Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-162

Chapter 162 - Flawless?

The members of Carouse ran helter-skelter as they attempted to evade the spell. Unfortunately, some of them failed to escape Blazing Fire of a Thousand Inferno’s wide AOE in time despite quickly leaving their stationary positions.

Nonetheless, Gu Fei’s slow casting time still gave most of Carouse’s players enough time to make their escape. Glancing at Amethyst Rebirth’s score, he saw that it had increased by another 6 kill points. What was originally a score of 29 against 49 had now become 41 against 49. Another nine kills would allow Amethyst Rebirth to turn the tables on Carouse.

No one could stop this reversal, as Gu Fei immediately followed up his chanting of Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno with the incantation for Descending Wheel of Flames. The flame wheel in the sky began to form once the raging inferno sprouted. Some of the players underneath the flame wheel ran away, yet a few unfortunate souls rushed over to the flame wheel’s AOE to get away from the raging inferno. These players who had failed to see the flame wheel descending from the sky could not dodge it in time, gaining Gu Fei 11 kill points, which were more than the last spell’s.

The tide had finally turned with a score of 52 against 49. Mere moments had passed since Svelte Dancer lured away that first wave of Archers’ attacks until now.

“I learned this from you,” Gu Fei smilingly said to Brave Surge, who was audibly grinding his teeth in frustration at the turn of events. The two spells Gu Fei had just casted truly resembled a bit of Carouse’s spell bombardment. When Young Master Han introduced the guild leader of Carouse to Gu Fei, Brave Surge left a strong impression of his spell-casting with his blue magic staff to Gu Fei.

Brave Surge gritted his teeth harder. Casting two AOE spells might seem easy, but besides timing the chanting, one must calculate the target’s movement speed and predict his or her intended direction as well. Doing all these necessary steps prior to execution ensured that the second spell would not miss. As for Gu Fei, he did not need to think too much about these when casting his spells as he currently had plenty of targets to choose from.

“Arctic Whirlwind! Release!” Brave Surge raised his magic staff and a whirlwind came into existence, heading toward Gu Fei while spinning.

“You still wanna fight with me?!” Gu Fei smiled, saying, “You’re better off chasing after Svelte Dancer!”

Brave Surge continued to grind his teeth in frustration. Some of his men who had been chasing after Svelte Dancer just sent him this message: “She was very fast!” so Brave Surge was very aware that there was no way to chase after her.

Brave Surge knew that they would most likely lose this match. Feeling heartbroken, he now just wanted to take revenge on Gu Fei.

“Twin Incineration! Incinerate!” Gu Fei did not choose to evade Brave Surge’s Arctic Whirlwind; instead, he met it head on by sweeping his sword with both hands as he finished chanting a spell toward Arctic Whirlwind.

The twin dragons entwining around Moonlit Nightfalls blazed fiercely as it slashed Arctic Whirlwind in half, dissipating it in an instant. Gu Fei brought his hands to his sides and said to Brave Surge, “Alright. Stop messing around.”

Brave Surge felt extremely shocked by what he had just witnessed. It was not actually that surprising for Arctic Whirlwind to be cleaved away by a heavy physical attack, as quite a lot of strong Warriors could do that. But while Arctic Whirlwind’s Spell Damage would be reduced once it got dissipated, the spell’s additional freezing effect that reduced speed would still come into play once it touched the enemy. And yet, Gu Fei’s movement seemed completely normal, as if the spell’s freezing effect did not get triggered.

Only one explanation could justify this: The burning effect of Gu Fei’s Twin Incineration was deemed stronger by Verdict to the point of completely suppressing Arctic Whirlwind’s freezing effect. For him to have such a high level of proficiency toward Twin Incineration, just what sort of Mage was he building?

Brave Surge began to take note of Gu Fei’s sword in hand and tried to appraise it, only getting rows of question marks in the end.

Gu Fei walked about casually as Carouse’s six hundred members kept him trap within. Raising a hand to his brow, he swept his gaze around him and sighed deeply, “Oh, dear! I can’t even see where Svelte Dancer has run off to!”

Gu Fei said that while fishing out an apple from his dimensional pocket to bite on it. Unexpectedly, he heard a whooshing sound that was quickly followed by a satisfying thwack. An arrow had struck the apple in his hand, splattering its flesh and juice all over his face.

Expressionlessly turning his head over and seeing an Archer with a raised bow, his face showed a good deal of shock. “You saw through me!” Gu Fei acknowledged, asking, “But don’t tell me that you were only aiming for that apple?”

The person felt quite embarrassed.

“Alright, I admit it. I’m out of mana,” Gu Fei raised his hands, adding, “Kill me if you wish!” Not one player was around him at this point in time.

Brave Surge raised his hand and several Archers and Mages came out.

“Hey, don’t be like this! Send me two melee job classes to play with!” Gu Fei dejectedly requested.

Brave Surge ignored his request as he issued an order. The Archers shot out arrows on Homing Projectile while the Mages casted AOE spells to where Gu Fei was.

“Fireball! Shoot!” Gu Fei defiantly countered their attacks by using his last bit of mana to cast the most basic spell in his arsenal.

The opponents’ attacks all struck the part where Gu Fei was, yet he did not try to dodge any of them, as there would be no use in doing so. Finally, Gu Fei was reduced into a stream of white light that soon faded away.

The Fireball unsteadily floated toward the crowd, but given how experienced all these players were, no one tried to dodge it as they knew that Fireball no longer had any Spell Damage on it and a simple slap from one of them would extinguish it.

“Every second counts! Go and find Svelte Dancer fast,” Brave Surge ordered and proceeded to look all around him. The scenery before him blurred as he suddenly realized the vastness of this PvP arena, causing his heart palpitate erratically as the task at hand overwhelmed him.

Gu Fei’s vision darkened for a bit before returning to normal. He then found himself by the teleportation array outside the Main Hall of Guilds. The Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies were around him. The sight of Gu Fei being crowded by a bevy of babes immediately attracted the envy of the other male players nearby: “Look at that guy! To be teleported right in the middle of so many ladies, how very lucky of him!”

“What happened? How’s everything?” The ladies each asked Gu Fei. Players that were transported outside of the PvP arena would be unable to hear the system announcements for their respective ongoing matches, so none of the ladies knew of the current score.

“We’ve made a comeback in terms of kill points,” Gu Fei answered.

All the ladies cheered.

“Good luck, Xiaowu!” The guild channel was filled with words of encouragement and celebration.

Gu Fei smiled at the sight of the ladies’ rejoicing and quietly moved to leave.

“Where are you going?” Quite a few of them had noticed Gu Fei leaving and asked this question.

“I’ve got something on, so I’ll take my leave first and see you all tomorrow!” Gu Fei replied and squeezed his way through the crowd, running straight toward Ray’s Bar.

“Where’s Young Master?” Gu Fei quietly asked Ray upon entering the bar.

Ray pointed to Room 2.

Gu Fei giddily walked toward the said room and lifted the curtain before freezing on the spot. Young Master Han was indeed inside the room, and so was Coward's Savior. The two were enthusiastically exchanging drinks, and Coward's Savior was even insistently pushing a chunk of grilled meat toward Young Master Han. “This is the best one! Grilling this chunk alone has increased my proficiency by three points. Have a taste!”

Both men turned to look at Gu Fei when he entered the room. Coward's Savior hurriedly placed the grilled meat down as he got up to greet Gu Fei. Young Master Han stared at him with a placid smile on his face.

“Sigh…” Gu Fei forced a smile on his face and said, “You guys are… getting along quite well!”

“Quite well indeed. What else do you expect?” Young Master Han laughed coldly as he raised his glass to toast with Coward's Savior.

Coward's Savior drained his glass in one gulp and said to Gu Fei while patting the seat next to him, “Sit down, Drunk bro! I am still waiting for the man that you’re talking about. It’s a good thing that you arrived first; I’ll put on a good show for you in just a minute.” Gu Fei had resolutely refused Coward's Savior calling him Master, but the latter had insisted on having a respectable title for him, so Gu Fei finally settled on having Coward’s Savior address him in the same way that Fireball was doing. Gu Fei learned that Coward’s Savior was younger than him, so this way of addressing him was not inappropriate.

“Alright! Alright!” Gu Fei stopped Coward's Savior from talking further, saying, “Go ahead and resume what you were doing a while ago. No need for your help here anymore.”

“Ah?”

“It’s fine. Just go and be busy with your things!” Gu Fei patted him on his shoulder.

“Oh!” Coward's Savior bade farewell to Young Master Han and prepared to leave. Before leaving, he reminded Gu Fei, “Don’t call me Coward. Call me Coward’s Savior. Kung fu produces no cowards!”

“Alright. I got it Coward,” Gu Fei completely ignored his request.

Coward's Savior nodded his head in satisfaction and left the room, not realizing that Gu Fei had still called him as ‘Coward’.

“He he he he…” Gu Fei gazed at Young Master Han with a stupid grin plastered on his face.

“‘A man that looks like a woman’? ‘Beat him up good’, eh?” Young Master Han said.

“What? No… That is all a misunderstanding!” Gu Fei vehemently denied.

“Is that so? Just which part was it that I have misunderstood?” Young Master Han clicked his tongue as he asked sarcastically. Evidently, Young Master Han had learned of Gu Fei’s order and had somehow duped Coward's Savior into thinking that he was not the one that Gu Fei was talking about. Since the matters had gotten to this point, Gu Fei could only shamelessly press on, slapping the table with no regard, “Don’t be so arrogant! Do you think no one’s gonna beat you up just because that guy left? I’m still sitting right here! I’ll just beat you up myself if I have to!”

“Did you get by that match fine?”

“It was alright.”

This was how intelligent men acted when trying to change a subject: not dragging things out and going straight to a point.

“Your so-called flawless strategy doesn’t seem to be much, after all!” Gu Fei goaded.

“You turned the tables on us?” Young Master Han asked.

Gu Fei nodded his head.

“Oh. How did you do it?” Young Master Han pressed on.

Gu Fei explained the process.

“Using Seismic Toss twice to get across the spell bombardment and you’re not dead? You?” Young Master Han found this entire account incredulous.

“I calculated it,” Gu Fei replied, explaining, “The two ladies removed all their equipment that boosts their damage, so their Seismic Toss could only half my HP. Then, I borrowed an item with magic resistance from Svelte Dancer, pushing my fire resistance all the way up to 73% and allowing me to make it through the spell bombardment with enough HP.”

“That woman is perverse!” Young Master Han mumbled.

“He he…” Gu Fei merely laughed.

“Such a violent method is all you can think of?” Young Master Han asked.

“What’s your expert method, then?” Gu Fei countered.

“Doesn’t she have a Teleportation Scroll? Wouldn’t going in using Stealth and marking the coordinates work just as well?” Young Master Han sarcastically inquired.

“Uhm….”

“Plus, they were gathered up just waiting for you lot to try and do a reversal on them. Why did you act so soon? Wouldn’t it be better for you lot to do this at the last minute? Now, if they manage to find and take care of Svelte Dancer, won’t all your efforts go down the drain?” Young Master Han looked at the time as he continued, “There are still thirty minutes left before the match is over.”

“Uhm…” Gu Fei could only hum at this.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!” Young Master Han repeatedly clucked his tongue loudly while shaking his head.

“Didn’t you say that your stratagem is flawless?!” Gu Fei countered.

“I’ve already said earlier that I placed importance into the mercenary group.”

“What has this got to do with our mercenary group?”

“If Amethyst Rebirth manages to win here, it will subsequently advance the battle strategy of our mercenary group by a huge step,” Young Master Han answered.