117 Chapter 117 - The Loneliness of an Exper (1/2)
Gu Fei unassumingly stepped forward. Clasping his fist with his other hand, he said to the Thief, ”Please!”
This was a dated martial arts salute that only kung fu practitioners like Gu Fei would perform before a sparring session, so why would an online gamer perform such traditional gesture as well? As expected, the Thief merely snorted at Gu Fei's saluting gesture and stepped forward to face him.
The Thief's weapon was not a dagger but a wooden baton. For Thieves, they would be able to learn a new skill called Bludgeon upon reaching level 36 and, as the name implied, it was a skill that could only be activated using a blunt object. Frankly speaking, Bludgeon was the Thief skill that had no actual value in PvP.
Bludgeon, like Backstab, must be executed when a Thief was standing behind an opponent. Even if Bludgeon was successfully performed, it should still be followed up by Backstab, which had the highest damage output among the current skill sets of Thieves. Who would not consider Bludgeon as an unnecessary move after this? If a Thief had the time to use Bludgeon, why should he or she not just use Backstab right from the start? Would that not be an even more straightforward manner of attacking?
This was why examining the mentality of the players was sorely needed.
Those who would attack with Bludgeon instead of Backstab most likely possessed the mentality of taking the enemies lightly or wanting to show off. A Thief hitting an opponent with Bludgeon to inflict the five-second Dizzy status effect and then calmly brushing dust off his or her boots before taking out a dagger to Backstab the opponent… How gratifying the sight would be! This action was similar to treating PvP as child's play. Even if the opponent failed to comprehend the condescension behind it, the act would still be very pleasurable to the Thief who had done it.
Currently, the Thief fully assumed that Gu Fei was looking down on him. This fueled his desire to deal with Gu Fei with that redundant method, as he wanted to treat the latter in the same belittling way.
On the contrary, Gu Fei was actually treating this matter very seriously as he solemnly loosened the strapped Moonlit Nightfalls on his back.
”A sword?” The Thief tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Moonlit Nightfalls' black luster was truly eye-catching to the Thief, yet he could not uncover its traits even after appraising twice. Thus, he was left wondering about the high-grade sword's features. Gu Fei was no longer a newbie like when he first started playing Parallel World, as he had finally learned the Appraisal skill and reached rank 8 of it after using the skill repeatedly for a month. Although it was at a mediocre rank among all the players, he could at least safeguard himself against the Appraisal of others. Presently, others would no longer be able to fully check his equipment from head to toe like before.
Appraising a higher grade or tier item was harder than a lower tier item; this was the basic rule in-game. Therefore, it was no mere coincidence that the Thief failed to appraise Gu Fei's clothing and sword despite numerous attempts.
”Can we start now?” Gu Fei asked when the Thief remained stationary for quite a while.
”Coming!” as the Thief answered, he deceitfully dashed toward Gu Fei. Eliminating a Mage in a PvP was actually very easy for a Thief, as the Thief only had to get close to the Mage and furiously stab him or her. Provided that the Thief was at close range and the Mage was unable to increase the distance between them, even normal attacks would suffice to do the job.
Nonetheless, the present Thief was still carrying the wooden baton firmly, as he fully resolved to execute Bludgeon on to Gu Fei no matter what, even if he had to take that extra step of getting to Gu Fei's rear. The Thief resolutely strode forward before he made a sudden turn, agilely appearing behind Gu Fei. What a slow response!the Thief merrily thought to himself, truly believing that this fight was going to be an easy one.
Gu Fei indeed did not respond... at all. He merely maintained his stance of holding the sword, which was firmly planted to the ground, with his two hands. At the moment that the Thief arrived behind him, he moved his mouth to chant, ”Ring of Fire! Release!”
Too late! the Thief thought to himself, completely disregarding the defensive spell Gu Fei had just casted as he continued to carry out his plan of bludgeoning Gu Fei.
A puff was heard; it was the sound of the Ring of Fire's flaming orb burning the Thief. Gu Fei took two steps to his side and extricated himself from the enemy's range of attack.
The Thief's Bludgeon missed. In the next instant, he began to feel the lethargy that players would feel whenever they lost too much HP. Upon glancing at his bar of HP, he received the shock of his life. He raised his head again, just in time to see Gu Fei take two steps backward while smiling brightly at him, ”We are done now, right?” The Thief opened his mouth wide, yet not a word left it.
The spectators were even more confused as they could not understand why the two had suddenly stopped fighting.
The Thief stood rooted to the spot for a while before quietly walking back to his comrades. Gu Fei dismissed his Ring of Fire and went back to where the ladies were as well.
Both parties gawked at the two who had just returned to them, asking, ”What happened?”
The Thief was too ashamed to speak, while Gu Fei lightly answered with: ”We're done!”
”Done?!” everyone exclaimed, astonished.
”Who won?” This was what everyone was truly wondering about. The Thief frowned, while Gu Fei smiled. The answer was obvious.
”When did the fight even start?” everyone tried to make sense of what had just happened.
”Exactly when did you hit him?” the clique of sisters asked Gu Fei.
”Exactly when did you get hit?” the bunch of brothers asked the Thief.
The answers were the same on both sides, ”Didn't you all see the burning fire just now?”
”Burning fire? That Ring of Fire? You call that 'burning'?!” All reacted in the same way.
”My HP bar turned red already!” The Thief's expression turned grim. In Parallel World, HP bar was normally displayed in green, turning yellow if it got depleted past the halfway mark and red if it dropped to the final 10% and below.
”With Ring of Fire? No way that that little burning fire could turn your HP bar red! You must be mistaken,” someone skeptically commented.
”Why don't you give it a try and get burned by him yourself!” The Thief was still mulling over the issue himself! He did not feel good since he could not figure out how he had just lost.
The gang of men started to size up the crowd of women, ”Is someone pulling tricks from their side?”
”Hey! Stop making things up just because you guys have lost!” the ladies exclaimed indignantly. Although they were equally bewildered by what had just transpired, they were still the winners in this duel since Gu Fei was on their side. Getting Gu Fei's explanation as to how he had achieved victory in this PvP could wait at a later time.
”For Ring of Fire to burn someone till his HP turned red… Do you all believe that?” someone from the opposing side asked the ladies.
Although the ladies internally did not believe that it was possible as well, they still said externally, ”Yes, we do!” Women sure were scary when trying to cover up a flaw.
The group of men was instantly tongue-tied. Men usually emerged victorious when it came to PvP, but when it came to bickering—well, even if the men were to win over the women in that aspect, they would still be accused of being rude. In conclusion, there was simply no way that they could get the upper hand in this matter.
At this moment, a hotshot Warrior stepped forward and issued a challenge to Gu Fei, ”Try setting me on fire. I wanna see how much of my HP will get depleted.”
All the ladies encouraged Gu Fei, ”Burn him! Burn him!”
Gu Fei swept his eyes over to the guy and said, ”Wait a moment.”
”What's wrong? Dare not do it anymore? Or are you looking for another way to keep up this charade?” the hotshot asked knowingly, thinking that he had caught Gu Fei red-handed.
”Cool-down period for my spell,” Gu Fei looked at him pitifully. He had never thought that someone would have worse knowledge about the game's mechanics than him.
The hotshot hung his head down in embarrassment.
When the cool-down period of Ring of Fire ended, Gu Fei stepped forward once more. The hotshot straightened his back and bellowed, ”Come on! I'll see just how much HP you can burn off of me.” At the same time, he vigilantly eyed the ladies, ”Don't even think of pulling some tricks again! I can see your every move from here!”
The ladies expressed their disdain toward him.
”If I win this duel, you're not allowed to pester them again starting tomorrow,” Gu Fei resolved to not demonstrate his ability for nothing.
The hotshot was momentarily stunned, turning his head back to his comrades to seek their opinions.
Some of the men briefly conferred and willingly nodded their heads in agreement.
”Ring of Fire! Release!” Gu Fei went straight to the point, casting out a flame ring and charging toward his opponent. The hotshot had yet to come to his senses when Gu Fei finished burning him, dismissed his Ring of Fire, and retreated away. This spell drained mana continuously, so it was burdensome for Gu Fei.
”How is it?” the others nervously inquired.
The hotshot glanced over at his HP bar and was overjoyed, ”It didn't turn red at all! Just a little close to turning yellow. This punk is playing tricks, after all!”
The others' expressions turned pale upon hearing this. Gu Fei mildly said, ”You have high HP. If you have resistance to magic, your HP bar would of course not turn red.” Deep down, he was thinking, This fellow's gaming knowledge is indeed much worse than me.
Actually, the hotshot Warrior was not lacking in gaming knowledge; he was simply too absorbed on the matter at hand that he forgot to consider other factors. Now that he had regained his senses, he felt quite shock as well. As was stated by Gu Fei, he indeed had an Endurance-based build and was geared up with magic resistant equipment. A spell that could burn a Thief's HP bar until it turned red could only inflict so much damage when it came to a magic-resistant Warrior like him. In that case, the damage output of Gu Fei's Ring of Fire was truly staggering to the point of making others speechless. The hotshot silently retreated to his party of men and talked in hushed tone with them.
Over at the corner where Amethyst Rebirth stood, the members were all rejoicing. As they prepared to start grinding, they noticed that the opposing side did not make a move to leave at all. Luo Luo asked loudly, ”Is it not time for you people to leave?”
”Leave? Why would we leave?” someone said on the other side.
”Shameless! A bunch of shameless people! How can you be so shameless!” the ladies angrily blurted out.
However, the group of men remained unnerved, ”Babes, that bro just stated that this is a duel. Since it's a duel, then there should clearly be a winner and a loser. Do you think we will simply give up when our representative's HP bar has yet to turn yellow?”
”Stop twisting the facts!”
”You're all being unreasonable!”
”Shameless!”