Traveling to the Forest, the group wasn’t very raucous or noisy. Although Chu Rui was familiar with Ye Zifeng and the others, he couldn’t just chat casually with them. Their relationships were no more than teammates or a collaboration. The market and the battlefield weren’t very different; anyone can be all brothers-in-arms one minute, and start stabbing backs the next.
In the meager days they’ve met each other, everyone knew faces but not hearts. It was even more so in this virtual gaming world. Moreover, it would be a hassle for Chu Rui to start meaningless gossip, since he wasn’t used to mingling at all.
Ye Zifeng silently made his way, constantly observing their surroundings. If some other team ambushed them, it would be devastating if they weren’t prepared. Thankfully, the road didn’t have a lot of monsters, a path-blocking boss would be rather inconvenient.
As for the three women behind them, they were close girlfriends in the first place. During the mundane trip, they’ve naturally started to talk and gossip. In terms of chatting about fashion and makeup, women were absolutely unrivaled.
Chu Rui didn’t waste his idling time, either. He opened his ability list and scrolled through his powers, rehearsing different battle situations in his head. The Thief doesn’t have a lot of diversity in abilities, and relies on explosive power for victory; if they don’t kill someone within a couple moves, it’s time to scram.
The reason why Chu Rui was so unimaginably powerful was because he was the king of killers in real life beforehand, and used his real-life skills on his character. But in reality, he always used about one knife at most, and the virtual world was indeed “virtual”. Even if you slit someone’s throat all the way down, it wouldn’t immediately kill them like it would be in the real world. Chu Rui couldn’t’ rely on his instant-KO’s anymore, so he started to consider stamina and dragged battles.
Thieves live in the night, and base on high-volume explosions of strength. Chu Rui may not have a problem with one-hitting players, but upon bosses, how could he just strike them down in one hit? He didn’t have to train his instincts and movement, the most important was mastering skill combos and learning to fight with two daggers. If he managed to bring his most mana-cheap skills up, his opportunities and fighting styles will definitely have more variation.
Although Chu Rui came up with numerous ideas for tactics and strategies, they were all useless without real battle experimentation. The Thief requires the physical body more than instinct, and values flexibility at the highest; difficult and extreme movement is necessary for the class. Chu Rui was confident about his mind, but he wasn’t sure about the character’s body in-game.
After brainstorming plans and scenarios, they finally arrived at their destination: Forgotten Forest!
The forest was lush with vegetation, flowers bloomed everywhere under the thick, sturdy trees. It looked like a paradise, untouched by humans or civilization. From the outside, it looked like a beautiful and perfect forest no matter what, a flawless thicket of spiritual life. But there was a strange mood in the air, because a light mist stuck to the forest within. Logically, this forest should be full of sounds from the beasts and animals within, but the whole area was silent. If Chu Rui didn’t hear the whoosh of a gentle breeze, he would’ve thought that the system muted his hearing.
“When I came here the first time, I didn’t dare to go in at all. This air is too creepy for me. But inside, it isn’t too dangerous, it might be because we’re at the very outer ring of the woodland. However, the hidden map under the tree hole is really disgusting. After defeating the first boss, we couldn’t even kill the monster spawns. We don’t even know what the second boss looks like.”
Ye Zifeng laughed bitterly, the armor he was wearing right now was won from that first boss. The situation back then was truly hopeless; after killing it, only him and Blossom Rain remained. Sasha and Tianer all died, returning to Lv. 13.
Playing a game wasn’t really “playing” in a sense, it was “entering” a game and experiencing the characters’ thoughts and feelings. To adventure with them, go through all kinds of ordeals, and brood about life was the real way of playing RPGs. When you weep of the character’s sorrow, when you laugh of the character’s joy, when you relate to your character on a personal level… Then you will achieve the highest realm. At that point, you won’t be playing the game, you’ve already entered the game.