of that third game, I might be able to see some changes. Evidently, there was something special that she had which I did not. I had a warm mentoring tone, but I was more of a manager. A manager doesn't coach you and what to do, they tell you what to do and sometimes redirect you. A coach sits down with you and looks at your faults and all that stuff and then kind of gets you to a new spot. Both were important especially so in this area. Every top tier play group had a coach and a manager and sometimes that was the same person. A lot of times it was two different people, and you could often see them sitting behind the team on the big stage as they gave out this little Susan of wisdom to their guys.

I can see it there. The two of us on stage with our winning team, dominating a sport where South Korean men had been in the lead for ages. We will come out of left field.

It was a beautiful idea, and I just needed a little bit of practice to get there.

By the end of that day's training, the dividends were worth it. As far as the mechanics blocks went. They literally gave the mechanics booster plus one. The teamwork block held both of those guys. And the block that I had worried about had gone into something overall.

It made me think through all the repercussions of the assigning which block to who. If I only had those five or six blocks to spread across 15 then I was going to have to think about if I was going to bring up the lowest common denominator or if I was going to increase my star player. Honestly, this is going to be a tough one. If the lowest player on my team was as good as the best play on their team, we would be well ahead of them. But we hadn't really come up against that opponent that was as good. Maybe if the team played against my squad plus Lee and Rachel, we would have a fair fight. But that would have to be something I worked out. We did need opponents for the guys to fight and Tuesday nights most of them were free, so I texted the group chat to see. Only time would tell.

Apparently, she did her job well.