Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Gu Fei was in no rush to begin, but instead asked Sword Demon, “You’ve seen me fight monsters plenty of times; did you ever notice what’s the largest difference between me and gamers?”.

Sword Demon thought for a moment. “You would strive to dodge all the monster’s basic attacks.”

Gu Fei nodded. “That’s right. I hope that you will first pay attention to this very aspect of combat. Of course, I know that gamers like you don’t dodge most of a monster’s attacks once you’ve already accurately determine that the damage it deals won’t affect you too much; thus, you take this opportunity to fight it out with your HP, making it far more advantageous and efficient than simply dodging. After all, making the effort to dodge not only means you are avoiding the damage from the enemy, it also makes you end up missing a good chance to retaliate against them with an attack of yours. But from the perspective of an actual combatant, this is no more than a style of combat that leaves both parties suffering grievous injuries, and it is a tactic only applied when left with no choice. However, because games allow players to replenish or Heal their HP, you gamers have become used to such a style of fighting. As such, If you intend to improve yourself to the next stage, you must first actively refrain from resorting to such a style of combat. Every time you fight, be it a player or a monster, you should avoid any sort of damage as best as you can. Of course, this isn’t something easily accomplished, but the key here is to start by attaching importance to the concept, and you must do this as often and as much as you can; do you understand what I mean?”

“Got it.” Sword Demon nodded.

“Good. With such a mentality, go take on a monster first!” Gu Fei said.

Sword Demon nodded and went up to fight a monster. In his mind, he kept repeating the word ‘dodge’, concentrating so much on this one point that he forgot to attack, only staring at the monster’s attacks in hopes of evading each one. Naturally, Sword Demon was incapable of completely avoiding every attack from a level 50 monster. He only realized what he was doing only after he had lost half his HP to the monster in this fashion. He swept his gaze over to Gu Fei, and he could not tell through the man’s expression whether he was elated or sad, so all Sword Demon could do was continue to run about even as he sought every chance to stab the monster with his dagger. There were plenty of times when the monster’s attacks came with the same impetus of attacking without any regard of dodging, and Sword Demon demonstrated his tough willpower in such instances. He staunchly resisted that habit he had cultivated over all his years gaming, ultimately not retaliating even in the face of such an attack every time, but he never did evade those slaps coming his way, either.

With this additional rule, Sword Demon only felt that his hands and feet were bound, searching all around for an opportunity to strike, his attacks completely incomparable against the damage from the monster’s attacks that he could not dodge. If this were to persist, it was obvious that there was no way he would be able to take on this level 50 monster that he could soundly defeat under normal circumstances.

In the end, it was as he had expected. Nevertheless, Sword Demon never once reverted to his usual style and just kept persevering, strictly adhering to Gu Fei’s pointers to fight this monster. Seeing that Sword Demon could no longer hold on, Gu Fei, who had been quietly observing all this while, suddenly stepped forward and easily killed off that monster in a few moves before Sword Demon lost his life.

Sword Demon exhaled a long sigh before he slowly munched on the bread to recover his HP even as he waited for Gu Fei to lecture him.

To his surprise, Gu Fei actually reassured him by patting his back and saying, “That’s great. I was originally afraid that, even if you wanted to change that mentality you’ve formed over the years, you might be unable to control yourself and slip back into old habits momentarily. To think you would actually manage to curb that urge so thoroughly; that’s impressive!”

“That’s nothing…” Sword Demon did not think much of it.

Gu Fei laughed. People who could do so would naturally feel that what they had done was nothing difficult to begin with. The difficulty of what Sword Demon had done would only be apparent to those who were unable to do what he had accomplished.

“But fighting in this manner, I was unable to take on this monster, instead,” Sword Demon said.

Gu Fei nodded. “It will of course be like this at the start; do you know why? Because despite the fact that the original combat style you used isn’t advisable, it’s at least a style that you’ve achieved an equilibrium between attack and defense, but now that you are focusing more on dodging, that excessive focus destabilized the equilibrium, which resulted in a monster that you originally had no problems defeating becoming that much more difficult to deal with. What you will have to do next is to find your attack-defense equilibrium anew with this mentality toward combat. This will have plenty of aspects that you will have to pay attention to. First, what you have the most difficulty executing at the moment is knowing when and how to perform your attacks while you are dodging and evading attacks.

“Actually, think about how I usually fight monsters or PK; while I surely dodged the attacks the other party does on me, was I ever in a situation like you, unable to find a chance to attack because I had to dodge?

“You can’t dodge for the sake of dodging. Sometimes, a dodge can foreshadow the next attack and can even become part of the attack itself. It’s still too early for you to reach such a stage, so all you have to do is take note that, at the same time you evade, try your best to find a way to attack, even to the point when your dodges end up catering to the attack you execute. Alright. Take a look at how I do it,” Gu Fei said as he pulled out a dagger. Randomly grabbing a monster, he began his attacks on it.

Dodge, attack, dodge, attack… It seemed that this was all Gu Fei did, yet Sword Demon reflected that he was incapable of demonstrating this level of dexterity Gu Fei was showing, so even though Sword Demon saw every move the other did, he was unable to do any of them at the moment! After watching for a while, Sword Demon suddenly began to find it more and more familiar. It was unknown when Coward’s Savior had sidled over to Sword Demon, but the man said, “Can you see it yet? While he is fighting that monster, plenty of situations he’s showing at the moment are exactly the same as what you faced earlier, but the difference here is how you only focused on dodging in those situations, while he already identified the chance to attack the monster even as he evaded its attack. I do believe that this is more or less what he wants you to take note of.”

“Thank you!” Hearing Coward’s Savior’s advice, Sword Demon had indeed gotten a better understanding of what Gu Fei was doing. Especially the areas where he had a strong impression of as he fought with the monster before, when Gu Fei re-enacted the fight with the monster, he could clearly see how Gu Fei would prepare his counterattacks even as he dodged the attacks. Suddenly, Sword Demon had the strong urge to try it out for himself.

After Gu Fei killed the monster, Sword Demon eagerly bounded to him. “I’ll give it another try.”

“Gotten a little comprehension eh?” Gu Fei chuckled.

“Yup!” Sword Demon nodded. Luring a monster, killing it… In the end, what he saw and what he did were two different things altogether. Even though he had already committed the various counterattacks Gu Fei had done to heart and run it through his mind repeatedly, whenever he clashed with the monster, Sword Demon would always think to himself, Ah! That attack I just did should’ve been done this way, instead…

Ultimately, Gu Fei still had to step in and take down the monster. This time, Sword Demon was feeling aggrieved after that fight, thinking that he had seen plenty of opportunities, yet he ultimately failed to grasp any of them again.

Unexpectedly, he saw that Gu Fei was delighted. “Very good. You’ve certainly making great strides after you’ve comprehended the logic behind the moves. Relax; I know that you must be feeling a disgruntled at your inability to execute what you’ve visualized in your mind, but that’s normal. Even though you’ve already grasped the mentality and awareness, you’d still be a little slow to act as your body has yet to consciously adapt to this change. There’s no need to rush this. Just take your time. It’s pretty much impossible for this improvement to instantly take root after I’ve pointed it out for you. If all it takes is a few words and pointers and you can already reach my caliber, then perhaps kung fu would hardly be of any value. This is a step-by-step process of improvement, and you may not realize it even if you make progress. It’ll come to a point when you reach a certain level someday, and you suddenly look back to find yourself surprised at just how far you’ve come.”

“Yes!” Sword Demon concurred.

“Alright. Coward, go up and fight. Take off all your equipment and take your time with the combat. Do you know how to use a dagger?” Gu Fei asked.

“Ah…. no…” Coward’s Savior was just an amateur enthusiast, after all, so it was already quite good that he could familiarize himself with a handful of routines. It was simply impossible for him to be a professional that would have mastery over all the Eighteen Arms Martial Arts Techniques.

“Then, just use your fists; the logic behind it is all the same, anyway,” Gu Fei said.

“Okay!” Coward’s Savior heeded the command and began fighting monsters. Gu Fei then began to give Sword Demon a detailed explanation. He used Coward’s Savior’s attack patterns as a reference while the guy fought. Sword Demon conscientiously listened, forgetting everything about the efficient monster grinding routine at this point. The efficient monster grinding routine was nothing more than a means to level, and the purpose of leveling was to make himself stronger so he could defeat others; fighting monsters was never the final goal of players. Being able to learn these actual combat skills from Gu Fei would also allow him to attain this goal of indomitable strength.

Gu Fei began his one-on-one demonic special training with Sword Demon here even as the others busied themselves in their various locations. Eternal Dominion treated the members of Deep Freeze as his pupils from the bodyguard school and took to instructing them seriously. Bellows of ‘hiya’ reverberated from deep into the dense jungle of Linyin City, giving players within earshot quite the fright.

The others were all grinding in their respective locations as the final bunch of players coincidentally converged back at Yueye City’s Youye Valley. Southern Lone Blade and Flame Singed Clothes were partnered up here to grind, while Brother Assist, War Without Wounds, and the rest without partners played with the idea of working with the Ten Guild Alliance. Dusky Cloud would naturally still give them this little benefit, and each picked out the appropriate job classes to team up with them. War Without Wounds was actually shameless enough to go overboard, wanting a mile when given an inch, by asking Dusky Cloud if he could find a babe to partner up with.

Dusky Cloud did not dare to easily agree to such a request no matter how much face he wanted to give to these experts. His guild already had a sparse number of female players, and a situation where the wolves were aplenty and the meat was sparse meant that he would likely cause an uprising from the wolves of his guild if he gave an outsider like War Without Wounds a share. Dusky Cloud only managed to make War Without Wounds give up on this idea when he ultimately laughed it off, telling War Without Wounds that all the ladies in his guild were already in relationships, and there was simply none left for him.

At the same time, on the workshop’s front, Five Nights was rapidly laying the groundwork for their collaboration with Eternal Dominion. Because this particular project they had a deal on would likely encompass the majority of grinding maps across all the various cities, it was impossible for Five Nights to solely depend on the manpower he possessed across the six cities he was in charge of. No matter which city, there were of course locals who would be more familiar with the grinding maps situated around. Thus, after Five Nights relayed the circumstances of the negotiations on his end, Remarkable Flair workshop established a dedicated team to do market research. Led personally by Five Nights, the various city managers fully cooperated to draw up the plans necessary in the shortest time possible.

It took Five Nights three days to complete everything required. Only then did he contact Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion again.

Gu Fei and the others originally handed this matter off to Southern Lone Blade, but after putting further thought into it, Southern Lone Blade felt that he needed an expert like Gu Fei or Eternal Dominion tagging along, since the efficient monster grinding routines were something either man had the most right to speak about; Southern Lone Blade might sometimes need their input regarding some of the professional knowledge pertaining to kung fu.

The person to step up, given the circumstances, should logically be Eternal Dominion, but everyone agreed that having the more astute Gu Fei as the liaison would achieve the best effect, instead.