Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 118 - Gu Fei’s Grinding Strategy

Now that no one else was trying to compete for their grinding spot, the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies began to take their usual positions to start grinding for levels. Evidently, they had long since formed a fixed routine for this grinding spot with one another. After getting into position, the ladies exchanged nods and shifted their gazes at a very bemused Gu Fei.

“Uh... What am I supposed to be doing?” Gu Fei asked, clueless.

“Luring the monsters,” Luo Luo answered.

“But I’m a Mage!” Gu Fei exclaimed in surprise. Although this was his first time participating in a party grind, it was common knowledge that Mages were the main offensive force during level grinding. Thus, an arduous task, such as monster luring, was rarely assigned to them.

Luo Luo reluctantly shared, “Our group line-up is already fixed. Royal usually did the monster luring.”

Gu Fei heaved a deep sigh as he looked up the sky. Royal sure had it rough! Not only did he have to rise up to the challenge when there’s a duel, he also had to do the most tedious task of monster luring! He’s pretty much a male nanny at this rate! As for me… “Ptooey!” Gu Fei irritably spat to the ground. To think that he would be reduced to being a substitute male nanny....

“It’s not easy for a Mage to lure monsters around here,” Ice Glaze remarked from the perspective of a Mage.

Luo Luo simply smiled and said, “Miles is no ordinary Mage. He can run REALLY fast.”

“Off you go! Off you go!” the other ladies urged Gu Fei to begin once they heard that.

Gu Fei feebly lifted his sword in hand and rushed toward the center of the clustered monsters nearby. Drawing the monsters' aggro was his way of luring them.

People should not assume that Gu Fei was ignorant of a technical skill called ‘monster luring’. As a Mage, especially one that had always been grinding alone, Gu Fei had long since perfected his technique to lure monsters. He swung the glistening blade in a three-hundred-sixty-degree arc, causing the surrounding monsters to chase after him. With the long line of monsters trailing behind Gu Fei, it was as if a train had arrived by the ladies. “Where am I luring them?” he asked loudly.

“Argh! I forgot to draw the circle on the ground!” Luo Luo exclaimed, smacking her forehead with her palm in consternation.

In actual fact, the ladies’ grinding positions and respective attacking turns were devised beforehand by Royal God Call. The circle mentioned by Luo Luo was his idea as well. Since the female Mages of this grinding party were lacking in terms of spell-casting techniques, their Descending Wheel of Flames would often fail to hit all the targets. Hence, Royal God Call came up with this idea of the ladies directing their flame wheels into a drawn circle at a specific time, while he handled the grasping of the right timing to lure monsters into the circle.

Whether Descending Wheel of Flames could hit all the targets or not with this strategy depended entirely on Royal God Call’s monsters luring skill.

“Royal always drew the circle, so I’ve forgotten about it,” Luo Luo explained as she pulled out her magic staff. She then proceeded to draw a circle at the center of their grinding spot using the magic staff while calling out to Gu Fei, “Lure the monsters elsewhere first; I’ll be done here in a jiffy.”

The other ladies intently watched Luo Luo carve a line to the ground. Female players were truly thorough in whatever they did, as none of them removed their gazes on Luo Luo until she finished her work. While they were admiring the roundness of her drawn circle, Luo Luo called out to Gu Fei once more, “It’s done! You can lure them over here now!”

Not hearing any sign of movement, the ladies finally shifted their gazes from the drawn circle to where Gu Fei and the monsters were. The sight that greeted them was of Gu Fei’s lone figure bathed by a flame's afterglow and surrounded by a litter of monster corpses.

“No need for that. I’ve taken care of them already,” Gu Fei said.

The ladies looked blankly at one another. They only watched Luo Luo draw a circle for a bit, yet Gu Fei managed to clear off all the monsters in that short span of time? They all wondered how he did it, as none of them saw him in action.

“Let’s wait for them to respawn!” Gu Fei announced as he walked toward the ladies.

“How… did you kill them?” Luo Luo asked.

“Descending Wheel of Flames, of course! Didn’t you ladies see it?”

All the ladies shook their heads.

Apparently, my act of killing the monsters is less interesting to watch than Luo Luo drawing a circle on the ground. How distressing… Gu Fei remarked dryly in his head, feeling irked.

“Try doing that again later,” Luo Luo.

“Alright. But you girls do the luring this time,” Gu Fei requested as he acquiesced.

“Ah?”

“You all lure the monsters. I, alone, am enough to take care of them,” Gu Fei reiterated.

“But usually—”

“That’s when Royal is around. It’s different now, so everyone should make adjustments, accordingly,” said Gu Fei with a straight face, radiating the confident aura of an expert from head to toe.

Luo Luo thought that he had a fair point, especially since she had heard that the leveling method of the other party of ladies with War Without Wounds was different from theirs. The other party was mainly made up of melee job classes with few Mages, but its leveling efficiency was about the same as Luo Luo’s party of mostly Mages. The factor that results into a high grinding efficiency for leveling must be the strategies that experts construct! Does this mean that Miles is a one-in-ten-thousand expert gamer, too? War Without Wounds and Royal God Call’s online gaming achievements go way back, and everyone in Amethyst Rebirth is utterly convinced of their capabilities. Does Miles also have such capability? Luo Luo doubtfully thought to herself. After all, someone who had an extensive knowledge about online gaming like Royal God Call and the rest would never add all their points to Agility when choosing a Mage job class. Still, look at how fast Miles is running! Luo Luo remarked to herself in astonishment.

In the limited spare time that they had while waiting for the monsters to respawn, the ladies expected Gu Fei to go into details of what they should mind when fighting with the monsters later, such as their standing or running stances as well as the monsters’ weak spots to target with their spells. However, Gu Fei remained mum. He only said something when the monsters had already respawned and his words were only: “Lure them back!”

The ladies were in turmoil and were momentarily at a loss of what they should do.

“Lure one monster back each! Now, go!” Gu Fei finally started issuing commands to them.

“But we’re Mages!” a few protested, puzzled.

“Aren’t Mages the best at luring monsters?” Gu Fei asked, puzzled as well.

Mages who did solo grinding, like Gu Fei, were indeed the best at luring monsters. Nonetheless, actually finding Mages who could challenge the monsters by themselves was rare. The few female Mages exchanged looks.

“Go and lure them back!” Luo Luo said to them as well. She was curious of the unique strategy Gu Fei had in mind. Those times that she had been grinding levels with Royal God Call, Luo Luo had learned a lot of things and realized that online gaming involved many strategies.

The ladies apprehensively approached the surrounding monsters. “Fireball! Shoot!” Their dainty cries filled the air.

“Bring them back together once you lure one each!” Gu Fei shouted. The ladies headed back with the monsters chasing after them. With them luring the monsters singly, the monsters no longer moved in a train-like formation. Only when players were luring monsters by themselves would the AIs chase after them in single pile. Right now, the monsters based their alignment to the ladies’ running order.

“Run in a more orderly fashion,” Gu Fei said aloud as he gestured with his hand at them. Looking to their right, the ladies formed a row as they continued running toward the drawn circle.

“Run closer to one another,” Gu Fei indicated with his hand once more. The nine ladies proceeded to form a three-by-three square formation as they kept on moving. Gu Fei nodded his head in satisfaction. He then raised his sword and yelled, “Descending Wheel of Flames!”

The ladies raised their heads and looked toward his location, yelling, “The monsters are not in the circle yet!”

“Don’t look over there! Focus on running a few more steps forward first!” Gu Fei yelled back, rattled. His nervous expression affected the ladies, and they quickly rushed forward, causing their formation to become a bit disorderly in the process.

“Alright, that’ll do! Stay at your current positions!” Gu Fei ordered aloud. Everyone stopped running. Half of them faced backward to look at Gu Fei’s casted Descending Wheel of Flames. With the flame wheel’s emergence, he finished his chant, “Descend!”

The flame wheel rolled down instantly, scorching the ground below. The ladies’ hearts pounded fast at the sight. Had they not listened to Gu Fei’s instruction to run a few more steps forward, a portion of that flame wheel would have landed on their heads.

There were nine monsters initially. Two ladies had run too fast that the lured monsters lost track of them, so Gu Fei’s Descending Wheel of Flames only landed on seven monsters. The flame wheel faded away instantly, leaving behind the burned corpses of seven monsters on the ground.

Gu Fei walked toward the ladies and said, “Killing the monsters is all that matters; why bother luring them into that circle?” He then singled out the two ladies that had run too fast, “Don’t be so nervous! I know that your normal running pace is slower than the monsters, but there’s no need to run too fast. We’ve got plenty of time. Once the monsters form into a group, I’ll be sure to deal with them.”

Nobody knew what to say, especially Luo Luo.

Strategy formed a small part in Gu Fei’s attacking style, as it was more like a flat out display of his power. If they compared the attacking styles of Gu Fei and Royal God Call, one depended on his superb monster luring technique while the other heavily leaned on his high Spell Damage. For one flame wheel to insta-kill all the monsters…This was not a technique, but purely his superior Spell Damage. Although Gu Fei’s casting of Descending Wheel of Flames was very accurate and timely, his savvy spell-casting was overshadowed by his monstrous Spell Damage.

The current grinding party was mostly composed of Mages, so the ladies’ admiration for Gu Fei right now was simply off the charts. They were screaming excitedly, and each of them asked questions, such as how high his Spell Damage was or how high his spell proficiency was.

Gu Fei glanced over at his character window, and revealed his Spell Damage to them.

With the current level 40 Mages’ high Intelligence, Gu Fei’s Spell Damage, which was mainly boosted by his weapon, was no longer that impressive. Nonetheless, it was still a lot higher than the ladies’. Combined with the destructive power of Descending Wheel of Flames, the damage dealt by Gu Fei was enough to insta-kill level 40 monsters.

This was not the upper limit for Gu Fei’s Spell Damage, though. Take Spell Mastery as an example; the Spell Damage boosted by this trait was not included in the Magic Attack Power stat displayed on the character window, as it was something that would only come into play in actual combat. Equipment with traits that boosted magic-related stats worked the same way. Thus, the ‘Spell Mastery +1’ and ‘Magic Damage +10%’ traits of Midnight Spirit Robe were also not included into the algorithm displayed on the character window.

Whatever the case might be, the efficiency of this party's level grinding would only become better from now on with Gu Fei’s fighting force.

Putting all these things aside, Gu Fei’s normal grinding routine consisted of him luring nine monsters into a group. Right now, there were nine people who did all the luring of the monsters for him. What was the difference between the two? Gu Fei could now laze under a tree and just watch the ladies run all over the place to lure monsters….

“Gather up once you all finish luring the monsters!” Gu Fei shouted. The ladies gathering together meant that the monsters behind them would gather up as well. When Gu Fei pointed his sword and casted Descending Wheel of Flames, the world grew quiet once more. Level grinding like this is quite relaxing! he thought to himself.