Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-136

Chapter 136 - Survival Challenge

Gu Fei and Coward’s Savior went back to discussing about kung fu once they concluded their small talk. Coward's Savior could not wait to let Gu Fei witness the progress he had made in this one month of training.

Gu Fei failed to stop Coward's Savior in time and the latter already bellowed a cry, leaping to the side of the fountain and executing several moves of the Mantis Fist Style. The demonstration was unintentionally garish and immediately drew the attention of the surrounding players. Watching Coward’s Savior, these spectators mumbled the same question to one another: “Is he sick or something?”

Coward's Savior was unfazed by the people’s odd looks and continued executing the moves of the Seven Stars Mantis Fist Style: Thrusting Hammer, Wheel Turnover, Spring Step, Ripping off the Helmet, Double Flower Thrust, Eighteen Weave... Each move was measured, accurate, and smooth. Using online gaming terms, Coward's Savior’s skill and proficiency were already quite high. However, it was an entirely different story when it came to applying his moves to actual combat.

Gu Fei felt moved when he saw that Coward's Savior cared naught for the people’s ridiculing stares toward him, as this scenario was something he was well acquainted with. When he was younger, Gu Fei was so proud of his kung fu that he also disregarded everyone’s strange looks. In retrospect, he knew that his pride for his capability could only be kept in his heart because far too many people did not understand it.

Just like Gu Fei’s situation in his school… Kung fu… Under such a circumstance that everyone treated it as a sort of joke, his reverence for it unknowingly diminished. Unless—“Hey! What’s this nincompoop doing?” a man suddenly heckled from the crowd.

Sigh! Coward's Savior happened to be facing that direction and saw the person who had mocked him. With a roar, he charged toward the disrespectful man and performed the lower back suplex he had learned from Nine Twists and Eighteen Trips – another move of the Seven Stars Mantis Style. As the man’s back hit the ground, Coward’s Savior took two steps backward to assume his original position.

Gu Fei nodded his head sagely, That’s how it should be done. That was the only way to show others that kung fu was not a joke. It was a pity that Gu Fei was restricted from using this method on his naysayers since he was young; otherwise, it would have been a simple matter for him to demonstrate the genuineness and value of his martial arts prowess.

The man who had received the suplex felt stunned. However, he quickly recovered himself upon seeing that his HP did not decrease much. The laughter of the crowd around him made him feel utterly embarrassed. With a forward roll, he got up and cursed, “Stinky brat.” Reaching into his dimensional pocket, he pulled out his Bastard Sword and brandished it menacingly toward Coward’s Savior.

Gu Fei stood still, watching how Coward's Savior would react to this.

Coward's Savior calmly slid to the side with two steps, and the overhead cleave that had come from behind Coward's Savior missed him entirely. He then proceeded to hug the man around the waist. A thunderous bellow escaped Coward's Savior’s lips as he tossed the opponent into the air, landing him right into the nearby fountain with a splash.

“Oh, come on!” Gu Fei muttered under his breath. Seismic Toss… Coward's Savior actually used his job class’ skill in the nick of time to save himself instead of the Mantis Fist Style.

The man was soaked through as he stood up from the fountain. He clearly knew now that he was no match for Coward's Savior when it came to PvP. With the deafening laughter coming from the surrounding crowd, he meekly crawled out of the fountain and made himself scarce as soon as he could.

“Let’s go!” Gu Fei said to Coward's Savior.

“Are we not practicing anymore?” Coward's Savior asked; he was not finished with his demonstration yet.

“Let’s find a place with monsters to practice!” Gu Fei answered.

Coward's Savior was new to Yunduan City, so he was naturally not familiar with any of the grinding maps here. Moreover, Coward's Savior was currently only at level 34 as he neither played much during this past month nor possessed a grinding efficiency near Gu Fei’s level. Gu Fei brought him to a level 30 grinding map, pointing to the monsters and saying to Coward’s Savior, “There are three phases when practicing kung fu: fundamental, routine, and sparring. You’ve already learned the fundamentals in reality so doing them in-game is not necessary. You’re also familiar with the routine, so what’s left is sparring. When it comes to individual sparring, it is usually done with a wooden dummy or a punching bag. It’s even better inside the game, since there will be moving monsters for you to practice on. Alright, go and freeform!”

“Can’t I spar against you?” Coward's Savior asked.

“Spar against me?” Gu Fei asked, shocked. “Well, if you’re not afraid of hurting your own dignity, I don’t mind at all!”

As Coward's Savior’s face instantly flushed red, Gu Fei patted his back and said, “It’s a process to move from individual sparring to a friendly spar. Take it easy!”

Coward's Savior nodded his head.

“When it comes to sparring, you can no longer follow the set moves you previously learned based upon your routine. You need to apply your moves in accordance to the opponent’s position, choosing the right move for the right situation. Here, let me show you,” Gu Fei immediately closed in on a monster as he finished saying this.

The monster howled as it was engaged by Gu Fei into combat. Gu Fei deftly dodged its first attack. Jabbing his fist toward it, he shifted his position to throw another fist and a low kick. Coward's Savior was left dumbfounded when he saw Gu Fei call out the various moves of the Mantis Fist Style as he performed them one by one.

Fast! He was truly too fast! Gu Fei’s full-Agility build allowed him to have a faster striking speed than Coward's Savior by quite a lot. Gu Fei’s every punch and every kick did not contain unnecessary movements and were executed very smoothly and clearly, allowing Coward's Savior to easily distinguish which routine or move each attack came from. It was a truly impressive display of kung fu techniques. Coward's Savior unblinkingly admired the sight before him.

Gu Fei spent over three minutes pummeling the monster before it died. It was too bad that despite his smooth kung fu execution, the system still deemed each move he had made as just a normal attack. A barehanded Mage’s normal attack could only do 1 point of damage against this type of monsters with decent defense. Thus, Gu Fei had to hit the monster countless times before it finally died. “So, how was it?” Gu Fei returned beside Coward's Savior and asked him.

Coward's Savior was crying and his face was crestfallen, “And I thought I could spar against you. I’ve already lost my self-esteem just from witnessing your individual sparring. How did your moves get so fast?!”

“I added lots of points to Agility…” Gu Fei answered.

“Oh, right… This is a game…” Coward's Savior clearly got this VR game and reality all mixed up.

“How did you set your stats?” Gu Fei asked.

“Spirit, Strength, and a little bit of Agility…” Coward's Savior replied. The Fighter’s specialty was their combo attack capability; therefore, the Spirit stat that affected how fast skills or spells could be unleashed was very important to them.

“No matter. You can reset your points once you reach level 40.” Gu Fei never thought that he would have the opportunity to say this to another player, hastily reminding Coward’s Savior, “Having low Agility will not do if you wish to use kung fu in this game. But you won’t need to do such thing if you’re doing this for gaming purposes.”

Making such a choice was difficult for martial arts practitioners like him who were playing Parallel World, as martial arts techniques evidently did not go well with in-game skills. Take Gu Fei as an example; if it were not for his top-grade equipment, his Mage job class would practically be useless. Gu Fei had level 70 equipment that helped improve his Mage job class’ capability, but the same could not be said for Coward's Savior. In addition, Gu Fei did not care much about his in-game job class, so his way of thinking was of course different compared to other players. It all depended on how much Coward's Savior loved kung fu.

“Alright, you can stay here and keep training. Call me if there’s anything else,” Gu Fei’s instruction for Coward's Savior ended, so he bade him farewell.

Gu Fei left to grind levels alone, occasionally helping Royal God Call with his ‘Bounty Mission’. When the Amethyst Rebirth’s grinding party called for Gu Fei at 7 P.M., Gu Fei used the excuse of helping Royal God Call with his quest to avoid going.

“Miles, you’re not coming to grind today?” Drifting immediately sent a message to him.

“Nope. Gotta help my friend with his quest,” Gu Fei explained.

“Oh. Then, I won’t go as well…” Drifting said. In all honesty, top-tier experts like Drifting and his two companions and Gu Fei considered solo grinding as more efficient than party grinding. Drifting only joined the level grinding of the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies mainly because he was interested in finding out Gu Fei’s Spell Damage. Since Gu Fei would not be grinding there, he of course would not be wasting his time with the ladies either. How could Drifting become one of the top five, a.k.a. the Five Unyielding Experts,on the overall leaderboard if he were constantly distracted by women?

War Without Wounds and Royal God Call were two living examples. Ever since they started grinding with the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies, their drop from the experience leaderboard had been unprecedented.

Actually, such a job would be most suitable for Gu Fei since he did not care for his leveling speed.

Without the two experts’ assistance, the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies could naturally not grind on monsters beyond their level so they uncaringly headed toward their usual level 40 grinding spot. Just like Gu Fei, they cared not for the speed of their leveling. Of course, grinding on monsters above their level was way better, but they were still fine with not doing it. Instead, the ladies were more curious about the two men, Gu Fei and Drifting, not being able to join them at the same time. Could there perhaps be an affair of sorts?

That was how the next three days passed by. When the officials finally announced the particulars of the event, they were indeed a mercenary PvP tournament and guild versus guild tournament like what Brother Assist had heard. Apparently, there was supposed to be an individual PvP tournament as well, yet the job classes’ discrepancy was rather obvious so it would be unfair to host it. If they restricted it only to a PvP between players of the same job class, the Priests’ and Knights’ low amount of PvP skills would be hardly worth watching. Thus, it was scrapped in the end.

There was only one activity in this event that everybody was looking forward to: The Survival Challenge.

While the name sounded frightening, it was actually just like a match in Counterstrike. Two teams would be casually thrown into a randomly generated map with a set time limit to PvP. Victory would naturally come to the team that defeated all its opponents first. If the time ran out and either team still had survivors, the decision would boil down to which team killed more players. This meant that victory would go to the team with more survivors.

Every match would award the winner with in-game currency and experience points. There was also a chance to receive item reward, which was dependent on the winner’s performance in a given match. Logically speaking, the reward would be the most bountiful if a team only took one second to defeat all the opponents and had no member casualty. The further the team made it in the contest, the more experience points and gold coins it could earn from each win. The chances for an item reward would increase as well.

Currently, players were mostly attracted to the top-grade item reward as well as Permanent Skill Scrolls.

Permanent Skill Scrolls were something new that the officials had created. It was said that using one would grant a character a new skill, and it could be something several levels above his or her current level or something rare to obtain that was not even listed in a player’s skill tree. Nonetheless, there was a restriction: The skill would depend on the winning player’s job class. It was impossible for a Mage to get a hold of the Stealth skill.

In a private room inside Ray’s Bar, Brother Assist presented the information from the announcement to everyone. Because of his existence, the time that these experts had to trawl the official website for information had decreased. Unless it was related to specific details, Brother Assist naturally kept them in the loop with regard to the day-to-day news and information.

Just as he mentioned the Permanent Skill Scrolls, Royal God Call became very excited, “If I can get a bunch of those scrolls, won’t I be able to become a dual class holder, a Sharpshooter and a Hunter to boot?”

Everyone stared at him contemptuously. Royal God Call evidently read too many YY novels. What were the chances of such thing happening to him? He was no main character, after all.

“Such thing happening can only occur to a crazy pay-to-win Warrior,” Brother Assist sighed.

“Svelte Dancer…” everyone intoned the name at the same time.

Gu Fei only heard of this name the other day. It seemed that she indeed lived up to her name as the mightiest pay-to-win player. These old birds actually said her name at the same time when ‘a crazy pay-to-win Warrior’ was mentioned.

“Maybe you can fill your desire by bagging a date with this lady, Royal,” Brother Assist joked.

Royal God Call’s face suddenly showed a distant expression.

“Uhm. I’m afraid this sort of rich girl won’t be interested in such an immature child. It’s better if I go instead,” War Without Wounds shamelessly volunteered.

The dirty old man and the young lecher began to quarrel.

“Stop with this nonsense!” Young Master Han slammed the table. The two settled down when Gu Fei pulled out his sword and Sword Demon slid out his dagger.

“Let’s get on with our business,” Young Master Han said impassively.

“I’m done. It’s your turn,” Brother Assist gestured.

“Oh…” Young Master Han nodded his head, pausing first before glancing at everyone, “Hey, where’s my glass?”

Sword Demon quickly got up, “Let’s discuss this tomorrow. He’s already drunk.”

“Sit down,” Young Master Han stared at Sword Demon scornfully, “Do you think I'm you?” With that, he began to tap on the table’s surface as he addressed everyone solemnly, “Large guilds and mercenary groups will definitely use the quickest amount of time to finish their opponents in this tournament. As for small guilds, if they can’t achieve victory through team confrontations, they can only use the second rule to win: beginning a game of cat and mouse as soon as they obtain a lead in the kills. The rule must’ve been introduced for the benefit of small guilds. So that is how we will be fighting whenever we meet mercenary groups larger than us. However, let’s expect for a restriction toward the use of the Thief’s Stealth skill with such a rule in place!” Young Master Han warned.

Brother Assist was momentarily stunned before he nodded his head, “Your mind is pretty agile. There is indeed a restriction, but the rules are not yet revealed.”

Young Master Han smiled smugly, “I’m sure you guys are now aware that having peerless beauty and matchless brains in one being is possible because of my existence!”