The Great Thief

by Stayrr

He had never invested in shares or bought a lottery ticket, and neither did he have any experience in the general business industry. Lu Li found that the only thing he could do was play games. Luckily he had experienced rebirth, and was one step ahead of everyone else. Luckily, games had been developing extremely quickly, and there were many people who had become rich through play

5. 129

The Great Thief - Chapter 129: Leaf Bro's Gratitude Light Novel Pub

The Great Thief

Chapter 129: Leaf Bro's Gratitude

"Your defensive moves are a bit lacking; try to think of how other tanks would face this Boss."

Lu Li, who was used to playing with the pro tank Azure Sea Breeze, was not used to Leaf Bro's level of skill.

Defensive moves were related to the Half-Manual mode. If they were executed well, a tank could greatly reduce the amount of damage taken from the Boss and decrease the likelihood of Critical Hits. The reason that Leaf Bro was losing HP so rapidly wasn't just because of his equipment, but because his defensive moves weren't being properly executed.

If it were anyone else, Leaf Bro definitely would have ignored them. After all, this was a Thief instructing a Warrior.

However, he was being instructed by Lu Li, the greatest legend in the game.

Leaf Bro was part of the first group of people to enter the game. While he was still marvelling at it and familiarising himself with it, Lu Li had already completed the First Clear of an Instance Dungeon.

He carefully thought back to the actions of the guild's best tanks and noticed some things that he hadn't paid attention to in the past.

He bent over a bit more and lowered his centre of gravity, as he slightly leaned forwards. When the Boss attacked, he moved his Shield forwards to meet it, and used its power to move back afterwards.

Just like that, the damage he took from the Boss was greatly reduced. At least for now, the party would no longer be in any danger.

Water Fairy was a carefree person, but was very competitive. As such, she was always looking for ways to obtain better equipment and challenged many people to PVP duels. At the moment, she was competing with Lu Li in terms of DPS (Damage Per Second).

Her equipment was comparable to his and she even had skills that he didn't. However, she was still unable to match his damage output.

She discovered that Lu Li's Skill Completion for his skills was astonishing. Although she couldn't precisely see how high it was, she could make estimations based on the damage he dealt. There was no doubt that she had ever seen anyone deal as much damage as Lu Li.

Could it be that she had chosen the wrong path? Was attacking quickly better, or achieving high Skill Completion?

Lu Li didn't know that Water Fairy began to doubt herself because of him.

Instead, he was completely focused on the Boss. Their tank's equipment was quite poor and his skills weren't that helpful. They had to stop the Gnoll Ording from drawing energy from the altar. Otherwise, they would be finished.

Gnoll Ording appeared to be in a berserk state. Apart from using a few skills here and there, all it did was yell, "Meat, fresh meat!" This caused everyone to shiver in fear that it would leap over and take a bite out of them.

Perhaps he had become tired from being berserk, but the Gnoll stopped attacking and raggedly breathed in and out as his red eyes stared at the intruders.

"Pay attention: Water Fairy, take the first statue. Dou Dou, take the second one. I'll take the third one. When we've finished, we'll attack the fourth one together. Leaf Bro, prepare to use your damage reduction skills and drink Potions. Huan Huan, be ready to heal whenever necessary," Lu Li loudly called out.

The Boss was about to start drawing energy.

"Ancestral gods, give your people power," Ording furiously roared to the sky.

If one was not paying attention, they wouldn't notice the changes in the four statues, which opened their eyes as they were covered by the thin fog.

As soon as Lu Li gave his orders, the three DPS Attackers started to attack the statues.

The Gnoll became even more furious and began to attack faster. His damage also increased significantly and Leaf Bro hurriedly activated his damage reduction skills.

"Too early. Even if you can't control the situation, you should at least be able to estimate how much damage you can take," Lu Li's called out. Although Lu Li had good intentions, Leaf Bro's faced burned.

"Sorry, I panicked," Leaf Bro gloomily replied.

"Make sure you're focusing from now on."

Lu Li's calm attitude encouraged the entire team to keep their emotions in check.

Lu Li was the first to destroy the statue he was in charge of. He didn't go to help Water Fairy, but instead rushed towards last one.

"I'm at my limit!"

Leaf Bro's damage reduction skills were far worse than Azure Sea Breeze's. He had only lasted for 5 seconds, but there were still two statues remaining.

"Retreat only when I tell you to. Retreat… Retreat… Retreat…" Lu Li coolly ordered.

Normally, tanks wouldn't choose to retreat when facing a Boss. After all, retreating greatly reduced one's defences and increased the likelihood of the Boss dealing critical hits by breaking through their defences. What tanks feared most were Critical Hits in key moments.

However, Leaf Bro had no other choice. His faith in Lu Li caused him to follow his orders.

One step… another step…

Under normal circumstances, Leaf Bro would have been hit by the Boss 5 times in that period. However, because of Lu Li's instructions, he had only taken 4 hits. Furthermore, he had been able to block adequately each time, which prevented the Boss from dealing Critical Hits.

After the last statue was destroyed, the Gnoll wailed and collapsed on the ground.

When it came back to its feet, it no longer had the Gnoll God Yenogg's power, and its strength fell significantly.

"Why have you abandoned your people?!" it cried out.

After a few minutes, they finally defeated Ording.

Even with the EXP being shared among 5 people, Lu Li received 10% of his EXP bar. An Elite-level Private Instance Dungeon gave even more EXP than the Difficult-level Death Mines.

"The Boss dropped 4 things: a Steel-grade equip, a Bronze-grade, a Skill Book, and a material called Barbaric Blood."

As the team leader, Zhou Huan Huan had gone to pick up the items and equipment.

Lu Li looked at the equipment and Skill Book, but only took the Barbaric Blood.

It wasn't that the equipment and Skill Book weren't good enough, but because they were useful for the others.

The equipment was a Hammer, which had decent stats. This was perfect for the Paladin Dou Jing Jing.

The Skill Book was for Shield Wall, which Lu Li agreed to give to Leaf Bro.

Leaf Bro was so moved that he couldn't say anything. His equipment wasn't great, his skills were ordinary, and he had nearly let the team down. He never thought that he would also receive something. After all, the normal rules were that those who made mistakes lost the right to receive any rewards. He had never thought that he would receive the Shield Wall Skill Book he had dreamed of.

"Alright, next Boss."

After obtaining the material he wanted, Lu Li didn't waste any time and immediately headed off.

The smaller monsters they met on the way were human convicts. They were mostly bandits from the western wilderness who had been locked in this prison for a long time.

These bandits were fairly strong, but posed no danger to Lu Li's team.

A mere ten minutes later, they stood before the second Boss – the final Boss of the Elite-level Instance Dungeon.

Dangerous Convict Bazil Thredd!

The Death Mines Instance Dungeon was quite close to the Moon Creek Prison. As such, there were a few connections between the Bosses.

For example, Barker Slide was the Lieutenant of Edwin VanCleef, and a member of the Stonemasons.

They had built the Stormwind City together and had rioted together when they both hadn't received their pay.

However, Edwin VanCleef had escaped from the soldiers, while Bazil Thredd had been captured and thrown into this prison.

The Great Thief

Chapter 130: Refusal

Bazil Thredd was a Stonemason and didn't have the military background that Edwin VanCleef did. As such, his attacks which revolved around wildly brandishing his stone hammer were fairly simple.

Regardless, Lu Li did not underestimate him. Before the Wailing Cave was opened, Thredd was the only Boss whose attacks carried Disease Damage. Before Priests obtained the Cure Disease Skill Book, players could only rely on tanks to endure the Disease debuff.

Now that Leaf Bro had Shield Wall, it would be much easier for him to survive.

Lu Li and Water Fairy's attacks were incredibly effective on Thredd. As a poor Stonemason and Convict, he barely had any Armour. It only took Lu Li and his team 17 minutes to kill him.

System: Drizzle Court player Little Bear Huan Huan, Don't Hit Dou Dou, Leaf Bro, Water Fairy and Lu Li have completed the First Clear of the Elite-level Moon Creek Prison Private Instance Dungeon.

Apart from EXP and Fame, Dou Jing Jing was also fortunate enough to receive 1 SP.

As for equipment that Lu Li was promised, none was dropped. However, because they had completed the First Clear, everyone received bonus rewards.

Apart from Lu Li, this was the first time that any of them had obtained a First Clear. None of them thought that the rewards would be so abundant. The only person who didn't receive a physical reward was Zhou Huan Huan, who instead received an EXP reward that filled her EXP bar by half and boosted her to lV16.

Lu Li received a Steel-grade Dagger. Although it was a LV15 weapon, its Special Effect was not as good as the Daggers he already had, so he planned to sell it.

Zhou Huan Huan collected the remaining items and equipment from the corpse and showed everyone in the Party Channel.

There were four things in total: a Steel grade equip, a Bronze grade equip, a Strengthening Stone and a Skill Book.

This was the first time Lu Li had seen a Strengthening Stone. He hesitated before saying, "I want the Strengthening Stone."

"What are Strengthening Stones used for?" Water Fairy guessed that the Strengthening Stone was something good, but had no idea how it could be used.

"It's probably used for strengthening a piece of equipment's stats."

Of course, Lu Li knew what it was used for, but he didn't want to reveal too much of his information. Whenever he did tell anyone anything, he always said that he had read it in the Library.

"Sell it to me, name your price!" This female tycoon was prepared to pay any price for the things that caught her eye.

Having money, beautiful looks and a domineering attitude meant that she had always been successful in games.

Since the beauty had asked for it, it wouldn't be too good to refuse. Besides, he could earn quite a bit from her.

However, what shocked everyone was that Lu Li decided to reject her offer.

"Sorry, I've decided to use it. If I find any in hte future, I'll sell them to you."

Those were only courteous words. One could never have enough of an item that could strengthen equipment.

After upgrading the Supreme One Ring, Lu Li planned on strengthening it.

There was a chance of the strengthening failing. If that happened, the equipment would be lost. However, this was impossible with the Supreme One Ring. After all, it couldn't be dropped or lost.

Water Fairy looked at Lu Li angrily, feeling reject. He always seemed to do this to her, whether it was in PVP, selling equipment or selling items. It wasn't as though she couldn't give him a good price.

Lu Li didn't even hesitate after rejecting her offer and went to pick his second item.

Zhou Huan Huan and Dou Jing Jing were dumbfounded. They no longer felt hurt because of Lu Li's attitude to them. After all, he had coldly rejected Water Fairy who was much more beautiful than they were.

In fact, they even took some pleasure in her dissatisfaction.

Lu Li deliberated over whether he should choose the Steel-grade Thief Hat, or the Healer Skill Book.

Both of these items were quite good. The Skill Book was the Priest skill 'Regeneration' which gave continuous healing, while the Hat was a LV15 Steel grade equip that had a Special Effect which gave 10% Detection.

This Special Effect was incredibly useful in PVP.

Thieves were one of the most common professions in Dawn and there would often be battles between Thieves. In battles between Thieves, the side that had better Detection would have the advantage. After all, in his PVP battle with Water Fairy, she had discovered him first because of her Belt which gave her increased Detection.

"Can I please have the Hat?" Seeing that Lu Li was not moved by money, the cold and arrogant woman asked in a soft and almost flirtatious voice.

The Drizzle Court players had never seen Water Fairy like this before.

If any of them recorded this scene and put it on the forum, there would definitely be a bounty on Lu Li within a day, with countless people joining the hunt.

"Alright, I'll choose the Skill Book then," Lu Li said as he nodded.

The Hat wasn't terribly important to him, but the Regeneration skill would make the Difficult level Death Mines Instance Dungeon a lot easier.

Everyone was extremely happy, except for the female Mage who had been chased away at the beginning.

Lu Li did not directly return to Astrana. The Death Mines were not too far away, so if he entered from the wilderness, he could save 5 copper coins…

As well as this, he knew that there was an excellent quest in the western wilderness. The reward for the quest was a damage reduction skill for Warriors.

After leaving the Instance Dungeon, Lu Li checked to see if his Permanent Party members were online and contacted them to continue with the Death Mines.

They met in front of the Piercing Heart Wolf General.

Azure Sea Breeze smirked at Lu Li, "Did you help the Drizzle Court clear the Instance Dungeon because you fancy Water Fairy?"

Just then, when Lu Li's name had appeared with Water Fairy's name on the announcement, the World Channel had erupted. Lu Li had turned off the World Channel, so he had no idea what was going on.

Now, even the newbie players who joined after the second update knew of Lu Li.

"It was just a coincidence. I was helping a few real-life friends clear the Instance Dungeon. They just so happened to be part of the Drizzle Court; I didn't even know that Water Fairy would be coming," Lu Li explained.

"Be a man and own up to it. Do you really think we'd believe that?" Lonesome Flower retorted. He selfishly thought that his little sister was getting a bit too close to Lu Li. If she thought that Lu Li was someone who lusted after beauty, she would definitely dislike him.

How could he let his little sister worship someone else?

"Here's a Skill Book for you."

Lu Li ignored him and gave the Regeneration Skill Book to March Rain.

"For me?" March Rain asked in surprise, as she received the Skill Book. Seeing what it was, she became even happier.

"It's Regeneration! I've always wanted this Skill Book. Thank you, Lu Li!"

Lonesome Flower felt as though Lu Li was slapping his face. He felt even more depressed as he saw how happy his sister was.

The Great Thief

Chapter 131: The Frustrated Azure Sea Breeze

The Piercing Heart Wolf General quickly forced everyone to become serious.

Compared to the last time, Azure Sea Breeze's and March Rain's equipment had been greatly upgraded. Azure Sea Breeze now had an extra 4 pieces of LV15 Steel grade equipment, while March Rain had an extra 3 pieces. Considering all this and the Regeneration Skill Book that Lu Li had just given March Rain, their team was much stronger than before.

The other three members had also obtained better equipment, but not to the same extent. This time, no one dared to be stingy with their money.

A few large guilds had cleared the Normal-level Instance Dungeon and were now trying to clear the Elite-level Instance Dungeon.

If someone else obtained the First Clear, all the effort they had put in would have been for nothing.

The First Clear for Instance Dungeons and creating new records in Instance Dungeons were different. As long as a party cleared an Elite-level or higher Instance Dungeon, they would receive the First Clear for that dungeon. Even if Lu Li and his party cleared the Difficult level first, the other guilds would still miss out on the First Clear.

They were sure that if they obtained the First Clear in the Difficult level, the rewards would be excellent.

Lu Li applied some poison to his Daggers. He had bought five bottles of poison from Water Fairy, at 10 gold coins per bottle.

Before the fight started, everyone drank some Potions. Azure Sea Breeze drank a Constitution Potion, Lu Li and Remnant Dream drank Agility Potions, and Lonesome Flower and March Rain drank Intelligence Potions. This time, none of them held back.

Azure Sea Breeze roared out as he rushed at the Piercing Heart Wolf General.

This tragic character was originally called James Harrington. After being afflicted with the Worgen Curse, he had destroyed his family and maritime career in a single, chilling night. From then onwards, he called himself the Piercing Heart Wolf and escaped to the western wilderness. There, he became a subordinate of Vanessa and commanded the Defias Brotherhood's juggernaut.

According to some of the official lore, Vanessa loved him wholeheartedly, but he did not reciprocate that love because his heart was filled with rage and anger.

Apart from the Armour Pierce that could stack 3 times, the Piercing Heart Wolf General also had new skills in the Difficult-level Instance Dungeon.

The new skills made most players want to give up.

The Piercing Heart Wolf General was probably the most difficult Boss in the Instance Dungeon. Even the final Boss, Vanessa, wasn't as ridiculously powerful.

Regeneration was an incredibly powerful skill. As long as this HOT (Heal Over Time) skill was cast on the tank, the tank would continuously regenerate HP.

Because of this Regeneration, March Rain was able to easily keep Azure Sea Breeze above 80% HP.

When Azure Sea Breeze had 3 Armour Pierces stacked on him, March Rain began to rapidly heal him, disregarding her MP. With Azure Sea Breeze's max level Shield Wall, he was in no danger at all.

However, surviving the Armour Pierces didn't mean that the fight was over. The real test came when the Piercing Heart Wolf General's HP fell to 30%.

At this point, it howled and disappeared from everyone's vision.

It was replaced by a few ghost-like monsters. They were fairly slow and did not have very high Attack, so everyone was quite confused as to why they had appeared.

"Don't look for the Boss; hurry and clear out these smaller monsters," Lu Li shouted as he quickly attacked.

However, they were not very easy to spot. In the distance, two of these smaller monsters stood together.

A strange scene then began to unfold. The two smaller monsters combined into a new one which had much higher HP, Attack and Defence.

However, this wasn't too big of an issue – this was still nowhere as powerful as the Boss. The only problem was, that when two smaller monsters combined, another five would appear.

They slowly attacked as they crept closer to the larger monster, trying to combine with it.

Without Lu Li having to say anything, the others began to attack faster. If a few more monsters combined with the larger one, it would probably become as strong as the Boss. Who knew how many more waves there would be?

Lu Li killed off three of the smaller monsters, barely preventing them from combining with the larger one.

After clearing out the second wave of smaller monsters, the team focused their efforts on the larger one. Apart from Azure Sea Breeze, none of them paid attention to the Piercing Heart Wolf General that suddenly appeared. After 10 seconds, it vanished once again and was replaced by the smaller monsters.

"Goddamnit, can you not spawn so quickly?!" Azure Sea Breeze cursed. To give the others more time to kill the smaller monsters, he continuously kited the larger one.

Lady Luck smiled on Lu Li, and his Rager Equipment Set's Special Effect was activated, significantly increasing his Attack and Attack Speed. He ran straight for the larger monster, trying to kill it before the smaller ones could come near.

Even without the larger monster, the smaller ones did not stop. They still tried to get close to each other to combine themselves again.

This was the most infuriating aspect of the Heart Piercing Wolf General. It summoned the smaller monsters at an absurd rate, which would combine to form larger monsters. If three or more were allowed to combine, they would become incredibly difficult to kill. They would simply absorb more and more smaller monsters until they were able to insta-kill players and destroy the entire party.

This was a true test for DPS Attackers.

Lu Li played a significant role in this crisis. With the Special Effects he had from his equipment, he was able to quickly save the day.

However, he found that he was lacking in something crucial – controlled buffs.

No one could afford to rely on their luck in critical situations.

When the threat from the smaller monsters had been averted, Lu Li sprang over and started to attack the Piercing Heart Wolf General. After its HP fell to 20%, the smaller monsters all disappeared.

The extremely intense battle left everyone both physically and mentally exhausted. It was no wonder that Lu Li had decided to stop that day.

After bringing the Boss down to 20% HP, the fight became relatively easy. Within a few minutes, it fell to the ground as a corpse.

A pair of Steel-grade Pants for Knights, a Steel-grade Necklace for Magic professions and a rare material were dropped. The other three Bronze-grade equips were completely ignored.

Although the Necklace was more suited towards Lonesome Flower, he gave it to his little sister instead. Seeing her so happy, made him extremely joyful.

Lu Li gave the Steel-grade Pants to Azure Sea Breeze.

"When Wandering gets here, you can give this to him as a welcoming gift."

"No way!" Azure Sea Breeze yelled as he awkwardly continued, "He said that he doesn't want to join because our Mercenary Group doesn't have the same benefits that the large guilds provide. I tried to convince him, but he still refused in the end."

"Haha," Lu Li laughed, "How about I add him and ask?"

"Go screw yourself," Azure Sea Breeze cursed, "If you want to give it to him, give it to him yourself. I don't want to associate with him."

"You're the one who knows him, so it should be you who contacts him."

Lu Li shook his head, as he went on, "When we've finished this Instance Dungeon, remember to add him to our Mercenary Group. Remember, you're the one who knows him, so this responsibility falls on you."

"……" Azure Sea Breeze was planning how he could kill Lu Li without leaving behind any evidence.

The Great Thief

Chapter 132: Rapidly Increasing EXP

"Not being able to provide the benefits of a guild is indeed a problem," Lu Li said, as he cleared out smaller monsters.

"Let's keep an eye out for high-level guilds for sale. If there's a decent one, we'll buy it."

"There are people selling guilds?" Everyone else was quite shocked to hear this.

"There will be soon," Lu Li confidently replied.

After the second update, guilds would begin to pop up all over the place. Many players wanted to become overlords through their guilds, but it was a pity that reality was harsh. They would find that it was difficult to sustain their guilds, and thus would decide to sell them.

Lu Li wanted to wait and buy a guild for a low price, so that he could save the time, money and effort required to level it up by himself.

"Lu Li, after clearing this Instance Dungeon, will you be able to hit LV18?" Azure Sea Breeze asked.

By the time they had reached Captain Cookie, Lu Li was already halfway through LV17. Azure Sea Breeze had finally reached LV17, while Lonesome Flower was nearly there. The Difficult-level Instance Dungeon provided an abundance of EXP from everything.

However, given that they had already spent 2 days in here, it wasn't that efficient either.

Azure Sea Breeze was now ranked 3rd on the Level Rankings. I No Understand had caught up and overtaken him.

The reason why Lu Li was able to maintain a comfortable lead was because he farmed Illidan's Shadow every day. The Moon Creek Prison he had cleared in the morning had also given him about 10% of his EXP bar.

When he reached LV18, he would stop receiving as much EXP from Illidan's Shadow. If he didn't work hard, he would soon be overtaken as well.

"There are still two Bosses and the small monsters in the ship's cabin, so I should have more than enough EXP to level up."

The Death Mines' ship's cabin was called the EXP Wonderland. It contained more than 180 small monsters, as well as a Bug that could be exploited.

The prerequisite for this was that they killed the Captain of the ship first.

Captain Cookie was an easy Boss in all levels of the instance dungeon. In the Difficult level, he still remained in his pot, throwing out food. However, the fire under the pot dealt more damage to melee professions. This was so much that Lu Li and Azure Sea Breeze weren't able to attack him at all.

Captain Cookie also threw out food incredibly quickly.

If a player stepped on poisoned food and did not step on the healthy food fast enough, they would quickly die from being poisoned. As such, there had to be people to step on and clear out the poisoned food. This task was left to Lu Li and Azure Sea Breeze.

They would accumulate poison by stepping on as much of the poisoned food as they could. Then, they would step on the healthy food to remove all of the poison at once..

Remnant Dream and Lonesome Flower were in charge of attacking the Boss. However, Remnant Dream's pet could only stand beside her and watch, as it was also a melee attacker.

After 10 or so minutes, the Boss fell.

Lu Li's EXP bar jumped up to 60%. Remnant Dream and Lonesome Flower both levelled up – Remnant Dream was now LV16, while Lonesome Flower was now LV17 and was ranked 4th on the Level Rankings.

Since the Boss had been so easy to kill, none of them expected any good equipment to drop. The Boss dropped a rubbish, Steel-grade equip, as well as a Skill Book for Berserkers which was quite common. Lu Li decided to give this to Moonlight.

The final Boss was the beautiful Vanessa.

However, before facing her, Lu Li wanted to exploit the Bug which would give them quite a lot of EXP.

"I'll need you to jump into the water soon," Lu Li said, as he distributed Potions that allowed them to breathe underwater.

"There's only one Boss left; what are you doing?" Lonesome Flower asked. Everyone else felt confused as well.

"I found a way to farm a lot of smaller monsters; do you want to try it?" Lu Li didn't bother explaining in detail.

"Of course we do!" Lonesome Flower shouted out, before anyone else could reply. Smaller monsters in Instance Dungeons were treasures – they posed no threat and gave a lot of EXP. In order to quickly farm these monsters, he had even levelled up his Blizzard skill to the max level. However, it was a pity that he didn't really have any opportunities to use it.

"Jump into the water and swim to the place where I throw this bottle. The water there is fairly shallow; you can come up from the stairs over there. Do you see it?" Lu Li threw out a bottle and gestured as he instructed his team.

After all the others jumped down, Lu Li opened the ship's cabin. A large wave of about 180 smaller monsters flooded out. In the Difficult level, they were no longer split into 6 waves of 30 monsters. Instead, players were expected to deal with all of them in one go.

If they could kill them, they would receive a massive amount of EXP. On the other hand, if they couldn't kill them, their party would be annihilated. Lu Li turned and ran out of a breach in the ship, then vanished!

After losing their target, the smaller monsters could wander around in circles.

After Lu Li had left, the cabin door automatically closed and new monsters spawned inside. Lu Li came back through another breach, and when Vanish's Cooldown had nearly expired, he once again drew the aggro of the smaller monsters.

There were 8 breaches in the ship, which meant that Lu Li could lure out 8 waves of the smaller monsters. Alternatively, he could just jump down from the ship to produce the same effects. However, if he did that, the smaller monsters would not be split into even groups and would be difficult to deal with. Moreover, this Bug had its limits – after an hour, any monsters left on the deck would be erased by the system.

After 20 minutes of doing this, there were 1,440 monsters crowded on the deck. This was truly a sight to behold.

Luckily, the ship was quite big and was able to hold them all.

They had to get rid of all of these monsters within 1 hour!

Lu Li called the others over and instructed them, "Sea Breeze, you block the breaches. March, you heal. Flower, you attack."

"Watch closely."

Lonesome Flower was itching to start.

All of these LV15 monsters were just EXP to him.

Against Lonesome Flower's Blizzard, which almost had no Cooldown, each wave of 180 monsters quickly turned into EXP. Remnant Dream was also continuously attacking with her Bow and Arrows. It was a pity that Hunters didn't have many AOE skills, and that Remnant Dream didn't have a single one.

Lu Li also joined in on the attacking. He attacked the ones with more HP, leaving those with lower HP to perish to Lonesome Flower's AOE spells.

In just 5 minutes, all 180 monsters had been cleared out. Lu Li's EXP bar increased by 8%, which was even more than what he had received for killing Captain Cookie. The LV16 Remnant Dream and March Rain received even more, with their EXP bars jumping by more than 10%.

After killing these monsters, they all sat down and used their consumables to recover. Lu Li then ran over to attract another wave of 180 monsters.

As they cleared one wave of monsters at a time, their EXP bars all steadily rose. By the 3rd wave, March Rain had levelled up, becoming the fifth LV17 player in Dawn.

She was now the highest levelled Priest in all of Dawn.

Before they cleared the 6th wave, Lu Li levelled up to LV18.

By the 8th wave, which was the last, Azure Sea Breeze and Lonesome Flower's eyes were starting to become red. They were less than 20% away from LV18.

Remnant Dream was also a sliver away from LV17.

Now, even Remnant Dream, who had fallen behind everyone else, was 7th place on the level rankings. She had nearly caught up to the Blood-red War Flag's top Mage, Wild, who was LV17.

The Great Thief

Chapter 133: Bug

"Should we fight the boss or continue?" Lu Li worriedly asked.

"Man up! You're an experienced player; why do you look so uneasy? Even Remnant Dream and March Rain are both calm."

"Fight the Boss my ass," Azure Sea Breeze said raggedly, as he jumped off the ship. Lonesome Flower followed.

Lu Li smiled bitterly, shook his head and continued luring the small mobs.

After another 20 minutes, the deck was filled with monsters again.

There were 1440 of them!

After 2 waves, Remnant Dream levelled up to LV17. Azure Sea Breeze levelled after the 4th wave. After the 5th wave, Lonesome Flower also levelled.

Following this, they would still gain more EXP, but not enough for March Rain and Remnant Dream to level up to LV18.

"Dammit, why am I getting so little EXP?" Azure Sea Breeze realised that his EXP bar had stagnated. Lonesome Flower checked his EXP bar and also realised he had the same problem.

"You need more EXP to level up at LV18 than LV17. Besides, these small monsters are only LV15; you'll receive decreased EXP due to the difference in level," Lu Li calmly explained.

A difference in three levels was really awkward in Dawn. If a monster was 3 levels higher, it would do bonus damage. If a monster was 3 levels lower, then the player would receive decreased EXP due to the level penalty.

When they were LV17, 180 monsters gave them 5% of their EXP bar. Now, the same number only gave them 1.5%.

When they had finally finished clearing the waves, everyone lay exhausted on the floor. No one could stand killing monsters at such a high intensity for such a long time.

"Do you guys still want to kill these monsters?" Lu Li asked again.

"We must." Lonesome Flower said, as though he was filled with energy again. His motivation came from his little sister, because she had yet to level up to 18.

"Fine," Lu Li replied.

"Let's do this quickly then; the bug will probably be patched by the System after an hour or so."

"Ah. It'll get patched?" Azure Sea Breeze was scared and asked, "Would the System ban our accounts if it found out that we abused a bug to level up?" The others became nervous as well. It took so much effort to level up, so if they got banned…

"Why would they ban us?" Lu Li asked, confused.

"Uh…" Azure Sea Breeze and Lonesome Flower didn't know how to explain. Sometimes, Lu Li seemed like an omniscient god. Other times, he seemed like an idiot who was unaware of common knowledge.

The truth was, Lu Li had only ever played Dawn.

He had no experience with other games, so he didn't know about the punishment players received from abusing bugs. These punishments included resetting the account and sometimes even a complete ban from the game.

Dawn was different; it didn't matter how the players played the game, as long as they didn't disobey the Internet Law Legislation.

It was only a couple of levels they had gained anyway. Even if Lu Li abused a bug to make millions of gold coins, the game company would probably just ignore it. At most, they would request to exchange the gold for real money, in case the exploited gold crashed the in-game economy.

The 3rd time that Lu Li gathered the monsters, he took about 30 minutes, as he was distracted.

Based on his estimations, the bug would be patched after they finish this wave.

In his past life, the bug had stayed around for about 9 hours. In that time, the Gangnam Royals were able to exploit it and gain a level advantage over the other guilds.

However, this time was different. Lu Li and the others were not normal players and took up the top spots on the level rankings.

The other players weren't blind either and probably would have reported them when they saw the speed that they were levelling at. Once reported, the system would evaluate the bug and assess the measures to be taken.

After an hour, everyone lay exhausted on the deck. They had finally cleared out the monsters.

March Rain was already LV18. Remnant Dream managed to level up to 17 with 70% EXP and passed I No Understand on the rankings.

The party of Lu Li, Azure Sea Breeze, Lonesome Flower, March Rain and Remnant Dream claimed the top 5 spots on the Level Rankings again.

"Come and pick up the loot. Even though it's a bunch of coppers, there's enough here to total up to about 100 gold. There are heaps of materials to pick up as well."

March Rain and Remnant Dream obeyed, and immediately got to work.

"Flower, your sister is picking the loot up; stop being lazy and come pick up some cloth so that she can level up her tailoring," Lu Li said.

Lonesome Flower was the most exhausted member of the party. He had to continuously cast Blizzard, which made his arm extremely tired and heavy. However, he felt energised again from thinking about how many cloths could be looted.

The cloth, materials and copper coins were all picked up. There were also hundreds of Common Grade Equipment that could probably be gathered and sold for handsome sum. However, they could not be stacked up into a set like the materials, so they ended up leaving these behind.

After resting for a bit, Lonesome Flower got up and said, "Should we give it a try again? What if the bug is still there?"

The bug was still worthwhile, even if their EXP gain had slowed. Compared to training in the wild, it was still much better.

Lu Li thought that it would be a waste if they did not continue to exploit the bug.

The others who were all resting on the ground got up and jumped off the boat.

Lu Li gathered up 180 monsters again and prepared to activate his stealth skill.

Then…

The monsters froze in place.

After Lu Li went into stealth, they all disappeared as well. This meant that the system had already found and addressed the bug issue.

Lu Li blocked the World channel so he couldn't see what the other players were saying. However, the rest of the party could see the heated discussion that was going on.

Was it that easy to make it onto the Level Rankings?

As the levels increased, it would be harder and harder to level up. Today, they had made some incredible progress and were able to dominate the Level Rankings once again.

I No Understand, Wild and Sorrowless were all kicked off the rankings.

Today, Lu Li had taught the other Dawn players what it meant to be one-upped.

The Great Thief

Chapter 134: Boss Dreams

After 30 minutes or so, everyone had recovered their HP and Lu Li opened the door. Even though the bug was gone, they still had to clear the remaining wave of monsters before they could fight the boss.

Azure Sea Breeze raised his Fearless Barrier and blocked the door while the others continued to deal damage.

After the small monsters were cleared, Vanessa would spawn.

In the Difficult Level Instance Dungeon, Vanessa began by hypnotising players, which place them in a 'Dreaming' state.

Players would enter Vanessa' dream and would have to fight their way through the bosses they had previously faced.

The first boss they faced was Glubtok – a fearless, man-eating demon that was skilled with magic. His biggest counters were ice and fire elements.

A flurry of icicles began falling from above.

Flames from below started to scorch the earth.

In Globtuk's nightmare, players had to continue dealing damage while dodging the ice and fire.

Luckily, the Dream version of Globtuk only had 10,000 HP. As long as they paid attention while trying dodge, Lu Li and Lonesome Flower alone could quickly kill it.

The second boss was Helix – a greedy Goblin with a scary face.

The Helix nightmare contained many poisonous creatures, such as snakes, spiders, scorpions and bats.

When Helix was young, he was a hard-working travel merchant. No one understood the pain and the effort he had to put in, just so he could survive.

Helix almost had almost died, when he was attacked by a mob of poisonous creatures in the middle of a business trip. This experience had haunted him for a very long time.

However, the poisonous creatures in this dream could be ignored – they just had to focus on killing Helix in the shortest amount of time possible.

As they fought him, Lu Li's dagger effect was randomly triggered, which made the whole fight much easier.

The 3rd boss was Death God 5000 – a mechanical, robotic harvester. Apparently, robot had dreams as well.

In his dream, the players had to make it past a road of moving electric walls. Similar to Super Mario, players had to avoid the electric walls and reach the destination.

Many players underestimated this stage and took it as a joke.

"This is awesome! I like it so much," Remnant Dream exclaimed excitedly.

When fighting a boss, Hunters had to continuously change their position in order to avoid attacks. As such, they were particularly skilled at manoeuvring themselves and excelled in these kinds of mini-games.

The two girls began to observe and examine the field, trying to find the easiest path to take. The funny thing was, that it ended up being almost identical to the old path that Lu Li had taken before.

Girls were weird creatures.

As they followed the two girls, the party began a mini-game adventure.

"Ouch!"

A spark flashed as Lonesome Flowered touched the electric wall and died.

"Hmm, there's a spot up ahead that looks safer. I'll revive him there."

March Rain wasn't in a hurry to revive her brother. She would rather stop at a safer location to save him.

"Flower, you're too noob. Even more noob than the girls," Azure Sea Breeze mockingly said.

"Pfft, if you weren't following my sister so closely, you probably would have died much sooner," Lonesome Flower retorted angrily. He couldn't accept the fact that his younger sister was better than him at something.

"Ok, stop fighting or we'll get electrocuted again."

Lu Li wasn't ashamed of letting the others lead, even though he also knew the safe path.

Seeing Remnant Dream's excited face, as she contributed in leading the team, was worth it for Lu Li. "If only I could see my little sister like this," he thought. He would allow her to play the game as well, once she recovered.

"Good job Dream!" Everyone praised the little Hunter when they finally reached the Boss.

Many parties would lose players, or even get entirely wiped out during this stage. To be able to lead everyone out on the first go was very commendable of Remnant Dream. Everyone had their talent; they just needed opportunities to discover them.

A boss with only 10,00HP was quickly annihilated.

The next boss was the Piercing Heart Wolf General.

The Wolf General's nightmare was a scene of him trying to save his loved ones. He was unable to do so and could only watch as they died before his eyes.

Everyone was touched by this heart-wrenching scene, and wanted to save the two innocent children portrayed in the dream.

The Death Mines were an iconic Instance Dungeon in Dawn. Even though it was a low-level dungeon, it was complete with a perfect and realistic story line, in addition to well-designed and creative bosses. Additionally, the final Boss, Vanessa, was one of the hottest bosses in the game.

Even though it was on Difficult-Level, it would still be pretty easy for Lu Li's party to rescue the two children within the time limit.

After exiting the tunnel, they came to an even more shocking scene.

The Wolf General boarded the Fearless Ship, holding his wife in his arms as he prepared to drown her in the sea.

If there were no hope, then destruction would take over.

This scene triggered his most painful memory. He was unsure as to whether it was the intruding Worgens or himself that killed his loved ones.

The players had to defeat him before he killed his wife.

Lonesome Flower immediately used his Silver equipment actives. Combined with Lu Li's damage output, the mad Piercing Heart Wolf General was defeated in under 10 seconds.

The Death Mines portrayed a tragic storyline from the beginning to the end.

After passing the Wolf General's Dream, the players would face Vanessa.

However, she wasn't very difficult to defeat. After 20 minutes of fighting, her HP dropped below 5%.

Azure Sea Breeze was excited, because it was time to appear on TV again!

The Great Thief

Chapter 135: Six Silver Pieces

By now, everyone was physically and mentally exhausted. However, they were all filled with a feeling of indescribable excitement.

They had achieved the First Clear on the Difficult-level Death Mines!

While the other guilds were still struggling to complete the Elite difficulty, they had already pulled far ahead.

Vanessa had also been very polite; she didn't go berserk at the end. Instead, she gracefully fell.

Unfortunately, this politeness wasn't reciprocated at all by Lu Li and his party. They were all immersed in the prompts that were being made by the system.

System: Player Lu Li, Azure Sea Breeze, Lonesome Flower, March Rain and Remnant Dream have achieved the First Clear in the Death Mines (Difficult).

All Dawn players saw this, regardless of whether they were farming, PVPing or running a dungeon.

The World Announcement had been specially displayed for all to see.

While the world stared in shock, Azure Sea Breeze typed a few words into the World Announcements: "Sorry, my hand slipped and accidentally completed the dungeon!"

Hand slipped?!

What a mockery! How pretentious!

The World Announcements were empty; only his words were displayed there.

It was a good thing that he was Dawn's number 1 guild-less Main Tank – all the large guilds were trying to entice him into joining them. Otherwise, someone would definitely have set a bounty on him.

However, Lu Li didn't notice this at all. He only kept three channels open – the party channel, local channel and trading channel.

The City Channel, Faction Channel, Regional Channel and World Announcements were all blocked, because he felt like these were a complete waste of time.

He had blocked the World Announcements, so he was completely oblivious to what was happening.

Instead, he was completely focused on the System prompts that were appearing.

Vanessa's 9% EXP was awarded before the EXP for clearing the Dungeon was. The difficulty level rewards were obviously very high – 13% EXP was given, on top of what they had received from killing the small monsters. He was already 47% through LV18.

The party's lowest level member, Remnant Dream, finally reached LV18 and was now at the same level as the others.

Although they were all LV18, there was still a significant difference in EXP. There was a range of 50% EXP between the five of them.

After the EXP was awarded, the loot was dropped.

Why did Lu Li want to do the Difficult-level Instance Dungeon, when they have could have easily achieved the First Clear on the Elite Instance Dungeon instead?

All their effort had led up to this moment.

This was his top priority; when Lu Li heard the prompt to receive the loot, his heart skipped a beat.

Van Cleef's Grip (Silver): 20 Armour, Agility12, Strength4, Special Effect 1: Critical Chance5%, Special Effect 2: Sudden Thrust – instantly dash to a target within 8 feet, causing 150% Weapon Damage, Cooldown Time: 120 seconds. Level Requirement: LV15. Durability: 45/45.

Silver Gloves!

They added 12 points of Agility and 4 points of strength, for a total of 16 stat points. Levelling up only yielded 5 stat points for one to freely assign.

However, this was completely overshadowed by the two special effects.

The first was the 5% additional critical chance. For gloves, the most in-demand properties were critical chance and attack speed. This critical chance on these gloves essentially doubled their value.

The second, and the best special effect was Sudden Thrust.

Sudden Thrust could help a Thief quickly close in on a target to deal significant damage. It was one of the few, rare, mobility-enhancing special effects.

This Silver equip was definitely one of the best items out there. They wouldn't have received anything close in comparison if they had achieved the First Clear on Elite-difficulty.

Beneath the equipment attributes, there was an inscription – 'My daughter, may your 12th year have no worries.'

It was likely that these gloves were supposed to be given to Vanessa for her 12th birthday. This was the same year that he had been killed by the Stormwind assassins.

His 12 year old daughter didn't grow up to be as carefree as her father would have wanted. Instead, she took this present and began her long road of vengeance.

"Is everyone looking at what you've got?" Lu Li looked around, curious to know what the others had received.

March Rain's face was bright-red with excitement, as she rushed to show Lu Li her new equipment.

It was a LV15 Silver Hammer that was emerald-green and glowed with an electrifying light. It added 10 points of Intelligence and 5 points of Constitution. Although it only had one effect, this effect was incredibly powerful.

Special Effect: Divine Blessing, Instant Cast. The target gains 50% Bonus Healing Effect and the caster gains 50% damage reduction. Lasts 30 seconds, Cooldown 360 seconds.

Although the cooldown time was quite long, so was the effect duration. Even with his wealth of experience, Lu Li had rarely seen a Priest effect that lasted for this long.

The effect was also very strong – in addition to the 50% bonus healing, it also gave the Healer 50% damage reduction. In critical situations, the healer would often put themselves in dangerous positions.

With this effect, March Rain would easily be able to survive.

In fact, this weapon was good enough for March Rain to use it until she was LV30, provided that she continually upgraded her other equipment.

Remnant Dream received Silver shoes, with a very strong effect that allowed her to recover from stuns or slows. This had a cooldown of 90 seconds.

However, the little hunter was confused about the skill and was unsure as to when she would actually be able to use it. Still, she equipped the shoes, though not fully appreciating their effect.

Lonesome Flower received a Silver ring. In addition to providing 10 Intelligence and 6 Constitution, it also came with 10% Critical Chance, which would be great boost to his already fantastic offensive capabilities. Under the right circumstances, he would be able to output even more damage than Lu Li.

Azure Sea Breeze only checked his equipment after returning from the World Announcements.

Silver Breastplate!

It had high-defense, 12 bonus Constitution and two special effects. One of them was 5% bonus HP, while the other gave 10% bonus defense for 15 seconds.

Now, he could truly claim to be Dawn's number 1 Main Tank. Even Lu Li would have a hard time killing him.

Before today, they wouldn't have dared to say that they were stronger than the Elite teams of the large guilds. After all, those teams were the result of thousands of players' efforts.

However, after receiving such strong, Silver equipment, Lu Li had confidence that they could easily crush those elite teams.

They weren't even done yet; the Boss had still not been looted.

Seeing as Vannessa had been so difficult to kill, there was a good chance of her also dropping a Silver equip.

What would the sixth silver of the day be? Lu Li was very curious.

The Great Thief

Chapter 136: It's Another Big Axe

Remnant Dream ran over and grabbed a very large dual-handed Axe from the Boss' corpse.

She didn't even have the strength to pick it up and had to drag it back.

Death Striker (Silver): Damage 28-42, Strength 12, Agility 6. Special Effect: Upon hitting a target there is a chance of causing Bleed, which deals 160 damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. Does not stack. Equipment Requirement: Level 15. Durability 45/45.

"Damn, its attack is so high! That can't be right."

Azure Sea Breeze almost choked on his own saliva.

Lu Li looked at his two Steel daggers. One had 16-24 damage, while the other had 20-28 damage. The highest damage that either of these daggers could deal was lower than the minimum damage of the axe.

Of course, apart from the usual requirements, the axe also required both hands to wield. This was one of the reasons for its high attack.

The additional 12 Strength and 6 agility, for a total of 18 bonus attribute points, were best suited for a Berserker.

The Bleed effect that Death Striker had was incredibly powerful. Once affected by Bleed, Thieves and Druids could not go into Stealth. Professions with cloth armour were likely to be taken down to half-health by the bleed alone. Even professions that used plate armor would not be able to withstand too many of ticks of Bleed.

"Moonlight has good luck."

A weapon this good simply couldn't be sold. Who knew whose hands it would end up in? Also, the only berserker that they were close to was Moonlight. If there was anyone they could trust, it would be him.

However, they couldn't give it to him for free.

Despite this, no matter how much money Moonlight had, it would never match the value of this axe.

Other than the axe, there were also 2 pieces of Steel-grade equipment. There were Pants for Magic Professions and a pair of gloves for Chainmail Armor Professions. These were given to Lonesome Flower and Remnant Dream respectively. All that was now left were some skill books.

'Ice Barrier'!

Regardless of what the name actually was, most players called this skill 'Ice Shield'.

Currently, no Mage in Dawn had any kind of shield. However, in a few level's time, three shields would become commonplace: Fire Shield (Fire Barrier), Magic Shield (Magic Barrier) and Ice Shield (Ice Barrier).

Although there were some other shields, these three were most commonly used. The first was a physical shield that was able to absorb a lot of physical damage. The second, as the name suggested, was mainly used to absorb spell damage. The third, which was now in the hands of Remnant Dream, could absorb both. It was a mix between the fire and magic shields.

Lonesome Flower's hands trembled as he received this skill book.

No matter what the game was, a Mage should have a shield. Without one, they had no sense of security.

"Flower, can you not look at Lu Li like that? It's gross," Azure Sea Breeze commented.

"Leave me alone." For Lonesome Flower to be harassed by him like that had already became the norm.

He immediately learned Ice Barrier. As the channeled the skill, a shield began to envelop his body.

It covered him closely, as though he were wearing a new set of clothes. It was colorless and transparent, with only a slight shimmer on its surface. Although it only seemed like a thin layer, everyone had just read the description of the skill and did not dare to underestimate its defence.

"This is a really good skill book; it's rare that the Death Mines would drop such an advanced skill book," Lu Li really wanted to praise the System, as today's rewards had far exceeded his imagination.

This likely had something to do with the First Clear and Remnant Dream's lucky hands.

After checking out all the rewards, most people would have assumed that this Instance Dungeon had no more to offer. However, Lu Li expected more.

The final Boss of a Difficult-level Instance Dungeon had a 100% chance of dropping a rare material. There was a certain probability that it would be the one he needed…

"Amber Jewel… What is this? It's a little warm; is it a rare material?" Remnant Dream was puzzled, as she held the translucent little stone. Before she was done looking at it, Lu Li had already taken it away.

Being the base of the Stonemason Union, the Death Mines was famous for dropping rare stones. These had a wide range of uses, and could be used to craft weapons, armour, jewelry and more.

"I'll be taking this item."

Lu Li suppressed his rapid heartbeat and let out a long sigh.

He needed three Amber Jewels to upgrade his Supreme Ring, and now he was holding one of them in his hand. Although its drop rate was low, the player base was incredibly large. Sooner or later, the materials would be widely available, but Lu Li would now be able to upgrade his Supreme Ring a little before that happened.

He was very happy to have acquired this material.

Before leaving, Lu Li received his Bloodstained badge back from Azure Sea Breeze. He was going to fight Hornet's Nest tonight and it would be wise to be careful.

Azure Sea Breeze and the others who had entered the Instance Dungeon from Astrana returned to Astrana. However, Lu Li had entered from the Western Wilderness, so he exited to the Western Wilderness instead.

After getting out of the Instance Dungeon, he transformed in a crow and flew away.

When the Defias Brotherhood rebelled against Stormwind city, they set up their base camp in the Western Wilderness. The Stormwind city nobles had given up this territory, so there were a huge number of Defias Bandits, Mercenaries, Militia and war refugees that had lived here .

Corpses were strewn all over the land and there were vultures circling in the sky.

These vultures were active monsters; they wouldn't wait for a corpse. When they saw Lu Li, they quickly started heading towards him.

Fortunately, he had learned the Crow Transformation from Medivh, so he was much faster than an ordinary crow. Animal instinct was no match was human wisdom, and Lu Li flew past them without any worries.

Only suicidal people would walk through the Western Wilderness. It was filled with LV25 Sand Poison Scorpions that had high speed, high damage and poisonous attacks.

In the face of all these Scorpions crawling around on the ground, Lu Li's Stealth was practically useless.

Once he was caught between a few of these, there was no guarantee that he would be able to escape.

In order to avoid this danger, he chose to fly instead.

Lu Li's goal was Gabriel Cresso – an injured man lying on the barren hills in the northernmost part of the Western Wilderness.

According to an article that Lu Li had read in his past life, Gabriel Cresso was an Officer of Stormwind that would assign a quest. This quest awarded a skill book called 'Demoralizing Shout. This skill was exclusively for Defence Warriors; it reduced the damage of surrounding monsters by 20%. It could be considered a damage-reduction spell, especially when used with area of effect taunts.

Azure Sea Breeze actually already had quite a few damage-reduction effects – there was his Shield Wall, his shield's effect and his breastplate's effect. That was no problem however – there wasn't a single team that would complain about a Main Tank with too many defensive skills.

The Great Thief

Chapter 137: A Sad Quest

These barren hills had no name – the article that Lu Li had read didn't mention a name and the System didn't provide any prompts. There were barely even any trees in the area. It was significantly different to the Elven regions.

Lu Li went back and forth many times before finally finding his goal.

A mound!

Gabriel Cresso was lying at the top of a hill and his body was covered in dust. If it weren't for the blade sticking out of him, Lu Li might not have found him even after three years of looking.

Lu Li returned to his original form and walked towards him, politely saying, "Respected Warrior, may I ask, what can I do for you?"

"Warrior? Oh… Warrior…" Gabriel Cresso smiled weakly.

Lu Li didn't say anything; instead, he continued to quietly and patiently wait.

There were a few key steps to successfully acquiring the quest. First, you had to find Gabriel Cresso and call him a Warrior. Then, you had to listen to his story.

"Are you willing to listen to my story? I don't want to take it to my grave."

Gabriel laughed, before looking up at Lu Li with his pair of grey eyes.

Lu Li knew that he was going to tell a tragic story, and although he knew what he was going to say, he nodded and allowed him to speak.

Gabriel Cresso was born into a family of blacksmiths.

He grew up in the dry, cold sand Western Wilderness. When he grew up, he married his childhood sweetheart, however, this happy time was short-lived. A war broke out and Stormwind City recruited a large number of farmers to send to the front. Gabriel Cresso was one of those who were recruited.

After many years, he managed to return from the front to his hometown.

What drove him mad wasn't the war, but that his village had been completely lost. All the wheat that once grew was gone, and nothing of familiarity was left. His parents and wife had also perished in the war.

"I had killed countless Defias Bandits and Soldiers. Elf, do you know why?" Gabriel Cresso narrowed his eyes, as he stared at Lu Li. His fingers rubbed the sharp edge of his dagger.

"Because my family was killed by the soldiers."

Lu Li didn't need to respond; Gabriel Cresso had answered his own question. When he said this, tears began to gush out of his eyes.

Sometimes, he believed that what he did wasn't wrong. All who were foreign to this land had to die.

His harsh father, his kind mother and his wife…

The year that he had left them, he remembered tugging on their shirts and crying. They had all been killed by the outsiders.

However, there were other times where he felt confused.

As an officer of the Seventh Corps of Stormwind, he had undergone the trials of blood and steel. He knew that he had no right to take the lives of these soldiers; they were pitiful Western Wilderness fools that had been cast aside by Stormwind.

They were most likely carrying out their orders, and also had wives and children back home.

"Elf, do you think I'm a bad person?" Gabriel Cresso asked, as he stared at Lu Li.

"It's not your fault – it's war's fault. The fault is with those stupid nobles."

Lu Li hesitated before he added, "If I were you, I would have done the same, because family is above all else."

The article didn't contain any strategy on how to answer the NPC's questions. These were Lu Li's own words.

In his mind, his sister was above all else, regardless of law or morality.

"No, the legion's glory is above all else," Gabriel Cresso interrupted.

"Please forgive my mistake."

Lu Li didn't really agree with him, but he didn't want to bicker with an NPC.

"It was the soldiers who killed my loved ones. However, they also refused to leave the Western Wilderness," Gabriel Cresso sighed and continued, "They are like me; they loved this land even though it was so desolate."

"How sad!" Lu Li replied.

"The soldier's duty is to protect the people of the land, not to obey the noble."

Gabriel Cresso struggled to stand up as he hissed, "Elf, I'm tired. Can you help me finish a quest?"

"You are a respected Warrior; I am willing to listen to your orders."

What Lu Li wanted had finally been delivered.

"Go to Sentinel Ridge and bring me 10 Soldier tags!"

System: Gabriel Cresso's request: Kill Sentinel Ridge's soldiers and bring back 10 military tags.

Lu Li confirmed the quest and said farewell to Gabriel Cresso, before turning into a crow and flying towards Sentinel Ridge.

Sentinel Ridge was located in the north-eastern part of the Western Wilderness. It was a military fortress that was abandoned many years ago. Now, it was only used as a post that provided the soldiers a place to catch their breath.

This garrison housed more than 600 soldiers who had tried to control the situation in the Western Wilderness. However, the members of the Defias Brotherhood were spread out all over the land, and were so powerful that holding them off was much easier said than done.

Stormwind City claimed that no extra resources could be provided and only gave them the right to collect what was on the land. As such, the soldiers in the Western Wilderness were isolated and helpless. They were surrounded by enemies and suffered mentally because of this.

In the first few years, they adhered to military protocol and provided protection for the farmers.

However, as time went by and as the situation deteriorated, the deaths of their fellow soldiers made them more and more irritable.

They eventually became a murderous group like the Defias Brotherhood and attacked the Western Wilderness' people.

Lu Li slowly snuck behind the two sentries.

He cast Sap on one and quietly closed in on the other to cast Cheap Shot from behind.

These soldiers were higher than LV20, so Lu Li was prevented from dealing his full damage. However, his strong equipment and skills easily guaranteed that he could kill them. A few minutes later, he straightened his hand and threw one of the tags into his bag pack.

Not every solider had a tag; Lu Li had killed two of them but had only received one tag.

Although they didn't drop any equipment, they dropped a satisfying amount of money. Each soldier dropped 2-3 coins, which was even more than the Instance Dungeon monsters.

In his second encounter, Lu Li did not immediately attack. After casting Sap on his target, he used his Pick Pocket skill.

System: You got a piece of dry bread.

Pick Pocket could yield all kinds of things, but most of these were cheap and useless.

After an hour, Lu Li stopped his attack because he had gathered enough tags. He had assassinated 32 Sentinel Ridge Soldiers. Of course, these soldiers would be refreshed in two weeks.

The fact that this was just a game helped him feel a little better.

Dawn was truly a great game. The NPCs didn't feel any different from ordinary people, each with their own unique personalities. Sometimes, it felt like their expressions could reveal their madness, confusion, sadness or relief…

Sometimes, he felt like he was in the same predicament as Gabriel Cresso, confused about his own position.

If he wasn't so mentally fortuitous, he really didn't know if he could have completed the quest.

The Great Thief

Chapter 138: Someone Who Was Accidentally Killed

Lu Li didn't follow the advice of the article, which instructed him to kill this NPC who was supposed to die in a few months' time.

Instead, he stood before Gabriel Cresso and took out the military tags. He was neither excited nor afraid that he had experienced killing so many soldiers.

"Oh, Elf, your strength is beyond my expectations."

Gabriel Cresso took Lu Li's quest items with a complex look on his face. There didn't appear to be any joy in hearing about the death of his enemies.

"Please let me ask, do you recognize any of these people from back when you were farming them?" Lu Li inquired. He didn't know whether the NPC would understand the word 'farm'.

Despite being unsure of how the system would deal with this, Gabriel Cresso understood Lu Li's meaning. He replied without hesitation, "Of course not, they have already died. Once they're dead there's no coming back."

"Please let me ask another question. Do you know any of the people on these tags? One of them says: Lisa, I don't want to die, I still want to touch your face."

"What?" Gabriel Cresso's expression suddenly changed.

His hands began to tremble and he dropped the ten tags onto the ground. He then looked through them one by one, before he found one that sounded familiar.

Ivan Farris

Rank: 9th Lieutenant

Hometown: Western Wilderness

The last row of small print: Lisa, I don't want to die, I still want to touch your face.

"Ivan…"

Gabriel Cresso's expression drooped. He was already on the verge of death, but now he looked a dozen years older. If it weren't for his chest moving up and down, he would be no different to a corpse.

He couldn't help but reminisce about Ivan Farris, the one who he grew up with.

They used to fish together in the small river and catch rabbits in the wilderness. They would lurk about in the moonlight, trying to catch a wild boar that was trampling the wheat. In the end, they were chased away by the angry wild boar.

He had fancied a girl called Lisa. So, on the day of his enlistment, he engraved Lisa's name on his military tag.

Ivan Farris was like his own brother and now, he was dead because of him.

The article that Lu Li had read in his previous life described this quest in great detail.

Gabriel Cresso's heart would be full of hatred when he sent players to kill the soldiers in Sentinel Ridge.

This quest was also very well-known because its reward was very worthwhile.

It seemed like most people tended to enjoy a similar kind of story – one that involved justice and evil, or revenge and choice.

Dawn's quest system was far from conventional. As long as a conversation was going in the right direction, it could trigger the quest, but eventually, it would come to an end.

When he saw Ivan Farris' military tag, Gabriel Cresso's quest came to an end.

He was facing the reality of what he had done in the name of his belief.

Gabriel Cresso had reason to take revenge, but his vengeance had blinded his heart from seeing the difference between justice and evil.

Without seeking vengeance, he didn't have any other reason to live.

"My condolences," Lu Li said, as he bent over. He was a little sympathetic, but also a little happy. Although the situation in the Western Wilderness had gotten out of control, with the Sentinel Ridge post being almost meaningless, not every soldier there deserved to be killed.

"Elf, you did the right thing!" Gabriel Cresso looked up with ferocity in his eyes.

"Respected Warrior, please do not taint your honor."

Lu Li remained calm. He knew how to deal with NPCs.

Sure enough, Gabriel Cresso once again returned to his gloomy demeanor. He sluggishly stroked his chest and saluted Lu Li, saying, "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I was blinded by hatred, but now it's over."

"You are a respectable Warrior," Lu Li said.

If he could choose, he would have preferred an alternative outcome.

However, he couldn't think of any way to avoid this tragedy. Gabriel Cresso's mission would later become very popular and the Sentinel Ridge would become a bloody land. Thousands of soldiers would be assassinated by the players.

"This is the reward for the quest; it is something I learned in the army. If you can't use it, then you can give it to your friends. You definitely have some friends, just like Ivan and I…"

Gabriel Cresso handed Lu Li a book. The system then prompted him that he had completed the quest.

Lu Li didn't want to hang around for any longer; he gave a word of thanks turned to leave.

Surprisingly, Gabriel Cresso called to him again.

"Elf, I'm thinking of going to the front. I will probably die there."

"Oh, that is a fitting Warrior's end."

Even Lu Li didn't understand why he was still talking. Wasn't the quest over?

"I'm not afraid of death, because it will bring me relief. But there are some things I cannot reconcile." Gabriel Cresso pleadingly looked at Lu Li and asked, "For the sake of the great Mage Medivh, can you help me with one of my wishes?"

Medivh was a human who had led the Coalition to defeat Archimonde and protect the Night Elves' Tree of Life. Even the most arrogant wizard was in awe of him.

A quest?

Lu Li paused before turning around and saying, "Of course I would be happy to help you."

A quest necessarily meant there was a reward. This was a universal truth in all games. Lu Li didn't have any reason to refuse.

"I was born into a family of blacksmiths. My grandfather learned this skill from Ironforge. Even those who were from Ironforge considered my grandfather a great blacksmith…"

Gabriel Cresso was very talkative. He would always add a little extra to his own story.

"Unfortunately, I am unable to appreciate the older ways," Lu Li sighed pretentiously. He had already told him that the wild soldiers had killed his whole family. There was no way that his grandfather had survived by some miracle, so Lu Li couldn't work out why he was being given this information.

"My grandfather was such a good blacksmith that there no one in this wilderness that didn't know his name. Even some of the nobles would send for him to craft their weapons."

Gabriel Cresso remembered where he was going with his story and continued, "They had hoped that I would also become a blacksmith and live safely."

Lu Li was indifferent to what Cresso had said; he wasn't really invested int the story.

"I didn't want to become a blacksmith because I liked fighting."

Gabriel Cresso's eyes were suddenly filled with sadness.

"The skills of the Cresso cannot be lost. Elf, are you willing to help me pass them down?"

The Great Thief

Chapter 139: The Forging Hammer

Lu Li was a little overwhelmed.

As someone who had experienced rebirth, he was used to being in control. He knew about the Supreme Ring, how to clear dungeons and even the nuances of dealing with NPCs.

This quest was only supposed to reward the skill book, so why wasn't it following the order?

If Lu Li wanted to learn Forging, he would have immediately jumped at this opportunity. However, he didn't have any plans to do so. He had already invested a lot of time into Alchemy, so if he learnt Forging now, he would have to invest even more of his time.

"Elf, do you not want to accept my request?" Gabriel Cresso asked.

"Your Excellency, I have a friend who really loves forging, but I'm not sure…" Lu Li wracked his brains, trying to come up with something.

"Haha…" Gabriel Cresso smiled and said, "Do you think that the Cresso Family inheritance can just be given to someone else?"

Lu Li almost swore at him.

Did he look like a blacksmith?

"You misunderstand, respectful warrior, I have no knowledge in forging. I'm just worried about breaking your trust," Lu Li quietly responded.

This response was ingenious. Gabriel Cresso did not get angry and his goodwill towards Lu Li was deepened. He pulled out a hammer from his bag and gave it to him, saying, "Your heart is strong. I believe in you. I hope you will be able to carry this onwards."

Lu Li helplessly took the hammer and watched as Gabriel Cresso limped away.

System: You have received Cresso's Hammer

System: You have learnt Dwarven Forging. Your strength has permanently increased by 5.

System: You have completed the quest 'Last Wish'. You are awarded with EXP and 50 Forging EXP.

The EXP reward wasn't very much, but receiving 50 Forging EXP was certainly a surprise.

Forging was the most difficult skill to raise. Even after making a dozen pieces of equipment, one might only receive a little bit of EXP. Most of the equipment that was made by forging was also Common-grade, so it could only be sold to stores. The yield wasn't even enough to cover the costs.

However, these were all things to worry about in the future. For now, Lu Li's attention was focused on Cresso's Hammer.

Cresso's Hammer (Special): Strength 20, Forging Speed 30%, Forging Success Rate 20%, Equal 1, Lu Li Exclusive, Durability 100/100.

Of the 4 attributes, the 20 strength was the most negligible. Lu Li had quite a few pieces of equipment that gave him bonus strength; together, these were definitely stronger than the Forging Hammer.

The 30% Forging Speed bonus wasn't too impressive either; it just helped to save some time.

It was the 20% Forging Success Rate bonus that made Lu Li's heart race.

In his previous life, the best Forging Hammer that he had seen belonged to the Blood Red War Flag's Chief Engineer. It was called the 'Blacksmith Guild's Gift'. It was the reward given by a long chain of quests that required half of the guild's participation and over a month of effort.

That hammer gave a bonus 15% Success Rate, which attracted a huge number of people to join the Blood Red War Flag. This item alone helped the guild, who had been suppressed by the Gangnam Royals, to greatly prosper.

The Forging Hammer that Lu Li was holding did not give a bonus 15% but 20%!

Learn! Learn! Learn!

He simply had to learn Forging. As he clutched the hammer, he could already see the gold coins raining down on him.

If he posted about this hammer on the forums now, there would only be one of two outcomes. Everyone would want to win him over, or everyone would want to hunt him down.

The last attribute, Equal 1, had Lu Li completely lost. He had never seen something like this before, nor had he ever heard of something like before either. What on earth was the purpose of Equal 1?

In most games, the stronger and more important equipment attributes were stated closer to the end.

This meant that the "Equal 1" was stronger than "Success Rate 20%". It was too bad that Gabriel Cresso had left already, so he couldn't ask any questions about it.

In addition to all of this, it was exclusive to Lu Li. This property made him both love it and hate it. He couldn't sell the Forging Hammer, even if he wanted to. How much money could he make if he did? One million? 10 million?

However, it also prevented anyone else from taking the Hammer from Lu Li.

It also had a durability of 100/100. The worst part about being a blacksmith in this game was that the Forging Hammer's durability usually declined too quickly. They required a repair after forging a dozen or so equips, and the repairs weren't cheap either. Moreover, forging common equipment wasn't enough to cover the cost of repairing the hammers.

However, with the bonus 20% success rate, he could charge others to help them forge their equipment when his Forging level was high. To him, the repair costs were a small obstacle.

The rewards for this quest had been very good. Not only did he receive the Warrior damage reduction skill 'Demoralising Shout', he had received an unreal Forging Hammer.

When he returned to Astana, Lu Li logged off to rest.

He was going to fight Hornet's Nest at night (game time), so he needed to be at his best.

If Water Fairy was considered a top player because of her looks and high end equipment, Hornet's Nest would be one because of his technical skill.

Hornet's Nest had been infamous in his past life for having a personality that matched his name. A single poke would set him off; he swore relentlessly and would easily become enemies with anyone.

Backing him was the Seventh Heaven of the Light Faction – China's fifth ranking guild.

Hornet's Nest was lower-levelled than Lu Li, but he still wasn't too far behind. He almost certainly had a team of Mages to help him farm. Equipment wouldn't be a problem for him either; Lu Li expected him to be equipped with LV15 Steel-grade pieces. If a ranked guild Seventh Heaven couldn't gather a full body of LV15 Steel equipment, then there would definitely be something wrong.

Hornet's Nest was a Warlock, which meant that he had many skills. Lu Li had seen videos of him PVPing other players, but he always felt like Hornet's Nest was holding back. He was probably hiding his skills.

Warlock minions (pets) were very different to the Hunter pets. These creatures were summoned from the Abyss.

Hornet's Nest's minion was a rare succubus. So far, only Moonlight had faced off against it. It had good crowd control skills such as Charm, and it could apply two different kinds of debuffs on a target. These

Moonlight wasn't optimistic about the battle between Lu Li and Hornet's Nest. As such, he had purposely scheduled for it to be after the fight with Water Fairy, so that Lu Li had more time to prepare.

The Great Thief

Chapter 140: Warming Up

After Lu Li had rested for a while, he logged back on and looked for Moonlight.

He immediately put the axe and skill book into the trading window without mentioning any sort of payment.

Moonlight didn't pay too much attention to the items at first. The skill book was good; it was definitely something he could use. The axe…

"Silver! You're joking. Are you sure you want to give this to me?" Moonlight had almost accepted and taken the axe.

"Of course, unless you want me to sell it?" Lu Li laughed.

"If you can use it, then take it. I just hope that you won't PVP other players so recklessly. It would be a great loss if someone else picked it up."

"Thank you so much, but I can't afford this."

Moonlight equipped the weapon, waved it around and nodded in satisfaction.

"We can deal with the money issue some other time; I trust that you won't run away."

Lu Li had complete faith in him. With an equip like this, Moonlight was likely to win more wagered matches anyway. With a few wins in a row, he could easily make tens of thousands of dollars.

Moreover, he didn't seem like the kind of guy to not pay his debts.

"Okay, I'll send you the cash when I get it. How about your fight with Hornet's Nest? Are you feeling confident?"

"I won't lose," Lu Li said firmly and full self-confidence.

"I've PVPed him a few times and I've lost more than I've won. His equipment is really good," Moonlight said a little sadly.

With Dawn's hidden identity system, Moonlight had decided to start anew. He no longer kept in contact with all of his previous friends and guilds.

Without a guild to support him, it was quite hard to keep up. At the very least, he would fall behind in equipment.

Hornet's Nest had a full body of LV15 Steel equipment and likely even had some Silver equipment. On the contrary, Moonlight didn't even have a full body of LV10 Steel equipment. In fact, some of his equipment was still LV5. This kind of level difference in equipment couldn't be made up for with skill.

However, even if he had lost more than he had won, this still meant that he had won before. His God of War title hadn't been given to him for no reason.

"Let's have a warm up match then." Lu Li created a competition room and invited Moonlight.

"I thought you wanted to rest," Moonlight said, as he licked his lips, "But if you're up for it, then so am I."

From Moonlight's perspective, Lu Li was a good PVP partner, but was also generally unwilling. Moonlight didn't want to bother him, so he usually wouldn't try to invite him to a match.

But ever since his last loss to Lu Li, he had looked forward to the next duel.

How could a Warrior lose to a Thief?!

A random competitive map had been chosen. An expanse of wilderness appeared before Lu Li, covered in dry, windswept grass. This open environment had no effect on the Thief's Stealth but provided the Warrior with a convenient view of the battlefield.

With his high damage and armour, Moonlight was more like a human tank compared to the last time had he fought Lu Li.

Lu Li immediately went into Stealth and distanced himself from Moonlight.

The arena system had a special requirement for the battle, given the two player's professions: If Lu Li did not attack in 10 minutes, he would lose.

However, this didn't mean that he was in a hurry. He carefully observed Moonlight, trying to find a good angle of attack.

Moonlight didn't stand still, but continually adjusted his position. Sometimes he would move quickly and other times he would move slowly; his actions seemed to be compeltely random. He was always ready for the moment that Cheap Shot was cast.

The map was windy, but the wind was inconsistent. The grass constantly swayed in a disorganised mess.

Most people wouldn't be able to use the environment to determine much information. However, Moonlight was an expert with a wealth of PVP experience.

His thought process was that Lu Li was a PVE player with very little PVP experience. Even if his overall skill was good, this wouldn't necessarily translate into PVP prowess.

He would definitely try to attack from behind, as most Thieves tried to do.

He was probably sneaking over right now, walking slowly to prevent detection while keeping a low centre of gravity.

Moonlight stood still. He twisted his head and stared at his surroundings. He watched the grass sway and felt the wind move around him.

Lu Li crept up behind him and stopped moving.

This was a good position. He only needed to take 3-4 steps forwards and thrust his dagger to cast Cheap Shot.

Could it really be this easy?

Lu Li thought about his options. He was about to commit to casting Cheap Shot before he realised that this was a trap.

Moonlight's heavy armour was a little awkwardly positioned. He also wasn't one to leave himself open and vulnerable like this. His attention didn't seem to be focused in front of him, but behind him. He was definitely expecting an attack from behind.

With one sweep of his axe, he would easily be able to hit Lu Li.

Lu Li cautiously retreated. He retraced his steps and waited quietly.

1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes…

The position that Moonlight was in was a little tiring, so he gently took a step forwards. In doing so, he completely exposed his back.

Suddenly, some hay flew past him and a patch of grass was flattened.

Moonlight's eyes narrowed as his upper body spun around, swinging his big axe from left to right. The blade's arc covered at least 5 yards behind him.

This was the Berserker's Crescent Slash.

He thought that this surprise attack would definitely hit and reveal Lu Li. He didn't expect that the area above the flattened grass would actually be empty.

Moonlight immediately turned back around, but unfortunately for him, it was too late.

Lu Li's Cheap Shot had already perfectly hit his target, resulting in a 4 second stun.

With their levels being so similar, any bonus effects from skills were especially important. A half-second stun would already be very strong, let alone a 4 second stun.

Petrify!

Moonlight cast a damage reduction skill. His skin turned into a stone-like material and his defence greatly increased. This would reduce the damage that was going to result from the stun.

Backstab: successfully applied an Armour Break effect.

Lu Li didn't rush to deal his damage.

He then calmly used two ordinary attacks, and just before the stun on Moonlight was about to end, he cast Shadowstrike. A two second stun was added on!

He unable to gather the 5 combo points required to cast his Ultimate Skill and Moonlight was about to recover. As such, Lu Li instead used a high Skill Completion Slit Throat that didn't deal much damage, but still resulted in a strong bleed effect.

With this round of attacks, Moonlight's HP had been dropped to 50%, and he was still bleeding.

Everyone knew that Lu Li's equipment was good, but they wouldn't truly understand how brutal his attacks were until they personally experienced them.

After casting Slit Throat, he activated his shoe's skill and increased his movement speed.

He only just outran Moonlight's Trample skill.

However, Moonlight wasn't an idiot. Once he realised that his Trample had missed, he immediately cast Charge and rushed towards Lu Li.

Lu Li turned around to see a wall of flesh barrel towards him. He didn't even have time to finish casting Vanish before he was stunned.

The Great Thief

Chapter 141: Hornet's Nest

It was like this last time as well. Moonlight used his Charge completely differently to the novices of the Imperial Secret Service. After all, those people had a very shallow understanding of Dawn. They would spend a second or so to get into posture. By that time, their target would long be gone.

After being stunned, Lu Li did not panic, but patiently waited.

With his top-grade Silver equipment, Moonlight had incredibly high Attack. A single skill could deal around 200 damage to Lu Li.

Lu Li was hit 3 times in the 2 seconds that he was stunned for, and Moonlight was even able to trigger the Special Effect on his weapon.

Special Effect: Hitting a target has a chance of causing them to Bleed, dealing 160 damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. Cannot be stacked.

He's done for! Moonlight couldn't resist using his Ultimate Skill.

Whirlwind!

Lu Li exhaled and used his Gloves' Special Effect.

VanCleef's Grip (Silver): 20 Armour, Agility12, Strength4, Special Effect 1: Critical Chance5%. Special Effect 2: Sudden Thrust: instantly dash to a target within 8 feet, causing 150% Weapon Damage, Cooldown Time: 120 seconds. Level Requirement: LV15. Durability: 45/45.

Sudden Thrust was similar to Charge. It had shorter range, but was much more versatile, as it did not require the user to assume a certain posture. Moreover, the user had no control over themselves once the skill was used.

Lu Li launched himself to the side as soon as began to dash, which caused him to change direction.

If his target was Moonlight, this skill would have failed. Luckily, it wasn't!

Lu Li turned into a blur as he shot past Moonlight.

395. That was how much HP he still had after escaping from Whirlwind. He had almost been reduced to Critical HP in an instant.

After using Shadowmeld and Stealth, Lu Li once again disappeared from Moonlight's vision.

Moonlight bitterly smiled and cancelled Whirlwind.

"Alright, let's stop there. You've won."

"I'm fine with that," Lu Li said as he cancelled his Stealth and appeared in front of Moonlight, sitting cross-legged. His voice was filled with confidence; after all, he hadn't even used Vanish and was preparing to cast Cheap Shot. He also had the Special Effect from the Shadow Cloak, so even though he didn't have much HP left, he was sure that he could have killed Moonlight.

If he used the Shadow Cloak's Special Effect to instantly appear behind Moonlight and cast Cheap shot, then used some basic attacks, Moonlight would have been killed in an instant.

Even if something unexpected happened, he could still rely on Vanish.

"You're way too calm," Moonlight sighed. As an expert Warrior, he felt quite depressed about repeatedly losing to a Thief.

In a direct confrontation, Lu Li would never be able to beat a Berserker, no matter how good his equipment was. However, Lu Li was incredibly calm, which allowed him to always find good opportunities.

If he wasn't calm, he wouldn't have remained in Stealth for such a long time, which gave him the opportunity to attack.

If he wasn't calm, Lu Li wouldn't have used his normal attacks after initially stunning Moonlight, which saved the skills he needed to continue stunning him.

If he wasn't calm, he wouldn't have waited for Moonlight to use his Ultimate Skill before escaping.

This sort of calmness could be fatal.

Moonlight had given this fight his all, yet Lu Li had seen through all of his attacks. After fighting Lu Li, Moonlight always felt frustrated.

Moonlight was originally worried that Lu Li wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight against Hornet's Nest, but those worries had been dispelled. At the very least, Lu Li was at the same level as Hornet's Nest.

As they exited from the Arena, they saw Hornet's Nest at the entrance.

"Ah, you guys…"

"We just fought. I lost."

Moonlight did not feel embarrassed, as he straightforwardly said what had just happened.

"Goddamn. You're kidding me, right?" Hornet's Nest felt quite sullen.

Of course, this wasn't because Moonlight had lost, but because he felt that Lu Li wasn't taking him seriously.

In order to prepare for this battle, Hornet's Nest hadn't fought with anyone the entire day. He had trained with his team in the morning, levelling up to LV17, and had repeatedly watched Lu Li's PVP battles. He had even napped for 2 hours to ensure that he was at his peak condition.

And what had Lu Li done?!

He had obtained the First Clear for the Moon Creek Prison in the morning, as well as the First Clear for the Death Mines at the Difficult level.

The First Clear for the Difficult-level Death Mines!

Hornet's Nest's Seventh Heaven had sent hundreds of teams into the Elite-level Death Mines, but not a single one of them had succeeded. And yet, Lu Li had cleared the Difficult level?

Even if Hornet's Nest let that go, there was still another thing.

He had fought with a Warrior right before their fight?!

This was simply contempt!

This was simply humiliation!

"Calm down, calm down, I need to stay calm," he thought.

Hornet's Nest, who had spent a few hours calming himself prior to this, started to bubble up with rage.

"Hello, ready to fight?" Lu Li asked, as he looked at Hornet's Nest's equipment. His gaze suddenly became serious.

LV15 Steel grade Equipment Set!

Although it was only a 3-piece Equipment Set, it had the Demon's Eyes skill. Once this skill was activated, it gave a probability of seeing objects and people in Stealth.

Lu Li didn't have any equipment or skills that strengthened his Stealth, so if Hornet's Nest used this skill, he would definitely be able to see him.

Although Lu Li was shocked, his expression still remained calm.

What he didn't know was that his calmness only angered Hornet's Nest even more.

"You just fought with a friggin' Warrior, but you're not even going to rest before fighting me? Don't kid around with me!!"

Hornet's Nest was nicknamed 'One Poke One Explosion'. He was not a very calm person, and although he wasn't extremely arrogant, he still had his pride. Being looked down on like this completely infuriated him.

"Alright, alright, we'll start now. We'll see what right you have to be so arrogant!"

Moonlight opened his mouth, wanting to explain, but he didn't know what to say.

He didn't want Lu Li to lose; after all, Lu Li was a true friend to him. However, he also hoped that Hornet's Nest would teach Lu Li a lesson.

His extremely calm attitude was simply too despicable.

Lu Li didn't know why Hornet's Nest looked so angry. He was completely focused on the skill from Hornet's Nest's equipment. After confirming that they could start, he gave Hornet's Nest the room number and password.

The two players disappeared and were sent to the Battle Room.

It was also a random map and was an expanse of ruins.

This kind of map was advantageous for Thieves, as it made it easier to use Stealth. However, because Hornet's Nest had the Demon's Eyes, Lu Li could only physically hide.

After Hornet's Nest entered the Battle Room, he summoned his pet – a rare Succubus.

The Succubus was incredibly pretty and had a curvaceous figure that was clad in sexy lingerie. It exuded a pure, yet flirtatious air, and was holding a whip that it used to gently strike the ground.

A rare Succubus and Demon's Eyes…

Lu Li squatted a distance away, as he thought of how to take down this Warlock.

The Great Thief

Chapter 142: Evenly Matched

Lu Li wanted some time to think, but Hornet's Nest's fury had reached its peak. After summoning the Succubus, he immediately activated Demon's Eyes.

You're going to regret it when I catch you!

Lu Li saw this through a crack in the wall and immediately entered into Stealth.

It was easy to tell when someone was using the Demon's Eyes. The user's eyes would turn completely black with cracks around the edges, making them look like a demon from hell.

Hornet's Nest quickly moved around with the activated Demon's Eyes, trying to find Lu Li as quickly as possible.

As an expert, he usually wouldn't be in such a rush. He would at least be able to maintain his composure. However, he had been pushed too far. If Moonlight was there, he would have noticed that there was something different about Hornet's Nest.

Demon's Eyes lasted for 30 seconds and had a Cooldown Time of 2 minutes. The 30 seconds quickly passed and Hornet's Nest's eyes returned to normal.

Lu Li tiptoed out from behind a wall and carefully crept towards Hornet's Nest. Warlocks had very high Detection, so Hornet's Nest soon felt that Lu Li was close. However, he couldn't tell exactly how close he was.

The feeling of not knowing the location of one's enemy was quite uncomfortable. Hornet's Nest gradually calmed down, regretting that he had used his trump card so early. He could only order his Succubus to stand behind him. If Lu Li attacked, the Succubus would immediately counterattack.

Chi!

That was the sound of a Dagger stabbing into flesh. Hornet's Nest's heart leapt, but he didn't feel himself being attacked.

Crap, Succubus!

Hornet's Nest quickly turned around, and saw Lu Li furiously attacking his sexy Succubus.

Succubi were fairly balanced pets. They had average Attack and Defence, and their main use was their Crowd Control skills. The Succubus that Hornet's Nest had was fairly rare – not only did it have a Fear skill and a Charm skill, but it also had a Confusion skill, which most Succubi didn't have.

People with low resistances who were affected by Confusion would become like headless flies, while people with high resistances would lose much of their accuracy when attacking.

Hornet's Nest's Succubus also had 2 debuffs – one that lowered Magic Resistance and one that applied continuous damage.

It was just a pet, but it had 5 skills. It was simply overpowered.

If Lu Li attacked Hornet's Nest, it would be impossible for him to kill Hornet's Nest within 5 seconds, no matter how high his Attack was. In those 5 seconds, the Succubus would have enough time to use at least 2 skills on him. Once Hornet's Nest started attacking him as well, he would be finished.

As soon as Hornet's Nest realised that Lu Li was attacking his Succubus, he immediately used Fear.

Of course, Lu Li couldn't just ignore Hornet's Nest. Warlocks had a range of Crowd Control skills and Lu Li saw a mass of black light flying towards him incredibly quickly. He bided his time and activated Shadow Cloak just as it was about to hit him.

Shadow Cloak: Instant Cast, Cooldown Time: 90 seconds. Gives magic immunity for a short period of time and cancels out all magic debuffs. While active, nullifies all magic debuffs. Lasts for 3 seconds. Level: 1/5.

Warlocks had many Crowd Control skills, but they were all magic debuffs. With the Shadow Cloak, Lu Li didn't have to worry about Crowd Control skills for 3 seconds.

In order to give himself more time to attack, Lu Li didn't use his Sap at the beginning.

Most Thieves would have chosen to use Sap to stun the Warlock, then attack his pet.

However, Lu Li knew that Dwarves had a Racial Passive called Stoneform which could cancel out stun effects.

Most races had similar Racial Passives. Night Elves had Shadowmeld, which allowed them to dodge 1 attack and disengage from battle, while the Gnomes' Escape Artist allowed them to nullify Slows…

If Lu Li used Sap, Hornet's Nest could immediately use Stoneform to cancel out the stun, then counterattack. This would mean that he would have less time to attack. When facing off against experts, every second counted.

As such, Lu Li decided to first attack the Succubus. Adding on the time it took Hornet's Nest to react and cast Fear to the 3 seconds of magic immunity the Shadow Cloak gave, Lu Li had 5 seconds to attack.

If Lu Li couldn't kill a Succubus in 5 seconds, he might as well surrender.

Lu Li's Ultimate Skill, Backhand Backstab struck the Succubus' exposed back and with a seductive "Ah~", it fell to the ground. Lu Li had successfully killed off the Succubus!

In this entire process, Hornet's Nest had been desperately attacking Lu Li, causing a massive amount of damage. However, he knew that he had taken the short end of the stick as soon as he found out that his Crowd Control skills had no effect on Lu Li.

In 3 seconds, Lu Li lost a quarter of his HP!

Vanish!

Hornet's Nest could only watch as Lu Li disappeared into the shadows.

Shadow Cloak Special Effect!

Lu Li instantly appeared behind Hornet's Nest and used Cheap Shot, stunning him for 4 seconds!

After this, he used a high Skill Completion Backstab, which added on an Armour pierce effect. Hornet's Nest hurriedly activated Stoneform, cancelling out the stun.

Lu Li had been waiting for him to use his Racial Passive and immediately used Shadowstrike. Keep standing still for me.

The stun didn't last for too long; he was only able to use 2 normal attacks.

After recovering from the stun, Hornet's Nest softly chanted, and a black line that stretched out from his feet appeared on the ground. His body blurred and glided 6 feet along the line, which put some distance between himself and Lu Li.

This Hornet's Nest was quite the guy. Warlocks normally only acquired this skill at LV30, and yet he had it already.

Sudden Thrust!

Lu Li had used this Special Effect in his fight against Moonlight to escape.

This time, he used it to chase. Just as Hornet's Nest stopped moving, he felt a sharp pain in his back. Lu Li had already caught up.

Hornet's Nest raised his head, opened his mouth wide and deeply breathed in.

This wasn't a lion's roar, but the Warlock's Howl of Terror.

Howl of Terror: 1 Second Cast Time, Cooldown Time: 90 seconds. Lets out a howl, causing 5 enemies within 3 feet to run in fear, disorientating them for 5 seconds. Dealing any damage to the targets will cancel out the effects.

As long as Hornet's Nest could Fear Lu Li, he would have time to summon his Succubus again. Now that he was prepared, he definitely wouldn't allow Lu Li to kill his Succubus again.

Kick!

Lu Li savagely kicked Hornet's Nest's abdomen.

Hornet's Nest's Howl of Terror was instantly cut short. After a skill was cancelled by Kick, it would not be usable for another 5 seconds.

Lu Li activated his Boots' Special Effect and turned into a blur as he ran around Hornet's Nest, not giving him a single opportunity to cast magic. This was the first time that Hornet's Nest had seen such footwork, and he immediately knew that he was in a bad situation.

The Great Thief

Chapter 143: Experience

Dawn wasn't like those old games, where one wrong move would cause a collision.

Apart from having a high Movement Speed, Lu Li's vision and control were also important.

Against a Thief who was attacking at a close distance, and especially one that could achieve high Skill Completion, Hornet's Nest quickly fell.

The Demon's Eyes did not help at all, while his rare Succubus had been killed right at the beginning of the battle. Hornet's Nest found it hard to accept this defeat.

He felt that he had lost because his emotions were out of control. If they were to fight on even grounds, it would be difficult to say who would win.

However, one's emotions were quite important in PVP battles. This was especially exemplified in Dawn, where equipment wasn't as important.

Lu Li didn't win the battle because of his luck, but because of his skill and judgement.

"Again!"

After leaving the Arena, Hornet's Nest once again challenged Lu Li.

"Sorry, but I'm tired. Maybe next time," Lu Li apologetically replied.

Seeing that Lu Li had spent quite a bit of energy and effort to defeat him, Hornet's Nest felt a bit better.

However, what came next made him feel even worse.

Hornet's Nest, Hornet's Nest, look how low you've fallen.

After receiving the 100 gold coins from Hornet's Nest, Lu Li said goodbye to him and Moonlight, then logged off. Right before logging off, he put most of the hundreds of gold coins he had into the Trade Platform, leaving a few for himself to use.

After a night of sleep, Lu Li woke up early in the morning to drag his reluctant little sister out.

"Big brother, can we not go? I'm completely fine – look, I'm strong as an ox," the little girl said, as she patted her fairly flat chest.

This was the first time that Lu Li and his little sister had gone for a medical check-up. They never had the money required to do so before.

Lu Xin felt very nervous, thinking that her big brother was selling her off.

Lu Li had been working hard for this day, ever since he had experienced 'rebirth' a few weeks ago. How could they not go? In order to make his little sister feel better, he decided to splurge a bit, and called a taxi instead of going on the bus.

Despite the economic advances, public transport had not become less popular, but was instead being used by more and more people. In the past 200 years, the government had denounced the use of private cars and promoted environmentally-friendly transport. However, because magnetic hovercars were not easily affordable yet, most people could only choose to squeeze together on public transport.

Taking a taxi was quite expensive – a journey to the City Hospital costed a minimum of $600.

Lu Xin never thought that she would be able to ride in such a vehicle. As she leaned into her big brother's embrace, her frowning disappeared. She no longer felt nervous about going to the hospital.

Lu Li softly told his little sister some of the things that had happened in the game.

In reality, he was much more nervous than Lu Xin. He tightly hugged her, feeling worried that he would lose her.

"Big brother, I miss my old room. Last night I dreamt that we moved back to our old place and saw Uncle Zhao and Aunty Zhao. They gave me a handful of lollies, but I didn't get to eat them before I woke up," the little girl said.

Although it was quite a run-down place that had left them with some unpleasant memories, it was still the place that they had grown up in.

"We're not going to move back," Lu Li said resolutely. He paused for a second, then patted his little sister's head.

In the silence, Lu Xin quietly asked, "Well, work hard then, big brother. Can we buy our own house sometime? It doesn't matter if it's smaller than our old place."

"Why do you want to move out? Don't Huan Huan and the others treat you quite well?" Lu Li asked in confusion. Could it be that the three landlords had been secretly bullying her this whole time?

"They treat me well, but in the end, it's not our home," Lu Xin replied.

"Alright, when big brother has earned enough money, I'll buy a big house for Xin Xin, and we'll fill it up with lollies that Xin Xin likes to eat," Lu Li lovingly said as he smiled.

By the time they had arrived at the hospital, Lu Xin's legs had weakened. She had to be carried in by Lu Li.

Lu Li didn't know if his little sister's illness could be detected so early on, so he asked the doctor to do a full check-up. The hospital never stopped patrons from spending money, so if they asked for one, the hospital was more than willing.

They had to a wait a few days for the report, so Lu Li sent his little sister to school.

'Let's hope the checkup was of use. If we can detect it earlier, there'll be more hope,' he thought.

Lu Li bitterly laughed. He was probably the only person in the world who hoped that the medical report of someone they loved would show something wrong.

After getting home and entering the game, Lu Li was immediately met with shouting from Azure Sea Breeze.

"The game's updating today! Why are you so late?!"

"Sorry, I had some things to take care of in real life."

Lu Li checked his account, and saw that he now had over $1 million in it, which cheered him up a bit. At least this time, he wouldn't be completely broke when he found out about his little sister's illness. Moreover, he would have to work even harder in the future.

"Did something happen to your little sister?" Azure Sea Breeze stopped complaining and asked, noticing that Lu Li's tone sounded quite serious.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it. What's up?"

As usual, Lu Li went to the Exchange Hall to see if there were any rare materials that he needed. Everyone was getting better equipment, so the earlier he upgraded his Supreme One Ring, the more advantageous it would be for him.

It was a pity that the rare materials that were available were incredibly expensive. Some couldn't even be bought with money.

"Wandering demands to meet you. Otherwise, he's not willing to join," Azure Sea Breeze said, then paused and continued, "Sesame Rice Ball also came and wants to see you. It turns out you were right – he really did leave Seventh Heaven."

For someone like him, leaving a guild wasn't a small matter. The whole forum was filled with discussions about the system update, Dancing Flower Beauty and Sesame Rice Ball.

Some of the threads claimed that Dancing Flower Beauty would be offered a $5 million contract to become a representative for China's Magnetic Hovercar Company.

However, most people simply didn't believe this. Although the Magnetic Hovercar Company was rich, they had never been willing to spend money on a movie star to become a representative. Why would they spend $5 million on a girl who just played a game?

The discussion about Sesame Rice Ball, on the other hand, was about him leaving the guild.

Seventh Heaven produced excellent Warlocks, and Sesame Rice Ball considered to be the best in the guild. For players who weren't very familiar with the PVP world, Sesame Rice Ball was even more famous than Hornet's Nest.

In order to leave Seventh Heaven, he had actually paid the $300,000 penalty.

Moreover, it was possible that he could be hunted down by the Seventh Heaven's Assassination Team.

Everyone wondered what could have caused such a famous PVE player to do such a thing.

The Great Thief

Chapter 144: I Want Him

"Lu Li, aren't you curious about why he left?" Azure Sea Breeze asked.

"Not at all," Lu Li calmly replied. Hearing his tone, Azure Sea Breeze believed that he really wasn't curious at all.

But how could Lu Li not know? Back then, when the truth had been revealed, the entire gaming community had been sent into an uproar. The matter even became a classic material for fujoshis.

"What is with you? You're not curious about anything! What's the point in living like that?!" Azure Sea Breeze exclaimed, "Sis-cons are all weirdos. That Flower is also a boring guy."

"Have you seen anyone selling Lava Essence recently?" Lu Li asked.

"Haven't been looking out for it," Azure Sea Breeze replied.

"If you see someone selling it in future, make sure you let me know."

The other materials weren't too hard to find, but Lava Essence was a bit of a headache for Lu Li.

Any Boss, smaller monster or Elite-grade monster had the chance to drop them. However, Lu Li needed a whopping 15!

They weren't like Eternal Frozen Shards, which could be found in large quantities.

"I'm trying to talk about something really important right now. Can you focus?"

Azure Sea Breeze sounded quite angry.

"Where are you? I'll go over now," Lu Li lightly sighed as he closed the Exchange Hall screen. It appeared that finding the rare materials would require luck.

"We're at the Four Seasons Tavern, next to the Inn. Also, are we really going to take Sesame Rice Ball? There are quite a few problems going on for him right now. Maybe you haven't played many games before and don't know how powerful Seventh Heaven is…" Azure Sea Breeze rambled.

Lu Li tried to add Hornet's Nest as a friend, but the system told him that Hornet's Nest had disabled this function. This was expected – all pros turned off the feature that allowed others to add them as friends. Otherwise, they would be swarmed with friend requests.

Since they weren't friends, Lu Li couldn't privately message him. As such, Lu Li could only use the chat room that he entered in a while: the North Sea Kindergarten.

He thought for a moment before typing, "Is Hornet's Nest here…?"

The chat room fell silent, then quickly exploded with messages.

Green Flag Wine: Isn't this Lu Li? You're like a firefly at night. Even if you conceal your name, we all know that you're at the top of the Level Rankings.

Lu Li: ……

Wild: Lu Li, are you interested in joining our Blood Red War Flag? If you join, our guild won't stop you from making your own Mercenary Group, and we'll give you a salary of $200,000 per year.

Empty: Wild, when did you start to recruit people? Why aren't you recruiting me?

Wild: I'm just passing along a message for my guild. You know I'm not involved with the running of the guild.

Lu Li: Sorry, but I don't plan on joining a guild for now.

A few weeks ago, Lu Li would have jumped at an offer of $200,000 per year. However, a few weeks ago, no one knew who Lu Li was. He would have been eager to accept a Gold Collection Unit job with a yearly salary of $20,000.

Wild: Let's fight when you have time.

Lu Li: Of course, of course.

Hornet's Nest: Of course my ass. Fighting only takes a few minutes. I'll create a room and you can join.

Lu Li: There's something I need to talk to you about.

Hornet's Nest: Speak.

Lu Li: Sesame Rice Ball – I want him.

Hornet's Nest: Ah, Rice Ball. Do you know why he left the guild?

Lu Li: Don't know, and I don't want to know.

Empty: He's someone from one of the top 5 guilds. Heheh, Lu Li, good on you. If Hornet's Nest hunts you down and kills you, I'll pay for repairing your equipment.

After the third system update, the cost for repairing equipment had been increased. Players were quite unhappy with this, as the Durability of equipment decreased drastically upon dying. However, there was not as much backlash from the community, as the EXP penalty for dying in an Instance Dungeon had been removed.

Empty was implying that Lu Li wasn't a match for Hornet's Nest and would be killed by him.

Hornet's Nest: What do you think gives you the right to take up his issues by yourself?

Hornet's Nest's words were impolite, but they weren't without reason. Although Seventh Heaven couldn't compare to the Blood Red War Flag in recruiting elite players, they were far superior to guilds like the Imperial Secret Service. No matter how strong Lu Li was, he would suffer quite a lot from going against their guild.

Lu Li: Well, I'm first in the Level Rankings, so I doubt that anyone can catch up to me within a few days. That should give me quite a bit of time to kill Seventh Heaven's top players. Does that give me the right?

Lu Li's words were equally impolite and were filled with bloodlust. Although he looked quite calm and relaxed most of the time, it seemed that he had a scary side as well.

Before the third update, this kind of threat wouldn't have been very scary. After all, dying didn't have much of an EXP penalty.

However, the third update brought great changes to the EXP penalties. Although there was no longer an EXP penalty for dying in Instance Dungeons, the EXP penalty for dying in the wilderness was increased. Dying brought a 30% EXP penalty, while being revived only incurred a 10% EXP penalty. If a player was attacked by another player, they would not be allowed to revive, which meant that they would automatically lose 30% of their EXP bar upon death.

Hornet's Nest was very clear about this. It would be no problem for a PVP expert like him to trick the other side into attacking first, unless they adamantly refused to fight at all.

Empty: Goddamn. What gives you the right to threaten Hornet's Nest?

Hornet's Nest didn't have a good temper, but he was a veteran in the North Sea Kindergarten. Empty liked to joke around, but he would always stand with Hornet's Nest. Moreover, it was quite audacious for Lu Li to speak to a veteran like this.

Hornet's Nest: Of course he has the right. We fought last night and I lost.

One had to admit that Hornet's Nest was quite straightforward and honest. He didn't try to hide the fact that he had lost at all.

Empty: !!

Green Flag Wine: !!

Blood Dagger: !!

Wild: !!

Everlasting Regret: !!

Twilight: !!

Midnight Ghost: !!

Windchaser Sickle: !!

The originally quiet chat room instantly became lively.

A countless number of legendary names began to talk. Any normal PVP player who saw so many famous players would probably die from the excitement.

Even Lu Li was unable to stay calm. All of the players that he had admired in his 'past life' had all been sent into a frenzy by him.

Water Fairy: What's so extraordinary about that? He beat me as well.

Moonlight: I've already lost twice.

Wild: Holy crap, fight a round with me!

Blood Dagger: We're both Thieves, so I should fight him first.

Midnight Ghost: Losers should go away. Come, fight with me. We'll see who's the strongest Thief.

Everlasting Regret: This lowly one remains unconvinced. How about I test the waters first?

Lu Li: If you let Sesame Rice Ball join my Permanent Party, I'll owe a favour to Seventh Heaven.

Hornet's Nest: Alright, but you have to fight with me again. If you win, don't worry about the favour. If you lose, don't try to force this matter again.

Lu Li: Tonight.

Hornet's Nest: Deal.

After exiting from the chat room, Lu Li rubbed his head and cut off the chattering Azure Sea Breeze.

"Sesame Rice Ball's matter has been taken care of, so don't worry. At the very least, the Seventh Heaven won't openly make things difficult for him."

The Great Thief

Chapter 145: Two New Members

After exiting from the chat room, Lu Li rubbed his head and cut off Azure Sea Breeze.

"Sesame Rice Ball's matter is pretty much concluded, so don't worry. At the very least, the Seventh Heaven won't openly make things difficult for him."

"Ah, Why? What happened?" Azure Sea Breeze choked.

"I'll tell you when we're there."

Lu Li ended the conversation, not wanting to hear anymore from him.

After the 3rd system update, a large influx of players had joined the game. However, the population of Astrana had somehow decreased by a significant amount.

When new players joined, the game decided to increase the benefits in the Novice Village to help and encourage them. Many higher-level players also returned to Novice Village for the benefits.

Established guilds took this opportunity to bring in new members, so that they could increase their population and their fame. The Instance-Dungeon-Pioneering Guilds, however, continued onwards and advanced into further dungeons.

After the 1st update, Asian Server had more than 10,000 players. This rose to more than a few millions in the 2nd update, and after the 3rd update, the population had skyrocketed to more than a hundred million.

The top players had all come from this group of new beginners.

After the system update, many new shops opened in Astrana, which made the game even more realistic.

Tuesday Jewellery Shop entered Dawn and offered a 20% discount on accessories both in and outside of the game.

'Versace Equipment Shop: Best Designs with the Best Stats' were advertising for a product spokesperson in game who had to be within the top 100 of the Level Rankings.

'The luxurious Four Season Hotel, wishing to provide you the best accommodation in Dawn.'

The Four Season Hotel was where they planned to meet up. Lu Li saw the LED advertisement above him and let out a sigh. The possibilities of the Dawn were limitless; he already knew that the game would become more ridiculous and extravagant.

Some people had even built a zoo, which featured different animals and monsters inside the game.

"How many people sir?" the waiter politely asked. It was obvious that he was well-trained and professional.

"I'm with someone. Room number 7."

Lu Li thanked him and walked confidently into Room 7.

The design of the room was quite simple and had a medieval feel to it.

There were many people inside. The regulars were all here, but there were two that Lu Li did not recognize.

One was a very handsome Paladin. It was too bad that he was a guy.

His name was Wandering and he was a friend of Azure Sea Breeze, even though he didn't want to be associated with him.

Wandering was a lazy and arrogant person. When Lu Li entered the room, he remained sitting on the wooden chair and ignored him.

Other than the fact that he was slightly above average in terms of skills and intelligence, he was basically just an arrogant, narcissistic drunk.

The other person was much more normal. Upon seeing Lu Li, he hastily got up and greeted him. He was a small and average looking guy, just like Lu Li had imagined.

"Sesame Rice Ball, right? Hello."

Lu Li extended his arms to greet him and said, "Come join the Mercenary Group. I've taken care of things with the Seventh Heaven."

Azure Sea Breeze had already expected this. Remnant Dream and March Rain also had faith in him. Lonesome Flower didn't even care. Only Wandering was shocked upon hearing the news.

"How did you take care of them by yourself?!"

Wandering knew about Sesame Rice Ball's situation and was confused as to what had happened.

Seventh Heaven would never let the strongest Warlock in their guild leave so easily. Wouldn't they seek revenge?

Perhaps because of Internet Security, Seventh Heaven wouldn't bring things into real life. However, they could easily hire someone to constantly follow and kill whoever messed with them in the game.

Lu Li did not address his question, but extended his arms out to greet him.

"Hello, pretty lady."

"Goddamn you!" Good-looking and narcissistic men were all very sensitive to being called 'pretty lady', because they were worried that they would never be able to find a girl who looked better than themselves.

He didn't care if others called him good looking. It was only being called a 'pretty lady' that really triggered him.

"Sea Breeze, I thought that the people that you recommend were all reliable. How come this guy is a sissy?" Lu Li's insult was not directed towards Wandering, but was actually meant to annoy Azure Sea Breeze.

"Ohhh, so it was you that wanted to me to join. Have you forgiven me?" Wandering asked teasingly. He was smart enough to know that Lu Li was joking about calling him a sissy and was more surprised about the fact that Azure Sea Breeze had recommended him.

"Lu Li, I'm strongly against him joining. I don't get along with him at all. What if I accidentally chop him in half one day?"

Azure Sea Breeze stood up as he took out his one-handed axe.

"What do you guys have against each another?"

Lu Li already knew the answer to question, but he asked anyway. Sometimes, conflict could be solved by talking it out.

"None of your business. I just don't want to see him," Azure Sea Breeze said weakly, unwilling to settle their differences.

"Yo, get over yourself."

Wandering didn't have a good temper either. He slammed his cup onto the table and pointed at Azure Sea Breeze, shouting, "Goddamit, it was the girl that dumped you. It had nothing to do with me. It's not like I seduced her and stole her away from you."

"Who else is there to blame? It was your fault that you always smiled at her so lewdly. We wouldn't have broken up if it weren't for you."

Azure Sea Breeze smashed his axe onto the table and prepared to settle things with Wandering.

Lu Li found a stool and decided to watch the drama unfold.

Remnant Dream whispered to March Rain, narrating a love triangle drama that involved blood, tears and murder to her.

Lonesome Flower death-stared Remnant Dream and pulled her aside.

"I went to look for Hornet Nest before. Your troubles are somewhat resolved for now."

Lu Li added Sesame Rice Ball to his friends and privately messaged him.

"Hornet Nest!" Sesame Rice Ball was surprised. "Can you tell me how you solved it?" he asked.

It was true that Hornet's Nest was considered the No.1 Warlock in game. However, he specialized in PVE.

"I will fight him tonight. The deal was that if I win, they would stop bothering you," Lu Li said casually.

"This is what you called resolved?!" Sesame Rice Ball thought that Lu Li was crazy.

"If I could beat him yesterday, I can beat him today," Lu Li said confidently.

The Great Thief

Chapter 146: Making the Mercenary Group like Home

Sesame Rice Ball fell silent.

He wasn't very fond of the Xin Xin Mercenary Group.

Mercenary Groups could not level up and it did not have the benefits of a Guild. No one in their right mind would prefer a Mercenary Group over a Guild.

In a multiplayer game as big as Dawn, battles and wars would involve millions of players.

What could a small Mercenary Group do against millions of people?

Everyone had ambitions and dreams to be the best. Sesame Rice Ball's ambition was to be an extremely well-known player in the game.

However, because he was from Seventh Heaven, no other guilds had reached out for him to join.

Small guilds wouldn't even think about it, while the bigger guilds were worried about potentially offending Seventh Heaven.

Xin Xin Mercenary Group was the first to send him an invitation.

If it weren't for the invitation coming from Azure Sea Breeze, who was the number one main tank in Dawn, Sesame Rice Ball wouldn't even have considered joining the group.

And now, for the sake of assuring Sesame Rice Ball, Lu Li was willing to fight Hornet's Nest.

He suddenly felt a sense of warmth and recognition from the others and began thinking that maybe joining the group wouldn't be such a bad idea…

"Fine, I'll join the Mercenary Group, just for tonight..."

"From now on we'll just call you Rice Ball. You don't have to worry about the fight tonight. I am quite confident."

Lu Li had defeated Hornet's Nest without any background information about him. With the extra experience from last time, it would be embarrassing for him to lose.

Lu Li's confidence was almost contagious; Sesame Rice Ball began feeling reassured and calm.

"Are you guys done fighting?!" Lu Li interrupted.

"It's either me or him," Azure Sea Breeze declared.

"Have you not heard of the phrase 'bros before hoes'? Is that too difficult for you to understand?" Lu Li thought that it was pointless to continue arguing. Besides, he was in a hurry to complete his profession upgrade.

"Goddamit, easy for you to say. This is the 7th time that this guy has ruined my relationship. How would you feel if the same thing happened every time?" Azure Sea Breeze asked, almost tearing up.

"…I guess I can't empathize." Lu Li was speechless.

"That's because you're ugly. Haha, if only you were as good-looking as I am, you wouldn't have been dumped so many times. Stop wasting your time on girls that don't love you back."

Wandering's sharp and clever comments made Azure Sea Breeze see red.

In reality, he knew he was being unreasonable, but he just didn't want to admit it.

Azure Sea Breeze was actually quite decent looking himself. Despite this, ever since he was little, all the girls he had dated had fell for Wandering's charming looks.

He wanted a normal life, so he considered cutting contact from Wandering. However, he was stuck with him all the way from kindergarten to university, and now even in games.

"Alright, we'll solve this later, Sea Breeze," Lu Li said.

"You'll find the one that'll love you and cherish you for who you are one day."

Maybe one day…

Azure Sea Breeze had nothing else to say.

"Let's talk business then; how much is the monthly pay?" Wandering wanted to the get formalities out of the way.

"There's no set pay, but gear is evenly distributed. Whoever needs the gear can take it. If no one needs it, then it is sold for gold and shared equally among everyone," Lu Li said honestly.

"Sea Breeze you bastard. This group is such a joke. I thought a team that had taken so many First Clears would be more awesome," Wandering said to Azure Sea Breeze, who was still mad and ignored him.

"If you have any suggestions, you can bring them up."

Lu Li knew the value that Wandering brought to the team and asked him sincerely.

"I thought my bro was the team leader," Wandering muttered.

Anyone could tell that the heart and soul of this Mercenary Group was Lu Li.

"He is the team leader. Normally, I don't care too much and play the game solo most of the time," Lu Li explained and continued, "I only take the rare materials from Instance Dungeons; everything else is split amongst everyone."

"What do you do with the rare materials?" Wandering was surprised.

"The gear in the later levels all require rare materials. Storing them now would be beneficial in the future," Lu Li replied.

"How much rare material have you stored up?" Wandering initially thought that the Mercenary Group was meaningless. However, after hearing their insights and future plans, he realised that they were more than just a bunch of idiots.

"Twenty-seven rare materials all together. We have a large variety and haven't sold any."

Lu Li always notified his team mates when he needed to use the rare materials.

Twenty-seven?!

Wandering was stunned by this number.

Not all bosses dropped rare materials. Even though Wild bosses had a higher chance of dropping rare materials, it was difficult to them loot before other people.

Most of the big guilds probably didn't even have that many.

"Wait, those materials belong to Lu Li and have nothing to do with me," Azure Sea Breeze interrupted.

"I said it was for everyone."

Lu Li wasn't planning on taking them all for himself. Even though he contributed the most in obtaining these rare materials, he still couldn't have done it alone.

Camaraderie was the most important thing in a team. Lu Li had to make sure that everyone received the same benefits.

"The materials have nothing to do with us."

Lonesome Flower wasn't very fond of Wandering either and said, "We couldn't have completed the Instance Dungeons without Lu Li, so we're content with EXP and equipment as rewards. Receiving rare materials as well is just asking too much."

Wandering didn't feel bad at all and said excitedly, "If Lu Li contributed the most in these Instance Dungeons, then I'm guessing that Lu Li is an Instance Dungeon expert."

"Older brother Lu Li is the best; there is no Instance Dungeon that's too hard for us!" Remnant Dream backed up Lu Li.

"It's great that we have an Instance Dungeon expert, but the way you guys split the rewards is too unfair. How is everyone else supposed to make money?" Wandering inquired as touched his face. "Don't think of me as a greedy guy, but you guys aren't looking at the bigger picture."

"Stop pretending," Azure Sea Breeze said casually.

"Multiplayer games have more and more opportunities to make money. A reasonable and fair reward system based on performance promotes the production of all team members. I can't believe you guys split the rewards equally. It's just unfair," Wandering said.

Azure Sea Breeze went silent. He had also mentioned that splitting the rewards evenly was unfair. However, he couldn't come up with a way that would make everyone happy.

"There are many opportunities to make money. This Mercenary Group is not like those cold-hearted companies that take advantage of their employees. Rather, I want us to be more like family and friends."

Lu Li shook his head, disagreeing with Wandering. However, he knew deep down that Wandering was right.

The Great Thief

Chapter 147: Madman's Quest

"A home, huh. Haha…" Wandering was habitually about to lash out, but he held back. He had been moved by what Lu Li had said.

He didn't have much ambition, unlike the high school players such as Sesame Rice Ball. He, like Azure Sea Breeze, was facing graduation, but wasn't looking around for a job.

He just wanted an easy life, where he didn't need to worry about money.

"It's not like you won't make money either; I've already made over 100,000. You can make more money with us than if you spent your entire life working."

Azure Sea Breeze had already been with Lu Li for a long time. He was currently carrying 300-400 gold and had followed Lu Li's instruction to exchange it before the system update. This gave him exactly 100,000 dollars.

Those searched for internships could only make two to three thousand dollars a month. They also needed to spend some of that for rent and food to get by.

"Our university fees can already be paid," Remnant Dream said as she wrinkled her nose in satisfaction.

When her mother saw the huge sum of money in her account, she nearly called the police. She thought that Remnant Dream had sold herself to make that money.

Remnant Dream had benefitted the most out of this group. Her equipment set was considered to be one of the best in the game, her level was higher than most tycoons and she had even made tens of thousands of dollars.

Lu Li took good care of his core party members. He usually never took any of the monetary earnings, bought the supplies, and sometimes would even buy good equipment or recipes them.

It was all supposedly a repayment!

He had borrowed money from them for the Snake Trust Grass business at the start of the year. At the time, everyone had happily given him the money as a gift. He had not only paid them back, but still also continued to give them compensation.

Other than Remnant Dream and Azure Sea Breeze, Lonesome Flower and his sister had also made a lot of money.

Sesame Rice Ball's head was lowered and his pride was shattered.

Even this little girl had made so much money already. He was Seventh Heaven's number on Warlock. For the sake of building him up, they had spent ten to twenty thousand dollars on him. Even so, he hadn't been able to earn even a dime to make ends meet.

"Lu Li, I'm really curious to know how much you've earned. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to though."

Wandering had been hit hard today but he was too curious to not ask.

"One million."

Lu Li was hesitant, but answered anyway.

"What?!" Not only did this shock the newcomers, it also startled the original members. Azure Sea Breeze's $100,000 was already an eye-opener, but Lu Li's $1 million was something else entirely.

The others didn't feel jealous; they instead knew that their future was going to be even better. Lu Li wasn't someone who would enjoy all of his earnings by himself.

"Alright, I won't ask for much. If I can make $20,000 a month, I'll be content."

Wandering didn't probe much further in fear that they might not want to accept him into the group.

Azure Sea Breeze accepted Sesame Rice Ball into the group first, before contemptuously accepting Wandering.

"Like you said, you'll get your $20,000 per month. You will now live a life with a month salary of $20,000."

"Get out of here. We'll talk about the future some other time. We now have seven people, but we need three more to attempt the Howling Caves," Wandering said.

"Do you have any good candidates?" Lu Li asked.

"Wait a minute," Remnant Dream interrupted and weakly asked, "Can I recommend someone?"

"Uh…." Lu Li didn't dare to accept too easily.

Having one rookie was enough. Remnant Dream was strong – she had a party buff, a high damage pet and good equipment. She could output higher DPS than the average members of an elite team.

However, if they got another rookie, the later Instance Dungeons would be very difficult.

Instance Dungeons demanded teamwork, which was difficult with too many rookies.

"Dreamy, you better not compromise our group," Azure Sea Breeze said bitterly, ready to dismiss her.

"Nooo, Hachi Chan is much stronger than I am. She has three Silver equips."

The moment that she said this, Remnant Dream covered her mouth. Her good friend had told her a million times not to tell anyone that.

"Three silvers?!" The other players didn't dare believe it. Azure Sea Breeze had one, Lonesome Flower had two, March Rain had one, Sesame Rice Ball had one and Wandering had none.

"Hachi Chan…" Lu Li wasn't surprised at the three Silver equipment, but at the familiarity of the name.

In his previous life, he had really enjoyed reading strategy guides. Of the strategy guides that were worth reading, Hachi Chan had authored many of them.

She was a mysterious girl who enjoyed and would accept any kind of quest. However, she was a little crazy about it – she would travel for many days just to do a small quest.

What was staggering was her luck; she was able to receive many quests in the course of a few days. She even received a number of hidden quests.

Hachi Chan then slowly became popular on the forums, as she enjoyed writing strategy guides and was happy to share them with everyone.

For her, obtaining the three silvers wouldn't have been impossible. Lu Li guessed that she had probably ended up doing some chain Quests. These kinds of quests were boring, requiring patience and luck to complete.

She was clearly not lacking in these two areas.

"Alright, seeing as she is your friend, you can invite her directly."

Lu Li nodded and promised to add her to the group.

Hachi Chan was a Druid. She could heal, restore mana and also had decent strength.

It didn't really matter if the party was a little disorganized. Having Remnant Dream already made things a little chaotic, so adding Hachi Chan probably wouldn't change too much.

"Big brother Lu Li, you're great. My friend will not disappoint you."

Wandering and Rice Ball had just joined so they didn't really have a say. The others didn't have an opinion on it either. Regardless, Remnant Dream had already happily reported this decision to her friend.

"Does anyone else have any friends?" Lu Li asked.

He couldn't show favoritism; he didn't want to specifically only recruit experts anyway. If someone had a reliable friend, they could be invited to the group.

Everyone looked at each other before shaking their heads. Even if they did have a good friend, they would need to make sure that he/she was suitable for the Xin Xin Mercernary Group. Lu Li's secrets couldn't just be revealed to anyone.

However, Remnant Dream's mental capacity was limited and couldn't comprehend such a complex problem.

Fortunately, the person that she had suggested was decent. The fact that Lu Li had been content with the suggestion was entirely accidental.

"Alright then, we can continue recruiting slowly. We are now almost all at the same level. Once Hachi Chan gets here, we can start talking about upgrading our professions."

Lu Li ordered a cup of wine and sipped it slowly.

The Great Thief

Chapter 148: Sharing

Lu Li didn't drink in real life, but drinking in the game wasn't taboo. You could become drunk in the game, however, it was only a brief nervous stimulation. It was not harmful to health, nor would it result in any nerve damage.

After waiting for over 10 minutes, Hachi Chan still hadn't arrived.

"Go and ask your friend what's happening," Lu Li urged Remnant Dream. Although waiting for a lady was a gentlemanly thing to do, there were no gentlemen here.

"She's probably lost; I'll go look for her," Remnant Dream said as she nodded and rushed. She could be heard in the distance loudly talking into her communicator, asking where Hachi Chan was and what kind of landmarks were around her.

Lu Li remained calm, but the others' expressions were dark. They already had a bad impression of this new player.

"Take this. Look at your rotten equipment," Azure Sea Breeze said as he threw a paladin equip at Wandering while ridiculing his equipment.

Wandering didn't mind the insult and happily put on the equip. He rubbed his hands together and said, "The attributes are good and so is the style. This is only just worthy of my face."

Of all of the players, Sesame Rice Ball's complexion was the darkest. It was as though he were filled with black sesame paste. He began to wonder if the Xin Xin Mercernary group had any normal people.

Out of the core players, there was one who wanted the make the Mercenary group a home, a slightly foolish leader and an unworthy little hunter. The one called March Rain appeared to be normal, but the brother who always stood by her made them an unusual sibling combination.

The new paladin looked like a transsexual and was a maddening narcissist.

The final player who was about to arrive had three Silver equipment, but a poor sense of direction and was currently lost in the city of Astrana.

If they went out to the wild and came back to find that they had lost a player, it would certainly be her.

As he was thinking this, Remnant Dream came in, dragging a girl behind her. The vulnerable, little hunter seemed like she had suddenly grown up. She was walking and rambling at the girl, "Next time don't just randomly walk around in an unfamiliar place; there are bad people in games too…"

In fact, the girl she was dragging was actually half a head taller than Remnant Dream. However, she had a confused look and walked into the room absentmindedly.

"Hachi Chan, do you agree to join our Mercenary Group?" Her name was a little awkward to say, but Lu Li didn't mind. He could still accommodate for her.

The girl's confused eyes widened, but weren't focused. Lu Li then repeated himself before she responded, "If I join, will you help me do quests?"

Lu Li glanced at the others before nodding and replying, "Sure thing, but you'll have to wait for times when we are not doing Instance Dungeons."

"Alright then, I'll join. Thank you for accepting me."

Azure Sea Breeze added the new member while Remnant Dream pulled Hachi Chan onto a seat. Lu Li then began to talk about the profession upgrade.

Level 15 players were now very, very common. Countless people had attempted the profession upgrade quest, however, they had all failed.

Not a single person had completed the quest.

The failure of this quest was costly; it wasn't as simple as having to redo it again. After leaving the story quest, the player's current EXP would drop to zero and they would also be unable to re-attempt the quest for three days.

Upon seeing so many people fail, everyone else had started to be more cautious. They were no longer fussed about receiving the first 100 profession upgrade reward.

"The first thing is equipment. If you don't have more than half a full set of LV10 Steel equipment, you will have no chance in completing the quest…" Lu Li explained, according to what he had read in the forums and from his past experience.

"What about priests?" March Rain was the most worried. She only had heals and no damage skills. She simply didn't waste any skill points on damage output.

"Dawn will still test healing professions. After you enter, you will need to choose a follower from any profession. A good choice will increase your chances of completing the quest."

"What should I choose?" March Rain was blindly following Lu Li's words.

"For a Priest, the best choice for damage output is the Paladin. With your supporting heals, a Paladin can produce the highest damage out of any profession. Once you've chosen the Paladin, the system will then generate a few options for you. Here, you just need to choose the one with the highest attack. Don't worry about their HP."

In reality, she could also pick Warrior. However, the system's warrior was aggressive and did not provide sufficient protection for the player. The healing player could easily be killed by a group of small monsters.

"If a Priest should choose a Paladin, then should a Paladin choose a Priest?" Wandering was initially disinterested in Lu Li's so-called analysis, but after hearing his explanation for March Rain, he thought that it might actually be a little tricky.

"You would be correct in doing so, but because you have put some points into defence, it would be best for you to pick a Shadow Priest. This profession can heal and provide some damage output. If they have a shield skill, that would be even better," Lu Li said.

"I hear that your upgraded profession is determined after you complete the test. What advice do you have in this regard?" Wandering really knew how to pander to people.

"Depending on your performance in the story quest, you will receive three options. If you can, you should pick Death Raider. Most Paladins will pick this path. Otherwise, you should pick Defence Raider. Death Raider isn't actually that much better than Defence Raider. It just has a slight higher attack."

Lu Li wasn't God; he didn't know what kind of professions the system would present.

One by one, Lu Li gave them advice for their professions – even Sesame Rice Ball. Lu Li suggested that he pick a Shaman or Druid to heal him.

Finally, Lu Li added, "This quest is a test of patience, so don't take it too quickly. If there is a chance to rest, you should take it. Finally, don't worry too much about your followers. If they die, you can go back and re-elect them. If you aren't happy with your followers, you can just let them die…"

Lu Li's final piece of advice was unusual. Many players had failed because they refused to put their followers in danger and ended up dying themselves.

"Everyone's quest will be a story quest. I'll now go through some forum posts and analyze them; maybe that would be helpful in the future."

Lu Li took many examples from the forums and analyzed them one at a time. He discussed what they should do if they encountered such situations.

He couldn't guarantee that everyone from the Mercenary Group would finish their quest, but this could increase the chances of their success.

As long as they understood Lu Li's explanations, the chance of success was actually quite high. Lu Li was even confident of Remnant Dream because of her pet.

The Great Thief

Chapter 149: Profession Upgrade Quest

After the meeting was dismissed, Lu Li left and everyone else went to farm.

The original members weren't surprised, while Wandering and Rice Ball didn't care. As Remnant Dream dragged Hachi Chan away, she waved at Lu Li and said, "Help me with my quest if you're free. It's a very difficult quest."

Lu Li had gained yet another fan. Hachi Chan admired him because his explanations of the quest were very thorough. He was like an encyclopedia.

There was no rush to do the Instance Dungeons. After the system update, the daily refresh of Instance Dungeons had now been changed. Regular difficulty still refreshed daily, but the other difficulties only refreshed once a week. Elite Difficulty refreshed every Tuesday, the Difficult-Level refreshed every Thursday and if there was a Nightmare Difficulty, it would refresh every Saturday.

The Wild Bosses didn't have a specific refresh time, but it was roughly once per week as well.

The goal of the game company was to create a universally fun game; they didn't want players to spend all of their time doing Instance Dungeons.

Lu Li knew this before anyone else, but he couldn't do much about it. This change wasn't necessarily bad for the players – there would be more players practicing their Trade Skills.

Lu Li bid farewell to the others and decided to do his Profession Upgrade Quest. He was confident that he would succeed. In his previous life, he had managed to get his Druid profession upgrade at LV18. His equipment then wasn't even close to what he had now.

Other people had failed because they lacked experience.

With such an extensive knowledge of Quest Strategy, there was no point in waiting until LV20 to attempt it.

Once he successfully upgraded his profession, he would be able to guarantee a win against Hornet's Nest later that night. The profession upgrade wasn't just a simple change; there were many practical things that were changed as well.

Depending on how the tasks were completed, there would be a reward of two to five skill points and one to three skills. If the player was one of the first 100 to successfully complete the quest, they would additionally receive a large EXP bonus. Lu Li could reach LV19 or higher if he completed it.

Astrana's Profession Upgrade NPC was an Elven Elder that resided in the Mercenary Hall.

The Mercenary Hall was one of the liveliest places in Dawn. Players could post or take quests from here. The system would then determine the rewards based on the difficulty of the quest. These quests were actually no different from regular NPC quests.

"Please pay five gold coins."

The old wizard kindly smiled and gave Lu Li a pen.

Lu Li obediently took out the money; this amount was dispensable to him. After confirmation, he was sent to the quest map.

It was a swamp!

Lu Li had never heard of this map. Not only was the sky dark, lightning flashed across it and a continuous rumbling could be heard. Venomous bugs darted between the stalks of watery grass.

A man with an NPC's cloak was standing on high ground. He had a white beard and was carrying a Magic Staff. He was most likely a Control Mage.

"Dear Elder, I have come to accept the test."

Lu Li stepped onto the mud in front of him and began talking.

"It is too late to go back now. My test is not a simple one."

The old elf raised his head to reveal a dry, wrinkled face. He had an exhausted and impatient demeanor about him, after guarding this station for so long.

"For the sake of my race and the glory of Elune, I am willing to give it my all."

After speaking these words, the wizard's face softened. He paused before asking, "This is too dangerous. Do you need a companion to help?"

"Of course."

The system prompted Lu Li that accepting the help of a companion would increase the difficulty of the quest by 50%. He didn't calculate the exact gains or losses of this move, but he didn't hesitate to accept the help.

You didn't really need a companion to complete the quest. If this were a familiar map, Lu Li might not have accepted the help. Completing it solo would result in a higher score, but ultimately, finishing it mattered most.

With such a strange map before him, he chose the safer option.

The old wizard the asked Lu Li what profession he wanted his helper to be. The system presented him with a list of options.

Lu Li browsed the list before selecting Druid.

The old elf pulled out some magical materials from his bag and placed them methodically on the ground. After a lengthy spell, six Druids appeared. This was two more than the four that Lu Li had expected.

It seemed that getting the old wizard's goodwill yielded a certain advantage.

Lu Li studied the followers, reading the attributes displayed by the system.

The first was a partial defensive type. Pass.

The second was a damage output type. However, its attributes were too weak and it only had a few skills. It wouldn't be much of a help. Pass.

The third was a pure healing type. Lu Li needed survivability, not a babysitter.

The fourth had pretty good attributes, but it was also a partial defensive type. It was essentially a meat wall. Other players might have liked this one, but Lu Li wasn't satisfied.

However, if the remaining two were bad, he would have to choose the fourth one.

Lu Li sighed and looked at the fifth.

The fifth…

Elite!

This was actually an Elite Follower.

Lu Li pointed at the Elite and did not hesitate in saying to the old elf, "Respected Control Mage, thank you for your generosity. I have found my adventure companion."

The last one also had good attributes, but it simply could not compare to the Elite. There was nothing it had that was even within the same range.

"Well, little guy, may the glory of the moon shine upon you. Go forth, find Rennesak and bring me his head." After saying this, the old elf turned and vanished without a trace.

Lu Li stepped towards with his follower into the swamp.

He immediately concealed himself with Stealth; only the footprints in the grass remained. Seeing that Lu Li had gone into Stealth, the follower turned into a Cheetah and also entered Stealth.

Not only did the Elites have high HP and Defence, but they also had strong skills as well.

The most common skill of the other followers was the healing skill 'Tree Sap'. Having seven skills was already quite decent for a follower. However, the Elite Follower had a full 12 skills. It had just turned into a Cheetah and gone into Stealth, being able to perfectly coordinate with Lu Li's actions to minimize the chance of encountering other monsters.

The Great Thief

Chapter 150: Amazing Drop Rate

Lu Li's original speed was quite fast. Although he was slowed down by Stealth, he was still much faster than the regular followers. However, this Elite Druid's speed was increased by the Cheetah Transformation, allowing it to easily keep up with Lu Li.

With countless number of monsters hidden in the mud, it was impossible to avoid them all.

After a few minutes, a monster drilled out of the ground in front of Lu Li. This led to the first battle in his trial.

Muddy Swamp Monster, LV20.

It was tall, had good defense and used poison attacks. Technically speaking, it was an elemental and was very sensitive to movement. Many players who had faced this monster in their quest were killed by it.

Lu Li didn't try to save any of his skills. He immediately used his cloak's special effect to dodge the Swamp Monster's attack and appeared behind it. He then stunned it and attacked with full force!

The moment he started hitting the target, the Druid follower cast Starfire, which dealt an impressive amount of damage.

The Elite was much stronger than a normal follower.

The Swamp Monster quickly fell. Lu Li hurriedly picked up its loot and ran away.

If he didn't run away, he would basically be asking to die. He knew better than anyone how dangerous this place was, even if he was unfamiliar with it.

When he was sufficiently far away, Lu Li looked back. The place where he had fought the Swamp Monster was now teeming with them.

The wilderness was endless and there were no constellations in the sky, so it was difficult to make out any sort of direction. Fortunately, the Druid follower could provide directions to him. Otherwise, he would have been lost here forever.

Occasionally, there would be puddles in the ground. Lu Li had now fallen into these puddles twice, and was now uncomfortably wet and covered in mud.

Soldiering on, he wiped the mud off his face and silently continued.

As a professional player, he couldn't worry about things like this!

After an hour of walking, he had tallied up over a dozen encounters. Most of them were harmless, except for the two Elite snakes he had fought. They had a potent venom which rendered the Intermediate Antidote useless. However, the Druid was able to heal him.

Lu Li tried to give some bread to the Druid Follower, but was unsurprisingly rejected.

Followers couldn't use a player's items; this was enforced by the system. Lu Li had to stop and allow its passive regeneration to restore its mana.

He had originally intended to kill some other players to increase his score. However, the map had been completely empty for the entire hour he had been in it. He couldn't kill anyone even if he wanted to.

There had to be something wrong.

However, in reality, the truth was simple—he had been assigned to a difficult map.

According to the system's identification protocols, Lu Li belonged to an S-rank map. Moreover, this was a particularly difficult S-rank map.

The number of players who were assigned to this map was very small - not even one percent of the population.

In a dozen days, maps in this category would stop being selected, as no one had ever successfully completed them. In the future, no one would ever see these maps again.

A high risk usually meant an extraordinary harvest. When Lu Li picked up the loot from an Elite monster, he decided not to rush back out.

A Lightning Mark!

This was something that could only be dropped by LV20 or higher Wild Bosses. However, because of these Elite monsters, Lu Li already had two.

The drop rate was incredibly high.

Lu Li issued a command to his follower to break out of Stealth and step into the swamp waters.

A Swamp Leech crawled out of the mud and sprayed a water arrow at the Druid Follower. The Druid immediately transformed to its original form and started to fight back.

The Swamp Leech didn't move very quickly. Before it got close to the Druid Follower, Lu Li was already Stealthed behind it.

The fight had to be quick; he couldn't stay in one place for too long as he would be surrounded and overwhelmed. The ants here were like elephants and most monsters were LV20 Elites.

Besides having a poison, the Swamp Leech also applied a painful slow.

After a minute or so, it was killed by Lu Li and his follower.

A Strengthening Stone!

This was also another LV20 Boss drop. Bosses below LV20 only had a very small chance of dropping this on their First Clear.

Perhaps it was because of Leech's thick blood, but by the time Lu Li had picked up the Strengthening Stone, there were already four or five other monsters approaching them.

This was no problem for them!

They both transformed into Cheetahs and quickly lost their pursuers.

Just like this, Lu Li continued to farm monsters. After three hours, not only did he find 5 rare materials, but he also had three Strengthening Stones and two LV15 Steel equipment.

After his last encounter, he ran hundreds of yards before stopping.

He only had half his HP remaining and the Druid's mana was also very low. Deciding against healing himself, he took out a piece of bread and regenerated the HP.

The Druid's mana automatically regenerated; he could save some money in that regard.

Just as he sat down, he felt a slight wind behind his head.

Cheap Shot!

The high-speed, air-slashing sound was all too familiar. Lu Li even heard it sometimes in his dreams.

Without any hesitation, he plunged into the mud in front of him.

After getting up, Lu Li immediately commanded the Druid to freely fight. Another Thief appeared and crowd controlled it, then started to attack.

The follower who was attacking the Druid was most likely a regular one, as its attack was not very high.

This was the clever combination of the double Thief.

Lu Li wiped the mud off his face and immediately used his Cloak's effect to move behind the Thief player.

The Thief player was shocked. He had considered countless possibilities, but none of them involved Lu Li's ability to dodge Cheap Shot.

When attacked with Cheap Shot, the usual response of a player was to turn around. Although this wouldn't avoid the skill, it would lessen its effect.

Lu Li was the first player he had ever seen to react so late and still dodge Cheap Shot.

By the time he was able to react, the circumstance had already drastically changed. Lu Li disappeared and reappeared behind him. This was the perfect Cheap Shot.

Four second stun!

The Thief Follower that was attacking the Druid rushed to save its master. However, the Druid raised its hand and a cluster of vines rose from the ground, tightly entangling its opponent. It then ignored the tangled opponent and attacked the Thief player with Lu Li.

In this mirror matchup, the Thief with weaker equipment simply did not have the power to fight back. When he finally realized that he was dead, the System had already prompted him of his failure.

System: Killed a competitor, increased evaluation score by 3 points.

Unfortunately, this map wasn't small enough; he had only met one player so far. Lu Li was unable to use PVP to effectively increase his score.

The Great Thief

Chapter 151: Killing Other Players To Earn Points

The guy who had failed to land Cheap Shot on Lu Li gave him a wakeup call. This was not a solo game; a small probability did not mean an impossibility. He hadn't been attacked by an expert this time, but next time, he might not get off so easy.

He put away his relaxed state of mind and started to be more cautious, trying to stay in Stealth for as possible and forgoing rest.

From when he had entered the map until now, it had been five hours. Lu Li finally saw something outside the swamp – a towering tree.

This was no exaggeration at all; the tree truly did tower over the swamp.

Not many people had been here before. Before this, the tallest tree he had seen was probably Nordrassil on the summit of Mount Hyjal – also known as the World Tree.

Nordrassil was very tall and was almost half as tall as Mount Hyjal itself.

However, compared to the tree before him, Nordrassil was a small sapling.

G'Hanir!

Lu Li, who had read countless Azeroth Lore books, suddenly remembered a name.

The moment he remembered, he was even more confused.

How could it be G'Hanir!?

G'Hanir was the mother tree of Azeroth, with the seeds of every other tree. This tree was paradise for all birds and winged creatures; even dragons would choose to spend the rest of their lives here.

However, it had long been destroyed and its guardian, the Crow Demigod Avena, had fallen in the Ancient War.

Lu Li looked at the seemingly endless crowns of G'Hanir, the numerous creatures flying over its canopy and the multitude of lights lingering on the branches. He then finally understood that he was in a fantasy map.

Mother Tree G'Hanir was not his goal and neither was Crow Demigod Avena.

However, upon seeing G'Hanir and thinking of the Crow Demigod Avena, he remembered the goal of his quest – Rennesak.

Rennesak was actually a Night Elf. Speaking of him necessarily involved Avena.

In the beginning, Avena was a crow who lived on her mother, G'Hanir. She gained a some divine power because of her closeness to G'Hanir, but she was still a regular crow.

However, Avena was lucky; she found Elune's favour and became the messenger of Elune.

Being a divine messenger wasn't at all a complicated job. Her duty was just to help Elune send information to the Demigod Cenarius.

Not long after, Avena also began sending information for other demigods as well, receiving praise for her speed and integrity. As a reward, the demigods gave her more power to help her complete her missions more efficiently. Eventually, Avena herself became one of them—a demigod.

Who says that being a courier has no future? There was Li ZiCheng in the real world and Avena in the virtual one.

When the Ancient War broke out, Avena would sometimes take the form of a mortal and guide the humans and elves who were being chased by the Apocalypse Guards.

At this time, a traitor appeared. His name was Rennesak.

No one knows why Rennesak became corrupted, but that didn't matter. He used his ability to determine the whereabouts of Avena and quietly passed this information to the Apocalypse Guards.

A large demon force then concentrated their attacks on the messenger Demigod. An Apocalypse Guard's spear eventually pierced the body of Avena and sprayed her blood over the earth. Those of the Burning Legion that came into contact with Avena's blood also fell.

This single person had almost destroyed a demigod.

Lu Li's goal was to kill the traitor and return with his skull.

After entering the vicinity of Mother Tree G'Hanir, the environment around Lu Li changed from a muddy swap to the heart of paradise.

He carefully entered Stealth with the Druid, as they slowly and quietly advanced.

"Make your follower heal or everyone is done for!"

"He's out of mana, let's run away…"

"Hey, Light Faction kids, don't even think about leaving!"

He finally heard some voices. Lu Li had seen a few corpses on the way here, but he was now able to see the fight that had left them there. There were three members of the Light Faction and two members of the Evil Faction engaged in fierce combat. Although the Light Faction players had a numbers advantage, they were actually getting beaten down by their opponents.

The Evil Faction side consisted of a Thief and a Warrior with Thief and Paladin Followers, respectively. This was a typical aggressive combination.

Just as Lu Li arrived, the Thief-Warrior team killed an opposing player. Once the player died, their follower immediately disappeared.

The remaining two Light Faction players wouldn't stand a chance. It was a hopelessly one sided situation.

Lu Li didn't go up to help. He wasn't a saint – why would he help these strangers? For the glory of their faction? That sentiment only motivated fools. In reality, of the players killed on these maps, 80% of them were within the same faction.

Yet, another Light Faction player had been killed and the Evil Faction players were still alive. However, the Thief only had a bit of HP remaining, while the Paladin probably didn't have any mana left. He hadn't seen him use any heals; he had only been using his hammer to help deal damage.

The final Light Faction player was also a Paladin. Although he was actually very resistant in PVP battles, seeing his two friends die before his eyes had broken his spirit. He just stood there as he was slaughtered.

The Evil Faction players were completely unaware of Lu Li's presence. It was now time for him to clean up.

Lu Li touched the Evil Faction's Thief and cast Cheap Shot.

The two Evil Faction players weren't standing close together to protect each other. The only thing that they were focused on was increasing their scores.

Lu Li didn't even finish his rotation of skills before he killed the Thief, who dropped a weapon.

The Warrior retreated two steps when he saw Lu Li. He had been very conservative in this battle and his Paladin had been slowly healing him. His HP was almost full, so he was ready to fight.

"Thank God, I've been saved. My HP is low, so let me go. I'll leave this guy to you," the Light Faction Paladin said as turned away and escaped. With this new Thief present, the Warrior couldn't chase after him. As for the Thief, his goal was clearly someone else. He was also a Light Faction player like him.

However, what he thought was wrong. The moment that he turned around, Lu Li's ghost appeared behind him, casting Backstab and Shadowstrike.

"Dammit, are you not human? You don't kill the enemy faction but choose to kill me instead!"

The paladin couldn't do anything due to the stun and could only shout abuse at Lu Li.

He had originally been surrounded by two people with less than half HP. As such, Lu Li was able to quickly take him down with a few skills. He received two points and left the area.

The Warrior wanted to chase him, but he wasn't too keen on it. By the time he had finished hesitating, Lu Li had already finished the fight.

The Great Thief

Chapter 152: A Robbery

That was so quick!

The Warrior's intuition told him that he was in trouble.

Logically speaking, as a plate armored Berserker, he should have a natural advantage against a Thief. He shouldn't be so pessimistic, but seeing how ruthless Lu Li was made his heart feel cold. He had mercilessly killed someone who was already disabled.

"Wait!" the warrior called out to Lu Li, "I am a member of Glory Capital. Today, our guild is attempting this quest map on a large scale. You will encounter even more Glory Capital players…"

"So?" Lu Li was a little surprised.

While ordinary players didn't have the courage to attempt the quest, this didn't mean that guilds didn't have the courage either.

They would organize their players into batches in order to take the first 100 award. This was a good way for a guild to accrue some fame—the first three, successful players would be mentioned in an eye-catching World Announcement.

"It wouldn't be a good idea for you to offend us. There will be a dozen more of us down the road. Why don't we just get along peacefully?" the Warrior asked, as he tried to persuade Lu Li.

"I guess I could let you go. Three rare materials."

Lu Li stretched out three fingers and waved them at him.

The Warrior, who was used to showing of his strength, would never have reduced himself to paying a ransom for his own life. He became angry and immediately attacked Lu Li with the intent to kill him.

"You aren't my enemy. You'll die really quickly," Lu Li reminded him.

"You don't know who will win," the warrior spat, before clenching his teeth.

"Oh, so you don't agree then. That's too bad…"

As Lu Li said this, he disappeared into the shadows.

The Warrior tightened him arms and ordered his Paladin follower to cast Consecration.

Consecration: Instant Cast. 30 second cooldown. Consumes 7% mana. Holy energy is poured into the ground at the caster's feet, dealing 90 damage to anyone who enters the area for 9 seconds.

The damage wasn't too high, but it was enough to stop Thieves from coming close. Lu Li didn't dare to close in on them.

"You're casting Consecration right away, are you that afraid?"

Hearing Lu Li's soft tone in this strange, soul-ridden area was terrifying.

Consecration only lasted 9 seconds and would soon be over. The Warrior would then have to wait 30 seconds before casting it again. However, the crucial matter was whether he would have a second opportunity to do so.

"Throw three rare materials on the ground and you're free to go."

His voice was a like a devil drilling into the warrior's mind.

"How are you even going to kill me?"

The warrior secretly rubbed the sweat from the palm of his hands. He didn't actually have the heart to back up his words.

He definitely wasn't a rookie - he had entered this map quest and had made it out of the swamp.

It wasn't because he was scared to fight either. Lu Li's previous performance was just too insane.

The Thief from before had been showing-off the whole way; his skill-level was about the same as the Warrior's. Otherwise, they wouldn't have decided to work together to overcome their shared obstacles.

As for the Paladin, he was unable to display any his strength. Other than scolding Lu Li, he could only scream like a chicken.

"If I kill you, you will lose a bunch of EXP and drop an item. But most importantly, you won't be able to attempt this quest again for three days."

Lu Li wasn't in a rush to attack. Instead, he tried to persuade the Warrior. If this was in a different setting, he would be like a mentor offering life advice.

"My equipment isn't much worse than yours, and I am a warrior!"

The Warrior had already lost all of his courage, as he attempted to repel Lu Li with his words.

"Your equipment is really good. Are you carrying the Wall Mangler?"

Lu Li glanced at the glowing blue light coming off the Warrior's equipment. The contempt in his heart caused his lips to twitch; this was such a waste of good equipment.

"What's your name? I want to lose fairly and clearly."

The warrior took two steps back and the paladin who was standing behind him followed suit.

"Don't take me for a fool. I know you're trying to stall for reinforcements. That's so cute. The directions on this map are confusing. Even if your companion led the way, there is no way that anyone would find you in such a short time. I'll give you 10 seconds to think about it. After that, your friends will be collecting your corpse," Lu Li mercilessly said, as he appeared behind the Warrior in Stealth and cast Sap on him.

The 20 second stun from Sap was more than enough time to kill the Warrior's follower.

"You despicable person. You said 10 seconds!"

The Warrior had been affected by Sap, but that didn't stop him from speaking.

"I meant that you would be dead in 10 seconds," Lu Li's coldly said, as his daggers fluttered in his hands.

An ordinary follower could only take a few hits; it almost instantly dropped to half health.

"Stop!" the Warrior shouted, "I got it!"

Without a follower, his strength would be greatly reduced. Even if he escaped Lu Li's clutches now, the rest of the quest would be immensely difficult.

"Don't mess with me and don't let the Paladin heal himself."

Lu Li stopped and removed his Stealth. He stood right in front of the Warrior, waiting for him to drop the materials.

"I don't have much rare material," the Warrior said through clenched teeth. He could just cast Charge right now, but he didn't dare to.

Killing Lu Li wouldn't do him much good. The most he would gain would be a piece of equipment and some points that he didn't know the function of. However, if he was killed by Lu Li, he would lose much more than that.

Glory Capital had made a promise to him if he completed the quest: he would receive a promotion within the guild and a number of attractive monetary rewards.

As he was currently a full member, completing the quest might result in him becoming an elite member. If he was lucky and made it into the first 100, becoming a core member might even be a possibility.

"If you don't have any rare materials, you can drop Strengthening Stones. Don't just tell me that you have nothing. In that case, I'd rather just earn more points," Lu Li chuckled. He thought that the warrior would propose a counter-offer to the three rare materials.

The Warrior didn't dare argue with him, immediately dropping two rare materials and a Strengthening Stone onto the ground. He then quickly asked, "Can I go now?"

It wasn't like he didn't know that Lu Li could take the material and still kill him, but he didn't have a choice.

"Of course. I hope your profession upgrade is a success."

Lu Li picked up the items and took two steps back to show his goodwill.

"I hope you won't tell anyone about this."

If his guild found out that he had dropped rare materials to save himself, he might not remain an ordinary member, let alone become an elite member.

"No one will know," Lu Li said confidently.

The Great Thief

Chapter 153: Fallen Elves

The Warrior walked away in low spirits, leaving an excited Lu Li by himself. A Blackwater Scale, a Lightning Mark, and a Strengthening Stone – these were the spoils of his first robbery.

These were a very handsome reward!

Lu Li currently had 7 rare materials and 4 Strengthening Stones on him. Even completing the Difficult-level Death Mines hadn't given him this much material. Under normal circumstances, a player coming out from the marshes with a single rare material would be considered quite good.

Killing Normal grade monsters was quite hard for an average player, let alone the Elite grade monsters that dropped rare materials. Meeting two Elite-grade monsters usually meant death for the average player. The Warrior had only gained his rare materials and Strengthening Stone by killing other players.

No one else had thought of Lu Li's method, which was to use their Follower as bait to kill monsters.

Now, he had found a new way to obtain rare materials.

In his 'past life', he had always been the one being robbed. However, this time it would be different. Lu Li excitedly begun his robbing adventure.

It was possible not to see anyone in the marshes for over an hour. Even after exiting the marsh, there would only be a few more players. In an hour, Lu Li had only found four groups of players.

Two of them were full teams. After following them for a few minutes and not finding an opportunity to attack, he could only give up.

He then found a single player who was quite poor. After reducing him to critical HP with a few hits, he had given up his only rare material to preserve his life.

Following this, he ran into a group of two players. They both had their Followers and refused to give in to Lu Li because of their numbers advantage.

Lu Li could only show them the meaning of the saying, 'a wise man submits to his circumstances'.

Adding on their Followers, it was a 2v4 fight, which was difficult, even for Lu Li. He tried to hold back, but still ended up killing one of the players.

The other player immediately changed his mind and obediently handed over 2 rare materials.

Continuing onwards, there were no players who were travelling by themselves. Even if there were, either the player or their Follower would have a stealth skill. In such a large map, it was difficult to find them.

The others all formed small parties.

Because they now had safety in numbers, there were less fights breaking out.

As such, Lu Li had to temporarily stop his robbing adventure.

His destination was the Fallen Elf Village, which was a gathering point for monsters in the map. Confronting Rennesak would not be easy – he had to trek deeply into enemy territory.

The Fallen Elves were all LV20 or above Elite grade monsters and were all quite fierce.

Lu Li saw a team of 5 people being quickly annihilated by 10 or so Fallen Elves, so he didn't rush in. Instead, he quietly hid and waited at the entrance of the village.

Being opportunistic was something that Thieves liked to do.

More and more players arrived, all of whom had entered the map to upgrade their professions in the morning.

Although they were all competitors and wanted to kill each other, no one dared to act against anyone else. At least before the Boss appeared, they all held back.

Players from different Factions couldn't form parties, so it was impossible for them to work together. As such, they were divided into two clear groups that stood far away from each other. It seemed that they were going to enter the village from different places.

When the Evil Faction had gathered 40 or so players, they couldn't wait any longer.

A Mage assumed leadership, and they all sat down as they began to discuss their strategy.

As for their sincerity, that didn't need to be worried about.

After all, there was safety in numbers and their speed in clearing monsters would greatly increase.

Equipment would sometimes drop, and would be distributed fairly on a rotational basis by the temporary leader.

Lu Li even saw the Warrior who he had first robbed standing next to the Mage.

This Mage was from the Glory Capital, which explained why he could order around this group of 40 people.

Lu Li entered into Stealth as he followed behind the Evil Faction players, looking for an opportunity. There were also quite a few other players doing the same thing.

Perhaps they had chosen to do this because killing players from the enemy Faction not only gave them Glory, but also reduced the guilt that they felt.

There would occasionally be incredibly strong LV25 Elite grade monsters. They didn't have much HP, but had high Attack, and could nullify half of the damage taken from players. The 40-player team's numbers soon started to fall.

A Thief suddenly appeared behind a player with critical HP and killed him. However, he wasn't strong enough to get away.

Lu Li face-palmed; this player gave Thieves a bad name.

Despite this, he didn't have any plans to prove himself.

The Evil Faction players were going to fight more Elite grade monsters, and needed to defend against the enemy Faction players behind them. As such, they advanced quite slowly.

Lu Li knew that the Light Faction players were probably in the same situation as well.

The two sides reached the Fallen Altar at almost the same time. This was the grand location of the Fallen Elves' 'Village Committee' and had a radius of at least a few thousand feet.

Apart from the Fallen Elves, there were quite a few Apocalypse Guards standing around the Altar.

They were the lowest level of cannon-fodder in the Burning Legion, but to the players, they were like massive walls.

The leaders of both sides immediately dispelled all thoughts of fighting; they had no choice but to work together and clear out the Apocalypse Guards. The glory of their respective Factions didn't matter at all in this moment.

Just in case something went wrong, they decided to wait for more players to arrive.

Lu Li stood on fairly high ground as he carefully observed the Fallen Elves around the Altar.

The quest description had briefly mentioned Rennesak. After taking into account the different positioning of the monsters, Lu Li quickly found his objective – an ancient-looking Elf.

He would be quite handsome without his wrinkles, but his eyes were incredibly cruel and cold. A white wolf lay at his side, and he was holding a Horned Bow.

The Horned Bow was quite long, which meant that Rennesak wasn't a Ranger.

Rangers had short bows and knives, and were skilled in both melee and ranged battles. The Elf Clan's Rangers struck fear into everyone's hearts, and were just as famous as the Priestess of the Moon.

The most famous Ranger in Dawn was Sylvanas Windrunner, who was also one of the Evil Faction's most well-known Bosses. Not only was she extremely powerful, but she was also indescribably beautiful.

After seeing Sylvanas, many Light Faction players had almost wanted to join the Evil Faction. However, they had never been able to find a way to change Factions.

Since he wasn't a Ranger, Rennesak was most likely a Hunter – an expert at ranged battles, but weak in melee fights.

As Lu Li was examining the scene, more than 200 players had gathered. They all began to charge towards the Apocalypse Guards.

The Great Thief

Chapter 154: Infighting

The main leader of the group was the Glory Capital's Mage, Illusory Dream. He was somewhat famous in the gaming circles, and only an expert from a large guild like him could exert control over a group of players from both Factions.

The saying 'there is strength in numbers' was proven to be true. After being attacked by so many players, the LV28 Apocalypse Guard couldn't even counterattack before it was killed.

However, the quest was not that easy. They would not be able to complete it in this fashion.

The sound of a horn rang out, and a row of 10 or so Apocalypse Guards began to march towards the group of players. They were all large, powerfully-built and wielded massive swords, which instilled a sense of fear in the players' hearts.

The leader's face fell, as he cursed inwardly.

You goddamn monsters. Aren't you meant to just stand there and wait to be killed by us?! Why the hell are you grouping up into a formation?

It was the first time that the other players had seen an NPC army, and their morale was low.

The tanks at the front continuously retreated. In order not to lose EXP, some of them simply turned and ran. After all, this group was just a motley crowd.

"Tanks, stay calm. Healers, keep healing. Do you want to complete this quest? Raise your spirits, otherwise we'll all be finished!" Illusory Dream, roared. This was his first time seeing an NPC formation and his hands were sweating, but he had to stay calm.

His yells were somewhat effective. A few tanks with decent equipment continued to bear the brunt of the Apocalypse Guards' attacks.

The Healers healed as quickly as they could, while the other players stood behind the tanks, desperately attacking.

Lu Li was hiding nearby, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw this. What he was worried about the most was that these people would give up. No matter how overpowered a person was, they wouldn't be able to face so many Apocalypse Guards alone.

The quest for upgrading one's profession was difficult for everyone, but not to the extent that even 200 players working together couldn't clear it. Otherwise, there wouldn't be many players who would have upgraded their professions, even after 2 months.

In order to encourage competition, games would often allow some players to become experts. The game would only be exciting if there were experts to chase after. However, if normal players couldn't even upgrade their professions, that would be the end for Dawn.

After all, no one wanted to play a supporting role.

At this stage of the game, no one except for Lu Li knew a secret.

This secret was that the difficulty for profession quests had limits. For example, this kind of S-Ranked map had a difficulty of 100.

Out of these 100 points, the marsh area was worth about 30 points, while the remaining 70 were assigned to this area.

The Apocalypse Guards were incredibly difficult to kill; this group of 200 people would lose members while fighting against only 10 of them. Lu Li estimated that they would count as approximately 50 points, leaving a total of 20 points.

This meant that Rennesak would be easy to kill. He was likely only a bit stronger than the Elite-grade monsters.

Lu Li only knew this because he had experienced rebirth. The poor players who were struggling with the Apocalypse Guards probably thought that the Boss would be ridiculously overpowered.

Lu Li continued to wait. With so many Apocalypse Guards and Fallen Elves on the altar, he would be slaughtered before he could even Rennesak.

The sound of the horn became even louder, as a team of 20 Apocalypse Guards and another team of Fallen Elf Mages entered the battle!

This was bullying!

"Great God, what should we do?" The Light Faction's temporary leader's face went green. He helplessly looked at Illusory Dream, hoping that he had a good idea.

"What else can we do? If there are more enemies, we'll just have to kill them. Surely you're not thinking of giving up?" Illusory Dream yelled out, "If you Light Faction players are all wimps, move over and let our Evil Faction players show you how to be real men."

At this, players from both sides were spurred into action as they fought valiantly, not caring about death anymore.

Lu Li stood at the side, coldly laughing. From where he was standing, he could just about see the entire battlefield. He could see that most of the players who were dying were from the Light Faction. Although the Evil Faction also suffered some casualties, they were mainly solo players.

The Glory Capital's main force had barely lost any players.

If he guessed correctly, there would be many Glory Capital players hurrying over, or even hiding in ambush behind them.

Although Illusory Dream was not an outstanding leader, his skill in maintaining his own forces, while whittling down his enemy's, was exceptional.

It was incredibly difficult for the 200 or so people to deal with the 40 monsters. Almost every clash between the two forces resulted in deaths on the players' side. The Fallen Elf Mages' Pyroblasts were terrifying and could be stacked. Only the Knights who had high Magic Resistance could resist them for a longer period of time.

Although there were many people, not everyone was immersed in the battle. Some of the smarter ones began to retreat.

However, it was a pity that they had made this decision too late – they were met with Blizzards from a group of Mages. A wave of damage figures rose up as the Glory Capital's players destroyed the alliance.

The alliance, which was marked by a lack of trust, did not last for even half an hour.

The Light Faction's leader heard roars of anger and turned around to see a shocking scene. He furiously walked over and grabbed Illusory Dream's collars, shouting, "What have you done? What the hell have you done?!"

"We have to be harsh with deserters," Illusory Dream bluntly replied.

"Where did those people come from?"

Anyone who was able to lead a team was not an idiot.

It was the well-equipped Mages in the newly-arrived group of 70-80 players, who had carried out that execution. They would be more than enough to take out the remainder of the Light Faction.

"Screw it, let's go," the Light Faction leader said. The remaining 30-40 players changed their focus from attacking the Apocalypse Guards and Fallen Elves to protecting their teammates.

Including the players killed by monsters, the Light Faction's original number of 100 players had dwindled to less than half.

"We haven't completed the quest yet, so why are you leaving already?" Illusory Dream coldly laughed. In his eyes, these people were no longer teammates or enemies, but pieces of equipment that could be distributed to the Evil Faction players.

"It's impossible for us to complete this quest, so are you sure you want to keep us here?" the Light Faction leader angrily roared, "I only have a second-rate guild, but I vow that if you don't give us a way out today, our guild will do nothing but specifically target your Glory Capital's players."

The Great Thief

Chapter 155: Rennesak

The other players were also furious. If this matter was spread to the public, the hatred from the normal players would be dangerous.

"Even if your Glory Capital is filled with experts, I still believe that we can kill you!"

"The frick is this? Who would have thought that people would do such disgusting things in a game?" a player cursed, as he threw his helmet to the ground, "This granddaddy has never spent money in a game before, but I'm going to make an exception today. When I go back, I'm going to issue a bounty for Glory Capital players: 10 gold coins per kill, with no limit, until I finish spending my red packet money."

A rich kid?

Now that the situation had come to this, even Illusory Dream didn't know what to do.

Killing the 30-40 Light Faction players would be incredibly easy. They would be able to accomplish it even without this new force of 60-70 players. However, the consequences would be hard to deal with.

Killing other players was usually considered normal in games. However, what the Glory Capital was doing was indeed quite shameless.

If you all got along harmoniously, wouldn't my opportunities be limited?

Lu Li equipped his Steel grade Bandanna. After creeping a bit closer, he instantly flashed behind a Priest from the Evil Faction.

Healers never expected to be assassinated, as they stood behind everyone else. The Healer, who was wearing Cloth Armour, didn't take many hits, before he said goodbye to the quest map.

"Fudge! Attack!" Illusory Dream stopped hesitating.

As he yelled out the order, a wave of attacks flew at Lu Li and the remaining Light Faction players.

Luckily, they were fairly dispersed, as most of the Evil Faction players were focusing on the 30-40 Light Faction players. Lu Li used Vanish and escaped the scene with half of his health remaining. Thieves truly had the greatest manoeuvrability.

As long as they didn't try to directly confront a Warrior, escaping would always be a piece of cake.

Although Illusory Dream felt that the attack from the Thief was very suspicious, he didn't have the time to pay attention to him. Instead, he directed all of his players to massacre the remnants of the Light Faction's team.

As this was happening, another wave of monsters started to attack.

Without the Light Faction players to use as cannon fodder, the Glory Capital's players faced attacks from both sides.

Lu Li's attack had not been a casual one. This was exactly what he had been aiming for, based on his previous experience and observations.

The survival of the 100 or so Glory Capital players was not to his benefit.

A group of 40 Elite-grade monsters, 30-40 enemy players, and 20-30 Followers surrounded the Evil Faction's players and Followers. The scene under the altar descended into chaos.

Although the 30-40 Light Faction players did not have much HP left and were outnumbered, they were desperate and were not easy to kill. By the time they had all fallen, the Glory Capital had lost approximately the same number of players as well.

"Who was that Thief?" Illusory Dream asked, his face dark.

"We're not sure. The person who was killed said that there was no system announcement," someone replied.

"Bullshit. How can there be no system announcement? Are you saying that our Priest attacked him first?" Illusory Dream had been revelling in his success just a few minutes ago, but his plan had quickly come crashing down.

Everything had happened because of that Thief.

"Illusory bro, they dropped quite a lot of equipment, as well as 2 rare materials."

This was good news, and it cheered up Illusory Dream.

The official website did not provide information regarding players dropping equipment and materials when they died. However, players on the forums had analysed a large amount of data and found that equipment had a higher chance to drop after killing a large group of people. It was more also likely for players to drop things that were equipped, than to drop things in their bags.

Out of the tens of people they had killed, only two rare materials had been dropped.

This was why Lu Li preferred extorting players out of their rare materials, as opposed to killing them.

"Everyone, be careful. After clearing out these monsters, we'll be able to kill the Boss. It doesn't matter if you're part of our guild or not; after we exit, contact me for rewards," Illusory Dream said, providing the players with some much-needed motivation.

Not all of the 100 or so players were part of the Glory Capital. Some of these Evil Faction players were part of other guilds or were solo players.

Originally, they had felt a little perturbed about attacking the Light Faction players. However, upon hearing this, they felt much better.

Quest items would be received after killing the Boss. After all, it wasn't as though the only player that obtained Rennesak's head could complete the quest. Moreover, everyone's quest items were different.

However, not every participating player would receive quest items.

Only the players in the team that dealt the most damage would receive these. In other words, only a single team could complete the quest.

Light Faction players and Evil Faction players could not form teams, so they simply could not trust each other. Since the remaining players were all in the Evil Faction, there was less conflict, and Illusory Dream was easily able to satisfy them.

The last wave of monsters charged down from the altar. There were nearly 100 of them.

Lu Li ran to a secluded place, turned into a raven and flew into the air.

This map was quite strange – all of the normal monsters were flying spirits. Lu Li's luck was good and he did not encounter any danger. After a short flight, he landed on the altar, where there stood a single Elf.

He was currently casting a spell with a hexagram, and a serene, magical energy filled the mystical markings. It almost seemed to be complete.

Lu Li inwardly whooped in delight. If he was any later, he would have failed the quest. He had seen a similar magical formation before, and this one was clearly a transportation door.

Looking at the incredibly complicated symbols, it appeared be a long-distance transportation channel.

Profession quests often had similar situations. In other words, if they ran out of time and Rennesak left, they would fail the quest.

Goddamn. You're a Hunter, but you're using a transportation channel. This is cheating!

The profession system for NPCs in Dawn was quite messy, as many NPCs had multiple professions. For example, Saar was a Shaman, but many people thought he was a Warrior. Illidan was obsessed with magic, but he was a Demon Hunter…

Lu Li didn't have any time to recover his HP. He activated Stealth and quickly moved behind Rennesak.

Cheap Shot!

The transportation channel was cut off!

However, the failed transportation channel resulted in a severe backlash from the magic elements.

An explosion erupted on the altar, enveloping Lu Li, Rennesak and his white wolf pet.

The Great Thief

Chapter 156: Stealing Food From A Tiger's Mouth

Perhaps it was because he was an Ancient Elf, but Rennesak's stats were quite strange. With his Mage and Hunter professions, he had an incredibly high resistance to stuns. While Lu Li was still recovering, he had already jumped up.

He immediately grabbed the bow on his back and shot out an arrow. At the same time, his white wolf pet sprang towards Lu Li.

It was impossible for such a commotion on top of the altar to remain unnoticed by the people underneath. Illusory Dream inwardly cursed, but continued to encourage his players. "What are you all so shocked about? It's just a few Thieves up there. Do you really think they can kill the Boss?"

Everyone else thought about it and realised what he said was true. There was only a single path to the altar, and with so much fighting happening underneath, it was impossible for many people to get up there. Disregarding whether they had a Healer or not, it would be impossible to kill the Boss in a short amount of time.

They still had a large group of monsters to kill, but once they finished them off, the accomplishments of the people on the altar would become theirs.

"I bet this is the other side's last act of desperation," a player joked.

"These Light Faction players are idiots; they might as well wait until we fight the Boss to cause trouble for us."

Other people also joined in the mocking, feeling no pressure at all.

Illusory Dream felt a bit of regret. He shouldn't have said those words so confidently. After all, what if…

On the altar, Lu Li was about to fulfil that 'what if'. He casted Shadowmeld just as the arrow was about to hit him, which allowed him to dodge it.

The white wolf never made it to him. Lu Li's Druid Follower changed back into his original form and used Vines to bind it. They wouldn't need to worry about it for 2-3 seconds.

After coming up with a plan, Lu Li had directed his Druid to go around the large wave of players and come up to the altar. Perhaps it was because no one had expected it, but it actually succeeded in coming up.

Druids had quite a few 'restriction' skills. These included Vines, Cyclone and Summon Mud Golems, which could help Lu Li restrict Rennesak's pet.

With an Elite-grade Druid Follower behind him, Lu Li felt much more confident.

He appeared next to Rennesak and landed a Shadowstrike.

System: Shadowstrike Skill Completion 95%, caused 300% Skill Damage, target stunned for 1 second.

He couldn't help but marvel at his own skills. To be able to hurriedly cast a Shadowstrike which dealt 300% Skill Damage and caused 1 second of stun was a godsend.

However, the damage he dealt was quite pitiful. The 300% Skill Damage only caused Rennesak to lose 120 HP. Luckily, he only had 3,000 HP.

Indeed, he had even less HP than most Elite-grade monsters.

Lu Li looked at Rennesak's stats and saw that he had an inconspicuous debuff.

Curse of Weakness: Traitors should be punished. In the name of the Moon Goddess, lower all of Rennesak's stats by 99%.

This was a powerful curse, and was no less than expected from the Moon Goddess.

It was said that the Moon Goddess dearly loved her pet raven. After finding out that the raven demigod Aviana had fallen, she had personally collected her feathers and allowed her to be reborn from the Moon Well.

The poor, traitorous Rennesak could only wait for his death because of this.

Even though all of Rennesak's stats had been lowered by 99%, he was still able to deal 3-figure damage to Lu Li. If Lu Li wasn't careful, he could be insta-killed.

Moreover, Rennesak wasn't a pure Hunter – when he was attacked at close range, he would cast magic.

Fortunately, Lu Li had his Shadow Cloak, as well as Kick. Otherwise, the situation would have been quite troublesome for him.

Lu Li had the confidence to kill Rennesak, but he had to do so before the players below rushed up. Otherwise, he wouldn't just be facing a weakened boss, but also a mob of furious enemy players.

Lu Li cleared out Rennesak's 3,000 HP in less than a minute. This was only possible because Rennesak's pet had been restricted by Lu Li's Follower the entire time.

Collect!

Lu Li could already see the Glory Capital players hurrying towards him. He picked up the items that the Boss dropped and tried to use Collect on the corpse.

It was impossible for things in the game to be the same as in real life. Players were not expected to chop off Rennesak's head by themselves. Any collection-type Trade Skill could be used to obtain quest items.

Lu Li's face fell. Although he had calculated and planned everything perfectly, there was one thing he had forgotten about.

In his 'past life', his collection skills had been levelled up to the max. Currently, even his Herbalism was only an Intermediate level.

"There have already been 20 maps where the players have failed their quests. It turns out that the quests have time limits. Luckily, someone's already started the Boss for us, so I think we still have some hope," Illusory Dream cheerfully said.

"Illusory bro, Illusory bro…" a player beside him nudged him, sounding a little worried.

Illusory Dream looked at the player in annoyance. Why couldn't he just be more direct?

"Illusory bro, the Boss has been killed!" a group of players shouted out, waking Illusory Dream up from his daydream of being promoted to General Manager, then CEO, then marrying a beautiful wife.

Why?!

Why?!

Whoosh!

Illusory Dream disappeared.

"Illusory bro, Illusory bro…" the player beside him looked bewildered.

"It wasn't me; Illusory bro suddenly disappeared."

"He probably logged off. Someone give him a call. Hearing that probably took quite an emotional toll on him. I hope…" I hope he doesn't die of anger. Such a thing couldn't be said out loud.

"What should we do then?"

The hundred or so players left looked at each other. Their leader had been shocked into logging off and the Boss had been killed. They had gone through hell for another person to reap their reward.

"Mess him up!"

The mob angrily rushed towards Lu Li.

Lu Li's forehead was covered with sweat and his hands began to tremble.

The players were only 40 feet away… and he only had two more chances.

Collect!

Collection failed!

Was he really going to fail because of something like this?

Escaping from these people would be no problem at all for him. However, if he left and they were unable to use Rennesak's body to complete the quest, they could destroy it. This would prevent him from completing the quest as well.

The angry mob looked quite fearsome. Those with ranged professions already had their weapons out and were preparing to attack.

Lu Li couldn't accept this!

He glared at them, preparing to use Vanish and leave.

Wait!

Lu Li suddenly remembered something.

Aiya, I can't believe I'm this dumb.

He hastily unequipped his main-hand weapon and sent an order to his Druid Follower.

The Druid, whose sole purpose was to follow Lu Li's commands, stood between Lu Li and the Glory Capital's players, bearing the brunt of most of the attacks.

Lu Li held Cresso's Hammer in his right hand, and casted a final Collect on the corpse with his left.

The Great Thief

Chapter 157: Mission Complete

Lu Li held Cresso's Hammer in his right hand, and casted a final Collect on the corpse with his left hand.

System: Gathering complete. Rennesak's head received.

The corpse on the ground was left headless and Lu Li received a black sack that had a pungent, rotten smell. He placed the quest item into his bag, drank an Intermediate Health Potion and quickly ran away.

Although the Elite Druid Follower had very high HP, defense and self-healing, it still couldn't withstand damage from 100 or so people.

It was a shame, because if a Follower survived the Profession Upgrade Quest, the player would receive a card that would them to summon the Follower up to 3 times. This could be extremely useful in certain situations.

It was too bad, but the danger was not over yet.

People that were undertaking the Profession Upgrade Quest were all the stronger players of their respective guilds. They advanced together like an army and worked together as a team, not giving Lu Li any chance of escape.

Stealth could not solve every problem, but what about Gale Steps?

Lu Li hadn't learnt Gale Steps yet, but even if he had, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

However, there was no need to worry, because he had already scouted the area and knew the escape routes like the back of his hand.

"Hehe, everyone, stop wasting your time."

Lu Li appeared near the altar and cancelled his stealth.

Players from the Glory Capital saw his expression behind his bandana and knew that they had been outsmarted.

He had even dared to taunt all these people right in front of their faces.

"Bye bye."

Lu Li waved his hands and fell backwards.

Normally, falling from 50 yards would leave you at critical HP. Any higher than 65 yards was basically suicide.

The altar was more than 100 yards above ground; this distance meant certain death.

Everyone from the Glory Capital remained for a few seconds, then sprinted towards the edge of the altar and looked down.

Illusory Dream had logged on and witnessed all of this as well.

"What are you guys looking at?" he asked, as he pulled someone aside.

"Don't pull me, I want to see as well," the player said impatiently. However, upon realising that the person that had pulled him aside was their commander, he quickly changed his tone.

"Illusory bro, you're online! That's great."

"Great your mum. The boss was stolen from us," Illusory Dream retorted and slapped him.

"Illusory bro, don't be angry. We got revenge for you."

The player wasn't angry about being slapped and just accepted it.

"Oh, how did you get revenge? Did you kill him?"

If Thief had actually died, then Illusory Dream could at least save some face.

Everyone failing the quest was less embarrassing than having the Boss stolen right before their eyes.

"We forced him to jump a cliff," the player proudly said. Forcing someone to commit suicide was crueller than killing them.

"He jumped?" Illusory Dream looked worried.

"Why would he randomly suicide? Are you sure he suicided? Did you see him fall to his death?"

Everyone shook their heads simultaneously.

"Where's the corpse?"

"Illusory bro, it's just a game. How are we supposed to find the corpse?" a player naively questioned.

Goddammit! Are you calling me stupid?!

Illusory Dream almost decided to log off again, but he sat down and calmed himself down.

"Illusory bro, what now?" With their leader back, the players could finally rely on him again.

"What else can we do? We can only wait," Illusory Dream sighed.

"Wait for what?"

"Wait until system notifies us about someone completing the quest. Then, we'll be transported out."

"Would someone really complete it? That would be the first ever Profession Upgrade Quest completed in Dawn," another player said.

"We were supposed to be the ones that completed it first. You did good Illusory bro. Everyone can testify for you if big boss questions us."

This guild member wasn't trying to suck up to him. It was the truth.

First of all, Illusory Dream had pretended to ally with the Light Faction and tricked them into clearing the monsters for them, while chipping down their manpower. Then, he ambushed them from both sides, removing their biggest competition.

All that was left to do was to kill the boss and complete the quest together.

Everyone that completed the quest could have all been from Glory Capital!

He had come so close, yet he was still so far…

At this moment, everyone felt a sense of regret.

System: Unknown Player has completed the Profession Upgrade Quest. Rewards will be received.

Everyone was transported out of the map, destroying any last hope that the Glory Capital was clinging onto.

As Lu Li fell down, he had casted Child of the Forest.

Child of the Forest: Instant Cast. You turn into a cheetah, raising your Movement Speed by 50%, as well as your ability to climb at 45 degree angles. Allows you to use all skills available to the Cheetah Transformation. The caster becomes immune to all Polymorph effects and fall damage is reduced. Transforming removes all Movement Restrictions on the caster. Proficiency: 1/1000.

This Cheetah Transformation skill allowed him to drop from a distance of more than 120 yards.

He even drank an Intermediate Health Potion right before jumping just to be safe.

After leaving the area, he completed the quest with Rennesak's head.

If the Druid Follower was still alive, he would have made the effort to escort it back. However, without it, Lu Li could only the NPC by using the quest item.

"Young Elf, you have surpassed my expectations."

The elderly Elf lifted his hood, revealing his long, silvery hair.

"By the protection of the Moon Goddess, the sinner paid his price."

Lu Li handed over the unopened sack which contained Rennesak's head.

"Oh, it's my son. Thank you for giving him peace and rest."

The Elf held the bag with a sad expression.

"Uh…"

Lu Li was stunned at this and felt uneasy.

How could a father hire people to kill his own son? What a tragedy.

"It's a very long story that shouldn't be mentioned. I won't tell it to you."

The Elf decided not to satisfy Lu Li's curiosity and instead handed him a stack of skill books.

"These two skill books are your reward. Please pick out two."

Two?!

Lu Li was disappointed. Why were there only two?

"Your follower died, so the mission was not completely perfectly," the Elf said, as if he already knew what Lu Li was thinking.

"This is an ancient test and it has its own rules. Sorry about that."

The Great Thief

Chapter 158: Advancement to Great Thief

Lu Li was slightly displeased, but he had to accept the truth.

The Thief Skill Books were grey and the colour had faded because of their age. The average person could not tell the differences between each book and would randomly select them most of the time.

However, Lu Li had experiences from his past life, so he was not the average person.

Skill Books had names on them, but they were flipped so that the player had to randomly select one. Despite this, Lu Li could tell the difference between the books due to the patterns on their backs.

Every book had a different pattern, but it was very hard to tell them apart. Someone accidentally noticed this one year into the game and a group of people studied the patterns for weeks, collected data and found them.

Lu Li obviously didn't memorize the patterns of every skill book. However, he did take the time to memorize the patterns of the rarer and more expensive skill books.

There was a stack of more than ten skill books, but only a few caught his eyes.

Lu Li pulled out a book and expectantly saw Gale Steps on the cover.

Gale Steps: Instant Cast. 60 second cooldown. Forces user into Stealth and gives user 1 seconds of invulnerability. When in Stealth, movement speed is increased by 50% for 5 seconds. The first attack dealt upon leaving Stealth will deal 150% damage. Current Proficiency 1/5.

When Gale Steps was maxed, the invulnerability lasted up to 2 seconds, while the movement speed was increased by 80%. The first attack upon leaving stealth would deal 280% damage.

This was a skill he had always wanted. The drop rate was extremely low and there were no other ways to obtain it. Lu Li was very pleased to have obtained it from the Profession Upgrade Quest.

He still had one more chance, but there were two skill books that he could recognize.

One was Kidney Strike and the other was Ambush.

Kidney Strike was a control skill that used up combo points to stun. It was one of the longest CC skills besides Sap, but its stun effect would not broken by attacking.

Ambush was simply a high-damaging skill that gave the user 2 combo points after using it. This would present them with more combo options.

Lu Li's current combo order began with Cheap Shot, which gave him 2 combo points. He then followed this by Backstab and Shadow Strike, which gave a point each for a total of 4 combo points. However, this wasn't enough to use his Ultimate Skill.

For Lu Li, both skills would largely improve his damage output and fighting potential.

After contemplating for a while, he decided to choose Ambush.

Ambush: Instant Cast, 30 second cooldown. Ambush your target from behind, dealing 180% Weapon damage. Awards 2 combo points. Current proficiency: 1/5.

He wanted Kidney Strike as well, but Ambush would be more useful at this current stage.

Lu Li's main damage output came from Backstab and Shadow Strike. He needed to incorporate a lot of auto attacks as fillers in-between skill cooldowns in order to maximize his damage output. This would work against lower-skill players, but against experts, it was very disadvantageous.

Lu Li was more interested in the special effect of Ambush.

If the Skill Completion rate was high than 85%, the target would be paralysed for 1 second. A Skill Completion rate above 90% would cause paralysis for 2 seconds..

"You are the first player to complete the Profession Advancement Quest and you were able to complete it alone. Five skills points will be rewarded," the Elf continued.

"Thank you, dear Elder."

Lu Li was very pleased when he heard this. He was more excited about the skill points than receiving the Skill Books. Skill Books were rare and expensive, but Skill Points could not be bought, even with all the money in the world.

"Because you are the first person to complete this quest, bonus EXP will also be rewarded. Are you ready?" the Elderly Elf asked.

"Of course," Lu Li nodded.

Lu Li's EXP bar was quickly filled.

System: You have levelled up to LV19. You have levelled up to LV20.

Two Levels! Even after reaching LV20, his EXP bar continued to be filled until it reached 60%.

"Now, you have 3 choices."

The Elderly Elf waved and a virtual board appeared, displaying the three different class choices.

Thief, Scout and Demon Hunter.

Lu Li chose Thief without hesitating - he had never intended on playing any other class. He had even found the Job Change scroll for the Demon Hunter, but decided against using it.

Job Advancement Scrolls allowed you to change class immediately. Advancement rewards would still be received, but the user would not be listed in the System Class Rankings.

Demon Hunters were also known to players as the "Hidden Class", but Lu Li was not interested.

Scouts were even rarer!

Their expertise leaned more in the field of stealth, scouting, detection and deactivating traps. These were skills that were more beneficial in group settings, but extremely useless by themselves. Lu Li would never choose this.

Thieves could everything that Scouts could, just not to the same level of mastery.

The title of the Thief class didn't change, but players often called the Advanced Thieves "Great Thieves".

From this point onwards, he could proudly call himself 'Lu Li the Great Thief'.

'Hidden' classes or quests in Dawn referred to classes that didn't have much information on forums and quests that were limited to a certain group of people. This promoted the mysteriousness and uniqueness of the game.

The System announced the first player to complete Job Advancement.

Before the announcement, Lu Li was given the option to reamin anonymous. Normally, he wouldn't really care, but he didn't want to seem boastful, as he had just stolen the Rennesak kill from the Glory Capital.

Realistically, this didn't make much of a difference. Anyone could tell that he had completed the advancement by looking at the rankings.

Everyone knew Lu Li as a scumbag, but acknowledged that the No.1 place undisputedly belonged to him. He and his team of goons had been able to take almost every 'first' in Dawn.

After he completed the mission, Lu Li said his goodbyes and everyone was teleported outside of the map.

Lu Li was heavily rewarded in this quest, with skill books, skill points and EXP. After being teleported out, he immediately used the skills books and added the SP into his skills.

He had gained 10 SP from levelling up, 1 SP from levelling up Shadow Strike and another SP from killing Illidan's Shadow. If he didn't use them up, he would have 17 points altogether.

The Great Thief

Chapter 159: An Old Acquaintance

Lu Li obtained 10 Skill Points by reaching LV20. Levelling-up Shadowstrike and fighting Illidan had also awarded him with one Skill Point each. If he didn't use any of his Skill Points, he would have 17 of them altogether.

He added a point to his Unlock Skill and his Seal Transformation, which left him with 15 remaining points.

After this, he maxed out his Shadowstrike, which only cost three Skill Points as he had manually levelled it up before. Now, he had 12 points remaining.

He then added two points to Backstab and spent three on Slit Throat to increase it to rank 3.

After all of that, Lu Li was left with seven Skill Points.

He intended to add more points to Slit throat and max it out.

Slit Throat: Instant Cast, uses up all Combo Points and attacks the throat of the target, dealing their own damage * (1 50% * Combo Points). If the target is below 20% HP, this attack has a chance of being a critical hit. Skill Proficiency 5/5.

A max-levelled Slit Throat didn't have significantly more damge, but was able to reach 100% in critical chance.

This was a finishing skill.

Lu Li could open with a Cheap Shot and Ambush to deal gain two combo points each, before following with Backstab to apply Armour Break. He would then use Slit Throat to complete this five star combo. Even high-HP professions would have to submit to him.

He directly put four points into Gale Steps to max out this God-level, lifesaving skill.

Gale Steps: Instant Cast. 60 second cooldown. Forces user into Stealth and gives 2 seconds of invulnerability. When in Stealth, movement speed is increased by 80% for 8 seconds. The first attack dealt upon leaving Stealth will deal 280% damage. Current Proficiency 5/5.

Lu Li added his last two points into Shadow Cloak, which increased the magic invulnerability duration to four seconds.

This single second was not to be underestimated, as it could play a vital role on many occasions. Lu Li would have liked to max out this skill, but he didn't have enough Skill Points.

The other players must have had it even worse, if a LV20 player that had just gained seven bonus Skill Points was struggling with a lack them.

The cost of upgrading skills was really expensive and increased with the strength of the skill. It had cost Lu Li 26 gold coins to upgrade Gale Steps with four skill points.

This was equivalent to three weeks of work for an average player.

His wallet was getting smaller!

Lu Li thought about his sister's medical expenses and the big house that they both had their hearts set on. He clenched his fists; he needed to make more money.

He had originally planned to take his permanent party to do an Instance Dungeon, but they had all run off to do their Profession Upgrade Quests. Lu Li then made a chatroom to provide live guidance. His teammates just needed to describe their map quest, for him to provide additional strategy.

His ability to do this was more shocking to Wandering and Sesame Rice Ball, than the fact that Lu Li had already completed his Profession Upgrade Quest.

Completing the Quest could have just been luck, but to provide map-specific analysis like this was insane.

Sesame Rice Ball felt that he, who considered to be a top Warlock player, was weak. Even the other top players of the large guilds had to kneel before Lu Li.

This was just like Demigods and Semi-Devils. Everyone was so focused on the popular people like Jiang Hu, but they had no idea about the unimaginably strong monks who were in the Shaolin Temple.

As Lu Li was gave out commands, he also tried to pick a quest.

"North of Astrana, there is a group of Thistle Skin Bears. My scouts report that their numbers have grown rapidly over the past few months. If their numbers become too great, they might become strong enough to attack Astrana! Go to the Thistle Skin village and kill as many as you can. I will be here waiting for your report. May the moon be with you."

A leather-clad Meisnera was distributing quests to the players around her.

This was Meisnera's post; it was primarily set up to defend against the new residents of the Northern Odila Ruins – the Thistle Skin Bears.

Meisnera was renowned for her beauty. Not only was she physically beautiful, she also had an irresistible voice. It was regarded as the pinnacle of virtual technology.

There were many players who loitered around Meisnera's post in the hope of engaging in a few lines of dialogue with her.

Some players claimed that if they found someone in the real world who had a voice like hers, it wouldn't matter even they were really ugly.

However, Lu Li wasn't here to listen to Meisnera's voice – he wasn't so pitiful. Although, in his past life, he had been reluctant the leave the post for a few weeks…

After receiving the quest, Lu Li left the crowd and found a quiet place to transform into a leopard, before running to the Thistle Village like the wind.

Meisnera's quest was well-known but its rewards were mediocre. They only included some EXP and a Bronze equip. He had only accepted this quest for the cute Thistle Skin Bears.

These monsters had a chance of dropping the Thief Poison recipe!

For this reason, he had to grind them, even though they were only LV17-19 and would yield little to no EXP.

However, this situation wasn't without its benefits.

As these monsters were two to three levels below him, he could deal the maximum amount of damage.

Coupled with his fast-farming rate, this allowed him to gain EXP at a somewhat reasonable rate.

"Taking over the bear farming field, leave the area now!"

"Taking over the bear farming field, leave the area now!"

The people that said this were loud, and their tone was arrogant.

"Who wants to take over the field?"

Who would be so insolent as to try and take over such a densely populated area? This area was required for Meisnera's quest; they had to be kidding.

"Angel Wings?"

The people who were yelling turned around and saw the badges of injustice.

"Correct, I am a member of the Angel Wings…"

Although he was only a fringe member, the guild that he claimed to be from wasn't obscure.

"I don't care that you are from Angel Wings. Step aside."

The other players did not give the Angel Wings any respect and declared, "We, the Imperial Secret Service are taking over this area. It doesn't matter if you are the Angel Wings or even the Wings of Dawn. Step aside."

The Angel Wings was a branch of the Wings of Dawn, which was a fairly large guild and only slightly lower-ranked than the Imperial Secret Service.

Although the Imperial Secret Service had been humiliated by Lu Li, they were large enough that most ordinary players treated them well.

Upon hearing the name 'Imperial Secret Service', the Thistle Village players changed their expressions.

Losing EXP for this wasn't worth it. Why would anyone throw away their EXP by resisting them?

Everyone took a step back!

They probably wouldn't occupy it for too long and would be gone soon enough.

However, for Lu Li, the name 'Imperial Secret Service' brought back fond memories.

Lu Li smiled before equipping the bandana from his backpack, his eyes glowing with excitement.

The Great Thief

Chapter 160: Cash Cow

Lu Li smiled before equipping the bandana from his backpack. His eyes were glowing with excitement.

He wasn't a good person, nor was he good at accepting fault. Previously, when the Imperial Secret Service had attempted to hunt him down, he didn't bother to seek revenge. However, the time had come for retribution.

"Who's that? Why hasn't he left yet? Does he want to die?"

Seeing that Lu Li had no intention of leaving, the Imperial Secret Service members became unhappy and stormed over to him.

"Are you talking about me?" Lu Li lowered his voice as he asked.

"Nonsense, are you deaf?"

This was Hurricane, a member of the Imperial Secret Service's Assassination Team, which was specifically tasked with clearing out areas. Seeing that Lu Li wouldn't budge, he pushed him.

This was a common way to start a fight with another person. Once their emotions had been riled up, they would immediately start fighting.

All this time, Lu Li had his back to the player. When he finally turned around, Hurricane saw that his entire face was covered with a black bandana that only left his gray eyes exposed.

"You…" Hurricane was a little surprised. He didn't expect Lu Li's face to be covered.

"I hate people who try to take over area."

Lu Li's wrist dropped as he casted Shadowstrike.

Hurricane was a little shocked when he saw Lu Li's bandana, but after Lu Li attacked him, he laughed, "That's hilarious – you haven't even gone into Stealth. You want to openly attack me, a warrior."

But a second later, he stopped laughing.

System: Shadowstrike Skill Completion 94%, resulting in 250% damage and stunning the target for 2 seconds.

Once the stun was applied, Lu Li attacked as he casually began to walk.

System: Backstab Skill Completion 89%, resulting in 112% damage and applying Armour Break on the target!

System: Ambush Skill Completion 86%, resulting in 107% damage and paralyzing the target for 1 second!

Just as he had recovered from the stun, Hurricane found himself paralyzed.

There were a few differences between a stun and paralysis.

The former could not be lifted until the end of its duration, while the latter would be lifted if damage was applied to the target. However, while in paralysis, the target still could not move or perform any actions.

To Lu Li, these differences were unimportant.

He put his dagger on Hurricane's throat and gently pulled from left to right.

Slit Throat!

Hurricane watched as his HP rapidly dropped; he was almost dead.

He quickly reacted and immediately casted Trample.

It didn't matter that this didn't actually apply any Crowd Control. Hurricane turned around and started running. He wasn't too far away from the guild's Healer, who was also running towards him.

The Trample did not affect Lu Li; he had gone into Stealth as soon as he had completed Slit Throat.

The Warrior had quite a bit of HP, so the LV4 Slit Throat wasn't able to finish him off. But even if he wasn't able to kill the warrior in one rotation, that didn't mean the warrior was going to survive.

Hurricane let out a sigh of relief when the Guild's Healer began to heal him. The Thief hadn't caught up to him either.

Before he could take his next breath, his vision went black and the world appeared in monochrome.

Was he dead?

The Healer bitterly lowered her Magic Staff; she didn't understand why Hurricane hadn't taken a potion. Did he not know that he was bleeding?

Slit Throat's Bleed effect resulted in a large amount of damage.

As the Healer stared at Hurricane's lifeless body, she felt a cool sensation in her back.

She really needed to write some feedback for the System. The ice-cold sensation of a dagger stab was way too cruel…

"Fall!"

With a single Backhand Backstab, the Healer went flying. Her body glowed white as she turned into a corpse mid-air.

Crap, he had forgotten about his PVP value.

Lu Li pulled up a panel to see his own attributes and saw an impressive PVP value of two.

This was a new feature from the new System update. Initially, Dawn didn't have a PVP value. They had always encouraged players to fight each other.

But ever since the PVP incident, their philosophy had changed.

There was a retired minister that once held an important position. He started to play Dawn and became engrossed in Herbalism and Alchemy.

One day, the old man had his butt sticking out as he searched through the grass for herbs. The players passing by thought that this was so unsightly that they killed him.

The old man suffered physically and mentally because of this. As such, when he went offline, he looked for his son-in-law—the Chief of the Internet Supervisory Office. He then aggressively condemned the game's brutal premises.

The Chief didn't want to listen this old retired minister, but he was afraid of the consequences. He could only helplessly advise the game company on behalf of the Internet Supervisory Office.

The game company considered it and decided that an overly brutal game wasn't a good idea either.

Hence, the new PVP rules were introduced.

If a player took the initiative to kill another combat profession player, they would gain one PVP value. If a player took the initiative to kill a player that was five levels lower, the PVP value that they gained would be doubled. If a player killed a Trade-Skill-life player, the PVP value that they gained would also be doubled.

The higher the PVP value, the more things they would drop upon death. This was capped at three items.

There were three ways to reduce one's PVP value.

The first was by time. Every hour, a player's PVP value would decrease by one.

The second was by taking Bounty Quests. If a player killed another player with a PVP value, they would be able to offset some of their own. Killing a player with a high PVP value would yield a higher reward. The players with PVP values that were killed would be sent to jail by the system, until their PVP values depleted to zero.

The third was by imprisonment.

For every hour spent in prison, some PVP value would be removed.

This was different to reducing their PVP value by being online. Even if the player logged off, the System would still calculate their jail time.

When it was time for the players to log off in Lu Li's previous life, players would flock together and go to jail to reduce their PVP value. This phenomenon was truly a spectacle. However, it was condemned by the morally righteous as evidence of their moral bankruptcy.

Most people didn't want to log off in a jail cell, as it wouldn't award them with the double EXP period that logging off in a hotel room would.

Additionally, those who voluntarily went to prison to reduce their PVP value were free to leave. However, those that were sent after being killed on a bounty were forced to stay until their PVP value had been fully depleted.

"Everyone be careful. There is a masked Thief in the Thistle Village. His equipment is very strong; do not act alone," the group leader reminded everyone as he received the report.

After gaining two PVP points, Lu Li had to be more careful. He looked around before finding his next target.

His selection criterion was simple—equipment.

The guy in Lu Li's sights had good equipment. Although Lu Li couldn't see the exact attributes, he could roughly guess that they were of pretty high value.

After a rotation of Cheap Shot, Backstab, Ambush and Slit Throat, he was gone.

Lu Li picked up the equipment that had dropped onto the ground and disappeared.

It was a pair of Mage Steel shoes that gave 10 Intelligence and 3% movement speed. These were decent attributes that would sell for at least seven or eight gold coins.

After the system underwent some macro-control, the gold prices stabilized at around $100:1. This meant that these shoes were worth around seven to eight hundred dollars. Name brand sneakers also cost around the same.

With all the costs involved in just surviving, an average player probably would not be able to earn seven or eight gold coins in a day.

He now had three PVP points.

Disregarding his PVP value, Lu Li continued to look for cash cows.