The King's Avatar

“Let me give you a good lesson.”

Deception was planning on figuring the gap between them himself, but hearing the other side speak, it seemed like he was going to directly tell him where it was. Deception suddenly felt unwilling now. He recognized that Lord Grim might be more skilled than him, but it didn’t mean he was willing to take his advice. Even more so, this guy was acting as if that was the way it should be. There wasn’t the slightest bit of modesty in his words.

If this wasn’t the only direction he could go, Deception would have split up with him a long time ago.

“No matter the circumstance, carefully observe the situation. Gathering valuable information should be the first thing you do.” Ye Xiu said.

“No sh*t.” Deception wasn’t going to take his advice.

“You already know this?”

“Hmph……” Deception felt like this question was too stupid. He was too lazy to reply. How could he not know this? Whenever he went scrap picking, the first thing he would do was understand the situation clearly before moving. He wasn’t like other scrap pickers, who just blindly charged in without any plan.

“No. You don’t know this. You don’t even know which buildings have windows.” Ye Xiu said.

“That…..” Deception stared dumbly. He didn’t think he would go there. There was nothing he could say either. He really hadn’t known about it.

“Isn’t it very useful to know which buildings have windows?” Ye Xiu asked.

“Yes…….”

“But you don’t know.”

“……”

“Information is very important!” Ye Xiu instructed.

“Everything was all very sudden. I didn’t have time to prepare.” Deception made an excuse.

“You just have to open up a map on the internet. If you don’t how to even do this, then it means that you’re not regarding information as important enough.”

“I’m used to playing on full screen……” Deception himself didn’t think this was a good reason.

“Ha ha.” Ye Xiu laughed, but didn’t say anything. Deception’s ninja blade slid out slightly from its sheath, but Deception was able to stop himself.

“Right now, we need to escape from these guys.” Ye Xiu said.

“No really?” Deception had calmed down a lot. This time, these two words were just said as a sarcastic reply to the statement. There wasn’t any energy behind it.

“The first thing we need to do is escape from their line of sight.” Ye Xiu said.

“Obviously.”

“Do you know why we have to do this?” Ye Xiu asked.

“So they can’t see us.” Deception said.

“Are you an elementary school kid? Can’t your answer have a little more depth to it?” Ye Xiu said.

“And your question has so much depth to it.” Deception remarked sarcastically.

“Our goal is to not let them find us. Not letting them see us is simply to create a space which we can use to accomplish this.” Ye Xiu said.

“Ha ha, how deep.” Deception sneered.

“Then do you know where we can find such a space in our situation?” Ye Xiu asked.

“Uh?” This question was a bit sudden. Deception had no idea.

“The answer is intersections!” Ye Xiu answered.

“F*ck!” Deception felt like he had been tricked. Once they turned around the corner, their pursuers wouldn’t be able to see them. It was such a simple matter, but he just had to make the question so unnecessarily complicated, saying stuff like space……

“It sounds like you don’t understand what I mean.” Ye Xiu sighed, “What I mean is at the intersection, when our pursuers lose sight of us, they’ll scatter. At a two way intersection, they’ll split into two. If it’s a three way intersection, they’ll split into three. By doing this, we peel away our pursuers layer by layer.”

“Oh?” Deception stared blankly. By finding more intersections and making more turns, it would be easier to shed off pursuers. Deception knew about this concept, but he had never thought of why it made it easier to escape. It wasn’t a difficult concept to understand, but only after understanding it was it possible to deduce many things from just this.

The intersections was just an example of space.The point of space was to make their pursuers lose sight of them in order to force them into having several options.

“Understand this. You have to plan when you’re escaping too. You have to make it your goal to shed off pursuers. Do you have a plan?” Ye Xiu continued.

“I do……”

“Tell me your plan.” Ye Xiu said.

“Head north and jump into the river.” Deception said with difficulty. His plan was just a general direction. It wasn’t the type of detailed plan Ye Xiu was talking about. But he had to prove that he had a plan!

“Your plan isn’t bad.” Ye Xiu replied in a dull tone.

“Okay, from this intersection onwards, follow me closely!” Ye Xiu said as he made a left turn at the intersection ahead.

Deception didn’t say anything. The guy talked about a bunch of theory, but would it even work? If the people behind them were their only pursuers, then Deception wouldn’t need to know this theory. He would just run around in circles a few times and completely escape from them. The problem was that the people behind them were not their only pursuers. There were others elsewhere. After the pursuers behind them told them of their location, more people would gather around to their location. They might shed off a few pursuers, but more would come to fill up the gap endlessly. This was why Deception hadn’t been able to break through the encirclement.

Right now he wouldn’t say anything. He was going to see if this guy’s theory would actually work in practice.

Left turn?

There wasn’t anything special about that. He knew how to make a left turn too.

Deception followed along and made a left turn.

“Go in.”

Right after making a left, Lord Grim immediately went into a building on the side.

This building had windows. They went through the window and out onto another street.

Deception admitted he didn’t know there was a window there, but the other side was relying on an online map to know this. If he had an online map opened up, he could make the same decision too.

After going through the window, they flipped onto a tall wall.

Wilderness Town wasn’t just a town with proper streets everywhere. There were small alleyways too. And with the word town in its name, it was obviously not as elaborate as a big city. In reality, most of this leveling area was in the wilderness. The town was just a small corner of the map. It was because of this that the three guilds were focused on this place. As time went on, more and more backup would arrive and escaping would become even more difficult.

Deception just followed behind Lord Grim and didn’t talk, quietly experiencing their route.

It wasn’t over a wide area, but there were a lot of twists to it. In addition, they weren’t running their fastest the entire time. In some places, Lord Grim would stop and wait.

The other side didn’t say anything, so Deception wouldn’t ask. But he was already able to tell that Lord Grim wasn’t simply running around in circles to hide from their pursuers behind them. He was hiding from every single one of their pursuers. It was as if he knew where their enemies were.

Is that even possible? Deception was amazed.

It wasn’t that Lord Grim never encountered any enemies. However, they had never fallen into a trip like Deception had fell into several times before. During these three minutes, they hadn’t fought with anyone. As soon as the enemy saw them, they would immediately choose a different route, flipping over walls, going through windows, running through alleys. Their seemingly random route had goals to it. There were always options to choose from whenever an unexpected event occurred.

The concept of space wasn’t just to create choices for the enemies. It was also leave choices for themselves.

Deception was beginning to understand.

However, in order to do this, having a good grasp of the terrain was crucial. This was information Deception hadn’t thought was important before.

“What do you think?” Ye Xiu suddenly spoke.

“Meh.” Deception was still very stiff with his words.

“But you’re at least safe now.” Ye Xiu said.

“Is that a joke? We still haven’t escaped our enemy’s encirclement. We’re still in it.” Deception said.

“Oh? You’ve been paying attention to our pathing?” Ye Xiu asked.

“……”

“Have you already noticed that you’re already out of combat?” Ye Xiu asked.

“Ah?” Deception was surprised. He just realized that he was out of combat. He could simply log off and he’d be safe.

“You can log off now.” Ye Xiu said.

“And you?”

“Me? I haven’t thought of leaving! I still need to continue scrap picking!” Ye Xiu said.

“……”

“You’re still not going to log off?” Ye Xiu glanced at Deception, “Are you perhaps interested in scrap picking too?”

“That’s my strength!” This was something Deception was confident in. If he said he was the number two scrap picker, no one would dare call themselves number one.

“You’re still green.” Ye Xiu disapproved.

“……”

“It looks like I need to give you another lesson.” Ye Xiu said.

Deception was about to explode from anger. Someone actually dared to give him a lesson in scrap picking. He thought it was too hilarious.

“That’s not called scrap picking. What you’re doing is called PKing.” Deception corrected Ye Xiu.

“Ha ha, in reality, it’s hard to avoid thinking of PKing to get items as a scrap picker. It just depends on if you have the ability to or not, which is why you can only sit and wait for an opportunity, am I right?” Ye Xiu said.

“Of course you’re not right! To put it simply, scrap picking is a way to obtain lots of equipment quickly. If you go PKing one by one, how could that be more rewarding than scrap picking?” Deception said.

“Not as rewarding as scrap picking? If I go to a leveling area and kill whoever I see. In one day, do you think I’ll get more equipment from PKing or do you think you would get more equipment from scrap picking?” Ye Xiu asked.

“You…… PKing all day, you’re a demon!” Deception said. He realized that with his comparison, scrap picking wasn’t as rewarding as PKing. Scrap picking required waiting for an opportunity to appear. For PKing, you create your own opportunities. It was very easy to create one too. You just had to attack a person…….

“Scrap picking isn’t any better. PKing requires some skill at least.” Ye Xiu said.

“No, that’s not right…….” Deception argued, but he couldn’t say what was wrong.

“What’s wrong? Scrap picking is probably even more immoral than PKing. If nothing else, it’s because scrap picking is more passive. But in reality, from a wishful thinking perspective, your scrap picking is also a type of active playing, no? Your end goal is equipment, so what’s the difference with PKing to get it?” Ye Xiu said, “Rather than being a dirty scrap picker, it’s better to just jump out and kill everyone.”