Virtual World: Close Combat Mage Chapter 231 - Ultimate Class 3, assemble!

Chapter 231 - Ultimate Class 3, assemble!
The game of hide-and-seek between Young Master’s Elite and Water Flower had proceeded quite slowly, so by the time they got out, the other semifinal matches had already ended. The system-ranked number one mercenary group in Yunduan City, The Black Hand, safely made it to the finals.
With Yunduan City’s number one mercenary group, called The Black Hand, pitched against the publicly acknowledged ‘dark horse’ mercenary group, Young Master’s Elite, the finals’ outcome was shrouded in ‘darkness’. While The Black Hand might be regarded as the top group in Yunduan City, it was a group that mostly accomplished the system-given missions and was unlike the other mercenary groups, such as Four Seas, that were made up of skilled players from big guilds. Now that Young Master’s Elite was about to face such a foe, Brother Assist realized how sparse his information about The Black Hand was and hurriedly called his friends and went to the forums to find out more about the opposing group.
Information collection was the one time that Brother Assist felt a sense of belongingness into Young Master’s Elite.
No one really cared about the guild versus guild tournament that would occur after. With how guilds would acquire more members every time they leveled up, only the guilds of Traversing Four Seas and Carouse were at level 5 in Yunduan City. Since Carouse was beaten by Amethyst Rebirth long ago, Traversing Four Seas was the only guild with seven hundred fifty members in the guild versus guild tournament. This disparity of two hundred fifty men allowed Traversing Four Seas to easily win the matches against the remaining level 4 guilds with five hundred members.
It was at this point that the system announced: [All the eliminated guilds and mercenary groups in the semifinals will have a match on the last day of Parallel World’s event to determine the third place in the guild versus guild tournament and the mercenary PvP tournament.] Guilds and mercenary groups that were in first place, second place, and third place would be given additional special prizes accordingly, the very same prizes that had a chance to occur during the PvP tournament. As for what the prizes would be… Those would still up to chance.
Furthermore, the tournament finals were not scheduled for tomorrow and were instead set three days later, which happened to be a Saturday. This was one of those rare times that the game officials showed slight compassion for the players. No one would naturally be willing to miss the opportunity to participate in Parallel World’s event if he or she could help it, considering that this PvP event had prizes at the end, so the game officials would essentially be making things difficult for the players who had work the next day if they placed it on a weeknight.
All the guilds and mercenary groups in Parallel World were currently anxiously preparing for the final match as none of them wished to miss the chance of bagging the special prizes. Meanwhile, the six men of Young Master’s Elite went about their usual activities. This seemingly carefree attitude of theirs was not because of arrogance or undervaluing the prizes, but it was due to the fact that there were only six of them in the group. Compared to a guild like Traversing Four Seas with seven hundred fifty men, it was as easy as eating a meal or drinking water for a group with six men to coordinate with one another.
Today was Thursday; Gu Fei felt quite dispirited when he got online and made his way over to Yunduan City’s north gate.
Why was he feeling dispirited? During today’s afternoon P.E. lesson, Gu Fei felt a weird vibe from a certain class of students as he stood in front of them. Simply put, they were giving off strong killing intent.
As such, the period ended in an odd note. But before Gu Fei could dismiss the students, over twenty boys and girls suddenly surrounded him and started to speak all at once.
“Sir, join our guild!”
“Sir, bring us to grind levels!”
“Sir, carry us for quests!”
“Sir, I’m very poor. Give me some money!”
“Sir, do you have any equipment you’re not using?”
Gu Fei felt his head throb with all their shouting. The curiosity of other unrelated students was piqued when they saw Teacher Gu Fei being surrounded by some of them, so they inquired after the matter. Soon after, they began whispering by the side, “Even teacher is playing Parallel World? Maybe, I should give it a try!”
Gu Fei swept his gaze over. Plenty of students here viewed the teachers’ words as Holy Scriptures and would follow their examples to the fullest extent. They were definitely the sort that teachers would usually regard as good students! Right now, he could tell that all these students were about to join Parallel World. If their parents asked, they would probably proudly tell that they were ‘playing the game with Teacher Gu Fei’. How was he going to live that down?
Gu Fei was not afraid of fights, but facing this sort of troublesome matter, which could not be resolved through fighting, he could not help but wish that he could cast Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno in reality. “Alright! Stop!” Gu Fei did not forget his position as a teacher despite all the chattering about the game.
This was the real world, after all. When a teacher got mad, no student would dare make a peep. Gu Fei at least had this effect over this lot of students. “Don’t you have homework at night? What play a game?!” Gu Fei reprimanded them. Although it felt odd to hear such a thing from a P.E. teacher, the students reflexively lowered their heads in shame.
“Run ten laps on the field!” Now that he sounded more like a P.E. teacher, half of the students balked. The school field’s circumference was about four hundred meters, so ten laps would equate to running for four kilometers. That was four times the distance a high school student would have to run in a track-and-field event. The usual track-and-field event for a school’s sports meet was about three kilometers, and that was only for students who were very confident of their perseverance and stamina. Four kilometers... Some of the present girls were already shedding tears.
“Sir, please tell us you’re joking!” someone moaned.
Of course, Gu Fei was just pulling their legs. The students still had class after this, and it was already late for them to run for about four kilometers, “Just do two laps. Head back to class once you are done.”
The students started running around the field with tears streaming down their cheeks. Gu Fei stood by the side of the track and looked on, not once urging them to speed up.
All the members of the Ultimate Class 3 Guild in Yunduan City were currently running together on the track. Was there a need to explain how this guild came to have such a strong sense of camaraderie and solidarity if one considered what they had to go through together daily?
The students did not need to run too fast since this was not a test, yet no one dared to slow down to trot under Gu Fei’s watchful gaze. Just jogging for eight hundred meters was enough to make these students feel worn out. This was especially true for the girls who begged the boys to do an extra lap on their behalf.
Those nosy students had already left, and only the members of Ultimate Class 3 remained standing before Gu Fei. Gu Fei felt slightly moved when he saw the determination in their eyes, so he dismissively told them, “Wait for me by the city gate tonight!”
His sudden change of heart surprised these students for a bit before they began cheering. Gu Fei’s IGN was something that many leaders in Yunduan City had strove to uncover, yet these students had easily found it out due to Ah Fa coming up with it in the first place. After learning of Gu Fei’s IGN from Ah Fa, all of them hurriedly checked the Mage leaderboard and found out that Gu Fei was at level 40. Level 40 was a level that these students viewed as extremely high. Be it for entertainment or value purposes, these students resolved to recruit their P.E. teacher into Ultimate Class 3 Guild.
Now that their goal was half achieved, everyone naturally felt elated beyond words. Seeing that Gu Fei was about to leave, Ah Fa, who had been playing the game for long, hurriedly stopped Gu Fei from leaving as he asked a relevant question, “Sir, which gate is that?”
“You really have a lot to say! Go run another lap!” Gu Fei said instead.
“Ahhhh!” Ah Fa was the antithesis of an athlete; just those two rounds from before had left him exhausted, so he knew that running this additional lap would be the death of him.
Still, his question reminded all these students of that fact and they very quickly surrounded Gu Fei to inquire about the specific location, so he had no choice but to arrange to meet them by the north gate.
Gu Fei no longer had a way to escape from them after setting the time and location with his students. Everyone would see one another in reality if they did not meet in-game, so the adage: ‘A monk runs away from his responsibilities, yet the temple cannot run with him¹’ was extremely applicable to him at the moment.
Gu Fei was holding in such anger right now. He did not stand them up, yet it was his students that were a no-show!
Gu Fei would be cursing and forcing them to call him their father² if they were just any random group of players; unfortunately, he had his dignity as a teacher to consider since he was facing his students! The point was that he had to exchange it with something else. That was how Gu Fei had stopped himself. If he called himself as their father, it would be very shocking for these students. And yet, it would be a huge problem if they treated him even more casually.
Playing a game with his students? It was such a big no-no.
It was already the agreed upon time, yet the students were nowhere to be seen. Gu Fei patiently waited until each of the students finally came running from the various spawn points.
The reasons they gave were all over the place, as well.
“My mother asked me to do the dishes!”
“My father was playing Minesweeper, so I had to wait a little longer!”
Gu Fei was in tears, as the students’ explanations were so relatable! He thought back to when he had told Sword Demon and the lot that he would log off due to him having classes, and they had regarded him with a strange look on their faces!
Each of the students added Gu Fei as a friend when they arrived. This was yet another opportunity that all the leaders in Yunduan City had missed. That day, from 7 P.M. to 7:17 P.M., Gu Fei patiently accepted all their friend requests.
“Ahem. Line up!” Gu Fei ordered once all the students showed up. Sadly, there was no such item like a whistle in this game. Conducting everyone by merely pointing was just too frivolous for a teacher like himself!
“Come on, teacher. Let’s not do that. It’s so embarrassing!” all the students objected.
Was it more embarrassing than being called ‘teacher’ in the game? Gu Fei was almost in tears, yet he simply could not come up with any way to circumvent this. It was either his real name or his IGN, and either option would simply be too disrespectful; calling him ‘Drunk bro’ like what Fireball and others had done was even more awkward than these students calling him ‘teacher’. Since Gu Fei was going to feel embarrassed by all this, he might as well make everyone feel the same, so he insisted for the students to line themselves up.
All the students were hesitant, so Gu Fei looked at them solemnly, “Those who do not line themselves up will have to run eight laps during our next lesson.”
All the students hastily lined themselves up. Gu Fei nodded his head in satisfaction. There were twenty-four students present, so that made it four lines of six.
“Is our sports representative, here?” Gu Fei scanned the crowd, seeing quite a few students he had not noticed before.
“Nope, sir. Our number is just right. We originally only had twenty-one, but three others joined us after this afternoon lesson. With them included, we now have twenty-four! If we add one more—”
“If we add one more, we will then have five rows. Twenty-one will have three. What do you mean that ‘twenty-four’ is perfect? Ah Fa, you idiot!” some students rebutted.
Ah Fa was aggrieved! How would he know that they had to stand in line like this in a game? When he said that their number was just right, he was not talking about about lining up.
Meanwhile, Gu Fei was vexed to learn that he had attracted three more students this afternoon. How would he deal with this if this continued?