Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-174

Chapter 174 - An Inhumane Quest

Gu Fei was fast, and his Chinese broadsword was even faster. His every strike was immediately followed by another strike, decorating Brave Surge’s entire body with bloody cuts.

Gu Fei’s luck was truly down in the dumps today, as Brave Surge still did not die even after receiving many of his strikes. The insufficient proccing of Gu Fei’s additional fire attack and the high magic resistant equipment that Brave Surge was wearing for this PvP significantly lowered the damage that Gu Fei could deal on him.

Still, death was just a matter of time for Brave Surge who was powerlessly receiving all of Gu Fei’s attacks.

Brave Surge’s several companions had thought at first that Gu Fei would easily be dealt with once he entered Brave Surge’s personal range, but what had happened in the end was the complete opposite of their expectation. Braze Surge was the one being handled easily by Gu Fei at close range, and all his attempts at spell-chanting were easily interrupted by the latter.

These men exchanged looks. To help or not to help, that was the question!

This duel was suggested by Brave Surge, so them aiding their guild leader now that he was losing the fight would be as good as slapping Brave Surge’s mouth. Hesitating for quite a while, they finally despondently chose to not aid their guild leader.

Gu Fei was currently one with his sword, and he went about cutting Brave Surge with great delight. In fact, his eyes reflected dejection when Brave Surge finally turned into a beam of white light. I could have executed all the moves in my Nine Blades of Tang’s Duanlang Third Style with just two more cuts. Such a pity! Gu Fei shook his head in regret.

Returning his sword inside his dimensional pocket, Gu Fei glanced at his HP and saw that it was in the red with only a few numbers away from zero. Brave Surge did not even need to cast spells; just a rap of his magic staff would knock Gu Fei back into the Mage Academy.

That was a close shave, indeed! Gu Fei sighed repeatedly. Fortunately, he was doing ‘Bounty Mission’ and was thus wearing the Windchaser’s Emblem and not Eddie’s Emblem. Had he been equipping Eddie’s Emblem, the accessory’s additional 6 points to Intelligence would have raised his Magic Attack Power a bit more, causing the Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno he had used before to burn his bit of HP off and essentially scorch off Gu Fei’s chance to make it out alive of the ensuing conflagration.

Gu Fei noted some learning points from the recent PvP in his mind as he replenished his HP by eating the loaf of bread that he had taken out of his dimensional pocket. With all these done, he turned his gaze over to those Carouse’s observers. Although the men displayed a shocked expression on their faces, they did not move to attack Gu Fei.

They truly have an upright personality! Gu Fei felt disappointed by this, as he was really hoping for them to be scoundrels that would try to avenge their guild leader’s death.

“Are you guys really alright with this? I’m leaving if there’s nothing else,” Gu Fei was truly unwilling to give up another chance to PvP.

The men merely shook their heads.

“I’m leaving, then,” Gu Fei dejectedly waved goodbye to these men.

“Wait a sec, bro. Can you tell us your name?” someone among Brave Surge’s buddies asked.

“Thousand Miles Drunk,” Gu Fei answered.

The person nodded his head, and they sent Gu Fei off toward the Mage Academy with their eyes alone.

The Mage Academy was quite deserted this early in the morning. Gu Fei walked directly to the NPC instructor who was programmed to teach Mages new spells at certain levels. Seeing that Gu Fei was now at level 40, the NPC instructor promptly asked him if he wanted to do his Job Class Advancement, and Gu Fei replied to this in the affirmative.

The instructor then gave him the Job Class Advancement quest. The invincible PK expert Gu Fei was momentarily stunned by the quest he had just been given.

It was a very simple quest, yet it utterly revealed the game company’s true intention, as it only required one thing: money.

No task was needed to be done to complete the Job Class Advancement, and a player only had to pay the fee of 200 gold coins to advance his or her job class. This sum was neither plentiful nor insignificant; the problem was that Gu Fei currently did not have it. To be precise, the 37 gold coins, 21 silver coins, and 8 copper coins that he was carrying right now was not enough.

The two successful deals that Young Master’s Elite mercenary group had had during Parallel World’s open beta days made Gu Fei quite the rich man, and this resulted into him not realizing the significance of in-game currency. After all, the large money he had acquired early on allowed him to survive until this day without having to worry about the content of his coin purse and to splurge on fruits for his limited amount of mana.

Now that he was facing the system’s lion appetite through the required fee for the Job Class Advancement, Gu Fei finally realized how meager the content of his coin purse.

Gu Fei left the Mage Academy dejectedly. Remembering that he still had not submitted the result of his ‘Bounty Mission’, Gu Fei activated his Windchaser’s Emblem and teleported himself into the Bounty Assignment Hall. With the mission accomplished, he was given the corresponding reward of money and experience points. Gu Fei would usually feel satisfied with the paltry monetary reward for the ‘Bounty Mission’, but due to the Job Class Advancement fee of 200 gold coins, he suddenly thought that the system was being very stingy.

“I spent a long time slaying the target almost at the cost of my life, yet I was only awarded these few coins? This is truly inhumane!” Gu Fei complained to a nearby player who was in the process of choosing a mission.

The man turned his head over to glance at Gu Fei, “Oh, yeah. Doing ‘Bounty Mission’ is extremely risky, yet the reward is really meager.”

“No wonder it is virtually deserted here; no one wishes to do these missions,” Gu Fei remarked as he looked all around him. Besides Gu Fei and the man next to him, the entire hall was devoid of people.

“You’re not wrong,” The person replied, adding, “But do you know that in our city, there’s this one guy who is really passionate about doing this trashy ‘Bounty Mission’? He would come here every day just to do it.”

“Oh? Have you seen him?”

“No, it's just a rumor I’ve heard. They said he is a Mage dressed in black robe. His weapon of choice is a sword, which seems pretty powerful. That’s quite an impressive person, so I don’t understand why he would idiotically keep on doing these trashy missions,” The person wondered aloud as he chose a mission, turning his head to face Gu Fei.

It was at this point that the man realized that the person he had been talking to all this while was a Mage wearing a black robe. Gu Fei reached into his dimensional pocket and took out a purple sword, extending it until it was just inches away from the man’s eyes, “Is this the sword you are talking about?”

“Of course not!” The man blustered, “Actually, doing ‘Bounty Mission’ is very meaningful. See how I’m also doing it right now? Alright, I’ve got a mission to do. I’m leaving now!” The man then disappeared in a flash, leaving the depressed Gu Fei by himself inside the deserted hall.

Money! Where can I earn some money?! Gu Fei exited the hall while tossing this question all about his head.

This thing called money could truly affect people’s harmonious relationship, as Gu Fei started to resent Young Master Han. To only have two completed transactions all this time,We have only completed two requests from others even till now... Is he even serious about managing the mercenary group’s business properly?!

The thought of ‘business’ suddenly sparked an idea inside Gu Fei: He could sell the many miscellaneous items he had acquired from his past monster grinding sessions!

As these looted items would easily cause him to suffer a loss if he tried selling them via the Auction House (author’s note: refer to Chapter 100 for the reason), he would have to set up a stall and hawk those items if he wished to earn anything back from them. Since Gu Fei was in need of money, it made perfect sense for him to try his hand at being a merchant.

With this thought in mind, Gu Fei made his way toward the warehouse near the entrance to Yunduan City. Arriving there, he quickly checked his storage box and saw the many items he had accumulated over time. Fortunately, he had later focused on doing ‘Bounty Mission’ instead of monster grinding. If not, his storage would have run out of space long ago.

Gu Fei took out a burlap sack and started stuffing all the items in his storage into it. This burlap sack of his had quite a history.

Back when Gu Fei was second on the leveling efficiency leaderboard, he used to store all the items he had looted while grinding into this burlap sack. After a past misunderstanding, this burlap sack came to be in possession of June’s Rain. Afterward, she used it to store food and drinks on their way to Yueye City. It was only before the start of Parallel World’s event that June’s Rain returned from Yueye City to Yunduan City and handed over this burlap sack to its original owner.

Gu Fei could recall the days he had diligently spent grinding on monsters with this burlap sack and it filled him with plenty of emotions.

Filling the sack as best as he could, Gu Fei unsteadily made his way toward Peddlers’ Street 2. Along the way, he excitedly calculated: One piece of equipment was about 10 gold coins, and two would make it 20 gold coins. If there were twenty, then he would make 200 gold coins!

Everywhere in the game was deserted so early in the morning, but there was one place that was the exception and that was the Peddlers’ Street 2.

This street was formed after the game had officially been released. It was partly because Peddlers’ Street 1, the first street that was used for doing transactions among players, was occupied by veteran players ever since the days open beta and the items they sold were of higher quality, so a majority of the new players could only feel frustrated at the high prices of the in-game goods.

Eventually, the newer players formed a marketplace that would cater to their needs, which was how Peddlers’ Street 2 came to be. The development of this street was fast because the newer players were extremely passionate about playing the game, and the numbers of new players far exceeded the numbers of veteran players. This resulted into Peddlers’ Street 2 having a steady stream of players looking to hawk off their goods or buy affordable in-game items. Although Peddlers’ Streets 3 and 4 also came to be, the Peddlers’ Street 2 remained as bustling as ever.

All the players in Yunduan City knew that if one wanted to hawk goods at the dead of the night or the wee hours of the morning, the Peddlers’ Street 2 would be the best place to do so, as it was the only street that remained lively at any given time of the day.

Gu Fei had long heard of the Peddlers’ Street 2, but this was the first time he visited it. The rumors were indeed true; while everywhere else would be deserted at certain times of the day, the Peddlers’ Street 2 would always be crowded as ever.

Because it was still in the morning, the players in Peddlers’ Street 2 had the same drowsy expression on their faces. Upon closer inspection, Gu Fei noted that this drowsy expression on the players’ faces could be grouped into two: One group might look drowsy and bleary eyed, yet this group was in high spirits; this group must be consisted of players who had just woken up and crawled into the game. The other group looked drowsy and sleepy as a result of lethargy, not even having the strength to speak; clearly, this group was consisted of players who had played the game the entire night and had yet to head to bed.

Gu Fei walked along the street as he searched for an empty spot to set up his stall. Gu Fei’s burlap sack was truly filled to the brim unlike the average players, so a normal spot would not do for him at all.

After walking around for one quarter of the whole lane, Gu Fei finally spotted a larger empty spot. Quickening his pace, he staked his claim on it and promptly dumped the content of his burlap sack onto the ground. Gu Fei’s items spilled all over the ground, with quite a few of them even bouncing all the way to the middle of the street.

“WOW!” The eyes of the many players around, especially the two standing behind their stalls next to Gu Fei’s, were immediately attracted by the loud noise.

The items Gu Fei had brought piled like a small mountain. The two players only had small stalls with few items on display, making their offering seem meager in comparison to Gu Fei’s.