Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Gu Fei left the city. He did not need to be sneaky, nor did he engage in any cosplay dress up. Securing his Mage robe, holding his sword in hand, Gu Fei walked right out of Yunduan City’s gates. Coordinating with the indomitable city guards, he made his way toward the battlefield, ready to bully players left and right. He did not find this entire process to be in the least bit difficult. He had not thought to do anything like this before because he did not think that this was challenging at all, and he found it to be quite the pointless exercise in itself. Gu Fei was no longer the same person as he was when he first logged into Parallel World, more than happy to demonstrate his kung fu to anyone and everyone he randomly met. Dissatisfaction was a human trait, and Gu Fei now wanted his bullying of players to also challenge him a bit, to be somewhat meaningful.

At the start of the City Wars event, Gu Fei did not really have a good understanding of his role as a city defender, merely going through the motions as he picked up his quests and worked on them accordingly. But now, working with Sword Demon to gather the others all together under one roof in this manner, and the ladies of Amethyst Rebirth calling him their guild leader as they followed his lead, Gu Fei felt a sense of belonging to them all. He began to feel that killing a normal player out on the battlefield could also be something meaningful.

“Someone else has appeared!!!” There were plenty of players who were hiding inside the chaos of the battlefield, keeping an eye on the city gates. All of them became alert the moment they spotted a player walking out.

“Confirm that person’s identity,” the whole lot of them called out.

Colored Clouds was no longer the only guild that was targeting the city defenders for extermination. Once the four large guilds understood what Colored Clouds was doing, and were further made aware of the fact that Thousand Miles Drunk and everyone else was being contained within the city walls, all the guild leaders felt that there was no need for them to stay together in the Chinese cabbage patch anymore the moment this information was made known. They had very swiftly recovered their spirits and resumed organizing their men, intending to assault the city relentlessly. This was especially true for the four city gates, ensuring they place a whole bunch of people there without any regard for their safety.

“Is that man one of yours?” The players from the various guilds pointed toward someone from Colored Clouds and asked. Everyone was aware of the plan that Colored Clouds was engaged in, so it was a little inconvenient when they still had to identify friend from foe out of all the players that made their way out from the city.

“Nope,” The players from Colored Clouds calmly replied. There was no need for these people to even take a look at the player stepping out. After all, they would be the first to know if one of their comrades really stepped out.

“Get ready!!” Who knew how many teams shouted this same command.

As the figure slowly became visible, everyone became all the more animated, “It’s Thousand Miles Drunk!!”

“Thousand Miles Drunk has come out!!” All the players showed the same excitement like they had managed to camp out a BOSS’s respawn, each of them trying their best to squeeze their way over.

“Kill that man! He’s going to be removed from the event if we kill him several more times!” The players were all in high spirits.

Blink!!

Gu Fei had entered the battlefield by Blinking from behind the city guards, brandishing his sword out with a twirl of his hand as he cast his Twin Incineration, insta-killing the three players beside him.

“GET HIM!!!” A whole pack of players bellowed as they swarmed him. Gu Fei treated the city guards as obstacles and cover, weaving in between them, ducking and evading, striking out whenever he had the chance. In no time, another 17 players had fallen victim to his sword. The crowd finally calmed down and discovered that they had let all the excitement get to them. This was Thousand Miles Drunk, the top tier BOSS that was capable of facing off against the 1000 man strong guild, Carouse, and lived to tell the tale. With the city guards around him, these players must have really had a brain fart moment for even thinking that they stand a chance fighting against the legend himself.

Gu Fei did not think too much about things. At the moment, he was simply killing anyone who was in his path. Nobody could block him. He was even more efficient than the NPC city guards, and just in terms of damage output alone, a single city guard was no way comparable to him.

“STOP HIM!” Players were all grouped into a mess, and the various team leaders were all yelling out orders while their members gave them the side eye. Currently, the players did not have much freedom on the battlefield. The fact was that there were plenty of city guards all around them clashing against city assaulters the entire time. After all, would they not have already broken through the gate by now if the players were not being restrained to such a degree?

Gu Fei’s presence made a huge impact on the battlefield. While the city guards were strong, they were ultimately just city guards created by the system, which the players were able to slowly figure out a method to whittle them down. With every job class coordinating their attacks, the dead being sent back to the encampment and the living coming in to substitute, everything had been in a state of balance. But the moment Gu Fei appeared, many of these city assaulters decided to put what they were doing on hold and target him instead, which only ended up causing them to accelerate their own deaths when they charged him.

The efficiency that Gu Fei demonstrated when he killed was far stronger than the dull city guards. At the moment, he was concentrating in a single direction, rapidly carving a path out for himself. The city guards were very inflexible when they were fighting, but they did have spatial awareness, quickly filling into the path that was carved out. Thus, it was like Gu Fei had led his own personal army, leading the city guards onward to carve out a bloody path out, essentially invincible.

However, the further they got from the city gate, the weaker the system’s forces got. With players wrestling back the initiative once more, everyone surrounded this lone troop of guards that had sallied forth. Their battle cries of “Repeatedly kill Thousand Miles Drunk a hundred times” sounded while they also discovered: Thousand Miles Drunk was no longer among this lone string of pursuers.

“D*mm*t, he ran away. Coward!!!” Someone chided.

Everyone glanced at him. Anyone with a bit of sense would never believe that Thousand Miles Drunk was a coward. His running off only meant that he had something else important to do. If he wanted to stay around and kill the players present, he would surely become a contribution score grinding machine, and anyone who understood would be clear on this point.

Gu Fei left the battlefield and quickly ran toward the grinding map. He intended to deal with the Priest situation at a later time, his priority right now was to get his hands on the teleportation scrolls they needed. The man from the workshop, whose name was Aural Valley Wind, had already added Gu Fei as a friend, and both parties had already agreed on a meeting place.

—

There were really a lot of players out in the grinding map, and this particular map that they had agreed to meet on, Gu Fei spotted a player who was not busy grinding but was very blankly standing there, looking like he was waiting for someone.

“Aural Valley Wind?” Gu Fei made to approach the man.

“Oh?” When the man heard someone calling his name, he immediately turned around, looked at Gu Fei in the eye even as he quickly reached his hand out, “Are you the renowned Thousand Miles Drunk? Long have I admired your exploits.”

“You’re too kind.” Gu Fei returned the courtesy. “Have you brought the scrolls?”

“But of course,” that man hurriedly put his hand into his dimensional pockets. 30 scrolls were a lot, so there was no way that he could retrieve them all in one go. The game emphasized on simulating realism, so it would not simply have a scroll marked with a multiplication factor of 30 on it and call it a day. The workshop’s Aural Valley Wind gingerly took out the scrolls, pulling out 10 the first time round, before taking a single 10,000 gold-coins bag from Gu Fei. Every time their two hands would shoot out at the same time, and one side would only let go of the scrolls in hand after the other party’s bag of gold coins was exchanged over as if Gu Fei would slay the man and abscond with the goods.

They had completed such a transaction twice, and for the 3rd round, Gu Fei only lifted the gold coins over, and did not take the 10 scrolls in front of him, “I want you to mail these ten scrolls to Brother Assist. We need the coordinates, so help me retrieve them after.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is. No problem!” Aural Valley Wind nodded. All of a sudden, a Thief that was busy fighting a monster leaped over and Aural Valley Wind handed the scrolls over to him as he instructed, “Mail this to Brother Assist. Get him to write down the coordinates before he mails it back, then bring back here.”

“Roger that,” the Thief grabbed the scrolls and ran off.

“You’ve got a bodyguard with you?” Gu Fei was astonished.

“Think nothing of it. Do you still anything, sir?” Aural Valley Wind asked.

“Nothing, just waiting for the scrolls!” Gu Fei answered. Aural Valley Wind, however, continued to ask, “Aren’t you guys looking for Priests?”

“Hmm? You guys sell that as well?” Gu Fei was surprised.

Aural Valley Wind chuckled, “Of course we have mercenaries for hire, full-time, part-time, etc... If you have a need for them...”

“How much?” Gu Fei asked.

“A level 40 Light Priest would be about 50 gold coins, by hire.” Aural Valley Wind offered.

“So 50 gold coins for an hour?” Gu Fei asked.

“That’s right,” Aural Valley Wind nodded.

Gu Fei pondered about this. He had no idea if this was an expensive hire or otherwise, so he quickly contacted the veterans in the city. Brother Assist was shocked, “Just who did you find?”

“The workshop contact told me that he could provide us with Priests,” Gu Fei said.

“Oh, no wonder. Professionals! However, given our current circumstances, it is better if we stick to hiring unaffiliated players. There’s no telling how long we will need them if we pay them by the hour!” Brother Assist said.

“How much did you pay for the players before?” Gu Fei asked.

“One for 150 gold coins, which would be 3 hours going by the workshop’s rates. Do you think we can eliminate those guys inside the city in just 3 hours?” Brother Assist said.

“I think so?” Gu Fei would always think that anything that involves combat would be easy.

“It’s really hard to gauge such things! However, using men from workshops isn’t a bad idea at all. At the very least, they would be professional enough when hired,” Brother Assist said.

“Then let’s get them!” Gu Fei wanted to settle this fuss free, so he immediately turned to ask Aural Valley Wind, “How long do you need to gather the manpower necessary?”

“Well, how many do you need?” Aural Valley Wind asked.

“40 of them!” Gu Fei said.

“How long?”

“We’re not so sure yet. How do we settle the bill with you guys?”

“You’re not sure? Then I suggest that you guys do not go by the hour, but by the task instead,” Aural Valley Wind said.

“The task?”

“That’s right. Look here, this is our discount package we have during this City Wars event.” Aural Valley Wind began pulling out a promotional pamphlet. When he saw the dumbfounded stare on Gu Fei’s face, he explained once again. “However, because only a single day had passed since the City Wars event first started, our package isn’t comprehensive. Perhaps the task you’re looking to accomplish isn’t included in it, especially... You guys must be on the city defender’s side, right? We really don’t have any information on that end.”

“However, if you guys need to hire so many Priests, we can offer our service especially for your task; we’re very flexible like that. You guys want 40 Priests, right?”

“Yes, how much will we be talking about?” Gu Fei asked.

“A single person for 300, so we’re talking about 12,000 gold coins in total. What do you say?” Aural Valley Wind asked.

“Make it an even 10,000!” Gu Fei haggled.

“That’s a very hard deal you’re driving,” Aural Valley Wind showed a pained expression.

“12,000 is fine too. Gift me 40 players for an hour as well.” Gu Fei bargained till the end.

“Isn’t that just the same?” Aural Valley Wind was exasperated.

“If not, we’ll just be hiring 40 for an hour. You can choose!” Gu Fei said.

“Option A and B will earn me 12,000 gold coins, while option C would only be 2000 gold coins. Looks like I can choose only either A or B,” Aural Valley Wind said.

“B it is then!” Gu Fei said, “even if you choose A, I’ll still be buying the 40 players by the hour.”

“Alright!” Aural Valley Wind finally gave his answer.

“When can you get everyone?” Gu Fei asked.

“I’ll get to it right away. Will this place be convenient?” Aural Valley Wind asked.

“Find somewhere without anyone around!” Gu Fei was still worried that there could still be spies or scouts around. He did not wish to run into any sort of minor complications again.

There were plenty of maps beyond the city that had no players around. Aural Valley Wind very quickly thought of one such place and proceeded to inform the relevant players to head on over, at the same time he hurried over toward the map with Gu Fei.

“Are there many people hiring extra players during this City Wars event?” Gu Fei asked as they were on their way to their destination.

“Not a lot,” Aural Valley Wind replied.

“Wait a minute, what are the death counts of all those Priests you are hiring out to me?” Gu Fei suddenly asked.

“Don’t worry about that. I can guarantee that every one of them would have at least 20 lives left for this event. Actually, for tasks that are more dangerous and more likely to result in death, the price would be much higher, and remuneration would be expected as well. However, because there isn’t any death penalty during this City Wars event, that additional clause will be ignored,” Aural Valley Wind said.

“Okay.”

With the details of their transaction properly ironed out and arriving at the destination, the first to arrive was actually the Thief that had been previously been sent out to mail the teleportation scroll from before. Handing the scrolls over to Gu Fei, the man did a quick glance and noted that the ten scrolls all had the same set of coordinates written upon it. Sword Demon had also sent a message as well, “Tell us before you send the Priests over.”

“How much longer will this take?”

“The 80 players all on their way here,” Aural Valley Wind replied.

“The first 40 shall be considered as hired by task, while the 40 after will be hired for the hour. Will that work?” Gu Fei said.

“That... I’m afraid that would be rather inconvenient for us. The different players who are hired for the task and for the hour have already been assigned, and it is mainly their choice how they wanted to offer their service...” Aural Valley Wind explained.

“Oh, in that case, get everyone to hurry,” Gu Fei urged.

“Priests are all baby legged!” Aural Valley Wind reminded.

While they were waiting for the Priests to arrive, things were not looking too pretty back in the city. Without any Priests, Extremely Heaven Defying and Amethyst Rebirth did not dare to confront Colored Clouds at all, hiding in every direction of the city. However, even when they heard the news that their Priest reinforcements were about to arrive, all they could do was endure. The coordinates that Brother Assist had written on the scrolls were to the mailbox by the city gate; Sword Demon had already called for everyone to gather there, keeping everyone active in the vicinity as best as he could, allowing them to immediately begin their organization of teams the moment the Priests teleported in.

“Sword Demon, get ready for the incoming Priests!” It was at this time when Gu Fei fired off the message. Sword Demon instantly jolted to life as he passed the information along to everyone. The members of both guilds began to make their preparation at the designated spot, while Gu Fei had already handed out the teleportation scrolls to the groups of four, waiting for the signal from the city.

“We’re ready!” Soon, Sword Demon sent his message of confirmation. Gu Fei read it and gave the order out to the crowd of Priest before him. All of them activated their teleportations scrolls and teleported en masse, as 40 Priests instantaneously found themselves inside Yunduan City.

“Heh, this is actually my first time witnessing such an awe-inspiring sight of 40 players teleporting together!” Aural Valley Wind marveled.

“It’s nothing. No different from 40 players dying in unison,” Gu Fei was truly someone who was used to such momentous scenes.

“What are you going to do with these 40 men?” The other 40 Priests had already arrived and were waiting for further instructions.

“Heh, I have my own plans for them. Speaking of which, how many more Priests do you guys have?” Gu Fei asked.

“You want more?” Aural Valley Wind was taken aback by this request.

“I think 40 should be enough, but I’m just asking in advance; I’ll come looking for you if it isn’t enough,” Gu Fei said.

“Wait a minute. Just what are you thinking of doing with our Priests? You could not be letting them use up all 25 lives for this City Wars event, right?” Aural Valley Wind asked, worried.

“I don’t think so?” Gu Fei said with a hint of uncertainty.

“‘Don’t think ‘so’???” Aural Valley Wind had mimicked his inflection of ‘so’ and homed in on it.

“If you’re so worried, why don’t you give me another 40 Priests?” Gu Fei suggested.

“Just what exactly are you up to?” Aural Valley Wind could tell that Gu Fei had no intention of sending these men into the city, and it was apparent that he had other uses for them.

“Why is your guild asking so many questions? It’s not like I wouldn’t pay you guys,” Gu Fei said.

“We’re responsible for the interest of our members! You’ve originally just employed them for one hour, so I did not wish to discuss about the remuneration costs, but what you’re doing now worries me a lot! If you were to get them killed 25 times in just one hour and force them out of the City Wars event, that would be as good as crippling my supply of Priests for the entirety of the city war. I would be making a huge loss for just the cost of the 50 gold coins during this one hour!” Aural Valley Wind was indignant.

“How much is it going to cost if I end up incapacitating them?” Gu Fei asked.

“1000 gold coins,” Aural Valley Wind answered.

“And we’re now back to the price of a teleportation scroll,” Gu Fei sighed.

“You wish to buy out their incapacitation cost?” Aural Valley Wind was visibly excited. He knew about Thousand Miles Drunk’s business with the Efficient monster grinding routines and the huge profit they made. He was certain that this rich man would be able to afford to spend the 800,000 gold coins necessary to buy out all 80 players.

“Give me 80 players, and if any of them really end up dying 25 times, I’ll pay the incapacitation cost.” Gu Fei said.

“Then you’ll have to pay in advance,” Aural Valley Wind argued.

“How would I know if anyone would end up dying!?” Gu Fei protested.

“We will refund you if they survive,” Aural Valley Wind reasoned.

“I’ll pay you once they die,” Gu Fei was adamant.

Aural Valley Wind felt that continuing this deadlock was not the solution, so he changed his tone, “How about this? Tell me what you’re trying to do, and I’ll evaluate this.”

“Get the people I need here first. The lack of movement speed Priests possess is really unbearable,” Gu Fei insisted.

“I’ve already sent the word out. Now tell me what you’re planning.”

Gu Fei told him exactly what he intended to do, and Aural Valley Wind was left agape, “You’re insane...”

“I’m confident it’ll work,” Gu Fei said in a firm tone.

“If that’s the case, perhaps you do not want them all to be Priests. Assemble some other job classes to provide firepower and that will be more effective,” Aural Valley Wind suggested.

“You’ve got those too?”

“As long as you have the coins, we’ll have anything you need,” Aural Valley Wind smirked.

“Fine, get me some highly skilled ones,” Gu Fei acceded.

“How many?” Aural Valley Wind asked.

Gu Fei thought about it for a moment, “5 will do. 2 melee, 3 ranged. The higher their damage output, the better.”

“Then you’re asking for our elites. Those players are priced differently.”

“What a nag. Just tell me already!” Gu Fei was annoyed at how the conversation always ended up on price with this person.

“2 Thieves and 3 Mages, what do you think?” Aural Valley Wind asked.

“Hmm, what’s their damage output?” Gu Fei asked. Aural Valley Wind rattled out their stats, and because Gu Fei had a good idea about these two job classes, and hearing how pleased Aural Valley Wind was making his report, he wondered out loud, “Are these your strongest players?”

“That’s right!” Aural Valley Wind was honestly pleased, for his men had quite an impressive damage output.

“The Thief is far from Sword Demon or Svelte Dancer, and your Mages are nothing compared to Drifting,” Gu Fei was unsatisfied.

Aural Valley Wind vomited blood, “The players you’re comparing them with are deity level! We don’t have anyone like that.”

“Then I’ll get these guys! How much?” Gu Fei asked.

Aural Valley Wind was originally quite proud of himself. But now that he knew that Gu Fei did not have too much of an understanding toward Priests but had a very high expectations for damage dealers, he instantly felt like he had failed to meet Gu Fei’s expectations on this front. He felt a little ashamed, feeling a little embarrassed to give him the original price that he had in mind, only answering after a moment of pause, “Let’s put them at 100 gold coins per hour, for everyone.” It was not that the damage dealers were not as valuable as Priests, but the fact was that these men possessed the highest damage output that Aural Valley Wind had, and the Priests that he had provided were not even exactly as elite themselves.

“Fine, I’ll still want the 80 Priests. Get them to gather quick,” Gu Fei called.

Workshops worked with high efficiency, so it did not take long for the Thieves to arrive, given their superior movement speed. Upon seeing that their employer was Thousand Miles Drunk, they got a little excited as he was Parallel World’s no. 1 damage dealing expert. Actually, while Aural Valley Wind was waiting for people, he had also thought about how much it would be appropriate to charge people if he had Thousand Miles Drunk under his own account.

Soon, the baby-legged Priests slowly gathered, and when they all realized that there were a total of 80 Priests rallied here, yet they were only serving a small team of six damage dealers, they were all a little confused as to what it was they needed to do.

“What we’re going to do is very simple,” Gu Fei began to address the crowd. “There’s an encampment that only has a few NPC guards stationed there. Our goal here is to kill the guards and dismantle that encampment!”