Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 662: Chapter 662 – The Worried Brother Assist

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

“The price of items in Parallel World has been adjusted as well? This currency update was very thorough implemented indeed!” Brother Assist had not expected such a change to happen right from the start and had rushed off in a hurry to join Sword Demon in an effort to study the monster drop rates in detail. In the end, before he even stepped out the city gates, Brother Assist decided to make a quick detour and quickly slipped into one of the established stores by the road when he heard about this.

It was a system-operated weapon forge, so the items sold inside were nothing spectacular. They were mainly white tier weapons, yet were still rather expensive. Usually, nobody would be bothered with them, treating them as a recycling bin for rubbish. This was the place where people would end up off-loading their random miscellaneous wares that no players would buy. Yet, it was the repair services that the blacksmith in the weapon forge offered that experienced a more booming business, as players would get their equipment repaired whenever they passed by every day without exception.

Brother Assist entered the forge and discovered that the store was packed, with a huge number of players squeezed inside. He almost had no place to stand inside at all. Before Brother Assist could even be amazed, another player just outside had already entered and pushed him further into the store. The place was now a crowded mess, and he could hear players yelling non-stop, “It’s my turn, my turn!!!”

“Just what in the world is going on here?” Brother Assist was confused, asking the player who was trying his best to squeeze his way forward.

“Trying to earn coin, of course!” That player answered without even turning to face Brother Assist.

“Why are you blindly joining the crowd if you don’t know anything!?” another person turned back to look at Brother Assist when he said this, disgruntled after hearing this exchange.

Brother Assist had grown up in Parallel World facing such witheringly disdainful looks, so he ignored those words as he continued to shamelessly ask, “How are people earning coin?”

There were, of course, kind-hearted people around, so someone answered, “By doing the requisition orders that the Blacksmith issues, collecting the ores necessary!”

“Weren’t Blacksmiths already accepting them before the update?” Brother Assist wondered out loud. The weapon forges in the game had always been collecting all sorts of mineral ores, just like how the armor forge would collect all sorts of cloth and leathers as well like the tailor did. This was nothing new.

Someone immediately threw a scornful look at Brother Assist’s lack of knowledge as a result, “Are things anything like before? Have you not heard the rumors? Such quests would also be limited from here onwards.

“That’s just the gossip spreading in the forums!” Brother Assist said. How could he not have been aware of what was being discussed and all the information that was being tossed around on the forums? There would still be quests that would reward in-game currency, but it would be limited; this was the conclusion of the discussion that a poster came to on the forums. Most people agreed with this assessment as well. In truth, the officials had never mentioned anything like this, and it was all conjecture thus far.

“It was just rumors yesterday, but it’s no longer rumors anymore,” another said.

“What!? Is the number of quests available really limited?” Brother Assist asked.

“We still don’t know that for certain, but the weapons that this weapon forge would produce have already been reduced in quantity,” That person affirmed.

“Is that so? Let me take a look!” Brother Assist struggled as best he could to squeeze to the front. Nobody would fight with him to purchase equipment from the weapon store side of the forge, so when they saw that the person was not trying to compete in grabbing the quest, the crowd made a path for Brother Assist to pass. He made his way over to the front and queried the owner of the forge. The crowd was right! The weapons that were previously sitting on the weapon displays were for all to see and would be generated limitlessly once bought. As long as someone wished to buy it, why would the system not sell it? But it was no longer the case now; the weapons placed in the displays were just what was being shown, and nothing else. Brother Assist was very astonished. Even if nobody wanted to buy these items, was there a need to be so absolute? There were only three to five weapons on display here, so if someone were to be bored and just buy everything out, would it not be too much of a joke once the weapon store was left empty?

Brother Assist pondered about this as he asked the NPC merchant manning the store about the price. Indeed, the cost of these weapons had dropped just like the liquor prices in the tavern, but it had not been reduced ten times like the liquor in Parallel World, so compared to the original price... Brother Assist could not compare them, as he was unaware of the original price. This was because nobody had ever taken note of these white tier weapons or the price of these items. People merely glanced over them and knew they had become cheaper, but there was no way of telling just how much cheaper they were.

Brother Assist was contemplating over the matter when he casually took a look at the weapons on display, before he croaked, “Blue Tier? Gold Tier? F*ck, there’s even a piece of Purple tier equipment here!”

Everyone scoffed at Brother Assist’s ignorance, “Tsk. It’s a Purple tier, do you dare to buy it?”

There was a single-handed Purple tier sword on display; one side of the blade had a sharp edge, and the other side was serrated. The sword’s name was ‘Black Sawblade’, and it gave +15 to both Strength and Endurance, +5 to Agility, 35% Attack Enhancement, a 20% chance of causing the Bleed effect on attack that dealt 25% bleed every second over six seconds according to the attack damage that cannot be cured.

“It’s even a weapon with an effect!” Brother Assist continued to exclaim. Players before had divided weapons into two categories: weapons with inlaid skill, and weapons without inlaid skill. The prices of weapons with inlaid skills were incomparably higher than those without. But as the variety of equipment became more abundant, players slowly realized that the weaponry found in Parallel World had three major categories. The first category was weapons with skills in them: in addition to the additional stat points it provided, these weapons would all have a skill that players would be able to utilize once equipped, as long as they met the necessary equipment constraints. The second category were weapons with effects, which were weapons that would apply special effects when they attack. This type of weapon was already in existence in the early days, with traits that grant effects like additional attack and fatal blow. But most players had treated them as normal because they had seen plenty of them, so they were mostly ignored. It was only until the types of effect became more and more varied, that the players noticed how this type of weapon could be considered as a weapon category by themselves; As for the third and final category of weapon, they were the sort that had no skill or effect. These were just weapons that only had additional stat points to them. In the beginning, players had thought that these sort of weapons were worthless, but they later found out that weapons without inlaid skills or effects would have increased stats points or attack power to them, and they would be the strongest out of the three in terms of the weapon damage alone.

The Black Sawblade had the additional Bleed effect, dealing 25% of the damage every second for six seconds. Furthermore, players were unable to cure the damage dealt in this manner, meaning that as long as this effect was triggered with an attack, a rather powerful 2.5x damage would then be dealt, and the 20% chance of that applying was not low. The Twilight Blade that Brother Assist had was also a weapon that had a Weaken effect, but there was only a 10% chance for it to trigger.

A piece of top-grade equipment that was useful would actually be sitting there grandly for sale in a system-operated store. This was not Parallel World’s style. Brother Assist was surprised even as he came forward to ask about the price. 2000 gold coins.

Had this been the price of the weapon before the latest update, it would be rather affordable, and it would have most likely have caused a panic buying. However, everything in the game had lowered in price with the recent update, yet this item’s price remained at that level. Furthermore, given how everyone had no idea where they could earn back the money if they spent it now, who would dare to mess around like this? Besides, it was 2000 gold coins. Even if it was before the update, there were not many people who could have pulled out that many coins for it.

This was why the crowd did not take any exception to Brother Assist’s exclamation and were just waiting to see how the person would react after seeing the 2000 gold coins price tag.

2000 gold coins... Brother Assist muttered to himself. Had this been yesterday, it was not really a number he would balk at. But today, if they were to take the unit of measure that Young Master Han had discovered with liquor between then and now, that meant the weapon would have cost 10x before.

Brother Assist was a very cool-headed person, so even though his wallet was sufficiently stocked coin wise, he would never be reckless with his spending. But in this instance, he could see the entire crowd in the forge were glancing at him with a taunting leer as if they were just waiting for him to turn around and become a laughingstock.

The always composed Brother Assist suddenly felt a sort of impulse; the look in everyone’s eyes told him that they were waiting to see Brother Assist make a joke out of himself when he ended up not buying the weapon due to the price despite having made so much noise about the weapon. Brother Assist had always been very pedestrian, but he suddenly had that impulse of wanting to make others do a double-take. Turning around in a swift motion, he knocked on the countertop, pointing toward the Black Sawblade, “Bring that over. I want that.”

The merchant was still the same person after the update, responding to the players’ needs without a hint of qualms, so the NPC immediately reached to retrieve the sword that Brother Assist had asked for. Brother Assist very casually tossed out two pouches of coins onto the counter, turning round to glance at the people, elated: Flabbergasted? You’ve never thought that this master here would dare spend the coin huh!

So it turned out that sometimes, spending money was not just to buy the item in question, but to gain that moment of euphoria that came with the act of purchasing!!! Brother Assist was feeling utterly satisfied, taking the sword after having made payment and unhurriedly walked right out of the weapon store under the gaze of the dumbstruck crowd, all slow and purposeful.

Of course, it might have been quite an ostentatious act, but Brother Assist had not missed the very detail that he wanted to take note of. He saw that after he had handed the coins over and took the sword, the weapon display no longer had the same weapon on display, and the merchant took a weapon from the forge side of the establishment and placed another sword in its spot. This time, it was just a normal white tier weapon.

It’s gone after it’s sold... The white tier sword that the merchant had brought out could very well be part of the stock that this update had ready. But no matter the case, the stock would surely run out eventually, so would the weapon store just be empty then? Would the system have allowed for the game to become such a huge joke?

Brother Assist was wondering about this, when he suddenly recalled that he had only been bothered with being flamboyant, when his original plan had been to sell a piece of equipment that he no longer wanted for himself, testing to see if the system would still give him coins in exchange for it, but he ended up forgetting about doing just that.

After Brother Assist had just acted so pretentiously in the weapon store, he was a little embarrassed to turn back. But thankfully, this was not the only weapon store in Yunduan City. Brother Assist crossed a few streets and soon arrived in front of another store. In the time that had passed, the weapon store here had gotten even more crowded than the one he visited before, as there were even players that spilled out onto the street. It was unknown who was the impatient soul that must have been concerned with whether this sort of quests that earned currency still existed, so he or she must have went straight to give matters a try after getting online today. As a result, after the news was spread, players who were afraid that they would not be able to make any currency from this any longer all came running. People were all afraid of being poor.

Brother Assist was very tenacious when it came to research, and would never back down just because there were too many people. Barreling into the crowd, he squeezed with everyone, and he finally made his way into the middle. This time, he did not say anything more. As everyone went toward the blacksmith to exchange their ores for coins, Brother Assist went to the merchant in charge of the weapon store and took out the blue tier weapon that he had randomly gotten off monsters that he fought a few days ago.

When he handed it to the NPC, it actually accepted the transaction, and the price Brother Assist got in return was still the system treating quality weapons as trash, completely ignoring the actual item’s value to players.

To think it would still handle purchases of these items... So if players were to continue dumping all the crap they got in their grind to the stores, by the words the system used, the amount of currency an NPC had was limited, so if they were to keep accept equipment here, and are still collecting mineral ores on the other side, just how long will this last? Will the system keep sending money to them? No matter how much currency the system can hold, there will come a day when it runs out, right? Would it generate new coins when they are all out? But won’t that just return everything to square one, making it no different from having no update? Brother Assist mulled over this. The value of the blue tier weapon he sold was nothing much, and considering the current situation, it was completely not worth selling, so he had no issues parting ways with the weapon since the NPC was willing to accept the sale.

In the end, when he next looked back at the NPC, he saw it had turned around and hung the weapon on a nearby weapon rack.

“F*ck!” Brother Assist was surprised, as he quickly asked how much the sword was sold for.

Brother Assist shuddered the moment he heard the price from the merchant. Now that the system was selling it, the sword was no longer considered to be trash, and it was now priced very ‘fairly’. It was apparently selling the blue tier sword at the expected market price for said weapon, adjusted lower after calculating the currency changes from the latest update.

To think the system would do something like this... Brother Assist had managed to test another aspect of the design this time and very quickly realizing just what the result would be through the information he had just gleaned. He tossed a sentence in the mercenary channel with a heavy somberness, “it’s really hard to say just what sort of impact this update would make...”

“What happened?” Everyone hurriedly asked. Everyone was very concerned about this update.

Brother Assist did not say a word, and merely linked the Black Sawblade he just purchased onto the channel.

“D*mn, where did that come from!?” Everyone exclaimed. All of them were very close to each other after having spent so much time together, so they were all clear as to what sort of equipment each and everyone had. Purple tier equipment like the Black Sawblade was far and few in between, and it was not something that everybody had a chance of acquiring. Sometimes, it was not available even if someone had the money for it.

“I bought it from a system-operated store,” Brother Assist proceeded to tell them about everything that happened.

“D*mn, there are still several stores in the city! We should go take a look!” Royal God Call was up on his feet.

“I went over to the west end of the city and took a look at the weapon store there as well; there wasn’t any purple tier equipment. But aside from the purple tier weapons, the weapon stores were even selling blue tier items, but it seems like there just aren’t many of them. When I tried to buy a blue tier item from the store in the west end of the city, there wasn’t any new stock that replaced it after I bought it off. Also, when I sold him a blue tier equipment of my own, guess what happened? After the NPC took it from me, it turned around to put it up for sale, and the price matched those that it had before. I took note of all these prices, and I feel like those prices were a lot more attuned to the player market pricing. It’s not very fair! The system’s selling items at about the same price as the players, and what it sold were top tier equipment, this... I just can’t make sense of things,” Brother Assist said.

“I say, Brother Assist, you’re really a player through and through, living the life of a humble GM! What does any of the stuff you’re worried about matter to you? If a single Parallel World were to fall, hundreds and thousands of ‘Parallel Worlds’ would rise in its stead, would a gamer like you ever fear that you would run out of games to play? The way I see it, this update is great. Each of us are decked out in top tier equipment now, with plenty of gold coins in our possession. These are the advantages we now have, so let us all enjoy them while we can!” Young Master Han once more expressed his contempt toward Brother Assist.

“I’ll go check out some of the other system operated stores and have a look...” Brother Assist sighed, not at all seeing the light of Young Master Han’s words. It was in his nature to continue to worry about everything.

The others were originally in their respective meetings, but now that a conversation had started on the mercenary channel, the discussion once more went back to the prospect of this update. Even Gu Fei spoke a few times at the start, only to realize later that the things he interjected were no more than impromptu comic remarks that had nothing to do with what was being discussed, so he slowly went silent as well.

The pre-battle discussion here in Amethyst Rebirth was as outrageous as always, speaking a few lines about the matter before it digressed over to the currency update that just happened. The ladies each began counting just how much coins they had in their hands, and Svelte Dancer began to act like a generous benefactor, taking out the sack of gold coins that Gu Fei had tossed to her from before and began shoving the coins into the hands of the ladies. These ladies knew her personality well, and did their best to avoid her, but how would any of them be any faster than her Thief? In the end, even those who had no intention of taking the coins had no choice but to symbolically take a few, as Svelte Dancer yelled, “Don’t be shy everyone. Take it. Just ask Miles if there’s not enough.”

None of the ladies were that shameless, but Gu Fei did feel he was put in an awkward spot. Now that Svelte Dancer had made such an announcement, how could he not respond accordingly? All he could do was pull out a coin pouch and proceed to give out its content like he was giving out relief food, giving away a handful of coins here, and another sprinkle of coins there. July had no idea if she should laugh or cry when she saw that this meeting that she had initially convened had essentially been changed into a relief mission for the misfortunate.

There was not much information regarding the City Wars at the moment anyway, so there was only so much they could discuss. These ladies could only decide to prioritize the search and completion of quests, though Gu Fei and Svelte Dancer were given free rein to kill enemies. July asked the two if they needed a Priest, but when Gu Fei recalled how Luoluo would Heal and Heal him for fun, it took him but the briefest moment of pause before he shook his head vigorously.

—

All the players spent these two days absentmindedly, and the market after this currency update was like a cemetery; everyone was focused on earning as many coins as they could, and nobody dared to spend even a single copper coin unnecessarily. However, the tavern was still a place that drew crowds. Now that the price of liquor had dropped to 10% of its original price, the cheapest red wine that the establishment offered only cost 2 copper coins a glass. It would have been a little too much if players had issues even spending such an amount.

Gu Fei did not spend these two days in peace either. Now that the City Wars was upon them, every major guild had designs for Thousand Miles Drunk, and they tried all sorts of ways to try and recruit him to their side. Aside from those in Yunduan City, even guilds from other cities that he had no contact with wrote letters to initiate negotiations. Even the Mage Drifting lobbied on someone else’s behalf. It was unknown where or which guild the man had managed to get himself into, but he asked if Gu Fei was interested to head over and do the event with them. Gu Fei was surprised, the two of them seemed to have been adversaries before, and they had parted on less than amicable terms. Why was he acting as if nothing had happened, and was now even offering to work together with him? What did it mean? Is he trying to get himself another underling?

Deep Waters had profited greatly this time. After asking Gu Fei and getting rejected by him, he tried to recruit Eternal Dominion. Since he had no guild to begin with, and how everyone in the guild already knew him, Deep Waters was the only guild leader that attempted to recruit him, and adding to the fact that Eternal Dominion had an understanding of Deep Water’s personality after spending these few days with him and his guild, how could Eternal Dominion reject the offer when he directly told him about the impending City Wars and called for him to temporarily halt the training to lend him a hand? Of course, Eternal Dominion readily agreed.

The first reaction that Gu Fei had when he heard this news was:* How devious! People borne from workshops are all devious. It was a good thing that Eternal Dominion did not end up working for a workshop, otherwise, he would surely have been exploited without even realizing it!*

This was not the only advantage that Deep Waters had gained; Sword Demon was without a guild as well, so Deep Waters had also approached him to come and lend a hand since he had nothing else to do. Would Sword Demon reject this offer? Of course not! In just a short time, Deep Waters had managed to secure two expert combatants before the battle, and according to people in the guild, he was recently found walking right into trees and would have a foolish smile on his face, laughing to himself non-stop.

—

Two days passed really quickly, and out of annoyance, Gu Fei blocked off all incoming messages after enduring it for a better half of a day, and now everything was quiet. But he had nothing else to do during these few days either! In a startling turn of events, there was not even a single bounty mission available either; it was as if the entire Parallel World had become very lonely! Everyone was either focused on earning more coins or thinking about the City Wars coming in two days. No one is PK-ing, and that left Gu Fei feeling woeful.

Saturday, at six pm, the game stopped service for an hour and started the final update for the event. An hour later, the servers were open promptly, and players surged into the game. In a flash of light, all the players were surprised to find that they were no longer in the familiar designated log-off points, and they had all been spawned outside the city. The familiar city was a kilometer away, the closed gates were faintly visible, and there were flags on the wall. A horn sounded, and the City Wars officially began.