Virtual World: Close Combat Mage Chapter 190 - End of the Fifth Round

Chapter 190 - End of the Fifth Round
The advanced skill, Blink, that Gu Fei had recently purchased at a cheap price left him quite disappointed during his first use of it.
Experimenting with it afterward, Gu Fei learned that the distance he could blink at most was over five meters. He also learned that he could freely choose how much mana to put into it. This was easy to do, as it was just a matter of adjusting the amount of data being transferred.
The mana consumption for the skill would increase by a fold every half a meter traveled from the caster’s original position. Moreover, the skill’s cool-down time was long, needing at least a full minute.
Mage spells with long cool-down time like this were actually rare. The Blink skill’s long cool-down time meant that it could not be frequently casted and that it would take much longer to increase its proficiency. After all, he could only use it once every minute!
While the description for Blink did not mention just how far the spell could transport a caster with maximum proficiency, it was evident that Gu Fei would need to train for a long time just to be able to cover the kind of distance that he had intended to teleport to earlier in the PvP match with Traversing Four Seas.
“Hone your proficiency patiently! And try to use Blink every minute from here onward. Fully incorporate this skill into your very bones. The time needed might be quite long, but—”
“Alright, I get it!” Gu Fei interrupted Royal God Call. He was someone who had diligently spent twenty years training kung fu. Did he really need a brat like Royal God Call to teach him about ‘patience’?
After separating from Royal God Call, Gu Fei began to familiarize himself with how to use Blink properly. Later on, he logged off.
Meanwhile, Ye Xiaowu, who had accidentally steered Gu Fei toward a brighter path this morning by convincing the latter to become a Lightning Mage, was feeling exceptionally anxious. Came night, he decisively forwent sleep and ran off toward the monitoring team by the Game Administration Department. As Parallel World was operational twenty-four seven, the members of the monitoring team also worked in a twenty-four-hour shift. Since Ye Xiaowu was not part of this department, his sudden appearance in the dead of night momentarily frightened the monitoring team.
Ye Xiaowu had been busy recently, so a few days had passed since he last took note of Gu Fei’s character data. But after a little ‘prep-talk’ about Job Class Advancement for Mages when they met each other by chance this morning, he had somehow managed to convince the latter to advance into the path of a Lightning Mage. So here he was right now, appearing at where the monitoring team was in the dead of night. Quickly pulling out Gu Fei’s data sheet, he almost spat out blood when he saw its content.
The Blink skill had already appeared in Gu Fei’s spell arsenal.
“Where... Where did this come from?” Ye Xiaowu asked the monitoring team as he pointed at Gu Fei’s newest spell.
“This…” A member of the team came forward and carefully examined it, “For him to learn Blink now, it must be from a permanent skill scroll!”
Ye Xiaowu rolled his eyes as he was naturally aware of that. He then mumbled to himself, “How did he get the scroll for it? I have only mentioned it this morning, and he has gotten one in less than a day!? This seems too much of a coincidence!”
None of the members of the monitoring team answered him. The questions were too detailed, and to find out exactly how Gu Fei acquired a permanent skill scroll would require thorough checking of the matter. For the monitoring team, what mattered was that nothing seemed strange based on the data presented. Ever since Parallel World became operational until now, their anti-hacking and anti-loophole programs had relatively been successful.
Ye Xiaowu finally snapped back to reality from his mumbling. He was about to address the team when he saw that the members had already returned to their cubicles to do their work.
“Hey—”
“Ah! Chief Ye, you’re no stranger to everything around here, so just help yourself with whatever you need! We really don’t mind.” A member of the team interrupted him. All of the staff proceeded to bury their heads into their work, carefully not making eye contact with Ye Xiaowu.
Ye Xiaowu could only grit his teeth at this and tackle the matter himself.
Fortunately, Gu Fei had just learned the skill for less than a day, so it did not take long for Ye Xiaowu to find out how the latter had exactly come across the skill scroll: He had obtained it from a player called Svelte Dancer. Ye Xiaowu felt helpless upon learning this. As a senior game employee, he was at least aware of some of the more experienced players in the online gaming community. Svelte Dancer had the reputation of being the wealthiest pay-to-win gamer out there, so it was hardly surprising for her to possess such an item.
On another matter, the mercenary PvP tournament and the guild versus guild tournament had respectively reached the end of the fifth round. With the single-elimination format, each in-game city was now left with just 3% to 5% of the participating guilds and mercenary groups. Many famous and a few inconspicuous guilds and mercenary groups made it this far.
Over in Yunduan City, Amethyst Rebirth was originally the darkest of all the dark horses. After beating the two big guilds Carouse and Cloud Herder, all were hoping for it to create another miracle by beating Traversing Four Seas as well. In the end, Yunduan City’s number one guild still seized victory. From this, many people already considered Traversing Four Seas as worthy of its reputation. There should not be any unexpected outcome for Yunduan City’s guild versus guild tournament as long as Traversing Four Seas kept performing well.
Not many players and organizations took note of the mercenary PvP tournament compared to the guild versus guild tournament. After the fifth round of it, only two groups caught everyone’s attention for clinching victory despite being the underdogs.
The first was naturally Young Master’s Elite. Very few people would know about it if one mentioned Young Master’s Elite in Yunduan City, but everyone would promptly know of the group if someone mentioned the Grand Kiting mercenary group. After all, the six-man mercenary group was the first to use the Grand Kiting strategy to eliminate the level 4 Cloud Herder mercenary group. Besides that one match, Young Master’s Elite had yet to meet another formidable opponent.
The other mercenary group that had received quite a lot of attention was Silver Moon’s, whom Gu Fei found contemptuous. Silver Moon mercenary group was newly established in Yunduan City. This mercenary group was only at level 2 with forty members, yet it had eliminated two level 4 mercenary groups with up to eighty members each. According to the defeated mercenary groups’ description, Silver Moon mercenary group had many Warriors and a few Knights and Priests. The Charge attack that this group had used was unusually domineering and easily demolished their opponents with one fatal rush.
Besides these two surprising entrants, the other well-known groups, The Black Hand, Traversing Four Seas, and Water Flower (which belonged to the Carouse Guild), had also safely made it to the sixth round of the mercenary PvP tournament.
The next day, Royal God Call and War Without Wounds had a rarely seen somber expression on their faces during their meeting at Ray’s Bar before today’s match. Furthermore, Brother Assist immediately began his briefing once Gu Fei sat down on his seat.
“Today, we are matched up against Silver Moon mercenary group,” This statement was actually meant for Gu Fei, as the other five would at least take note of which group Young Master’s Elite was matched up against for the next day when they got offline.
“Oh. To actually be paired up against them...” Gu Fei said and a sudden swishing sound was heard. He then disappeared from thin air before reappearing next to Brother Assist.
In his shock, Brother Assist accidentally bumped a glass of liquor off the table. The usually languorous Young Master Han suddenly became very nimble as he quickly reached out to grab the tipped over glass. Since he was just a Priest with Agility stat limitation, he only caught the glass when almost half of its content had spilled. Young Master Han incessantly sighed as he stared at the spilled alcohol on the couch, seemingly out of touch with the world. As for everyone else, they were busy gawking at Gu Fei.
The moment soon past and everyone came back to their senses. Royal God Call proudly declared, “See how awesome Blink is!” as if he was the one that had the skill.
His misplaced pride made everyone feel disgruntled. War Without Wounds picked Royal God Call up and tossed him out. His scream reverberated inside the room as he flew outside of it. Ray’s head carefully poked through the curtain and said, “You knocked into two tables.”
“Whoever knocked it shall foot the bill,” War Without Wounds replied calmly.
“Shameless! I wanna have a deathmatch with you!” Royal God Call angrily exclaimed as he rushed into the room.
War Without Wounds casually swept his gaze over and agreed, “Alright. Let’s do it right here!”
Royal God Call was momentarily taken aback by this. This room’s tight space made it impossible for Archers like himself to properly demonstrate their forte. He simply had no way of taking a Warrior head on right here. Thinking that War Without Wounds would not be foolish enough to head outside and allow Royal God Call to kite him, the latter could only glumly sit down once more.
“Where did you get that skill scroll?” the rest began to ask Gu Fei.
Gu Fei explained the whole incident once more and everyone reacted differently.
War Without Wounds reacted exactly like how Royal God Call had: He showed a lovestruck look on his face since there was a lady involved in the matter.
Sword Demon and Young Master Han sighed in awe, “How nice is it to be rich.”
Brother Assist inquired further about the whole matter, “She’s a Thief, so why would she have a skill scroll for Blink?”
When Gu Fei told him the reason, Brother Assist stood up and solemnly addressed the crowd, “From this matter, everyone can clearly see how important information gathering is. I propose we increase the point reward for this particular task to 15 points, instead.”
“Brother Assist, your drink’s empty. Would you like another glass?” Young Master Han asked.
Brother Assist did not respond and just quietly sat back down.
“Continue with the briefing for our opponent of the day, please,” Sword Demon said.
“Nothing much to say about today,” Brother Assist sighed as he opened his mouth once more, “Everyone has already come into contact with Silver Moon back in Yueye City. The skill he possesses, which affects an entire party, will be exceptionally strong in a mercenary group that is mainly composed of Warriors.”
“Oh. That guy is pretty smart. He knows that his skill is much more suited in the mercenary PvP tournament than in the guild versus guild tournament. Unlike the guild matches where there may be hundreds of participants, the current highest level of a mercenary group is only level 5, with a maximum of just one hundred men in a group.” Young Master Han said.
“Brother Assist, this means that you won’t be earning any points for your information collection today,” Sword Demon said.
“Ah? Oi, Sword Demon! Don’t be so serious!” Brother Assist hurriedly coaxed.
“Then, can you provide us with any other information we are not aware of?” Sword Demon asked.
“Erm… Silver Moon mercenary group has forty members.”
All rolled their eyes.
“It mostly has Warriors.”
Another eye roll.
“Furthermore—”
A swishing sound was heard as Gu Fei disappeared from beside Brother Assist and appeared right next to Sword Demon. Brother Assist jumped, forgetting what he had been wanting to say as he and the others stared fixedly at Gu Fei.
“Stop showing off!” Young Master Han said as he quaffed his liquor.
“I’m training my proficiency of the skill,” Gu Fei responded seriously.