Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

A long off-topic thread appearing on the Trade forums might not be any big news, but Brother Assist, who treated the forums as his home, still managed to discover this situation. Originally, he was simply curious and went in for a look, but upon seeing that it was a request to buy a piece of equipment that increased the Command stat, which the current players had no use for, Brother Assist could not help but be stunned.

Brother Assist’s understanding came to the same conclusion that Silver Moon had explained to No Smile. At the current stage of the game, the 9 Command points players had was more than enough, yet there was someone out there that required a higher Command value…

Brother Assist quickly logged into the game and took out that little booklet of information of his and began flipping through it. He soon located the equipment information he recorded about the King’s Blade – something Gu Fei had told him about after asking Vast Lushness on his behalf. Sure enough, one of the stat requirements for King’s Blade was 25 Command.

Sword Demon, Young Master Han, and the others were already online at this time, so Brother Assist quickly informed them of this huge discovery, “This is the only time I came across a requirement for Command. Could the person looking to purchase the equipment be Silver Moon?”

“Couldn’t you tell from his forum ID?” the people asked.

“That’s already no longer accurate,” Brother Assist said. Players did not need to apply for an account to use the forums as it was directly linked to their player account, and this seemed to be a way the game company used to prevent people from having alts ¹ . However, in reality, while logging into Parallel World required the players themselves to do so, logging into their forum accounts did not need such strict verifications. As long as someone knew the account’s password, anyone could use someone’s ID to go into the forums and assume a different identity.

Naturally, not everyone playing the game would delve into the game and stick with it. Quite a number of players gave up after a while, and while they were unable to transfer the account to anyone else, a good number of players had homed in on collecting these accounts to use as alts on the forums. Meanwhile, there were all sorts of reasons why some players needed these alts. Take Brother Assist as an example; the man already had two alts in his hands. For a player that often spent his time trawling through the forums, he would simply be throwing his face if he did not even have a single alt account on deck.

“Silver Moon is still alive?” Royal God Call asked. People like War Without Wounds and him only inquired what was happening with Silver Moon after he got sent to Baishi City out of interest. By now, they had already forgotten all about Silver Moon after hearing about the man’s first few deaths.

“It’s very possible for this person to be Silver Moon! That guy already managed to flee from Baishi City’s Knights’ Barracks,” Sword Demon shared. “Dusky Cloud informed me of this news last night.”

“That guy has been stuck in the spawn point all this time?” Royal God Call was astonished.

“Yup.”

“Then what’s his level right now?”

“36,” Sword Demon replied.

“Silver Moon could use the inlaid skill of King’s Blade before, which means that his Command stat was at 25 points then, and that’s only possible with equipment that increases it. Unfortunately for him, in that period he’s being spawn-camped, his equipment that increases his Command stat must have dropped during one of those deaths. Right now, he can no longer activate his King’s Command. This explains why there’s a post that’s asking to purchase one such equipment,” Brother Assist analyzed.

“That makes sense,” the crowd agreed.

“How did Silver Moon escape?” Young Master Han suddenly asked.

“Someone came and whisked him away their encirclement using a Teleportation Scroll. Dusky Cloud said that it was a Priest; he had also teleported another player that we are all familiar with: No Smile,” Sword Demon shared.

“A Priest?” These professional gamers immediately thought of the same person.

“Could it be that guy?” They’ve already more or less treated this guess of theirs as a fact.

“If it is really that guy, saving Silver Moon and bringing No Smile along can only mean that he’s coming after us,” Young Master Han said.

“To think that he’d actually collect those scumbags to help him.” Royal God Call scoffed.

“They’ve already crossed swords with us before, so they don’t need much convincing,” Brother Assist reasoned.

“Still, to get that sort of guys, they’ll surely be the first to run off at the first sign of trouble!” Young Master Han said.

“Definitely!” They were all very confident of Silver Moon’s character. As for No Smile… The only impression they had of the man was his tenacity. Knowing that he was no match for Gu Fei, instead of quickly logging off, the man actually kept trying his luck, getting himself slain until he lost ten levels in the process. Everybody did not have a good grasp of the significance of strength in the early days of the game, especially against an extraterrestrial existence like Gu Fei. For No Smile to actually try measuring the man by mortal standards, the lesson learned was actually a bloody one.

“Silver Moon, No Smile, Cool Apple, and that Broken Water Arrow. On paper alone, this line-up looks to be rather formidable. “Royal God Call raised a finger for each player mentioned.

“Both Silver Moon and Cool Apple aren’t level 40,” Brother Assist reminded.

“No Smile’s a little skilled, but he’s just the average expert; he’s not really up to par with someone like Cool Apple, much less Broken Water Arrow,” Sword Demon added.

“That’s the No Smile we know from way back; who knows how much the man has changed by now?” Brother Assist countered.

“That makes sense!” Sword Demon immediately accepted Brother Assist’s perspective on this, superseding what he thought of No Smile moments before.

“The problem here is that we have Miles on our side,” Royal God Call said.

“It’s just so pointless…” War Without Wounds said. “It’s just not challenging if they don’t throw everything but the kitchen sink at us.”

“The times when Miles will log on is already an open secret to those who know him. Adding the fact that he has Fleeting Smile in his friends list, it’s very likely they can use the opportunity to attack us while Miles isn’t around to weaken us accordingly before they concentrate on dealing with Miles,” Brother Assist said.

“We shouldn’t underestimate that Fleeting Smile, either. He might not have the ability to go head to head against us, but who knows what sort of unknown, strange equipment or skills he might be capable of procuring?” said Sword Demon. While he had successfully defeated Cool Apple, he still had his reservations regarding that guy’s Shadowstep. This sort of overleveled skill was truly far too powerful.

“That’s right; that’s the most frightening aspect he brings to the table!” Young Master Han said. “Furthermore, from his actions and line of thinking, if he’s looking for helpers, we can infer that he’s not likely to stop short at finding Silver Moon and No Smile. They’re not the only two who have past grievances with us.”

“Southern Lone Blade!” Everyone immediately thought of this name. The man had been their most recent adversary.

Southern Lone Blade was indeed far more fearsome as he had a complete team under his command, and his group was no weaker than Young Master’s Elite. If Gu Fei was removed from the equation, with him logging on at night for such a brief period only, even though they were all under level 40 at the moment, as long as Fleeting Smile outfit them a little, they would indeed be a troublesome bunch to handle…

“That’s why I say, the policy I’ve always stuck to is indeed the right choice,” Young Master Han said.

“Policy? When do you have a policy?” Everyone was confused.

“Never engage the enemy passively, always take the initiative like what we did to take down Cool Apple!” Young Master Han said. “Are they looking for Silver Moon and No Smile for help? Very good. We’ll first take care of those two guys right now.”

“But where are we going to find them?” the others asked.

“Isn’t Silver Moon looking to purchase that equipment with the Command stat? Brother Assist, reply to the man and tell him that we have one such equipment in our possession. Arrange for a location and we’ll kill him there. Everything is that easy,” Young Master Han said.

“Why will he even reply if he sees Brother Assist’s ID.” Royal God Call believed that Young Master Han had made a foolish mistake here.

Before Young Master Han could express his disdain, Brother Assist was the first to interject. “I have my alt accounts, too.”

“I’ll go make contact; wait for my news.” Brother Assist logged on to chat with the rest about this matter, and since he had yet to leave the designated log-off point, he immediately logged off after this conversation, Meanwhile, the others began to stop what they were busy with and prepared to gather for this task at hand.

Brother Assist visited the forums using one of his alt accounts after he had logged off and saw that the first off-topic thread of the trade forum was still up, though it had been pushed back to page 11. The significant enthusiasm that the players demonstrated from before subsided. Were it not for the fact that it had been highlighted so blatantly, Brother Assist figured it would have long sunk further down into the archives. He had no idea if the other party was still waiting for more news, so he simply replied to the thread, claiming he had one such equipment on hand.

“What equipment? How many Command points does it add?” Brother Assist refreshed the page a few times before he finally got a reply from the original poster.

“Crap; I made a mistake!” Brother Assist slapped his mouth lightly; he had yet to finish doing his homework, yet he already came pestering the person. While Brother Assist was knowledgeable, he had never once come across such equipment before. Still, even though he had not seen any, he reckoned that Silver Moon would likely only have that one or two piece himself. Given how large Parallel World was, there was no way he would know other such sort of equipment as well, right?

With such a thought in mind, Brother Assist boldly replied, “Commander’s Ring, +18 Command.” He thought that this was a convincing bluff, 18 Command points, plus the 9 points that players could have, would give a player a total of 27 Command points, which should be enough for Silver Moon to use King’s Blade. There was no way that the other party would refuse.

Sure enough, a few more refreshes of the page and the person on the other side replied: “How much?”

“You may start the bid.” Brother Assist treated this like a normal sale and acted the part of the seller.

“500.” This person did not hesitate long.

“That’s too cheap, bro. It ain’t easy getting this thing here.” Brother Assist was of course not in the least bit concerned about the price, but he was afraid that agreeing to the price too readily would raise the man’s suspicion, so he decided to continue and haggle over the price.

“Buddy, there’s no use for such equipment currently, and all I need it for is to activate the equipment I have on me right now. 500 is already what I’m willing to part with a rare item like this, would the item really be worth anything otherwise?” the other party replied.

How straightforward! Brother Assist did not expect that the deceiver Silver Moon would be so honest. A wolf in sheep’s clothing? He thought to himself of how different the man was now that he was using his alt account before he replied, “Your post on the trade forum has been up for the whole day, and the thread has derailed to such a point, yet no one responded for a trade. This forum has never encountered such an inefficient transaction before. You can tell just how rare this equipment is thusly, so will 500 really be enough to cover the rarity alone?”

“How about this; bring the goods and we shall talk about this in person in-game? It’s really too troublesome doing this here.” The two of them had to keep refreshing the page to keep this transaction going!

“No problem.” Brother Assist only required them to meet. He was prepared to suggest the very same thing if the other party continued to dawdle, anyway, but who would have guessed that this other person would be the one to spring the request first?

“What’s your IGN in the game?” the man asked.

“No. Tell me a location, and we can both meet.” Brother Assist replied with this, instead. This request would not really cause any sort of unnecessary suspicion because there were too many transactions that were done over the trade forums in such a fashion. Without even mentioning any names, a location would be arranged in such a way that it was possible for either party to complete the transaction without even knowing the other party’s IGN, how he or she looked, or even their gender.

“Which city are you in?” the person asked.

“Linyin City,” Brother Assist replied. A transaction between players in two different cities was an issue as well, and sometimes it would take hours before the requested equipment could make its way over like this. Players kept appealing for a shared Trade Exchange and Auction House across the entire Parallel World, but the officials explained that this was not an issue of being unwilling to allow such a function, but that it was a technological limitation that made it impossible for the Auction House and Trade Exchange to be connected throughout the game world. Actually, this was the same issue Ye Xiaowu had explained regarding the map coordinates and the corresponding map codes in the various cities – how the servers were incapable of handling them all at once, so they had to be separately managed in such a manner.

“Oh, how coincidental; I am in Linyin City as well,” the other party replied.

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