596 Chapter 596 - Speed as a Safeguard (1/2)

”Ah!”

”Ahh!”

”Ahhh!”

The exclamations and gasps continued, and Brother Assist had long since been drowned in the prestige of Gu Fei. His students were low level, so the monsters they sought to learn from Gu Fei were at most at level 35. Gu Fei could deal with those monsters with relative ease, yet against these level 45 monsters, he would naturally have to pay closer attention to the exchange, so the moves he did to probe this monster now were all the more electrifying, which caused the crowd of onlookers that had formed to utter waves of exclamation time and again.

Brother Assist was insignificant amid these exclamations, and no one cared that he was Gu Fei's friend any longer. There was even someone standing beside Brother Assist who was loudly cheering on that shared his admiration to Brother Assist. ”That guy looks so sharp fighting like that; he probably has undergone intense training before! Too cool.”

”Yeah. He had that,” Brother Assist answered.

”Marvelous!” That man was most likely randomly looking for a fellow onlooker to voice out what he was feeling and did not notice who Brother Assist was as he immediately turned his head to the fight to cheer again after he had said that.

Gu Fei, the man who had created a furor, was rather surprised, but he was not really paying attention to any of it. He could not possibly stop and persuade the people to leave, could he? Let these men watch on if they enjoy doing so; it's no biggie, anyway. Gu Fei did not think too much into this and just concentrated on uncovering this Campfire Patroller's offense and defense patterns as he strove to formulate an effective fighting routine against it.

Brother Assist, who had followed Gu Fei prepare his lesson for an entire afternoon, already knew that this phase of excitement would not last too long; it would at most go on for ten minutes or so. Sure enough, after fighting for about ten minutes with the monster, Gu Fei had already gotten a grasp on the attack patterns and tempo of the monster, so every move he made now connected perfectly. Before, even though Gu Fei did his best not to kill it, having been entangled with it for ten minutes, the accumulated damage of course shaved off a good portion of the monster's HP, so all it took was a few more hits and it soon collapsed to the ground.

Gu Fei heaved a long sigh. He could not help but smile when he heard the climactic shout from the crowd when the monster fell. That was when he looked all around him and could not find a trace of Brother Assist.

”Hey! Where are you?” Gu Fei messaged.

”Over here!” Brother Assist's voice came from within the crowd. The man struggled to squeeze his way through the packed onlookers, sighing in relief once he was out. Since more and more players gathered around to watch the fight, it grew crowded to the point that he got stuck somewhere in the middle, almost finding it difficult to catch his breath within it.

The crowd watched the two men meet, and Brother Assist felt ill at ease being watched by so many pairs of eyes, yet Gu Fei appeared to be completely unbothered by their audience, merely continuing to do his work as he calmly spoke to Brother Assist. ”I've got a good read of its moves. Now, we move on to the next step.”

”Right now?” Brother Assist asked. With so many players watching them, while they were clearly not doing anything wrong, Brother Assist still subconsciously felt a little diffident about it.

”Then, how long must we wait?” Gu Fei was nonplussed.

”There's no need. You can continue.” Brother Assist gritted his teeth and bore with it. If the man in the limelight had no qualms about it, there was no reason a bit character like him would need to feel thin-skinned about it!

Gu Fei nodded and quietly waited for a new monster to spawn. The players around the two could tell what he was doing, but no one said a word. Each of them was silently waiting for the next part of his performance. The way he had fought the monster just now left the crowd wanting for more, and right now, everyone had forgotten that they were playing a MMO.

I'm afraid that you guys are gonna be disappointed this time… Brother Assist laughed bitterly. This was because he knew that what Gu Fei would be doing next was not the least bit exciting, and in fact, it would be exceedingly boring as he would repeatedly do moves to formulate the ideal fighting routine for the monster, and these would all be moves that Gu Fei had picked out from the first wave of probing he had done before. Actually, these moves would be the crème de la crop, but it was as the saying went: 'Insiders will see the sum and substance, while outsiders will merely see the hustle and bustle.' Gu Fei would proceed to unearth the essence now, so the onlookers that were only there for the thrill would of course not be interested in watching this bit.

As he had expected, the crowd was originally spirited when Gu Fei first engaged with the monster once more, but they soon realized that this time was different from before, and that sequence of attack with hurricane-like exhilaration was nowhere to be seen. Gu Fei was now very politely exchanged blows with the monsters; he made a move and allowed the monster to do its own, all along sticking to the same moves. Soon, even the crowd could memorize the moves he was making and thus became very annoyed by this display.

The players slowly simmered and returned to normal, beginning to wonder just what Gu Fei was trying to achieve. The crowd began a hushed discussion among themselves, yet they could never come to a conclusion. Meanwhile, that kind player that had provided Gu Fei and Brother Assist with a monster spawn point slide right next to Brother Assist and asked him, looking very puzzled. ”Bro, just what is he trying to do?”

”He's researching a set of fighting routines most efficient in killing the Campfire Patroller monster. Before, what he was doing is probing the monster for all its unique attacks and defense patterns. Right now, he's earnestly experimenting and studying the best way to take it down,” explained Brother Assist.

That player was very lost hearing all this, scratching his head to ask. ”When are you guys logging off?”

”It's still early,” answered Brother Assist.

”Okay. I'll be going to grab dinner. Will you guys still be around when I'm back?” the player asked, look at ng at the time.

”We'll still be here.” Brother Assist nodded. He was aware that Gu Fei would not easily complete this process.

”That's great. I'll be back soon,” the man said.

”We'll return the spot right to you when that time comes.” Brother Assist chuckled.

”Yeah. That'd be great,” That man meant to hint at this as well, so he bid them farewell and left in a hurry.

The other players had been patiently watching all this while, and they were still holding out hope for it to return to the exciting performance that they were looking forward to as someone yelled at Gu Fei. ”One more time!” At this, he merely smiled and did not do anything about it. When the crowd realized that there would be no more spectacular sight to behold, they too began to disperse slowly. There were still a handful of very inquisitive players that expressed their interest by coming forward to ask what this was all about. Gu Fei did not hide anything from these players, either. Continuing to conduct his experiment on the monsters, he told these people that he was researching for an efficient fighting routine to deal with the monster.

”Efficient. You call that efficient?” The people acted as if they had heard a joke and laughed sardonically before leaving. Very evidently, while Gu Fei killing the monster was very thrilling to watch, to gamers, it was no more than watching a very exciting martial arts display. When it came to killing monsters, that one kill took over ten minutes. If that was what it meant to be efficient, that would just be downright comical.

Gu Fei was not concerned with these men's attitude, though, and just continued focusing on the matter at hand. Meanwhile, those people who had left would occasionally turn their heads over to take a look, checking to see if there were any changes to his actions. Ultimately, all they saw was the same boring old exchange until, finally, they no longer paid attention to what Gu Fei was doing.

This level 45 monster was obviously far more difficult than the others his students had sought him out for. Gu Fei spent almost an entire class period before he succeeded in sequencing a fighting routine specifically for the Campfire Patroller. Brother Assist, who was conscientiously watching everything this whole time, knew that Gu Fei had finally concluded his work and was beside himself with excitement.

Soon, the monster was skillfully disposed of by Gu Fei with his sword, and the man revealed a smile of victory as he made his way to Brother Assist.

”Done?” Brother Assist immediately came forward to ask.

Gu Fei nodded but added a word that Brother Assist did not wish to hear. ”However…”

”'However', what…” Brother Assist was afraid.

”This monster isn't easy to beat. You gotta have a bit of Agility. Have you added any points to that stat at all?”

Brother Assist was stunned, replying eventually, ”A little.” He had originally been faithfully following the stat point allocation of Priests used, but had all his points reset once he advanced to a Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight was a job class that had not undergone thorough research by the masses yet, the ever prudent Brother Assist added some points to the stats he believed was necessary while setting aside the remaining stat points in the meantime, prepared to allocate it accordingly once there was a clear consensus on the ideal stat point distribution for Dark Knights.