Troubles

"Forget about the iron rice bowl... The Bureau is so busy they can barely keep up. It's not as great as you think."

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

"Actually, I think you could apply to the Bureau too if you wanted. With your strength, there shouldn't be any problem."

She seemed to have a particular degree of trust in Wang Zhifan, perhaps because they had once fought enemies together.

But Wang Zhifan did not see it that way.

"The problem is actually pretty big. They don't really like my type of class over there."

Wang Zhifan had not interacted much with the Special Administration Bureau, but yesterday's experience had made one thing very clear: 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.

"That's a thing? I'll ask about it when I get back to the Bureau later."

A look of surprise immediately appeared on Chu Wei's face. As a relatively rare Spirit Mage player, she did not know much about the circumstances faced by Warrior 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 parting, however, she specifically added Wang Zhifan's contact information, saying she would notify him once she had an answer.

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

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

On the way, he happened to pass through the section of road where he had encountered the Ash Domain yesterday. He discovered that traffic had already returned to normal there, and the Anomaly that had been the Ash Domain had completely vanished. This showed just how efficient the Dongjiang City Special Administration Bureau was; it had not given the Ash Domain that invaded reality any chance to become entrenched.

After arriving at Tianhua Street without incident, Wang Zhifan found another player shop and began dealing with the Common Tier pistol in his possession—the pistol he had taken from the young man in the trench coat in today's dungeon.

Common Tier items were not particularly valuable in this player market. Shops would not even buy many kinds of Common Tier goods. But thanks to the popularity and strength of the Gunslinger class among players, Wang Zhifan's pistol sold rather quickly.

By his estimation, the Common Tier pistol he had sold would either be bought by a player who was not a Gunslinger, or by Gunslinger players who needed to dual-wield. Or perhaps they simply did not want to risk changing ammunition while running dungeons, so they prepared several loaded guns for immediate use from their personal storage spaces.

As a Blademaster player, Wang Zhifan had chosen a Fine Tier pistol and paired it with Fine Tier bullets to compensate for his class's weaknesses, so he would not be left helpless when faced with situations that were difficult to handle in close combat. But he also knew very well that firearms would never be as powerful in his hands as they were for Gunslinger players. Until he truly had a chance to change classes, he would focus on improving his strength as a Blademaster. Firearms were merely a supplement.

"Maybe I should find a shooting range or something and properly improve my marksmanship. Otherwise, my hit rate is going to be downright tragic."

Thinking back to how he had fired three shots at that giant boar in the dungeon today and hit only once, Wang Zhifan could not help feeling uncertain.

That was the trouble with lacking the support of the Gunslinger class system. Even if he wanted to improve his marksmanship, there were no shortcuts. He could only practice in person. It was not like he could simply select a Gunslinger skill upgrade scroll from a reward list and be done with it; those things only worked for Gunslinger-class players.

After making a small transaction on Tianhua Street, Wang Zhifan's bank savings increased again, reaching roughly fifty thousand kingdom credits. That was certainly not much money in the Xia Kingdom, but for someone with no family to support, it could probably last a year if spent carefully.

But Wang Zhifan was clearly not the sort of person who enjoyed living a hard life, and some of his plans did not allow him to get by on so little money.

"Dongjiang City really does have shooting ranges where I can practice, but they're a little expensive. I also need to get some documents, which makes things troublesome."

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

"For now, it looks like I can only keep running dungeons and selling equipment for money. But that definitely can't last forever. If I keep doing this for too long, it'll be easy to draw the attention of people with ulterior motives and expose some of the problems surrounding me."

After thinking it over, Wang Zhifan still had no especially good solution. He could only take things one step at a time.

That afternoon, after leaving Tianhua Street, he wandered around Dongjiang City for a while and took care of lunch along the way. Then he visited several shooting ranges in Dongjiang City to check them out. In the end, he chose a relatively cheap one and spent several hours practicing with a pistol, improving his feel for shooting somewhat.

When he returned to his rented apartment 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.

Although Wang Zhifan's dungeon runs had seemed fairly easy so far and he had not encountered any great 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 going to sleep that night, Wang Zhifan also received a message from Chu Wei, whose contact information he had added only 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 Special Administration Bureau. She had found that the threshold was indeed quite high. Players below Lv10 were basically not considered, and even players above Lv10 were not guaranteed acceptance; they needed to pass a special evaluation before approval could be granted.

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

After these exchanges, the two became increasingly familiar with each other. They continued chatting on their phones for a while, gaining a better understanding of one another.

For example, Wang Zhifan learned from Chu Wei that tomorrow she would be accompanying her superior, Miss He, to learn how to handle Ash Domain incidents. Later, she might also need to learn how to assist in tracking down various player criminals in the real world under the Administration's system.

These two types of work were basically the main duties of ordinary Special Administration Bureau employees nowadays. Ash Domains of all sizes were appearing in reality with increasing frequency, while the ever-growing player population had caused a surge in unusual criminals. Both were enough to leave this official Xia Kingdom agency overwhelmed.

But compared with foreign countries, the Xia Kingdom had one advantage: whether or not its official agencies could handle matters well, they kept trying. They had not allowed all kinds of chaos to run rampant like the United States, India, and other places.