Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-217

Chapter 217 - Interviewing after Young Master’s Elite

Only Gu Fei did not react to High Cloud mercenary group leader Cirrus’s request, as he knew nothing of the underlying implication behind the latter’s request. The founder of a mercenary group had to pay an exorbitant sum to the system when he or she was establishing it, and to raise a group to level 4 like the High Cloud mercenary group… It could be seen how difficult this task was just from the fact that Yunduan City currently had few level 5 mercenary groups. For most people, even if they were unhappy with their mercenary groups, the most they would do was kick existing members and recruit new members once more to improve the groups’ overall strength. As for Cirrus, he was actually thinking of abandoning his mercenary group just to join Young Master’s Elite.

Cirrus let his action speak for him, and the members of High Cloud behind him suddenly exclaimed in shock, “Leader Cirrus just left the group!” Leaders could disband their mercenary groups. Fortunately, Cirrus was not that inconsiderate, and he merely opted to quit High Cloud of his volition. When a mercenary group leader quit, the vice group leader would automatically take over his post.

Hearing the surprised exclamation of the members of High Cloud, Gu Fei turned his head to address Young Master Han, “Who’s our vice group leader?”

“Our group only has six members, so why would we need a vice group leader for?” Young Master Han answered sarcastically as he waved his hand grandly.

From this exchange, Cirrus found out that Young Master Han was this mercenary group’s leader, so he sincerely focused his gaze on him half the time.

“Ahem. Treat me to a few rounds of drinks first and I’ll consider your request,” Young Master Han said.

“Ugh! You’re so corrupt!” War Without Wounds expressed his indignation when he heard Young Master Han’s extorting attempt. However, his negative reaction was not due to him having high sense of justice but merely due to him not being interested in imbibing liquor. In the end, he suggested, “Why don’t we make him pay a membership, instead?!”

“Membership? That’s right! Members should pay me membership fee!” Having an epiphany, Young Master Han exclaimed in agreement, “You five should pay me as well, being members of my mercenary group and all. Let me set the rule: All members must pay the group leader 10 gold coins as membership fee every day.”

“Shameless!” all of them cried out in frustration. Some members of High Cloud who had overheard their conversation also voiced their disdain regarding Young Master Han’s attempt to earn money from his fellow mercenaries.

“I think you shouldn’t trust this type of person,” Gu Fei seriously advised Cirrus, knowing full well that the latter had already resolved to treat Young Master Han to a round of drinks at the other’s request.

“I strongly concur,” War Without Wounds solemnly nodded his head.

“I, too!” Royal God Call seconded.

Cirrus felt stunned at these few men’s antics of ridiculing and badmouthing one another without hesitation. This atmosphere was very similar to his High Cloud mercenary group. In fact, Young Master’s Elite was even worse compared to High Cloud when it only had six men.

Cirrus watched the six men bicker on as they walked away. Mmm... I’ll observe them in greater detail first! he decided not to pursue the six men for now. Turning around, he saw his ex-mercenary companions still standing beside the teleportation array. Uhm… This is kinda awkward. But they probably don’t think of me as their comrade to begin with, anyway! Cirrus smiled wryly and quietly left without bidding any of them goodbye.

“Actually, we do need to find a Mage for our group,” Brother Assist suddenly said after they had walked for quite a distance.

Gu Fei did not say a word, knowing that he did not really count as a Mage. Although his Magic Attack Power was insanely high, he could only cast three or five spells and would have to eat fruit afterward to replenish his limited mana pool.

“Cirrus’s skill as a Mage is pretty average,” Royal God Call opined.

“Yeah… His equipment is so-so, as well,” Brother Assist added.

“His skills at giving commands are acceptable, but I’m still far better. More importantly, he can’t hold a candle to my looks,” Young Master Han said. As none of his fellow mercenaries bothered to comment at his words, he merely concluded, “In short, he does not meet the criteria we have for our group.”

“There are few elites out there, so we can just nurture one,” Sword Demon suggested.

“Let’s look around for someone with potential; we’re not really in a hurry to acquire a new member, anyway,” Young Master Han drawled, showing his lack of interest in adding new members to the mercenary group.

Although the rest of them were discussing the matter, they were not really that into developing Young Master’s Elite further, given Young Master Han’s leadership style. This mercenary group was no more than an avenue of entertainment to all of them. Frankly speaking, they were more concerned with increasing their fame than enhancing this mercenary group. Moreover, it was currently not ideal to develop the group since the Five Unyielding Experts were the foremost experts the public had acknowledged to dominate Parallel World. Young Master Han and the lot were no more than hidden powers biding their time in Young Master’s Elite. They were in a whole different ball game altogether.

“Man, it's so fun killing in today’s match!” All of them moved on from discussing about recruiting a new mercenary for their group into the activities they had in today’s match. War Without Wounds was flexing his muscles; it was rare for him to get a chance like today to gain kill points with this bunch of experts.

“Still, won’t Young Master’s previous set up be for naught now?” As usual, Brother Assist was being a worrywart.

Young Master Han merely laughed his worry off, “In today’s match, our purpose is to gain a bit of fame. Right now, our names have become pretty well-known. The way we fought this match would most likely throw any mercenary group that we meet from here onward into a tizzy. I feel that things are about to get interesting now.”

Everything had more or less unfolded as Young Master Han had intended. Young Master’s Elite’s win brought the six men into the quarterfinals. No mercenary group out there would believe Young Master’s Elite had just merely gotten lucky to reach this far in the mercenary PvP tournament.

This was especially the case after Young Master’s Elite’s match with High Cloud. No matter how severe High Cloud’s internal conflict, Young Master’s Elite’s utter demolition of its eighty-man group without one casualty or employing the Grand Kiting strategy only made the group appear all the more horrifying.

High Cloud’s players hailed from various guilds in Yunduan City. Therefore, the frightening might that Young Master’s Elite had displayed in this match alone spread very fast.

Mage! Mage! Mage! The main topic of everyone’s conversation was Young Master’s Elite’s Mage.

The players of Yunduan City were in a daze. Why was it that from the open beta days until now, any topic in Yunduan City would always be about Mages?

That vicious slayer 27149 was a Mage; the player that went about doing ‘Bounty Mission’ in Yunduan City was also a Mage; the recent buzz was pertaining to an Insta-kill Mage as well; now, there was yet another rumor about a Mage that knew how to duplicate himself.

Was the strongest job class in Parallel World actually the Mage? Players who had not chosen the Mage job class began to feel regret, while those who had chosen to be a Mage started to feel fired up.

Most people were no longer worrying about how to deal with Young Master’s Elite. They, just like Young Master Han, were hoping that other mercenary groups would be dealt the unlucky hand instead of themselves.

Since Young Master’s Elite could demolish an eighty-man mercenary group, a group with less than that number would simply be insufficient to deal with Young Master’s Elite. If the remaining mercenary groups in the tournament were to mobilize their entire force against Young Master’s Elite, the said mercenary group would simply fall back to using its Grand Kiting strategy upon realizing that it had no means to take them head on.

Their hands were essentially tied no matter how they proceeded to deal with Young Master’s Elite, so the seven mercenary groups were currently hard at work on finding ways to defeat the six-man mercenary group.

This was even more the case for Yunduan City’s number one mercenary group, Four Seas of Traversing Four Seas Guild, since it was matched up with Young Master’s Elite in the quarterfinals. Four Seas was very anxious at the thought of crossing swords with Young Master’s Elite.

In fact, Four Seas group leader Youthful Reflection, a talented strategist who also assumed the role of Traversing Four Seas Guild’s military advisor, stayed up all night trying to come up with the most appropriate method to deal with Young Master’s Elite.

It was just as what Sun Tzu’s Art of War had detailed: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” Guided by this statement, Youthful Reflection spent a whole night interviewing the past PvP tournament opponents of Young Master’s Elite.

Cloud Herder mercenary group was filled with resentment toward Young Master’s Elite’s Grand Kiting strategy; High Cloud mercenary group still had lingering fear toward the PvP might of Young Master’s Elite; Amethyst mercenary group, meanwhile, was on Young Master’s Elite side despite losing to the latter and treated any person who would come to inquire for information rather coldly; as for all the other random small mercenary groups, Youthful Reflection could not find a way to contact them to ask about Young Master’s Elite; in the end, only Silver Moon mercenary group’s leader, Silver Moon, provided Youthful Reflection with some useful information.

Sword Demon, Brother Assist, War Without Wounds, and Royal God Call! Just hearing these names had caused him to break out in cold sweat. Young Master’s Elite was indeed worthy of its name, as each member of the group was truly elite. Royal God Call was a member of Traversing Four Seas and was an Archer just like him, so Youthful Reflection had the chance to get to know him. Although he was just a brat with barely passable attitude, his gaming skills were definitely not run of the mill and his equipment was above average. Unfortunately for Youthful Reflection, he was unaware that Royal God Call’s equipment had been replaced by top-notch gear last night.

War Without Wounds held the title of the number one Warrior in the MMO community. He had held on to that position during the first few weeks of Parallel World, yet an unknown reason had eventually caused his leveling speed to significantly drop to the point of others catching up to and surpassing him. Right now, the title as the number one Warrior of Parallel World was being held by Southern Lone Blade of the Five Unyielding Experts. Had it not been for that lapse in War Without Wounds’ leveling efficiency, he would have been among the Five Unyielding Experts himself. At present, he was ranked third on the Warrior leaderboard.

Sword Demon was a name that needed no further introduction. Anyone who dared to call himself or herself as a gamer would know of this IGN. It was rumored that he had set up the Heaven-defying Guild during Parallel World’s open beta days, but for some unknown reason, the members had ended up deserting his guild early on. From then on, he had kept himself from the public’s eyes. His name never appeared in any other guilds, either. Who knew that he would be nestling in this small mercenary group, instead? Sword Demon was highly ranked on the Thief leaderboard at first, but just like War Without Wounds, he had suffered a sudden drop at some point in time. Many concluded that he must have dropped a level as a result of dying. Currently, he was ranked eighth on the Thief leaderboard – no, wait; he should be ranked seventh right now. Youthful Reflection looked at the most updated level rankings he had just received: the Thief Dusky Cloud who was originally ranked fifth suddenly disappeared on the leaderboard; it was most likely that he had lost a level after dying, too.

It could be surmised that had Sword Demon not experienced an accidental loss of level, the individuals among the Five Unyielding Experts would have probably been different as well.

There was Brother Assist, too. While this person’s ability to gather information was scary, his gaming skill was pitifully average. He had a rather large information network, ranging from GMs of MMOs to the insignificant newbies on the streets. Therefore, this individual should not be underestimated. After all, contacts were a very important resource when vying for domination in any online games.

Thousand Miles Drunk and Young Master Han were two names that allowed Youthful Reflection to breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that they were not some top-class expert with any colorful history.

However, Youthful Reflection was taken aback when Silver Moon’s revealed Thousand Miles Drunk to be the infamous Fugitive 27149 of the past. Furthermore, he was the rumored Insta-kill Mage and the real powerhouse of Young Master’s Elite.

As for Young Master Han, he was the leader of Young Master’s Elite. With the group being named after him, the other five members were most likely just his underlings, which just made this person all the more fearsome!