Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

By the time he was done with his research on the six different monsters, an entire afternoon had already passed. Gu Fei reflected the great sense of achievement he was feeling inside; meanwhile, Brother Assist’s book was now filled with new notes.

“My students are low level. This Knight isn’t even at level 30 yet, so choosing it might be too low for you. Head back, look for a level 40 monster that you wanna grind on, and tell me; I’ll help you research it.” Gu Fei told Brother Assist.

“What do you mean head back. We’ll do it now, let’s go!” Brother Assist was anxious.

Gu Fei glanced at the time and saw that there was still a while before his students would get online after having their dinner. Gu Fei had gone through great pains and hard work teaching his students these last two days. After all, there was no way his students could grasp everything in that two-hour lecture, so Gu Fei had to join them for the remainder of the time when they grinded, continuing to correct all their mistakes. When it was time for his students to take a rest, he still had to prepare for future lessons. Originally, he had time to rest after finishing all the preparatory work, yet right now, he had additional lessons to impart for Brother Assist…

Thankfully, Brother Assist’s lesson would be accomplished in this one day, and the Knight would not approach him with new questions every day. Gu Fei nodded and decided to sacrifice his rest today to help Brother Assist just once.

“What level of monster do you think I should be fighting?” Brother Assist asked.

“What level of monsters do you usually fight?” Gu Fei asked.

“Level 45, but if we’re talking about efficient grinding, I’ll choose those around level 40,” Brother Assist answered. Expert gamers would often choose to fight monsters five levels above theirs when solo grinding, and a powerful and skillful party could usually take on monsters ten levels above theirs, but for players like Svelte Dancer that possessed top-tier equipment, they could similarly take on monsters ten levels above theirs alone. Only inhuman characters like Gu Fei would be ridiculous enough to take on monsters twenty levels above his.

Furthermore, being able to kill a level 50 monster using the strength of a level 40 could not be considered as taking on overlevel monsters. Even players with just fairly decent equipment could accomplish such a feat; the key was to insure a level of efficiency when doing it. In the span of one minute, a player who might be capable of killing two level 40 monsters but could only manage to kill a single level 50 monster. Meanwhile, the experience from killing a level 50 monster was nowhere as ridiculous as twice that of a level 40 monster, so that player would be better off grinding with level 40 monsters in terms of the rate of experience awarded.

To truly take on overlevel monsters, it was necessary for there to be a visible increase in the rate of experience earned. A good example was Brother Assist; the Knight was capable of defeating monsters five levels above his own, yet he barely qualified to take on overlevel monsters since he would only be at his most efficient grinding on monsters around his level. However, experience points were not the only thing players gained from killing monsters. The level of items monsters could drop would be factored in as well, and the level of monsters had a positive correlation with the quality of the items dropped. Thus, even though the experience gained between level 40 and level 45 monsters was about the same, he was more willing to work a little harder and kill the level 45 monsters, instead.

Gu Fei very clearly understood the logic behind this as well, so neither of them wasted any more words, and Brother Assist immediately led Gu Fei directly to the grinding map he frequented. Actually, Knights and Priests grind very similarly: it was most efficiently done by them joining a party. A level 40 and above Dark Knight, however, would gain greater Attack Power after their Job Class Advancement, and this once support job class now had the wish to help out and contribute to the damage output of their party. Thus, they no longer needed to dedicate themselves solely to the management of bestowing Blessings onto their party members but could, instead, actively brave the frontlines at the first opportunity they got.

This sort of half-heartedness of course left people feeling disgruntled, and that was because most of the players in charge of dealing damage had thought of themselves as the masters, treating the support players as no more than servants. For a servant not to properly serve to the needs of the masters and actually dash forward and fight over monsters with their masters, how could any of them bear it? Besides, Knights were, honestly speaking, just a booster of sorts and were not something necessary like Priests. Their grind might be slightly slower without Knights in the party, but that was hardly a big deal. Besides, there were plenty of ladies who had picked up the Priest job class, which was a natural advantage that Knights could not match up against. Thus, when it came to support job classes, the treatment Knights received was far from that of Priests.

Meanwhile, Knights that advanced to become Dark Knights now possessed a decent Attack Power, which allowed them to solo grind, and for those who did not wish to deal with people giving them looks when in a party, those Knights decided to walk the path of masters and to no longer stoop or compromise by carving a path out for themselves. However, Brother Assist was not in such a similar situation. As the King of Information, Brother Assist mainly focused on questing to level, only occasionally joining parties to grind on monsters. For him to have the thought of grinding on monsters, it would be a lie to say that it was not influenced by the people he hung around with.

In the mercenary group Brother Assist was in, aside from Gu Fei, the indiscriminate slayer, all the other members were people who worked independently. Even if he was not motivated, there was no way he could not think to improve himself when hanging around such teammates, so Brother Assist slowly began to feel embarrassed whenever he found himself figuratively getting carried whenever they were in a fight.

The monster Brother Assist was currently grinding was the Campfire Patroller found in Baishi City’s Wilderness Camp. Their level ranged from 44 to 46, and their job class was that of a Warrior. Every Campfire Patroller used a one-handed sword as their weapon. They also carried torches in their off-hand, which acted as weapons in combat, allowing them to inflict the Burn effect that caused gradual damage if they made contact with their targets. It was a particularly nasty monster for players to deal with.

Nonetheless, despite its nastiness, the level 45 monster was already a pretty good selection as far as solo grinding went. This game’s design made it evident that it encouraged players to form parties and play as a group since the higher the level of the monsters, the more they would form packs of threes to fives, all of them sharing the aggro generated when engaged. Even a single player would have trouble taking on these monsters if he or she was on the same level, much less if they were levels above their own. Fortunately, the game company had not forgotten to cater to the lone wolves that preferred solo grinding, taking into consideration to program monsters that were more suitable for such endeavors. The Campfire Patroller was one such monster, and it was the favorite of the average players between level 40 to 50.

From the scene that laid before them upon arrival, Gu Fei and Brother Assist could tell that there was quite a number of players grinding out here, but they were all engaged in their respective battles, each staking their claim to a parcel of land as they silently grinded. Furthermore, quite a number of players present were capable of taking on monsters five levels above theirs by themselves; this was the result of the game’s intentional design of the increasing experience point requirement for every level. The high experience requirement made players stagnate at any one level for a very long time. They would rather trash equipment if they just recently level up, but having spent such a long time leveling meant that most players would be able to swap their water pistols for cannons. The advantage pioneers held would be diminished precisely in such a fashion, and the higher the level people became, the more apparent this would become.

“Shall we find a spot and begin?” Gu Fei kept the conversation going with Brother Assist as they entered the camp grounds, searching for a corner where nobody had a claim to.

Brother Assist had been frequenting this area these last two days, but he had never really gone here at this time of the day in-game. He too had learned from Young Master Han to wait until it was deep into the night when there were fewer players online before starting his grind, so he had never run into such troubles with crowd before. The two men walked halfway around the location but had yet to find a spot for them to begin. Gu Fei got very impatient, while Brother Assist felt dispirited.

“Now, what?” Gu Fei asked.

Brother Assist really hoped that Gu Fei would be able to clear out a spot, but he knew that, even though the latter hardly batted an eyelid when killing players, he would never act like an unreasonable tyrant, so all he could do was sigh. “Let’s keep walking around. If there’s really nowhere free… We’ll just come by another time!”

“Okay!” Gu Fei answered as they kept searching. In the end, they came up empty-handed, even crossing paths with quite a few players who were similarly searching for spots. Thus, Gu Fei began to take the initiative and asked the players grinding if they were about to leave. What he was doing did not seem to be well-received by others, though, as some of them gruffly expressed their intention to grind unless they dropped dead when asked.

However, there would always be good men in the world. As Gu Fei and Brother Assist went about asking players, everybody could see that the two men were in urgent need to grind, so finally, someone took pity on them and waved the two of them over. “Hey, you two! Come here!”

Gu Fei and Brother Assist exchanged glances, and after confirming that this person was indeed calling for them, they happily ran over to this man as fast as they could.

“I’ll be logging off for dinner soon.” The player told the two once they were within earshot.

“Thanks a lot,” they hurriedly replied.

“Are you two grinding together?” the guy asked, a little curious. As this was a famous spot in Baishi City for solo grinding, nobody should be pairing up to grind here unless one of them was a noob being carried or trying to leech off experience, but looking at these two men, they were evidently above level 40.

“We’re not grinding. We’re looking to fight these monsters for the purpose of research.” Gu Fei was honest.

“Research?” This player was very confused.

“We’re researching an efficient fighting routine for the Campfire Patroller,” Gu Fei expounded.

This player was obviously very interested in what Gu Fei was saying, so he excitedly asked, “How’s that done?”

“You’ll need to wait till I pull one first.” Gu Fei chuckled.

At the moment, the spot this player had gotten for himself was devoid of monsters. In such a popular grinding map, it was no more than a pipedream for a player to occupy a large area, which would let anyone keep on grinding without stopping. Managing to have a two- or three-monster spawn point to themselves was already decent. Most people were just holding on to that one point, and that was hard enough as it was.

“It’s gonna respawn real soon over here, then you can show me what’s your research about.” The man smiled, pointing over to an open space as he addressed Gu Fei.

“Alright!” Gu Fei pulled out a sword.

“Sword?” The player’s eyeballs nearly fell out from their sockets. A Mage using a sword… He quickly thought of a terrible legend, so he quickly tossed out his Appraisal skill, only for his eyeballs to actually fall out this time. That sword Gu Fei was holding was just a very common single-handed sword – a weapon that dropped while he was doing his preparatory work before. Gu Fei did not wish to kill the monster too soon as he was looking to contend with the Campfire Patroller as long as possible.

A burst of light, and a monster respawned. Gu Fei rolled up his sleeves and smiled at the kind player. “I’m starting.” With that, he lifted his sword pointing outward and began assaulting the monster.

That person opened his mouth, about to say something, but nothing came out in the end. Brother Assist was snickering at the side. That’s the right reaction any average player will have when they see a Mage wielding a sword to engage a monster in melee! However, his shock and surprise might be far too early right now. The real show’s yet to come!

The exciting performance that left Brother Assist experiencing what it meant to ‘ no longer heed other mountains after returning to Huangshan ¹ ‘ had just started, and he watched in amazement as the look of shock on that person’s face gradually turned from mild surprise to stunned astonishment before settling into reverential awestruck.

“Ahhhhhh…” The player had long since lost his ability to speak, pointing at Gu Fei as he wildly gestured to Brother Assist. It was clear that he wanted to ask questions yet was momentarily incapable of forming out the words for them.

Brother Assist gave him an inscrutable laugh, for he had just realized that being a friend of Gu Fei was truly something of a privilege.

“Just… Just… Just what do you call that?” The man finally managed to express himself using words.

“Ahem. That…” Brother Assist had just readied himself to elaborate with a line or two when he heard waves of gasps and exclamations come from all around him. The attention of the players in their vicinity had been drawn to Gu Fei’s way of engaging the monster, and each of them stopped what they were doing to watch the man. Some even abandoned their grinding spots just to position themselves closer to Gu Fei and get a better view of what he was doing.

Oh, dear. It looks like this a little bit too big of a privilege , Brother Assist thought to himself.

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