Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 272 - A Champion’s Prize (II)

The six men of Young Master’s Elite left the room at Ray’s Bar together. Plenty of patrons outside were animatedly discussing about the end of Parallel World’s PvP event. The highlight of these players’ conversation was of course how envious they were of the six members of Young Master’s Elite earning themselves ten item rewards. The six men were naturally happy to hear the other players talk about them, yet none of them showed this on their faces as they made their way through the crowd and out of the bar.

The unassigned item rewards could only be retrieved from the mailbox outside the Hall of Mercenaries. Currently, the square by the Hall of Mercenaries was quite crowded due to the players of The Black Hand and Water Flower being present. Since the item rewards were unassigned, internal conflicts due to incorrect distribution of them could easily arise. Thus, all the members of the respective mercenary groups were present in the venue. By announcing the item rewards that they had gotten, all could openly discuss on who deserved which item. This was the guild and group leaders’ way of appeasing everyone and preventing any fighting over the final decision.

As for Young Master’s Elite, only one of its members had yet to obtain an item reward from the system, so they were not anxious about the unassigned item rewards unlike the players of the other mercenary groups.

When The Black Hand’s players spotted the six men, they felt rather helpless on how to act on their anger toward Young Master’s Elite. Since they cleanly lost the finals to the six men, they would simply be sullying their good name and seem like sore losers if they retaliated so openly. It would be more appropriate to do something like that away from the public’s watchful gazes, if they indeed wished to retaliate in that manner. The positive opinion of the public about The Black Hand would likely drop if its players openly challenged Young Master’s Elite, yet they saw no harm in engaging in some cheeky banter with the six men.

Brave Surge and Black Index Finger came forward at the same time to receive the six men who were approaching the mailbox. The Priest Monologue under the Moon even accompanied Black Index Finger in greeting them.

“Congratulations!” both leaders expressed.

“Same to you!” Young Master Han replied.

Brave Surge was naturally pleased by his reply as his group indeed got third place, allowing him to qualify for the special rewards. Black Index Finger, for his part, was not very pleased with Young Master Han’s response as it sounded as if the latter was taunting him. Nevertheless, his face only showed a beaming countenance. Black Index Finger did not beat around the bush; sweeping his gaze over to the rest of Young Master’s Elite, he asked, “I wonder who slipped up in that final moment.”

M*th*rf*ck*r! Gu Fei cursed internally. Unfortunately, the sidelong glances of everyone in Young Master’s Elite completely gave him away as the careless person who had cost his group its ‘perfect victory’.

Black Index Finger felt absolutely mollified upon learning of this fact. In fact, all The Black Hand’s members cheered as if they had won first place when they learned of this.

No more words were exchanged after this, as everyone had important business to attend to. The two mercenary groups took the item rewards from the mailbox and pitifully did their best to fairly distribute them. The six men of Young Master’s Elite entered the Hall of Mercenaries to retrieve the five item rewards while talking with one another. Someone among them was still bound to not receive an item reward, so they had to do this as harmoniously as possible.

“Wounds did not get an item reward, so he should get one right now,” Young Master Han said.

As War Without Wounds gratefully lowered his head, the rest expressed their agreement to this, “Sure!”

“Alright, that’s it for you. Don’t even think of asking for a second item!” Young Master Han coldly remarked as War Without Wounds adopted a pleading expression.

“Scram! You shameless bum!” the rest of them reprimanded him.

Young Master Han swept his gaze on the other five men before settling at Gu Fei, “Miles contributed the most, yet the item reward he got was just a faux top-grade ring. I propose he get first pick!”

They were also in agreement to this amid War Without Wounds’ muttering of: “What about me? Don’t I get to choose?”

“Scram! You shameless bum!” they scolded him once more.

“We’re already pitying you by gifting you an item, yet you dare ask to choose?!” Royal God Call eyed War Without Wounds contemptuously.

War Without Wounds was aggrieved! He was the number one Warrior in many MMOs, yet he did not even have a foot to stand on in Young Master’s Elite. Still, he agreed with Royal God Call’s words and could only chalk everything up to bad luck for failing to get an item reward due to the system’s way of tabulating the players’ scores. If the unassigned items were to be distributed according to their individual contributions, the three nimble players who had done most of the killings should be given priority, while the remaining two items should be handed to the one that did the commanding and another that collected information; War Without Wounds had simply not done enough compared to the other five. This would also be apparent from Sword Demon’s recording of the contribution points of their mercenary group.

War Without Wounds dared not comment further as he checked the five items Young Master Han had retrieved from the mailbox.

Before anyone could properly look at the items, Young Master Han shoved an item to Gu Fei, “No picking. Take this and leave.”

“What?” Gu Fei felt confused over Young Master Han’s sudden change of mind as he received the item. It was a permanent skill scroll for Lighting Affinity, Palm of Thunder.

“Oh!” comprehension dawned on everyone. Only Gu Fei could use such an item, and it would virtually be useless for the other five!

This little episode made everyone realize that assigning the item rewards was a simple task. The six of them had different job classes, so they would just take the most appropriate items for them.

Even War Without Wounds felt anxious. He would have to accept any of the remaining four items if it happened to be suitable for a Warrior, right?!

All were almost driven mad by Young Master Han’s unhurried announcement of the items’ details, though. “Can’t you g*dd*mn be any faster?!” everyone bellowed.

“Ha ha ha ha!” Young Master Han laughed heartily at the anxious expression of everyone.

He is so evil... was what the other five were thinking to themselves. Young Master Han’s hands sped up and pushed the remaining four items to four different people to finish the process.

“Turns out that discussing about this is unnecessary as it can easily be settled by giving the items to those who can use them,” Young Master Han languidly said. The other five men each received an item; meaning, Young Master Han was the one that did not get an item reward this time around.

“This... This...” Everyone felt a little awkward. Technically, Young Master Han had contributed a lot to get them through the entire mercenary PvP tournament. Had it not been for him, Young Master’s Elite might have been eliminated on their way to the finals.

“Given my flawless commanding skill, it would be too much if I were to take all the item rewards for myself. It just so happened that these five items are usable by your garbage job classes,” Young Master Han remarked.

Garbage job classes... What the heck! The awkwardness that they were feeling toward Young Master Han disappeared with his callous comment, and they just looked on their item rewards, instead.

The unassigned item rewards were thus smoothly divided among them based on their job classes, and there did not appear to be any item among the rewards similar to the faux top-grade ring that Gu Fei had gotten. The system was rather accommodating, after all; having item rewards that were only ideal for certain job classes helped players avoid possible disputes. No matter how much a Mage contributed to a fight, he or she would not be shameless enough to hold on to a Priest’s skill scroll, right?

Besides Gu Fei’s Palm of Thunder, Sword Demon got himself a thief cape.

[Nightstalker’s Cloak

+ 10 Agility

+ 10 Strength

+ 10% chance of entering Stealth even when under attacked

Effect: HP will automatically recover while in Stealth mode.]

Brother Assist got himself a permanent skill scroll called Spiteful Slash. It was a Dark Knight skill that dealt 1.5 times his basic attack upon use and had a chance of inflicting the Wound status effect.

War Without Wounds also got himself a permanent skill scroll called Frenzy. It was a Berserker skill that caused the user to enter the Frenzy state. The damage of attacks was amplified by 1.5 while in this state. However, defense dropped by 50% for thirty seconds.

Only Royal God Call was in tears, as he once more got a bow. “F*CK YOU, SYSTEM!” He cursed vehemently. He was about to throw the bow to the ground when everyone stopped him. “Let’s take a look first!” everyone consoled.

[Repeater Bow

+ 10 Agility

+ 10 Strength

+ 10% attack enhancement

+ 30% attack speed

+ 30% Double Shot Enhancement]

“This... Uhm... It’s not bad. Each of the bows has its merits...” everyone mumbled a few words of comfort to Royal God Call.

“Royal, you can now hang three different bows on your back! With you using each based on the situation, you’ll be like a professional Archer!” War Without Wounds roared with laughter.

Out of all the ten items their mercenary group had received, Young Master Han’s Angelic Deceit was still the most valuable. Although the usefulness of its skill was how people judged an item’s value, the strange Phantasmic Lifeforce skill would have to be tested on the field first to truly evaluate its worth.

Similarly, War Without Wounds, Gu Fei, and Brother Assist each got a skill scroll that would need to be tested to judge the skill’s worth. In comparison, the value of Sword Demon’s Nightstalker’s Cape was already obvious with its ability to recover HP while in Stealth mode... Although it was not stated how much HP it could recover, that line of words alone was tempting enough.

Despite all this, these experts felt rather disappointed with their haul. The others were hoping to obtain overleveled equipment for themselves after seeing Gu Fei’s Moonlit Nightfalls and Sword Demon’s recently acquired Lasting Sentence Dying Breath. Evidently, the system was not generous enough to reward them with such OP equipment.

Gu Fei had to stay online until the end of the guild versus guild tournament just to wait for their prize released. This was far later than his usual log-off time, so Gu Fei immediately bade the others farewell once they exited the Hall of Mercenaries to go offline.

Brother Assist and War Without Wounds left together to test out their new skills, while Sword Demon headed to a grinding map to test his new cloak on monsters. Young Master Han glanced briefly at his dimensional pocket before heading toward the nearest tavern to replenish his fuel. Royal God Call stood on one spot for a while as he forlornly held on to his three bows.

The forums that night were aglow with activities. Players from the various in-game cities discussed about the huge rewards that that had been sent out for the event; each of them was green with envy. The average player already had difficulties obtaining top-grade equipment, so not many of them would even think that an OP weapon like Moonlit Nightfalls existed.

The officials capitalized on the PvP event’s thrilling matches to advertise Parallel World everywhere. Players knew beforehand that they would be filmed and photographed in the tournaments for the game company’s promotions, but the post-production team cleverly blurred the players’ faces and replaced them with generic faces before broadcasting the short video clips.

All the videos featured amazing players. This was especially true of the exceptional Mage hailing from Yunduan City, which ranked high in terms of view counts. That black-clothed Mage left many viewers breathless with how he utilized Twin Incineration using a sword. They even got goosebumps on their skin when they realized that the Mage could still dish out high Spell Damage despite obviously concentrating his points to Agility judging from his exquisite moves. Quite a lot of people questioned the footage’s authenticity, thinking that the game company had intentionally created it for advertisement purposes, but this theory was soon debunked by players from Yunduan City who vouched for the video’s authenticity. The Mage depicted was indeed the real deal, and that same person had reputedly reduced a Thief by eight levels, gaining himself the ‘Close Combat Mage’ moniker.

“So that Mage is still as indomitable as before...” Those who still remembered that incident during the open beta days were awestruck by this revelation.

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