Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

The members from Deep Waters’ guild already knew that the player their guild leader had invited over was going to teach them things related to PK again. Why again? Because not too long ago, Broken Water Arrow had taught them plenty of things related to jungle warfare, and anyone could tell at a glance that what was being taught was not something a normal army aficionado would know. After all, the actual combat value of it was simply too much. But ever since Broken Water Arrow quit the guild, everyone in the guild was still uncertain just what the reason was for his departure, and those people who had added Broken Water Arrow as a friend and wished to ask him about it discovered that the man had already blocked them, cutting off all forms of communication to them.

Thus, this matter had quietly gone by, and Deep Waters ended up inviting another instructor this time. Thousand Miles Drunk! It was someone famous this time, and everyone knew that this person had quite the imbroglio between him and the guild, but it seemed that the relationship between their guild leader and Thousand Miles Drunk was not too bad, so everyone was rather excited about it, but who would have guessed that their instructor would end up being Eternal Dominion, instead? Linyin City had heard quite a bit of rumors about Eternal Dominion. Linyin and Luori were neighboring cities of Linshui City, and the beach bars found in Linshui City was a popular tourist destination. Even though Luori City was near a body of water as well, it was too far a distance from the city itself and was completely different from Linshui City, where the shore was right at its doorstep. Furthermore, it was not a sandy beach but sand flats over in Luori City. Players who had donned on their nice equipment would not be willing to fight monsters in such a terrain, for fear of dirtying their boots or shoes, so Linshui City was currently the only location where this beach culture had flourished.

With such a meeting point, there was a convergence of Linyin City and Luori City’s culture. Those bar patrons from Luori City learned from those that had come from Linyin that their city was entrenched within the jungle and that it was mainly Hunters living in that place. Meanwhile, those people from Linyin City learned about a band of martial arts practitioners in Luori City, each capable of taking down three of five men by themselves. Especially their leader Eternal Dominion, the man was all the more impressive; some said that he could take twenty men on his own, while others claimed that he could take on two hundred players and come out victorious… No matter the case might be, his prowess was not to be underestimated.

Thus, even though Deep Waters and Eternal Dominion were both named as members of the Five Unyielding Experts, their fame differed greatly from each other, with the latter’s reputation well established even among the cities that neighboured his own.

When Deep Waters came forward to greet Eternal Dominion, the leaves and branches of the jungle shook, as plenty of heads came popping out from behind trees and foliage everywhere; they were all still wearing the camouflage paint that Broken Water Arrow had instructed them to wear! They could not bear not to wear it! Their outfits, which were custom made, did not add to their stats, but the price was not anything cheaper than actual in-game equipment. To borrow advertising jargon, this was completely handmade and completed without the aid of the system.

“Come on everyone; let’s all get to know each other a bit better. This here is our instructor, Eternal Dominion.” Deep Waters began to make introductions to those players who had appeared. His guild, Deep Freeze, was now at level 6 as well, with over a thousand members, and while they were not all here, there were still at least a few hundred of them online at the moment. Even though there were some not present, how could they not be rushing over when they heard the news? The jungle became all the more crowded, as Gu Fei and the others soon got surrounded by these people.

“There… There are too many people here; just how am I going to teach them all?” Eternal Dominion broke into a minor bout of cold sweat. This lesson that he was about to teach was not something dull like the efficient monster grinding routines that could be comprehended with just a bit of listening, and its framework was far more complex than just teaching the duo grinding routines.

Deep Waters also realized this potential problem, so he quickly consulted and related this with everyone over the guild channel. Finally, he picked out 50 players for Eternal Dominion to teach. They would discuss everything further after they were done with these special forces.

“50? That’s still doable.” Eternal Dominion sighed in relief. His job happened to have him teaching 50 pupils in a single class on a regular basis as well.

Deep Waters and his people were in charge of picking out these 50 individuals. He spoke on the guild channel even as he paced about in the crowd. Those from Deep Freeze that had come to see what the fuss was about started leaving, evidently not about to learn this. Finally, Deep Waters sent 50 players out as he passed a coin pouch onto Eternal Dominion.

“Each for 200 gold coins; this is 10,000 gold coins. Your bro here isn’t taking advantage of you, huh! This is more than what you make with your efficient monster grinding routines!” Deep Waters said.

“That’s a fallacy; what a huge misconception,” Gu Fei said. How could they be compared? The efficient monster grinding routines would be completed within an hour at most, while something like this would take three whole weeks! Plus, the players and instructor would all have to devote almost all their time online.

Deep Waters quickly laughed. “May you two be the bigger men and forgive us. We’ve recently gotten these outfits and the camouflage paint; we just don’t have that money in our hands right now. Didn’t you see more than half of my men left the moment I mentioned that there would be fees?”

“Whatever!” Gu Fei could not be bothered either way. Since Eternal Dominion did not have issues with it, there was no reason for him to interfere.

Thus, Eternal Dominion led these 50 new apprentices deeper into the jungle to find a spot for their lessons. Deep Waters and Coco chatted for a bit with the other experts before following right after. The two were of course interested in learning as well, and they were an addition to those 50 participants. As a guild leader in the game, it was rare for him to find a chance to abuse his power for personal gain, so he should properly utilize this chance as best as he could.

The other experts looked at each other in their bewilderment. Having followed Eternal Dominion and Gu Fei helter-skelter, they actually had nothing to do with what was going on, and seeing that there were finally no outsiders, these people finally exploded as they began asking Gu Fei to help them develop a tailored efficient monster grind routine.

“Fine, fine, fine! I’ll develop one!” Gu Fei relented. “What do you guys want to grind on?”

These men had already come to a decision, and each of them said the name of their respective monsters, all of which at level 50. Gu Fei looked at those without Agility and said, “What are you guys blindly going on about? Those without Agility will have to rely on the duo grinding routines, and I can’t teach that alone. Now, shoo! Go back to Youye Valley and play there.”

Those without Agility had a rather good grasp of the duo grinding routines Gu Fei had taught in Youye Valley by now, but grasp was one thing, and doing the grind was another. Gu Fei had mainly taught two pairings: Warrior and Mage, and Knight with Priest. Later, when Dusky Cloud had called over more, Gu Fei added another double Fighter routine. The problem became apparent when those gathered for these three routines! Out of all the job classes present, they did not have a Dark Priest and a Fighter; they only had Flame Singed Clothes as the Mage, and that meant that they could only do a single of the paired routine. Paddy Scent Pastures and Verdant Timber were able to substitute in place during their training, but for the actual grind, how would they be efficient at all? The efficient monster grinding routines had no need for a Light Priest, and so it was not too bad for them, but War Without Wounds, Brother Assist, and Unrivaled Lucky Star would have no place in this, so the three did not let up as they pestered Gu Fei to develop a Warrior and Knight routine or perhaps a three-man grinding routine.

Gu Fei gave a cool shrug. “I can’t even teach you guys the routines since it’s just me alone now, so how can I develop anything? Just give up. Go randomly find somewhere and have fun!”

These men had no other choice but to back off, leaving just the four players who had allocated their points heavily toward Agility: Sword Demon, Blackwater, Royal God Call, and Glue. Gu Fei heard their description of the monsters that they wanted to kill, and his expression darkened. Four different monsters for four different players in two cities; two of which were in Yunduan City, and the other two in Linyin City. Each of them was in different grinding maps, too.

“Do you guys still want me to live?!” Gu Fei fumed.

“Of course, of course.” The four hurried to appease him. “How about we split up and go our ways to reach our respective grinding maps? We’ll take out a Teleportation Scroll and mark the coordinates, and mail it to you. This way, we won’t be wasting your time travelling to and fro, and all you need to do is just teleport from one place to the next?”

Brother Assist was jealous as he commented, “You guys don’t go overboard! Teleportation Scrolls aren’t normal commodities; if you guys treat them like cab rides, I think it won’t be long before all of you use them up.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” The four were radiant. All they were waiting for was Gu Fei’s consent!

Helpless, Gu Fei waved his hand dismissively. “Go on, then. All of you. Let me have some peace, alone.”

“So will you be going to the grinding maps?” The four still wanted to get an actual confirmation.

“Tomorrow! You guys go mark out the coordinates today and mail the scrolls to me. When I get online tomorrow, I’ll hail you guys and visit the sites, one by one,” Gu Fei said.

“Great!” The four did not dare to make too much of a demand, so they quickly left. Gu Fei was now all by himself standing in the jungle, feeling as if his life in Parallel World had suddenly gotten so enriched to the point he felt like puking.

Gu Fei had no intentions of continuing gaming today, either, so he went straight to log off after he left the forest. The next day, when he logged back into the game, the four Agility-based experts were already waiting for his arrival, immediately greeting him the moment he got on. “Ahem. The scrolls are already in your mailbox. Take them and immediately teleport over; I’ll be right beside you.”

Gu Fei sighed. He stepped out of the designated spawn point he had logged off from the previous night, made his way over to the nearby mailbox, and saw the four Teleportation Scrolls obediently lying there, waiting for retrieval. Gu Fei took them out and put them into his dimensional pocket, choosing to take one that would send him to Linshui City. When he next opened his eyes, Glue was standing right beside him, reverent and respectful.

“Hey, I’ve already told you guys that Archers will be the worst job class to utilize my grinding style; why is it that you guys are also so enthusiastic about it?” Gu Fei shook his head repeatedly.

Glue did not explain himself either, only rolling up his sleeves. “I’m gonna go lure a monster over for you!”

“What weapon are you going to use?” Gu Fei asked.

“A dagger!” Glue answered. Daggers were better complemented with the Agility stat than any other weapons. Archers lacked a Thief’s Dagger Mastery, as well as the natural Dagger Aptitude that came with the job class, so Archers were unable to completely manifest a strong expertise with the dagger despite possessing high Agility, but it would at least be stronger than any other melee weapons.

“Alright. Bring it over!” Gu Fei pulled out a dagger of his own as well.

An hour or so passed, and Gu Fei was done teaching Glue. Gu Fei flew right over to another island, and this time it was Blackwater, who was currently busy stabbing a monster. The moment he saw Gu Fei appear, Blackwater immediately came brown-nosing. “Ah, why didn’t you say a word that you’re coming? Now I can’t even come over and give you a proper reception!”

“Enough with your nonsense! Let’s begin!” Gu Fei did not change his weapon as he engaged a monster with his dagger in hand.

A little over an hour passed again, which totaled up to about three hours so far, and Gu Fei was done with the two men. He proceeded to contact Sword Demon and Royal God Call, and after asking their coordinates respectively, he first went over to the location Royal God Call had chosen.

Royal God Call’s equipment was an entire grade better than Glue’s, and his level was higher as well. His ineptitude with reading coordinates did not affect his ability to position himself on a small scale, so his progress learning the routine for his monster was a little faster than Glue’s and Blackwater’s. Adding the fact that Gu Fei was they were in Yunduan, their home city, now, the monster Royal God Call had selected happened to be one Gu Fei had bullied before, so he completed everything within an hour.

“Alright. Keep practicing. I’ll head over to look for Sword Demon.” Gu Fei waved goodbye to Royal God Call as he unfurled that last Teleportation Scroll.

There was a reason why Gu Fei had left Sword Demon for last. Of course, it was not because he was taking advantage of Sword Demon’s honesty, knowing that he would not mind being last, but that Sword Demon was no doubt the most upright individual out of the four, yet his luck was also the worst in the lot. The man had lost a weapon and his levels. Any sort of misfortune that could befall a player in Parallel World had all happened to Sword Demon, so even though the equipment he had lost was found afterward, it was unknown how much time and effort he had to expend in order to recover those levels he had lost before.

Learning this efficient monster grinding routine would increase the speed of his grind, but this would only alleviate the symptoms and not a cure! Gu Fei decided that he should properly instruct Sword Demon and help improve his skills and his PK standard. Gu Fei could already tell through the wild manner in which gamers PKed that Sword Demon’s caliber was already at the limit on that front, so any further improvement would only be through better in-game equipment or by mastering a new technique and subsequently coming up with a new style of combat. Purely improving his adroitness would require him to genuinely learn martial arts.

Thus, Gu Fei left Sword Demon for last, all so he could use what time he had on that man. This time, Gu Fei made full preparations. Not only did he make his way over, he even asked Coward’s Savior where he was when he saw him get online and messaged him to come over to help. Teleporting over, Gu Fei saw that Sword Demon was in the process of fighting a monster, while Coward’s Savior was already on the left of the Assassin, scoping out every move he made as he looked intently from every angle, which caused Sword Demon to become wary of his intentions.

Coward’s Savior was the one who first spotted Gu Fei to appear. Calling out ‘master’, he dashed over to greet him. Sword Demon turned around in his surprise, becoming confused the moment he saw that this person was actually referring to Gu Fei.

“You’re not allowed to call me master!” Gu Fei was angry over this issue like before, causing that Fighter to shrink back to a corner. Gu Fei proceeded to introduce Sword Demon. “That guy there is Coward’s Savior. You’ve met him before, right?”

“Oh… I know the name!” Sword Demon chuckled. He might not have met this Coward’s Savior in person, but he knew about him. This was the person who had sent a letter in Gu Fei’s stead when the Mage had first absconded to Yueye City many moons ago.

Coward’s Savior was someone who had received proper pointers from Gu Fei, and adding the fact that he was already very obsessed toward kung fu, the caliber of his skill now was nothing to be scoffed at. Most players out there would be no match for him, and his level was not too low either. Having already broken through level 40, the man had completed his Job Class Advancement from a Fighter to become a Brawler, and every punch he made was now accompanied with the sound of rushing wind.

“Hey, Sword Demon! You’re already at a bottleneck with your PK-ing skills, aren’t you?” Now that they were facing each other in person, it made sense for Gu Fei to make his intentions known.

Sword Demon was stunned for a good moment before he swiftly nodded in agreement.

“There’s no way to improve at this rate, so you’ll need to master actual combat knowledge going forward, and we will also have to correct a few bad habits of yours,” Gu Fei continued.

Even though Gu Fei had yet to explicitly state what they were doing, how could Sword Demon not realize what Gu Fei was trying to get at? Gu Fei was meaning to give him a few pointers. There were plenty of people who had asked this same request from Gu Fei, yet he had never once agreed to it. Sword Demon was a considerate person, and he could tell that Gu Fei had his difficulties, so even though he was interested in it as well, he never once made to mention this. Conversely, when he saw Eternal Dominion instructing Deep Waters and his men before, he had been a little tempted, nearly wanting to leverage on their relationship to get a chance to learn as well. However, when he considered that he was ultimately an outsider to Deep Freeze, he never found it in him to make the request, yet Gu Fei actually took the initiative to show his intention toward this end right now, which he had found extremely surprising.

“Come on! First, let me methodically give you an account of what you’ll be learning. Coward, we’ll be doing a sparring demonstration; coordinate with what I do,” Gu Fei said.

“Don’t call me Coward; I’m Coward’s Savior!” Coward’s Savior was very disgruntled. Gu Fei was great in every way, except in this one aspect, where he never called him by his full name. It was just too depressing!