Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

The two boats that Young Master’s Elite were aboard docked by the shore. The six men leaped off the boats and paid the fee, as the two boatmen rowed off. Young Master Han lifted the spyglass and turned it toward the direction Southern Lone Blade and the rest had headed, but all he saw was thick fog.

M*th*rf*ck*r! Young Master Han cursed to himself. The other five had gathered around and took turn at the spyglass to check their surroundings, each shaking their heads and sighing.

“Shall we head to Xiawu City first?” Sword Demon suggested.

Everybody nodded. Since they were here, they could not just give up and return even though they had no idea where Southern Lone Blade and his squad were, for that would just be too shameful.

“Wounds, go destroy their boats,” Young Master Han said.

Everybody was in low spirits, and War Without Wounds was no exception. He marched over to where Southern Lone Blade and the others had hidden their boats and dragged them onto the beach. Fishing out a battle axe from his dimensional pocket, he savagely wrecked the boats into splinters, venting out his frustration in the process. Young Master Han had already collected a sizeable bundle of kindling from the surroundings and tossed it to the ground. He even fished out a booklet from his pocket and tore a few pages out, calling to Gu Fei, “Ace, lend me a light.”

“Fireball!” Gu Fei extended his sword and chanted, creating a ball of flame on its tip. Young Master Han reached over and set the booklet in his hand ablaze and stuffed it into that pile of kindling, before looking over to War Without Wounds. “Activate your Cyclone.”

“What for?” War Without Wounds asked.

“Give it a little air.”

Thus, War Without Wounds activated his Cyclone upon his request. With the additional wind, the fire spread from the paper to the kindling – kindling to the splintered wood that was once the boat. Some of the wood was still wet, so the ensuing fire and heat only caused it to billow out a black smoky haze as it burned. This made them all flee from the smog cursing, since they had all circled around to watch the fire burn.

War Without Wounds was coughing a fit as he got enveloped in a heap of ash when he ended his Cyclone. He coughed and hacked loudly as he fled, yelling to the others, “Won’t such a huge smoke expose our presence?!”

Young Master Han continued to look around the fog that surrounded them even as he muttered, “It’d be great if we can lure out Southern Lone Blade’s group just like that.”

It was unknown whether the fog was simply too dense or Southern Lone Blade’s squad had never once looked back, but the blazing fire continued to belch out smog that attracted no one, becoming no more than a release for their frustration. In the end, the splintered wood from the boat were too wet to be burned, as War Without Wounds stared at the remaining pile of wood and grumbled resentfully, “I wish I could just piss on this.”

The others glanced at him, not bothering to address the man’s crudeness. The game allowed players to eat and drink because those were a form of enjoyment, but it saw no point in simulating pointless things, such as needing to use the toilet. If there was indeed such a sensation, people would surely rush to log off, since that would just lead to them pissing in their pants!

“Let’s head to Xiawu City!” Young Master Han pointed forward and began to stride off. Sword Demon and Brother Assist were right behind him. Gu Fei wrapped his hand round Royal God Call’s shoulder and asked, “Hey, Royal, why are you quaking in your boots?”

“What nonsense are you talking about? Who’s quaking?” Royal God Call lowered his head to look. He was indeed feeling rather nervous, but to say he was quaking in his boots would be an exaggeration. Gu Fei laughed. “You’d better follow us closely, then.” as Royal God Call quickly tagged along. In the game, coordinates were provided to help with positioning, so the fog was not that big of a deal in any sense. However, with how inept Royal God Call was when it came to reading coordinates, an idiot like him that had no sense of direction could only depend on visible markers and landmarks to determine where to go, so the existence of Xiawu City could really be considered as a nightmare to him.

The six men had left the shore for quite some time and were slowly entering the fog in proper. They were no longer able to see the body of water that they had left behind when they looked backward just now, as their vision had been entirely obscured by the fog. Young Master Han, who was very sensitive to distance, coordinates and the like, was able to conclude soon after, “We have around 50 or 60 meters of vision around us. Royal, can you see further with your Eagle Eye?”

“Ah?” Royal God Call looked all around, but he had no idea how to compare how far he could see. Young Master Han had no choice but to pick something to take as a reference. Pointing in a certain direction, he asked, “Do you see that vague outline of the tree in the distance?”

Royal God Call stared at where he was pointing for a bit. “Where? Why can’t I see it?”

“F*ck, Eagle Eye, my foot…” Young Master Han snorted.

“That’s a tree? I think that’s more like a house. Royal, do you see that house?” Gu Fei gazed at the same direction Young Master Han had pointed and saw a house instead of a tree.

“Nope. All I see is a huge rock,” Royal God Call answered.

Everybody was speechless. It was truly far too foggy out here. Although Young Master Han claimed that they had a maximum vision of 50 to 60 meters, they were not even able to tell if that thing 50 to 60 meters ahead of him was a tree, a rock, or a house. It was as if they quite literally had no vision at all.

“I think it’s best if we hurry on our way. Perhaps, things will be better once we reach the city.” Brother Assist flipped through his booklet as he said this. He had some general information about Xiawu City’s coordinates. The reason he had forgotten about this city’s existence was that they had been too focused on the waterway routes set by the system.

“This way!” Brother Assist looked at the coordinates and led the way, even as he gave a brief overview of the city, “Everyone has already seen the unique feature of this city. This heavy fog we see now is apparently a bit better in the city than here. The largest guild in this region is called Flowergazing in the Fog, and it’s a level 6 guild; there are plenty of level 5 mercenary groups as well. In terms of experts, there are four players who are listed among the Ten Great Adepts: the ranked seventh Warrior is Three Sighs of Flowing Maple. He’s the guild leader of the Flowergazing in the Fog Guild; there’s also the Thief that’s currently ranked fourth on the leaderboards, Cool Apple; Windchord is ranked eighth as a Fighter; and then there’s… the Mage that is ranked second on the job-class leaderboard, which is also one of the newest entrants to the Five Unyielding Experts, Slyris. I’m sure everybody finds this name familiar?”

“Yeah,” Gu Fei answered.

The others looked at him in amazement. “How do you know?” They were clear just what sort of person he was, and he was someone who almost had no interest in what was happening in-game. Any expert he met would be treated as cannon fodder, and he would never care about what sort of reputation or name they had forged for themselves by their in-game achievements. For Gu Fei to know who player Slyris was, could there perhaps be some sort of secret affair going on here?

“You two know each other?” Brother Assist asked. He felt that he had a good grasp of Gu Fei as a person, and the only possibility for the two to know each other would be if they knew were in real life.

“No, but I’ve seen that name before,” Gu Fei volunteered this information.

“Where did you see it?” The other experts were all paying close attention.

“The forums,” Gu Fei replied.

“You visit the forums too?” Brother Assist was excited. Could it be that a bit of his interest had rubbed off on Gu Fei after spending so much time together? This must be what charm meant!

“It was a long time ago,” he said. It had truly been long ago. During that time when he failed to show restraint and slew No Smile eight times, his equipment was appraised and dissected on the forums, drawing a huge discussion. Back then, an account by the name of Slyris had caught his attention. Even though this person had no idea that his indomitability was entirely due to his knowledge of kung fu, the final analysis was very methodical and detailed. While he had no idea if that forums’ Slyris was the same person as this in-game Slyris, he nevertheless had quite a strong impression of the name.

“Oh, so that’s the case!” Brother Assist was quite astonished after he had given this explanation, since this meant the latter managed to remember the name even though it had been so long. Brother Assist was certain he had also viewed the same thread that Gu Fei was talking about, as he did have the vaguest impression of that particular analysis, but he had long forgotten who the account holder was.

“Based on the analysis, it seems that that person is an expert. Still, there’s no guarantee that this person and that person are one and the same,” Brother Assist commented.

Gu Fei nodded his head. Actually, he had only casually answered “Yeah” when Brother Assist asked if everybody found the ‘Slyris’ name familiar and had not expected for them to have such a huge reaction. Right now, he felt that they were acting really snoopy, especially when they tried to dig out the underlying meaning from his flippant answer.

“Forget about the leaderboards,” Sword Demon was the one addressing everyone now. “Given the difficulty in grinding levels in Parallel World, the difference between our levels is miniscule. Equipment and skill are the more important factors. Even though Southern Lone Blade lost a level, I sincerely doubt that the Ten Great Adepts in his job class would dare to confidently claim that they can beat him.”

“Yes, what Sword Demon said is true. Look at how that idiot Drifting is the number one on the Mage leaderboards, but he doesn’t even have a hair’s breadth of a chance to win when pitted against Miles!” Royal God Call said.

Everybody gave him the side eye. The example Royal God Call had given was simply far too outrageous since Gu Fei’s indomitability was entirely unrepresentative of the masses. The level of abnormality that he demonstrated might not be possible to surpass by a difference of five or even ten levels. At this moment, Sword Demon recalled how a level 10 Gu Fei managed to defeat himself at level 25 and really found it unbearable to look back.

With the discussion about Slyris coming to an end, Brother Assist continued his report, “There’s one of the Seven Bottlenecks here as well. The ranked eleventh on the Thieves leaderboard, Yan Xiaozhu.”

“Oh, that sounds like a young girl’s name!” War Without Wounds said.

“And it feels that she’d be a pretty girl, too,” Royal God Call commented.

“We’ll need to find an opportunity to compare notes,” War Without Wounds said gravely.

Gu Fei really wished he could introduce the two of them to Forever in Flowers. He was certain they would get along like a house on fire.

The six continued onward when Gu Fei received Eternal Dominion’s message, asking for his whereabouts.

“Xiawu City; you know how to get here?” Gu Fei asked.

“What route do I take?” Eternal Dominion asked.

“The system does not have a path here. You’ll have to rent a boat from one of the guilds by the beachside bar to send you over,” Gu Fei gave a rundown of the process, mainly because Linshui City was not particularly “safe”. Any wrong move in finding a boat, and Eternal Dominion might end up on a boat with dubious intentions, but a business operated by a large guild would be far more reliable, so there should not be any issues if they were approached.

Eternal Dominion happened to be waiting by the harbor to catch a ferry, but upon learning that he had to look for a private boat himself, he again headed to the bar to inquire after the matter. Sure enough, the various guilds that had these bars set up also operated such a side-business and would naturally be quick to service any potential client. However, getting over to Xiawu City via a boat was pricey. Since there was not a route that was operated by the system, the players would of course take this chance to capitalize on this.

Despite being one of the Five Unyielding Experts, Eternal Dominion was actually a player without much money to his name. This was because he was just like Gu Fei; the time he spent diving into the game was limited compared to a common gamer. At the moment, he took out his money pouch and counted out a total of 98 gold coins, 76 silver coins and 54 bronze coins. When the other man saw this scene, he reckoned this customer must surely be poor and decided to forgo nitpicking and graciously gave him a 5-gold coin discount, charging him 95 gold coins in the end.

Eternal Dominion took the boat and made his way over. He felt that this trip of his to earn money really had some risk to it. It would be truly disastrous if he made his way over and did not manage to earn some money from killing Southern Lone Blade. At that point, he might not even have enough on him to pay for the trip back!

I really can’t make head or tails. Just how do the heroes of yore never seem to lack money despite not doing any work? Eternal Dominion was lying on the boat, with one foot raised idly over his knee and his head being cushioned by his arms, and wondering this to himself as the boat bobbed its way along to his destination.

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