Gu Fei’s face was expressionless as he spoke in the mercenary channel, “You guys can forget about Amethyst Rebirth, though I can help guarantee two spots for you in Forever in Flowers. I’ll go ahead and hail them about this right now.”
“No no no, definitely not!!” Royal God Call and War Without Wounds were both horrified. Forever in Flowers had gotten really famous as well, and many players in Parallel World knew them to be a guild where a whole bunch of skeevy and reprehensible boys had gathered within. If people were to head out and flirt with the ladies, nobody would ever mention the name Forever in Flowers, most ladies would not even spare a moment and avoid anyone from that guild. Why else would people enjoy emphasizing the importance of maintaining a low-profile? Forever In Flowers had precisely been far too high profile that they had even made a name for themselves while chasing skirts, so why would the ladies not be disgusted by it? Even though everyone clearly knew that nine out of ten players who strike up conversations with the ladies all had the same goal in mind, that did not mean that people should be so open and blatant about it, as that would just make it far too vulgar.
Naturally, Royal God Call and War Without Wounds did not want to be associated with something like being vulgar, and now that Forever in Flowers had been chasing after skirts to the point they were taboo, both men felt just hearing the name of the guild itself was inauspicious enough. They would likely have problems sleeping the next few days since Gu Fei actually made the suggestion to introduce them to the guild.
It was at this time when Brother Assist abruptly exploded, “No, I can’t endure this any longer!!!”
“What’s going on? How can the two of you suddenly have access to the mercenary channel? IS it just because the two of you have gotten out of the city? That’s not right, just why would the mercenary channel be accessible while outside the city. Can the two of you use this channel to communicate when you’re inside the city? Also, Young Master, how did you end up together with Gu Xiaoshang?” Brother Assist had been suffocating this whole time.
“Woah, what an acquired taste! To think that Young Master would actually have the same palate as Oathless Sword, that’s too indomitable!” Royal God Call and War Without Wounds exclaimed in their astonishment. Gu Xiaoshang was a famous lady in Yunduan City with a strong personality, so even though she was quite the looker, rumor has it that Oathless Sword had been the only suitor thus far. Even among the ladies, even if they looked particularly nondescript, it was definitely rare for there to actually be in such numbers. It could not be helped, with low supplies and high demand, the ratio of female and male gamers was completely disproportionate.
“Come over and accept your death!” Young Master Han said.
“I say, what sort of message are you sending out to Oathless Sword, feels like you’re trying to steal his girl in protest, yeah?” Realization dawned on Royal God Call before he severely admonished, “Young Master, looks like you’re not good at picking up girls! You’ve gone about this far too immaturely. What’s the point? To fight over a lover out of jealousy, everyone’s face is ruined by what you’re doing, and it is the bystanders that would treat the entire affair as a joke. That just causes heavy losses on both sides!”
“Yes, Royal God Call is right about this. Young Master, you’re being immature,” War Without Wounds agreed.
[Royal God Call has been kicked from Young Master’s Elite], the system reported.
The entire channel went silent.
“What were you saying before, Wounds?” Young Master Han asked innocuously.
“Nothing. I simply said I’ve been having a pretty good time recently, how’s everyone doing?” War Without Wounds said.
The channel continued to stay quiet, when Brother Assist’s name suddenly leaped out as he yelled, “I GOT IT!!!”
“The mercenary channel belongs to the mercenary leader, so since Young Master belonged to the city assault side, only Young Master, Oathless Sword, Royal and me, belonging to the third party force, were able to use it. Miles and Sword Demon did not have access before, but now that Miles, Sword Demon, Wounds, and the others could all use it, that means the channel now belongs to someone in the third party force… Young Master, did you quit your guild?” Brother Assist asked.
“Brother Assist… I don’t think that’s what everyone is concerned about right now,” Gu Fei could not help but interject.
Poor Royal God Call had commented about his guild being feckless and had been eagerly looking forward to forming a guild with everyone. In the end, he got kicked out of the mercenary group by Young Master Han, and there was no way to deal with this situation. Gu Fei and Sword Demon were unable to message Royal God Call because they belonged to hostile Factions, Brother Assist had blocked all incoming messages, and while War Without Wounds had actually taken the initiative to send a message to Royal God Call, the former was happily mocking the latter even as tears streamed down his face.
“Yes, I’ve quit my guild,” Young Master Han had very calmly replied to Brother Assist’s question.
“Why did you do that?” Brother Assist’s curiosity was as always, a bottomless pit.
“It’s pointless,” Young Master Han answered.
“Oh, looks like the performance of the large guilds this time won’t be anything spectacular!” Brother Assist sighed. Royal God Call had just called his own guild feckless, and the sentiment was mirrored with Young Master Han’s account as well. The two of them happened to be members of the two largest guilds in Yunduan City, the only difference was that Royal God Call had carefully searched for a stronger path after realizing that his guild was going nowhere, while Young Master Han was a lot more casual, opting to ditch his incompetent guild before deciding on his next move.
“So what are your plans?” Brother Assist asked.
“I’ll kill off those two guys first,” Young Master Han said.
“Alright, you should stop wasting time; Oathless Sword is nothing but just one of our many quests. Since we know you’re camping him out, we’re not going to put any effort taking his head! You’re better off doing something more meaningful with your time!” Gu Fei said.
Young Master Han did not say a word. While he did not know about the validity of Gu Fei’s claim, Young Master Han firmly believed that given their personalities, neither of them would mind failing their quest to assassinate Oathless Sword and end up choosing to give up on their mission in the face of difficulty. Such a sensible option was something Southern Lone Blade would do, but not these two.
“I’m not in any rush,” Young Master Han calmly sent this message.
The channel became quiet once more. Gu Fei had returned near the city by this time. Now that the guild coalition had fallen apart at the north gate, plenty of guilds had departed and ran to join the battle with the other gates. None of them cared for tactics or strategy and were simply just attacking en masse. Every NPC killed counted, so why care for anything else?
Meanwhile, Traversing Four Seas, Carouse and the other large guilds had remained by the north gate. This was the most rational choice. After all, the guilds present were all strong in their own rights and adding to that previous assault they had attempted, even though it ultimately failed, they nevertheless had succeeded in damaging the city’s defenses here. Everyone felt that there were evidently lesser NPC guards guarding this gate, so a good number of the guilds felt they would fare much better by staying around.
However, Traversing Four Seas was now completely focused on repelling Gu Fei and Sword Demon from causing trouble within their ranks, so they had temporarily entered a state of vigilance, which meant they had no plans of mounting an assault toward the city. The other large guilds were unaware of this, and seeing what Traversing Four Seas was doing had instead made them all suspicious of them having some scheme up their sleeves, thus they chose to observe the situation as well. The middle-sized guilds were all the more less inclined to move after seeing all the large guilds not making any moves of their own, so the north gate was completely silent. All the players from the guild listlessly milled around their own campsites, unsure if they were still taking part in the City War or not.
The opposing forces were separated by a huge battlefield between them, and there were plenty of large rocks and stones strewn across the entire expanse, the expended ammunition from the trebuchets up on the city walls. It was at this time when two figures suddenly appeared in this open space; one that came from the city, while the other that had appeared from somewhere unknown outside the city.
Many players spotted these two figures, but none of them could make either of them out clearly. They simply saw the figure that came from within the city arrive on the battlefield, walking about as if it was picking things up. In the meantime, the figure that came from outside the city, despite the fact that thousands of soldiers and players stood on either of its sides, was nevertheless calm and composed, walking his own path.
The trebuchets were not moving!
Everyone stared in bewilderment, waiting for the trebuchet to fire and turn that person into a meat patty. But who would have thought that after he treaded into the range of the trebuchets, none of those machines appear to even move.
A player became excited, could the trebuchets have entered a long period of cooldown? With such a thought, he decided to step onto the battlefield and test his hypothesis out, only to see a huge rock come sailing right over toward him. This person quickly scrambled to dodge the incoming projectile as if his life depended on it, and had narrowly managed to avoid being buried from the rising wave of sand and dirt that the rock’s impact created. He then turned to look at that player walking nonchalantly on that field once more, who even seemed to have thrown a look of sympathy over to him.
Everybody was stunned as they watched this person walk right toward the city gate, even stopping midway to exchange a few words with that other figure that came from the city.
“Ray, what are you doing?” When Gu Fei saw Ray, he was carrying a huge basket on his back, glumly picking up the stones all over the battlefield.
Ray’s face was one of absolute sorrow as he complained, “This time, my quest had sent me out here to clean up the battlefield…”
The stones were still doable, so Gu Fei pointed to the large rocks, “How are you cleaning those up?”
“I have no idea. I’m gonna go pick up the small stones first, in any case.” Ray picked the stones as he tossed them into the basket that he was carrying, looking completely like a menial laborer.
“It’s logistics. That’s just how it goes,” Gu Fei patted him, consoling the man.
“What quest are you getting this time around?” Ray asked Gu Fei.
“I’ll know when I get back.”
“Oh, then I’ll leave you to it.”
The two men exchanged these casual few words in the middle of a battlefield between two forces that numbered in the thousands. They each went their own ways after, with Gu Fei entering the city while Ray gradually filled that basket of his up with rocks, as he became more and more encumbered.
Gu Fei hurried back to the City Hall, entering the building to find the Vigilante Corp while holding onto that scrap of burnt paper Sword Demon had found in the fireplace from before. He presented it to the Vigilante Corp captain while describing what he had discovered at the bottom of the lake.
The captain did not say a word for the longest time, which Gu Fei found to be a very discouraging sign. It appeared as if he was not able to complete this quest of his. Parallel World was stingy when it came to such things, not even giving a bit of a hint as to what to do, leaving players running left and right just wasting their game time.
Gu Fei was about to leave the chamber when he suddenly heard the voice of an old man that sounded like it was on the brink of death croak out, “That’s a Water Enchantment.”
“Who said that?” Gu Fei looked around the room, and saw in the corner of the Vigilante Corp Chamber stood a grubby looking old coot, hunchbacked and with a full head of wispy white beard. This old man was holding onto a magic staff that was even longer than the average man’s height and it wore an ocean blue Mage’s robe that reached the floor. It was even wearing a pointy wizard’s hat!
“And you are?” Gu Fei asked as he thought to himself, I don’t think I’ve seen such an NPC during my few trips here!
“I’m the Great Mage Austin,” That old man introduced himself.
Mage. Gu Fei was already very used to hearing this job class, but now that there was an additional word in front of it, claiming to not just be a Mage, but a Great Mage! Gu Fei immediately felt it must be a swindler.
Of course, an NPC would not know what Gu Fei was thinking, slamming the butt of his magic staff onto the floor as it spoke, “There any many kinds of Water Enchantment. This sort of spell is rather simple, but the fact that it was located underwater means its power is most unusual.”
Gu Fei understood that it was actually referring to the layer of film that he could not pierce or cut through. Since it was something the system had set up anyway, there was no need to talk about the theory behind it. It was up to the system with how powerful it wanted the film to be, so Gu Fei could not be bothered to listen to the Great Mage talk at length about what water magic it was, so he quickly asked, “How can I break it?”
“Any amount of physical force would be restricted when underwater. If you wish to break this Water Enchantment, it would be impossible to solely depend on brute force alone.” The Great Mage Austin continued.
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Gu Fei had no idea what else it wanted to talk about, so he decided to find a nearby chair and sat down, listening as the Great Mage bragged about how the Water Enchantment could hold out against a Hero’s strength, and the pulling force it had. After it droned on for a whole bunch, it finally ended its speech, “If you wish to break a Water Enchantment, you will have to find a preeminent Water Magician to undo the enchantment spell.”
When Gu Fei heard that it was finally on topic, he quickly got up, “Then if you would please, make the trip!” Gu Fei reckoned that it was another escort mission, and he was unsure if the old man would listen to his commands. Otherwise, Gu Fei was not very confident that he could safely escort someone with such an outstanding look to somewhere as far as Yunjiao Lake.
But he did not expect the Great Mage to slam the butt of his magic staff on the ground again, “Everybody knows that the Great Mage Austin is an erudite scholar that does not know magic.”
“Then what should I do?” Gu Fei asked.
“Go on then. Find a preeminent Water Magician to undo the enchantment spell,” the Great Mage answered.
“But where do I go to find one?” Gu Fei was tense.
The Great Mage appeared pensive, “Go on, hurry!”
The speechless Gu Fei turned to face the Vigilante Corp captain, hoping it would provide him with a little hint. The captain looked to be showing great concern as well, looking at Gu Fei, “Please!!”
The system simply refused to give a clear indication, and Gu Fei was just a noob when it came to gaming! He quickly tried to relay what he had learned to his friends, only to discover that the mercenary channel had once more regarded him to be part of the hostile force, and thus could not be used. Gu Fei made the sudden discovery that the mercenary channel was also region-locked like private messages; just like how Gu Fei was in the city right now, he did not have the permissions to get in contact with Brother Assist outside the city because that man belonged to the third party force.
Thus, Gu Fei could only privately message Sword Demon and tell him everything that happened regarding the quest.
“A Water Magician? Would a Mage that picked the Water Affinity do?” Sword Demon postulated.
“It can’t be that simple, could it? Even if we find a Water Mage, who could actually break that enchantment? What even is a Water Enchantment?” Gu Fei asked.
“I’ve never heard of it myself either,” Sword Demon admitted.
“This lousy quest…” Gu Fei sighed. “How are things over at your end? Has Oathless Sword made any move yet?”
“Sure enough, Traversing Four Seas has made comprehensive preparations. With over a thousand players, I doubt we will have any chance to strike. I think we can only wait till they are making their move, like when they are assaulting the city, and capitalize on the disorder of combat and strike.”
“Then we’ll just keep waiting. Anything from Young Master?” Gu Fei asked.
“I feel he must be keeping his eye on things somewhere nearby. I’ll walk around and have another look.”
“So what should I do with my quest?”
“How would I know? I still have no idea where I’m going to find that Bottlecap person!” Sword Demon scowled. The assassination quest to kill Small Bottlecap he had gotten from his Faction, League of Assassins, was still active, and it was really difficult due to the humble background of his target. Thus, there were two different interpretation at hand; Oathless Sword’s assassination was difficult to accomplish, but he was easily found, while that sort of nameless player would be easy to kill off, but was hard to locate…
“Water Enchantment…” Gu Fei sighed repeatedly. He knew that he lacked the depth of game knowledge, and he completely had no idea how to solve this quandary he was in. Sword Demon was an Assassin, he had done a certain level of research about the various job classes for the necessity of PK-ing, though it would not be anything too in-depth. Royal God Call might have better knowledge about things related to Mages, but it just so happened that Gu Fei had no way to contact him. He could have originally used the mercenary channel to do it, but he had coincidentally been kicked out of the group by Young Master Han. But he did not dare talk about the matter over the mercenary channel even if Royal God Call had not been kicked! With Young Master Han keeping watch, it was indefinitely a bad move to let that person learn about what he was doing.
Gu Fei went through his Friends’ list in a glance and first noticed Drifting’s name. He was without a doubt a highly skilled Mage, who also happened to be a Water Mage. Furthermore, he had a tendency to roam about, so perhaps he was also an unaffiliated player that did not join any guild? Gu Fei thought of this and hurried out of the city. He tried typing out a few As in the mercenary chat, and when he saw it got through, he swiftly tried to message Drifting, “Do you have a guild?”
Drifting’s reply was quick, “How are you able to message me!?”
When Gu Fei saw this, he immediately took the hint and replied with a question, “What’s your Faction?”
“Wayfarer’s Society. You?”
“Vigilante Corp. What’s yours about? Did you join it after traveling to a number of cities?” Gu Fei ventured a guess from the name of that Faction.
“Who knows? It’s all so vague. When the City Wars event started, the three of us all got thrown into the city when we got online, and with several tens of thousands of players outside the city, not a single one of our messages made it through! You’re in the same boat, right?”
“Yup!”
“What are you looking for me for?” Drifting was certain that Gu Fei had not reached out just for a casual chat.
“Just to consult with you on something. Do you know the spell, Water Enchantment?” Gu Fei asked.
“Aren’t you a Lightning Mage?” Drifting asked.
“I’m on a quest right now, and I need to break a Water Enchantment. It says I need some Water Magician. Do you understand what this means?” Gu Fei asked.
“What Enchantment?”
“It’s underwater. I have no idea what sort of thing it is, but it’s soft and impossible to be physically pushed open, stabbed or slashed,” Gu Fei said.
“Oh, I know that. Heh, this mystery is actually rather simple. The Enchantment is soft and can’t be broken, right? So you just have to find a Water Mage that has a spell that applies the Freeze effect and have them cast it on that Enchantment. This will cause it to freeze, which then makes it breakable, allowing you to shatter the enchantment. It’s that simple,” Drifting explained.
“Will a weapon with the Freeze effect work?” Gu Fei asked.
“Nope. Those sort of weapon effect would usually just reduce the speed of its target, and it would not actually have that complete freezing effect that spells produce,” Drifting said.
“Who knows such a spell? Do you?”
“I don’t, but Slyris from Xiawu City would,” Drifting said.
“Oh… Her… I wonder if it’s convenient for her to come over,” Gu Fei wondered.
“You can’t even message her, how are you gonna contact her?” Drifting sighed.
“She doesn’t seem to belong to any guild,” Gu Fei said.
“Yeah, but what has that got to do with anything?” Drifting asked.
“Tsk, you’ve not left the city walls, have you? You can contact the third party forces, especially those players who are not affiliated with guilds, once you step out of the city,” Gu Fei expressed his disdain to Drifting.
“Is there such a thing!” Drifting was shocked. He had indeed not stepped out of the city as of yet, and had merely been spending his time casting his spells up on the battlements blasting players. It was a safe and substantial method, so there was no need for him to head out of the city and risk his life.
“This third party forces, is there something to their existence?” Drifting wondered.
“You can ponder over it yourself!” Gu Fei said. If he remembered correctly, Drifting was also a schemer who was hardly the honest sort.
After Gu Fei finished messaging Drifting, Gu Fei tried to contact Slyris, “Are you in a guild?”
“Nope. What’s up?” Slyris replied.
“Oh, I have something I need help with. If it’s convenient for you, why don’t you come over to Yunduan City? I’ll cover your airfare to and fro,” Gu Fei said.
“Oh, sure,” Slyris answered.
“Wait a moment,” Gu Fei was outside the city at the moment, immediately pulling out two Teleportation scrolls, setting the coordinates for one before he headed to the mailbox and sent it out to Slyris. Ever since he became wealthy, Gu Fei had gotten a hold of several Teleportations scrolls, always making sure to have up to five to eight scrolls in hand. Gu Fei’s expenditure on this made him feel awkward even greeting Svelte Dancer whenever they met.
“I’ve sent it over, you may retrieve it!” Gu Fei said.
“Gotcha!” Slyris answered.
Gu Fei waited at the coordinates that he had written down, and in no time, the bright flash of white light that a Teleportation scroll gave off suddenly appeared, and two figures appeared from within it.
“Hi~~” Yan Xiaozhu pulled a face at Gu Fei.