Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“It seems that the rewards won’t be given out immediately. By the looks of things, do we have to wait till all the other cities are done with their City Wars events as well? We could try and do a bit of inquiring regarding this problem; I believe that the system should be duty bound to give us an explanation toward this issue, right?” July had very quickly answered Brother Assist’s uncertainty, apparently having already thought long and hard about it.

“You’re right. I’ll go and learn more regarding this,” Actually, Brother Assist had chatted enough with Gu Fei and was eagerly waiting for the chance to continue writing his post back in the real world, so inquiring after anything would just be something he would do in passing. Compared to bumping his thread on the message boards, merging the guilds was just a small matter in his eyes.

Brother Assist had immediately logged off, leaving Gu Fei to regard what July said, “If we are combining the two guilds, what will happen to the guild’s levels? Will they be added together?”

“Of course not. They would ultimately take that of the higher leveled guild,” July answered.

“And what if our total number of members end up going past our limit?” Gu Fei asked.

“We’ll remove some players,” July said.

“Are you thinking of getting all the ladies to leave the guild and reform Amethyst Rebirth again?” Gu Fei had seen through her intentions.

July nodded.

“Oh, that’s not a bad idea,” Gu Fei nodded. Their recruitment this time had touted their status as a female guild, and the people who came for such a reason would most likely be the sort that had ill objectives, which meant such people would ultimately be a nuisance to the ladies. Just like those men that hailed from Forever in Flowers, while all the tricks that they pulled on others looked rather interesting from a point of view, the fact remained that when the target of such teasing become themselves, there was simply no lady out there that would truly enjoy such an experience.

“Then what about you?” July asked.

“What about me?”

“Will you still be joining us?” July asked.

Gu Fei was surprised. It never crossed his mind that July would actually still ask this question. Of course he did not wish to carry on staying in an all-female guild, and this was a good chance for him to leave. He would save himself plenty of awkwardness if he did not say a word and remained in Extremely Heaven Defying, but how was he to know that July would actually ask him this so openly. At the end of the day, this lady was still someone who did things by the book.

“Haha, you ladies don’t need me to fill up your open spots any longer, so why would you need me to make up the numbers?” Gu Fei answered this rather straightforwardly as well.

“I knew you were going to say something like that,” July pouted.

Gu Fei shrugged as the two became silent. War Without Wounds was so anxious standing by the sideline scratching his head, feeling like Gu Fei was an ultimate idiot. Being the only man in a purely female guild was completely debonair! To think this man would willingly give up on it by his own volition. What made him all the more infuriated was that for July to have asked this question so pointedly, it was a clear sign that she was hoping to keep Gu Fei around, yet he had missed this fact entirely. War Without Wounds could only bemoan that July did not ask him the same question, for he would not even hesitate for even the slightest second to give her the affirmative.

This miraculous fantasy of his ultimately did not happen, and after July departed, Gu Fei turned to look at War Without Wounds and gleefully said, “So, do you still want to join my guild?”

“What is the point of even joining?” War Without Wounds bitterly stood up and walked over to Sword Demon instead.

During the 15 minute disconnection, Gu Fei had originally planned to rest for the day, but he ultimately got a little curious as to what sort of amazing reward lay in store for him after succeeding in triumphing over 200,000 players with only 200 men. But in the end, he did not see the reward anywhere and had even gotten pulled to the corner by Brother Assist to give the man an account of what he had done. Now that Brother Assist had logged out, and the topic July had raised was also settled, Gu Fei was ready to give his regards and log out now that there were no other matters that he needed to attend to when he suddenly saw two players walk into the Mage Academy. Their eyes searched the building and quickly landed on Gu Fei, as one of them shouted, “MILES!”

Gu Fei faced the two newcomers, Dommu and Mudou, and sighed. Looks like I’m going to waste more time talking again.

Just as he had expected, Dommu and Mudou had of course come rushing over for an interview the moment the pair learned that there had been a miraculous win on the city defender’s side here in Yunduan City. It was almost an hour since the City War event had ended, and Dommu and Mudou were both extremely anxious. Time was of the essence when talking about breaking news after all!

Thus, after exchanging simple pleasantries, the pairs almost instantly spilled out their stream of questions for Gu Fei.

“Why didn’t the two of you come a bit earlier?” Gu Fei was dejected.

“We came as soon as we could,” Dommu and Mudou were very anxious when they heard this response. “Has someone interviewed you already?”

“Oh, not an interview, but it’s more or less the same thing.” Unfortunately, Gu Fei had no idea about Brother Assist’s intention behind asking so many questions.

“What do you mean by that?” The two asked.

“Brother Assist has asked about this in detail as well,” Gu Fei explained.

“Ah!” The two of them were shocked. The two reporters were obviously aware of Brother Assist’s habit of posting the top threads on the forums, and now that the man had gotten a hold of the information one step before them, they were afraid that he would post it up on the forums very soon. From there, some other websites would directly repost it on their own sites so by the time Dommu and Mudou were done with their interview piece, it would no longer be fresh.

There’s no way we would be faster than Brother Assist, so why don’t we get the editor to keep an eye on things, immediately reposting his post the moment it’s out while we stay here to see if there’s any other selling point we can write about,” Mudou and Dommu discussed.

“Guess that’s all we can do,” Dommu was depressed, begging Gu Fei in the end, “Miles, you gotta give us some exclusive details!”

Gu Fei did not know if he should be laughing or crying, “How could there be any exclusive detail when it was just me doing random tasks?”

“Fine, Then first answer some of our questions here,” Mudou had no choice but to begin his interview like normal.

As Gu Fei accepted to be interviewed, Sword Demon had finished greeting all the various guild leaders that wanted to establish friendly relations and was about to leave them, when another player approached him. After July finished telling Gu Fei what she planned to do, she had left to discuss the same matter with Sword Demon. The man was very honest and forthcoming, and he had even taken into account the issue regarding the reward for July and the others.

“Don’t worry about that. We barely did anything after all,” July mentioned.

Sword Demon shook his head. While the ladies had limited contributions during the fighting, they had actually done quite a lot of running about and questing inside the city as everything happened. Without Amethyst Rebirth’s help, there was no telling how long it would have taken for Extremely Heaven Defying to rally the numbers they needed; without Amethyst Rebirth, they would not have had anywhere to hold their newly recruited troops. When it came to battles, while the ladies were nowhere comparable to the elite players, they were at least able to match those players whom they had gathered at the last minute, and they were not so terrible to the point that they could be ignored. The ladies from Amethyst Rebirth were at least far more qualified for the reward than all the random players that they had recruited purely to bolster their numbers, especially if they intended to quit the guild after merging the two together. That would essentially mean that they would end up completely rescinding whatever benefit that they have gotten for their participation upon merging the two guilds, which was actually the reward that all the various guilds had been pursuing this City War: the Division of Power.

“Isn’t Amethyst Rebirth close to leveling up?” Sword Demon suddenly asked.

July nodded, “We’re close.”

“Then why don’t we use this time to hurry up and power level? We can discuss this matter in greater detail once your guild reaches level 3 and you collect your reward,” Sword Demon said.

“Oh, that works too,” Nobody would say no to rewards, and given how July was originally the guild leader for Amethyst Rebirth, she had a better understanding of just how far her guild was from leveling, and she was positive that they would very quickly clear the threshold necessary if they worked hard on it.

Thus, July and Sword Demon both went over to look for Gu Fei as this was the time for the guild leader to speak out. Gu Fei was being interviewed, and the two reporters doing the interview were of course very unhappy that July and Sword Demon were interrupting. However, Mudou and Dommu could not openly show their displeasure, so they could only patiently wait by the side.

“Power level the guild to level 3? Ohhh, that’s right. There are still rewards,” Gu Fei had completely forgotten about the matter and had thought July and the ladies were planning to leave the guild now.

Gu Fei pulled out the guild channel. Actually, messages had been flashing all this while, but Gu Fei had spent quite some time with Amethyst Rebirth by now and he had already honed his ability to ignore the guild channel’s flashing indicator as messages came in.

Opening the tab, he saw message after message being sent even faster than when there were only ladies gossiping before. Gu Fei casually skimmed through the lines and felt much contempt. Now that the City War event had ended, all the provisional players that they had recruited began to befriend each other, with a strong emphasis on getting in touch with the ladies in the guild. All the ladies that wanted to chat in the channel were being figuratively mobbed by these men at the moment.

“It’s too deplorable,” Gu Fei was pure! He had joined Amethyst Rebirth the moment he had got into Parallel World, and he had always been the one man in the guild that was being mobbed by the ladies. He had no clue that most guilds usually had more men than women, so every lady was treated like a treasure. What was happening in Amethyst Rebirth was not really deplorable, but online gaming culture.

“Everyone pipe down and listen to me!” Gu Fei typed out in the channel, and was instantly drowned out by the other messages.

“You can temporarily adjust the channel permissions settings,” July was at hand to guide Gu Fei through. The man acted imposingly, directly setting it so only the guild leader could speak, immediately turning the entire channel silent so he was the only one able to send messages.

“Quiet down,” Gu Fei said. Obviously, the entire channel was very quiet, completely silent.

“There’s something I need to say. Amethyst Rebirth and Extremely Heaven Defying had a very successful collaboration during this City Wars event, and the two guilds are preparing to merge, but our guild level cannot sufficiently contain all the members in both guilds. However, Amethyst Rebirth is just a bit off from becoming a level 3 guild, so I hope everyone would be willing to work a bit harder. Take this time before the event ends and deliver the reward to us all to power level the guild up. Okay, does anyone have anything that they wish to say about this?”

“No? Then it’s settled!”

Everyone in the guild was in agony. The guild leader was the only one with the permissions to speak now, and he had actually pretended that it was a democratically reached conclusion, taking their silence as consent. Indeed, Thousand Miles Drunk was someone who was overbearing in every degree!

But before they could even finish their thoughts, another sentence appeared in the channel, “Oh. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten to switch the chatting permissions back on for everyone. Okay, let me ask everyone again. Does any of you have any objection to this?” The change of settings had really slipped Gu Fei’s mind just then. It was only thanks to July beside him who reminded him about it that he corrected himself. The entire guild was sweating once more: Is this expert actually an idiot?

However, the players in Amethyst Rebirth were fairly clear about the collaboration between them and Extremely Heaven Defying; they were well aware that it was Extremely Heaven Defying that would most likely have a brighter future since all the elite experts were there! It would be perfect if both guilds were to merge, as that would mean the players would have access to both experts and ladies. As a result, plenty of these players had no opinions about this, while some had already attempted to get close to Gu Fei. This was their guild leader and the no.1 expert in Parallel World; how could they miss this chance to establish a good relationship with the man?

“To get our guild to level 3, we’ll need to complete six intermediate quests. So right now, split yourselves up into 6 groups, and the respective leaders will follow me and grab the appropriate quest,” Gu Fei ordered. Actually, what he had typed out was what July had told him, word for word. There was no way that he would know all this.

The channel blew up into activity once again now that they were grouping themselves up, and they ended up realizing that the guild had a severe shortage of Priests, and the groups that they ended up forming had a deadly lack of Healing. It was possible for them to improvise on this during the City Wars, but that was not the case now. The lack of Priests meant it would be far too dangerous if a fight were to break out since death would mean losing a level.

“We need Priests, send some over,” Gu Fei told Sword Demon.

“Now? They are all waiting to get their reward. Wouldn’t they be worried that leaving the guild now would lose them their reward?” Sword Demon said.

Gu Fei thought about it and thought it made sense, but he soon jolted to a start, “Who needs them to leave their guild? I only need them to help lend a hand if they get into battle.”

Sword Demon thought about it and quietly admonished himself for his confusion. But there were not many Priests in Extremely Heaven Defying either, so they still lacked healing presence even after accounting for them. Gu Fei’s eyes darted over and saw Young Master Han standing there, so he got angry, “Can you be a little self-conscious? Didn’t you hear we need Priests?”

Young Master Han rolled his eyes and really wished that he could throw that bottle in his hand straight at Gu Fei’s head.

“You won’t have a spot if we don’t get up to level 3,” Gu Fei reminded.

“Are you an imbecile?” Young Master Han felt that Gu Fei’s threat here was very childish.

“You can manage a single group by yourself!” Gu Fei was ready to entrust a heavy responsibility to Young Master Han, leaving him alone to service a group of 20 or so players, something an average Priest would surely have difficulty handling. But Young Master Han merely flashed a disdainful smirk, as if this was hardly an issue for him.

And so, Gu Fei picked and assigned the members, and Young Master Han very quickly got a party invite, only to find that every member of the party was a lady. It was a group that solely consisted of ladies from Amethyst Rebirth. Even Young Master Han had to be fazed by this prospect; the burden of this assignment.

“You’re ruthless, giving me a party of 23 members who are no different from pigs!” Young Master Han said as he sardonically raised a thumb at Gu Fei.

“Hey! ” July was dissatisfied. Even if their standards left much to be desired, they were not so inept to the point that they were noobs!

“Just put up with him. We’ve got a serious lack of Priests,” Gu Fei consoled July.

July knew that there was nothing she could do about this either. She had left with Brother Assist to help recruit players the last time, so she was evidently aware that they had an insufficient number of Priests to go around.

Subsequently treating all the remaining Priests like they were treasure, Gu Fei delegated them to each group and even included the elite experts from Extremely Heaven Defying to help with the combat power of these people. In the end, they were able to ensure an acceptable number of Priests to each group, with Young Master Han acting as the lone Priest in his group while the group that Gu Fei took charge of only needed a single Priest as well. With the two groups conserving their need for Priests in such a way, the remaining four groups were able to evenly split the rest of the Priests sufficiently.

Thus, the leaders of the other five groups got ready to leave together with Gu Fei to pick up the necessary quest, leaving Dommu and Mudou behind as they pitifully waited to continue their interview, only to discover that Gu Fei was now busy with something else. They had no choice, their only option was to tag along!

The majority of these players from the two guilds were not all gathered in the Mage Academy, but over by the 15th District, so of course now that the restriction had been lifted, the players were all hurrying back to Yunduan City. When the six group leaders arrived at the hall, they very quickly obtained the quests they were looking for. The over 800 guilds in Yunduan City had just lost the City Wars event and were all still hung up over it, so they were naturally not in the mood to do any sort of quests at the moment. As for the players who did not participate in the event, all of them had been active out in the wilderness, so even if they planned to head back into the city and quest now, Gu Fei and his people would still be able to arrive before any of them. Sure enough, there were hardly any players around when they reached the Hall of Guild Creation, so they were quickly able to grab the quests required as each of them contacted the rest of their group members to begin working on their assignments.

It would be tough for a single person to take on an intermediate guild quest by themselves, but it was not that difficult if they partied up for it, becoming no more than just a way to kill time. The six groups were all able to complete their quests with ease, and by the time they headed back to the Hall and handed in their quests, Amethyst Rebirth had promoted to a level 3 guild.

In the time it took for them to run about doing the quest, Mudou and Dommu had finished their interview with Gu Fei and left to write up their article back in the real world. However, Brother Assist had not even gotten online in the interim, so none of them had the answer as to how their planned merger might affect them. Seeing that there were no other group activities to be done, the rest of the players in the guild began to disperse and go about their own business. Gu Fei had thrown the position of guild leader back to July as well, and went to log out.

—

Over on Brother Assist’s side, he first began writing up his post upon logging out of the game, happily finishing what he deemed as the top priority matter in his mind before going to inquire about the guild merger matter. He believed this to be a very reasonable question, and presumed the system should not have any reasons to keep it from the players. Brother Assist did not bother finding someone he was familiar with and was planning to just post his query in the help and information board. In the end, when he went over to take a look, it turned out that someone else had already asked a similar question and upon looking into the thread, he read the answer the moderator provided: The reward would be calculated according to the guild that earned more points, which meant that there would surely be one guild whose contribution points earned that would immediately be disregarded if they were to merge.

Brother Assist immediately had the urge to curse someone out, but upon further inspection, saw that there were already other players who had done it for him, and it had even gone on for several pages. However, the temper for this moderator was kept in check, not responding to all the insults hurled at him aside from a single post made several pages after: Oh, it is recommended that guilds merge only after they obtained their rewards.

Brother Assist was blushing hard. This moderator’s simple response had made him realize the IQ superiority demonstrated here. The question itself was originally very easily resolved, yet players enjoyed thinking up some convoluted and deeper meaning to things.

Brother Assist was now worried that the two guilds would presumptuously go ahead with the merger, so he hurried to get back online. Upon seeing that Thousand Miles Drunk’s name was not lit in his friends’ list, he inexplicably felt a surge of anxiety, so he ended up relaying what he had learned to Sword Demon.

“You guys haven’t merged, have you?” Brother Assist quickly asked to confirm.

“Of course not,” Sword Demon answered.

“It’s a good thing you haven’t’…” Brother Assist heaved a sigh of relief. “If you went ahead with combining the guilds together, the reward would only be allocated according to the guild with the higher total, just like how guild levels work when merging.” Brother Assist was slightly looking forward to Sword Demon to ask “then what do we do” in his panic, so he would be able to experience what it feels like to have the superior IQ. Would it not be great if he could respond with the same words that the moderator had said in the forums?

In the end, he heard Sword Demon reply, “Oh, then we’ll wait till after we get our reward before merging.”

Brother Assist disappointedly hummed a “yeah”.

After delivering the news, Brother Assist remembered about his own post and so he swiftly logged out and got back onto the forums. Sure enough, the popularity of his post about Yunduan City’s City War Battle Report was through the roof, and there were instantly quite a few replies piled up to his thread when he clicked to check it. However, there were soon other similar threads that sprung up like mushrooms after a storm, each of them attempting to win with an even more sensational title regarding what transpired. Titles like “Yunduan City, the place where dreams and miracles begin”, or “Ambitions shattered: the terrible ending for 200,000 players in Yunduan City”, or even “Just who ended up deciding the fate of the city war” appeared. The titles were more and more frightening one after another, and they were all from the various major gaming websites that were reposted onto the forums by other players. However, upon clicking and taking a closer look, Brother Assist turned his nose up in the air and flared with anger. They had pretty much taken his “battle report” wholesale and used it as data that they had compiled. To be precise, they were simply reposts of what Brother Assist had written, which ended up being treated as if it was some breaking news expose by the other players, who in turn reposted them. As a result, because each and every one of them had a far more eye-catching title, these threads very swiftly overshadowed Brother Assist’s original. Since his plain “Yunduan City’s City War’s Battle Report” thread was simply just not alluring enough, and the players were completely unable to discern just who was copying whose content, at the end of each of these threads were just the masses’ derisive complaints.

This continued until an article titled “Standing atop the clouds, with an aerial view of the world: Thousand Miles Drunk, a god-like existence” surfaced. This article was finally able to present a different angle, with a different style of writing and a different perspective that described what happened with the city wars in Yunduan City. The entire article was written in Thousand Miles Drunk’s perspective, and it was written like a novel. Adding to the fact that the author of this piece was the reputable reporters Dommumudou, it instantaneously defeated all the other threads and posts that were made.

“G*dd*mm*t, how can it be so excessive…” After Brother Assist was done reading through it all, he could not help but applaud the boldness that these two reporters had demonstrated. Something that was done pretty well ended up becoming perfectly executed in their words, and they often used words like “perhaps”, “maybe” and “who knows” that really teased the reader, letting those who read what they wrote to imagine the more exaggerated sensationalist aspects of what happened. According to what the pair had written, Thousand Miles Drunk was truly made out to be like a god-like existence.

Brother Assist sighed, “Truly, society degenerates as time goes by!” He glanced at his own factually accurate work, a post that was logical and well researched that no one cared to read, and was deeply saddened.