Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

The guild members clearly got along well with one another as it did not take long for Luo Luo and June’s Rain to blend into the crowd and exchange pleasantries with them. Gu Fei felt out of place as he stood there by himself. July was the only one who specially approached and welcomed him, “Come on over!”

Gu Fei nodded. One of the reasons he came here with Luo Luo and June’s Rain was because he had received a message from July as well when Luo Luo mentioned that “There’s a message from Xiaoqi” earlier.

Otherwise, he would not even bother showing up here no matter how much June’s Rain pestered him.

A room full of women was undoubtedly a spectacular sight to behold. Gu Fei thought that this might be the only chance in his lifetime to be alone with so many women inside the same room, unless he barged into a female restroom by mistake.

In all honesty, Gu Fei felt quite awkward with the current situation and slightly regretted coming here. He distanced himself from them and sat down near a window, absentmindedly looking outside from time to time.

July regarded the people inside the room by the side and clapped her hands to get their attention, “Everyone online is actually here. It’s amazing that so many of you came considering I have only called once.”

“Sis Xiaoqi, what kind of guild quest did you get?” an excited voice could be heard saying this. Gu Fei knew that the speaker was June’s Rain without even looking. Now that he knew she was a woman, he thought her voice was rather girly. Strange. Why didn’t it sound girly at all when I wasn’t aware of her gender?

“Oh, it’s nothing too difficult, but it’s still our first guild quest,” July replied.

The quests in Parallel World were different from the quests in some MMOs, which were categorized into different levels or clearly classified according to the degree of difficulty. In this game, players would only find out how difficult a quest was after they accepted and explored it for themselves. A quest was something the players would always need to explore on their own. Fortunately, it was the Information Age; people would always share their findings on the forums whenever they did a quest. Hence, the current trend for players was to search through the forums’ quests section for relevant information whenever they received an unfamiliar quest before carrying on with it.

July had immediately looked for the relevant information online after receiving the guild quest. She believed that this particular quest would not be a problem for Amethyst Rebirth, considering that a lot of newly established small guilds, with similar or fewer number of members to them, were able to complete it.

Although June’s Rain was a quest fanatic, her forte actually lay in individual quests. She had never paid attention to group activities like guild quests before. As a result, she kept on asking stuff after July stated the quest’s name.

[Retrieval of the Stolen Treasure Chest]

The quest had a very typical story behind it. Basically, it stated that a treasure chest that had gone missing resurfaced somewhere else, and it was now up to the players to recover it.

July pulled out the regional map that she had prepared from the start and spread it out on the table. She started to brief everyone on the details, “I’ve checked it online. The treasure chest might be in one of these seven locations,” July pointed each of the seven areas that had been marked on the map.

“These places are quite far apart,” Luo Luo said.

July nodded and said, “Other players suggested separating the guild members into smaller groups to find the exact spot of the treasure chest before gathering everyone again to act together. That’s what I have in mind as well. Among the guilds that had completed the same quest, there was a guild that succeeded with only six participating members. As for us right now...” July turned around to confirm their number, “There’re fourteen of us, so I believe this won’t be a big deal.”

Gu Fei remained seated and did not join the circle of ladies to look at the map. When he heard July saying how it was possible to succeed with just six people, he was about to say, “I’ll be leaving, then!” But July resumed her speech, “There’re fourteen of us, so let’s divide ourselves into seven groups with two people each. Just enough for searching at the seven different places.”

All the ladies nodded in agreement, and Gu Fei had to swallow back his words.

“Let’s start forming the groups.” Everyone could not help but to turn their eyes toward Gu Fei after hearing July’s words. Frankly speaking, the female players around did not actually discriminate against the male players. Still, it was not acceptable for them to have Gu Fei in their guild when it was decided from the beginning that it would be an all-female guild. Now that they were about to be divided into groups, it was only normal that nobody wanted to be paired with a stranger like Gu Fei.

Of course, July knew well what everyone had in mind. However, it was not worthwhile to delve into such minor matter right now, so she asked Gu Fei instead, “Miles, who do you wish to be paired with?”

When Gu Fei heard that they would be divided into groups, he had expected himself to be kicked around like a ball. He was even slyly wondering who would be the unlucky one to be paired with him. He never thought that July would be so considerate toward him to actually give him a chance to choose one among all the thirteen ladies!

Gu Fei checked everyone swiftly and stopped when his eyes reached June’s Rain. He smiled and said, “I’ll form a group with Xiaoyu1!”

“Why – Why me?!” June’s Rain bellowed.

“Cause we’re brothers!” Gu Fei laughed.

June’s Rain was left speechless, and the others looked on with puzzled expressions. Luo Luo was the only one smirking. For a moment, the whole room echoed with laughter as Luo Luo squeezed herself into the crowd and whispered something to all of them.

“Very well, you two will be heading here,” July pointed randomly at a spot on the map.

Gu Fei had already pulled the door open, leaving June’s Rain with no choice but to head off with Gu Fei toward their destination.

The others had an easy time forming into groups. They were soon seen leaving the guild house as well and making their way to each of the specified locations. Seven different locations, each proportionally placed in seven different directions around Yunduan City. Fortunately, this was a system-generated quest. If it were a player-submitted quest, that player would have been beaten black and blue by the other players who had accepted the quest. They would be thinking something like, You did a great job gathering all this information, but how dare you have us go in these seven separate locations in such unusual places?!

Since it was a quest, June’s Rain was visibly filled with enthusiasm. She did not even look back once and just kept on marching forward once she exited the guild house. Seeing her dauntlessness, Gu Fei felt a little pumped up for the quest as well. He followed behind her while trying to appear imposing. Unfortunately for Gu Fei, he did not look even the least bit imposing with his current appearance. June’s Rain equipped her set of combat gear one by one along the way. She gave off a powerful and intimidating aura with the huge axe resting on her shoulder. Her full-body heavy armor revealed nothing but a small part of her face.

As for Gu Fei, he still wore the beginner mage robe. While he might look stylish every time the wind blew against him, he probably only looked foolish in the eyes of the professional gamers. For them, it was highly likely for the wind to blow Gu Fei’s awful equipment into scraps given its garbage quality.

The two were strolling along quite gamely when they heard somebody calling them – Gu Fei’s name to be exact – from behind.

Turning around, they saw July and another lady that Gu Fei did not know trying to catch up to them.

Gu Fei and June’s Rain stopped as July caught up to them. She took something out of her pocket and handed it to Gu Fei, “Here, take this!”

Gu Fei received the item and inspected it. It was a magic staff, which increased Intelligence by 8 points, Spirit by 3 points, and damage output of fire-based spells by 20%. It was a nice weapon for Mage, yet Gu Fei thoughtlessly blurted out, “The Attack is so low!”

“Low?” With a puzzled expression, July took the staff back and had another look at it.

The two did not seem to be on the same wavelength, as the Mage Gu Fei was the one who actually made a fuss about the staff’s Physical Attack instead of the Fighter July. Appraising the magic staff, its maximum and minimum attack was clearly displayed. Unfortunately, no matter how high its grade was, Gu Fei would still consider his broken common-grade sword with a higher Physical Attack to be better. The Magic Attack was what mattered most in magic staves, and this particular one did not actually possess a low Magic Attack. In fact, it was already considered a high-grade Mage weapon on the current market.

“What about the one you’re using? Let me take a look,” July felt curious as to what kind of wondrous magic staff Gu Fei was using. It would have been better if he had said that the magic staff did not provide a good boost in stats for the wielder, yet he actually complained about its “low Physical Attack”.

“Can’t show you. It’s broken,” Gu Fei said. He was referring to his sword. The two were definitely not operating on the same wavelength.

“Well, make do with this one for now!” July coldly handed the staff back to him.

“Okay...” Gu Fei took the magic staff with a look of reluctance. July was dumbfounded by his attitude. Even if the magic staff was inferior to the one he had previously used, it was still a high-grade weapon. To think that Gu Fei actually accepted the weapon as if he had been wronged. Actually, July decided to give him this magic staff when she noticed that he was wearing trash equipment after using Appraisal on him. In the end, Gu Fei did not even thank her.

“Alright, get moving!” July waved at Gu Fei and June’s Rain as she left in another direction together with the other lady.

Gu Fei and June’s Rain continued toward their destination as well. The Warrior clad in heavy armor could be seen walking in front with a huge axe resting on her shoulder, while walking closely behind her was what seemed to be a beginner Mage carrying a magic staff on his shoulder as well. The two swaggered through the streets until they left Yunduan City. June’s Rain suddenly stopped walking and turned around, asking Gu Fei who was behind her, “Which way are we going?”

Gu Fei despaired beyond all reasons. He suddenly felt that he had made a huge mistake by choosing to pair up with her. However, it was too late for regrets now. Gu Fei could only ask her feebly, “Aren’t you the one who actually looked at the map?”

“Nonsense! I don’t even know how to look at a map!” June’s Rain said that righteously.

“Well, I don’t know how either!” Gu Fei refrained from saying that he did not actually see the map at all.

June’s Rain seemed to have finally found someone she could relate to. She asked, “So what do we do now?”

“We ask the others,” Gu Fei felt mentally drained as he pulled out his friends list to send July a message.

July replied to them shortly, pointing them toward the direction they should be heading to.

“Let’s go!” Gu Fei said as he resumed walking. This time, however, he was the one walking in front and June’s Rain was the one following behind.

The location July directed them to was called Yunjiao Lakeside. The ’Yun’ referred to Yunduan City, and there was a lake called Yunjiao Lake at that area. By combining the name together, it would mean something like ’a lake by the outskirt of Yunduan City’, which was considerably straightforward.

Gu Fei naturally knew where it was. The problem was that June’s Rain had led him outside Yunduan City using the wrong gate from the start. Now, they had to take a big detour to reach their designated destination.

Gu Fei sighed deeply as he remembered a saying: “Fear not the god-like opponents but the pig-like teammates.”

He had a hunch that he had just met a pig-like teammate told in the legends. The latest quest got off to a bad start.

[1] Xiaoyu (小雨) - is the nickname of June’s Rain (六月的雨).