Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“Brave–Brave Surge…” Cirrus was someone new after all, and he was completely unprepared for Gu Fei’s big ups and downs style of doing things that went against gaming common sense. Even though the rumors about how Thousand Miles Drunk had single-handedly beaten back the men from Carouse had already spread all around Yunduan City, Cirrus was not the sort of fan that would brainlessly chase after his stars. He truly went to comprehend the situation at that time and understood that even though Carouse had been sent packing, there were plenty of factors that allowed Gu Fei to achieve such an impressive feat, and the victory that Gu Fei had obtained would essentially be impossible to be repeated again.

That was why when they heard that Gu Fei was going to challenge Carouse again, and he was even thinking of dragging the few of them along this time, all of them could not help but be surprised. In Cirrus’s mind, this was considered to be an impossible mission, so why even try it?

“Brave Surge? How did it become Brave Surge?” Slyris more or less knew that Gu Fei originally had the mission to assassinate Oathless Sword, and she also knew that he had yet to complete it. So why was it Brave Surge now?

“I failed. When I logged on this morning, I got insta-killed right by the defunct spawn point over in encampment no.2. I have no clue who it was, but I’ve failed the mission from before,” Gu Fei glumly explained.

“Hahaha, to think you would have such a day. Who’s that random hero, this madam will reward him or her for it!” Svelte Dancer was gleeful.

Gu Fei’s face was black from anger, continuing, “So I went to pick up the same mission again, only to find out I can’t get Oathless Sword as a target again, so I had no choice but to settle for Brave Surge.”

“You want just the handful of us… Go take on Carouse?” Cirrus confirmed.

“Not Carouse. The target is just Brave Surge,” Gu Fei remarked.

“Isn’t that the same…” Cirrus muttered.

“This mission is too easy!” Svelte Dancer’s answer shocked everyone. Even Gu Fei was astonished by it.

“He doesn’t know I’m with the city defenders, right? Will anyone be suspicious if I go looking for him? I’ll kill him the moment we meet, and run off once the deed is done. Who can even chase after me?” Svelte Dancer said.

“Hey genius, that mission is mine. What use would it be if you are the one doing the deed?” Gu Fei asked.

“Can’t we share it?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“Uhm, we could all form a party and do it together if you guys pick the mission up as well… Everyone would have completed the mission no matter who does the deed,” Gu Fei said.

“In such a situation, which guild would be the one that is ultimately rewarded with the contribution score?” Slyris asked.

“What matters is completing the mission, who cares which guild it ends up rewarding,” Gu Fei was absolutely unconcerned.

The place to pick up the mission was nearby, and it was right in another corner of the Hall of Guild Creations where the Top 100 guilds of Yunduan City were listed. Cirrus’ mind was still boggling with the same question when he picked up the mission: Will this work? Will this work? Will this work?

“Alright. The next step is to form a party and head out to kill Brave Surge,” Gu Fei announced.

“Our party has no Warrior, Priest, or Knight…” Cirrus reminded.

Gu Fei turned around to look. Cirrus, Slyris and he were three Mages. Xi Xiaotian was an Archer, Svelte Dancer a Rogue while Yan Xiaozhu was an Assassin, and Lie Lie was a Fighter. “Hey, Brother Assist’s Cousin. What’s your job class?” Gu Fei asked.

“An Archer,” Bashful Countenance softly muttered. She still did not dare to look at Gu Fei in the eye.

“We really don’t have a Warrior, Knight or Priest,” Gu Fei nodded.

Cirrus was waiting for him to continue with this thought, but he only saw Gu Fei wave his hand, “Let’s move out.”

Wait. Why are we just moving out like this? Cirrus was confused, utterly puzzled. Without a single Warrior, Knight or Priest, did Thousand Miles Drunk not realize what it meant to lack these three job classes in their party? This meant they were a party of pure DPS that lacked any sort of defense or healing. Such an aggressive team composition could completely overwhelm their opponent at the start and would have the thrill of a powerful damage output that would reap whomever they target, but the problem was that they were going up against an opponent with over a thousand players on his side. What good will a pure DPS party do against such staggering forces?

“I’m sure everyone knows how to blend their way in and out of the battlefield. Right now, all we need to do is split up, so that we reduce the chance of being noticed by others. We’ll meet up again after leaving the city, so immediately contact me if you happened to run into Brave Surge by coincidence!” They had already reached the city gate by the time Gu Fei was done with his instructions. Everyone parted ways, each of them feeling their heart beat in trepidation as they blended into the battlefield on their own.

—————————————————-

Sword Demon was leading Brother Assist and the gang of seven over on their end. They were all familiar with each other, so all of them discussed about how their guild should be playing this City Wars event. They used the same method that Gu Fei and the others had done and split up once they reached the city gate.

The northeast encampment was right ahead, and all of them got ready to begin their surveillance as Sword Demon took notice of their surroundings. Young Master Han had already guessed this was their intention, and already knew that Southern Lone Blade and his men had already joined in as well. The others would have an easier time blending in, but they would be in big trouble if they bumped into Young Master Han.

“Sure enough, they have tightened defenses around here,” Brother Assist had already begun his observation of the northeast encampment. Because the north encampment had been dismantled, all the guilds that had set up camp there shifted. Everyone enjoyed being beside an encampment, because if anyone were to run into any sudden trouble, they could get right back into battle from the nearest spawn point once they got killed. If the battle between Carouse and Gu Fei had occurred near an encampment, the 1000-man guild would essentially be undying, and the result of that confrontation might have been very different.

Furthermore, the players had similarly realized that the northeast encampment would very likely be a target for an assault, and it was a conclusion that anyone with not much brains could come to. As a result, there was no need for anybody to organize and form up the defense for the encampment. In their self-interest, it made perfect sense why everyone had moved over to the northeast encampment. Thus, even though there were only 4 NPC guards defending the place, it actually possessed the largest horde of players out of all the remaining 6 encampments. Sword Demon’s party of 9 did not dare to approach but merely circle around it from afar, shaking their heads as they make their rounds.

“I think this will be too difficult,” Southern Lone Blade said.

“There are too many people here.”

“Even if we wish to lure them away, we’ve only got a limited amount of players on our side. They would be showing us a lot of face if we could lure out a few hundred, but they would still have tens of thousands stationed here in the camp. There’s no way we can fight into that!”

“Against such prospects, there’s barely any difference if we attempt this with 20 or 1.”

“It would be fine if we got 200,000 people.”

The discussion was unending, and Sword Demon was in a very awkward position. His guild had just been established, and he had hoped that they could fight a brilliant and challenging battle and come out the victor, thus winning themselves some contribution score so that everyone would gain plenty of confidence with the guild. But how was he supposed to know that their attempt to dismantle this northeast camp would be so insurmountably difficult? However, if they were able to come out on top, the legendary victory that they achieved with this would be all the more meaningful.

“I feel like we need to wait. ” Sword Demon said. “They would not just spend all their time defending the place. Everyone here will surely have to do quests or attack the city. How can they earn any contribution score if they just sit around the encampment like this? I think this will only be temporary. Once they begin assaulting the city in earnest, there might not be so many players present, and with players would be shuttling to and fro every time they die, we just might stand a chance.”

“Can we Stealth our way in?” Blackwater asked.

“We won’t be allowed to use our Stealth when there aren’t any guards around; Alternatively, Stealth is essentially useless while the guards are alive. In the end, we will still have to find a way to kill them off,” Sword Demon explained.

“Ugh, this is such a headache! When I was here before, there weren’t that many guilds around here!” Brother Assist said as he counted the guild pennants. Each and every guild had them raised up right now since there were plenty of people in the area, allowing their own guildmates to have an easier time gathering up. Meanwhile, Sword Demon and the others were frowning with knitted eyebrows, trying to come up with potential solutions to the quandary they were in.

———————————————-

Gu Fei and the others had very successfully blended into the battlefield. As long as Gu Fei was not wearing his black Mage’s robes, there were very few people out there that would notice him. Furthermore, his face had not been tagged yet, so most people would not recognize how he looked, which naturally meant that he would not raise much of a suspicion moving about among them. Grouping up after everyone negotiated their way out, Gu Fei glanced out at the rolling fields and grass plains ahead, only to sigh, “Alright. The next step will be locating Brave Surge. Let’s begin our search!”

“Wait a minute,” Xi Xiaotian could not bear it any longer and finally opened her mouth.

“What?”

“Are you taking charge here?” Xi Xiaotian asked.

Gu Fei was stunned for a moment. He had just been talking offhandedly this whole time, did it count as taking charge? Gu Fei did not have any experience in this, as he had always been on his own, and engaged in his own activities. After that pause, he was still rather unsure as he answered, “I guess I am?”

“Then what are we going to do after we find Brave Surge? How are we going to be positioned?” Xi Xiaotian asked.

“Is there a need for positioning? Just rush him!” Gu Fei called out. With that, he turned around and asked Slyris, “That’s right, can you lend me that pair of rings you have on you?”

Everyone had already broken into a bout of cold sweat, especially Cirrus. Gu Fei’s self confidence had infected him; even though his heart was unsettled, he still persisted to follow Gu Fei out. But now, that single comment ‘is there a need for positioning? Just rush him’ had utterly defeated him. He knew that this one trip is essentially a kamikaze attempt. Directly confronting the enemy with just this patchwork of players, without any plan or arrangement to speak of? What else would this be, if not a kamikaze?

Even Slyris refused to hand over her rings to Gu Fei, “What nonsense are you on about? You’re not even going to come up with a method of approach, and just wanna throw yourself at them through force alone?”

“Method of approach? Didn’t we already talk about the method already? We’ll get Svelty to blend into the crowd and finish off Brave Surge,” Gu Fei said.

Everyone was stunned, “Then what are the rest of us going there for?”

“Reinforce her, of course! Do you really think she’s Superwoman, able to escape from a thousand-man strong encirclement?” Gu Fei exclaimed in his astonishment.

So this is his plan? Everyone wondered to themselves, but somehow all of them did not have a sense of security at all. Is this guy just casually making things up? Everyone looked at Gu Fei and his eyes looked completely untrustworthy.

“Let’s do it like this. Me and Svelte Dancer will be in charge of getting close to Brave Surge, and the rest of you will be responsible for reinforcing us… Speaking of which, is there a need to help us get out? Dying would consequently send us straight back to the city,” Xi Xiaotian mentioned.

“Won’t I have nothing to do if we’re not reinforcing?” Gu Fei asked.

“Who asked you to be so prominent? We can’t cover for you even if we wanted to. It’s all because of you that plenty of Mages that wear black Mage’s robes are all being accidentally killed these days,” Xi Xiaotian said.

Gu Fei had no response to this.

“Do you have a plan?” Slyris asked Xi Xiaotian.

“The plan is just that, but surely there are some details we need to iron out first? Like we need a good reason to get close to Brave Surge,” Xi Xiaotian.

“What do you intend to do?”

“Quest. With how the City War is in a state of deadlock here, the one thing that all the guilds are hoping to stumble upon is a vital quest. We can pretend to represent a small guild, tell them that we’ve come across a huge quest but don’t have the strength to accomplish it, which is why we are planning to approach a large guild like Carouse to help and collaborate with us,” Xi Xiaotian said.

“Collaboration? Help us? How would that work out? Slyris asked.

“It doesn’t have to work. We only need to meet the man face to face. Svelte, how confident are you in being able to insta-kill Brave Surge?” Xi Xiaotian asked.

“Do you have information pertaining to what equipment he got, as well as his stats when it comes to defense?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“I have a bit of information regarding his equipment,” Xi Xiaotian took out the information that she had on him and went to the side to analyze it with Svelte Dancer together, while Slyris and Cirrus, were all called in as consultants for this operation as all of them were considered to be proper expert Mages. Yan Xiaozhu and Lie Lie joined in to help with the planning as well, adopting the attacker’s side to help Svelte Dancer calculate the damage necessary. Gu Fei looked to the left and right, and saw that the only one left not doing anything was Bashful Countenance, who would frantically avoid his gaze every time he looked at her. He was very lonely.

“Ahem, is there anything I can help with?” Gu Fei took the initiative to approach the others.

“Reinforce,” Their response was just that single word.

Gu Fei was in tears. He did not want to reinforce, he wanted to slay players. However, he knew that he could not partake in this task at all, since everyone in Carouse would surely recognize him. Just changing out his equipment would not be enough; he would have to keep his face covered as well. Even though it was very common to see masked Thieves, Gu Fei would have to find himself a Mage’s robe with the hood sewn to it in order to achieve a similar effect, though any Mage that did so would either be pretending to be cool or have ulterior motives. Given the current situation in Yunduan City, a Mage with their face covered would most likely be Thousand Miles Drunk, and everyone would proceed to eliminate him where he stood.

Everyone had finished studying the equipment and possible stats Brave Surge might have, and all of them looked particularly troubled. Indeed, Brave Surge of the Five Unyielding Experts was not just someone who only had a high level.

“It’s impossible to insta-kill him, if he does not die in a single attack, he would be able to cast his Ice Armor and Mana Support, and his survivability drastically increases with these two spells active; he would be able to survive even if you were to stand there and try to kill him. This is going to be quite challenging,” Slyris shook his head.

“This guy has gotten himself plenty of goodies huh, to actually possess so many different spells,” Svelte Dancer sighed, impressed.

“If we can’t finish him off in a matter of seconds, we would surely end up failing,” Slyris warned.

Svelte Dancer shook her head. She was helpless as well. If it was simply a 1v1, she could of course slowly fight it out, but the problem was that they would be deep in the midst of the thousand players in Carouse. The moment their killing intent was revealed, the enemy would surely react accordingly, so everything will have been for naught if they could not finish off Brave Surge in those precious few seconds that they had while they still held the element of surprise.

“And we have not even considered the situation where there are Priests near him. If we were to account for Priests, then we will most definitely have to insta-kill him. The moment a bunch of Priests reacts once we fail to insta-kill the man, his HP would be swiftly filled back up,” Slyris reminded.

“With his equipment and his HP, I doubt even Miles can insta-kill him, right? Hey you, come over and check it out!” Svelte Dancer bellowed.

Gu Fei had gone over before, hoping to take a look, but had instead been driven away by the others. He was feeling bored when they called him over, so he had no choice but to trudge back over to the crowd. They were looking at the notepad in Xi Xiaotian’s hands, the information about Brave Surge’s equipment was recorded on it. While discussing the matter, the stats and other numbers pertaining to Brave Surge had already been calculated out. They gave it a larger range in order to account for any possible discrepancies and they were about 80% to 90% certain about the accuracy of the final result. Gu Fei glanced over the numbers and scoffed, “How could I not Insta-kill him? A double rotation of my Twin Incineration and a slap of my Palm of Thunder would be all it takes to reduce him to ashes.”

“How would you have the time to execute all that on him!?” Svelte Dancer huffed.

Gu Fei did not bother answering with his words, opting to physically demonstrate it for everyone to see. He pirouetted, pulling his sword out in the process as he chanted the spells, his right hand whirling out two round licks of fire while his left palm thrust out to the thin air in front of him after he completed his first rotation. The entire process did not take more than two seconds.

Everyone was reeling from what they witnessed. It was so fast that everyone felt it was a little unfathomable. This was a game! The speed of a player’s movement was closely linked to how much stats they had. Just how much Agility did he have in order to achieve such speed of draw?

“That’s impossible. How could you have so much Agility?” Svelte Dancer was in disbelief.

“How many times must I tell you guys; this isn’t about speed, but tempo! By joining the motion with seamless attacks, it would, of course, look like it was quickly executed to the naked eye. I could have been even faster, were it not for the fact that I needed to chant the spells.” Gu Fei said matter-of-factly.

“It’s such a pity that you won’t have a way to blend in with the crowd,” Slyris sighed.

“That is why it was as good as not saying a thing; We’ve got no options here, since I can’t even insta-kill him,” Svelte Dancer was truly regretful.

“Sword Demon might be able to do it,” Gu Fei looked at the data in front of him and added.

“How did Sword Demon get himself such a high attack power?” Svelte Dancer was astonished. She was willing to admit that she could not beat Gu Fei, but how was there also Sword Demon who was even stronger than her?

“He’s got an overleveled skill, and its attack power is really indomitable,” Gu Fei explained.

“But Sword Demon might have a very difficult time trying to blend in as well. Even though he might not be as prominent a target as you, the whole city at least knows that he is the enemy as well,” Slyris pointed out.

“As things stand, we cannot just put this all on one person. We’ll need more people to make the move at the same time, coordinate their attacks in such a manner that they are able to take down Brave Surge in one fell stroke,” Xi Xiaotian said.

“That is the only way,” Slyris nodded in agreement.

And so, Gu Fei was sidelined once more, as these people began a new round of discussions, leaving Gu Fei all alone by himself.

Everyone began to study all the data that they had on hand regarding Brave Surge’s stats, and even though they more or less had a general idea of how to execute the kill, they still felt it was rather knotty. Svelte Dancer was a must, but even the insane damage output from Svelte dancer could not effectively threaten Brave Surge’s life, which only showed just how impressive and top tier his equipment was. Adding to the fact that he was a Mage, that meant his magic defense was outstanding. Slyris’s equipment was quite impressive as well, but her potential damage output was a little restricted because of this. Meanwhile, though Yan Xiaozhu had a high level, her equipment was fairly average and did not really bring anything exceptional to the table beyond her Blindness skill. Aside from these three ladies, the others were all just players with ordinary damage output. After a round of calculations, they came to the conclusion that having five players attack Brave Surge all at once would be the safest solution for them to secure the kill, and none of them had any room to make a mistake. This was because Brave Surge would most definitely react by casting the two defensive spells that were aforementioned, and the Priests beside him would most definitely react by Healing him. In such a fashion, any bit of error in the execution would allow their enemy to react accordingly and kill them all off.

“We gotta find somewhere to practice,” Everyone shared this same belief, thus they all left Gu Fei out again and ran to a corner to practice their coordination with the monsters around. However, Gu Fei was not at least lonely this time; They were all seeking to execute their attack in unison, so getting a grasp of each of their own tempo was a must. Different job classes have different styles of attack. In order for them to better grasp how they could better achieve the perfect synchronicity for this insta-kill attempt, who else would be a better expert on this matter other than Gu Fei?

The expert came forward and instructed everyone. In the beginning, everyone had no idea how to achieve this, but with Gu Fei correcting their mistakes several times over, everyone finally got a sense for what they were attempting to achieve and realized that Thousand Miles Drunk was not just a one-trick pony who only knew how to bring about a massacre all by himself. Under Gu Fei’s tutelage, all of them soon had a good grasp of the tempo with everyone and they were able to demonstrate their ability to insta-kill the monster they had been practicing on in a single wave of attack. Even Gu Fei had difficulties separating out the different attacks with his sharp eyes.

After repeated testing with the monsters as Brave Surge, they finally learned how to identify a signal and how to strike in unison when the time came. The next step was to find Brave Surge and accomplish this deed for real, and all of them were brimming with confidence. They ignored their instructor Gu Fei by this time and appointed him to inquire about Brave Surge’s whereabouts. Gu Fei was depressed! How was he going to inquire about this? He had so few friends on his friends’ list, so he decided to fire off a message to Sword Demon and the others with him, “Have any of you spotted men from Carouse?”

“Carouse? They are in the northeast encampment. What’s the matter?”

“We’re attempting to assassinate Brave Surge,” Gu Fei answered.

“Stop joking around. Do you know how many players are out here?” Sword Demon asked.

“We’ve got a plan,” Gu Fei proceeded to tell him everything once more.

When Sword Demon had heard the whole plan, he spoke, “Isn’t Brave Surge in the encampment? The moment any of you step inside, the system would prompt everyone and everyone would be exposed even if they had no intention to.”

“Ah… That..” Gu Fei surprised. None of them here had actually considered that problem. The veteran Sword Demon did indeed live up to his name as the guild leader, having considered the fine details more than these lasses here.

In the end, when Gu Fei relayed Sword Demon’s point, and Xi Xiaotian laughed, “Who says we’re going to go up and find him? We’re gonna ask him out. Who knows, maybe the heavens will be on our side and he would think to only bring a handful of players out when he realized how short a trip it was. Wouldn’t that save us a lot of trouble?”