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Virtual World: Close Combat Mage – Chapter 2 – Kung Fu?
Original by Butterfly Blue, Translated by James, Edited by MineralWater, st8_lupe and TaffyGirl13
Two of the men rushed in on Gu Fei. To prevent him from escaping, another one moved toward the end of the alley.
In a blink of an eye, the two men had arrived in front of Gu Fei. One of them was throwing a punch and the other a kick. However, Gu Fei was still calm and composed. He moved a step back and dodged the attacks. He then lifted up his left leg and kicked the face of the guy to his left. He was preparing to follow up with his right leg, but noticed that the guy to his right had already retreated back.
Gu Fei smiled wryly. Had it been real life, it would be impossible for his ‘Dual Flying Swallows’ to only hit a single person. However, he was inside a game. His speed was completely restricted by the limits of a mage’s body. He was unable to completely exhibit the strength of the ‘Dual Flying Swallows’. Furthermore, the power of this move was weakened drastically. This guy to his left that he kicked earlier was actually not down. He was staring at him while holding his face in shock. Had it been in real life, then this guy would have certainly been knocked out for four or five hours from this one kick to his head.
“Sure enough, this guy has skills.” The expression of the leader changed. However, his expression didn’t change much. He was still very composed. Although Gu Fei’s kick cleanly landed, it was obviously that the power behind the kick was awfully lacking. The leader shouted. “He is only a mage, nothing to be afraid of!” After shouting those words, the leader himself also rushed forward to join the fray.
Gu Fei was dodging the attacks from the three men. Although his strength and physique were both extremely weak because of his occupation, the agility of a mage was still barely enough to pass by with. Currently, since they were all newborn players who have yet to level up and didn’t have stat points to distribute, the gap between the mage’s agility and the knight’s weren’t overwhelming yet. From time to time, Gu Fei, through the help of his abundant fighting experience, would throw out a punch or kick at the three. All of his attacks landed clearly. As for the three, they still had yet to even touch Gu Fei’s clothes. The leader of the group grew more and more amazed. He noticed that Gu Fei wasn’t only skillful, he’s very skillful! Luckily he was a mage; had he been any other occupation that’s more strength focused, then the three of them would have already been knocked to the ground by now.
Currently, Gu Fei felt somewhat helpless. Due to the restrictions of his game body, he was unable to do a lot of his kung fu moves. From that, he had determined that even if his occupation was to be a fighter and the like, he might still be unable to use his kung fu moves unless he levelled up his character and distributed the stat points first. On the other hand, he determined that although he currently had the occupation of a mage, as long as he added majority of his stats to agility, strength and such, he would have a chance to use his kung fu moves! The thought immediately raised Gu Fei’s spirits.
The three men noticed that not only could they not do anything to Gu Fei; this guy actually grew more spirited the longer they fought. He actually even expressed a very happy smile earlier, causing the three to be even more nervous and confused.
These three men had the skills of hooligans on the street. From where Gu Fei stood, their skills were at the chopping blocks levels with hundreds of loopholes. Gu Fei was not in the mood to continue the fray any longer, he found an opportunity and retreated from them to the outside of their encirclement. With a smile on his face, he said. “Do you still want to continue?”
The three had taken a lot of hits from Gu Fei. Although the hits were not powerful, they were still very unpleasant to take. Especially after Gu Fei decided to deliberately attack the same spot over and over again. Currently, the man on the left had a large bruised left eye, the man on the right had a large bruised right eye and the man in the middle, the leader of the group, had a bleeding nose. The bleeding nose had caused even speaking to be difficult as the blood would run into his mouth when he spoke. The leader of the three wiped the blood with his hand and said to the other three men. “Let’s go!”
“Wait!” Gu Fei spoke. “Are you planning to leave without apologizing?!”
“Apologize?” The leader smiled. “What makes you think I will apologize when you can’t beat me to death?” The words he spoke was true. Gu Fei had fought them for so long and the only thing he managed to do to the three was two black eyes and a bleeding nose, none of them a major wound that they cannot bear. As for beating them to death, that’s certainly impossible for Gu Fei. In order to die in the game, one’s HP had to reach zero. However, even after all the punches and kicks from Gu Fei, even after their faces were badly battered, their HP didn’t drop a single point. This was the shitty aspect of the game.
Gu Fei merely smiled. He lean over and picked up a stone from the ground. With a whip of his arm, the rock flew and “Pow!” landed directly on the forehead of the leader.
The leader was extremely furious. “You!”
“If I were to launch a rock directly into your eyeball, how would you be feeling now?” said Gu Fei all calm and unruffled.
The leader was stunned by Gu Fei’s words. He originally thought that Gu Fei had just thrown a rock at him as he refused to apologize; however, after hearing Gu Fei’s words, it would appear that he could hit wherever he decided to target.
“Your eyes would certainly be fine in real life; however, in this game, you will henceforth become a blind man…. Don’t forget, this is the latest virtual reality game.” said Gu Fei.
This scared the leader so much that he stepped back two steps. However, after thinking for a bit, he determined that it was impossible for Gu Fei to be able to hit his eye just because he wants to target it – that would’ve been too magical a thing – and relieved his mind. He laughed. “Rascal, who are you trying to fool?”
Gu Fei did not say anything. He hooked a stone up with his foot and whipped it with his right hand…
“Ahhhh!!!….”A miserable shriek. The leader was holding his right eye collapsed on the ground. He was rolling around and screaming nonstop. The pain from beaten till having a bruise eye was incomparable to the pain from having a rock launched into one’s eyeball.
“You still have an eye.” said Gu Fei toward the man rolling on the ground. After saying that, he hooked two more rocks off the ground with his leg. With a whip of his arm, the two rocks was caught within his hand. His gaze was set on the other two men next to the leader. “This time, I have two rocks in my hand.”
“We’re… we’re sorry!” Stuttered the two. They were completely scared shitless from the scene of their leader rolling around the ground screaming.
“Scram!” Gu Fei waved his hand and the two men quickly dragged their leader off the ground. Their leader had one hand covering his right eye. His left eye was also closely shut. He was trembling in pain. He stuttered toward the ground. “Go… quickly… get me out of here…” The two men immediately went to assist their leader and promptly left. As for the other man who was guarding Gu Fei’s escape path by the alleyway, he had long since fled the scene.
Ah Fa who was hiding outside the alley and watching the live broadcast was stupefied. Only after the guys in knight outfits had fled did he came to. He burst into the alley toward Gu Fei with a face covered in a shocked expression. He said. “Teacher, you really know Kung Fu?!”
“Of course, teacher grew up practicing Kung Fu.” Gu Fei’s words were exactly the same as what he always said in school. Even his tone were the same.
Gu Fei does indeed know Kung Fu.
He was born into a family of Kung Fu practitioners and had practiced martial arts since childhood. Although all the family members each had their own careers, they had the same objective – to pass on and further develop the chinese martial arts. However, although they speak of it, Ge Fei instead feels that his father and himself were the only ones who took it to heart.
The generations of his uncles and aunties were still pretty good in martial arts. However, upon reaching his generation, there wasn’t even a single person he could spar with. Not only that, they very much disdained the Gu Fei who had set his heart to study martial arts since childhood. ‘What kind of era do you think it is now? The sky is filled with airplanes, everyone have computers, Kung Fu? What’s the use of knowing Kung Fu? Can it feed you?”
Gu Fei wanted to prove them wrong. However, he was instead met with even greater amount of disdain.
Reality wasn’t pleasant. It was true that in this era, Kung Fu could not feed you.
As sports were likely the best domain to exhibit the uses of Kung Fu, Gu Fei decided to attempt every one of them one by one. In some sports, Gu Fei was unable to grasp the rules and repeatedly violated them: for soccer he lifted his leg too high, for basketball he would crash into people. In some sports, even though Gu Fei knows Kung Fu, it didn’t help him one bit: chess and other chess-like games. Finally, there’s the sports that Gu Fei lacked the ability to do: swimming, diving and other aquatic sports — Gu Fei doesn’t know how to swim.
Even the sports involving Kung Fu itself, Gu Fei was unable to continue on.
The martial arts that Gu Fei practice emphasized on combat techniques. This had led to it being completely useless in martial arts performance based competitions. As for the combat type sports where he excelled in, his father strictly prohibited him from participating.
“We practice martial arts to strengthen our body and overcome our body’s limit; it is not for fighting!” Said his father sincerely and earnestly.
“Wasn’t overcoming our body’s limit for the sake of taking down our opponent faster and better?” Gu Fei was confused.
“You’re wrong, if you want to take down your opponent, the best way is through masturbation!” Said his father.
[TL: yes, it literally says masturbation, I’m as confused as you are. One way to say masturbation in chinese is strike hand gun… so unless his father meant to say via using gun… no clue]“Masturbation?”
Gu Fei’s father nodded solemnly. “Yes, masturbation!”
“But…”
Before Gu Fei was able to finish his words, his father had already started attacking him. A family of Kung Fu practitioners! If words don’t work, then fists and palms shall do the talking. That year, his father was rather healthy and his Kung Fu was still above Gu Fei’s. Besides, it was obviously impossible for Gu Fei to actually fight seriously against his father. Thus, he ended up getting beaten badly. And that day was exactly the same day that Gu Fei came to YuLin middle school for an interview…
Ultimately, after failing all sports events, Gu Fei barely managed to stay in the sporting world… if being a PE teacher counts…
And because the scene of him being beaten up by his father outside the school gate was recorded and propagated through the students and the interwebs, Gu Fei was called being shameless by others whenever he declared that he knows Kung Fu in the school.
Kung Fu, was it really that hard for Kung Fu to survive in today’s society? Gu Fei grieved. He now rarely participates in any family gatherings. He was originally seen by the older generations as the model for the people of his generation through his perseverance with Kung Fu. However, after seeing everyone of his generation donned in nice clothes and possessing nice careers, and then seeing Gu Fei and his dire state as a PE teacher, the older generations had began to hesitate in putting Gu Fei as their model for the latter generations. Other than his father, no one else in the family still firmly believe that Gu Fei had future prospects.
However, what Gu Fei’s father insist on above that was “Kung Fu is not used for fighting!”
“I would never allow you to use Kung Fu to harm anyone!” said his father, resolute and decisive.
“Not even bad people?” asked Gu Fei.
“Not even bad people!” his father was firm in his answer. “There’s police and the law to punish the bad people!
“Then, what exactly is the usage of Kung Fu?” Gu Fei was vexed, he hated himself for not being able to fully grasp the usage of Kung Fu like his father. All along he had been at a loss as to what Kung Fu could do.
