Chapter 1 The Beginning

Gu Fei had already teleported onto the wall in a flash. The wall was both wide and thick, and Gu Fei stood on it steadily. Looking around, behind him was a heavy fog, and in front of him was a clear courtyard. Gu Fei quickly lowered himself, not wanting to be detected so quickly. Then he heard Yan Xiaozhu, still hanging halfway up the wall behind him, roaring, "Pull me up!"

"I'm a mage! I don't have the strength," Gu Fei sighed.

"You have the strength to pull one person up. I'm not heavy," Yan Xiaozhu gritted her teeth. She was probably the first person to use up all her stamina in the game. Now, hanging in mid-air, unable to go up and unwilling to slide down, and listening to the leisurely tone of the guy who had teleported up, Yan Xiaozhu really wanted to pounce on him and bite him. Why bite? At this time, besides her mouth, did Yan Xiaozhu have any other martial power?

"I'll try! Don't struggle," Gu Fei said, his hands already gripping the rope.

In fact, Gu Fei knew in his heart that although his mage was weak, he still had the strength to pull this little girl up. The reason why he teleported up the last five meters was to save stamina to pull this girl up. Gu Fei didn't have the mentality of letting someone hang in mid-air and laughing at them. Only Han Jia Gongzi would do such a bad thing.

Then, using his hands alternately, he really pulled Yan Xiaozhu up. After this girl came up, she immediately lay flat on her back on the wall, gasping for breath. It was not easy to feel so tired in the game.

Gu Fei was not much better than her. His stamina was also in the single digits at this time. He didn't think Yan Xiaozhu's posture was so ungraceful, he just sat quietly to the side, but his heavy breathing revealed that he was very tired.

After a while, Yan Xiaozhu finally recovered and turned to look at Gu Fei, who was carefully putting away the two sets of flying hooks. Yan Xiaozhu became curious about this gadget and asked, "Where did you get this prop?"

"I made it myself," Gu Fei said.

"You made it yourself? How?" Yan Xiaozhu asked.

Gu Fei glanced at her, held the flying hook in front of her and said, "Find something like this, then find a rope this long, and tie them together. Theoretically speaking, the rope should be as strong as possible, and the grappling hook should be as heavy as possible."

"I'll get one too," Yan Xiaozhu said.

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Play," Yan Xiaozhu's answer was uninformative.

Gu Fei ignored her. After putting away the two sets of flying hooks, he took out a pen from his pocket, then took out a notebook, opened it and rested it on his leg. He reached into his pocket again for a long time, took out the telescope, glanced at the time, and began to observe.

"What... what are you doing?" Yan Xiaozhu couldn't understand Gu Fei's actions, let alone why he had so many strange props.

"I'm looking at the activity patterns of the NPCs here," Gu Fei said.

"NPCs? Activity patterns?" Yan Xiaozhu looked down in confusion. She could see the nearby areas clearly without using a telescope. There were only two kinds of NPCs in the government compound: guards standing still and guards walking back and forth.

"You said Giordano would come out and tell them about the progress of the mission once a day. Does 'a day' refer to a real day or a day in the game?" Gu Fei asked. These were naturally two completely different concepts. A real day was 24 hours, while a day in the game, if black and white were counted as one day, would be six hours.

"This... I'm not sure!" Yan Xiaozhu said.

"It doesn't matter, we'll know soon," Gu Fei said.

"What exactly is the mission you're looking for Giordano for?" Yan Xiaozhu felt more and more that something was wrong.

"To assassinate him," Gu Fei said.

Yan Xiaozhu opened her mouth wide. After a long while, she asked, "Where did you get this mission? What's the reward?"

Ordinary missions in the game would tell players what the reward was in advance so that players could choose. For example, a thief would certainly not do a mission where the reward was a staff.

Gu Fei didn't speak, but took out Andrew Sue's diary and threw it to Yan Xiaozhu.

"Andrew Sue's diary," Yan Xiaozhu read the item. "What is this? Who is Andrew Sue?"

"That's the boss that's been in the headlines these past two days," Gu Fei said.

"The Mist Shadow Assassin!!!" Yan Xiaozhu exclaimed. The Mist Shadow Assassin was the top news in the entire game these past two days. As a player in Xiawu City, she naturally paid more attention to it because it happened right next to them. Two of Yan Xiaozhu's friends were victims of the Mist Shadow Assassin's rampage yesterday. Yan Xiaozhu heard the two of them describe it, saying that they didn't even see a ghost, they just felt a gust of wind, and then they were dead.

There were naturally exaggerated elements in this, but it also showed how terrifying the Mist Shadow Assassin was. So, after the official announcement that this was a Bug event, there were still many people who were really concerned about the fate of the Mist Shadow Assassin. It was a pity that the official did not explain this, and everyone speculated that the system had killed this Boss after discovering the Bug.

Just as this speculation was starting, Yan Xiaozhu had already seen this Boss's things, which made her feel surprised. At the same time, she couldn't doubt it because she had already opened the first page and glanced at the Mist Shadow Assassin's self-introduction. This could only be the work of the system. Could there be a player so bored as to write such a thing to tease everyone?

"Where did you get this kind of thing?" This was what Yan Xiaozhu had to doubt.

"It dropped when the Mist Shadow Assassin died," Gu Fei said.

"How did it die?" Yan Xiaozhu asked.

"I killed it," Gu Fei said.

"I don't believe it! The Mist Shadow Assassin is so high level, you killed it?" Yan Xiaozhu continued to doubt.

"Of course, it wasn't just me. Another friend and I joined forces to finally kill it," Gu Fei said.

"Friend? Who is it?" Yan Xiaozhu thought of the two people, one big and one small, who seemed a bit dodgy, who were with Gu Fei. Although they were also famous experts, their real people were really disappointing. This was Yan Xiaozhu's true impression of Yu Tian Shen Ming and Zhan Wu Shang.

"Bai Shi Jing Lun," Gu Fei only said the name, without too much introduction. Because there was no need at all, only a newbie who had just entered the game wouldn't know who Bai Shi Jing Lun, one of the Five Little Strongs, was.

Sure enough, Yan Xiaozhu knew the origin of this character. Looking at Gu Fei, the sentence "Scholars of great learning come to converse, no unlettered person enters" inexplicably appeared in her mind. When applied to Gu Fei, it naturally referred to the fact that the characters surrounding him were always top experts, from those two guys to Piao Liu, to Bai Shi Jing Lun who was mentioned again, to the character he was chasing and killing...

Jian Nan You dropped another level yesterday. Someone with good intentions dug this up and hyped it up. He was no longer one of the Five Little Strongs, and he was far from being one of the Top Ten or Seven Idlers, but he was still being tracked and reported so much. Jian Nan You didn't know whether to cry or laugh. In short, the news that he had dropped another level was now known to everyone in the game. After hearing the news, Gui Tong and Yan Xiaozhu were sure that Gu Fei did it.

Yan Xiaozhu already knew enough about the origin of the diary, and then asked, "Then what do you mean by showing me this?"

"Look at this," Gu Fei reached out and flipped through the diary, flipping to the part where the Mist Shadow Assassin recalled his 187th mission, which was about Giordano.

"Oh!" Yan Xiaozhu suddenly understood, "You got the mission from here."

"What's the reward?" Yan Xiaozhu asked immediately. For players, the ultimate goal of a mission was the reward, which was the driving force for them to carry out the mission.

But Gu Fei was different. He came to do this because he was interested in the mission itself.

"What? No reward? It's not even displayed in the mission list?" As expected, Yan Xiaozhu was very surprised when she heard the truth, "Then why are you doing it?"

After thinking for a while, Gu Fei replied, "Play."

Yan Xiaozhu was defeated. It was really an answer that she couldn't refute.

"So you're now..." Yan Xiaozhu understood Gu Fei's actions at this moment, "You want to figure out the actions of these NPCs below, and then find a chance to kill Giordano?"

"Yeah!" Gu Fei nodded, "The actions of NPCs are all step-by-step, there are patterns to follow, it's very simple."

"That's what you say, but even if you find a way, you can't make a single mistake if you really want to do it. Even a second's error will lead to failure!" Yan Xiaozhu said.

Gu Fei was shocked when he heard this because he had just heard similar words, from Andrew Sue's diary. There was a bridge where he had sighed: For an assassin, misremembering a minute or a second could be fatal.

These words were very similar to his current situation. Could it be that this diary also contained some hints about his mission this time?

"Is it really that clever..." Gu Fei muttered in his heart. He had just read the diary not long ago, and his memory was still fresh. Besides this sentence, Gu Fei couldn't think of anything else that seemed like a hint. Could it be in the back? Gu Fei thought, there was still some content in the back of the diary that he hadn't read yet.

"It's better to finish the work at hand first!" Gu Fei withdrew his thoughts and continued his observation. He carefully memorized the location of each fixed NPC guard in the courtyard below the wall, and he carefully recorded the range of movement and speed of each patrol guard in his notebook.

These were just preparatory work. Besides recording, Gu Fei couldn't analyze anything. Because he had to know the timing of Giordano's appearance in order to combine the situation of the guards at that time to find an opportunity to attack. So he had been paying close attention to the gate of the city hall. Giordano would definitely appear from here. The time of his appearance, the route he took, and the regular positions of other NPCs when he was walking were the information that Gu Fei ultimately wanted to master. The information he was collecting now was only basic.

"Hey!" Yan Xiaozhu noticed some clues again, "We're not going to squat here for six hours, are we?"

"It depends on the situation. Six hours may not be enough." Gu Fei was also very troubled by this. Today was a holiday, but this mission was probably not going to be completed so quickly. Did he have that much game time?

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The high wall under his feet, the mist behind him, the prey in front of him, the girl beside him... Gu Fei's life, has anyone ever thought about it?