Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Deep Waters had given his long winded exposition, and Gu Fei vaguely understood what he had heard. But in order to be courteous, he made sure to keep nodding his head as he listened. When Deep Waters was done and saw Gu Fei show the look of being educated, he was obviously very satisfied as he nodded, “That is why you guys have to be extra careful. Not one of these workshops is anything good!”

Gu Fei turned his gaze over to Aural Valley Wind, who was currently speaking to Sword Demon, and he could not help but feel a feeling that something was strange. If that man did have ulterior motives as well, then he would truly be more insidious and sly than Five Nights.

“I have no idea if this guy has such a ploy, but I dare say there would most definitely be workshops who have set their sights on such a delicious piece of cake like you guys. Even if it is not Soaring Clouds, it would ultimately be another workshop out there,” Deep Waters shuffled up next to Gu Fei and added this when he saw the man looking at Aural Valley Wind.

“So why don’t we go over there and hear what they are talking about?” Gu Fei suggested.

“Let’s go!” Deep Waters gladly accepted his offer.

And so, Gu Fei, Deep Waters, and Coco made their way over to where Sword Demon and Aural Valley Wind were at. When the two men saw the three walk over, Sword Demon and Aural Valley Wind both greeted them off-handedly as they continued with their conversation, completely without any intention of wanting privacy. Meanwhile, Brother Assist and the others were standing to one side, a grim expression on all their faces as they listened to the conversation between Sword Demon and Aural Valley Wind.

Gu Fei and Deep Waters did not make any noise either, quietly paying attention for a short while and more or less had an understanding of what they were talking about soon enough. However, Gu Fei actually heaved a sigh of relief; Just as Deep Waters had said, the workshops were all envious of the huge benefit that Extremely Heaven Defying now had since they held a monopoly of the six Precincts that were available in Yunduan City, and Soaring Clouds workshop was no exception to the rule. But they were not planning on backstabbing or sly schemes at the very least, sending Aural Valley Wind as their representative in hopes of negotiating a collaboration between them and Extremely Heaven Defying.

Meanwhile, the content of this collaboration was to help the guild manage the Precincts.

Presently, the management and business rights for the six precincts had been awarded to Extremely Heaven Defying, and it was no easy affair to properly manage these six Precincts. They must most definitely spend a large amount of time and effort on getting themselves on the right track, so with how Extremely Heaven Defying happened to be a newly established guild, its foundation was not stable enough, nor did they have people whose hearts were in the right place. The guild itself had not even properly bonded. Moreover, while none of the other guilds had made mention of the fact during the City Wars event, all of them had most definitely considered Extremely Heaven Defying as a target; be it openly or on the sly, everyone was thinking of ways to suppress them. The current Extremely Heaven Defying was most definitely in a situation where both opportunity and danger intermingled! While they might possess both Thousand Miles Drunk’s earthshaking kung fu skills and the economical support afforded by the city Precincts they had been awarded with on their side, there were also plenty of internal and external problems that they had to deal with at the same time.

Aural Valley Wind had set his sights on this very fact and hoped to cooperate with Extremely Heaven Defying by letting their workshop put in the work and help the guild in the management of the Precincts. Aural Valley Wind had offered a comprehensive overview of the terms and details, which evidently showed how prepared he was coming here. Sword Demon patiently heard him to the end, but he nevertheless mentioned how he was unable to make the decision at the moment, and would need some more time to mull things over.

Of course, Aural Valley Wind expressed his understanding as well, so he did not bring up the subject for the moment and began recommending the barbecue pitmasters that he had brought over.

This topic was a lot more low stakes than what they had been discussing before, so there was hardly even a need to hesitate. Sword Demon asked for a price quote for those pitmasters and the two parties very happily went ahead and worked together this time.

“What do you think?” Gu Fei whispered to Deep Waters.

“How depressing. This Aural Valley Wind person actually shares the same views as I do! I also feel that it might be too much for you guys to juggle all six Precincts you had been placed in charge of as your reward. I’ve already taken a tour and scoped out my Precinct earlier this afternoon, and even I felt that we might not be able to take good care of everything despite our Deep Freeze being a level 6 guild. Conversely, you’re just a level 4 guild that is filled with new members who barely knew each other. It’s completely impossible for you guys to manage six Precincts all at once just like that!” Deep Waters exclaimed.

“Just what do we have to do managing these Precincts?” Gu Fei was a little lost.

“You have no idea… One of my fellow guildmates had spent the afternoon with me expressly to take a look at this, and he said the present state of cities in Parallel World could only be said to have finished the initial building layout, and a majority of them were empty properties, with the previous operation the system had engaged in was for players to do whatever they wanted. But now that players could be in charge, in order to maximize profits, we would be expected to assess the Precincts adopting various angles, making considerations for its integration, economy, security, aesthetics, and society. It is essentially the discipline of urban planning, and that is an education in itself. Do you know anything about such things?” Deep Waters elaborated.

“Of course I don’t. Do you?” Gu Fei asked.

“I don’t know either, but there was someone in my guild who does, and he’s now euphorically drawing out plans for our Precinct,” Deep Waters said with pride.

“What you guys got is called a city Precinct as well? Isn’t it more like a village?” Gu Fei had been to Linyin City, and the place did not even have city walls surrounding it. It was like a tribe that was founded in a huge jungle, and yet it was still called a city.

“So you see, every city has its own terrain conditions, as well as the quality of the players in terms of their standard when it comes to their levels and the proportion of job class distribution. The economic conditions were different as well; we need to be a lot more hands-on with Linyin City and do our planning properly. This way, the construction work for our Precinct would then be able to develop in a healthy manner!” Deep Waters said.

“Is this what that guildmate of yours had told you?” Gu Fei asked.

“Of course.”

“You’ve got quite the good memory!” Gu Fei complimented. It was rather impressive how Deep Waters was able to retain such concepts and terminologies that were completely foreign to the layman after hearing it once.

Unexpectedly, Deep Waters had actually scratched his head, “There’s no memory at work here. I’m just reading my chat log from earlier to you.”

“Is it really so outrageous?” Gu Fei exclaimed.

“While the layman’s there to join in the fun, it’s the experts who would decipher the underlying brilliance,” Deep Waters said.

“I strongly agree with that statement,” Gu Fei nodded repeatedly. He had been the subject of the layman’s attention plenty of times and there was essentially nobody out there that could appreciate the finesse that he had shown in his PK. When everybody mentioned Thousand Miles Drunk, all they talked about was his equipment, damage, and ability to insta-kill others, which left Gu Fei with no idea what to say.

Once Aural Valley Wind and Sword Demon were done with their discussion, the former was in no hurry to leave, remaining behind to join in the festivities with all the players from Extremely Heaven Defying and build relationships. By the in-game time, the sky had already slowly turned to dusk, creeping toward the dark of the night. The bonfires that the players had raised to barbecue the meat were finally very eye-catching, and everyone followed the bright light and gradually formed circles that surrounded each of these fires. The manpower that Sword Demon had ordered very quickly built a huge bonfire whose flames left anyone within a five meter radius sweating profusely. It was impossible for anyone to get any nearer, so they could only feed the fuel by chucking the firewood from a distance. All it took was a call out and all the players began to gather around this huge bonfire, forming a larger circle all around the flames.

The raging bonfires turned the night skies red in its warm glow, and the atmosphere began to get more and more animated. As the guild leader, Sword Demon of course had to give a speech at such a time, but it was apparent that he was not someone who was good at reading the room; The words that came out of his mouth were not inappropriate, but getting Sword Demon to speak would always end up sounding like a somber news report. Brother Assist was already in tears, it was truly a waste of the host’s speech that he had put hard work preparing for this bonfire night party.

Sword Demon very easily finished reciting the speech and he gave a sigh of relief as well. Naturally, he knew there was no way that he could take on this important task by himself, so he very swiftly passed the baton to Brother Assist. Brother Assist was obviously a lot more lively than Sword Demon, and adding to the fact that he had made ample preparation, the sparkling words and phrases that he pulled out after walking out very quickly amped up the atmosphere accordingly. Royal God Call and War Without Wounds were not about to leave their comrade up and host alone either, so when they came up one after another, they managed to draw quite a few bouts of laughter from how they made fun of each other and put down each other without inherent vitriol.

Of course, the main purpose of this gathering was not for the three men to host a talk show. Brother Assist quickly pulled out his booklet, and he began searching through the pages for several games that would be suitable for their bonfire night party. But because he had plenty to choose from inside, it made it difficult for Brother Assist to make the choice as well, thinking one was good but feel it was a pity to not play another, he wished he could just play them all, but they only have two hours of nighttime in Parallel World, and that was a very tight timeframe to adhere.

Thus, Brother Assist decided to do this democratically, throwing out the name of a few games and asking which the people wanted to play first.

Everyone was crying out that what they most wanted to watch was for Thousand Miles Drunk to insta-kill people.

Gu Fei felt that it was difficult for him to refute such strong affection from the crowd, so he stepped out and brandished his sword a few times, expressing that he had no issues insta-killing people, but the problem was that there was no target for him to insta-kill, so all he could do was do a demonstration of his swordplay.

All of them cheered, and Gu Fei was well aware that showcasing any sort of profound techniques would be lost in this crowd, so he pandered to the audience and chose a sword style that did not seek for a perfect balance of attack and defense, but one that looked cool. After he was done swinging his sword accordingly in a beautiful display of graceful and flashy moves, he received a very enthusiastic reception as he had expected. It was only Eternal Dominion who was left standing there utterly confused as he looked to his left and right at the crowd that was applauding madly, wondering to himself, just what sort of gimmick did I just witness? Could it be that my kung fu attainment isn’t enough to make sense of its marvel? But then why were so many ordinary players able to see how great this display was?

Brother Assist was inspired by this and had also put the matter of playing games on hold, asking if there was anything else who would like to come out and perform for everyone. There were many shy and introverted players among them all, but there were also plenty who enjoyed the attention. Now that Brother Assist had fielded the question to everyone, there were quite a few who leaped out to sing, dance, perform magic and impersonations. The atmosphere here for this bonfire party rose to new heights, and Sword Demon and the others were also extremely delighted watching on as core members of the guild.

“Frequently organizing such sort of activities might not be a bad idea,” Sword Demon said as he watched a Warrior dancing like he was cramping inside that circle that was formed.

“We don’t have a lot of people right now, but by the time we reach level 6 as a guild, with over a thousand members, I’m afraid it won’t be that easy to organize something like,” Brother Assist cautioned.

“We’re still far off from those days. We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” Sword Demon answered.

Brother Assist nodded in agreement. To everyone’s surprise, Royal God Call expression abruptly changed, “It seems like there’s quite a good number of people making their way over here.”

“Who are they?” Sword Demon was stunned when he heard this.

“East, south, west, and north… There are players in every direction,” Royal God Call looked out all around him and confirmed this fact.

Sword Demon and the others did not have Eagle Eyes, so their eyesight was nowhere comparable to Royal God Call’s. Despite knowing where to look, none of them were able to see anyone out in the distance. However, there was one issue that needed clarification, “Royal, the sequence of direction you looked just now was actually, south, west, north, and east.”

“This isn’t the time for that!” It was not often that Royal God Call got to righteously criticize the others for making fun of his shortcoming being directionally challenged. “I feel like these people are not coming with good intentions in mind.”

“Sharpshooters in the guild, take note and observe your surroundings!” Sword Demon had sent out this order through the guild channel, and the players who were still busy enjoying the party atmosphere were all shocked. There were even those who immediately thought it was some novel game as the Sharpshooters all stood up and looked all around.

“There are so many people!” These Sharpshooters finally realized what was happening.

There were not just players from Extremely Heaven Defying present. Members from Amethyst Rebirth and Forever In Flowers, two guilds that should have been at loggerheads with each other were both unconventionally present as guests of Extremely Heaven Defying.

Vast Lushness had already heard the news through the cries that were being propagated among them, as she hurriedly pulled out her spyglass.

It was indeed deep into the night, but the game company did not wish for players to not want to come online and play the game just because of the issues that come with nightfall, so they had intentionally made the moonlight in Parallel World exceptionally bright. Even though it was not daylight, it was at least able to provide the most basic of lighting to the players.

“There’s really people coming over, and it’s a lot of them!” Vast Lushness corroborated.