Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Oh, no! Gu Fei shouted to himself when he saw the changes in the coordinates of his freshly acquired ‘Bounty Mission’ target and quickened his pace.

His target was currently moving toward the direction of the Archer Range. There were usually two reasons why players would head to the spawn points: one was to learn skills and second was to log off. The latter being the reason for going to a spawn point was more common than the former. A target logging off was fatal to someone doing ‘Bounty Mission’.

Gu Fei was quite far from the Archer Range, so he sprinted all the way to it and even activated his Blink whenever possible. All the while, he was praying hard for his target’s purpose in the Archer Range to be a different sort.

Unfortunately for Gu Fei, luck did not always go with the wishes of man. As Gu Fei fervently wished that his target was not heading to the Archer Range to log off, the man headed there to do exactly that. Just as he had the Archer Range in sight, the Windchaser’s Emblem suddenly stopped working. Gu Fei promptly pulled up his mission log and saw that the target’s serial number was darkened, a state showing that the person was offline.

Gu Fei heaved a long sigh. He was not afraid of the man logging off; instead, Gu Fei was saddened because he could no longer pick up another ‘Bounty Mission’ for today. Being able to pick up only one bounty target at a time... This was yet another area that Gu Fei thought the system for the ‘Bounty Mission’ needed improvement.

Gu Fei reckoned that this would be yet another ‘failed’ mission. It was not as if he had not experienced such an outcome before. Missions that he picked up at night where the targets logged off before he could reach them meant that the targets would likely clear off their PK value the next morning before he could get online. Whenever those happened, the missions would be labeled as ‘failed’.

This was how the previous streak, which awarded him the Windchaser’s Boots for completing one hundred consecutive ‘Bounty Mission’, was finally broken. There was a possibility that completing two hundred, three hundred, or even five hundred consecutive ‘Bounty Mission’ would award him other items, but Gu Fei’s one hundred seventy-sixth ‘Bounty Mission’ sadly met with failure. Currently, Gu Fei only had to complete twenty-four more ‘Bounty Mission’ without failing once and he would be able to attain two hundred consecutive ‘Bounty Mission’.

Completing Bounty Mission consecutively is really difficult, Gu Fei sighed to himself. However, the completion count of ‘Bounty Mission’ would not be affected by this ‘failure’. Gu Fei was currently on his one hundred ninety-ninth mission, so two more completed missions would allow him to hit two hundred. He got the Windchaser’s Emblem when he completed one hundred ‘Bounty Mission’, so completing two hundred ‘Bounty Mission’ might also award him with something. It was a pity that his consecutive completion record was finally broken. This stop here meant he would have to start all over again, which really made him feel quite vexed.

Gu Fei disappointingly paced about at the Archer Range, thinking that his target might have only logged off to use the toilet and would be back right away. In the end, Gu Fei’s mission log remained unlit.

Gu Fei was so upset that he did not feel like grinding his levels anymore and just went offline as well.

The next day, Gu Fei tried to log on as early as he could in hopes of possibly completing the mission. Alas, the quest was already tagged as ‘failed’ when he logged on. But seeing that he was only two missions off from attaining the two hundred completed ‘Bounty Mission’, he was eager to see what sort of reward he would get for it, so Gu Fei swiftly went to obtain another ‘Bounty Mission’ and proceeded to slay his target. Once the second mission was completed, he immediately returned to the Bounty Assignment Hall to turn in his mission’s result. Just as he had expected, the system sounded. However, it did not send a mission reward and instead informed Gu Fei: [Your Windchaser’s Emblem has been upgraded.]

Gu Fei quickly took out his Windchaser’s Emblem and had a look.

Windchaser’s Emblem was a trinket that had two traits attached to it. The first trait decreased the coordinates’ refresh rate down to a minute when doing ‘Bounty Mission’, while the second trait allowed him to teleport himself into the Bounty Assignment Hall upon completion of a mission. Now, listed below the two traits was a third trait: 100% Appraisal of ‘Bounty Mission’ target.

This feature meant that when doing ‘Bounty Mission’, Gu Fei could completely ignore the level as well as the Appraisal skill’s rank of his target and appraise the person fully. This ‘100% Appraisal’ trait was very useful to the average players, as it would allow them to gauge the targets’ Strength and see if they were up to par or formulate an idea on how to fight the targets. As for Gu Fei, this feature did have some use. Although he did not often appraise his target when PvPing, it was only because his Appraisal skill’s rank was too low, receiving only a whole bunch of question marks whenever he used it.

This sort of skill required a player to spend time doing quests to raise its rank, but where would he find the time and effort to do that? As such, he could only use it as often as he could when he had nothing better to do and slowly raise its rank. Therefore, the difference in rank between him and the average player slowly widened, giving him more and more question marks every time he used Appraisal. Gu Fei’s Appraisal skill seemed to only exist in name, but with the upgrade of his Windchaser’s Emblem, Gu Fei could at least fully appraise his ‘Bounty Mission’ targets.

Gu Fei hurriedly grabbed a fresh ‘Bounty Mission’ to test the new trait out. It had been a long time since a PvP maniac with high PK value appeared on the Wanted Players list. This was not something unique to just Yunduan City, either. On the overall Wanted Players list, it could be seen that the mentality of the players regarding this matter progressed at the same pace.

Leaving the Bounty Assignment Hall, Gu Fei sprinted toward his target’s location, which was the central plaza’s Tavern. Gu Fei loved such targets, as they would indefinitely remain in their positions inside taverns, so the chances of failing the missions were almost zero. Such targets would certainly be together with their friends, so they could trigger Gu Fei’s favorite hidden mode in ‘Bounty Mission’: exchanging blows with the target’s friends.

Gu Fei made a beeline to the Tavern and swiftly entered the premise. He immediately spotted his target with serial number 19857 hovering above the person’s head. Gu Fei did not hurry to engage the target and instead chose to use the ‘100% Appraisal’ trait of his Windchaser’s Emblem.

As expected, the trait provided him complete data of his target from head to toe. Gu Fei felt quite disappointed when he saw that his target was just a level 34 Mage with common-grade equipment. Sighing deeply, he walked over to the target’s table and knocked on its surface, “‘Bounty Mission’.”

The table occupants did not react strongly to his declaration and merely curiously raised their heads, showing a surprised expression on their faces when they saw Gu Fei.

Gu Fei, for his part, found the table occupants that were about Royal God Call’s age to be quite familiar. Before he could put a finger on where he had seen them, someone on the table blurted out, “Teacher Gu Fei!”

With this shout, all the table occupants stood up in their panic and embarrassment.

“Ah!” Gu Fei exclaimed as he realized that they were all students of Yulin Middle School where he was a teacher.

Those who went to school knew that the normal subject teachers would rarely recognize a whole class of students. This was especially true for the physical education teachers that handled more classes and had limited interaction with every student.

Most P.E. teachers would only be able to recognize those students who were more exceptional physically. As for Gu Fei, he would definitely pay special attention to students who knew a bit of kung fu, but he would treat them equally otherwise, which basically meant that he knew only a handful of students.

The table occupants were students that Gu Fei would always see during class, so he could somewhat recall them. But if anyone requested for him to name them all, he would not be able to do so.

In contrast, students would always know their teachers. After restraining themselves for a short while, several of them blatantly said, “Turns out Teacher Gu Fei is also playing this game!”

Gu Fei was only a P.E. teacher, which was very different from the usual subject teachers that these students would see every day, so they were not particularly nervous in front of him. Furthermore, Teacher Gu Fei was the butt of jokes in school. If the one standing before them were a class teacher, they would long disappear upon recognizing the person. These students were therefore acting really carefree in front of him, while Gu Fei felt somewhat uncomfortable with this situation.

“Teacher Gu Fei, what did you say when you knocked on the table?” a student asked.

“It’s nothing. I’m just passing by,” Gu Fei fibbed, “You guys play on; I’m leaving first.”

“Eh! Teacher Gu Fei, don’t be in such a hurry to leave! Let’s play together!” a student boldly called out.

His voice was loud, so it naturally attracted eyes on them. “Teacher?” “Student?” all the nearby players began to asked these questions to one another as they glanced over to their direction.

Gu Fei was born into a family of kung fu practitioners, so the prevailing rule in the family was to honor the teachers and respect their teachings. Although his teacher-student relationship was rather different from that of his family’s, he still considered it as improper to play games with his students. Seeing that they now had the attention of everyone in the Tavern, he hurriedly bade these students goodbye and swiftly left the premise. Ever since Gu Fei started playing Parallel World, this was the first time he had panicked the most, and it was mainly due to the psychological distress the meeting brought him.

He sprinted out of the door and used Blink whenever possible. The students were all around level 30, so they soon lost sight of Gu Fei despite trying their best to chase after him.

“Woah! Teacher Gu Fei ran so fast. He must be a pro!” a student exclaimed as he stared intently at where Gu Fei had disappeared to.

“Teacher Gu Fei seems to be a Mage, so how could he run so fast?” another student asked.

“Did anyone managed to appraise him? What’s the result?” someone questioned.

“I can’t appraise anything; Teacher Gu Fei’s level is way higher than ours!”

“Wow...” Everyone was in awe.

“What huge news! Teacher Gu Fei actually plays Parallel World, and he’s actually in our city to boot!” someone excitedly commented.

“Ha ha! Let’s get Teacher Gu Fei to join our guild!”

“That’s right! That’s right! Let’s go look for Ah Fa.”

“Ahhh! We forgot to ask Teacher Gu Fei’s IGN. How are we gonna find him?”

“You’re so dumb! We can ask him during class!”

“Ohhh! TRUE!”