Troubles

"A secure government job? Forget it... The Bureau's already so busy they can barely keep up. It's not as good as you think."

Chu Wei gently shook her head at Wang Zhifan's congratulations, then continued:

"Actually, if you want to, you could try applying to the Bureau. With your strength, there shouldn't be any problem."

She seemed to have a certain special trust in Wang Zhifan, perhaps because the two of them had fought enemies together before.

But Wang Zhifan did not see it that way.

"The problem is actually pretty big. They don't seem to like my kind of class over there."

Wang Zhifan had not interacted much with the Special Administration Bureau, but what he had experienced yesterday made it very clear that they did not think highly of close-combat players like him. Perhaps it was because the mechanics of close-combat classes were too primitive and inherently too limited.

"There's such a thing? I'll ask around for you when I get back to the Bureau."

A look of surprise immediately appeared on Chu Wei's face. As a relatively rare Spiritualist player, she did not know much about the circumstances faced by warrior-type players like Wang Zhifan.

The two chatted briefly near the bus stop. Before long, the bus Chu Wei had been waiting for arrived, and she left first. Before they parted, though, she specifically added Wang Zhifan's contact information, saying she would let him know once she got an answer.

Wang Zhifan felt that this girl was quite nice. Not only was she pleasing to look at, but her personality was easygoing as well. Not to mention that she was a player with both considerable strength and potential.

After this unexpected encounter, he took a bus toward Tianhua Street.

Along the way, he happened to pass the stretch of road where he had encountered the Gray Domain yesterday. He discovered that traffic had already returned to normal there, and the strange influence of the Gray Domain had vanished without a trace. This showed just how efficient Dongjiang City's Special Administration Bureau was, giving the Gray Domain that had invaded reality no chance to become permanently established.

After arriving at Tianhua Street without incident, Wang Zhifan found a new player shop to deal with the Common Grade handgun in his possession—the pistol he had taken from the Windbreaker Youth in today's dungeon.

Common Grade items were not worth much in the player market. Shops would not even buy many kinds of Common Grade items. But thanks to the popularity and strength of the Gunner Class among players, the handgun in Wang Zhifan's hands sold fairly quickly.

In his estimation, the Common Grade handgun he had sold would either be bought by a player without a Gunner Class, or by Gunner players who needed to dual-wield. Or perhaps they simply did not want to increase their risk by changing bullets when they were not running dungeons, and instead prepared several loaded guns to take directly from their Personal Space whenever needed.

As a Blade Warrior player, Wang Zhifan had chosen a Fine Grade Handgun and paired it with Fine Grade Bullets to make up for the shortcomings of his class, so he would not be helpless in situations that were difficult to handle in close combat. But he also knew full well that firearms could never display the same power in his hands as they could in the hands of Gunner players. Until he truly had a chance to change classes, he would focus on improving his strength as a Blade Warrior. Firearms were only a supplement.

"Maybe I should find a shooting range or something and properly improve my marksmanship. Otherwise, my shooting accuracy is going to be pretty miserable."

Thinking back to how he had fired three shots at the Giant Boar in today's dungeon and only hit once, Wang Zhifan could not help feeling uncertain.

That was the troublesome part of lacking the Gunner Class system's support. Even if he wanted to improve his marksmanship, there were no shortcuts; he could only practice in earnest. It was not like he could just choose a Gunner skill upgrade scroll from a reward list and be done with it. Those things only worked for Gunner Class players.

After making a small transaction on Tianhua Street, Wang Zhifan's bank savings rose again to roughly fifty thousand National Currency. That was certainly not much money in Xia Kingdom, but for someone who only had himself to support, it was enough to get by for about a year if he spent carefully.

But Wang Zhifan was clearly not the type who enjoyed living a hard life, and some of his plans did not allow him to get by on such a small sum.

"There really are shooting galleries in Dongjiang City where I can practice, but they're a little expensive, and I need to get some permits too. That's a bit of a hassle."

After considering it for a while, Wang Zhifan felt that he still had to find a way to make more money and overcome these difficulties.

"For now, it looks like I can only run more dungeons and sell equipment for money. But that definitely can't last forever. If I keep doing it for too long, it'll easily attract the attention of people with ulterior motives, and they might notice some of the issues with me."

After thinking it over and over, Wang Zhifan did not have any particularly good solution at the moment. He could only take things one step at a time.

That afternoon, after leaving Tianhua Street, he wandered around downtown Dongjiang City for a while and took care of lunch along the way. Then he visited several shooting galleries in Dongjiang City to check them out. In the end, he picked a relatively cheap one and practiced his handgun skills there for several hours, improving his feel for shooting somewhat.

When he returned to his Rental House in the evening, he took a shower, browsed the Player Forum for only two hours, and prepared to rest early so he could build up enough energy for tomorrow's dungeon run.

Although Wang Zhifan had found his dungeon runs fairly easy so far and had not encountered much danger, he did not dare let his guard down in the slightest. Every time, he made sure he was in good condition and fully prepared before entering a dungeon.

Before falling asleep that night, Wang Zhifan received a message from Chu Wei, whom he had added that morning. The girl, who had already joined the Special Administration Bureau, told him that she had asked her superior about the requirements for close-combat players to join the Bureau. She had found that the threshold really was quite high. They basically would not consider anyone below Lv10, and even those above Lv10 were not guaranteed acceptance. They had to pass a specialized evaluation before they could be approved.

Wang Zhifan was not surprised by this. He had not particularly wanted to join the Bureau and be subject to all kinds of restrictions in the first place, so he directly thanked Chu Wei and told her not to trouble herself over it.

Their exchanges made them increasingly familiar with each other. They continued chatting on their phones for a while, getting to know one another better.

For example, Wang Zhifan learned from Chu Wei that tomorrow, she would be following her superior, Miss He, to learn how to handle Gray Domain Incidents. In the future, she might also have to learn how to assist in hunting down all kinds of player criminals in the real world under the Bureau's system.

These two areas were basically the main duties of ordinary Special Administration Bureau employees nowadays. The increasingly frequent Gray Domains of all sizes appearing in reality, along with the surge of special criminals brought about by the ever-growing player population, were more than enough to leave this official Xia Kingdom agency overwhelmed.

But compared with foreign countries, Xia Kingdom had one advantage: whether or not its official institutions could get things done, they were always trying. They did not allow every kind of chaos to run rampant as places like the USA and India did.