Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 296 - Windchaser’s Blessing

After the ding sound, the description of the reward and related achievement was displayed.

System notification: [Player Thousand Miles Drunk has cleared a total of 400 PK points through ‘Bounty Mission’.]

This was a momentous achievement that only Gu Fei could achieve based on the system’s following statement: [The system did not include the PK points that were used to clear off PK value for this achievement.]

No one would do ‘Bounty Mission’ if they did not have PK value to clear, and this was still true even for someone in Yueye City. Would anyone besides Gu Fei, who treated doing ‘Bounty Mission’ as a form of enjoyment, be able to accumulate 400 PK points of ‘Bounty Mission’?

Finally, the system issued the reward: Windchaser’s Blessing

Gu Fei believed that a lot of equipment was hidden within the ‘Bounty Mission’ system, and all of which would have the ‘Windchaser’ name to it. While the reward’s name was rather conventional, he would still have to check the equipment’s description to find out its function.

Windchaser’s Blessing was a necklace. It had ‘HP +60’ and ‘max HP +35%’ traits...

Windchaser’s Blessing’s traits were almost a copy of Windchaser’s Boots’ ‘movement +60’ and ‘movement speed +35%’ traits, fully demonstrating how similar the series of Windchaser equipment from one another was. Moreover, the relation between ‘HP’ and ‘max HP’ had run by the same logic as the relation between ‘movement speed’ and ‘movement’.

The inherent growth of a Mage’s HP was only at the lowly rate of 0.85. Beginning with only 85 HP, every point added to Endurance only increased it by 0.85. Currently, Gu Fei was at level 40. Including the 1 point that was automatically added to his Endurance each time he leveled up, his maximum HP was still 119. When he wore Eddie’s Emblem, the additional 6 points to Endurance pushed his HP to 124. The decimal point of stats was often not shown in Parallel World, and theorycrafters, data analysts, and mathematicians were still needed to further research about its application in real-time combat.

Wearing the Windchaser’s Blessing, Gu Fei’s maximum HP would rise to 248, essentially doubling his original HP. Even an idiot could tell that Windchaser’s Blessing was wondrous top-grade equipment just like Windchaser’s Boots.

Sadly, Gu Fei did not see this accessory as such. As a player that had never experienced dropping a level due to dying, Gu Fei did not attach much importance to his lack of HP; instead, it was his low mana that had him feeling pain. It would be better if this item could increase my mana, instead, Gu Fei thought to himself as he inspected the necklace in his hand.

As for HP... Since nothing and no one had really been able to injure Gu Fei so far, why would he care about having more or less HP? With such a thought in mind, he merely proceeded to pick up a new ‘Bounty Mission’ and made his way out the Bounty Assignment Hall.

Nevertheless, the new equipment still had to be tested. Gu Fei wore the Windchaser’s Blessing, but he did not feel any differently despite the HP increase. How useless, Gu Fei shook his head as he sprinted toward his new bounty target.

Nothing else happened when Gu Fei logged off later that night. Gu Fei went online a little earlier than usual the next day because of the lure of having ‘Bounty Mission’ targets with PK value of 4 or 5 points and because of wanting to check on Vast Lushness’s situation.

Pulling up his friends list as soon as he got online, he sent Fireball, Sakurazaka Moony, and the others he saw online a message each. Nothing further happened to them, and they were relatively safe. Fireball even did his best to invite Gu Fei over to appreciate together with them the beauty of the three sultry ladies that they had supposedly found. Gu Fei rejected him as politely as he could.

With nothing else to do, Gu Fei naturally passed his time doing more ‘Bounty Mission’. After a few bounties and when it was almost 7 P.M., he received a message from Young Master Han to gather with everybody by the prison entrance.

No tense atmosphere pervaded the air today unlike yesterday. Everyone was listlessly staring at Oathless Sword who was standing on a stair-step of the prison entrance. He originally wanted to say a few words but quickly changed his mind upon seeing all their expressions. Turning around to interact with the NPC to retrieve the prisoner from yesterday, he instantly won the appreciation of everyone present.

Since they were about to continue the expedition, Youthful Reflection and the various mercenary group leaders ensured that all those involved were properly accounted before 7 P.M. Yueye Ciy was truly a city of discord; plenty of them ran into trouble despite having only stayed in it for two days. Most of these were the result of conflicts over grinding spots, and it was mainly the mercenaries that got into trouble.

This was mainly due to Traversing Four Seas’ members not being able to set their characters to respawn in any other cities while doing the guild quest: One death would cause them to fail the quest and automatically send them back to Yunduan City. Therefore, Oathless Sword and the other bigwigs of the guild repeatedly reminded the members about the importance of keeping a low profile and even told them to forget about being part of the number one guild in Yunduan City. By the looks of things, their members listened, and they were able to achieve the desired result. Many of the mercenaries fought with the locals and suffered quite a few losses, yet Traversing Four Seas did not lose even one member to unnecessary skirmishes – something Oathless Sword and company were secretly delighted about.

It seemed that Yunduan City’s players suffered similar fates at the hands of Yueye City’s ruffians while grinding levels. These players swapped stories of their experiences being bullied as they felt nostalgia over the idyllic life that they had in Yunduan City. They all shared the same sentiment: they could not wait another minute to depart from this place.

People loved to compare with one another, and this lot of players began to compare who had the worst loss from this sojourn in Yueye City. In the end, Sakurazaka Moony’s Great Hunting mercenary group won this; the forty-man mercenary group lost twenty-two men in a span of two days, taking the lead in terms of actual count and percentage of losses.

“You guys sure are intense! Just how many fights did you get yourselves into?!” someone exclaimed. Most of Yunduan City’s players only had minor squabbles when they were snatching grinding spots, losing one or two men at most, and many immediately retreated once they saw their HP gauge turning red. It was already difficult to lose five or six people in just two days since a mercenary group would have to get into five or six different squabbles first. Using this logic, Sakurazaka Moony’s group had been into twenty-two or so fights to lose that staggering number of men.

Sakurazaka Moony was not only reprehensible but also good at acting humble, placidly saying, “Not really. We merely had a minor misunderstanding with the Ten Guild Alliance here.”

All were visibly moved by this, but they quickly began to jeer at Sakurazaka Moony’s shameless bragging.

The Ten Guild Alliance was well-known even to those players not residing in Yueye City for being the largest organization in Parallel World. Although it was made up of ten different guilds, the Ten Guild Alliance was pretty much a large guild with over four thousand members. Even Traversing Four Seas, the number one guild in Yunduan City with seven hundred fifty members, was considered small when compared to the Ten Guild Alliance. For the small forty-man mercenary group led by Sakurazaka Moony to survive from this ‘minor misunderstanding’ and walk out of Yueye City almost freely was nothing short of unbelievable.

“Tsk! It’s fine if you don’t believe me.” Sakurazaka Moony did not wish to force his point, waving his hand dismissively and refusing to explain further.

The players continued to laugh even as they dispersed, ending the topic there and then.

Taking the main road leading out of the city, the expedition slowly made its way toward a small village. Gu Fei excitedly said to his fellow mercenaries, “This is Yeguang Village; it’s where my chain quest ended!”

“So this is the village that half the residents are Werewolves?” Brother Assist quickly pulled out his booklet to jot down this information.

“That’s right!” Gu Fei dragged Brother Assist to the side of the expedition, intending to point out to him the Werewolves among the passing NPCs. When Gu Fei first went to Yeguang Village for his chain quest, the human villagers and the Werewolf villagers treated him differently. Gu Fei still remembered the human forms that the few Werewolves he knew assumed. However, now that he was pointing each villager out, he could not seem to spot even one Werewolf villager that he was familiar with. Brother Assist had his booklet and quill at the ready to record things, yet Gu Fei oddly remained unforthcoming. As Brother Assist looked at him questioningly, someone from behind them suddenly said, “Hey!” This caused the two of them to jump up a meter or two.

“Xiaoyu...” Gu Fei greeted after recovering himself.

June’s Rain excited said to Gu Fei, “We’re here at this village again!”

“Yeah!” Gu Fei answered with fake enthusiasm, his gaze roaming around.

“Do you still remember the secret of this village?” June’s Rain asked secretively.

“What?” Gu Fei was stumped.

June’s Rain cupped her hand to his ear and whispered, “Some of them are Werewolves!”

Gu Fei did not know whether to laugh or cry when he heard this; he once more fell for the mental trap that June’s Rain had unwittingly set. In some ways, June’s Rain was equally as scary as Young Master Han; the latter was due to his deep insight while the former was for her simple-mindedness, a level of thought – or lack thereof – that no one would understand without first-hand experience. Gu Fei felt he was still rather close to Young Master Han’s level of intellect, yet he was really far away when it came to June’s Rain.

“What? Did you forget about it?” June’s Rain asked, using her intellect to evaluate Gu Fei when she saw him speechless for a long time.

“Of course, I remember. Can’t you see I’m trying to locate the Werewolf villagers right now?” Gu Fei asked.

“You should look for me if you’re searching for Werewolves!” June’s Rain patted her chest proudly.

“Eh?” Gu Fei did not understand what she was getting at.

June’s Rain pulled out the quest booklet from her dimensional pocket and flipped it over to the page containing the data about the Werewolf villagers in Yueye City’s Yeguang Village. “Look here. Coordinates XXX, XXX! Villager Finn - Werewolf.” After reciting the coordinates, she began to head to a different direction that the expedition was moving toward with Gu Fei and Brother Assist.

June’s Rain reached the coordinates in just a few steps, but after walking around twice, she could still not find the Werewolf villager from the said area.

“Ah... What’s going on?” June’s Rain asked, her eyes sparkled with innocence.

“Let’s look for another one!” Gu Fei took pity on her and pointed to another Werewolf villager she had noted down.

“Coordinates XXX, XXX. Villager Sammy - Werewolf,” June’s Rain muttered as she and the other two started walking toward the stated location. Once more, they arrived at a location without one NPC around.

“AHHHHH!” June’s Rain did not even wait for Gu Fei to say a word and just proceeded to the next Werewolf villager she had noted down. There was at least a NPC in the indicated location this time, yet it was not the Werewolf villager that they were looking for. June’s Rain talked to the NPC for five times, yet this villager insisted that its name was Lidur and not the Kundi she had listed on her booklet.

“I... Could I have remembered wrongly?” June’s Rain scratched her head. She would usually make mistakes, so she did not have much confidence to begin with.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Gu Fei said.

“Then, what’s going on?”

“That... It seems all the Werewolves are gone,” Gu Fei answered with uncertainty.

“All the Werewolves are gone?” Brother Assist reiterated, albeit in a questioning tone. He had quietly been following the two all this while.