Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

What kind of lousy remark is that? Gu Fei muttered to himself while reevaluating his impression of Left Hand of Love. Conventionally speaking, a gay man like him should not be so worked up upon seeing a group of ladies, and such a reaction should be reserved for when he chanced upon a ‘top-grade’ man like Young Master Han. Could it be that my speculation is wrong and there’s nothing suspicious going on between these two? He looked backward and saw that the two were once again whispering closely among themselves. Whatever the case might be, the weird vibe Gu Fei was sensing from Left Hand of Love and Right Hand of Cool’s interaction made it hard for him to conclude what was really up between the two.

Arriving by the group of ladies, Gu Fei felt slightly startled as he saw yet another familiar face among them. “Will-low, you are here, too!” Gu Fei greeted her.

The two had yet to meet again after Will-low made Yunduan City her ‘home’ and joined the Amethyst Rebirth Guild at Gu Fei’s request. The most they did was greet each other occasionally by sending pointless messages, such as “You there?” and “Yeah, I am!” Sometimes, Gu Fei would look through the members list of Amethyst Rebirth on the guild tab and see Will-low’s level rising at a rapid rate. As expected from someone who was originally from Yueye City, she was very aware that power was everything in a game. Will-low’s level was initially in the twenties, yet she was now a high-ranking member of Amethyst Rebirth. In fact, Will-low was currently at level 39 just like Gu Fei, and he suspected that her experience points were higher than his.

Will-low’s body was still as skinny as ever. If such a body belonged to a man, then it would be what people would call as ‘skin and bones’. In a woman, this kind of body was what people would deem as ‘slender’. Will-low smiled faintly and said, “I heard you are leading a party for level grinding, so of course I wanna tag along.”

Gu Fei laughed sheepishly and said, “It’s not exactly ‘leading’ to me; it’s more like I’m their laborer.” This certainly seemed to be the case yesterday over at the level 50 grinding map, as the monster luring, commanding, and inflicting the final blow on monsters were all done by Gu Fei. Furthermore, he had to endure Luo Luo’s teasing with her Heal skill the whole time. Frankly speaking, Gu Fei failed to find any benefits from grinding together with the ladies besides him receiving different types of free fruits.

Meanwhile, Drifting and the other two were feeling completely dumbfounded. When Gu Fei said previously that he was leaving to grind with others, they never imagined that the ‘others’ would be referring to a bunch of women. This guy is quite capable, alright! The three gave him a thumbs-up mentally. He’s a really talented man.

Gu Fei did not forget about the three. Pulling them over, he introduced, “These three are Drifting, Left Hand of Love, and Right Hand of Cool!”

Drifting was the number one Mage in the entire server of Parallel World and was the top five on the level leaderboard. Thus, he was currently holding his head up and waiting for the excited screaming of the ladies. And yet, the ladies merely glimpsed past him and focused their eyes on to Left Hand of Love and Right Hand of Cool instead. They all said in unison, “Wow! You two’s names are so moe!”

Four grown men suddenly turned into clueless youngsters, not having an idea of what the ladies had just said. Drifting waited for quite a while, yet nobody bothered to ask anything about him, as the ladies were all busying themselves with teasing Left Hand of Love and Right Hand of Cool repeatedly. Gu Fei pulled Luo Luo over to ask, “What’s a ‘moe’? What does it mean?”

Luo Luo explained, "Take a look at how ‘moe’ is written in Chinese. The character for moe (萌) is made up of grass (艹), sun (日), and moon (月). The sun and moon symbolize Yin and Yang, which can also be interpreted as a man and a woman. So moe (萌) means that a man and a woman are hiding underneath the grass, implying an affair! Basically, ‘moe’ in this current context means that those two’s names are already hinting to an unconventional affair between them.”

To think that there is such deep knowledge behind all this! Gu Fei was simply blown away. After living for over twenty years, he just found out that ‘moe’ originated from ancient pictograms. What he did not know was that Luo Luo had just come up with such a nonsensical explanation.

“Come and join us, you three!” Luo Luo sent the three an invitation to party with them.

The trio hastily made their way over to party with the ladies. Drifting was the number one Mage in Parallel World and one of the top five players on the overall leaderboard, so those two tagging alongside him were of course no ordinary players as well. However, when faced with the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies, the three gaming experts’ gracefulness had all but vanished,turning into a kind of ‘awkwardness’ instead as the three were not used to interacting with such a large group of ladies before. The might of an all-female party was not something to be scoffed at, after all.

The grinding party set off to a grinding map vibrantly. The little girl who had ‘interviewed’ Gu Fei yesterday found a new target in Left Hand of Love and went up to him for more gossip materials. And over at where Drifting was, Ice Glaze made the first move of approaching him, “Excuse me. Are you the one on the Mages’ leaderboard that—”

“YES! YES! THAT’S ME!” Drifting was overjoyed to the point that he felt like crying. Oh, heavens! Someone finally recognized me! Drifting’s gracefulness of being an expert gamer found its way back to him, and the fiery glow of his magic staff began to shine brightly again.

“How did you grind your levels? Your leveling rate is so fast!” Ice Glaze asked.

Gu Fei thought that the question was neither hard nor easy to answer, but it was one that they could spend a long time discussing. Oh, Drifting, one inquiry from a lady is all it takes to knock your feet off... What happened to that guy who dauntlessly burned five people to their deaths inside a tavern?

However, Gu Fei should not be so full of himself, as he was also being targeted by the ladies. Luo Luo bestowed Heal on to him while shouting, “Get yourself into the party! What are you thinking to yourself right now?” They were about to exit the city, but Gu Fei had yet to accept Luo Luo’s party request.

Will-low also got herself near Gu Fei, “It’s so hard to actually see you!”

“Is that so?”

“Yup. For one, you never involved yourself in any guild activities before,” Will-low said.

“Uh... That’s actually true...” Gu Fei admitted weakly.

“Why?” Will-low asked.

“Not used to it. It’s all girls over there,” Gu Fei answered.

“What’s so bad about that?” Will-low asked, eyeing Gu Fei weirdly. “To be able to play together with so many beauties... Many people are hoping for such a chance!”

“I’m used to grinding alone,” Gu Fei replied. Having to repeat that phrase these past few days, he could not help but grow weary of it.

Will-low did not question him further and changed the subject instead, “I met Coward’s Savior yesterday, by the way.”

“Huh? He came over to Yunduan City? But he didn’t contact me!” Gu Fei opened the tab for his friends list to have a look and saw that Coward’s Savior was currently offline.

“You’re not online at that time,” Will-low explained.

“Oh,” Gu Fei felt relieved. Ever since Gu Fei left Yueye City, Coward’s Savior had been keeping in contact with him. This was because he had promised to Coward’s Savior before that he would teach him the Mantis Fist Style.

Many different styles existed for the Mantis Fist. The few kung fu moves that Coward’s Savior could execute belonged to the Seven Stars Mantis Fist Style, while the one that Gu Fei knew was the Six Harmonies Mantis Fist Style. They were two separate styles that had different specialties in terms of fighting methods and techniques. Although Gu Fei never thoroughly researched Seven Stars Mantis Fist Style before, his foundation and qualification in kung fu should be sufficient for him to give Coward’s Savior a few pointers.

With Gu Fei’s mentality of being a role model to others and being responsible until the very end, he specially went to Xinhua Bookstore1 to buy a kung fu manual for the Seven Stars Mantis Fist Style just to properly research it. Sorting out all the information and adding some essential kung fu pointers that were not disclosed in the manual, he sent everything to Coward’s Savior.

Coward’s Savior remained offline for days after receiving the soft copy of Gu Fei’s custom made guidebook for Seven Stars Mantis Fist Style. He got online one time, but it was only to tell Gu Fei that he was training hard at home!

Gu Fei thought that such an attitude was very admirable as it showed that Coward’s Savior was a true kung fu lover. He promptly suggested to Coward’s Savior to come over at Yunduan City so that Gu Fei could personally guide him in his training.

At that time, Coward’s Savior was so absorbed into honing his Mantis Fist Style in reality that he was not even willing to waste three hours to travel from Yueye City to Yunduan City. Thus, he temporarily put the matter on hold. And yet, Gu Fei just learned from Will-low that Coward’s Savior had arrived at Yunduan City. He must have reached some obstacles in his self-training so he was now seeking Gu Fei’s guidance.

“He seems to be looking for you,” Will-low continued saying.

“Yeah, I know,” Gu Fei nodded his head in affirmation.

“What is it about?” Will-low asked.

“Is nosiness a common trait among women?” Gu Fei laughingly asked.

Will-low felt slightly embarrassed, as she blushingly said, “I am just curious!”

Since it was not some kind of secret, Gu Fei did not hide it from her, “You can come and join us in kung fu discussions!”

“Kung fu?” Will-low asked, confused.

“Mantis Fist Style!” Gu Fei gestured with his hands and posed in a mantis-like stance. He then glanced over at Will-low, only to see that she was gazing at him as if he was an idiot.

Argh! A gaze like this is just too familiar, Gu Fei sighed to himself. He said aloud, “You may not believe this, but I know kung fu.”

“Oh, no wonder you are so powerful!” Will-low had a sudden realization.

“You believe me just like that?” Gu Fei asked, shocked.

“You are so good at PvP, so I have no choice but to believe you!” Will-low said. She then requested, “Teach me as well!”

“You are interested, too?” Gu Fei asked.

Will-low nodded her head, “There’s no downside to learning kung fu, right?”

“It can make you sturdier...” Gu Fei inspected her body structure as he answered. Too skinny... I keep having this weird urge to grab her and snap her in half! It was not the first time that Gu Fei thought like this when he saw Will-low.

Describing a lady using the word ‘sturdy’ was obviously a bit improper, so Will-low naturally started to feel a little scared of Gu Fei’s words.

Gu Fei was also quick to react to the situation. Will-low will probably only use kung fu inside the game, so there shan’t be any effect on strengthening the physical body... He immediately laughed and said, “I am just joking! Let’s research it together when there’s time in the future.”

Will-low heaved a sigh of relief and nodded her head.

The bunch of people went along the route that they had taken yesterday and arrived at the level 50 grinding map. Parallel World might have various cities, but the monsters in all the grinding maps were more or less the same. After eyeing the surroundings, Drifting immediately recognized that they had arrived at a level 50 grinding map. He was stunned, “The monsters here are at level 50. Are we really going to grind on such high level monsters?”

He had long finished appraising the ladies of Amethyst Rebirth. With the ladies’ pitiful levels and equipment, they were definitely incapable of clashing with monsters beyond their levels. As for Thousand Miles Drunk... Although Drifting was unsure of his sword’s features, he was certain that this fellow should not be able to contribute a high damage output since he was an all-Agility Mage.

He was still pondering on this when Gu Fei came over and laughingly said, “You’re the number one Mage, yet you can’t deal with monsters ten levels higher?”

Drifting finally had some idea of what was going on now. Seems like they’ve only chosen to grind on these high level monsters because of me. Although they didn’t say it aloud, they actually have such high regards for my capability! Drifting could not help but feel a little proud of himself right now. He was actually not a vain person. But seeing how the ladies were more interested in Left Hand of Love and Right Hand of Cool instead of fawning over a first-rate player like him just now, a little void had been formed in his heart.

When there was void inside people’s hearts, some slight delusion was necessary to fill the emptiness within, just like what Drifting was doing right now. He had deluded himself into thinking that he was the reason that this party of people had chose to level grind on these level 50 monsters. Feeling really good with himself, he thumped his chest and said, “You have me in your party now! Just feast your eyes on what happens next!”

Chapter Notes:

[1] Xinhua Bookstore - is country-wide bookstore chain in China.