Virtual World: Close Combat Mage 741 Chapter 741 - An Uncertain Situation

"Hmm... Why aren't the enemy attacking? Have they all gone stupid?" A Mage suddenly blurted out. Southern Lone Blade was standing beside him when he heard this. He turned around to discover this bunch of players looking on with quite a fair bit of skepticism. Southern Lone Blade sighed with sadness. The actions of these people before was understandable since they were all new guild members, but now that they had shown their inability to not even understand how these apex experts were PK-ing, that truly demonstrated just how noob they were.

But it really had to be said; in terms of such wide area suppression against the enemy, Drifting and the two other experts were far more impressive than Gu Fei. Gu Fei was simply playing out his role as the killer he always was, but the other three were actively interrupting the enemy's attack as they calculated and took spell cooldowns into consideration. This was also another form of rhythm to grasp, and Colored Clouds' Mages had already been completely subdued, falling in step with the tempo that Drifting and the others had set. It was not that none of them wished to cast their spells, but they discovered that there was no way for them to unleash their own AoE spells. Every spell had their subsequent cooldown timers, which Drifting and the other experts of their caliber had already gotten a grasp of. By now, the three of them had at least gotten an idea of the cooldowns for the remaining 20 or so enemies they were now up against, and it was as if they had the full view of their skill bars. In such a situation, in addition to their own experience with the Mage job class, they were essentially capable of preemptively predicting what their enemy would do. The difference in terms of their skill caliber, experience, and awareness greatly highlighted the gap that lay between an expert and the average player. The members of Colored Clouds were by no means considered to be terrible players, but when compared to the elites in the entire Parallel World, they were still very far off.

Southern Lone Blade watched with great pleasure, suddenly recalling that Sword Demon had called him to receive the incoming Priests over by the east gate, he quickly sent a message over to Sword Demon, "You should run along to the east gate yourself. I'll stay and lend a hand over here." Even though the six Mages pretty much had control of the situation, any slip up at this stage could very well turn the tide. It was not like the six Mages had not died ever since they stepped into the Mage Academy.

"Okay, got it," after receiving Sword Demon's affirmation, Southern Lone Blade quickly began to organize his manpower. Mobilizing this patchwork of players was as good as leaving them idle, so he simply decided to lead the ladies from Amethyst Rebirth and charge into battle. Southern Lone Blade was considered a top expert as well, so his ability to observe and get a grasp of the battlefield was top notch. Even though he was taking charge of some rather mediocrely skilled ladies into the fight, the good thing about the ladies was how obedient they were to their commander. So aside from occasionally reacting half a beat slower, they would not really make any mistakes that left Southern Lone Blade grinding his teeth.

The situation became much more stable now that there was an inclusion of combat strength on their side. However, it was at this moment when Royal God Call reported in "Attention, attention. Young Master Han has gathered some troops, looking like they are about to leave the Priest Academy."

"Where are they headed?" Sword Demon asked.

Royal God Call was struggling. He felt Sword Demon should have known better than to ask him such a question.

"The direction they are headed for is still unclear." Xi Xiaotian answered.

"The two of you should go and keep an eye on them for a bit," Sword Demon said before sending a message to Gu Fei, "Miles. You guys should hurry up on your side. Young Master has made his move; there's a chance that he might be heading for the Mage Academy."

"Relax. We're about done here," Gu Fei replied. He glanced outside the academy and saw that there were still some players who had not died in the Mage Academy still blankly watching the spectacle!

"Everyone, rendezvous with the others by the east gate!" Gu Fei sent this message out in his guild channel, repeating the message several more times, adding more exclamation points for emphasis each time. Finally, the players outside noticed his messages and began heading over to the east gate as a response. While inside the Mage Academy, the number of Mages from Colored Clouds had been dramatically reduced, as it was apparent that a good many of them had died 25 times and were sent to the 17th district. Those Mages had been happily playing with their Kamikaze tactics, so their death counts were already plentiful, and with Gu Fei and the others cleaning up after, the Mages very quickly reached their 25 death count.

"The direction that Young Master Han and his men are headed to could be the east gate!!" Xi Xiaotian and Royal God Call both utilized their movement speed to quickly track Colored Clouds until they had finally gotten a clue about their troop movement.

"D*mn, did that guy see through our plan again?" Gu Fei cursed.

"There could be people working for him in our guild," Drifting said.

"It's not just the guild; there might even be men from the batch of Priests coming over to join us that could actually be on his side," Xi Xiaotian said.

"Oh crap! Is there anyone over by the east gate? How is the situation outside the city gate?" Sword Demon quickly called out in the guild channel. Previously, the players who were killed by the Kamikazes had all received the instruction to head out and gather by the east gate, and those with faster movement speed had already reached the gate. Hearing Sword Demon's next set of instructions, some players poked their heads to take a look. However, these players had only very recently joined the City Wars event, and they did not have a good grasp of the situation. In their eyes, the fight between the city guards and players was very intense, and there was nothing out of the ordinary there. 

"Eh? I don't think so?" Several men said thusly.

Sword Demon did not believe them, so he made sure to message Brother Assist to warn him not to casually send Priests over, even as he hurried over to the east gate as quickly as he could…

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Beyond the east city gate, Brother Assist's batch of mercenary Priests began to split up and blend into the crowd. Each of them was waving their magic staves, acting as if they were Healing the players when they were merely mumbling nonsense. All of them felt relieved when they saw that the players and the city guards were all just ignoring them, continuing to wave their magic staves and chanting their spells as they headed in the direction of the city gates.

Everything went as smoothly as Brother Assist described, and several mercenary Priests coming in from different directions had all moved nearer to the gate. They were just a few steps away from circling around the city's line of defense and successfully making it into the city when a bunch of people suddenly came bolting out on the attack. The Priests were all surprised, wanting to Heal themselves, but it was evident there was not just a single player that attacked, and it was apparent just how well prepared they were. This handful of Priests were very quickly eliminated in this manner.

"What happened?" A huge number of Priests found themselves respawned in the nearest encampment, absolutely uncertain as to what happened. They were looking all around now, searching for their fellow mercenary compatriots. But everyone had only met each other that one time, and they had difficulties finding anyone amid the crowd of players moving around the encampment. Thus, each of them sought out their employer, messaging Brother Assist to ask what sort of situation were they in.

There was no reason for Brother Assist to have known how they got ambushed, but the moment he received Sword Demon's message about not sending the Priests over, he more or less guessed that there had been a change to the circumstances, first assuring the Priests even as he asked Sword Demon for more details regarding their current predicament.

"There might be traitors among the Priests, which means they are already made aware of our plans here. It won't be that easy for us to enter the city like before," Sword Demon elaborated.

"D*mm*t, we've already got several casualties over by the east gate." Brother Assist rued.

"Have they been repeatedly killed yet?" Sword Demon asked.

"Nope… They are neutral players, would they be targeted like that as well?" Brother Assist had his doubts.

"Players are no longer able to step into the City Wars region after dying 25 times. Neutral players currently still have a modicum of freedom in these areas, so I believe that they will experience such a restriction if they end up in the same fate as well. It is just that the current neutral players probably have not died so many times yet, so no one has yet to discover this," Sword Demon inferred.

"So do we tell them to stop making any attempt into the city for now?" Brother Assist asked.

"Yeah, stop for now. We might be in a bit of a pickle this time," Sword Demon continued to discuss about this matter of getting the Priests to stop as he canceled the order of meeting by the east gate. They had managed to get the Priests they needed, yet they were unable to make it into the city… The enemy had apparently kept an eye on both Brother Assist and July. Not only did they secretly hid chess pieces on the board, but they had also enacted a hunt for them out in the open.

"If only we still had teleportation scrolls!" Sword Demon sighed. They had used up all their teleportation scrolls by this time; even the Auction House in Yunduan City had been cleaned out of its stock. No amount of coins they offered mattered if none were for sale.

"Could we get our friends from other cities to help us by buying some for us?" By now, everyone was more or less aware that they were in a less than ideal situation and things had not progressed as smoothly as they had hoped. Coloured Clouds had sacrificed a lot of their Mages in exchange for the Priests on Gu Fei's side. The new Priests that they had just hired were unable to get into the city, and while the Holy Knights were capable of healing as well, they were not yet at the level where they were capable of completely replacing the Priests as the premier source of HP recovery on the battlefield. They were in a dire situation, and the experts were all anxiously doing their best to come up with some sort of plan, and that was when Gu Fei thought to ask about the viability of this idea he had when he recalled how Drifting had managed to acquire teleportation scrolls from his previous city.

"That will be very troublesome! Our messages won't get through, the other party won't be able to get into the city easily, and there might not even be many who can make it into the city either… Who knows when will be able to resolve all these issues before we can get our hands on a teleportation scroll!?" Drifting said.

"But what other choice have we got?" Gu Fei asked.

"I've got a solution," Xi Xiaotian interjected.

"Quick, tell us!" Everyone was desperate.

"We can look for a Workshop," Xi Xiaotian said.

"Workshop?" Gu Fei furrowed his brow. The unpleasant history of having dealings with Five Nights had left Gu Fei with a bad taste in his mouth.

"A large workshop would surely have plenty of inventory in stock, so if we simply wish to send some Priests into the city, we won't need more than ten to twenty teleportation scrolls. They should not have any trouble selling that many at all," Xi Xiaotian explained.

"You're right," Drifting was the first to agree. "Let's go search for a workshop to get in contact with. Does anyone know of one?"

"I'll ask Brother Assist," Sword Demon said.

"Brother Assist? Can he still safely do such things at this time?" Xi Xiaotian asked.

Everyone was quiet. It was really hard to tell what was Brother Assist's current situation. The enemy began to use what their undercover Priests had learned and attempted to kill them. Even though the attempt was not completely successful, they should most likely have a grasp of Brother Assist's movements. Everyone had already heard about the previous failed attempt at Brother Assist's and July's lives, and that had only been because Colored Clouds had acted too flagrantly. The players from the grinding maps ended up saving them that time, but what would happen if the enemy adjusted their methods and work to secretly kill them instead? In such cases, even if other players wish to save them, there was no way they would be able to do so in time.

Just as they were thinking about this, they suddenly saw Brother Assist swear in the channel, "F*CK!"

"What is it?"

"I got killed…"

Just as I thought… Everyone muttered this to themselves. The enemy had found a way to assassinate him in the end.

"I haven't even finished sending my message!" Brother Assist was depressed. He was now back in the city, so he had lost contact with the players outside of the city, unable to send his messages out.

"I'm going to quit the guild for a bit!" Brother Assist said this as the sound of a player leaving Extremely Heaven Defying was heard in the guild channel. Now that his status had returned back to being a neutral player, he quickly began talking to all the mercenary Priests that he was speaking to before.

"Can we even use those Priests anymore?" Gu Fei and the others privately discussed this matter. The movement of these Priests were all unified, so having a spy among them meant everything that they did had been exposed. It would still be quite troublesome even if we end up using teleportation scrolls to get them over."

"Let's talk about this after we get a hold of these teleportation scrolls! If none of you have any problems with it, it just so happens that Brother Assist is now back to being a neutral player, so let's get him to make contact a bit," Xi Xiaotian said.

Everybody thought about it and agreed that this was the only course of action to take. Thus, after Xi Xiaotian told Brother Assist what they had discussed regarding this matter, the others quickly collected all the players that were scattered throughout the city. The men of Colored Clouds were now all gathered together, while they were all scattered about. These players would simply die if they end up running into the enemy like this.

Despite the case, the players who had already arrived at the east gate and were now in a hurry to leave the rendezvous point had still managed to run into the enemy, and they were all swiftly massacred. Fortunately, there was no ambush in the spawn points now, so these players only died just once. However, after joining the two guilds on the city defender's side and realizing what they ended up doing was nothing as simple as what had been promoted to them when they were being recruited to the guild to begin with, a good number of players began to have their doubts, with some even openly expressing their resentment in the guild channel.

"Everyone, the current situation that we are in are variables we did not expect, so we would require even more cooperation and unity from everyone from here onward. At the moment, we have an urgent need for Priests, and we are coming up with solutions to this end. We are unable to meet the enemy in a direct confrontation for the moment, so we shall engage in guerilla warfare. Each of you, please listen to the arrangements made by your various team leaders," Sword Demon had said in the guild channel. Even though Gu Fei's Amethyst Rebirth had even more players in it, he had a much easier time addressing everyone, since he merely listened to the speech that Sword Demon gave and repeated it for the players in his guild.

True experts would most likely find themselves being sought after by large guilds. People like Drifting and Slyris, who were top tier experts and were both strong and hidden amidst the unaffiliated crowd, was actually a rarity. The players that Extremely Heaven Defying and Amethyst Rebirth had found to form the bulk of their forces now were qualitatively weaker in comparison if anyone were to analyze them in detail. However, panicking upon meeting any unexpected changes was not an issue of strength, but an issue of their own character. The anxiety itself was understandable, but what made it intolerable was not that a portion of players who held this pessimistic verdict to their current predicament. It was instead that they were still propagating such thoughts loudly across the guild channel, which only contributed to the fatalistic atmosphere that permeated the guild.

Sword Demon was very calm and composed, clearly explaining their plan going forward in a very succinct manner, even expressing his absolute confidence that they would be able to defeat the enemy. In the end, there were still people who disagreed and continued to chatter in the guild channel. Sword Demon immediately showed his stern side and said "Since you are still not convinced, then there's no need for you to stay on in this guild any longer" and swiftly began kicking the players from the guild accordingly.

Gu Fei had followed Sword Demon by example, and the words he spoke in Amethyst Rebirth's guild channel was just the same as Sword Demon's, and he ultimately began kicking players as well. With that sentence uttered, there was a portion of players who very automatically quit the guild, then there were those that quickly expressed that it was not a lack of confidence, but that they felt certain things should be done. However, the ideas they offered was truly too childish and ridiculous. It was evident that these people had no idea what they were talking about, yet they still wanted to pretend to play the part. These sort of players were completely unwelcomed, and before Sword Demon and Gu Fei could even say a word, the other players had all requested to kick these people, so the two guild leaders had very democratically sided with what the majority had suggested, immediately kicking these troublemakers and quelled the uprising.

All the guild members very quickly reorganized themselves. Sword Demon felt that they should temporarily avoid confrontations for the time being; at least until their Priest reinforcement arrived. Brother Assist continued to maintain contact with the mercenary Priests while he sought to get in touch with a workshop. Brother Assist had employed a total of 35 Priests, and by the time he had managed to contract them all, 14 of them had already been killed outside the city gates. The remaining Priests had already stepped into the battlefield as well, and after they received the message from Brother Assist, it was like they were caught in between a rock and a hard place, uncertain just what they should do. The situation was grave, and quite a number of Priests had already retreated. 9 of them successively told Brother Assist that they did not wish to go ahead with this job, turning their backs on him as they left to return back to their level grinding. Brother Assist was left disheveled and tormented by this, clueless as to where he would find a replacement for these men, though he did manage to successfully make contact with a workshop.

Men from the workshop would naturally not reject a friendship request. After adding one another, the other party took the initiative to ask "How can I serve you?", sounding exceptionally professional throughout the whole process. Brother Assist mentioned his request for teleportation scrolls, and the other party did not even bother to question what they would be used for, merely asking how many he required before quoting the price for this transaction.

Brother Assist had asked for 20, which would guarantee that they be able to send 80 people through. After teleporting the Priests, they could still have surplus spots, and there was no telling where they might come in handy. However, that was when the workshop demonstrated just how ravenous their appetite was, pricing each scroll at 1000 gold coins. Even after the recent changes and updates to how currency worked in the game, teleportation scrolls were no longer that expensive. Though the drop rate for teleportation scrolls that originate from grinding maps above level 40 was hardly very high, the monster itself was considered rather accessible for current players, which meant the production rate itself would increase a lot as compared to before, leading to a drop in price. This 1000 price tag was essentially the price for a teleportation scroll based on the old asking price of the teleportation scroll, back when the item was considered a rare commodity.

"That's too underhanded!" Brother Assist was shocked.

The other party representing the workshop unhurriedly responded, "I'm sorry, there has been a hike to the price of items because of the recent currency update. Actually, going by the rules of our organization, we should temporarily cease all transactions during this time period, but because you wish to buy 20 scrolls in one go, this makes it a rare occasion that I believe must be for urgent use. As a result, we've specially requested for the chance to sell our goods, and this was a price that our organization had all agreed on currently, so my hands are tied on this as well."

Brother Assist gritted his teeth. Sure enough, business would be difficult after the currency update that the game company had recently rolled out. However, Brother Assist refused to believe all the other nonsense that this workshop employee spouted about everything else. He felt the real meaning of his whole explanation essentially boiled down to "It's rare to want 20 pieces of teleportation scrolls in one go, so it must be for some urgent use". The other party had bitten down on this particular point and so the proverbial lion that they were widened their jaws and chomped down hard on this lucrative transaction. After all, anyone who worked for a workshop would hardly ever be someone of decent character.

"They are asking for 1000 gold coins per teleportations scroll," This time, Brother Assist did not dare to make the decision by himself, so he decided to discuss the matter with the others first.

"What does that have to do with anything? Buy them quickly," Gu Fei answered.

"But it's 1000 gold coins a scroll!" Brother Assist could feel his heart ache.

"Don't be so broken hearted over money; I still have 30,000 gold coins from Young Master Han, we can use it to buy 30 scrolls!" Xi Xiaotian spoke up.

Everyone instantly perked up. Spending Young Master Han's own gold coins to buy these teleportation scrolls? All of them felt great just thinking about it. A piece for 1000 gold coins hardly seemed expensive at all.

"Buy 30 pieces!" Gu Fei said to Brother Assist.

"Okay," Brother Assist did not hesitate either, turning around to tell the man that he did not want 20 pieces, but 30. Brother Assist suddenly felt that he derived great pleasure doing this; despite the item having an exorbitant price tag, not only did he not want it, he had even wanted more of these scrolls. This must have truly been a shocking turn of events, right?

In the end, the other party did not express any particularly different expression, merely replying with a simple "OK" before asking where they could make the trade.

"We've still gotta make a trip out of the city," Brother Assist said to everyone. "We currently have a shortage of Priests, and I've yet to replace the previous 9 Priest I mentioned before that backed out from the plan."

"It won't be easy getting out of the city now," Sword Demon warned.

"We'll get someone to dress up as a city guard and be extra careful," July reminded.

"There's no need. I'll go!" Gu Fei said.

"Oh?"

"I'll just slay my way out," When it came to combat, Gu Fei was nothing but calm.

Chapter end