VRMMO: Passing of the Sword

“Am I done talking? You sound very relaxed,” the man said in a dark tone.

Everyone was shocked when Blue Maple didn’t respond and stared back at that man instead. Blue Maple could see this man’s name: the Gentle Prince, Level… whatever. Blue Maple didn’t bother looking at all that.

“Hey, dude over there, my lord is speaking to you. Did you hear what he said?” someone beside the Gentle Prince hooted. Clearly, this man was probably one of the Gentle Prince’s escorts or attendants. They were grouped together somehow in this randomly assigned game world.

The attendant’s words didn’t achieve anything. There was a tinge of doubt in Blue Maple’s eyes as he stared at the Gentle Prince, and doubt also began to appear in everyone’s eyes. Nobody knew what Blue Maple was thinking.

Everyone around fell silent for a few moments. The attendant was about to speak when he heard what Blue Maple said to the Gentle Prince, and he immediately swallowed his words.

“You… are a man?”

The world seemed to become deathly quiet…

“Hahahaha… he actually asked if he’s male. Hahaha… that’s hilarious! Ha… ahem, ahem…” Blue Snow roared into laughter after a few seconds of silence, and she couldn’t stop laughing, her hands over her stomach without a care for her image. She laughed so hard that she began to cough, and her image of an elegant lady vanished.

Everyone watching the show burst into laughter afterwards, and the Gentle Prince’s expression instantly changed.

“Are you calling me a woman? Eh?!” the Gentle Prince roared with a dark cloud over his face.

“You don’t have an Adam’s apple…” Blue Maple replied plainly. His voice was soft, but everyone around was paying close attention to Blue Maple’s response, so they could all hear him.

“Hahaha, isn’t that right? Look, the pretty boy really doesn’t have an Adam’s apple!”

“How can you call him a pretty boy? Did you not hear the girl call him a shemale?”

“Hey, stop slandering him. He’s still a female after all. Even though… ahem, you get it.”

The Gentle Prince’s face had turned completely black and sinister. He seemed he was going to explode, and his attendant’s expressions appeared equally bad.

“Do you guys know who I am?” the Gentle Prince spoke with a dark look on his face.

“Tch, aren’t you the Lin Family’s second-generation shemale ancestor? Gangster, well done, I have been pissed off about this damned shemale for a long time. He even dared to come to my family to ask for my hand in marriage. Hmph!” Blue Snow didn’t restrain herself at all.

“Yo, and here I thought who he could be. He’s a big family clan’s little prince. Bah! I’m sorry, I said that wrong. You’re the family’s prized princess.”

Hahahahaha!…

Everyone burst into laughter once more.

Indeed, even though people in the real world couldn’t be offended like that, in this game world, they weren’t that difficult to deal with. At best, they could deploy more people beside several important individuals, but they couldn’t gather in large numbers. Even if they could, everyone present would be gone.

People couldn’t truly die inside the game world, anyway, so these people weren’t afraid of anything at all. Five years from now, nobody would remember who they were.

That was why Blue Maple wasn’t bothered when he added Blue Snow as his friend when she said she only needed to know his name.

“Fuck!” The Gentle Prince’s face grew ever darker. “You, go and kill that nameless rascal!”

The Gentle Prince couldn’t really do anything to these players in the game world. Therefore, he could only vent all his anger on the main culprit of everything.

A player who had been watching everything that had transpired whispered calmly to the Gentle Prince, “My lord, this person feels extremely dangerous! We might not be a match for him, even if we all attack together.”

“Not a match?! My father did not hire you to be beside me to tell me that we are no match for someone. Even if you can’t kill him, you have to ruin his quest! Go!” The Gentle Prince gave orders like he had lost his mind and reason.

“Yes!” that player had no choice but to agree, exasperated.

That player led everyone else besides the Gentle Prince and inched towards Blue Maple. They gradually got into formation to attack; Blue Maple watched their formation with waves in his eyes.

The player spoke to Blue Maple after getting into formation. “I’m sorry, whoever you are. I admit that nobody here is a match for you, even though that is almost unbelievable considering your age. But we should be able to damage you.” Blue Maple managed to see that player’s name as he spoke: Thoughtless!

Thoughtless charged forwards, and the other players followed behind him. He was still talking as he ran, “Even though I really want to fight you one-on-one, I have to let you down this time.”

Blue Maple watched quietly as he waited for Thoughtless and the other players’ attacks to arrive. Just as Thoughtless was nearing him, Blue Maple made his move, swinging his sword simply.

When he saw Blue Maple attack him first, Thoughtless thought to himself, That’s useless. He held his sword horizontally in front of him and prepared to absorb the impact and parry Blue Maple’s attack. Everyone else around him also made their moves.

Clang!

Blue Maple’s sword slammed into Thoughtless’ sword, and a crisp metallic clang was heard. Thoughtless was still thinking about how Blue Maple could possibly evade everyone else’s attacks when something changed. Blue Maple’s sword suddenly glowed with chilly light as his blade slashed quickly toward Thoughtless’ neck. It was like a ray of cold light, so quick that it couldn’t be dodged, and Thoughtless couldn’t bring his sword back in time to parry.

Cold Light Slash!

-356! An instant kill!

There was only disbelief in Thoughtless’ eyes, and then there was unwillingness.

Blue Maple spun around at top speed, and unleashed a 360-degree roundhouse kick as he threw the four players closest to him into the air. Blue Maple’s absolute strength and level advantage, in addition to his technical prowess, dealt with four players just like that, and he easily evaded the other three players’ attacks.

There were seven other players, who were stunned as they stood rooted to the ground. Nobody understood what had just happened; nobody could have known that Blue Maple still hadn’t used any skills!

Just as everyone stopped in their tracks, Blue Maple said to Thoughtless, who was on the ground, but whose eyes were not yet completely closed, “Whatever.”

Clearly, he was responding to Thoughtless’ comment about wanting to fight him one-on-one, but he had no choice but to attack as a group. Everything transpired within three seconds, but everyone else was so shocked that they couldn’t react in time.

Just as everyone was still shocked, Blue Snow covered her tiny mouth and exclaimed both doubtfully and in surprise, “No way. Is that a skill?!”

Blue Snow’s words reminded everyone that nobody had expected Blue Maple to have a skill. According to the game’s introduction, players could only obtain skills after reaching Level 10 and changing their Class. Blue Maple was definitely trying to complete a hidden quest, so he hadn’t changed his Class yet.

There was only one other way to obtain a skill, and that was through a skill tome. The game’s introduction did say that the drop rate of skill tomes in the early stages of the game was practically impossible. The server’s early stages, before the first player’s second Class advancement, wouldn’t drop more than ten thousand skill tomes!

There were about three hundred million players in this game, so that probability was practically zero, equivalent to one in three hundred thousand. Blue Maple’s skill tome was basically a system reward. He managed to slay two demonized Bosses way above his level and still couldn’t obtain a skill tome, so it wasn’t hard to imagine what the drop rate was like.

Furthermore, the key was that Blue Maple hadn’t used his skill even after battling for so long, and was still holding back. Everyone could feel shivers run down their spines when they thought about his potential and how much he was hiding, and they were all considering how fortunate they were that they hadn’t been greedy enough to try and steal from him.

Blue Maple had just utterly crushed the strongest player, which should be sufficient to deter the remaining players. The truth was, if Blue Maple hadn’t surprised him with Cold Light Slash, Thoughtless wouldn’t have gone down so easily. But Blue Maple didn’t care about all that.

“Go! That’s just a skill. Stop standing around, are you waiting for his skill to finish cooling down?” The Gentle Prince quickly recovered and gave out more orders. He didn’t seem that simple, and the remaining seven players quickly returned to normal under his command.

The remaining seven players, except for the player who was making a lot of noise, could be considered relatively strong players. At least, they were veterans in the real world, and they could be considered a high-level bodyguard detail.

Blue Maple had high attack damage, but he couldn’t kill anyone with one hit if his attacks were parried. The remaining six bodyguards knew how to cooperate with each other, and they took turns blocking Blue Maple’s attack to avoid death while they continued attacking at the same time. Several times, their strikes grazed Blue Maple’s armor.

Blue Maple couldn’t possibly evade everyone’s attacks because his movement speed was relatively slow yet. However, they were tying themselves up because Blue Maple was using the clamoring attendant as his “shield”. He couldn’t fit in with the other six players, and Blue Maple really couldn’t understand why the Gentle Prince enlisted him.

Blue Maple had ample opportunity to kill this attendant, but he didn’t do so because he wanted to make use of the attendant’s inaccurate attacks to use his body to evade the other players’ attacks. The other six players’ attacks were limited because of this attendant, and they really wanted to kill this fellow who was “helping out”. Initially, they believed that they would have no problem with Thoughtless around, but nobody expected him to fall at the start of the fight, and their plan fell apart.

Now, nobody could take another hit from Blue Maple, and they would still die if they parried his attack. Furthermore, Blue Maple’s skill was almost done cooling down, and his next strike would eliminate two more players. If Blue Maple could connect another kick seamlessly, he could directly eliminate three players!

“You’re all useless!” the Gentle Prince cursed furiously as he watched on from the side. The Gentle Prince had no choice but to draw his own sword and attack, because the old man’s requirement for them was to complete the quest or everyone would die. The punishment was even more severe if they didn’t die!

The Gentle Prince originally believed that he wouldn’t need to join the fray with Thoughtless around, but Blue Maple’s possession of a skill ruined his plan.

Blue Maple’s retaliation also began!

The Gentle Prince’s subordinates turned their attention towards him in the moment when he drew his sword. Light suddenly flashed across Blue Maple’s left hand, and his Newbie Sword appeared in his left hand as he tossed it at a player.

-174! He had killed another one!

These players had been watching Blue Maple when the Gentle Prince spoke, but the Gentle Prince drew his sword, and that meant he wanted to join the fray. His subordinates could feel that they were about to lose their jobs, and their diverted attention meant they couldn’t evade Blue Maple’s quick attack. Blue Maple didn’t hit any vitals, and his sword’s characteristics were relatively weak, so he couldn’t deal much damage. It was still sufficient to eliminate a player who was at half health!

The reason why they didn’t use health potions to heal was because they were probably almost back in the village to regenerate when the old man found them. Therefore, they had probably used all their health potions, but Blue Maple couldn’t eliminate the possibility that they were just pretending. He had always been very careful and meticulous in his fights, and he would try to consider as many factors as possible.

The Gentle Prince flew into a rage when he witnessed what Blue Maple had done. “Those who still have health potions, use them! Continue attacking!”