Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“That man is truly difficult to handle, so please take care not to underestimate the man despite him being alone,” Three Sighs of Flowing Maple reminded the lot before he began to reassign his men to their posts. Having personally witnessed how easily Gu Fei climbed over that wall, he ensured that his men were now positioned every three paces around the wall, with checkpoints at every five. This new arrangement made the wall more well-manned than the entrance to the courtyard.

------------------

Meanwhile, Gu Fei made his way straight to Scissorhands after departing from the Government City Hall’s courtyard to hand over the quest item to him.

Scissorhands was naturally filled with gratitude at having completed his quest and expressed his willingness to brave a sea of flames for Gu Fei on the spot without a hint of hesitation.

“There’s no need for that,” Gu Fei hastily refused. “There’s a small favor that I wonder if you could help with, though.”

“Please, just say the word,” Scissorhands quickly offered.

“I heard players that picked up the tailoring crafting profession are able to alter the look of a player’s equipment after reaching a level of proficiency. Look; I have this belt here...” Gu Fei said as he took out that Mark of the Wolf that he found extremely lewd-looking. “Do you think you can help alter this?”

“Belt? That’s very easy! How do you want it done?” Scissorhands was glad that he could be of service to his benefactor.

“The main problem here is this wolf head buckle; I’m uncertain if you can alter it for me. Don’t you think this head looks really lewd?” Gu Fei asked.

“Yes... Quite.” Scissorhands looked at the style of the belt and was able to immediately analyze what he could do with it from a professional tailor’s standpoint. “The size of the wolf’s head and the girth of the belt as well as its colors are all disproportionate and ill-coordinated. The entire belt itself seems shoddily made; some people might say that such a design could accentuate the theme of savagery in the item... But I don’t think this deliberate sort of design would give off the feeling that they were aiming for. Essentially, it’s the creator’s lack of artistry and handicraft skill that caused this failure to express the charm of the item, thereby creating a product with such a vague yet contrasting impression. Conceptually speaking—”

“Wait a minute...” Gu Fei interrupted Scissorhands as he gingerly asked, “are you still speaking Chinese?”

“Ah?”

“I... I don’t understand what you’ve just said, so just tell me if you can do it or not!” Gu Fei said.

“It is possible to do it, but I’m afraid I can’t do it by myself...” Scissorhands said.

“Why is that?” Gu Fei was confused.

“This belt isn’t simply a product of a Tailor’s work. That wolf-head buckle acts as the core component of this entire belt, and it is under the Blacksmith crafting profession’s expertise. As such, in order to alter this belt, I’ll at least need to collaborate with a player that’s highly proficient in blacksmithing,” Scissorhands explained.

Gu Fei immediately opened his mercenary channel to ask: “Experts, do any of you have a high proficiency in blacksmithing?”

Nobody answered, so Gu Fei repeated his question again. Finally, Young Master Han replied, “Do you know how stupid that question you’re asking is? While there may not be a lot of crafting professions in Parallel World, the content of each is plentiful and each and every one of them are quite difficult to improve in. Players that spend time and effort working on this won’t ever be able to reach our current level. If you wish to locate a highly proficient Blacksmith, go look for the noobs and don’t come looking for my elite mercenaries.”

“Is that so?” Gu Fei was uncertain, so he asked Scissorhands, “What’s your level?”

“Ah? 32.”

“Hmm. It’s not easy improving a crafting profession, huh!”

“Yeah... I actually lost another level for this tailoring pattern here,” Scissorhands said.

Gu Fei patted his shoulder as he pressed on, “Do you know where I can find a highly proficient Blacksmith?”

“I do know one personally, but he’s not online right now,” Scissorhands answered regretfully.

“Oh, it’s fine as long as you know one. I’m not in a rush, anyway. It’s about time I log off, too, so you can hold on to that belt for now. I’ll come and look for you tomorrow about it; it shouldn’t take you too long to alter it, right?” Gu Fei asked.

“Ah... I’ll be fine if we have the manpower, since the alteration itself won’t take time at all.” When Gu Fei stuffed that belt into his hands, Scissorhands stared at Gu Fei in shock, for he could now see the traits of the belt. Ignoring what it was, just from the purple luster of the words in the item... Just how large was this man’s magnanimity that he could casually stuff this sort of equipment into the hands of someone else?

Scissorhands stared at Gu Fei blankly as the latter said, “Then, I’ll see you tomorrow” before leaving just like that.

Gu Fei soon reached a spawn point and logged off. This was a very disappointing piece of news to the members of Flowergazing in the Fog. At this moment, it was deep into the night back in reality, so plenty of the night-owl experts were going online one after another. Hearing of what had happened in the day, they were all prepared to fight with this beast of a player when they learned that the man had actually gone offline. This only made it that much more difficult for these people to face the long night ahead!

“The times that that guy gets online is more or less fixed to these few hours. Normally, he’ll be online at night from the time after dinner to ten – no more than three hours in a stretch.” Drifting began to elaborate on Gu Fei’s habits to Three Sighs of Flowing Maple based on what he knew.

“This sort of schedule means that he’s most probably a working adult... Can that sort of player even be such an expert?” Three Sighs of Flowing Maple was very astonished. An expert needed time to reach their level. It was hard to believe that someone who spent barely three hours in the game each day could be an apex expert with the level, skill, and equipment to boot.

“That sounds about right...” Drifting once more gave a brief overview of Gu Fei’s kung fu capabilities. This was no longer a secret among those who joined Traversing Four Seas in that guild quest of theirs that brought them all the way to Luori City. They were all well aware that Gu Fei’s strength lay in the kung fu he knew.

“Kung fu...” Three Sighs of Flowing Maple did not express any level of surprise that people would commonly show, as if this idea was not something foreign to him.

“Guild Leading Flowing Maple... Have you heard about this before?” Drifting could sense something was different in the tone that Three Sighs of Flowing Maple had adopted.

“Yeah...” Three Sighs of Flowing Maple nodded his head. “Our city also has a player that proclaims about knowing kung fu. He is called Windchord and is one of Ten Great Adepts for Fighters. He doesn’t have any connection with guilds or mercenary groups and works alone. He enjoys helping people and is well-known here in Xiawu City for his good reputation.”

“Fighter... Eternal Dominion, the number one Fighter and one of the Five Unyielding Experts, is another guy who knows kung fu. Plus, he has a mercenary group, which is mostly made up of the same sort people, in Luori City. They are mainly Fighters, too,” Drifting shared.

“Yes, Fighter is a job class that is rather close to kung fu, so it makes sense why that sort of people would choose that job class...” Three Sighs of Flowing Maple said.

“Then, what about Miles... Why did he choose a Mage? Mage and kung fu clearly don’t complement each other!” Drifting asked.

“Maybe he’s looking to challenge himself? To surpass his limits?” Three Sighs of Flowing Maple had instantly elevated Gu Fei’s ideological level up on a pedestal.

Drifting did not deny it outright, only making a point to add, “According to what I’ve observed so far, the average gamer is not capable of going up against such kind of people. You’ve personally seen Miles’ capability to come and go as he pleased despite the number of players we have here. I believe that if you wish to contend with that man, it’s best that you hire that Windchord fellow from around here.”

“Yeah... That’s worth a shot. It’s just that the man doesn’t have a good impression of organizations like guilds or mercenary groups, so I don’t know if I’ll succeed,” Three Sighs of Flowing Maple said.

“Let’s give it a try first,” Drifting suggested.

Three Sighs of Flowing Maple nodded and immediately began searching for a way to contact the Fighter Windchord.

------------------

Meanwhile, Sword Demon had managed to make contact with Eternal Dominion, and the two had quickly completed their transaction. The sudden windfall of over a thousand gold coins had Eternal Dominion experiencing such levels of euphoria that he could barely break that grin on his face. It just so happened that when Sword Demon sent over a message to greet their middleman, Gu Fei, the latter was fast asleep on the couch in Giordano’s Vigilante Corps Chamber, so he did not receive a reply.

Thinking that Gu Fei’s assassination quest was in full swing, Sword Demon refrained from contacting him again in a bid not to distract the man. Eternal Dominion was still reveling on the sound of clinking coins in his money pouch and did not really care for everything else happening around him. He sent a message over to Gu Fei and got no reply. When the same thing happened to the following messages he had sent, he figured that the man was busy and did not bother him any further.

Meanwhile, the three men, Brother Assist, War Without Wounds, and Royal God Call, had a much more uneventful journey, only encountering a little trouble when they attempted to inquire after that log cabin in the oak forest. Passersby casually pointed to a stretch of trees whenever they asked about an oak tree forest, as that type of tree was not particularly uncommon in this region.

At their wits’ end, they sought the help of the boss of this territory, Deep Waters, but for some reason, the man did not seem to be in a good mood and rejected every invitation from them. The three had no choice but to blindly wander about the jungle of Linyin City, asking any player they met if they had seen any oak forest around, and if there was a little log cabin within said forest, as well as if there was a NPC inside the previously mentioned log cabin...

The effort they had spent did not go for naught as at 3:37 AM, the three men finally managed to locate that oak tree forest in Linyin City, where a little wooden log cabin stood and the NPC Gru spotted within.

“It’s here!” Brother Assist yelled in all his excitement.

Gru was a blond young man with a serene expression. Brother Assist demonstrated all the techniques he had grasped to trigger a quest from the man, but none of them worked in the end. Be it mentioning the Shadowmist Assassin Andrew Su, the League of Assassins, or the assignment assassinating Giordano, all Gru did was smile and shake his head in response.

“We’ve no choice; looks like we need that diary to trigger the quest.” Brother Assist sighed.

“But Miles isn’t online!” Royal God Call said.

“The next time he’ll get online is tomorrow night...” War Without Wounds added.

“I really wish I were dead...” Brother Assist moaned.

------------------

The long night finally passed, and while this was only considered as an ordinary night in an ordinary day to Gu Fei, a huge horde of men had actually busied themselves into a mess over that oblivious man. Just on Flowergazing in the Fog’s end alone, they had no fewer than ten guild meetings in order to discuss how they should deal with that person.

Drifting had essentially told them all the information he had on the man.

Not only were they aware of just how scary Gu Fei was, they were even aware of the frightening company he kept. A man by the IGN of Young Master Han formed Young Master’s Elite; he gathered renowned MMO experts into that one mercenary group and massacred 80 players with just these six men during the mercenary PvP tournament!