Chapter 177 - The System's Misplaced Money
The man before Gu Fei was Sakurazaka Moony, the founder of the Forever in Flowers Guild. When it came to men, Sakurazaka Moony was definitely the most detestable sort that he had encountered. What actually angered Gu Fei more was that this deplorable man looked more innocuous and cuter than Royal God Call.
Gu Fei's presence made Sakurazaka Moony anxious. In his eyes, a man who could mix into a pure women guild like fish in water would be akin to a legendary love god; such a fierce competitor was something he did not want to face. This was why he had blabbered on upon seeing Gu Fei. Gu Fei had yet to say a word, but Sakurazaka Moony's voice already sounded his insecurity and uncertainty.
Gu Fei looked at him then at Vast Lushness, not knowing what to say.
Vast Lushness had been in this situation many times in the past as a beautiful gamer. Standing up, she unperturbedly said to Gu Fei, "I'm returning the stall to you." With that, he received the system notification for the stall's transfer of ownership.
Sakurazaka Moony gawked at the two of them, "You two know each other?"
Gu Fei nodded his head. He was now behind the stall, while Vast Lushness was back on the street.
"You're too much! Are you trying to catch all the babes for yourself?!" Sakurazaka Moony angrily asked.
Gu Fei lowered his head. He felt that answering this man's question was the same as stooping to his level.
"I'm leaving!" Vast Lushness had been treating Sakurazaka Moony like air all this while. Waving goodbye to Gu Fei, she hurriedly left. Sakurazaka Moony immediately chased after her and continued to pester her, "Babe, what's your name? My name's Sakurazaka Moony. You can call me Zakie!"
Gu Fei hurriedly explained to the merchants on his left and right, "I don't know that guy."
"Mhm!" The two players vaguely acknowledged Gu Fei's words. They were currently feeling nauseated at the sight unfolding before them.
Vast Lushness finally exploded, "You're NOISY. Stop following me!" A lady experiencing the adoration of a male player would feel honored in other circumstances, but it was a different case altogether if the admirer was someone like Sakurazaka Moony.
Sakurazaka Moony remained persistent, though. Few beautiful women played Parallel World, and a natural beauty like Vast Lushness was even harder to find. Thus, Sakurazaka Moony was not planning to give up on wooing her, unless his skull got bashed in beyond recovery. "Where do you wanna go, babe? I'll accompany you... You're from Yueye City, so you must be unfamiliar here. I'll take you for a tour! There's a lake with great view on the outskirt of Yunduan City; wanna go there and have a look?" Sakurazaka Moony smile lasciviously. Every player in Yunduan City knew of what people mainly did over by Yunjiao Lakeside.
"Scram! SCRAM!" Vast Lushness took out her healing staff and drove Sakurazaka Moony away with it.
It seemed that Sakurazaka Moony had the knack for annoying a lady, as he actually drove the Priest Vast Lushness into using her staff like a rod to beat him up. He was even cheekily snickering as he dodged her staff, "Where are we going? Is it Yunjiao Lakeside?"
Vast Lushness went mad at this! She would not even bat an eye when she killed people. Right now, she wished to shred Sakurazaka Moony into pieces. But she was a Priest, so she would not be able to kill him even if her level was the same as him."Just kill me already!" She screamed in frustration instead as she waved her staff viciously.
"Why would I do that? I wanna protect you. It's quite dangerous for a Priest like you to roam Yunduan City alone. After all, there are many bad men, especially lewd ones, around here!" Sakurazaka Moony clearly did not intend to retaliate at her, yet he was so brazen that everyone was sweating in anxiety!
Vast Lushness tried to flee, but Sakurazaka Moony caught up to her with his faster speed than Gu Fei's, "Shall I take your hand? You can move faster that way."
Vast Lushness chose to ignore him. Her eyes stared fixedly ahead as if she was on her own.
Sakurazaka Moony was unfazed by this and continued to walk beside her.
"Bro, you're so persistent!" Someone sighed in admiration to Sakurazaka Moony.
Sakurazaka Moony smiled as he stopped walking and said loudly, "Never take 'no' for an answer! Never give up!" He then hurried forward, leaving a very flabbergasted crowd behind.
Gu Fei was the most stunned among all these people as he personally knew the two. Vast Lushness was a very vicious player, yet her non-combat job class prevented her from duking it out with Sakurazaka Moony. As for Sakurazaka Moony, he would never kill a lady even with Vast Lushness' personality. His audacious declaration just now was a testament to how thick-skinned he was.
Vast Lushness, you've finally met your match today, Gu Fei sighed to himself, unsure if this meeting was a blessing or a curse.
It was definitely a curse for Gu Fei, as Sakurazaka Moony had virtually disrupted his business. Vast Lushness would have bought four to five pieces of equipment from Gu Fei had she not been chased off by that detestable man.
That scoundrel! Gu Fei muttered to himself. Taking out his coin purse, he counted his money once more. Counting money again and again was a common act to everyone when he or she wished for the money to magically increase in quantity. Naturally, that was something that would never come true. Nothing had changed, as his coin purse still contained only 43 gold coins.
Sigh! Gu Fei dejectedly exhaled as he reached into his dimensional pocket, trying to search for some loose coins. This search actually caused him to freeze up. When his hand came out of his dimensional pocket, Gu Fei was holding a dark red coin purse.
The person who had designed Parallel World's dimensional pocket must be a fan of Doraemon. When players reached into their dimensional pockets, they could only rely on their sense of touch. Fortunately, the items could be sorted into slots inside the dimensional pocket. As long as the players arranged their items properly, they could reach into the designated spots and retrieve the items they needed.
Few items were stored inside the players' dimensional pockets in the early stages of the game, so taking out items was easy for them. But as days went by, the dimensional pockets began to fill up and the players would now often make mistakes when taking out things. Situations where a player pulled out a loaf of bread instead of a sword happened quite often, resulting into much laughter.
Thus, many players made it a habit to properly arrange the items inside their dimensional pockets and practiced the art of quickly pulling out weapons or items.
Gu Fei was already an expert when it came to taking out items from his dimensional pocket without taking out the wrong items. But the thing was, he was so used to using the same few slots that he never realized another coin purse had somehow appeared inside one of the slots that he seldom placed items into.
He could not make sense of how he had acquired this coin purse. Gu Fei had never counted his money until today, so he had never been fully aware of all his assets. He would only grab out his coin purse from its designated slot when he had something to pay.
The coin purse in-game worked exactly like a safety deposit box. As long as the coin purse contained money, his hand would always grab something when he reached inside it. Gu Fei did just that and managed to grab quite a lot inside his deep red coin purse. His eyes widened as the count increased to a total of 429 gold coins.
The large amount of gold coins allowed Gu Fei to remember where he had acquired it. It was his previous winnings from inside the prison!
Gu Fei had won this large sum from playing dice with Silver Moon and his accomplices while serving time inside the prison.
He did not know why the system had seen it fit to store these coins in a separate money pouch, but it had caused him to miss them entirely. Misplacing money was a good habit that would create sudden surprise. Gu Fei elatedly thought that the system was so nice to have done this for him.
Now that Gu Fei was rich again, he no longer had to stick to this merchant life. Selling the pile of items to the player beside him for 20 gold coins, he walked off with his hands folded behind his head.
He went back to the Mage Academy and paid the Job Class Advancement fee of 200 gold coins. The NPC instructor beamingly told Gu Fei that he could now choose between Water Affinity Initiation or Lightning Affinity Initiation.
Since this was a huge decision, the system responsibly handed over a spell guidebook to Gu Fei. This guidebook went into detail about Water Affinity and Lightning Affinity and reminded the Mage how important his or her choice was.
Gu Fei had already decided to choose Water Affinity Initiation. He cared not for the differences between the two affinities, as he only wanted the freezing effect that Water Mages could induce.
Gu Fei casually flipped through the guidebook for a while. Just as he was about to begin his initiation, he heard someone from behind call out to him, "Oh, it's you. Long time no see!"
Gu Fei turned his head and looked. It was Fleeting Smile. This person's name had indeed not been online for quite some time. He thought that Fleeting Smile had finished his testing of the game and had thus decided to not play it anymore. Gu Fei felt quite sad to have lost his walking encyclopedia.
Meeting each other after a long time, the first thing Gu Fei did was used his Appraisal skill on Fleeting Smile. The latter was only at level 32. It seemed that he had really stopped playing the game for quite some time, as the equipment he had on was very common. Had Gu Fei not hawked off that pile of trashy gear just then, quite a few items would still have been of use to Fleeting Smile. "Long time no see!" Gu Fei replied.
"I've been really busy, so I didn't have time to play," Fleeting Smile sighed.
"Any insider info?" Gu Fei casually asked.
"I'm a scrup—"
"Okay, I got it!" Although it had been a while since they had last met, Gu Fei still remembered the line that this guy had always been using.
Fleeting Smile spied the spell guidebook in Gu Fei's hands and smiled, "Oh, you're about to do your Job Class Advancement?"
Gu Fei nodded his head.
"Which affinity are you choosing?" Fleeting Smile asked.
"Water Affinity," Gu Fei answered.
Fleeting Smile furrowed his brows. Based on the data they had collected, around 80% of the Mages that that had done their Job Class Advancement chose to be Water Mages.
While this did not affect the game company's profit, the matter still hurt the game designers' pride. Since they had painstakingly designed a full system of skills and effects for a Lightning Mage, the majority of Mages' act of choosing Water Affinity seemed to signify their rejection of the game designers' other creation.
Fleeting Smile believed that neither of the two Job Class Advancement choices for Mages held any sort of advantage over the other. While the Water Mages' freezing effect could slow its targets' speed, the Lightning Mages' paralyzing effect could prevent its targets from using their skills. Furthermore, the Mages with Lightning Affinity had fast spell-casting time and high Magic Attack Power....
At this point, Fleeting Smile was feeling quite indignant for the Lightning Affinity, so all he thought about was the pros of it. Seeing that Gu Fei was about to join the army of Water Mages, he could not help but say, "Why are you choosing the Water Affinity? Lightning Affinity is equally strong, too!"
Chapter 178 - The Birth of a Lightning Mage
Gu Fei asked wryly, "Is that so?" It's true that he is an employee of the gaming company, but surely he can't just magically turn a Lightning Mage into one that has freezing effect, right? Besides that effect, Gu Fei wanted nothing else.
"Why do you wanna choose Water Affinity?" Fleeting Smile asked, wanting to understand the players' fundamental thought.
"Freezing effect," Gu Fei replied.
"Hmm, this…" Fleeting Smile was at a loss for words. If that was really the reason, then he could do nothing about it.
This effect was the specialty of Water Affinity, after all. Fleeting Smile would be shooting himself on the foot if he said that Water Affinity's freezing effect could not compare to Lightning Affinity's paralyzing effect, as they were the ones who had created the two affinities' systems.
Right now, he could only emphasize on Lightning Affinity's positive aspects. Many players had not chosen Lightning Affinity because they had not discovered its advantages.
"A player won't be able to use skills when under the paralyzing effect. Someone who has no access to his or her skills is as dangerous as a monster that is drawn on paper. You've been playing Parallel World longer than I have, so you should understand what I mean. Lightning Affinity has many instant-cast spells, too. If you're able to use those spells well, you won't have to allocate many points toward Spirit and can pump them all into Intelligence if you prefer. Adding the Lightning Affinity's high damage output, the attack you dish out will be very frightening!" Fleeting Smile was alarmed as he finished saying this, as he felt that the reasons he had just given might not sound attracting to Gu Fei, the full-Agility Mage. He has a full-Agility build, so it's practically useless to tell him how Intelligence or Spirit could affect his abilities.
What Fleeting Smile did not realize was that something he had said actually moved Gu Fei.
Instant-cast spells!
This was something tempting to Gu Fei. Among his Fire Affinity spells, only Twin Incineration was an instant-cast spell. Gu Fei preferred using it precisely because he could easily mix it into his kung fu. Evidently, that was the advantage of instant-cast spells to him.
Thinking about it more, Gu Fei's Twin Incineration actually already had a high Magic Attack Power to complement his sword style. Was there a need to acquire more instant-cast spells? He merely wanted to use his kung fu, so what was the point of getting all those instant-cast spells if he could not slow his enemies down with the freezing effect of a Water Mage?
As Gu Fei pondered on this, Fleeting Smile continued to promote the wonders of Lightning Affinity. Gu Fei took the chance when Fleeting Smile was taking a breath to ask, "Does Lightning Affinity have the freezing effect?"
Feeling annoyed at having wasted his breath to explain Lightning Affinity's advantages to Gu Fei, Fleeting Smile remarked, "If it is just the freezing effect, plenty of weapons out there have that as an effect. As for the paralyzing effect of Lightning Affinity, it is rarely found in weapons!"
While his argument made sense, it was not applicable to a Mage. In Parallel World, a player needed to directly hit his or her opponent with a weapon to activate its effect. As for a Mage, casting a spell did not require him or her to make contact with the target. Was there even a Mage out there who would use his or her magic stave to whack people directly?
However, this warped logic that was not applicable to most Mages highly fit Gu Fei's fighting style. He was once more moved by Fleeting Smile's argument, yet doubts quickly surfaced on his mind again, "Why would I need to use a weapon with freezing effect if I have access to the freezing spells as a Water Mage? That would just be me doing something unnecessary!"
Fleeting Smile patiently reasoned, "I'm only worried that you're choosing Water Affinity solely for its freezing effect, resulting in much regret in the future. Lightning Affinity is really awesome, too!"
"I say, isn't it unfair for a scrupulous gaming employee to guide players in their decision-making?" Gu Fei asked. Fleeting Smile obviously wanted to convince Gu Fei toward choosing Lightning Affinity.
"Preposterous!" Fleeting Smile hurriedly refuted, saying, "It's just that so many Mages don't seem to have insight on the advantages that Lightning Affinity provides, which is why I'm elaborating so much here. I just hope that a certain someone would make a sound decision. I just don't want players regretting their decisions later."
"So what are the advantages of Lightning Affinity?"
"Weren't you listening to me all this while?" Fleeting Smile asked, irked.
"Actually, I only need Water Affinity's freezing effect to reduce my opponents' fast speed. That way, I can easily chase after them," Gu Fei explained.
"Easily chase after the enemies?" Fleeting Smile was shocked, "But Lightning Affinity is more suitable for that!"
"Why?"
"Because… Lightning Affinity has the Blink skill!" Fleeting Smile revealed.
"Blink?" Gu Fei was in a daze.
Blink was a skill that the Mage job class would have in most games, except its name varied from game to game. Some MMOs called the skill 'Spiritual Teleportation' or other similar sounding names, yet its effect remained the same: It allowed the user to move from one place to another at a certain distance instantly.
Gu Fei had little experience playing other MMOs, so he did not know of this. Flipping through his spell guidebook to get a basic idea of the skill, he asked, "What does it do?"
"It allows a Mage to move from one place to another instantly. The skill is part of Lightning Affinity in Parallel World. It's not indicated in the official skill tree, though," Fleeting Smile explained.
"Move instantly!" Gu Fei was no longer just feeling moved by Fleeting Smile's speech. Having fast movement speed was nothing compared to being able to move instantly, after all!
"What level will this skill be available?" Gu Fei asked. He could barely wait to try it out.
"Uhm... It's quite a late game skill, but it can be learned through skill scrolls," Fleeting Smile answered.
"Lightning Affinity, it is!" Gu Fei resolved.
"Hmm, that—" Fleeting Smile still wanted to add more, yet Gu Fei already had electricity crackling all over himself. Clearly, he had already begun the process for Lightning Affinity Initiation.
It was too late to regret anything at this point, as the process of advancing a job class could not be stopped by simply pressing the 'stop' button.
[Congratulations Player Thousand Miles Drunk for your successful Job Class Advancement to a Lightning Mage! Your magic has already integrated the properties of lightning.] Gu Fei was notified by the system of this after a short while.
At the same time, he had acquired his first spell as a Lightning Mage....
[Thunderbolt
Effect: Can strike a target with heavenly lightning.
Incantation: Thunderbolt, Strike]
Gu Fei was quite speechless, asking Fleeting Smile, "When you said Lightning Mage's spells are faster to cast, did you mean that their incantations are shorter?"
The most basic mage spell, Fireball, was the only other incantation with two words. To think that level 40 Lightning Mage spell would also be a two-word incantation. Somehow, the amount of words in an incantation seemed to determine the casting speed of a spell.
In fact, many Mages had practiced hard to ensure that their pronunciation of such incantations would be clear and concise.
"Of course, not! Casting spell is really faster as a Lightning Mage. You'll understand this once you cast a spell," Fleeting Smile vehemently denied.
"Okay!" Gu Fei nodded his head in satisfaction. He liked fast. "Anything else that you would like to add about Lightning Affinity?" Gu Fei asked Fleeting Smile. He remembered that Fleeting Smile seemed to be about to say something regarding Lightning Affinity while he was undergoing the initiation for it.
Fleeting Smile's heart thumped fast when he saw how lively Gu Fei was being. Have I unintentionally done something inappropriate again? I somehow want to establish a cordial relationship with him, yet I have ended up giving him a huge helping hand. Have I actually helped him become more formidable?
Gu Fei who had brought his full set of kung fu skills into Parallel World indeed broke the game's framework in a way. Despite being a Mage, he was closer to possessing a melee job class.
Blink was originally a spell intended to let a Mage escape pursuit or distance himself or herself from the enemy. With Gu Fei likely acquiring it in the future, some sort of cataclysmic event might result from this foreseeable unholy matrimony.
Fleeting Smile had indeed unintentionally led Gu Fei on to an even brighter future.
"Oh, yeah! I have something I've been wanting to ask you," Gu Fei quipped when he noticed Fleeting Smile remaining quiet for quite a while.
"What is it?" The energy Fleeting Smile had shown when enticing Gu Fei to take Lightning Affinity was now gone and on its place was listlessness.
"Take a look," Gu Fei took out Moonlit Nightfalls and passed it over to Fleeting Smile.
The muscles on Fleeting Smile's face twitched. His wish to ban Gu Fei from the game was being strongly tested right now. How could the other players on his same level compete against him when he possesses this weapon that is leagues beyond others?
However, Gu Fei did not know of Fleeting Smile's current state of mind and merely asked, "This sword is called Moonlit Nightfalls. Can you see its traits?"
"No need. I know about it," Fleeting Smile replied. Some pieces of the top-grade equipment found in-game were the proud creations of them, and Moonlit Nightfalls was among those. Fleeting Smile knew very well the sword's traits and value without looking at it.
"This sword has a skill called 'Impending Nightfall' that I haven't been able to meet the conditions for use even now. What exactly are these conditions?" Gu Fei asked.
"You naturally won't be able to meet the conditions for it, since you've not even fulfilled the equipment requirement," Fleeting Smile replied.
"Is that so?" Gu Fei felt a little disappointed. He would have tried finding a way around this restriction if there had been a workable method. In the end, it was because he failed to meet the equipment requirement to utilize the sword's full potential.
Reaching Moonlit Nightfalls' Sword Aptitude and Spell Aptitude requirements was necessary to unlocking the sword's full potential. Gu Fei had been depending on his Midnight Spirit Robe to somehow meet the Spell Aptitude requirement, yet his Sword Aptitude still had a long way to go.
According to the current players' experimentations, adding points toward Strength could increase one's Sword Aptitude. Gu Fei's Agility had yet to reach a level he was contented with, so he did not plan to allocate his points toward Strength at present. Besides, he was only curious of Moonlit Nightfalls' skill and was not in a rush to acquire it. When it came to a PvP, Gu Fei still mainly relied on his kung fu skills.
In fact, Gu Fei found instkilling a whole swath of enemies with Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno as insipid despite others deeming it as something amazing and OP. Thus, Gu Fei had nothing else to add once he heard Fleeting Smile's reply.
This ensuing silence instantly made Fleeting Smile feel depressed. He had just decided to no longer help Gu Fei out, so he had been planning to coldly reply at him if he asked for information about Aptitude. Who would have guessed that Gu Fei would not bother to pry any further or ask another question.
Just as Fleeting Smile was about to say something, Gu Fei waved his hand to him and said, "Carry on with what you need to do, then. I'm logging off." In a flash of white light, Gu Fei had disappeared.
"AHHH!" Fleeting Smile felt so dismayed by Gu Fei's anti-climatic response that he really wanted to give himself a good stab with a knife.