14 Chapter 14 - Unbelievable (1/2)

In the blink of an eye, Parallel World's beta had already been up and running for an entire week. All the players strived to adapt to the changes brought by the new VR game. As a teacher, Gu Fei often heard conversations about the game everywhere in school. Gu Fei naturally could not join in these talks. Moreover, Gu Fei had originally requested Ah Fa not to tell anyone in school that he was playing the game.

In fact, teachers, just like their students, were interested in playing video games. However, they could only feign indifference toward their students' interests to maintain their image as paragons of learning. Unsurprisingly, Gu Fei also abided by this unspoken code of conduct for teachers despite only being a P.E. instructor.

Nevertheless, the students and his colleagues still noticed a distinct change in Gu Fei's behavior; for instance, he no longer constantly boasted about his kung fu skills to others.

In their minds, Gu Fei had finally become a normal person! This became quite a hot topic in school.

As for Gu Fei, he was more preoccupied with playing Parallel World whenever he had leisure time to be bothered by such gossips. He preferred spending his time in the virtual reality game where he could freely use kung fu.

Still, Gu Fei remained mindful of the fact that Parallel Word was a game; information was needed in games like it.

Gu Fei would look up relevant information on the game's official website whenever he gained a few levels to choose the next map to grind.

When Gu Fei chose the monsters to grind on, he had three strict requirements: They must have a humanoid form, engage in close combat, and have a level higher than his.

A monster with humanoid form and melee attack was necessary to display his kung fu. After all, he was mainly playing the game for the sake of using his kung fu. So what others considered as a boring and mindless leveling method, Gu Fei viewed as a suitable martial arts training program. Hence, he would never find it tedious. Even if it required repeating a single action a thousand times, he would still devote his entire being into executing a move.

His choice to fight monsters higher than his level was a decision Gu Fei made in consideration of the game's mechanics. Every monster in Parallel World gave a fixed amount of experience – the higher the level, the larger the experience gained – so fighting higher level monsters meant his leveling speed was akin to taking an express train to level-town. Gu Fei had no reason to give up this leveling method, especially with his ability to take advantage of it. Yet, even with his extraordinary kung fu skills, there was still a limit to the monsters he could defeat. Gu Fei had no means by which he could break through the defenses of monsters twenty levels higher than him, even if his speed could keep up with their attacks.

Such a situation suddenly reminded Gu Fei of his father teaching him martial arts when he was young.

”Your attacks are weak and full of holes,” his father said with amusement when Gu Fei punched him. A fast palm strike from him had sent Gu Fei flat on the ground as he said, ”Watch the way my shoulder moved. Have you understood why you couldn't avoid or block my palm strikes? Obviously, it's because my movement is much faster than your eyes. You need more practice.”

Gu Fei missed the joy of challenging himself time and time again in the past as he grew up. Therefore, he could hardly contain his excitement now that he had an opportunity to experience that sort of enjoyment again.

Continuously leveling to improve his skills and fighting even stronger opponents; everything was really simple in online games.

On this day, Gu Fei finally reached level 30.

Every player had the habit of checking the amount of experience needed to reach the next level upon leveling up; Gu Fei was no exception. However, he was taken aback once he had a look.

This isn't a mistake, right? Is this truly the amount of experience required to reach level 31 from level 30? Am I level 30 or level 300? Gu Fei muttered to himself.

The experience requirement that used to increase every level in 10% increments had risen by ten this time.

Ten times to be precise!

Prior to this, no one had ever heard of any MMORPGs that had such an abrupt huge leap in the amount of experience required to level up.

At this point in time, a majority of the players in Parallel World had rapidly ascended to level 30.

Each of them was equally dumbfounded at the sight of the experience points needed to reach level 31.

Everybody thought that it was a bug and incessantly reported it to the game company; almost no one carried on leveling.

The Parallel World's officials soon released a statement.

The algorithm was correct and not a bug. The issue actually originated from the company's adjustment of the experience cap to reach level 30.

This change was made in response to the alarming number of violent incidents that had happened on the first day of the game. Many players used their job classes' inherent physical advantage, as well as the initial imbalance of stats, to bully weaker players. The gaming company's inability to intervene in those incidents led to Parallel World's setting adjustment to prevent such situations from occurring again.

After much deliberation, they decided to reduce largely the experience players needed to get to level 30.

This let the players reach level 30 quickly.

Level 30 was what the officials deemed as a stage where there would be a balance between the job classes. No matter the job class players held, this level was where they had enough power to protect themselves from others. The event where players could utilize their innate stronger physique to bully physically weaker players would never happen after reaching level 30. However, the game company could not be held liable if players were oppressed because of their poor gaming skills due to being complete noobs.

The statement effectively quelled the players' rage. Since many of them witnessed the terrible acts that had happened on that first day, they naturally did not oppose the game setting adjustment. The players immediately went back to the game to continue grinding once they realized that the modification was permanent.

But Gu Fei did not know anything about this.