Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-233

Chapter 233 - The Perfect Match

That awesome image the students had of Gu Fei in their minds wavered slightly due to what they deemed as him casting ‘off-target’. Gu Fei naturally did not know of their thoughts and merely pointed to Ah Fa the Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno spell that had not managed to burn off even one monster, “See that?”

When Ah Fa nodded his head, Gu Fei waved his hand toward all the students, “Go and fight the monsters!”

This was how the operation ‘exterminate the Brigands’ officially began. Gu Fei did not idle. Confident that his Spell Damage could not insta-kill any of the monsters without his sword, he would occasionally cast a few spells to help everyone.

It was fine if he did not provide them assistance, but everyone’s heart chilled further when he did.

Some of the slightly knowledgeable students toward gaming saw that the monsters Gu Fei had struck were unfazed by his spells and thoroughly assumed that Gu Fei’s Spell Damage was average.

Since Ah Fa had the greatest gaming knowledge among the students, he could see this most clearly. As a fellow Mage, he even estimated that Teacher Gu Fei’s Spell Damage was lower than his.

It was not just that, though. Gu Fei would retreat to the side, fished out fruit from his dimensional pocket, and munched on it every few spells he cast. His smooth actions signified that this was something he was very used to doing. A Mage’s mana would only deplete this quickly if it was low to begin with. Only one reason could cause this, and that was not adding points to Intelligence. A Mage that had low Intelligence was no better than trash… There was no need to argue over this fact. No matter what type of character a Mage was currently building, it was impossible for him or her to disregard Intelligence.

Ah Fa continued to fight a few Brigands as he moved toward Gu Fei who was currently eating an apple, feebly asking, “Sir, how did you allocate your stat points?”

“I’ve put them all into Agility,” Gu Fei answered.

Ah Fa nearly coughed up blood when he heard this; the word ‘trash’ was on the tip of his tongue and he forcefully swallowed it down. Pausing for a bit, he stiltedly asked, “Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’?”

“Why are you putting all your points to Agility?”

“To increase my speed!” Gu Fei answered.

“Speed…” Ah Fa muttered to himself. He could not think of a reason for a Mage to value speed to the point of forgoing Intelligence. Just as he was about to ask for more details, Gu Fei suddenly cried out, “Behind you!” He then tossed his half-eaten apple over to a student.

A student somehow lost track of the Brigand he was fighting and stood there in a daze, not knowing that the Brigand had already gotten behind him. The half-eaten apple Gu Fei had thrown struck the said student’s head and cleared his muddle-headedness. At the same time, the student registered Gu Fei’s warning and quickly turned around with the weapon in his hand held horizontally, blocking the incoming attack of the Brigand.

The other students around him rushed to give him a hand and they very quickly dispatched the Brigand. Gu Fei nodded his head approvingly when he saw the students helping one another. At the same time, he told Ah Fa who was beside him, “Go and help them fight the monsters! You’re the strongest among them, so why are you just standing here?”

Ah Fa kept the question he had and joined the skirmish once more.

The operation progressed smoothly with everyone’s united effort. All counted the monsters they still needed to kill to fulfill the quest requirement.

“Two more left!”

“Only one more now!”

Ah Fa inhaled a sharp breath. The Brigand leader had yet to reveal itself. Perhaps, the second part of the quest would only be triggered after they killed all the one hundred Brigands for this first part? Thinking that they would have to depend on Gu Fei now, Ah Fa’s heart beat with trepidation. He sneaked a glance at Gu Fei as another spell was unleashed.

“One hundred!” everyone cheered.

Gu Fei, who had not provided much help throughout this process, became highly vigilant at this moment. He came to the same conclusion as Ah Fa that the Brigand leader would only appear after the first part of the quest was completed.

Once the one hundredth Brigand fell down, he did not remain motionless like the others; instead, this Brigand reached into his waist and threw something in the air.

A piercing sound was heard as the thrown object soared through the clouds. Only then did the Brigand fall to the ground and die. All the students looked at the direction that the flare had disappeared to with restlessness hearts. No matter how strong the Brigand leader was, there was no way for him to fall from the sky, so Gu Fei focused his eyes on the deeper part of the valley, instead.

In no time at all, they heard the heavy sound of footsteps coming from within the valley. The students were quite shaken when they heard this thudding sound. No matter how they put it, this was not the sound anyone would expect from just one person!

“Melee job classes, quickly move to the front! Priests, head to the back. Archers and Mages, get to either side!” Ah Fa commanded his fellow classmates to face the enemies in his panic. Gu Fei, at this point, imposingly stepped forward and told the students, “All of you, retreat to the side.”

“Ah?” The students exchanged baffled looks. Gu Fei already had his back to them as he stuck his hand inside his dimensional pocket. He intended to face these marching enemies alone.

“Sir!” Ah Fa quickly ran to him, “There seems to be many enemies!”

“Yup. That’s why you guys should retreat to the side!” Gu Fei said.

The one hundred Brigands before did not actually appear before the students all at once. In actuality, every wave was only consisted of ten Brigands, so the members of Ultimate Class 3 were able to slowly accumulate the kill count of one hundred. The sound traveling from the valley right now seemed to be made of over a hundred Brigands charging toward them together. If this final wave truly had these many Brigands, Ultimate Class 3 would have no way of successfully completing the guild quest. Ah Fa was being far too optimistic for hoping that they would not face many enemies all at once.

The closer the sound was, the clearer it became. It seemed that the sound of heavy footfalls was not being falsely echoed by the valley’s walls, and what they were hearing was truly the sound of actual footsteps.

When the figures from deep within the valley became distinguishable, Ah Fa’s face grew deathly pale. Extending his hand out, he frantically ordered, “Run! Everyone, quickly RUN!”

Ah Fa was a leader that was used to being ordered by everyone, yet at times like this, he was still the person in charge of the guild and was the most knowledgeable when it came to gaming among them, so none of his classmates questioned his judgment and immediately tried to escape from the valley. The students ran for quite a distance before remembering something. They looked backward and saw that Gu Fei had not moved from his original position.

“Sir!” all the students anxiously called out to Gu Fei.

Gu Fei’s full focus was already on the mob of Brigands that were rushing toward them. Encountering such a large pack of monsters to grind on was rare for players. Even if they intentionally lured the monsters together, the density of the monsters before Gu Fei would still far exceed those. In fact, no one would attempt to lure these many monsters all at once. Gu Fei had instinctively felt that he might have to kill such a huge pack of monsters for this stage of the quest, so he was beside himself with joy. He had actually heard Ah Fa’s call to flee, but he had never once considered that option.

Gu Fei glanced at the students who were currently calling for him and nodded his head in satisfaction when he saw that all of them were standing twenty meters away from him, “Yup. That’s far enough. Stay there.”

“No way?” The students looked at one another in disbelief. They could tell that Gu Fei did not intend to retreat and seemed to be even looking forward to taking on the huge mob of Brigands.

At this time, Gu Fei pulled out his Moonlit Nightfalls. Ah Fa’s eyes shone brightly as he could tell from the sword’s aura that Gu Fei was holding on to top-grade equipment. “Teacher wasn’t using that weapon before…” Ah Fa was finally realizing that Gu Fei must not have used the sword earlier to avoid killing off the monsters. Could it be that teacher’s Spell Damage is actually high enough to insta-kill these Brigands? Ah Fa’s mouth was agape from thinking of this possibility, not knowing that he had made the right conjecture.

The other students did not know what they should be doing right now, so they could only wait for Ah Fa, the most experienced gamer among them, to make a decision.

“Let’s wait and see how this goes.” Seeing Gu Fei’s confident look, Ah Fa wondered if his teacher truly possessed the ability to insta-kill these Brigands. If he did, then killing these large mobs would not just be a dream!

Holding his Moonlit Nightfalls with a reverse-grip, the students saw Gu Fei take the initiative to meet the Brigands. Ah Fa grew anxious when he saw that Gu Fei had not cast a AOE spell and had merely sprinted toward the mob of Brigands, eventually plunging himself right into their midst.

“Teacher… Did he want to commit suicide?” the students asked, baffled.

It was at this point that battlecries rang through the air!

The Brigands were full of vigor, but more importantly, Parallel World’s full-immersion system had not coded them to shout until their throats were sore. Still, merely having these Brigands fight the players was boring, so the game designers had each of them howl every time they went to battle to add flavor to the monotonous atmosphere, pleasantly terming this as ‘sound effect’.

Gu Fei swung his sword forward with Twin Incineration, insta-killing four Brigands. His main intention for doing this was to draw the Brigands’ aggro, so that they would ignore the students behind him and focus solely on him.

His plan worked; Mages’ spells had higher aggro compared to other job classes’ attacks, so Gu Fei’s one swipe caused the entire mob of Brigands to surround him. Gu Fei had not felt flustered since he had already fought the Brigands in Yunxia Valley many times in the past. He was very familiar with their attack patterns, and the system had yet to change those even now. Therefore, unless he made a mistake or lose his concentration during the fight, the Brigands right now would be unable to injure Gu Fei.

Gu Fei did not wish to fight with this bunch of robots for long, so he extended his sword and pointed toward his feet, “Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno! Arise!”

It would take some time before his spell would fully materialize, and the good thing about the system’s dumb monsters was that they would never try to avoid Gu Fei’s spell despite hearing the incantation and would still single-mindedly throw themselves at Gu Fei.

The Brigands tightly surrounded him without a gap. Gu Fei’s left hand lifted Moonlit Nightfalls, while his right hand pulled out the Chinese broadsword, defending against the Brigands’ attacks as he counted down the seconds in his head. It’s about time! Gu Fei said to himself. Randomly pointing to somewhere outside the encirclement, he said, “Translocation! Blink!”

The students all thought that Gu Fei had lost his life when they saw him get surrounded by the throng of Brigands. Ah Fa lost all hopes of Gu Fei being able to extricate himself and was about to call everyone to leave when the air before his eyes distorted and Gu Fei’s figure appeared outside the mobs’ encirclement. At the same time, Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno flared to life at the heart of the throng of Brigands and set them ablaze.

The throng of Brigands that the system had spawned for this quest was still stuck in that tight encirclement Gu Fei had found himself before. They moved and struggled to orientate themselves to where Gu Fei had appeared, their movements perfectly matching the dancing flames of Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno.

Flames crackled on amid the deaths of all the Brigands. Gu Fei returned the weapons inside his dimensional pocket and walked toward the students while casually dusting his hands off together, “Alright! That’s it for today. Lesson’s over!”