Chapter 622: I am a scientist

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

Now that it was the era of peace, where society got along harmoniously, the interaction between martial arts practitioners was focused more on the technical side of things, so while it was inevitable for them to exchange punches and kicks, everybody would absolutely refrain from using some of the more overly vicious moves against one another. Take that move Gu Fei had just used; it was indubitably a forbidden move. If this move were to be executed in reality, the recipient's family line would end right there and then. In the event that the recipient was from a family that only imparted their martial arts to people related by blood, and the person had yet to have offspring, then this move of Gu Fei would literally sever a kung fu inheritance. The consequences would, thus, be disastrous.

That was why Gu Fei had never used this sort of move in real life despite having knowledge of it. But what this meant was that he had no experience of using it in actual combat. Eternal Dominion, a fellow practitioner, was familiar with the situation himself, and it was precisely because of this that he was left in awe by what he had just witnessed. Seeing Gu Fei make a split-second judgment to use such a move he was unfamiliar with, that single 'too obscene' he had uttered was his praise for Gu Fei's kung fu and nothing else.

The opponent who had taken that slash was mortified, hopping to the side with his hands covering his crotch; the fire was already extinguished before the man could even put it out himself. Having been taken advantage of twice in succession, the man finally no longer dared to underestimate Gu Fei at any degree.

Gu Fei was also very astonished. The man had eaten two Twin Incinerations of his, yet he was still looking hale and hearty. He was just a Fighter, and Gu Fei could tell from his dexterous jumps that the man had invested quite a bit of Agility to his character. There could only be a single explanation as to how he could survive two slashes of Twin Incineration: the man had equipped fire-resistant gear.

Looks like this man is here solely to deal with me. Gu Fei lifted his head with this thought floating in his mind and saw Fleeting Smile gazing down at him from up the large boulder. Next to him was Broken Water Arrow, and the other player, whose name he did not know. Both men were holding short crossbows, firing off shots at Gu Fei whenever there was a window of opportunity.

Gu Fei had already used up all his mana at this point, and was no longer able to cast a single Twin Incineration, yet he remained unfazed. Lifting his head to casually glance up at the three men, he turned to face the opponent standing before him, who was still clutching his family jewels. "How should I address you?" Compared to them, Gu Fei preferred someone who enjoyed getting up close and personal to fight.

That man gathered himself ever so slightly as he somberly answered, "Mountain Breaker Axe 1."

Broken Water Arrow, Mountain Breaker Axe... All these IGNs sounded as if they were part of a series. Nodding, Gu Fei asked, "Are you a friend of Old Broken?"

That man did not deny this, answering, "A war buddy."

Indeed! Gu Fei could tell that these people were all a cut above the rest. Just from how these people were holding ranged weapons despite having different job classes showed their natural disposition: They're very used to wielding firearms to engage enemies from afar.

Looking at the age of these players, with the youngest seemingly in their thirties and the majority being over their forties, all looking grizzled and world-weary, Gu Fei was led to believe they were most likely a bunch of retired soldiers. Never would he have thought Fleeting Smile could gather such a bunch. Gu Fei involuntarily lifted his head and swept his gaze over to the man, his eyes dancing in joy. "You've really gone to the effort for this, haven't you?"

With that, his eyes went back to regard them all. "Are you guys coming up one by one or altogether?"

Eternal Dominion hurriedly dashed over. "Don't be so arrogant!"

"I'm not being arrogant," Gu Fei calmly refuted. "There are four of them, and one of which is entirely negligible. With the two of us here taking on the three, do you think that's being too arrogant?"

"You've included me into the equation?" Eternal Dominion was surprised.

Gu Fei was even more nonplussed. "Then, what did you run up out here for?"

"I..." Eternal Dominion was momentarily at a loss for words.

Mountain Breaker Axe laughed. "Young man, you're really brimming with self-confidence!"

Gu Fei laughed along. "You're Old Breaker, aren't you? Come, let us spar and compare notes."

"Great!" Mountain Breaker Axe nodded. Up on the boulder, Fleeting Smile waved his hand out and restored Mountain Breaker Axe's HP with his Heal. Gu Fei was discouraged. "You've got Heals, huh. Well, I've got mine, too." With that, he pulled out an apple and was about to munch on it when it abruptly burst apart in his hand. Gu Fei turned to look at the unknown Archer. "Is eating an apple against the rules?"

That man shot an arrow right at the apple before Gu Fei could even take a bite off it, evidently proving that his marksmanship was no trivial matter, but this Archer was more surprised with how calm Gu Fei was being. The latter did not even flinch when the former released that shot, which meant that he could distinctly determine that the arrow was shot at his apple, and nothing else. Furthermore, this composure also demonstrated that, even though Gu Fei was up against Mountain Breaker Axe, he was not lowering his guard against the others. There was no way an arrow from him would be of any threat to Gu Fei at such a distance in this game.

That was when Mountain Breaker Axe got into his stance. "Let me witness the depth of the skills of martial practitioners such as yourselves."

Gu Fei was about approach when Eternal Dominion snatched the rug from right under him and leaped out. "If you'd please."

Gu Fei sighed. Before he could say another word, Eternal Dominion took the initiative to leap forth and greet Mountain Breaker Axe with a punch.

They were both Fighters, so their general stats and Strength were about the same; hence, there was not much hesitation like Gu Fei would have if they fought. Their blows directly collided with each other, looking as if they were having a jolly good time letting their punches fly.

However, Gu Fei knew that this was not a technical sparring between martial arts practitioners right now, but a bunch of men ambushing them, instead. It was a life or death situation that was unsuitable for people to leisurely watch from the sidelines. Young Master's Elite with Southern Lone Blade's lot was getting shell-shocked out there!

Mountain Breaker Axe was engaged in a fight with Eternal Dominion, so Gu Fei immediately circled around to the back of that large boulder. All he could do was let out a dispirited moan after he completed the round. That boulder was shaped such that it would be impossible for him to climb his way up. Ye Xiaowu and the others must have gotten up there using tools, such as the grappling hook, and since his Blink was still on cooldown, and there were people occupying the spot up there, he was unable to make his way up there. Meanwhile, in that time it took for him to finish the lap, he looked at the fight below the boulder and saw that Eternal Dominion was the one on the backfoot.

Mountain Breaker Axe and Gu Fei only exchanged two rounds, with the first being the Swallow Dropkick from above and the other being a poorly timed leg whip kick. The loopholes with those two moves were glaringly huge, yet Gu Fei still grasped the perfect moment to exploit those loopholes, which allowed him to deal damage Mountain Breaker Axe twice.

It could be seen that Mountain Breaker Axe had not treated Gu Fei to be of equal at the start, and the two domineering moves he did was his attempt at insta-killing Gu Fei. After he lost those two exchanges, Mountain Breaker Axe corrected his attitude and understood that, even though this was a game and the opponent was just another player, he was indeed the real deal, so he stopped fooling around and got serious with this fight.

Mountain Breaker Axe's technique was fierce, and every move he made was grounded on simplicity and practicality. What made it all the more impressive was the courageous aggressiveness he demonstrated, and this was something Gu Fei and the other martial practitioners were unprepared for. This sort of mentality was honed after going through numerous life and death battles, and the many years of retirement from the army had not dulled his battle instincts. It had just been lying dormant this whole time, buried deep in the recesses of his subconscious and did not surface when he had been comparing notes with Gu Fei earlier. However, upon realizing that he needed to get serious with these strong adversaries, that long-slumbering verve slowly awaken amid his fight with Eternal Dominion. At the moment, Mountain Breaker Axe was like a man reborn after Gu Fei had made his lap around the boulder.

Verve was not something that could increase the damage of a single attack in any sense, but it could affect the mentality, judgment and such psychological processes of the enemy and the person in question. The side that had the upper hand in this zealous assault would act free from hesitation, with smooth execution, and each strike would be filled with confidence; on the other hand, the side that lacked this particular fire found themselves becoming more and more indecisive as this continued, filled with hesitation in their attacks, which ended up spoiling any potential opportunity for victory.

Eternal Dominion was in a state where he was being suppressed by Mountain Breaker Axe's verve. When Gu Fei left, they were on par with each other, but after he circled around the boulder, Eternal Dominion was already 70% on the defensive and 30% on the offensive. This demonstrated his line of thought of sticking to defense in hopes of finding a chance to counterattack, but in reality, if he had the confidence to defeat his opponent from the get-go, would he need to defend himself like this? Would it not all be over if he just went ahead and mounted an attack by showering the opponent with his punches and kicks?

If the person in question was Young Master Han or someone else, Gu Fei might suspect that there could be some despicable scheme at work, but Eternal Dominion was an honest man, and Gu Fei reckoned that he had really gauged the enemy and realized that he could not defeat the opponent this time, which was why he had decided to stick to defending and counter-attacking. Meanwhile, when Mountain Breaker Axe noticed Eternal Dominion's attitude, he became all the more zealous in his assault, and that further inflated his self-confidence. With alternating kicks, Mountain Breaker Axe decisively threw three high-angled leg whip kicks, forcing Eternal Dominion to use his arms to guard the coming attacks, blocking with his arms till his fists were almost stuck right up to his face.

Mountain Breaker Axe's right hand went straight for the kill, directly clutching onto Eternal Dominion's throat, as his left hand grabbed a hold of Eternal Dominion's arm, using the in-game skill Seismic Toss this time to throw Eternal Dominion's body upward. But while in mid-air, Mountain Breaker Axe actually proceeded to twist Eternal Dominion's arm and immediately pressed him back down to the ground. Gu Fei let loose a series of sighs as he watched. These men were far more adept when it came to the utilization of grappling methods on their enemies.

If this were a martial sparring session, Mountain Breaker Axe would already emerge victorious from this fight, but since this was an in-game PK fight, the match would not be considered over until white light was seen. Evidently, Mountain Breaker Axe was not here to punch around and train his fitness either; hence, he was truly attempting to choke Eternal Dominion to death. Gu Fei swiftly ran over, only to hear rushing wind behind him. Broken Water Arrow and that other Archer had long been keeping an eye on Gu Fei from above, so they both released a shot of their own when they saw him make his move. Gu Fei smiled as he stepped to the side to let the two projectiles pass and went hurtling straight at Mountain Breaker Axe.

"Shameless!" Broken Water Arrow and the other man yelled this in unison. The two, who had been watching Gu Fei closely, had hurriedly came forth to stop the man with their bolt and arrow respectively, but how would either of them had guessed that Gu Fei was in fact luring them to take a shot in his direction, using their firepower to siege Wei in order to save Zhao 1?

Gu Fei was fast, but he was not faster than a projectile in flight.

No matter how powerful Gu Fei's attack was, his damage was nothing compared to the two shots from those two men.

In their anger, the two men opened fire at Gu Fei, and they watched as he ducked and weaved around all these shots, with not one nicking him in the least. The two even synchronized their attacks by creating a crossfire, yet Gu Fei still managed to evade everything sent his way with a cheeky smile. The Archer could not stand it any longer. He was a famed sharpshooter when he was still in the army, a record holder known for his superb marksmanship. In-game, his IGN was Sniper God, and the target now was merely 20 meters away, yet he just could not seem to hit the man no matter how hard he tried; this made him feel utterly aggrieved. This was the point when he exploded. Harshly tossing the short crossbow he was holding to the ground, he let loose a bellyful of curses, "What f*ck*ng b*llsh*t game is this? What kind of chicken sh*t crossbows do they have? Even I am able to make a stronger one than this!"

Ye Xiaowu was looking utterly embarrassed as he stood at the side. Below, Gu Fei, who saw this happening, gave a sigh of relief. He had been faking that look of gleeful ease this whole time; the two men's synchronized crossfire was flawless, and Gu Fei only barely managed to survive that unscathed after he devoted the utmost concentration to it. Gu Fei had actually been struck once by their fire, except that he had pirouetted as casually as he could, pulling off that offending projectile before the two men could see it, making them think that not one shot of theirs connected with their target. Convincing Broken Water Arrow of this was not particularly difficult, given how he had already formed a deep impression of Gu Fei's skill long ago. Besides, that man was not so cocksure of his marksmanship to such a degree. Then, there was Big Brother Sniper God beside him, who finally could no longer bear with the situation. He did not think that Gu Fei was particularly powerful; rather, he just found the archery equipment in-game to simply be too trashy. Had he been given a gun, he felt that he would have long since killed Gu Fei many times over by now.

Back to Mountain Breaker Axe, after he had been forced off his assault by friendly fire, Eternal Dominion, who was being forced to eat dirt, did not simply remain down like a dead fish. Having been given this chance to take a breather, the man immediately did a kip up and coolly turned around. He sought to get back in the fight despite the situation remaining the same. Gu Fei denounced the man for not learning from his setback as he dashed forward to help relieve him, even as he pointed to the three men up on the boulder. "Go get rid of them."

"Where did you go and what did you do just now?" Eternal Dominion was still blabbering on here!

Gu Fei glared at Eternal Dominion darkly. "I went and took a piss behind the boulder."

Eternal Dominion was left utterly incapable of finding a proper reply to that.

The fight between Mountain Breaker Axe and Eternal Dominion had caused the former to be full of himself. He was not particularly bothered by Gu Fei coming over to take over, merely chuckling. "You martial practitioners have plenty of techniques and styles that allows for multiple modifications and changes, but they are also overly complex, far too focused on technical execution. Conversely, the fighting and grappling style we were taught in the army were fine-tuned for real combat - simple, direct, and more importantly, actually effective. We can't compare to you guys in terms of the spectacle of the art, but we're totally not your match when it comes to combat."

"So what should we do? Surrender and beg for mercy?" Gu Fei laughed.

Mountain Breaker Axe laughed, too. "Looks like you're still unconvinced. Those two moves that you managed to get the upper hand on me were solely because I've underestimated you. However, I won't be doing that any longer. Even though you might be a Mage in this game, I believe you should be the more skilled martial artist between the two of you?"

"Of course. His current standards are only at my calibre ten years ago," Gu Fei stated.

"F*ck!" Over at the side, trying to come up with a way to climb up the boulder, Eternal Dominion did not forget to turn show the man his middle finger.

"Come at me!" Gu Fei took the initiative to strike. He had actually stowed his Moonlit Nightfalls away and was now throwing his fist right at Mountain Breaker Axe.

"Are you not using your weapon? How confident. Speaking of which, I still have no idea how to use that thing. Lugging a sword around is too cumbersome. It should be made obsolete," Mountain Breaker Axe commented.

"No matter how fresh that is, it has long been obsolete," Gu Fei said. Mountain Breaker Axe had been considering this issue from a standpoint of warfare, but if they were to consider its application through this perspective, swords were not something that had been adopted into the battlefield on a wider scale. By the time there were more swords out there, they were nothing more than status symbols for those who owned them. They had never once been the main weapon in war.

Mountain Breaker Axe moved his hand to block Gu Fei's punch, but the latter had already retracted his hand, causing Mountain Breaker Axe to block nothing but air. Mountain Breaker Axe merely shook his head at this, for martial practitioners like Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion simply had too many feints and tricks that he disregarded entirely. Ultimately, in the moment Gu Fei's hand returned to him, Mountain Breaker Axe saw him position his left leg behind his right, lifting his right leg up to execute a swift side kick. Shocked, Mountain Breaker Axe quickly withdrew his stomach and retreated, but that only led Gu Fei's right leg to reground itself halfway through, reaching out his right hand with a jab that brushed past Mountain Breaker Axe's eye, delivering the left punch he had been secretly holding back as an uppercut, which landed squarely on Mountain Breaker Axe's jaw.

Gu Fei did not have much Strength, so that punch barely did any damage. He immediately retreated after that blow connected, but Mountain Breaker Axe remained rooted to the spot, dumbfounded. Gu Fei chuckled. "Did you find that to be very familiar?"

"That..." Mountain Breaker Axe at least had a modicum of knowledge when it came to fighting, and even though that backstep attack Gu Fei had just done had been drastically modified, this ex-soldier was still able to discern it at a glance.

"That's the sidekick-uppercut combo your fighting style often use, right?" Gu Fei asked.

"That's right..." Mountain Breaker Axe nodded.

"I wonder if you've ever thought of this particular problem?"

"What problem?"

"Aircraft bombings, artillery fire - all these weapons were created after people researched them, then what about your fighting techniques? Where did that come from? The old fashioned twenty-step Qingdi Fist 1, turning into the more widely used sixteen-step Qingdi Fist, what did you think caused such a change?" Gu Fei asked.

Mountain Breaker Axe was stunned.

"Buddy, that's all done by us. You can think of us as scientists and researchers when it comes to fighting techniques. Otherwise, did you really think all those combat styles were gifts from the heavens?" Gu Fei asked.

"Oh. And there's one more thing," Gu Fei continued. "You're mistaken."

"What?"

"The straightforwardness of the fighting style you've grasped, lacking any overly complicated adaptations, isn't because the simple and straightforward manner makes it more effective for actual combat; rather, it's because it's much easier to grasp if it is kept that way, simply because you guys don't have the time. With two years of conscription and three years of voluntary service, it adds up to a total of only five years of practice. Using all that time to train in kung fu just isn't enough, much less when there're still other skills all of you must master," Gu Fei explained.

"Did you really think that guy there isn't your match?" Gu Fei pointed over to Eternal Dominion when he asked this. "Speaking from a purely combat standpoint, he's actually better than you. He simply lacks the experience you have. After all, even though we are martial arts practitioners, we don't even have the experience of heavily injuring anyone. Our goal is essentially the pursuit of making a breakthrough in our fighting skills, and this shortcoming of ours has quite the impact on us. You say our kung fu lacks combat experience? That's incorrect, but you're correct if we lack actual combat experience. Of course, what I mean by actual combat experience, is the kill-on-sight kind of experience."

Mountain Breaker Axe was astonished. "Do you mean to say you've got such experience?"

Gu Fei was even more astonished. "Don't casually joke about this. Killing someone is essentially exchanging a life for a life."

Mountain Breaker Axe chuckled. "In other words, you too lack actual combat experience."

Gu Fei smiled at this. "That might be true, but the two of us are in entirely different realms, so the difference in experience can be neglected. Were it not for me lacking Strength, I would be able to make you eat dirt there and then."

Mountain Breaker Axe spoke. "Since you're aware that your lack of strength is a huge detriment, just how are you going to win against me? This is a game at the end of the day, so beating me doesn't mean that you're able to really injury me."

"That's the reason why I've spent so much time talking to you," Gu Fei replied.

"What?"

"I kept a few grapes in my mouth when I went around the boulder moments ago, and I ate them while talking to you. Right now, they've all finally been digested by me," he said. "I'm actually a Mage, so I don't need Strength, just mana."

"F*ck!" Mountain Breaker Axe realized that he had been tricked. Up on the boulder, Broken Water Arrow and Sniper God were all the more vomiting blood when the two men heard this. It turned out that Gu Fei had called Eternal Dominion over not to kill them but to draw their attention away, making it such that they would be unable to interrupt Gu Fei's consumption of his grapes.

"Fire resistance, is that it? You're doomed." Gu Fei raised his left hand as a ball of lightning slowly condensed in his palm.

Footnotes:

A weapon the folk hero/demi-god Er Lang Shen wields (He uses a lot).

One of the thirty six stratagems. It was essentially a scheme that focuses on the weakness of the opponent when knowing the superiority they possess in a particular situation.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-Six_Stratagems#Besiege_W%C3%A8i_to_rescue_Zh%C3%A0o

A style of martial arts that's taught to the armed police force in the 80s, that had been adapted to the 16 steps by the late 90s. Originally adapted from the martial art style Baiji Fist.