Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 120 - The Lovestruck Luo Luo

“Twin Incineration! Incinerate!” Luo Luo heard a Mage chanting from behind her. Turning around, she saw Gu Fei, who had positioned himself between her and the monster, swing downward with his sword in hand.

“Be careful!” Luo Luo frantically warned as she bestowed Heal on to Gu Fei. For regular Mages, the opponents getting into close range with them usually meant only one thing: death. Thus, Luo Luo perceived Gu Fei’s act of getting between her and the monster as a sacrificial move and felt deeply touched.

“Don’t worry about me! Go save the others!” Gu Fei scrambled away as he told Luo Luo this. The monster began to chase after Gu Fei as its aggro shifted from Luo Luo to him.

The scene had descended into chaos. The ladies’ shrill screams reverberated all over the field as they were stubbornly chased by the monsters around.

Their perilous situation caused Gu Fei’s action to become frantic. He did his best to attract the monsters’ aggro toward him by throwing balls of fire formed from the Fireball spell at the ones he encountered while running about. “Xiao Bing, help me lure the monsters, too!” Gu Fei yelled at Ice Glaze who was just blankly holding her magic staff by the side of the field.

Ice Glaze nodded her head vigorously and promptly threw a ball of fire at one of the monsters after her guildmates.

The gap between the Spell Damage of Gu Fei and Ice Glaze was clearly shown in this instance. Ice Glaze casting Fireball once could not immediately draw the monster’s aggro toward her and had to cast the same spell thrice before succeeding into luring the monster from its initial target. In comparison, Gu Fei easily managed to ‘enchant’ three more monsters with his Fireball spell, all making a beeline for him with their claws out.

“Xiao Bing, run to where I am!” Gu Fei hastily shouted at Ice Glaze upon seeing that she was about to cast Fireball for the fourth time at the monster she had already successfully lured.

Eight ladies were originally tasked with luring the monsters and they could hang on without a hitch once Gu Fei lured four monsters toward himself, Ice Glaze got the attention of another monster, and Luo Luo was free to cast Heal steadily on to her guildmates who had the three remaining monsters.

Gu Fei calmly headed toward Ice Glaze’s location with the four monsters in tow. “Everyone, spread out! Prepare to cast Descending Wheel of Flames!” he shouted.

“We can’t aim well when they are all moving so fast!” the ladies exclaimed anxiously. Royal God Call would not have come up with that simple approach of drawing a circle to the ground for them to aim on if the ladies had had precise aims to begin with.

“Cast your spells freely and just make sure not to hit me!” Gu Fei adjusted his command. He was taking the ladies lightly with this latest command. With his fast movement speed, he was currently meters away from the chasing monsters. No matter how bad a shot the ladies were, their spells were unlikely to miss by more than three meters.

Luo Luo focused her Heal on to Ice Glaze next after Gu Fei took the monster that Ice Glaze had previously lured. This particular monster that had received multiple balls of fire from Ice Glaze started to sway on its feet upon receiving two more balls of fire from Gu Fei who was trying to gain its aggro.

Gu Fei took two more steps forward before checking the distance between him and the monsters. With such a huge gap between them, he reckoned that the ladies’ aims should not be so bad that their spells would hit him instead. With that in mind, he shouted at the ladies, “Attack now!”

“Descending Wheel of Flames! Descend!” Sounds of the spell being casted reverberated in the air. Numerous flame wheels, which colored the faces of everyone nearby crimson, emerged from the space above the monsters’ vicinity soon after. Looking up, Gu Fei felt so relieved when he saw that no flame wheel had appeared above his head. He then leveled his head forward and pointed his sword outward, shouting, “Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno! Arise!”

This was a level 36 mage spell.

Descending Wheel of Flames was an AOE spell that would descend from the sky, whereas Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno was an AOE spell that would ascend from the ground. Compared to Descending Wheel of Flames, this level 36 spell would continuously scorch the earth for five seconds and those within its area of effect would be subjected to continuous damage that grew weaker with every passing second.

The AOE of Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno was also much wider than that of Descending Wheel of Flames, so its damage output was much higher than the latter, especially if the five-second continuous damage that it dealt was included in the equation. Correspondingly, the spell’s mana consumption was hefty; it was almost twice the amount needed to cast Descending Wheel of Flames once. This spell was rarely used during level grinding due to most grinding maps being packed with people and the number of Mages in a grinding party being quite high. Basically, the combined Descending Wheel of Flames of all the Mages would suffice to kill monsters, so increasing Spell Damage further by casting Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno was not necessary.

The ladies were indeed not being humble when they stated: “We can’t aim well!” as the positioning of their flame wheels was very disorganized. Looking upward, Gu Fei almost mistook their flame wheels for the five Olympic rings with how scattered about they were. With such an unfocused firepower, the combined Descending Wheel of Flames could naturally not hit all the targets; instead of all the flame wheels hitting the monster, some were hit by one and most were hit by two. The remaining HP of the monsters varied, so Gu Fei resorted to casting the more powerful spell, Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno, with a wider range to guarantee their deaths.

The flames that had abruptly risen from the ground fused together and formed a little wildfire. After the monsters got hit by Descending Wheel of Flames, they were then imprisoned by the wildfire Gu Fei’s level 36 spell had caused. As a result, none managed to escape the sea of flames and all simply collapsed within.

The ladies cheered. This was a natural reaction from them since the ladies just saw that they had gained a lot of experience points by grinding on these level 50 monsters.

Gu Fei was a lot calmer compared to them. Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he asked, “Is everybody alright?”

Luo Luo was still casting Heal on to the ladies, as some still had yet to fully recover their HP. Eight of the ladies held one of their hands close to their chests, with half saying, “I was so scared!” and the other half gushing, “Miles is so amazing! Should we, Mages, add points to our Agility as well?”

His phantom-like silhouette just now had left a deep impression on to them. The ladies were naturally unaware of such unprecedented speed before, as even those Thieves and Archers who had reached level 40 rarely had full-Agility builds. The physical attack of these two job classes was connected to the Strength stat, so Thieves and Archers would normally distribute some points to Strength and would not solely focus on to their Agility.

Even if there were players with full-Agility builds like him, Gu Fei could still overpower them with the ‘movement +60’ and ‘boost movement speed by 35%’ of his Windchaser’s Boots. Gu Fei laughed and said, “Agility isn’t bad! Everyone should add points to their Agility.”

Luo Luo was a gaming savvy after all, so she carefully asked Gu Fei, “Your Agility is so high, yet you have such amazing Magic Attack Power. Just what kind of OP items do you have?”

“Of course my pieces of equipment are OP, since they’re rewards from a chain quest,” Gu Fei laughingly answered.

“Let us see them!” the ladies babbled.

Since it had come to this point already, Gu Fei had given up on the thought of keeping his pieces of equipment a secret. He actually did not think it was a big deal for others to know about them, especially since he shared the mindset of regular MMO players: half the purpose of obtaining top-grade equipment was to put them to good use and the other half was to show off to others!

Moonlit Nightfalls, Midnight Spirit Robe, and Windchaser’s Boots. After showing his three most OP equipment one by one, the ladies lost their ability to speak. Compared to Moonlit Nightfalls, all felt that their magic staves were mere kindling sticks.

Actually, Gu Fei also had the extraordinary accessory, Eddie’s Emblem, on him. However, he did not usually equip it on him since the emblem was related to his identity as Fugitive 27149. About a month had passed since that previous incident involving Fugitive 27149, yet many players would still talk about him during their free time. This was because nobody had yet to surpass Fugitive 27149’s deeds even at present.

Luo Luo closely inspected the three pieces of equipment. After pondering for a long time, she suddenly grabbed Gu Fei by the arm to pull him to a side.

“What is it?” Gu Fei asked bewilderedly.

“Follow me,” Luo Luo replied as she forcibly pulled on to him.

“Is something the matter?” Gu Fei asked wonderingly as he followed her.

Meanwhile, the ladies behind were animatedly discussing about Luo Luo’s action, “Is Sis Luo Luo lovestruck again?”

“Unlikely. It’s not like they only met today; she would’ve long been lovestruck if that had been the case.”

“You’re so silly! Have you forgotten what Sis Luo Luo said before? People being lovestruck in a MMO... Half the time, it’s actually them being lovestruck with the player’s equipment!”

“Oh, no! Miles’ equipment managed to trigger the ‘lovestruck’ trait of Sis Luo Luo!”

And over to where Gu Fei and Luo Luo were... Luo Luo dragged Gu Fei until they reached the canopy of a big tree. Only when she was sure that they were out of earshot of the others that she spoke, “You are that Close Combat Mage, aren’t you?!”

“Who said so?” Gu Fei countered with a question.

“You must be, with how powerful your three pieces of equipment are,” Luo Luo said confidently.

“Since you are so sure, then I suppose I am really him!” Gu Fei expressed his helplessness at her allegation. He had long grown tired of this question. What if he really was the Close Combat Mage? His days as Fugitive 27149 were long over and he no longer wanted his present actions to be dictated and restricted by his past persona. In short, he had withdrawn himself from Jianghu; a guy who still clung to his past identity did not seem to be a farsighted person anyway.

“Are you him or not?!” Luo Luo resolutely demanded, wanting to confirm it once and for all. She promised, “I won’t tell anyone, not even July!”

“Yes, I am!” Gu Fei clenched his teeth and answered. There, I said it. What is she planning to do to me next?

In the end, Luo Luo did not do anything to Gu Fei. She just grinned cheerily while staring at Gu Fei, which made the latter all jittery inside.

“She’s definitely lovestruck!” some of the ladies from afar said as they indicated the grinning face of Luo Luo, saying, “Just look at the way she’s smiling.”

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s really dangerous,” Gu Fei said seriously.

“What should I do, then?”

“Let’s just resume our level grinding!” Gu Fei suggested sincerely.

“Let’s go, then!” Luo Luo beamingly said as she walked toward the others.

What in the world is going on?! Gu Fei asked to himself. With such a flirtatious smile, is she still the same calm and composed Luo Luo?

The party’s level grinding started once more. Gu Fei made changes to their grinding strategy; from now on, he would be in charge of luring the monsters while the ladies would be responsible for attacking them at Gu Fei’s signal, with him delivering the finishing blow to the monsters afterward.

Based on Gu Fei and Ice Glaze’s action of attracting the monsters’ aggro just then, it could be deduced that his Spell Damage was three times higher than Ice Glaze’s. Since Ice Glaze was the one with the highest Spell Damage among the ladies, a powerhouse like Gu Fei was essential for them to level grind in this level 50 grinding map.

If the ‘monster luring’ technique had been the only requirement to grind in this level 50 grinding map, then Royal God Call would have long brought the ladies to fool around here. He would not have needed to draw a circle or device a special positioning for the ladies. After all, Royal God Call was above Gu Fei in terms of monster luring capability.

Gu Fei charged rashly into a herd of monsters as he casted the Fireball spell with his left hand and slashed his sword with his right hand, causing seven or eight monsters to follow him back to the ladies. “Get ready!” he told the ladies loudly.

The ladies responded to him by gamely lifting their magic staves. Meanwhile, Luo Luo casted Heal on to Gu Fei who had yet drop even a bit of his HP as she simultaneously winked at him.

Gu Fei nearly fell down as his leg slipped a bit.

Luo Luo must have gone crazy... Just what kind of sickness is she having? Gu Fei densely pondered to himself.