9 9. Mysterious Fire Sword.

'Sword Genius: Bai Qian.'

Along with 'Fire Saintess: Yagi Akane' and 'Mysterious Shadow: Trisha Thakur' are the three leaders of the A-Class Guild 'Mysterious Fire Sword'. While Sword Genius being the guild leader and Fire Saintess and Mysterious Shadow are vice-guild leaders, the 3 of them has equal authority in the guild. Although the Guild hadn't been established yet.

2 years ago there was a second rate VR game Fantasy World of Sword and Magic. The 3 girls had met each other in the game for the first time in a difficult scenario. After managing to solve the crisis by relying on each other, they become best friends. In that game they were genius players on their own who could go against B-Class guild toe-to-toe. After the 3 banded together they never suffered any loss. The 3 A-Class ruling guild of the game couldn't do anything against them. The titles Sword Genius, Fire Saintess and Mysterious Shadow was given to them by the players and their fans. Together they are called as 'Mysterious Fire Sword'.

~~~~~

"Yu'er, don't talk bad about someone behind their back." Sword Genius lightly reprimand the young immature girl. The other 3 women just listened their conversation from the side.

As Sunny heard their exchange he broke out of his thoughts and made some noise by lightly shaking an adjacent tree branch to avoid any misunderstanding. *rustle*

Hearing the rustling noise Sword Genius instantly looked in the direction vigilantly, her hand tightly griping the longsword hung on her waist. The others also followed suit and raised their guard as their hand went for their weapons.

A moment later they noticed a young man sitting on a tree branch 35m in front of them. Sword Genius slightly relaxed and understood the opposite party's intention as she loosened her grip on the sword. But still stood in a battle ready posture.

"Hello, my username is Sword Genius Bai. Do you have any information about the situation here? If yes, then we can maybe exchange some information." Sword Genius introduced herself to Sunny upon seeing the young man didn't have intention of talking and was just calmly staring the group.

Sunny jumped from the tree branch and lightly landed as he stated. "Chaos here, and no I don't know anything special." After saying his piece he began to walk away deeper into the forest. As he was about to disappear behind some trees Sunny turned back and said "The Village Head House is located on the eastern part of the residential area where you can get 10 E grade repetitive quests." and then he disappeared into the distance.

Sword Genius slightly wrinkled her brows not expecting the conversation to go this way. Although she hates it when men looks at her heated and obscene gaze and flocks around her shamelessly, she found his behaviour of not even properly converse slightly disapproving. A moment later she let it go and pushed aside those thoughts and turned her attention to one of the 3 women.

"Sister Ming, try to contact some friends, and see if the information is correct. Anyone will do since Aurora already said every village dimension to be identical."

The women name Ming nodded and turned on VR Forum and send messages to her friends in her friend list.

'Smelly men, Sister Qian gave him respect by politely introducing herself and he just brushed it off. Doesn't even know how to appreciate kindness. *hmph, hmph*' The girl Yu'er grumbled inside but still didn't dare saying it outright. Her Sister Qian has just reprimand her about talking behind someone's back.

~~~~~

*crackle* *thud*

An injured [Steel Clawed Wolf] was in the process of biting in mid-air when it collided with a blue barrier. The barrier broke apart and the wolf bounced back and collided with a tree not far way. As it landed it didn't even get the chance to stand properly before a blue bolt hit it squarely in the middle of its head.

The wolf immediately got dizzy took a moment regain its bearing. In this short span another blue bolt its neck and the wolf collapsed dead on the ground. Its remaining HP of 86 from the initial 115 instantly reached zero. Since neck is a vital area for most living being stuck there would immediately result in *Critical Hit*.

Short distance away from the slain wolf Sunny was panting slightly, 2m to his left there lay another corpse which was in the process of turning into motes of light. He felt light throbbing pain on left side of his ribs. The durability of his beginner robe also decreased.

3 hours passed away after he separated from Sword Genius's group. During this time he went deeper into the eastern part. [Single Horned Rabbit] quest material was already gathered by the 2nd hour so Sunny also moved slightly north in search for other monsters.

Some moments ago he was in the middle of a fight with level-1-D [Single Horned Rabbit] when suddenly the wolf sneaked attacked just after the rabbit broke his barrier. He suffered a claw on the left side of his chest. If he had not moved backwards, his intuition warning of the upcoming danger the attack would have instead landed on his neck. That would have been instant death.

Since the wolf was also D rank he right away lost 65% of his HP and the durability of his robe instantly decreased by 2.

After collecting the drops from 2 corpse, Sunny moved some distance away from the battle scene and climbed a dense tree. Withdrawing 2 pieces of bread and the water pouch he started eating as he lightly rubbed his lift ribs.

When a player suffers any kind of damage they would feel pain in the respective body parts, without any blood spill. The pain felt is set at default 10% about what one would feel from the same injury in real world. The Players can adjust the percent according to their liking. This authority is given completely to Aurora and no one can interfere in it. That is one can only change the players pain settings themselves.

~~~~~

While resting Sunny browsed through the VR Forum and also kept an eye on the surroundings. Majority of the players were complaining about the difficulty of levelling up.

Random player #9808 "I have been farming monsters since the release hour, but my Exp is only at 32%. It will take forever to level up like this."

Random player #548 "Comrade above I understand. Mine also is only at 29% and the I also have to fight with other players for the monsters. When I read the Exp distribution in the rules I was excited and thought the big guilds will be unable to carry newbie players later into the game. And here I am facing hardships in the initial phase."

Random player #1749 "Let's not forget that if other players who aren't in a party with you and interfere between a fight, the Exp is divided according to damage and killing strike. I have already suffered twice and decided to venture deeper into the forest. Then only I got some respite and some good hunt."

Random player #3087 "Brother above, your luck is good you know. I ventured into northeast direction and encountered a level-1-C [Steel Clawed Wolf]. I didn't even got the chance to make a run for my life before the wolf insta-killed me. It's speed and power was on a whole different level compared to a E grade monster. *sob, sob*"

Majority of the players were whining about slow levelling speed. Sunny himself was hunting in deeper regions from the start, but he is only at 67%. Far from level up. While reading this complaints he shook his head in disregard while thought to himself.

'The whole player community will blow up when facing the death penalty in the near future. Last time the death penalty was properly announced when Explorer Jiang cleared the small village dimension. Initially players didn't have much reaction to it, but in the 2nd week when numerous players started dying and experienced the penalty themselves they understood the severity of the situation.'

'The CEE had faced complaints for a month to change the penalty, but the company hadn't even responded one bit about it. This had further increased the suspicion about the introduction being true. 5 years into the future but the world still hadn't gotten any clue about the truthfulness of VWPS.'

Sunny put these thoughts in the back of his mind and just browsed through the forum while resting. 45 min. later when his HP got full and fatigue under 10 he jumped down from the tree. He again started his hunt and proceeded deeper.

One and half hour passed after that. During this time he came across a swamp which housed 15 level-1-E [Six Legged Frog]. 2 middle limbs in between front and rear limbs and its tongue are valuable materials used for leather type equipment.

Sunny deployed hit and run tactic and cleared the swamp by killing the frogs one by one. Whenever he hit a frog with *Mana Bolt* 3-5 of them will accompany it in chasing Sunny. Except for the frog which is hit rest will return to the swamp after a pursuing for 2 min. The chosen frog will have aggro locked onto Sunny for longer time than the rest.

Due to running around again and again his fatigue climbed rapidly. He rested for half an hour again and then continued his hunt. Some while later he came across a situation which startled and excited him. His lips curled into a grin as his eyes radiated excitement. He barely managed to supress a loud laugh escaping his mouth.

[Instance Dungeon].