Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Guild names were fervently solicited. A person’s personality would always be made apparent when coming up with names. Sword Demon immediately ignored everything that both Royal God Call and Fireball came up with, not even wanting to entertain them at all. Southern Lone Blade and his gang were utilitarian men of action, so none of them had any thoughts about things like names. Actually, what they wanted was something more substantial. In light of the fact that their current income was now linked to the popularity of the workshop, the seven simply suggested naming it Thousand Miles Drunk’s Workshop, figuring that they could help promote it at the same time. Sword Demon obviously felt that such a name would end up confusing players easily, nor did he have some noble ambition of forging his guild into a workshop, so he rejected that idea of theirs.

With a name such as Bashful Countenance, the lady was more timid than a mouse, immediately shrinking into a corner once everyone started talking. Every word that Xi Xiaotian said would end up being stared down and pricked at by a disgruntled Gu Fei, so she did not speak up either. Cirrus was the only person among the 20 that had no background or any sort of relationship with anyone present, so he did not suggest anything either, being careful with what he said and did seeing that he was still considered a stranger.

Then there were the four ladies from Amethyst Rebirth. Svelte Dancer was a lot more proactive, and she was extremely arrogant to boot. She felt that the name Extremely Heaven Defying was acceptable, but in view of how this name came to be because of Gu Fei being present, she felt that it was completely reasonable to go even further and call it ‘Most Heaven Defying’ since she was included.

“I don’t think the word ‘most’ is good,” Gu Fei said. “As the saying goes, when one loses pride, one gains in modesty. I feel like we should be a little bit more modest, which makes Extremely Heaven Defying the most appropriate option. Calling ourselves the most heaven defying would not be modest at all.”

“Is that so?” Svelte Dancer said. “But I’m only stating facts. With both you and me, aren’t we considered the Most Heaven Defying?”

“While that may be true, but remember the other saying: It’s best to leave some leeway in all things, so as to leave room for the future. We should really leave ourselves a bit of flexibility here. We might be the most heaven defying existence now, but what if there comes a day when we aren’t playing the game anymore, what then? Wouldn’t such a name become untrue? That would just leave such immense pressure on the guild members! We need to keep their well-being in mind as well,” Gu Fei elaborated.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Svelte Dancer nodded vigorously. “How surprising that you actually have a bit of brain in you! Now that’s what I call extremely heaven defying!” With that, Svelte Dancer turned to the NPC, “The guild will be called Extremely Heaven Defying. Thank you.”

Sword Demon was in tears. How did this become set in stone? Furthermore, to claim that extremely heaven defying was modest, just what sort of modesty was that!? Sword Demon could already foresee that this guild would be tough to handle down the road with such members; the jury was still out on whether the re-establishment of a guild of his own was a blessing or a curse.

Fortunately, the NPC was not as casual. Sword Demon was the one creating the guild at the moment, so the NPC was not about to take the suggestion from some random passerby and name his guild in such a fashion. Thus, it simply ignored what Svelte Dancer had said and was only concerned with what Sword Demon would say.

“Hmm, it’s not listening to me huh?” Svelte Dancer was annoyed that she was being ignored, so she turned around to look at Sword Demon as he confirmed, “Are we really naming it ‘Extremely Heaven Defying’?” He proceeded to look around at the others, ” Does anyone have any qualms?”

“Who’s gonna have qualms?” Gu Fei and Svelte Dancer called out in unison. Anyone who had any concerns simply swallowed their words. Take Brother Assist for example; he had originally been thinking of a name, but when he saw this scene unfold, he became certain that he would be beaten black and blue by the pair of heaven defying maniacs present if the name that he came up with immediately superseded Extremely Heaven Defying. It was better if he kept quiet and live a few years longer!

Brother Assist was a man who adapted very well with the situation, thus he immediately expressed, “Extremely Heaven Defying is a good name; it rolls off the tongue easily. Sword Demon, don’t you think it highlights your past ambitions as well?”

“Brother Assist…” Sword Demon understood Brother Assist’s temperament well. He refused to believe that Brother Assist liked such a pompous name, so he must have deferred to the imposing character of the two, immediately choosing to take refuge under the shade that these two opinionated players provided.

Gu Fei was not someone who was incapable of reading people’s moods. It looked like Sword Demon minded quite a lot about what the guild name would end up being, so he decided to give Sword Demon a chance to speak, “Sword Demon, do you think the name isn’t good? What are your thoughts on it?”

Sword Demon was having a headache! He enjoyed smoking, which was why he had once called himself Smoking Addict. When he did not wish to use this name afterward, the job class of the character that he had happened to have been playing before was a Magic Swordsman, which was why he then called himself a Sword Demon. It was apparent that Sword Demon was rather incompetent when it came to coming up with names, but this was the last chance that he had to refute what both Gu Fei and Svelte Dancer were suggesting. Sword Demon thought long and hard about it, squeezing out every bit of juice in his brain before finally coming up with one. “The Brotherhood Association. How does that sound?”

Half of the players present nearly wanted to vomit. Gu Fei tapped into his superb resilience as a martial practitioner and he repeated it once more, “The Brotherhood Association? What does everyone think about it?”

The other half finally vomited as well. “Sword Demon, are you really going to be so basic? Do you really dare to go with that?” Royal God Call was the first to cry out hoarsely. Even Luo Luo, whom he was barely close to, could not stand it either. “If you’re gonna go for such a name, I’ll just head back to Amethyst Rebirth.”

Gu Fei shrugged at Sword Demon, helpless. “I’ve already tried my best.”

“Fine… Extremely Heaven Defying it is…” Sword Demon lowered his head with shame.

“The name isn’t bad. I think the word ‘extremely’ is very funny. Why don’t you like it, Sword Demon?” Luo Luo asked.

“It’s not that I don’t like it… It’s just that I feel a little uneasy saying it,” Sword Demon protested.

“Sword Demon, you must be too used to being low-profile these days. I remember when I met you in-game back then, you had brought a whole entourage of underlings around, arrogantly acting like you were the bee’s knees as well!” Fireball said.

“Is that so?” Sword Demon asked.

“Why else do you think Drunk bro had abused you so thoroughly that time?” Fireball reasoned.

“Let’s not dredge up the past,” Sword Demon hurt just thinking about it.

“So, do you have any other suggestions?” Gu Fei asked.

“Nope, no more,” Sword Demon did not dare to come up with any other names anymore. After suffering the crowd’s lampoon moments ago, he felt that he had nearly been poisoned to death by their toxic reaction.

“The guild’s name will be ‘Extremely Heaven Defying’,” Sword Demon relented and told the NPC thusly. He still had a final shred of hope that there would already be an existing guild sharing the same name, but he knew that the chance of this was slim. Brother Assist had pretty much recorded every guild name found in Yunduan City, and a name like Extremely Heaven Defying stood out like a sore thumb. Brother Assist would surely have known if it was the case.

Sure enough, the NPC did not say a word and very quickly registered everyone. All 20 of them received the system prompt altogether: [Do you agree to be a member of the guild, Extremely Heaven Defying?]

Everyone answered affirmative, and so the next step was to pick the motif for the emblem, which the system offered an extensive assortment to choose from. Naturally, this excluded all the previous motifs that other guilds had picked for themselves. Furthermore, it even provided players with a dedicated DIY feature, but the motif that the players created through this method would immediately be compared with all the guild emblems that were already chosen. Creating a motif that was deemed to have at least an 80% likeness to any of them would be grounds for rejection.

“Should I pick one, or make one?” Sword Demon asked everyone.

“Just choose one will do. Get something that looks heaven defying,” Gu Fei said.

“You come and do it. I have no idea what looks heaven defying,” Sword Demon took a step back.

Gu Fei did not stand on ceremony, and began to flip through the catalog, immediately pointing out one in the first two pages, “This will do.”

Everyone gathered around and took a look. All of them felt that it was extremely ugly looking and simply could not understand Gu Fei’s sense of aesthetics. However, when they saw how nonchalant he looked, everyone suddenly realized that he was not even part of their guild, so he would obviously be unconcerned if the emblem looked good or ugly, since he would not be wearing it!

The irresponsible Gu Fei received angry denouncement from everyone as they chased him out of the building. They crowded around the catalog and flipped through it, and the best they could do was getting 16 of them to agree to one, and four to disagree with it. Thus, they continued to search through the catalog until everyone was tired of it, and Sword Demon said, “Shall we create one ourselves?”

“Not everyone might like something self-created!”

“We won’t use any motif, only characters,” Sword Demon said. This was the most commonly seen with self-created guild emblems. By choosing the name of their own guild, or a particular character, engraved on to the emblem.

“That… That’s no longer an emblem, but a seal!” Luo Luo said.

“Then you guys can do the choosing. I don’t have any horses in this race. I’m fine with everything. Call me when you’re all done, I’m gonna go out and take a breath of fresh air.” Sword Demon rubbed his back as he left the Hall of Guild Creations. Outside, Gu Fei was sparring with thin air. The moment he saw Sword Demon, he ended the set he was doing and came over to ask, “Are you guys done yet?”

“No, they are still picking,” Sword Demon looked tired.

Gu Fei was very sympathetic, “What do you want to do?”

“I wanna smoke a stick,” Sword Demon sighed.

“Head forward and take a right turn up the street, approximately 200 meters away,” Gu Fei said.

“What, there’s someone selling cigarettes there?” Sword Demon was astonished.

“No, it’s a designated log off point. You can head on over and take a drag after you go offline!” Gu Fei said.

Sword Demon was speechless.

And so, Gu Fei very quickly returned to spar with the air. When Sword Demon saw this, he suddenly felt the urge as well and stepped forward to ask to exchange pointers with Gu Fei. Gu Fei had never been courteous even when exchanging pointers, beating Sword Demon to the point that he was left searching for his teeth strewn on the ground after, and that made Sword Demon feel all the more depressed. However, he was able to clarify a few things about fighting through the spar, so he at least felt a little gratified seeing that he was able to achieve a bit of an improvement. Two ladies from Amethyst Rebirth had passed by meanwhile and curiously asked what the two men were doing.

“We’re still creating the guild!” Gu Fei swept his glance over to the building behind them.

“Is there a need to spend so much time creating a guild?” The two ladies were mystified. They had all entered the city together, and more than an hour had already passed.

Gu Fei sighed as he casually asked, “How goes the questing?”

“There’s plenty of quests.” The two girls were excited. The ladies in Amethyst Rebirth were normally not as passionate as June’s Rain when it came to questing, but they were a lot more keen than most players. There were some quests in the city that could only be picked up once, while some were repeatable and available for more players to pick up. These two ladies happened to be doing the latter and were hurrying along together!

“All the best,” Gu Fei nodded.

“Yes, Mister guild leader,” The two ladies giggled and ran off. Sword Demon stared blankly at the two running away. Gu Fei was standing right next to him, calling out to him, “Hey, they were referring to me! Your guild is still busy choosing your guild emblem!”

“I know…” Sword Demon had just said those two words when they heard someone yell from inside the building, “THAT’S A GREAT CHOICE!!!”

“It’s finally done!” Sword Demon heaved a long sigh and Gu Fei followed him back into the Hall of Guild Creations. 19 players were crowding around the catalog, happily pointing at one of the motifs.

Sword Demon approach them and saw that they had picked out the character for defying and vomited blood, “isn’t that still a character?”

“It’s not a character. It’s a motif, but it really looks like the character for defying, right?” Luo Luo said.

“Thank you for all your hard work,” Sword Demon did not bother arguing further and pointed toward the chosen motif for their guild emblem to the NPC. Afterward, he was required to foot a non-negotiable amount of coins for the guild application. It was originally an exorbitant sum, but was there any exorbitant sum out there that could trouble Gu Fei and his group? Sword Demon very casually handed over the coins and it was paid upfront. Thus, with the guild officially created, the system proceeded to announce to everyone: [You have now become a member of Extremely Heaven Defying. The guild emblem will now be deposited into everyone’s inventory.] As this was happening, the NPC began to give its speech, “Heroes, disaster has befallen this city. Pick up the weapons in your hands and steel your heart for righteousness. For freedom, for—”

Everyone had all walked away. The guild was already established, so why would anyone care to continue hearing the NPC nag at them? After leaving the Hall of Guild Creation, all of them breathed a sigh of relief. As their guild leader, Sword Demon turned around and wondered if he should say address his fellow guild members, when Gu Fei suddenly blurted out, “Why are we missing people?”

Sword Demon froze. He counted the people present and sure enough, out of the 20 players that he originally had, there was 1 missing. However, now that they had a guild channel, it was very convenient for them to locate each other. Just as he was about to send a message out, Luo Luo had turned her head toward the building and shouted inside, “Xiaoyu, come on out quick. That’s not a quest.”

Everyone poked their heads into the building and saw that June’s Rain was holding out her notebook, conscientiously jotting down the NPC’s naggings. Brother Assist saw a shade of himself in this scene he was witnessing and his eyes moistened, saying to the people around him, “This lady is sure to have a bright future ahead.”

June’s Rain was dragged away from the desk by Luo Luo, and all 21 of them had finally gathered together. Everyone was quick on the uptake and knew that they should let their guild leader Sword Demon say a few words now that they were all a part of this newly formed guild. And so, everyone was very quiet, intently looking at Sword Demon to begin.

This scene moved Sword Demon as well. Look, in the end, they are still capable of acting like a guild! With that thought in mind, Sword Demon cleared his throat and said, “Ahem. Now that we’ve established our guild, we should, of course, be directing all our efforts toward the City Wars event while it is ongoing. I’m sure everyone understands the situation that we are in now. There’s no way that we will be able to survive if we were to confront the enemy head-on. As such, I feel like we can utilize this period when the players have no idea of our change of identity to engage in certain activities.”

“We’re not doing quests?” June’s Rain asked.

“That’s the quest, Xiaoyu, but it’s a guild quest. That is why we have to listen to the guild leader and follow the guild leader. Get it?” Luo Luo explained.

“Oh, I understand now,” June’s Rain nodded vigorously.

Sword Demon sighed in relief, shooting a thankful look to Luo Luo before continuing, “I’m sure everyone knows about how the north encampment was previously dismantled, right? That is a feature that Miles and I had unknowingly triggered, but we now know that the condition to dismantle the encampments individually requires the NPC guards within each encampment to be completely wiped out, before staying inside the place for a duration of 5 minutes. However, with the current strength that we possess, the only encampment we can set our eyes on would be the one in the northeast. This location is ideal precisely because of the accident from before, and now there are only four of those guards in it. However, this is also quite a troublesome affair, since the players have already suspected that the encampment would become a likely target and they subsequently increased their presence there. The moment city defenders like us enter the camp, the NPC guards will automatically identify us and that is why it’s rather difficult to dismantle that encampment.”

“Humans are capable of coming up with solutions, so I suggest a thorough investigation first. Gather all the information necessary before we develop our strategies to attack,” Brother Assist said.

“Leave this to us!” Southern Lone Blade and his gang volunteered.

“Woah, stealing my job eh?” Brother Assist mused.

“You should all go together,” Sword Demon said.

“Heh, did you realize that all the guys are going to that place?” Royal God Call whispered into Fireball’s ear.

“It’s just left with the two of us and a whole bunch of babes. How stimulating!” Fireball salivated.

“There’s also that guy, but seeing how silent he has been, not even saying much this whole time, he won’t be any threat,” Royal God Call was referring to Cirrus.

“There’s still Drunk bro and Sword Demon!” Fireball mentioned.

“Don’t worry about that. Miles isn’t interested in that sort of thing, and as for Sword Demon, must I lay it out plainly? That would be far too cruel!” Royal God Call said.

“This is our world now…” Fireball gave Royal God Call a hug, as the two of them shed tears of joy again.

“The rest of you, go around the city and see if there are any more vital quests to pick up! It’s best if we search for something that can affect the outcome of the City Wars,” Sword Demon said.

“Wow, Boss Sword Demon, you’re really ambitious! Are you intending on using just the 20 of us to defeat the 200,000 players out there?” Fireball mischievously pointed out.

Sword Demon chuckled, “We are not just 20 players. Don’t forget that the city defender’s forces also include all the NPC city guards, who are still holding on firmly even after experiencing an entire day’s worth of players’ assault. It’s only a pity that we are unable to take command of these city guards and launch a counterattack. As for us, we are basically a small team that exists in the shadow, looking to create a bit of trouble through the quests that we find. If we are able to dismantle an entire encampment like what Miles and I had done before, it would have already been a huge success on our part. However, we’ll need to have a huge amount of luck to pull that off.”

“Alright, the rest of you are free to go about your own business after this!” Sword Demon dismissed the remaining crowd in front of him, before looking for Brother Assist and Southern Lone Blade and his men, “I’ll head out with you guys and take part in the surveillance.”

Evidently, Sword Demon intended to focus his efforts mainly toward the northeast encampment at the moment. Actually, any player with any bit of vision could tell that the occupation of the encampment would definitely affect the outcome of this City Wars event. Even if it does not ultimately let them emerge victorious, removing one of the enemy encampments would surely provide a huge reward in terms of their contribution score. An encampment with only four NPC guards defending the place was truly a godsend. No matter how difficult it was, it would not hurt to give it a shot.

Sword Demon departed with Brother Assist and the seven as Royal God Call and Fireball began to engage with the ladies in lively chatter. Bashful Countenance was a bit lost, but it was a good thing for her that Xi Xiaotian, the one person whom she was familiar with among the ladies, was still around, so she stuck close to her. Finally, Gu Fei swept his gaze around in his astonishment, “Wait a minute. Why do I have nothing to do?”

“You’re not a member of our guild, and since the quests that you’ll pick up won’t be for our guild, I guess you can be our workhorse during fights,” Luo Luo giggled as she tossed a Heal on Gu Fei before leading Xiaoyu to search for quests with Royal God Call and Fireball following the pair closely. The two had finished making their rounds and discovered that it was still easier to converse with these two ladies.

Teasing Bashful Countenance was a very amusing endeavor, but now that Xi Xiaotian was there to ward off potential predators for her, the cleverness and sharp wit that Xi Xiaotian possessed left the two men feeling disoriented whenever she spoke, causing both Royal God Call and Fireball to become the teased instead of doing the teasing, and that was a huge shame to a skirt chaser. Meanwhile, the sisters Slyris and Yan Xiaozhu also had a similar protective dynamic with the older sister toward the younger sister; Slyris was an ice queen with a cold attitude, her stares capable of steering strangers away which made it difficult for either Royal God Call or Fireball to express themselves freely. As for Svelte Dancer and Lie Lie, one was already polishing her dagger while the other had her fists clenched and was ready for anything. The two men felt that only Gu Fei was capable of even teasing this sort of lady, so even though there were plenty of ladies around, the two realized that Luo Luo and June’s Rain were the only two options for them.

After these players departed in separate waves, Gu Fei was left shrugging in his confusion, “What the hell, what are the rest of us supposed to be doing?”

“Let’s head out and kill people!” Svelte Dancer declared.

“Killing people without any purpose?” Gu Fei asked.

“It isn’t purposeless! They are all contribution scores!” Svelte Dancer corrected.

“Would we not be exposing ourselves if we were to go out killing like that?” Gu Fei remembered Sword Demon seem to have mentioned how there was no way that they could take the hordes of enemies in a direct confrontation, so they needed to engage in activities from the shadows.

“We will be very exposed, no one out there knows our identity as players on the city defender’s side, and that is a huge advantage we hold. If we were to head out and kill players left and right, they would very quickly know that there are players on the side of the city defenders,” Cirrus heard the two discussing the topic and finally opened his mouth.

“This comrade speaks the truth; though I don’t think I have that advantage anymore,” Gu Fei said. He had already made himself famous with his antics yesterday. Every player from Yunduan City already knows that he’s the opposing BOSS.

“Then what should we do? There’s gotta be something that we can do! Are we really going to end up just doing all the boring quests here?” Svelte Dancer bemoaned.

“Actually, I do have a very exhilarating quest on hand!” Gu Fei divulged.

“It’s not diving underwater, is it?” Slyris could feel the lingering fear creep in to grip her heart.

“Assassinate Brave Surge. Exhilarating, eh?” Gu Fei asked.