Chapter 1 Exhaustion

Gu Fei, after logging off, suddenly felt a bit weary. Considering Gu Fei's daily playtime, any ordinary person shouldn't feel tired, which showed just how packed his day had been.

The relentless pursuit and the tension and intense focus during combat after switching to the Baptism of Fire had taken a toll on Gu Fei, several times more than usual. Now that he had left the game and his nerves had relaxed, he couldn't help but feel exhausted. Being a pro gamer was hard work! Gu Fei thought about those guys in Jian Gui's group fighting day and night in the game. Those otaku types couldn't compare to his physique, so it must be tough for them to play so hard every day.

After a night's rest, Gu Fei didn't rush to log in the next day. He casually browsed the official game forums.

Undeniably, Gu Fei was definitely a master at fighting in the game, but he was still quite a newbie in other aspects; after all, he was still just a game novice.

The Baptism of Fire was an effective addition to his attacks and provided a decent training environment. But in critical moments, the inconsistent chance of the enchanted attack was a bit of a problem. Gu Fei wanted to see if there was a way to increase the chance of this spell attachment to 100%. If so, Gu Fei could be considered a consistent high-attack killer.

Unfortunately, research on enchantments in the game currently focused on negative status effects like the slowing effect of ice damage or the paralysis of lightning damage. As for fire enchantment, due to the lack of mana among melee classes, choosing fire was not as good as choosing poison damage. The amount of poison damage would vary depending on the equipment, completely unrelated to the amount of mana, and it could cause continuous damage over time. As long as the equipment wasn't too bad, it could easily surpass fire damage.

Another important reason was that inflicting damage with an enchantment had a prerequisite: it had to be a normal attack. When using character skills to attack, the enchantment properties on the weapon would automatically freeze. This could be ignored during normal leveling, but in difficult battles, such as PK (player versus player) or challenging bosses, skills were the key to victory. Therefore, the value of a pure damage output enchantment like fire was further reduced and directly regarded as trash by players.

Naturally, no one researched trash, and Gu Fei couldn't find any useful information after searching repeatedly. He only learned that in addition to weapons, rings, necklaces, and badges could also have enchantment probability properties.

In the game, equipment, aside from weapons, was divided into headgear, body armor, belts, shoes, two rings, a necklace, and a badge, totaling nine slots.

Gu Fei's fingers and neck were still empty after grinding monsters for so long, showing that the drop rate for accessories was quite low. As for the straw hat and boots Gu Fei wore, they weren't actually too bad, but they weren't suitable for the mage class, which was why Han Jia Gongzi and the others mocked them as junk.

After some research, Gu Fei decided that he could go look for accessories with fire enchantment to buy later. Besides, he really should get himself a more approachable and less distinctive outfit.

After reading these things, Gu Fei returned to the forum's homepage. He then discovered that the most popular pinned post on the entire forum was: Cloud City Melee Mage: Ten steps one kill, leaving no trace for a thousand miles. Clothes brushed, he departs, concealing his name and form.

Gu Fei's heart tightened, and he quickly clicked on it. Sure enough, it was a full report of Gu Fei's pursuit and killing of Bu Xiao in Cloud City yesterday.

The origins of the incident had been dug up by the keen-nosed veteran gossipers and were almost entirely accurate. But these were not the main points; the focus was on the process of Bu Xiao being killed ten times. The information was all gathered from eyewitnesses everywhere, and if Gu Fei, the person involved, were to comment, it would be basically true.

The debate about the incident mainly focused on two aspects.

The first was the moral aspect. This was a topic that had been hotly debated in the forum since the live broadcast of the event yesterday. Gu Fei casually glanced at a few views and disagreed with all of them. He felt no guilt in this matter.

Bu Xiao had cheated on Qi Yue first, and then he was cheated in return. That was Xi Xiao Tian, an amateur trickster, acting on his own accord, and it had nothing to do with Qi Yue. Now, in this game, Bu Xiao was harassing Qi Yue again. Gu Fei felt perfectly justified in killing such a terrible guy, especially since he happened to be the target of their business. The various posts on the forum were not enough to affect Gu Fei's mental state at all.

The subsequent discussion was about the technical aspects. A mage chasing and killing a thief in melee was something that sounded quite surreal. So many players watched the live broadcast, and they hadn't watched in vain. One post specially opened a portal, guiding everyone to a dedicated technical post researching Gu Fei.

This technical post immediately released Gu Fei's full set of equipment, showing that countless people had used Appraisal on him.

But soon the next few floors went off-topic, and everyone unanimously began to discuss where the "Eddie's Badge" came from. A single stat of +6, adding up to 30 for all five stats, was the highest stat-boosting equipment currently known.

Gu Fei's heart skipped a beat when he saw this. Luckily, he had seen this post, otherwise, "Eddie's Badge" alone would be enough to tell everyone who the masked killer was. Of the people he knew in the game, Qi Yue and her friends must have used Appraisal on him. If they saw this post, his identity would be exposed.

But they probably wouldn't say anything. That was all Gu Fei could think at this moment. If they did say something... Gu Fei thought of the players chasing him down several streets and had to admit that it would be a bit of a problem.

Gu Fei calmed himself and continued reading. After several floors, the post returned to the topic and began to discuss Gu Fei's tactics. Thanks to the material provided by many viewers, the characteristics of Gu Fei's character were obvious: agility-focused build, enchantment damage. The high-speed attacks coupled with enchantment damage allowed Gu Fei to instantly kill the fragile thief Bu Xiao.

Subsequently, many experts analyzed the feasibility of this type of character, and everyone had their own opinions, arguing endlessly. Gu Fei noticed a comment from a user named Gui Tong.

This guy believed that Gu Fei's ability to kill Bu Xiao was just a coincidence. The thief was strength-focused, so he was suppressed in speed by the full-agility mage. He was also a fragile class, making him vulnerable to the mage's physical and enchantment damage. If it were a high-defense tank or a faster character, everything would be unknown. Moreover, few players currently wore magic resistance equipment. If there were magic resistance equipment, it would be a great weakening of the attack method based on enchantment damage.

In addition, Gui Tong also mentioned a detail that not many people currently cared about. Although Bu Xiao was killed ten times in total, so far, no one seemed to have seen the first time he was killed, when Bu Xiao was at his strongest level 30; the second time, when Bu Xiao was level 29, he was assassinated by a thief. Only after Bu Xiao lost these two levels did the mage begin to attack. Did this also indicate that when Bu Xiao was at his peak, this mage wasn't so sure he could kill him?

This analysis was quite reasonable and well-founded. It was completely applicable to ordinary players. But for Gu Fei, it still overlooked the fact that Gu Fei knew martial arts.

After all, Gu Fei's pursuit of Bu Xiao basically ended in two or three strikes. It was difficult for non-experts to see the real intricacies in this.

After reading all the replies, Gu Fei was quite disappointed. He had hoped that this post would contain a comprehensive study of his type of character. But as with all such posts, it went from discussion to argument to mutual sarcasm and abuse, ending without a conclusion. Gu Fei would have to research himself how to blaze a path suitable for his mage.

After exiting the forum, Gu Fei logged into the game.

The first thing he did after logging in was to take off Eddie's Badge. There was too much attention on his masked identity right now. If some idle person on the street used Appraisal on him, his identity would be exposed immediately. Gu Fei thought as he quickly headed towards the auction house, hoping to quickly buy a set of common clothes to disguise himself.

But the auction house was strange today. Gu Fei couldn't perform any operations inside, and the working NPCs wouldn't pay attention to him no matter what. Gu Fei was at a loss and tried repeatedly, getting increasingly frustrated. Suddenly, someone patted him on the shoulder from behind, "What are you doing here?"

Gu Fei quickly turned around and saw You Ge. It was great to run into an expert, so he quickly asked his question.

You Ge stared at him dumbfounded, "We were wondering how you were so crazy. It turns out you don't know the PK rules?"

"What's wrong?" Gu Fei quickly asked.

You Ge explained, "Each time you kill a player in the game, you accumulate 1 PK (player killing) point. Initially, some NPCs will stop serving you, and you'll drop two levels upon death; when your PK value reaches 10 points, all NPCs in the city will stop serving you, and you'll drop three levels upon death; when your PK value reaches 20 points, NPC guards and patrols will hunt you down, and you'll drop four levels upon death, or two levels if you're caught, and you'll have to go to jail; when your PK value reaches 30 points, NPCs will execute you on the spot, and you'll drop five levels upon death."

"Then what do I do now?" Gu Fei asked, dumbfounded.

"You should be below 20 points right now. You can surrender and serve jail time, which reduces 1 PK point per hour! Or you can wander outside, which reduces 1 point every 2 hours," You Ge said.

"Who would choose to go to jail! So what if I can't buy things? It's not a big deal," Gu Fei said.

You Ge nodded, "In that case, I'm afraid you don't know something even more important?"

"What?"

"There's a type of quest in the game called bounty quests. They refresh once a day, and the quest target is players with PK values. You can accept them individually or as a mercenary group, and you'll get rewards based on the PK value of the captured criminal. You were so high-profile yesterday that you must be at the top of today's bounty list."

Gu Fei was dumbfounded. He didn't expect that fighting in the game would involve so many troubles.