686 Chapter 686 - Water Enchantmen (1/2)

Gu Fei's face was expressionless as he spoke in the mercenary channel, ”You guys can forget about Amethyst Rebirth, though I can help guarantee two spots for you in Forever in Flowers. I'll go ahead and hail them about this right now.”

”No no no, definitely not!!” Royal God Call and War Without Wounds were both horrified. Forever in Flowers had gotten really famous as well, and many players in Parallel World knew them to be a guild where a whole bunch of skeevy and reprehensible boys had gathered within. If people were to head out and flirt with the ladies, nobody would ever mention the name Forever in Flowers, most ladies would not even spare a moment and avoid anyone from that guild. Why else would people enjoy emphasizing the importance of maintaining a low-profile? Forever In Flowers had precisely been far too high profile that they had even made a name for themselves while chasing skirts, so why would the ladies not be disgusted by it? Even though everyone clearly knew that nine out of ten players who strike up conversations with the ladies all had the same goal in mind, that did not mean that people should be so open and blatant about it, as that would just make it far too vulgar.

Naturally, Royal God Call and War Without Wounds did not want to be associated with something like being vulgar, and now that Forever in Flowers had been chasing after skirts to the point they were taboo, both men felt just hearing the name of the guild itself was inauspicious enough. They would likely have problems sleeping the next few days since Gu Fei actually made the suggestion to introduce them to the guild.

It was at this time when Brother Assist abruptly exploded, ”No, I can't endure this any longer!!!”

”What's going on? How can the two of you suddenly have access to the mercenary channel? IS it just because the two of you have gotten out of the city? That's not right, just why would the mercenary channel be accessible while outside the city. Can the two of you use this channel to communicate when you're inside the city? Also, Young Master, how did you end up together with Gu Xiaoshang?” Brother Assist had been suffocating this whole time.

”Woah, what an acquired taste! To think that Young Master would actually have the same palate as Oathless Sword, that's too indomitable!” Royal God Call and War Without Wounds exclaimed in their astonishment. Gu Xiaoshang was a famous lady in Yunduan City with a strong personality, so even though she was quite the looker, rumor has it that Oathless Sword had been the only suitor thus far. Even among the ladies, even if they looked particularly nondescript, it was definitely rare for there to actually be in such numbers. It could not be helped, with low supplies and high demand, the ratio of female and male gamers was completely disproportionate.

”Come over and accept your death!” Young Master Han said.

”I say, what sort of message are you sending out to Oathless Sword, feels like you're trying to steal his girl in protest, yeah?” Realization dawned on Royal God Call before he severely admonished, ”Young Master, looks like you're not good at picking up girls! You've gone about this far too immaturely. What's the point? To fight over a lover out of jealousy, everyone's face is ruined by what you're doing, and it is the bystanders that would treat the entire affair as a joke. That just causes heavy losses on both sides!”

”Yes, Royal God Call is right about this. Young Master, you're being immature,” War Without Wounds agreed.

[Royal God Call has been kicked from Young Master's Elite], the system reported.

The entire channel went silent.

”What were you saying before, Wounds?” Young Master Han asked innocuously.

”Nothing. I simply said I've been having a pretty good time recently, how's everyone doing?” War Without Wounds said.

The channel continued to stay quiet, when Brother Assist's name suddenly leaped out as he yelled, ”I GOT IT!!!”

”The mercenary channel belongs to the mercenary leader, so since Young Master belonged to the city assault side, only Young Master, Oathless Sword, Royal and me, belonging to the third party force, were able to use it. Miles and Sword Demon did not have access before, but now that Miles, Sword Demon, Wounds, and the others could all use it, that means the channel now belongs to someone in the third party force… Young Master, did you quit your guild?” Brother Assist asked.

”Brother Assist… I don't think that's what everyone is concerned about right now,” Gu Fei could not help but interject.

Poor Royal God Call had commented about his guild being feckless and had been eagerly looking forward to forming a guild with everyone. In the end, he got kicked out of the mercenary group by Young Master Han, and there was no way to deal with this situation. Gu Fei and Sword Demon were unable to message Royal God Call because they belonged to hostile Factions, Brother Assist had blocked all incoming messages, and while War Without Wounds had actually taken the initiative to send a message to Royal God Call, the former was happily mocking the latter even as tears streamed down his face.

”Yes, I've quit my guild,” Young Master Han had very calmly replied to Brother Assist's question.

”Why did you do that?” Brother Assist's curiosity was as always, a bottomless pit.

”It's pointless,” Young Master Han answered.

”Oh, looks like the performance of the large guilds this time won't be anything spectacular!” Brother Assist sighed. Royal God Call had just called his own guild feckless, and the sentiment was mirrored with Young Master Han's account as well. The two of them happened to be members of the two largest guilds in Yunduan City, the only difference was that Royal God Call had carefully searched for a stronger path after realizing that his guild was going nowhere, while Young Master Han was a lot more casual, opting to ditch his incompetent guild before deciding on his next move.

”So what are your plans?” Brother Assist asked.

”I'll kill off those two guys first,” Young Master Han said.

”Alright, you should stop wasting time; Oathless Sword is nothing but just one of our many quests. Since we know you're camping him out, we're not going to put any effort taking his head! You're better off doing something more meaningful with your time!” Gu Fei said.

Young Master Han did not say a word. While he did not know about the validity of Gu Fei's claim, Young Master Han firmly believed that given their personalities, neither of them would mind failing their quest to assassinate Oathless Sword and end up choosing to give up on their mission in the face of difficulty. Such a sensible option was something Southern Lone Blade would do, but not these two.

”I'm not in any rush,” Young Master Han calmly sent this message.

The channel became quiet once more. Gu Fei had returned near the city by this time. Now that the guild coalition had fallen apart at the north gate, plenty of guilds had departed and ran to join the battle with the other gates. None of them cared for tactics or strategy and were simply just attacking en masse. Every NPC killed counted, so why care for anything else?

Meanwhile, Traversing Four Seas, Carouse and the other large guilds had remained by the north gate. This was the most rational choice. After all, the guilds present were all strong in their own rights and adding to that previous assault they had attempted, even though it ultimately failed, they nevertheless had succeeded in damaging the city's defenses here. Everyone felt that there were evidently lesser NPC guards guarding this gate, so a good number of the guilds felt they would fare much better by staying around.

However, Traversing Four Seas was now completely focused on repelling Gu Fei and Sword Demon from causing trouble within their ranks, so they had temporarily entered a state of vigilance, which meant they had no plans of mounting an assault toward the city. The other large guilds were unaware of this, and seeing what Traversing Four Seas was doing had instead made them all suspicious of them having some scheme up their sleeves, thus they chose to observe the situation as well. The middle-sized guilds were all the more less inclined to move after seeing all the large guilds not making any moves of their own, so the north gate was completely silent. All the players from the guild listlessly milled around their own campsites, unsure if they were still taking part in the City War or not.

The opposing forces were separated by a huge battlefield between them, and there were plenty of large rocks and stones strewn across the entire expanse, the expended ammunition from the trebuchets up on the city walls. It was at this time when two figures suddenly appeared in this open space; one that came from the city, while the other that had appeared from somewhere unknown outside the city.

Many players spotted these two figures, but none of them could make either of them out clearly. They simply saw the figure that came from within the city arrive on the battlefield, walking about as if it was picking things up. In the meantime, the figure that came from outside the city, despite the fact that thousands of soldiers and players stood on either of its sides, was nevertheless calm and composed, walking his own path.

The trebuchets were not moving!

Everyone stared in bewilderment, waiting for the trebuchet to fire and turn that person into a meat patty. But who would have thought that after he treaded into the range of the trebuchets, none of those machines appear to even move.

A player became excited, could the trebuchets have entered a long period of cooldown? With such a thought, he decided to step onto the battlefield and test his hypothesis out, only to see a huge rock come sailing right over toward him. This person quickly scrambled to dodge the incoming projectile as if his life depended on it, and had narrowly managed to avoid being buried from the rising wave of sand and dirt that the rock's impact created. He then turned to look at that player walking nonchalantly on that field once more, who even seemed to have thrown a look of sympathy over to him.

Everybody was stunned as they watched this person walk right toward the city gate, even stopping midway to exchange a few words with that other figure that came from the city.

”Ray, what are you doing?” When Gu Fei saw Ray, he was carrying a huge basket on his back, glumly picking up the stones all over the battlefield.

Ray's face was one of absolute sorrow as he complained, ”This time, my quest had sent me out here to clean up the battlefield…”

The stones were still doable, so Gu Fei pointed to the large rocks, ”How are you cleaning those up?”

”I have no idea. I'm gonna go pick up the small stones first, in any case.” Ray picked the stones as he tossed them into the basket that he was carrying, looking completely like a menial laborer.

”It's logistics. That's just how it goes,” Gu Fei patted him, consoling the man.

”What quest are you getting this time around?” Ray asked Gu Fei.

”I'll know when I get back.”

”Oh, then I'll leave you to it.”

The two men exchanged these casual few words in the middle of a battlefield between two forces that numbered in the thousands. They each went their own ways after, with Gu Fei entering the city while Ray gradually filled that basket of his up with rocks, as he became more and more encumbered.

Gu Fei hurried back to the City Hall, entering the building to find the Vigilante Corp while holding onto that scrap of burnt paper Sword Demon had found in the fireplace from before. He presented it to the Vigilante Corp captain while describing what he had discovered at the bottom of the lake.

The captain did not say a word for the longest time, which Gu Fei found to be a very discouraging sign. It appeared as if he was not able to complete this quest of his. Parallel World was stingy when it came to such things, not even giving a bit of a hint as to what to do, leaving players running left and right just wasting their game time.

Gu Fei was about to leave the chamber when he suddenly heard the voice of an old man that sounded like it was on the brink of death croak out, ”That's a Water Enchantment.”

”Who said that?” Gu Fei looked around the room, and saw in the corner of the Vigilante Corp Chamber stood a grubby looking old coot, hunchbacked and with a full head of wispy white beard. This old man was holding onto a magic staff that was even longer than the average man's height and it wore an ocean blue Mage's robe that reached the floor. It was even wearing a pointy wizard's hat!

”And you are?” Gu Fei asked as he thought to himself, I don't think I've seen such an NPC during my few trips here!

”I'm the Great Mage Austin,” That old man introduced himself.

Mage. Gu Fei was already very used to hearing this job class, but now that there was an additional word in front of it, claiming to not just be a Mage, but a Great Mage! Gu Fei immediately felt it must be a swindler.

Of course, an NPC would not know what Gu Fei was thinking, slamming the butt of his magic staff onto the floor as it spoke, ”There any many kinds of Water Enchantment. This sort of spell is rather simple, but the fact that it was located underwater means its power is most unusual.”

Gu Fei understood that it was actually referring to the layer of film that he could not pierce or cut through. Since it was something the system had set up anyway, there was no need to talk about the theory behind it. It was up to the system with how powerful it wanted the film to be, so Gu Fei could not be bothered to listen to the Great Mage talk at length about what water magic it was, so he quickly asked, ”How can I break it?”

”Any amount of physical force would be restricted when underwater. If you wish to break this Water Enchantment, it would be impossible to solely depend on brute force alone.” The Great Mage Austin continued.

Gu Fei had no idea what else it wanted to talk about, so he decided to find a nearby chair and sat down, listening as the Great Mage bragged about how the Water Enchantment could hold out against a Hero's strength, and the pulling force it had. After it droned on for a whole bunch, it finally ended its speech, ”If you wish to break a Water Enchantment, you will have to find a preeminent Water Magician to undo the enchantment spell.”