Chapter 927: Environmental Illusion
As Xu Feng explained how Garrett wasn't omnipotent in setting up all the traps that confine Steelshot to a certain path, both Gentle Wind and Iceheart were skeptical about it.
It was also at this moment that Steelshot exited the battle stage and overheard Xu Feng's explanation.
"Is this some kind of a tease, Guild Leader Lin Feng?" Steelshot suppressed his emotion and asked doubtfully.
"I spotted the grenades that were scattered in my retreat path, so I was forced to rush forward. Otherwise, I wouldn't have ended up in such misery." He continued and explained his side of the story.
The battle could be said to be extremely embarrassing for him.
Although Garrett's health point had dropped beneath 50%, the situation wasn't ideal at all. In fact, he only managed to deal with that much because Garrett allowed him to do so.
"There's a limit to how many grenades one can use." Garrett suddenly stepped forward and said, "The battle stage mimics the game scenery, but to prevent players from abusing its feature, we can only have 3 grenades maximum in our inventory."
"Only 3 grenades?" Alarmed, Steelshot was taken aback as he clearly remembered there were at least 10 grenades waiting to be triggered on the battlefield.
While almost everyone thought Garrett was lying out of his tongue, Xu Feng shook his head and replayed the battle.
He paused right at the exact scene where Steelshot believed his path of retreats had been cut off.
"Garrett was bluffing the entire time. He already anticipated Steelshot would use a decoy to attract him elsewhere and pretend to fall for it. Once Steelshot thought he succeeded, Garrett made sure to put on an act of arrogance as if he had known where Steelshot was when he finally revealed himself." Xu Feng explained and pointed out Steelshot's mindset in that split second.
Indeed, Steelshot's voice caught his throat when he recalled how he was stupefied by Garrett's action.
Garrett acted like he really spotted him and even opened fire a few times toward the decoy location.
It was so real that Steelshot thought he got him good.
After all, in Steelshot's mindset, he believed Garrett was too arrogant and impulsive because of the training he had done. This thought process was further amplified when he noticed how relaxed and carefree Garrett was behaving.
While Steelshot was contemplating if he had been swindled from the start, Gentle Wind, on the other hand, noticed the so-called grenades in the scene.
"Are those fragments of a grenade?" Gentle Wind furrowed her brows and asked.
"Yes, that is what Steelshot had seen." To answer her question, Xu Feng zoomed in on the scene.
Sure enough, everyone saw it was indeed fragments of grenades that were scattered across.
"Garrett has 3 grenades in total. One was disassembled prior to the start of the battle and scattered across. The second grenade was set up in a wire-like format. The third grenade was the one Steelshot saw when Garrett swapped his gun for it and alarmed him deeply." Xu Feng revealed.
It was a bit confusing, but the general gist was that Garrett utilized the battlefield environment to his advantage.
By purposely scattering the fragments of the grenades but also concealed most body parts with the grasses, he had effectively created an environmental illusion to Steelshot who believed himself to be trapped.
Since Steelshot lacked the knowledge of how many grenades one could use from the default system feature because he didn't bother to learn it, Garrett took advantage of that fact and frightened him by having a grenade in his hand as well.
With the truth revealed, Steelshot's face turned pale and became even more sorrowful.
The one who was arrogant and impulsive wasn't Garrett, but him instead.
"So Steelshot was never trapped, to begin with. He was simply led on to the scenario orchestrated by Garrett." Iceheart frowned and realized how scary Xu Feng's reserved members were.
Everything sounded simple and basic on paper, but to actually pull it off was no easy feat.
In fact, just one small mishap and Garrett's gamble would have cost him dearly.
"It seems like my members are still lacking." Gentle Wind pursed her lips and felt defeated once again. She had even doubled her members' training in hopes of catching up to the mainstream—or more specifically, to the Vanguard Guild.
Yet this one battle had proven to her how far the gap between them was.
Psychological warfare on top of a clear mindset in a battle plan from just a reserved member?
Just how was she supposed to beat that?
Such caliber and skills were qualified enough to become a Guild Captain and lead a team themselves.
"Guild Leader Lin Feng, be honest. How strong is Garrett in your guild? Like what is his ranking?" Iceheart suddenly questioned. She was wondering if he had swindled them as well by putting forth a talented individual disguised as a small reserved member.
"Do you want to answer that question yourself?" Contrary to her expectations, Xu Feng didn't answer right away and turned to Garrett.
Garret flashed a bittersweet smile when he was asked to reveal his ranking to them.
"Hmph, what are you embarrassed about?" Steelshot clicked his tongue when he saw his expression. "Did you think that I would feel humiliated after learning of your high rank and overestimating myself?"
Garrett didn't reply and turned to Xu Feng, seemingly looking at him on how to proceed.
"Just say it." Xu Feng said. "It's best to let him know the gap so he could strive to improve."
"Yes, Guild Leader." Garrett nodded and glanced at the rest. "In the Training Hall, I'm ranked 125."
"Ranked 125?" Steelshot raised an eyebrow. "I suppose that's quite high."
Steelshot belonged to the Silver Wind Guild that had over 10,000 members. So those who rank 125 were at the top percentile already.
Unfortunately, what Steelshot didn't know was that the Vanguard Guild had the lowest member count ever.
"Last I checked, the Vanguard Guild should only have around 2,000 or so members." Gentle Wind uttered. Member counts in guilds were always publicized by the System as long as one knew which guild to check.
"You're right about that." Xu Feng nodded. He chose not to mass recruit and only allowed those who passed certain criteria to join the guild.
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