Chapter 1 The First Day of Official Operation

On the first day of the parallel world's official operation, Gu Fei was startled by the dense crowds when he logged in. It was night in the game, and the entire Mage Academy was filled with floating fireballs, casting a bizarre and dazzling light over the academy. Coupled with countless players, both young and old, passionately shouting "Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!", the Mage Academy was filled with an ambiguous atmosphere.

It was said that a considerable number of mages suffered behavioral abnormalities from the shock that day. Gu Fei suspected that Fireball was the most severely affected, as he didn't log in for a full four days after that day. When he did log in later, his words were incoherent, clearly indicating that his mind hadn't recovered.

There were too many people. This was the first direct impression people had after the official launch. The surge in numbers brought significant changes to the game's landscape. Trade Street One, Trade Street Two, and Trade Street Three sprang up one after another, and the square in the center of Cloudrise City was transformed into a grand marketplace. The price of beginner equipment experienced a period of price increases, only stabilizing after about two weeks. Some individuals who had received advance notice of the official launch and possessed a business sense made a fortune in this wave.

Han Jia Gongzi and You Ge were among them. Sword Demon had previously lost nearly two levels of experience and had been frantically leveling up, but it was said that he had a share in Han Jia Gongzi's business, so he must have made a lot of money as well.

But these guys were clearly not professional players. Professional players would try to find ways to turn in-game currency into real-world wealth. These guys, however, splurged after earning gold coins. Han Jia Gongzi spent several consecutive days drinking himself into a drunken stupor at Little Lei Tavern, and Sword Demon upgraded his equipment. As for how You Ge spent his money, that was unknown.

Zhan Wu Shang and Yu Tian Shen Ming were like unofficial members of Eternal Dominion. Although they were always disgruntled that Gu Fei could join the guild while they couldn't, they had no complaints when they saw that the time the two of them spent leveling up with the girls was far more than Gu Fei, an official member. With the official launch, Eternal Dominion quickly absorbed many more girls, and these two heroes became even busier, leading a group of beauties out of the city to level up every day. In the eyes of some, that was also an infinitely glorious sight.

And Gu Fei, who had always been the most glorious, now seemed to be very depressed.

During this period, Gu Fei chose to linger at the bounty mission distribution office. This was the only place where he could engage in reasonable PK (Player Killing).

However, at first, the mild atmosphere of Cloudrise City was not conducive to Gu Fei's business. There were always only a few scattered names on the bounty mission board, and he eliminated them all in no time. But just as Gu Fei was feeling bored, the booming official launch brought Gu Fei an opportunity.

Countless players poured into the game, and countless players needed to fight monsters and level up. At this time, the disadvantage of Parallel World, where the experience required to level up around level 30 was disproportionate, became apparent.

Back then, Sword Demon could level up to level 24 in a single day. Even if other players didn't have such opportunities and perseverance, it was conceivable that the difficulty of leveling up before level 30 was not very high. In a few days, the vast majority of players reached the level 25-30 range. As a result, the leveling area in this range suddenly had to accommodate several times the number of players.

Cloudrise Farm was already an insidious place, and now being insidious alone couldn't solve the problem. The players started fighting openly, engaging in land grabbing movements, duels, group fights, and forming gangs. Cloudrise Farm now looked like Cloudrise Graveyard, with wails everywhere and blood seen all around.

The bounty board at the bounty mission distribution office was naturally refreshed rapidly, making Gu Fei grin from ear to ear. After leveling up for a while each day, he would start squatting there for missions.

Gu Fei's dedication to this task made the other comrades of the mercenary group feel that he was too unprofessional. Using bounty missions to level up was simply too inefficient.

If the mission targets were all standing at the entrance of the mission distribution office waiting for you to kill them, it would definitely be faster than grinding monsters in the leveling area. But the problem was that this was impossible. Most of the time spent on this mission was wasted on traveling back and forth and finding people.

Unfortunately, this reasoning didn't make sense to Gu Fei, as his purpose in doing this mission was not to level up. So he continued to enjoy it.

As expected, Gu Fei, who had soared to the top of the mage experience chart because of a mission chain, was now sliding down the chart very seriously, even worse than Yu Tian Shen Ming and Zhan Wu Shang, who had neglected leveling up due to chasing girls.

However, this situation changed somewhat two weeks after the official launch, and Gu Fei's leveling speed showed a rebound compared to before. Everyone thought Gu Fei had figured things out. Later, when they talked about it at a gathering, Gu Fei simply showed them something.

The Wind Chasing Emblem.

The emblem had two functions: one was that it could refresh the coordinates of the mission target once per minute; the other was that after completing the mission, it could directly teleport back to the mission distribution office.

"Where did you get it?" The experts were greatly surprised. This was definitely equipment that had not appeared on the market yet. Players thought that there was no teleportation function in the Parallel World game.

"One day when I went back to receive the reward after completing a mission, the system said that I had successfully completed 100 bounty missions and gave it to me," Gu Fei said.

Everyone was amazed. Although they were, they were not very envious. Obviously, this thing was only useful in bounty missions. Besides Gu Fei, who else would do bounty missions like this? But thanks to this thing, Gu Fei's speed of grinding experience through bounty missions was much faster.

However, the next thing Gu Fei showed made everyone's eyes pop out.

Wind Chasing Boots: Movement +60, movement speed increased by 35%.

"Double attribute boots!" Everyone roared.

When a character is first born in Parallel World, they have a maximum movement speed. For mages, which is neither high nor low, it is 100. After that, by choosing agility points, different professions will calculate and obtain different movement speeds. The growth between a mage's agility and movement speed is 1, which means that adding 1 point of agility gives 1 point of movement speed.

And the only purpose of shoes in Parallel World is to increase movement speed. General shoes only have one attribute. For example, for movement +60, characters who don't add agility will mostly choose this type; the other type is a percentage increase in movement, which is generally chosen by professions that focus on agility.

Taking Gu Fei as an example, with full agility points, plus the points automatically added at each level, at level 30, his agility is 180, and his movement speed is 180+100=280 points.

At this time, if he chooses shoes that increase movement speed by 35%, then his movement can be increased by 98 points, which is obviously better than a pair of shoes with movement speed +60.

But if it is a normal mage who doesn't add agility, then at level 30, his movement speed will be 130. In that case, since it is shoes that increase movement speed by 35%, it can only increase by 45 points, which is not as good as choosing a pair of shoes with movement +60.

Gu Fei's pair of Wind Chasing Boots, movement +60, can only be considered a normal attribute, but the 35% bonus is quite high among the currently available bonus shoes. However, now that these two attributes appeared on a pair of shoes, the experts present had never seen anything stronger than this pair.

"Where did this come from?" Everyone gasped. The teleportation function of the Wind Chasing Emblem surprised everyone, but other than that, it was just a joke. These boots were different, especially for Sword Demon and Yu Tian Shen Ming.

Gu Fei smiled: "Also, when I handed in that mission, in addition to the reward just now, I also got these boots. They said it was for successfully completing 100 bounty missions in a row."

"100 consecutive successes!" Everyone murmured. This requirement was obviously much harsher than the previous 100 completions. There were too many conditions for failing a bounty mission. Being PK'd (Player Killed) by someone else after failing to complete the bounty was, of course, the most embarrassing type of failure. In addition, if someone else grabbed the target first, or if the target's PK value expired and was cleared, or if he suddenly changed his mind and surrendered to go to jail, the system would ruthlessly consider it your failure.

However, with such an excellent reward as the Wind Chasing Boots in front of them, it was really hard not to be tempted.

Yu Tian Shen Ming was obviously the most fond of these boots. After hesitating for a moment, he finally spoke: "Qian Li, lend me the Wind Chasing Emblem, and I'll刷 (shua - grind) a pair of boots too."

Gu Fei was generous and gave the emblem to Yu Tian Shen Ming without thinking: "Take it. I'm planning to冲 (chong - rush) to level up recently. I heard that you can have a class advancement mission when you reach level 40?"

At this time, a month had passed since the official launch. Experts like Han Jia Gongzi and the others, whose levels had always been at the forefront, had broken through the level 40 mark for some time, while the vast majority of players were in the process of衝 (chong - rushing) to level 40. Gu Fei, due to his self-degradation of running off to play bounty missions, had fallen from the top of the level chart to the middle. Later, he obtained the Wind Chasing Emblem, which improved his efficiency, allowing him to maintain his position without falling further. After all, Gu Fei's advantage of刷 (shua - grinding) monsters 20 levels higher than himself was something that no one else had. Relying on this to刷 (shua - grind) for two hours every day, his efficiency was several times that of others. If it weren't for this advantage, Gu Fei would definitely not have been able to maintain even his mid-level position with bounty missions alone.

"Yeah, yeah, Qian Li, what do you want to advance to? Water? Or electricity?" Yu Tian Shen Ming asked.

Gu Fei was stunned: "Can I only be a mage? Can't I advance to a pugilist?" Mages at level 40 could advance to become water mages or electric mages. But Gu Fei understood from the literal meaning of the word "advance" that this was an opportunity to change professions. He had only been studying the two advancements of the fighter class, pugilist and Qi master.

You Ge patted him: "Advancement is just a branch of your current profession, it's not for you to change professions."

"Is that so!" Gu Fei looked disappointed. "Then I'll study it some more. Have you all advanced?"

Of the six members of the mercenary group, everyone except Gu Fei, who was still at level 39, had reached level 40. Including Sword Demon, who had lost two levels of experience, had衝 (chong - rushed) to level 40 yesterday.

"Not yet, we're all studying it," You Ge said.