620 Chapter 620 - Ambush (1/2)
Even though there were differences between the speed of players' comprehension and their study efficiency, these students would all have a grasp of the routine at the end of their 45 minutes lesson under the tutelage of Gu Fei and the others. Once the lesson ended, quite a good number of them eagerly left to find monsters to begin their practice. Meanwhile, others who clearly still had to wake up early or had other tasks that needed to be done the next day immediately made a beeline back to the city to log out, since they had only forced themselves to get online at this time because they had no choice in the matter.
When the lesson by White Mill was over, Young Master Han and the others had already begun to organize the second set of students showing up by the east gate, four hundred meters to the south. This time, the people were handled with fewer hiccups after having learnt from the experience of managing the previous set of students. Once the people were gathered, they set off at 4 am sharp toward the White Mill, with none of them caring if that was truly everyone. After all, they had time and time again emphasized on the importance of being prompt and punctual.
The second set of students were still split into 1,000-man groups with 2 of such groups with accordance to the various job classes. Adding Young Master's Elite and Southern Lone Blade's team of seven together, aside from the Fighter job class, there were two instructors for every other job class, which meant they had enough manpower to take care of this lot. Besides, Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion could be considered as all-rounder experts that were capable of instructing the routines for any of the job classes.
However, even though the two of them were able to demonstrate all of these routines, there were a few things they were unable to properly inculcate when taking on these routines that were not of their own job class. This was because the routines Gu Fei had established this time round were specifically tailored to each job class, and the biggest difference between the current iteration and the original routines he taught in the Wilderness Camp was how it actually complemented with the skills available to these various job classes. Take, for example, the addition of positioning for a Thief when in melee, to give the players the chance to execute their Backstab. If Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion were to give a demonstration of this, all they could do was verbally elaborate on this: Use Backstab here for the greatest effect. This spoken instruction would obviously be incomparable to Sword Demon or Blackwater directly plunging in their dagger for a Backstab, directly showing the students how it was supposed to be done. Thus, even if they had a severe lack of manpower and were unable to manage the numbers, Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion would still take on their own job classes: The Mage and Fighter, respectively.
Such a situation made Southern Lone Blade and the others a little worried about the batches they would take in the future. Sword Demon and the others were obviously not going to be around then, so if the seven of them were the only ones picking up this task, they would most likely die of exhaustion from having to organize and sort through the letters, as well as the tutelage of the efficient monster grinding routines to the students after. Southern Lone Blade had been a professional gamer for many years, and this was finally the chance for him to rake in a fortune, yet they had to put in an inhumane amount of work to earn it.
There was no point in overthinking about whatever happened afterwards. Everybody poured their hearts into tutoring, and by the time the first lesson was over, the second set of students were already settled. Half of the first set of students had departed, leaving the other half still around. The same thing happened with the second set of students as well, and adding in those players in the wild that hung around, the White Mill was currently extremely crowded, numbering far beyond the 10,000 players. That was not the end of it either; in a blink of an eye, Young Master Han had sent the third set of students over, and the number of players climbed up to 20,000; a sea of players that thronged and bustled to no end!
Gu Fei and the others had already expected such a situation. At the moment, the players who had ”graduated” were in a hurry to find monsters for them to practice on, and they were already complaining about having difficulty getting these monsters. There were even more experienced players who realized there would be even more people coming over as time went by, and if they were all coming to grind here, it would be inevitable for them to end up battling one another for the monsters. Some had already begun to take note of the numbers, and came forward to inquire just how many players were learning the routines. Furthermore, there were some who had already begun to set up their own businesses catered to those wild players, and were now providing a second-hand lessons.
Gu Fei and the others saw everything unfold before their eyes, and they were all the more impressed with just how wise it was to collect the fees in advance before tutoring the routines. Thanks to that, they no longer had to be bothered with these players who were setting up their own fronts and continued to impart the routines to the third and fourth sets of students arriving.
When the third set ended, the cacophony of human voices in the White Mill grinding map was already at a record high. It was a lot more complex for the fourth set of students, as there were plenty of players with unique builds included such as the Strength focused Thieves, Agility-based Warriors, or even Knights with Endurance builds. There were even people who idolized and imitated Gu Fei's Full-Agility Mage build, who not only learnt the routine from Gu Fei himself, but even pestered him for autographs.
Some of the tutors had no choice but to swap the job classes they were instructing, like how Southern Lone Blade took charge to teach the Strength focused Thieves, and Sword Demon had to wield two claymores in his hands to teach the Agility-based Warriors… In order to deal with such a situation, each and every one of them had learnt several different routines beforehand, so even though they were not particularly adept with them, they would still be much better than those independent bootleggers who just learnt these routines themselves. And if they truly could not deal with it, did they not have the two trailblazing founders Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion to depend on?
They spent a lot more time teaching this fourth set of students. When everything was done, it was already 9:30 am. The White Mill grinding map was extremely lively by this time. Plenty of players in the early shift had rushed over to report, and they were all wearing miserable expressions when they found out the efficient monster grinding routine lessons had already finished over the course of the wee hours before. However, when they saw that there were still the bootleggers teaching, these players eagerly ran over to secretly learn from them instead.
The White Mill slowly trended toward the chaos seen in the Wilderness Camp, where students were being enrolled everywhere, kill-stealing, fighting over land, and those that occupied a spot and held down the fort… Meanwhile, when players from the Wilderness Camp heard this news, a lot of players also came over to observe, and so the two grinding maps became a mess one after another.
In the meantime, Gu Fei and the others were already making their way back to the city, talking and laughing merrily as they went. It was apparent that Gu Fei, Sword Demon, and the others who were determined to simply be temporary workers would not be participating in the next batch, so they were all in high spirits, so much so that they had forgotten their own exhaustion. Southern Lone Blade and the other professional gamers were also extremely satisfied with the income they had gotten from doing this work, but when they thought of how Sword Demon and the others would not be around for the next batch, they could not help but feel a little gloomy when they realized they would have to deal with all the labor themselves. Although not having them around denotes that there would be fewer people to split the profits with, which naturally meant each of them would be able to earn far more… However, a deeper reflection would be required when the choice was between money or life.
”Oh right!” Gu Fei suddenly thought of something. ”Brother Assist, about Dusky Cloud, Oathless Sword, Brave Surge… Did all these guild leaders reach out to you that day?” That day, all these leaders had each sought Gu Fei to register their interest to be taught by Gu Fei, causing him to be overwhelmed by everyone. Later on, after he learnt from Young Master Han to designate an auto-reply message to ”Ask Brother Assist”, he had yet to ask what was the result of everything.
”Yeah, they contacted me. That Dusky Cloud was really rash, claiming he would send his 4,000 strong guild over to register for our lessons,” Brother Assist said.
”But I don't think I saw any of them turn up, right?” Gu Fei said.
”Hehe, it was all just talk; did you really think he would lead all 4,000 players over here,” Brother Assist chuckled.
”So what happened in the end?” Gu Fei asked.
”In the end, I told him if he was interested in registering, he'll have to send us the money by mailing it to you! But I don't think we received anything from Dusky Cloud, Oathless Sword, or the other guild leaders, right?” Brother Assist said.
”Nope,” Everyone shook their heads. Sorting out the letters had not been done by a single person, so even though none of them could remember all the names they came across, they were sure to have an impression of coming across any of those names given how famous the IGNs of people like Dusky Cloud, Oathless Sword, and the other guild leaders were.
”However, I reckon there's sure to be players from their guilds here among our students today,” Brother Assist said.
Gu Fei thought about it and saw the sense in his words. If Dusky Cloud truly wanted to send his 4,000 men to learn the efficient monster grinding routine, he would need a total of 396,000 gold coins if every player went by the usual rate of 99 gold coins per person. While he might not have to bear the burden of the cost alone, it would be preferable to simply send ten or so players over to learn and return back to their guild to teach the routines to their own guildmates. This would only cost them 990 gold coins, and the difference between the two sums were simply too huge.
”It's not just them. Who knows how many of those students we got today are actually from all those major guilds? We'll soon know if we keep watching. Let's see how many guilds will and station themselves in the White Mill grinding map,” Brother Assist said.
”You've given this issue quite a thorough read huh, Brother Assist!” Gu Fei commended.
Brother Assist's face instantly turned a bright red, ”Originally, I had thought I could try and contact these guilds a little and save us the trouble of needing to advertise and sort through letters like what we had done for the last few days. These guilds would have an easier time mobilizing like this, but in the end…”
Gu Fei and the others had a clear idea just what happened in the end. However, Southern Lone Blade and the others had no idea, and while Flame Singed Clothes was listening to Brother Assist's explanation, the Mage quickly followed up to ask when Brother Assist's speech came to a sudden abrupt end, ”What happened in the end?”
”I got scorned…” Brother Assist replied dispiritedly.
Indeed, Gu Fei and the others thought to themselves. Young Master Han was acting as if he had heard nothing as he calmly drank his liquor. Flame Singed Clothes was still as confused as before, foolishly inquire, ”Scorned? Why would you be scorned?”
”You'll know why as time goes by,” Gu Fei said, as he patted Flame Singed Clothes's shoulders.
Flame Singed Clothes had a severe reaction to this, as the color from his face draining when Gu Fei patted him. It was evident his fear toward Gu Fei still lurked about in his heart; suddenly being patted by Gu Fei in such a fashion caused him to think he was about to be insta-killed.
Everyone broke into uproarious laughter when they saw that wildly inept reaction of his. Gu Fei had not thought he would create such a deep psychological scar in someone and was feeling rather embarrassed. No longer daring to pat that man anymore, he could only sheepishly say, ”What are you panicking for.”
Everyone was in a jovial mood as they chatted and laughed their way back to the city. Unfortunately, Brother Assist was unable to read the mood and wanted to talk to people about their next batch of routines. Brother Assist pointed into the distant hill as they happened to be strolling through a level 30 grinding map, ”Actually, we don't have to stick to just level 40 maps. Level 30 players have the same needs as well, and they might perhaps be all the more pressed to level. Level 30 players should easily accept the 99 gold coins price tag, so why don't we try to develop a lower level market for the next batch?”
”Level 30… Yes, we should develop that,” Young Master Han nodded.
Gu Fei and the others did not have anything to say, but Flame Singed Clothes was still a greenhorn, who proceeded to ask, ”By your logic, there's still level 20 and level 10 as well. We should begin from level 10.”