Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 497 – Cumulative Condition

“That’s not right!” Gu Fei thought about what he knew of Cool Apple and suddenly yelled this out.

“What?” The others all stared at him.

“Over in Xiawu City, I heard Slyris mention that Cool Apple possesses a Bounty License. It’s because of this he can enter the Government City Hall, yet now you guys are saying that he’s the first member of the League of Assassins; how is he able to join two factions?” Gu Fei could not make sense of things.

“Slyris was probably making a baseless claim. Is she able to verify this to be fact?” Young Master Han said.

“I’ll ask her!” Royal God Call would not let go of any chance to speak to a lady.

“I’ll do it!” War Without Wounds fought.

Thus, the two men continued to argue with each other for the chance get in contact with the lady. Just one of them doing this would do, nobody would enjoy having someone else butting in over this chance like this.

In the end, Gu Fei had already gotten the answer out of lady even as the two bickered on who would do it.

“Slyris said—”

“F*ck!” The moment Gu Fei mentioned her name, Royal God Call and War Without Wounds knew that they had been squabbling for naught and raised their middle fingers at Gu Fei.

Gu Fei ignore the two and continued, “She only heard it through the grapevines and has no idea how the rumors came to be.”

“Well, that makes no sense at all!” Brother Assist said. “Miles already has the first Bounty License, so it means no one else was able to get it before him. Since the officials haven’t leaked any information about this at all, nobody should be aware of the item’s existence, unless Miles himself said something about it. How could a rumor about the Bounty License even begin?”

“And one more thing – I’m already the first. If the rumors are true, that means Cool Apple’s number should be before mine. Is he number ‘0’?” Gu Fei asked.

“I don’t think so. Theoretically speaking, a game would usually standardize the way they represent things like serial numbers sequentially. I don’t recall anything that starts with zero in Parallel World, so theoretically speaking, there’s no reason he’d have a number ‘0’ Bounty License,” Brother Assist replied.

“Brother Assist, you have a lot of theories!” Everyone gave him the side eye.

“Well... It’s entirely because of this game’s oddity that it’s difficult for me to be certain,” Brother Assist said discouragingly.

Everyone could understand why Brother Assist would be feeling so discouraged. Brother Assist had applied the usual approach from his understanding of the average MMOs on this recent quest, yet it was Gu Fei’s atypical approach that had yielded result. Brother Assist had essentially lost in making the right call against all the presumptions that Gu Fei had made.

Gu Fei patted Brother Assist on his back to console the man and was about to continue on this topic when Young Master Han jumped the gun. “Let’s just stop guessing. What’s the point of continuing with making all these assumptions besides meaninglessly satisfying our childish curiosity?”

“Then, what’s meaningful?” Gu Fei asked.

“Mission...” Sword Demon muttered to himself as he maintained eye contact with Gru. He proceeded to turn around and address everyone. “There’s a mission here!”

“What sort of mission?” they asked.

“It’s a ‘Daily...” Sword Demon replied. Gu Fei immediately recalled the ‘Daily Mission’ that Giordano had given him a few days back. It seemed that what Sword Demon had just received was something in a similar vein, and it was something a faction uniquely offered to its members.

Everybody was stunned when they heard Gu Fei share his recent experience.

“So that means that Giordano is actually a NPC that you shared a faction with...” Brother Assist said.

“And you killed him...” Royal God Call added.

The experts all looked at one another.

“What?” Gu Fei asked.

“I have no idea about Parallel World, but for any other MMOs, players will have fame or a reputation points system with their faction, where it is likely for a member to suffer a penalty for killing someone in their faction, be it a player or a NPC. Certain games even designed it such that someone can get one kicked out of their faction after doing it for a specific number of times...”Brother Assist explained.

“To be honest, I still don’t understand; what’s the difference with joining or not joining a faction?” Gu Fei asked.

“Well, the most obvious example,” Brother Assist explained, “is how he has gotten a skill and gained access to a ‘Daily Mission’ no one else has at the moment.” He was pointing to Sword Demon when he said this.

“So why didn’t I gain a skill?” Gu Fei wondered.

“That’s what we’ve been saying...” A whole bunch of them turned around and sighed. “Trash faction!”

“That’s not necessarily the case,” Brother Assist said. “It’s entirely possible that Miles hasn’t found the NPC that will reward him accordingly. Every faction should be equal, so there should not be too much of a difference when it comes to the rewards or difficulty of the missions.”

“That’s right; how did you even get that Bounty License of yours?” How would these veteran gamers not understand the logic behind Brother Assist’s statement? They were only been feeling dissatisfied that this noob Gu Fei had stepped ahead once more before them, so they habitually started ridiculing the faction he had joined. The fact of the matter was that joining a faction at this point of the game was a good thing. It was fine even if it was a ‘trash faction’, which they were openly mocking.

While they were all more interested in the League of Assassins, given the method that Sword Demon had joined by pledging his loyalty through slaying an official like Giordano, they all felt that this method was likely unrepeatable, so they reckoned Gu Fei had a clear route of entry in comparison.

“I hunted down 300 different players,” Gu Fei answered.

“Your method doesn’t seem to be all that difficult when compared to the League of Assassins!” Royal God Call derided. He had a certain idea what this sort of result entailed after he had tried his hands at earning a Windchaser’s Boots for himself back then.

“While it may not be difficult, it would require quite the amount of time...” Brother Assist had already roughly estimated how much time it would take to complete 300 ‘Bounty Mission’ and it would definitely take days rather than hours. Furthermore, this quest had a certain level of risk due to the fighting involved. Brother Assist did not have the confidence of these experts when it came to PKing and PvPing. Furthermore, this sort of missions was not particularly efficient when it came to level-grinding, which meant anyone attempting this would surely slide down the leaderboard. In conclusion, this was not any particular leisurely pursuit that anyone could just complete without breaking a sweat.

“Sword Demon’s method is still the more straightforward and simpler...” Royal God Call changed his stance again after hearing Brother Assist’s breakdown.

Sword Demon smiled thickly, opting to stay out of the conversation.

“300 times...” everyone muttered this number, with only Young Master Han rolling his eyes at the thought. As a Priest, if he wished to complete such an achievement, he would have to work hard, and it was not just for a short stint, either...

“Logically speaking, there should not be too much of a difference when it comes to joining a faction...” Brother Assist said. “While it’s difficult for Sword Demon... That’s also because we are only at around level 40 at the moment, which exponentially increases the difficulty. Meanwhile, although we can agree that Miles’s method was time-consuming, it isn’t dependent on a level. Aren’t there too much of a contrast between the two methods?”

“Theoretically speaking, it is indeed quite implausible. I know what you’re trying to say,” Young Master Han concurred.

Brother Assist nodded his head.

“That’s we can say that there are actually different ways to join a faction. We can call Sword Demon’s method as the quest variant. By completing a particular quest, he got rewarded with a membership to the faction; Miles’s method is a cumulative milestone. He got awarded a chance to join a faction after reaching a certain point. Did the system ask you to confirm your choice when you picked up your ‘Bounty License’?” Young Master Han asked.

“Yeah...” This had only happened a few days ago, so Gu Fei could still recall what had transpired. When he handed in that last ‘Bounty Mission’, a NPC did ask something of him, but he could not remember just what it had asked. This was entirely because he did not really take note of these things in the game. Thinking back now, it was very likely that that NPC had mentioned the name of the faction he was now part of, but Gu Fei had probably dismissed it as trivial information.

“Look; that’s just how it is,” Young Master Han said.

“So what you’re saying is that there’s also another cumulative milestone needed to join the League of Assassins?” War Without Wounds was now interested. It was not particularly suitable for a slow-moving Warrior like him to go around chasing after bounty targets.

“Cool Apple...” Gu Fei suddenly mentioned the name.

“What about him?”

“Giordano passed me a stack of papers containing information about Cool Apple. It details the man’s achievement of accumulating a PK value of 1642 points,” Gu Fei shared.

“Do you mean to say that that is what he has accumulated?” Brother Assist asked. “The man gathered so much PK value he achieved the condition to join the League of Assassins, thereby allowing him to become number 1 in this faction?”

“That’s... a possible hypothesis,” Young Master Han evaluated.

“Highly possible.” The others agreed as well.

“We just don’t know exactly how much is needed,” Brother Assist said. He really wished he could directly interview Cool Apple about it and get a better grasp of this particular information, Otherwise... Brother Assist believed that he would have difficulties falling asleep over the next few days.

“It should be a number far above than Miles’s 300 ‘Bounty Mission’,” Young Master Han said. “Since the time consumption of the two activities is a different matter altogether.”

“It’s fine if it’s more. Grinding out these kills is surely faster than Miles’s 300 ‘Bounty Mission’, right?” Royal God Call and War Without Wounds were envisioning themselves heading over to a newbie training ground in the early teens and clearing out the noobs; how many PK points they could earn...

“I doubt intentionally pumping up your PK value would work.” Young Master Han could already see through the despicable thought that the two were planning to execute. “I reckon that there’s a certain sort of level requirement from your PK targets; for example, a target should be not lower than two levels from the hunter’s level, or it’s something of the sort.”

“Furthermore, grinding like that will need you to clear it regularly. Which is why there’s no telling that it’d be faster than the 300 ‘Bounty Mission’,” Sword Demon said.

“Is that really how Cool Apple managed to gain entry into both factions?” the two men asked.

“Haven’t we already clarified that there’s no such thing as number ‘0’? Still, I did think of another possibility. Cool Apple stumbled on the opportunity of gaining the Bounty License after completing 300 ‘Bounty Mission’ as he was PK-ing, but he did the reverse of what Gu Fei had done; the man rejected the offer. This would at least explain that suspicion that Brother Assist had earlier. Miles is evidently number 1 in his faction, yet someone else found out about the Bounty License’s existence before he did,” Young Master Han said.

“What a wonderful analysis!” Brother Assist was excited. His personality was one such that reveled in gaining an understanding to things he did not know, and sure enough, his tendency toward, in Young Master Han’s words, such ‘childish curiosity’ was also one of the strongest. Now that Young Master Han’s analysis had perfectly explained one of the doubts he had, the contentment he felt was no less than that which Sword Demon felt when he obtained his Dual-wielding Mastery.

“Does that mean that number ‘1’ is really Cool Apple?” Sword Demon asked.

“Logically speaking, you should now have access to your faction communications channel now that you’re a member. Do either of you get one?” Young Master Han asked. The communications channel did not show a tab for factions; otherwise, everyone would have been aware of its existence in Parallel World.

“Nope...” Gu Fei and Sword Demon answered after they checked it.

“That’s not right...” These veterans were all nonplussed.

“Perhaps it’s only unlocked after reaching level 60?” Brother Assist made a guess.

“That looks to be the case.” The rest could not think of any other explanation.