Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

"The seven of us have a purpose for playing the game, so we"re not exactly the same as them," Southern Lone Blade gazed out at the overjoyed players as he said this, giving an involuntary sigh. "Before, I thought that turning a hobby into a job was a fortunate thing, but after working for long, I realized that hobby and work really shouldn"t be mixed. If a hobby becomes your job, the pressure you put on yourself becomes too great, and the enjoyment that you once possessed for your pastime would slowly become lost."

"You"re talking about playing games?" Gu Fei asked.

"Yup," Southern Lone Blade nodded.

"Indeed, there"s nothing to play in games," Gu Fei agreed gravely.

The seven men were stumped for words. Every player in this game, even Sword Demon and the others that Gu Fei had been acquainted with, would often find themselves abruptly running out words to say to Gu Fei sometimes.

"If there"s nothing to play, then what are you still playing the game for?" Flame Singed Clothes finally could not hold his tongue any longer and asked.

"I"m not here to play the game…"

"Are you just pa.s.sing time?" Flame Singed Clothes had a sudden impulse to finish Gu Fei"s sentence.

"Nope," Gu Fei shook his head. "I"m here to beat people up."

The conversation came to a standstill once more. Truly, even if this was in the real world, there were also plenty of people who would find themselves in a similar situation of suddenly having nothing to say.

"Beat… Beat people up?" Southern Lone Blade had thought that larceny was already a frowned upon practice, he did not expect to actually cross paths with someone who would play the game to directly beat people up.

"Beating people up is just a more crude and easier explanation. If I were to be honest, it is more that I"m looking for a place where I can use to demonstrate all the kung fu in me; I couldn"t possibly just walk down the street and beat people, can I? But it"s fine if I use the game"s Bounty Missions to achieve this. I thought you guys knew this?" Gu Fei had the impression that these men should already know about his att.i.tude toward gaming.

"Ohhh…. We know…" The seven men were sweating. They of course knew about it, but when Gu Fei suddenly talked about "beating people up", their minds were momentarily unable to make the connection.

"Yeah, I remember that I"ve mentioned this to you guys before," Gu Fei nodded.

"Yes you did," The seven answered in unison, with a pregnant pause right after. Were they not discussing their problem with Gu Fei just moments ago? How did the topic end up going to Gu Fei instead? Southern Lone Blade was the leader of his squad and the person in charge of speaking for them all. At this time, he quickly stepped out and handed Gu Fei a skewer of raw meat, directing the conversation right back to their topic, "So, how should this guild be developing?"

"Guild? I don"t know anything about that. I don"t get anything of it at all," Gu Fei said as he squatted down to cook the meat by the fire. Asking as he barbecued, "It"s fine if I cook it like this, right? I don"t have a profession skill."

"It"s fine," Southern Lone Blade nodded. "Players without the skill could still do some things by themselves, it"s just that the meat that you cook would lack the additional attributes that those who had picked up the cooking skill would have."

"I see…" Gu Fei nodded meaningfully, his eyes trained on the meat once again. He was rolling the meat above the flames, and just as Southern Lone Blade was about to continue on his topic, Gu Fei blurted out all of a sudden. "Who cut the meat?"

Southern Lone Blade was momentarily stunned before turning his head around. Blackwater stepped up, very puzzled as well, "I did it. What"s the matter?"

"Your knife work is rather unpolished! Look at this cut here. It"s obvious that you relied too much on your finger strength at the start, and you ran out of strength cutting it halfway through. Thus, you started to add in your wrist strength, which caused the initial incision to tremble more, making the back end of your cut smoother thanks to the added wrist strength. Actually, that"s still not enough. When it comes to force, merely using our own bodies won"t be enough. What we call strength comes from the ground up—"

"Boss, what are you talking about?" The seven were all confused.

"I"m talking about the meat you cut here!" Gu Fei said.

"You"re talking about the meat? Weren"t you talking about force?" Blackwater asked.

"I"m looking at your force through this meat you cut. Was what I said before correct?" Gu Fei asked.

"Sorry! I"m trying my best to recall, but I really can"t remember how much finger strength or wrist strength, or if I used my finger strength followed by my wrist strength," Blackwater said.

"That"s normal too," Gu Fei nodded. "After all, it"s not like you"ve been trained by the system, so this might just be a tiny detail to you, quite possibly something you"ve never realized."

Blackwater truly had no way to carry on this line of conversation, and looked to his six comrades pleadingly. Southern Lone Blade had tried to lead Gu Fei to a different topic twice, and this was already the third attempt. Drumming up the courage, he took a deep breath and promptly said, "What we are meaning to say is that we need to earn money through the game in order to make a living, but now that we"ve joined Extremely Heaven Defying, there"s simply no avenue for me and my brothers to earn money like how we were previously teaching the efficient monster grinding routine the last time when we were working in the workshop. Without it, even though we really wish to play with everyone in the guild, we"ll still have to find some other way to solve the issue of our livelihood."

Southern Lone Blade had said everything in one go, and Gu Fei was staring blankly at them as he went on, only opening his mouth after a brief pause, "You spoke really fast. What did you just say?"

Southern Lone Blade nearly spat a mouthful of blood right in Gu Fei"s face, but at least he had shown his concern by asking "what did you just saying" at the end, so Paddy Scented Pastures took this chance to step up and took over Southern Lone Blade"s role, repeating what he had just said about their present predicament.

"Oh! That"s what you"re talking about," Gu Fei nodded. "You"re right, but I have no idea about matters pertaining to guilds and such. What did Sword Demon and the others say?"

"Those guys?" The expression on Southern Lone Blade and his squad changed slightly. "We talked to them about this last night, but it wasn"t very successful. Truthfully, we"re well aware that players like us are a little more utilitarian, while Boss Sword Demon and the others are purely gaming for fun. They are the sort who truly love gaming, while they would probably see us as defiling the game since we"re the kind that depends on the game to make a living. Boss Sword Demon had presently said that their focus would be on how to ensure the guild could be properly established for future growth, and he did not seem to care for us talking about profits and the ilk straight away. I know that it isn"t appropriate either, but we don"t have a choice! My brothers and I have got to earn enough money to eat, after all."

"You"ve still got quite a bit of money from what we earned the last time we taught the efficient monster grinding routines, right?" Gu Fei said.

"It"s true that it is enough for all of us to sustain ourselves for a while, but playing the game is a livelihood for us. We still wish to know if there"s a clear future for us so that we could at least feel rea.s.sured," Southern Lone Blade said.

"Don"t worry!" Gu Fei said. "I believe it is not that Sword Demon is unconcerned, but that he has yet to come up with a way to deal with things. This is the first time that he"s setting up a guild here in Parallel World too! We"re all friends here, and Sword Demon isn"t the sort that would not take his friends into consideration."

Gu Fei said this even as he handed that meat skewer to Southern Lone Blade.

The look on Southern Lone Blade"s face was half of doubt and belief, taking that skewer from Gu Fei and took a mouthful. He chewed it a few times and felt something was off, so he took it out of his mouth and took a look, crying out, "It"s not cooked through yet!"

"Is that so? Then let me barbecue it some more," Gu Fei took the meat skewer from Southern Lone Blade"s hands and began turning it in the fire once again. Southern Lone Blade hurriedly spat the meat from his mouth as he asked, "Do you know how to do it?"

"Somewhat," Gu Fei answered. He had learned a little from Coward"s Savior, as he had done a similar barbecue quite some time ago with Coward"s Savior, and what he vaguely remembered was the need to keep turning the meat like what he was doing right now.

"Shall I come and take over?" Blackwater offered as he stepped up.

"No, let me try again," Gu Fei continued to focus on the barbecue.

The seven of them were currently all afraid however, and wanted to quietly sneak off. Unfortunately for them, Gu Fei"s spatial awareness was at such a standard that he was able to immediately sense what they were doing, pointing his finger straight at Southern Lone Blade, "Don"t you go! You"re the only one who can eat this since you"ve already bitten into it!"

Tears were streaming down Southern Lone Blade"s cheeks. You"ve already got me once, why don"t you just let me go? You sure live up to your namesake as the number 1 killer in Parallel World; you"re already well versed in ways to kill people, be it with your blade or through means other than your weapons. Are you trying to kill me to death by force-feeding me bad food!? The six others were looking at Southern Lone Blade that spoke great tragedy through their eyes.

Southern Lone Blade felt he should not die in vain, so while he still had some time, he came back over and asked once more, "Are we still continuing with that efficient monster grinding routine business that we were doing before?"

That business was particularly lucrative, and after Southern Lone Blade and his squad had a taste of it, all of them could only bemoan the fact they were unable to fully grasp the technique necessary, otherwise they would not have even cared to bother themselves with the City Wars event or anything like that, and would have wandered all around to sell their craft.

"That thing!" Gu Fei nodded his head. "You should go talk to Eternal Dominion about it. He might very well be going down the road of depending on this game for his livelihood as well, so you guys could contact each other and go about this business together."

"Then what about yourself?" Southern Lone Blade asked. The others were already p.r.i.c.king their ears up and listening to this attentively. They were not particularly close with Eternal Dominion, having been enemies that were turned to friends with Gu Fei, so they were all rather convinced when it came to Gu Fei"s personality as well as his expertise. This was especially the case after they saw how Gu Fei did not even take the majority portion of their profits after they did their business. Employees like them naturally liked working for such a boss very much.

"Me? I don"t need to be concerned with earning money and such, so I"m just casually having fun," Gu Fei said. He did not even have the intention of depending on doing the routines for the sake of earning money. The whole idea came from Eternal Dominion to begin with, so Gu Fei was completely forced to do something he did not care about.

"If that"s the case…" Southern Lone Blade nodded. He was already thinking about how he could contact Eternal Dominion regarding this matter, only for Glue to promptly raise his finger, "Hey, speak of the devil."

Everyone turned in the direction where he pointed, and sure enough, they spotted Eternal Dominion a short distance away. It was not just him alone too; Deep Waters, Coco and some players from Linyin City"s Deep Freeze were presently greeting Sword Demon and the others.

"You"ve finally established another guild, how could I not personally make the trip down to congratulate you?" Deep Waters"s voice seemingly traveled along with the wind to reach Gu Fei and the others" ears.

Subsequently, he spotted Young Master Han, and that bright smile that hung on Deep Waters" instantly melted as the man began to grind his teeth, "I heard someone stood on the other side and tried to cause trouble for everyone during the City Wars event? Why is that face still standing right there?"

"Tsk, childish," Young Master Han spat that word out as ridicule that left Deep Waters fuming like he was about to erupt, even walking away nonchalantly without even waiting for Deep Waters" counter.

Thus, Deep Waters continued to greet the others after he saw Young Master Han stroll off, In the process of doing so, he suddenly saw someone and immediately shouted for all to hear. "Oh, The number 1 trap technician from Yunduan City is here as well!"

Gu Fei was shocked as he quickly got up and looked all around, following the direction of Deep Waters" gaze and sure enough, there was the Sakurazaka Moony. If this man was here, Gu Fei was afraid that meant that the men from Forever In Flowers had come as well. If that was so, the ladies would all be in danger! Gu Fei hurriedly looked in every direction, searching for any signs of ladies that had fallen prey to any traps. In the end, he saw that Fireball had already walked right over, "Drunk bro, what are you searching for?"

"The guys from Forever in Flowers are here, huh?" Gu Fei asked.

"They are, but don"t worry Drunk bro; they won"t dare to do anything. As lively as this place is right now, they would not fail to give you and Boss Sword Demon some face!" Fireball rea.s.sured. Even though Sword Demon had been the guild leader since the establishment of the guild, it was apparent that Fireball was taking lead from Gu Fei in his heart from when he first joined till now. When mentioning these two figures, he had Gu Fei"s name before Sword Demon, which goes to show how he differentiated the two.

"Then what are they doing here?" Gu Fei had looked around once and failed to find a single member of Forever In Flowers about. All he saw was Sakurazaka Moony standing by a bonfire together with Vast Lushness barbecuing meat in the distance.

"They are looking for ladies to strike up a conversation with!" Fireball answered.

Gu Fei was speechless. "I thought you said that they won"t be messing around?"

"No wonder I look up to you as my big brother, Drunk bro. You truly understand your younger bros too well!" Fireball flattered.

Gu Fei could not stand this sort of attack either, throwing that meat skewer right into the fire. Fireball quickly tried to save it, only for Southern Lone Blade to stop him, "Forget it. We"ll just find another skewer."

In the time they were speaking, Deep Waters and the others had finished making the rounds around the various bonfires and also ended up at where Gu Fei and the others were located. After they finished exchanging pleasantries, Eternal Dominion boasted to Gu Fei about how amazing and impressive his performance in the recent City Wars event was. Gu Fei had a slight smile as he heard his exploits, only saying a simple "that"s because I wasn"t among Linyin City"s defending forces" which made Eternal Dominion so depressed, he felt like dying. However, the reality was that he was not up to par with Gu Fei in terms of his kung fu, and the honest Eternal Dominion was not someone who would not admit to this fact.

Gu Fei pointed to Southern Lone Blade and his squad after he was done, "These guys have just asked me about the matter regarding the efficient monster grinding routines business! You might mainly be working with them on that matter from here on out, so I hope you guys would work well together."

When Southern Lone Blade saw that Gu Fei was actually taking the initiative to help them network with each other, he got very delighted, immediately dragging Eternal Dominion away to touch bases. However, it was like Eternal Dominion had suddenly remembered something as he turned his head to Deep Waters, "You haven"t cleared your bill with me regarding the City War!"

"Indeed, I"ll be sure to see to that matter. I"ll send a mail to you first thing I get back to Linyin City," Deep Waters quickly answered.

Eternal Dominion nodded, completely satisfied. Southern Lone Blade and his squad were even more elated, for they were very fond of how Eternal Dominion was someone who placed great importance on his own interests. Meanwhile, over by Sword Demon and those other gaming experts, talking about money was viewed as something that was very shameful and hurtful toward their relations.h.i.+ps, and this was a particular aspect where Southern Lone Blade and his squad greatly begged to differ.

This squad of seven plus one very quickly found a common ground when talking about earning money, and they were off in their own world discussing their grand plans to come. The campfire beside Gu Fei was left with just him, Deep Waters and Coco.

"Well done, you"ve truly had your time in the spotlight again with this city war," Deep Waters and Gu Fei were actually not very well acquainted with each other, but the man had greeted Sakurazaka Moony despite how much of stranger they were to each other, so it was evident the man would naturally treat people he met like they were old buddies, so he was no longer treating Gu Fei as a stranger when they spoke.

"It"s nothing," Gu Fei offhandedly gave a very modest reply. There was yet another player who had come over by this time, and when Gu Fei glanced over, he smiled, "Ah, it"s manager Aural. Why are you here as well?"

"Don"t call me that, it sounds so weird," Aural Valley Wind quickly corrected. "It"s all because I heard that your two guilds will be here to celebrate your successful merger, so I made my way over to express my congratulations as well. I had even picked out a few of my comrades to join me who are all adept at barbecuing!"

"You sure live up to your name as someone in charge of manpower and human resources!" Gu Fei flashed a thumbs up. "However, you"ve gotta ask our guild leader if he wants their services or not. There, he"s standing right there." Gu Fei pointed out Sword Demon to Aural Valley Wind.

"Then I"ll head on right over. Please pardon my interruption," Aural Valley Wind acknowledged Deep Waters" and Coco"s presence as well despite not knowing the pair, and went off to find Sword Demon. The expression on Deep Waters" face was quite poorly, however, watching as Aural Valley Wind walked off, "Who"s that guy?"

"Someone from a workshop by the IGN of Aural Valley Wind. They had been a huge help to us during the City Wars event here in Yunduan City," Gu Fei knew that Deep Waters was very unfriendly toward people who worked in workshops, but he still came clean about the man"s background.

"Oh? Which workshop does he hail from?" Deep Waters asked.

"Soaring Clouds Workshop. Have you heard of them?" Gu Fei said.

"Oh, Soaring Clouds… Yes, I do know them, they are a newly established workshop in the last few years. They have quite a good reputation too. However, all workshops pay close attention to their reputation nowadays, and those whose misdeeds propagate the community would not survive at all. Reputation doesn"t mean anything, not to mention the fact that they are a newly established organization, so it is only natural for them to put the effort and falsify things a little."

"Is that so? Then don"t you mean to say that they are of course not really good people as well?" Gu Fei chuckled.

"I do not dare to make such a definite claim, but I do believe the saying," Deep Waters said.

"What saying?"

"There"s not a single crow who is whiter than the other," Deep Waters answered.

"Ahhh…" Gu Fei heard this and also turned his gaze over to the back of Aural Valley Wind meaningfully. While he had quite a good impression of manager Aural, Five Nights had also made quite a deep impression on Gu Fei as well.

At the same time, Deep Waters was standing beside Gu Fei, stoking the flames, "Look, you guys have been allocated quite a sizable chunk of Precincts after the City Wars, and that reward is a very tasty slice of cake that many covet. I reckon the workshops wish that they could take possession of all the city Precincts as well. They must have also put in their effort while the City Wars event was underway, and I suspect there must be quite a few of these city Precincts out there that are under the management of guilds that are under the control of workshops in the various cities. Only you here in Yunduan City have actually managed to cause an upset and resulted in the city defenders defeating all the players who were the city a.s.saulters this time. These workshops that had devoted their effort to the event would most definitely have taken quite a significant hit from what you guys have done this time. They must surely be having ideas on you guys, and of course I don"t mean coming for revenge since their goal was ultimately their business and profits. Yunduan City"s Precinct situation has allowed you guys to earn a larger reward than any other city out there. Especially now that you have merged together as one, means that the management of all the Precincts that are in the hands of players here in Yunduan City has been concentrated to a single guild, so how conducive would it be for you, considering the lack of compet.i.tion? Furthermore, it makes it a lot more convenient to run as well! Take our Linyin City for example. Deep Freeze managed to get our hands on a single Precinct, and aside from us, there are a total of 17 other guilds who have been awarded with a Precinct of their own. But just talking about this makes my blood boil; g*dd*mm*t, our guild managed to secure a contribution score that was well over 300 points, yet we were only given a single Precinct. All those other trash guilds barely earned 100-200 points, yet they had gotten a Precinct to oversee as well. Just what sort of justice is that?!?! ARGH!!"

"Hey, you"re digressing!" Beside him, Coco gave a severe warning of reminder.

"Oh, right. Back to workshops. Look. In our cities, each of these Precincts would want to develop, and there would be plenty of compet.i.tion with each other as it happens. Your city is the only place where that would not happen at all. Your guild alone had been given permission to manage the various Precincts in the city, which essentially gives you a monopoly! Of course, there are still Precincts out there that are not under the jurisdiction of player management, but I dare guarantee, that be it real estate or business in cities from here on out, the player managed Precincts would become the core, and the boring and rigid locations that the system controls would be unable to compete with the players! So do you understand just how huge a cake you have in your hands right now?" Deep Waters said.