Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-254

Chapter 254 - The Not-so-brotherly Gu Fei

On Saturday, the finals of the mercenary PvP tournament and the guild versus guild tournament were underway. The players who were still competing in either tournament were seizing every chance they could find to further improve themselves.

Those on the verge of leveling up were doing their best to make it happen by zealously grinding for experience points. Those close to attaining the next level in their skill proficiency did what they could to achieve it as well. Still, the most straightforward method to improve one’s fighting capability by leaps and bounds before the match’s start was to acquire wondrous equipment.

Young Master’s Elite just happened to stumble across this sort of equipment.

Lasting Sentence Dying Breath was undoubtedly an overleveled1 weapon, and it was even green tier. Gu Fei made efforts to locate its original owner, yet he now returned to tell his fellow mercenaries that the equipment now belonged to him upon learning that Nightmare of Death was its owner.

These mercenaries did not comment on this further. Given Gu Fei’s track record, none in Young Master’s Elite saw him as a man of utmost integrity. Now that it had come to this... A beast dressed in finery²! A man who is saintly only on the outside! These were the thoughts running through their heads. None of the present men dared to voice them, though, as Gu Fei’s sword was conveniently placed on the table before them, giving him easy access to it!

“I don’t think I can use either Lasting Sentence or Dying Breath!” Gu Fei sighed as he fiddled with the two daggers. “Look!” Extending the right hand holding Lasting Sentence, he said, “The green glow isn’t very obvious, so it probably means that my Dagger Aptitude is far from sufficient.” Gu Fei had experience in such things. His Moonlit Nightfalls was purple-tier equipment, and the glow for its physical attack attribute depicted on the item window was worlds apart from the glow for its magic attack attribute. At a glance, one could tell that the latter was glowing more densely. The density of a weapon’s glow was the system’s way of reminding every player of the insufficiency or sufficiency of his or her Aptitude.

Lasting Sentence was really incompatible with him; besides the dim glow of the words for its physical attack attribute, the dagger’s additional traits were barely emitting the greenish glow, looking entirely nondescript. Gu Fei then extended his left hand holding Dying Breath, “This one is even worse. Besides its name being lit up, everything else is dimmed. Is this because I don’t have the corresponding skill for dual-wielding?”

The experts looked at his two hands back and forth before cursing, “Look, your *ss! We can’t even appraise them. Put the daggers down on the table!”

The Appraisal skill could not appraise top-grade equipment beyond its rank. For an item’s description to be viewable, the person or owner had to hold it to his or her hand or display it using vendor mode. Everyone merely wanted Gu Fei to put the daggers on the table and show their descriptions using vendor mode, yet Gu Fei boldly tossed the daggers on the table and gestured for them to inspect the items.

The experts picked the daggers up and took turns inspecting them. They were even casually competing with one another, “Hey. Look! It’s pretty green, yeah?”

“Nah. Mine’s greener. See?”

“Mine’s the greenest….”

Gu Fei controlled his temper from erupting. They were just complaining about not being able to appraise the items moments ago, yet they were now competing with one another on who could make the items glow deeper.

Sword Demon was not as proactive as the others, so he got a hold of the two daggers last. Picking one up and inspecting it, he nodded his head approvingly, “It’s pretty green!” He then picked the other one up with the same hand and said, “This is pretty green, too.”

He held both at the same time. Looking at his left hand, he informed, “It’s not that green in this hand. Looks like one needs to have the Dual-wield skill.”

War Without Wounds was delighted when he heard this. Taking the two daggers in his hands, he declared, “I can make them glow green in both hands!”

“Are you done with making them glow green?!” Gu Fei almost flipped the table in his anger.

“No, not yet!” War Without Wounds shook his head, saying, “I can’t make them as green as Sword Demon, though.” Warriors had access to Weapon Mastery when they reached level 12. The weapons it covered were plentiful and included the saber, sword, axe, and spear. Bow and dagger were not included in this, though, so only Sword Demon had a bit of Dagger Aptitude.

“I don’t know if I could fully activate them, either.” Sword Demon shook his head. This was the first time these top experts had seen green-tier equipment, so none of them knew the level of luminosity to expect when they fully met the Dagger Aptitude requirement. He turned his head over to War Without Wounds, “Are you able to activate the hidden traits?”

War Without Wounds sighed glumly, “No.”

“Seems like its wielder needs to fully fulfill the Dagger Aptitude requirement,” Sword Demon deduced.

“Let’s not talk about Aptitude now! These weapons require Dual-wield skill; who else has access to that besides Berserkers?” Royal God Call asked.

Sword Demon was quiet for a moment before saying, “A Thief that chooses to be an Assassin will be able to, although he or she will require a skill scroll for it.”

“Gu Fei asked, “Can a Mage learn it?”

“That… probably not?” Everyone looked at one another for confirmation. While Gu Fei’s question sounded silly, none dared to guarantee its impossibility. Due to such an idea being silly, not one of them bothered to research about it. Hence, they did not have enough proof to refute it.

“I don’t think so, too,” Gu Fei sighed, having some idea of the design limitations and rules for every job class. He waved his hand dismissively and said, “Sword Demon can have them, then!”

Considering how well they understood Gu Fei’s personality, they had already expected for Sword Demon to benefit in all this once Gu Fei realized his inability to utilize the daggers. Some of them were green with envy. Even Royal God Call could not help but lament, “When are you gonna get a bow drop, hmm?” Royal God Call’s bow was relatively new, and he could barely keep his hands off of it mere days ago, but he was the sort of person who was afraid to lose out, so everything paled in comparison for him now with the appearance of Lasting Sentence Dying Breath.

Sword Demon wore a complicated expression on his face. He was not hypocritical and he really wanted to have Lasting Sentence Dying Breath, so he did not reject Gu Fei’s offer. Nonetheless, he felt bad to just accept them like this. “I’ll pay you for them!” seemed to be quite a difficult statement to make, however. At the end of the day, Sword Demon and Gu Fei’s relationship was not that close. They were neither well-acquainted nor unfamiliar with one another, making it difficult for Sword Demon to determine the best response to his offer.

It was unknown whether Royal God Call was being thoughtful or insolent, but he blurted out, “If you were to sell these daggers, they should at least amount to 2000 gold coins, right?”

“2000 gold coins? Royal, that’s a really conservative estimate,” Brother Assist suddenly had the look of a fine connoisseur as he said, “One look at the daggers and you can tell that they are well beyond the current level of players, so you can’t use the market price for them. If you were to sell them separately… Lasting Sentence’s damage output is absolutely amazing, especially when you consider the current stage of the game, so its price can easily break into the thousands. Meanwhile, Dying Breath’s damage output isn’t as outstanding. Still, it can definitely be acknowledged as one of the best top-grade daggers out there. Its price can at least reach 800 gold coins. But if the two were sold as a set, with their Fatal Blow and innate skill, and given how the price of weapons with access to such skills has always been priced higher, one could at least earn 3000 gold coins for them.”

With the two’s discussion of the item price, Sword Demon took the cue and said to Gu Fei, “I’ll take it that you sold them to me for 3000 gold coins, then. I currently don’t have that sum, though, so I’ll owe you that for now.”

Gu Fei smiled. “We’re friends; no need to be so serious! You can just give me 1800 gold coins as a token of appreciation.”

“1800 gold coins as a token of appreciation… That’s quite the ‘token’ you quoted. You might as well just gift them to Sword Demon!” Royal God Call cried out. He thought that Gu Fei should have rejected Sword Demon’s offer to pay as a sign of his brotherliness and allowed a beautiful resolution to the whole matter, yet he had actually accepted such an offer as a token of appreciation.

“Kids that don’t know anything should just play in a corner!” Gu Fei shooed Royal God Call by flicking his wrist.

Sword Demon was very satisfied with this, however. “That’s a little too cheap. Let’s just round it up to 2000 gold coins, then.”

“I’ve already said 1800 gold coins, so let’s make the amount that much. No more, no less,” Gu Fei firmly said.

That was when Sword Demon realized 1800 gold coins were not an amount he had come up out of nowhere but something he had thought of. It would be ridiculous to insist over adding 200 gold coins, so Sword Demon decisively nodded his head before saying, “I presently don’t have 1800 gold coins, either, so I’ll owe the amount to you!”

“Mmm… There’s no rush,” Gu Fei replied casually.

No one present made further queries about the matter, but Royal God Call was not satisfied with such a resolution, so he reached inside his dimensional pocket and tossed a scroll onto the table, slapping the wooden surface as he stared at Gu Fei, “It’s a scroll for Lightning Mage. I’ll sell it to you for 1800 gold coins; take it or leave it!”

“I’ll take it!” Gu Fei picked the scroll off the table and said while unraveling it, “I’m without gold coins, too, so I’ll owe you that amount first!”

“Pay it upfront or—” Before Royal God Call could finish his words, he saw a flash of lightning lighted up Gu Fei’s fingertips and disappeared, followed by the scroll disintegrating into ash. Gu Fei casually dusted his hands off and that was the end of it.

Everyone present in the room knew immediately that Royal God Call’s scroll had been used by Gu Fei. Each of them was dumbfounded but also impressed by Gu Fei’s decisiveness at making a decision. Royal God Call was stunned silly. His cut-off words moments ago turned into a cracked whisper, “Did you use it already?” He shook from utter disbelief.

“Yup. I’ve used it. I’ll pay you back once I’ve got the coins,” Gu Fei replied.

“AHHHHH!” Seeing that Royal God Call was about to pounce on him from across the table, Gu Fei hurriedly bade them goodbye, “I’ll see you guys by the teleportation array!” He then darted out of the room. Royal God Call did not give up easily and swiftly chased after him. But no matter how fast he was, he was still no match for Gu Fei’s Blink. By the time he stumbled out of Ray’s Bar, Gu Fei had already disappeared somewhere.

Royal God Call stalked back to the room, fuming. He saw Sword Demon wielding Lasting Sentence Dying Breath with barely contained eagerness, as if he was envisioning that moment when he fulfilled the Dagger Aptitude requirement for the utilization of the weapons’ full potential.

“Sword Demon, you don’t have to pay Miles for them anymore. Just treat it as me exchanging the scroll for the daggers.” Royal God Call pompously placed his arm across Sword Demon’s shoulder as he said this, yet the latter merely smiled at him, “That’s not how it works.”

“How does this work, then? Miles is not being very brotherly.” Royal God Call felt very depressed as he sat down, his expression implying that he had somewhat misjudged Gu Fei.

“He’s actually doing it for my sake… to prevent me from owing him a favor,” Sword Demon explained.

“Huh?” Royal God Call could not understand what he meant.

“It’s easy to pay back gold coins, but favors are a different story!” Sword Demon sighed.

“Everyone is dealt differently,” Brother Assist quipped, saying, “Miles treats people in a different manner depending on their personality. He knows just how to handle Sword Demon, so he did that. As for Royal… I think it’s best for you to forget owning that scroll in the first place.”