CHAPTER 6 – A MAGE THAT RAN SO FAST!

“Where are we going?” Fireball couldn’t help but ask as he watched Cloud City and the beginner levelling area becoming more and more distant.

“It’s impossible to train with so many people over there. I’ll take you to a different place,” Gu Fei quickly replied.

“Where to though?” Fireball looked around in confusion. They were surrounded by endless mountains, which was obviously completely different from the terrain right outside of the town. In most games, this signified that they had entered a new area.

Gu Fei did not answer him, and instead led him up a nearby hill. Pointing at the little pond right at the bottom of the hill, he said, “Look! Over there…” As he turned around to see Fireball’s expression, he realized that the latter was no longer walking behind him. A second later, he heard Fireball’s voice coming from below, “Fuck! Duck, now! Do you not want to live anymore? They’re going to see us!” He was already on the floor slowly moving backward to hide his head behind some nearby bushes, while also attempting to lower his voice when he warned Gu Fei. It looked extremely exhausting.

“What are you doing?” Gu Fei was pissed and amused at the same time.

“Those are Vagrants! Do you know what level they are? I can’t believe you took me here. I’ll just go back to the beginner area right outside the city and fight the monsters there!” As Fireball spoke, he had already backed out quite a bit before he finally dared to raise his head.

“How hard can it be? Watch!” Gu Fei laughed as he reached into his Mage robe.

“What are you doing?!!” Fireball could not be more shocked as he saw Gu Fei pull out a dagger out from under his robe.

“You are… a Thief?” Fireball froze.

“Fireball!” Gu Fei yelled.

“Yeah?” At the same time when Fireball answered him, he saw a [Fireball] burning in front of Gu Fei.

Perhaps his outfit couldn’t guarantee his class, but he definitely wasn’t able to fake a skill. Gu Fei was, without a doubt, a Mage.

“A Mage!” Fireball nodded, “But, what are you doing with a dagger?”

“Killing the monsters!” Gu Fei said as he ran down the hill.

“Are you nuts?” Fireball yelled as he crawled forward to observe Gu Fei who was already half way down the hill.

“I’ll be damned. A Mage can run this fast?!” he didn’t seem to be able to stop yelling. Right then, Gu Fei was spotted by the 6 NPCs. Immediately, the six of them stood up and encircled him.

“He’s screwed! He’s definitely going to die… What a newbie!” Fireball said to himself. Meanwhile, the six NPCs simultaneously attacked Gu Fei from all sides. This group of weak NPCs were a single pack and would help each other during battle making it exceedingly hard for a single player to take all of them out. Fireball didn’t dare to blink; he was afraid that if he did, Gu Fei would have already died and turned into a beam of white light.

However, something unbelievable happened next. Gu Fei smoothly walked around the six as the dagger in his hand drew beautiful lines in the air, resulting in countless splashes of blood. The NPCs seemed unable to do anything but scream out in pain.

Fireball seemed to have lost the capability to blink. He opened his mouth wide and breathed deeply. “What the heck?! Who the hell is he? Six Level 20 NPCs are totally under his control and all of their attacks miss. No wait… It seems like they aren’t actual misses, but that he actively avoids them. What level is he? Level 40? Level 50? Eh, but the game has only been open to the public for a day, how can someone level up so quickly? Wait… even if he is already at such a high level, why would he – a Mage – jump into a group of six monsters?! Could this be a hidden account? Hidden class? The legendary Game Wrecker?” As millions of thoughts ran through his head, Gu Fei had indeed turned into a beam of white light, which was the white light that signaled that he had leveled up. This was because he had already knocked down the six small monsters. As a result of his speed increasing by a considerable amount, other than having an additional small butchering knife as his weapon, Gu Fei’s efficiency had considerably increased as well.

Fireball crawled up from the ground and waved his arms wildly at Gu Fei.

After looting the NPCs Gu Fei walked back toward Fireball with a careless smile on his face. From his point of view, killing these six systematic NPCs was the easiest thing ever.

“Big brother, what level are you at?” Fireball’s face was full of envy.

Gu Fei checked out his profile before looking back up and replying, “Level 10.”

“Huh?! Level 10?” Fireball who had just stood up not too long ago, sat back down on the ground. “Do you have any idea what level they were at?” he pointed at the bodies of the six dead NPCs while asking.

“I think I saw somewhere on the website that they were like Level 20 or something close to that,” Gu Fei answered truthfully.

“A Level 10 killed a group of Level 20 monsters… A one sided one versus six even!” Fireball nodded as he spoke while trying to convince himself, even though he had just witnessed it all with his own eyes.

“So what? Killing is just killing!” Gu Fei couldn’t care less.

Fireball could only widen his eyes and mouth at this point, “What the heck is this? Could he be hacking the system? Eh, how would you even hack the system in a virtual reality game?”

“I know Kung Fu!” Gu Fei laughed as he interrupted Fireball’s train of thoughts.

“Damn, you can use Kung Fu in this game?” Fireball mumbled to himself.

Before Gu Fei could reply, he heard someone yell from the other side of the hill, “I found them! They’re over there!”

Following the sound, he saw someone standing at the bottom of the right side of the hill, signaling others to come to him. When they walked a little bit in that direction, they finally saw several dozen players all coming toward the person who had initially shouted out.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?” Fireball looked in confusion at these players as he continued to ask, “Is there a BOSS?” He then searched the area around him, only to find the bodies of the six monsters that were killed by Gu Fei.

“They are targeting us,” Gu Fei calmly said.

“How do you know?” Fireball asked.

“I can sense their killing intent!” Gu Fei replied.

“Big bro, are you shitting me right now?” Fireball rolled his eyes.

However, Gu Fei was not wrong. A group of people slowly gathered at the bottom of the hill, after which they slowly walked toward the two of them without hesitation.

“See? I told you they are coming for us!” Gu Fei pointed at the guy leading the group and said.

Fireball squinted his eyes and looked; he recognized that it was actually the group of arrogant players whom he had gotten into trouble with earlier. “Fuck! For real? It was only a boar, man! Is it really worth forming a whole group to gang up on me?” He ranted, but he still looked as though there was nothing that could scare him since he thought, “I am only Level 1 anyways.”

“Do you see that pond over there?” Gu Fei pointed at the bottom part of the hill.

Suddenly, Fireball remembered how that group had previously threatened to throw him into the river, causing his face to turn pale in the blink of an eye. Already, he planned for the worst as he inquired, “Is that pond deep?”

“I don’t know.” Gu Fei shook his head. Right then, the group had already arrived in front of them. Neither of them had thought about running away, but after hearing Gu Fei’s reminder, Fireball couldn’t help but regret this earlier decision of his.

There were at least fifty or sixty people in the group that had already encircled them. Gu Fei let out a long breath; he knew Kung Fu, but that didn’t mean he was superman – it was still impossible for him to take down over fifty players at once. Even if his Kung Fu was powerful enough, he wouldn’t have the energy to do so. However, it still wasn’t decided whether or not violence was necessary, seeing that there was a look of fright in their eyes when they looked at him.

“What’s your problem?” Gu Fei asked.

“Leader, it is him.” One man said as he pointed at Gu Fei.

Gu Fei immediately sized the person that was being referred to as the leader up. This skinny young man was rather small, even though his hair stood straight up imperceptibly elongating his face and making him look a bit taller. The pores on his dry skin looked like oranges and he had two small eyes that rotated around as they were looking Gu Fei up and down. Judging from his behavior and style, he must be of the Thief-class.

He took his time to fully observe Gu Fei after which he showed a smile, “Hi, I am the leader of the guild [Against the Gods].”

“Hello,” Gu Fei replied with a neutral face.

“We originate from Demon Domain and have now migrated to Parallel World,” the leader continued undisturbed.

Gu Fei nodded. As a young man, it was impossible for him to be unaware of other online games. Especially the famous game Demon Domain, which he had heard of a couple of times before. Before Parallel World, Demon Domain was arguably the most famous online game. At the school that Gu Fei taught at, the teachers regarded it as their number one enemy, as though it was like a severe flood or a fierce beast. Every single teacher was worried that the game was going to steal their students away from them if they weren’t careful.

However, as new VR games were being created, the old-style online games saw a steep decline in sales. Ever since the public beta test for Parallel World came out, the amount of players playing Demon Domain had started to drop rapidly. Everyday, countless people turned to Parallel World and although it was claimed that Demon Domain was trying to develop VR features, they had already missed the first wave of passionate players.

Fireball who was next to Gu Fei knew more than him as he had played Demon Domain before, which was why he was also familiar with the name of the guild. In Demon Domain, [Against the Gods] was a really powerful guild; even among the whole gaming industry, they had quite a bit of reputation; especially the leader of the organization, Ghost Blade. Ghost Blade was definitely the No.1 idol for a lot of players in the game. Back in the day when Fireball played it, he also had a man-crush for him, yet he had never imagined that he would meet his former idol in this situation. Looking at the creepy looking teenager, Fireball couldn’t help but ask, “You are Ghost Blade?”

Gu Fei’s calmness made Ghost Blade feel a bit dull, but Fireball’s reaction satisfied him. He nodded with a smile and said, “I am! Hello!” He perfectly displayed the superior attitude he had tried to conceal with an act of friendliness.

“Fuck! Why do you look like that? You sure you’re Ghost Blade? Or am I trippin’?!” Fireball obviously didn’t think before he talked, jabbing straight at Ghost Blade’s weak spot.