Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

The argument between Royal God Call and Southern Lone Blade was a topic of contention that was greatly debated in the MMO-sphere.

As a gamer, it was basically impossible not to calculate the chance of dropping equipment upon death from a scientific point of view, and that required the game developers to reveal this particular setting they designed. Of course, they could not make such data public, which was why the system would use the word ‘chance’ to cover this. As a result, plenty of gamers believed that if something had a chance, then there must be ways to reduce said chance. The two contrasting methods that Royal God Call and Southern Lone Blade had raised were just that, with their respective logic behind either school of thought.

Royal God Call’s method utilized the premise that there was a 100% chance for their equipment to drop upon death, so the more items any one person carried, the chances of the player dropping the item they had no wish of losing would decrease. It would be a lot less heart-wrenching to drop some random garbage than precious equipment, after all.

In contrast, Southern Lone Blade’s perspective stemmed from the fact that the chance to drop any equipment was undoubtedly lower when the said player had no other equipment or item on them. Considering from that point of view, the fewer things they had on them, the closer they were to having no equipment, and that meant that the probability of dropping equipment would also be closer to zero.

The debate between the two perspectives had gone on for a long time, and either side could raise a whole list of examples to support their views; it was to the point everyone would opt to believe their side and do things according to it. Currently, there were more people who adopted the same belief that Royal God Call had just mentioned, while there were fewer that subscribed to what Southern Lone Blade had just insisted.

The pair argued over this old issue for a few rounds before realizing a problem together. Players would have this argument precisely because they were uncertain about the game’s design. If Fleeting Smile was truly an internal employee of the game company…

“Did Fleeting Smile ever make such a suggestion to you two?” Everyone quickly asked No Smile.

No Smile, however, suddenly had a realization. “No, because there’s no need. Silver Moon himself already subscribed to such a belief.”

“So what you’re saying is, before fighting with Miles, he would only equip the essential King’s Blade?” Young Master Han asked.

“As well as the Torc of Leadership to activate his King’s Blade,” No Smile said.

“Then, the chance of it getting lost was already sufficiently high.” Young Master Han nodded, turning to face the crowd. “It’s pretty clear right now, yeah? After Fleeting Smile figured out Silver Moon’s habit, as well as of his fear about Miles, he made the special arrangement to pull this particular stunt. A player will lose something whenever they forcefully log out, and the chance of it happening is extremely high, otherwise the officials wouldn’t emphasize so much about the consequences. It’s a far more vicious method than PK-ing to drop a player’s equipment.”

“But… Silver Moon only forcefully logged out because he forgot his credit card number. If he remembered it…” No Smile said.

“It’s no use even if he remembered. If I’m not wrong with my guess, I’m sure there wasn’t a single Teleportation Scroll available in the Trade Exchange at that time. He probably bought everything up beforehand. Teleportation Scrolls aren’t items players will just casually put up for sale,” Young Master Han said.

“That’s quite the expenditure!” War Without Wounds exclaimed.

“That’s nothing much. He can always sell it back, so he’s not gonna make too much of a deficit at the end of the day,” Young Master Han said.

“Silver Moon…” Everyone said this name, completely unsure of what they should say. This was supposed to be someone people would hate upon meeting, yet everyone was hating Ye Xiaowu more due to the ruse he had pulled, and everyone shared a feeling of inexplicable sympathy toward the former.

“In other words, the reason this person sought Silver Moon in the first place was all to rectify that King’s Blade he had?” Brother Assist asked.

“That seems to be the case.”

“M*th*rf*ck*r! What’s the meaning of this? Is he not even letting people use high-level equipment? To actually use such a method to create a level limitation in the people! Now that there’s no level limitation in Parallel World, lower-level players holding overlevel equipment could end up getting rectified, just what the heck is going on? Can we even still play this game?” Royal God Call had leaped to his feet by now.

Even though Silver moon never confirmed where his King’s Blade had originated from, everyone more or less already knew where it came from. Before, a BOSS, which had randomly walked into Yueye City, was summarily executed by the city guards. It nevertheless dropped loot upon death, however, and it happened to be the King’s Blade. Silver Moon was the lucky individual who had managed to pick it up. Going by Ye Xiaowu’s logic, King’s Blade was one such equipment that should not have appeared under a normal situation. Thus, his rectification was not because the equipment was overleveled and should not be in the hands of a low-level player. Even though Young Master Han and the others understood this, it was just that no one present was speaking up for Ye Xiaowu, so everyone happily listened even as they watch Royal God Call exploded into a litany of curses.

After Royal God Call was tired from his tirade and was taking the time to quench his thirst, Brother Assist asked No Smile once more, “I understand why Silver Moon got double-crossed by Fleeting Smile, but what about you? Do you have any equipment of unknown origins?”

“I don’t…” No Smile sheepishly answered. His dagger, Zephyr’s Whisper, had the inlaid skill Vanish. He had gotten it as a quest reward, and its stats for this particular weapon was already obsolete; it was nowhere near the top-tier weapon that King’s Blade was. Beyond that, there was nothing else he had that was anything special.

“I’m afraid he might not simply be concerned with just equipment,” Southern Lone Blade suddenly said. “He once sought our aid, and we had nothing special on us, either!”

“What about that shield of yours?” War Without Wounds blurted out. Southern Lone Blade was a dual-wielding Berserker, yet he was able to use a shield proficiently as he did. Logically speaking, he should not be able to utilize the full potential of this equipment without the appropriate shield aptitude, yet the fact of the matter remained that Southern Lone Blade was able to defend that shield of his really well.

Southern Lone Blade chuckled as he pulled out his shield from his dimensional pocket. “Actually, this isn’t a shield, but a sword.”

Everyone stared hard at the weapon. Just as what Southern Lone Blade had said, the weapon was called Sword of Protection. It looked like a shield, yet the name and the associated aptitude required was for the sword. However, instead of where it should state its Attack Power, the sword actually had Defense Power, which made it very similar to a shield.

“Where did you get this?!” War Without Wounds hurriedly asked.

“It’s a BOSS drop,” Southern Lone Blade said.

“Which BOSS?” War Without Wounds continued asking. BOSS monsters in Parallel World were chance meets and diligently camping out a spot where it appeared before would not work. Even though War Without Wounds knew it was nigh impossible for the same BOSS to reappear, making it pointless to know which BOSS it had come from, he was not one to give up until the writing was on the wall.

Southern Lone Blade also gave a bitter laugh as he helplessly gave him the answer. “Jack the Pirate. Have you heard of it before? It’s found in Linshui City.”

War Without Wounds had no clue, so he quickly turned to look at Brother Assist.

“Jack the Pirate? Isn’t that the monster that shuttles between the various islands in Linshui City on a ship?” Brother Assist asked.

“That’s Brother Assist alright!” Southern Lone Blade commended.

Brother Assist shook his head as he looked at War Without Wounds. “It’s best if you just give up on that. Bumping into this BOSS relies even more on luck than any other BOSS. Just think about the terrain in Linshui City, and that this BOSS has its ship going from island to island at its fancy. No one has any idea which island and which location it will drop anchor at any given time. How are you gonna fight it?”

War Without Wounds was despondent, releasing a heavy sigh and no longer saying a word.

“Where was I?” Young Master Han expressionlessly asked.

Southern Lone Blade jolted as he continued what he was saying, “Fleeting Smile sought us all, and aside from Silver Moon’s King’s Blade, none of us has any equipment that the man has his eyes on!”

“You guys won’t be doing his assignment for free if he seeks you guys out, right?” Young Master Han suddenly asked. Everyone already knew this, but to avoid the awkwardness of raising such a matter, no one was bothered to query further about the matter. This was especially the case since the target in question, Gu Fei, had a nonchalant attitude toward it.

“Uh, it was for 20,000 gold coins per level…” Southern Lone Blade recalled the agreement they had last time.

Everyone sucked in a mouthful of cold air. To make this lot of experts experience such a reaction was no easy feat, as each of them could be deemed as wealthy individuals in the game. Thus, it could be imagined, for anyone else who did not benefit from the bountiful income of the efficient monster grinding routine business, 20,000 gold coins a level would be enough to bristle someone as excitable as Royal God Call.

“20,000 gold coins for a level.” Young Master Han gave a cold laugh. “Wouldn’t all your work be for naught if you couldn’t get Thousand Miles Drunk to drop even a level?”

Southern Lone Blade was stunned. Even though they would be given a deposit, it would just be a meager sum. He suddenly thought back to how Ye Xiaowu had made one of the prerequisites of the agreement was the unconditional acceptance of Ye Xiaowu’s command; even though Southern Lone Blade asked for prior knowledge of the details before acting, success and failure would still rest in the hands of the commander, so if that man had no wish of footing the 20,000 gold coins…

“So what did he do all that for?” Brother Assist asked Young Master Han.

“That man already has that troop of ex-soldiers at his beck and call. With such a powerful team, logically speaking, he no longer needs external assistance of any sort. Don’t forget, everyone; we only have just the six of us under any normal circumstances. That man probably thought that he’d just be going against the six of us and didn’t imagine that we’d end up working with Southern Lone Blade’s team of seven or that we’d have Eternal Dominion tagging along, right?” Young Master Han said.

Everybody nodded.

“There could only be one reason he would go searching for normal players to pit them against us: stall for time,” Young Master Han concluded.

“Stall for time? What for?” everyone asked.

“This will once more require us to consider this from his foolish mindset. Brother Assist!”

“Even I can’t get on the same wavelength this time!” Brother Assist was visibly piqued.

“I knew you couldn’t do it…” Young Master Han scorned even as he immediately analyzed, “From his point of view, Miles exists as a sort of threat in this game. He’s like a ticking time bomb – the sort that can explode and create waves with his actions. His goal isn’t simply to rectify Miles; you guys still remember what happened in Linyin City, right?”

They nodded.

“Meanwhile, these ex-soldiers are all new to the game, so they would all need some time to get their levels up. No matter how much skill they possess in real life, level is still the basis of foundation games use for confrontation. From the levels of those men when they attacked, Fleeting Smile’s plan was likely to get them to reach level 40 before making his move, so before he could enact that plan, there would be a time when he had no one under him, but he wasn’t at ease with letting the time bomb just sit there, so he needed to keep him busy,” Young Master Han said.

Brother Assist’s eyes shone. “Do you mean to say is that those players he rallied, whom Miles crossed paths with in the past, were no more than just a bunch of bait? His goal was just to draw Miles’ attention, keeping him busy crossing swords with them, so as to prevent him from immersing his kung fu in other contents of the game. This wouldn’t cause any harm of breaking the game balance from this view, and when those ex-soldiers were at the ideal level later, they could all act and utterly defuse this time bomb together?”

“That’s right.” Young Master Han nodded approvingly. “You’re indeed very suitable for filling in his foolish mindset.”