Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

When Gu Fei got online today, he received the system notification about failing his ‘Bounty Mission’ for Nightmare of Death due to the latter successfully erasing his PK value. Gu Fei’s consecutive completion streak had thus been broken again, making him wonder when he would attain the two-hundred-consecutive-completion achievement for ‘Bounty Mission’.

The street Gu Fei took to head toward the Bounty Assignment Hall was even blocked by some people.

As more and more players joined the game every day, all sorts of trends would start among the players. These players that formed a blockade before Gu Fei today was precisely one of these trends that had taken Yunduan City by storm recently.

Everyone knew that dying with PK points on one’s head was an easy way to drop equipment, so some people were now picking up ‘Bounty Mission’ for the purpose of looting the target’s equipment with their friends. It was an evil thing to do, and this was the first time Gu Fei had faced such a situation. Although he usually did ‘Bounty Mission’, it had been quite some time since he had PK value on him. Now, he just happened to run into these players who were looking to entertain themselves with this despicable activity over the weekend.

A PK value of over 10 points! He was bound to drop lots of items when he died! Quite a few people happily took Gu Fei’s ‘Bounty Mission’ and rushed to find him.

The players immediately used Appraisal on Gu Fei once they saw him. They could not get any details about his black, mage robe, and Gu Fei’s sword was inside his dimensional pocket, but his pair of boots was enough to cause these men to drool.

After checking his equipment, they eagerly shouted toward Gu Fei, “Stop right there! ‘Bounty Mission’!”

They had copied this style from Gu Fei – the top expert in the business of bounty hunting.

Gu Fei felt stunned. Not knowing the real intention of these players before him, he treated them as players who were earnestly doing ‘Bounty Mission’. Gu Fei did not want to make things difficult for these players who shared his passion, so he decided against fighting them and turned tail, instead.

“Quickly give chase!” The players yelled at one another as Gu Fei slowly disappeared from their sight.

“F*ck! He’s too fast. His boots are really amazing!” someone sighed.

“D*mn. I told you to slay him directly; why did you have to warn him like that?” someone said, feeling discontented.

“Let’s just chase after him. He can’t possibly clear off his PK value so soon.” With that, they continued their pursuit of Gu Fei.

Gu Fei kept doing his ‘Bounty Mission’, occasionally catching glimpses of some people hot on his heels. Since Gu Fei’s movement speed was too fast for them, whenever these men arrived at his latest coordinates, they only ever saw the shadow of his back. To make matters worse, when they finally caught up to Gu Fei, he happened to just finish off his target. As the men rushed forward to attack him, Gu Fei smiled brightly at them before disappearing in a white flash.

“Wait... What just happened?” Scratching their heads in puzzlement, they continued to chase after Gu Fei’s coordinates. Gu Fei eventually erased all his PK value. Meanwhile, the men ended up running around breathlessly without even managing to get within thirty meters of Gu Fei.

Without his PK value, Gu Fei happily came up to them and said, “We are born of the same roots; why must there be enmity between us¹?”

What Gu Fei meant to say was that they were all players doing ‘Bounty Mission’, so there was no need for them to antagonize one another. The players, meanwhile, came to an erroneous realization, “F*ck! So you’re also in this line of work. No wonder your PK value was high.”

Since he’s a colleague in a sense, we’ll just put this matter behind us! This was what the men were thinking inside as they smiled at Gu Fei, “Let’s work together if there’s a chance.”

This was just something they had said out of courtesy. Since anything the players gained would be distributed among the party members, they would usually do this sort of activity together with their close friends; adding a stranger into the group would simply result in the pie being divided further.

Gu Fei, for his part, was thinking that ‘Bounty Mission’ was doable alone, so he could not fathom why players would need to work together for it. But since they invited him, he felt obliged to nod in response.

And so just like that, both parties reached an understanding, although the reality was far from the truth. The bunch of men could not help but think, He’s truly well-versed in this matter; immediately accepting our offer once cooperation is broached. Really, he’s someone with no underlying intention!

With that, the two parties went their separate ways. The message notification of Gu Fei had been ringing nonstop due to his students urging him to hurry.

Ignoring the incessant pinging sound was a skill he had honed after joining Amethyst Rebirth. He no longer feared receiving many messages and merely skimmed through them before replying: “Coming.”

Over by Yunliao Farm outside Yunduan City, the students who had split into two groups were having a hard time grinding. Yunliao Farm was considered as a hellish grinding map of Yunduan City, and with the increase in the player base, it naturally continued to be such a place.

Fortunately, there was a balance in the high- and low-level players of Ultimate Class 3 Guild. With such a group composition, they were able to bully some of the grinding players in the farm and even managed to claim two grinding spots for themselves by winning duels. Dueling had become an informal way to settle disputes over grinding spots between players in Yunduan City.

However, the situation had become more troublesome at the current stage of the game. The experienced gamers that had joined Parallel World after its official release would often look for veteran players to back them up, just like how the entire Ultimate Class 3 depended on its highest level member, Ah Fa, for any fight over a territory in Yunliao Farm. Right now, the party that the students had previously bullied found a powerful backer – a level 40 player. Of course, the said player was more than capable of bullying Ah Fa in return....

There was no need to elaborate on the duel’s outcome. Just like how Ah Fa bullied level 20 players, the opponent this time around thoroughly suppressed Ah Fa with a few moves. The Ultimate Class 3’s members ran to other spots after their grinding spot had been snatched away, but the result was always the same. Ah Fa would bully lower level players, only to be bullied back when a higher level player appeared.

By the time Gu Fei arrived at the location, Ah Fa had already been stabbed half dead by a level 40 Thief. All the students were glumly sighing by the side of the field as they severely rebuked Ah Fa for being useless.

When they spotted Gu Fei, all they students felt as if they had seen the light at the end of a long tunnel. Nodding his head and waving his hand at them, Gu Fei said, “Stand in line. We’re headed off to another place.”

These students’ thought process was simpler. They felt that they should at least retaliate against their bullies and considered changing to another grinding spot as a cowardly act.

Under the threats of Gu Fei to make them run eight laps, the dissatisfied students did not dare to speak out of turn and feebly lined themselves up, disheartened.

They had originally wanted Gu Fei to come to their aid and alleviate their indignation. Who would have guessed that he would opt to cowardly avoid the quarry, instead? It was truly a cowardly act of the highest degree.

Gu Fei led the line of listless students away from the grinding map. Ah Fa, who had some understanding of MMOs, felt his eyes opening wide when he realized that their group was heading toward a higher level grinding map.

Yunxia Valley and Yunwu Basin had monsters at level 40. Gu Fei did not dare to bring them further since the students’ levels were far lower than the Amethyst Rebirth ladies’. They would practically be useless if they were to head over to a level 50 grinding map.

Although Gu Fei could easily carry them, the efficiency of grinding in such a high level area would be significantly lower. They were here to grind levels and not to have fun; he was at least thoughtful enough to consider this.

The students felt rather anxious when they arrived at the level 40 grinding map. Gu Fei brought them inside the valley and randomly chose a wide area. He then negotiated with the nearby players, dueled with them, and easily claimed a territory for his.

It was rather packed with over twenty students even if they took two grinding spots, but having more land was not the issue since Gu Fei was but one man.

With that, he arranged for the lower level students to sit by the side and watch while the higher level students lured monsters. He then tasked those with capability to help fight the monsters. After giving the students their respective roles, Gu Fei demonstrated to them the insta-killing capability that he was famous for.

The students were not the only ones impressed by his display, and even the others around them could help but glance over in shock, making the students feel somewhat proud.

The students’ levels were all over the place and their experience point distribution was a total mess, but the increase they saw with this monster grind had them beside themselves with joy.

This was especially true of the lower level students; the experience points they had gained were truly abundant, allowing them to visibly see their levels increase by leaps and bounds. The students cheered. Just as the students were feeling giddy with joy, Gu Fei suddenly commanded them, “Line yourselves up!”

“Why?” the students asked, baffled.

“It’s over 9 P.M. now; you guys should log off!” Gu Fei answered.

“AHHHHH!” the students exclaimed, protesting, “Sir, today is the weekend! Let’s play a while longer!” Actually, a few of these students were hoping to play the game for the entire night.

“Oh... the weekend!” Gu Fei considered the matter, “In that case, you guys can play until 9:30!”

“AWWWW!” the students moaned loudly after checking the time, “But it’s already 9:27 now!”

“Yup. I’ve been lenient with you guys since it’s the weekend. At 9:30, you guys still have some time left to head back to the city. We’ll designate that as the time for you guys to enjoy yourselves. Still, I expect you all to be offline by 10 P.M.!” Gu Fei said.

“AHHHHH!” the students howled to the heavens, but none of them dared to violate his order. Who among them would dare do so when each of them was in fear of being made to run eight laps during the P.E. class?

Ultimate Class 3 suddenly had an epiphany. As students, a teacher should be someone whom they should do their best to avoid and should try to hide their existence.

Even if they were playing the same game, a teacher would always be a teacher and a student would always be a student; their roles would never change. It was only possible for both sides to abandon their roles if they did not know one another personally, like Gu Fei and Royal God Call. Since they had a teacher-student relationship with Gu Fei in reality, this was something the game would not change.

Even if there was a teacher who would willingly ignore this sort of connection, Ultimate Class 3 knew that this would never happen with Teacher Gu Fei. He might just be a P.E. teacher, but Gu Fei was known for being more serious than the other teachers.

Physical education was a class that put no great emphasis on seniority. Grading for this sort of class was often more casual; and if anyone could not meet the academic expectation, the teacher in charge would be happy to adjust to the student.

Gu Fei was different. He was the only teacher who did everything by the book. Undoubtedly, they must have been blind for approaching him in the first place!

The problem was already here, and they had no way of running from it. Now that they thought about it, Gu Fei treated everyone rather well despite his strict limitation over their gaming time.

After they expressed their frustration on the guild channel, they pitifully asked Gu Fei, “Sir, will we be grinding here tomorrow as well?”

“Tomorrow’s no good. I have to fight in the finals of the mercenary PvP tournament,” Gu Fei answered with a faraway look in his eyes.