The Great Thief

“There’s something I want to say before we go in,” Lu Li calmly said, “As the team leader, I want one of the items we obtain.”

We haven’t even started, but he’s already talking about wanting one of the items. The two girls looked at him while pouting. This guy didn’t act like an expert at all.

“I’m fine with it.” Azure Sea Breeze said. Because of Lu Li, he had obtained a Bronze grade Ring and a Bronze grade Armour, so he was already satisfied.

“What is it?” Drinking Alone was curious.

“Jade Spider Web, a Blue Material. It’s something only Bosses drop.” Lu Li explained.

“How do you know the Boss will drop it?” Northern Tang Dream asked with wide eyes.

“I have a friend…”

“Cheh!”

The rest of the team couldn’t even be bothered to “cheh” at Lu Li, and they entered the Instance Dungeon.

The Spider Lair was dark and damp, and had a slightly rotten smell. There were spider webs everywhere, and the scuttling sounds of spiders’ legs echoed in the distance.

In front of them was the first wave of monsters - two spiders that were as large as small dogs. Their 8 furry legs were covered with spikes, and they savagely looked around with their countless eyes, causing everyone to shiver.

The LV5 Spider Lair was the lowest level Instance Dungeon, and its main purpose was for players to become used to the mechanics of Instance Dungeons. The first few waves of monsters were all normal monsters, which were slightly stronger than the monsters outside. The five man team quickly disposed of them.

After defeating 5 waves of monsters like this, they arrived at a brook.

Above the brook was a bridge, and a jade-green spider that was at least twice the size of the normal monsters was sitting on top. It was called a Spider Lair Guard.

“This is an Elite grade monster, it should be pretty strong.” Northern Tang Dream and Drinking Alone had tried out this Instance Dungeon the previous day, and both held a lingering fear towards Elite monsters.

“It’s not that bad. It just has an extra Venom Spit skill,” Lu Li dismissively said as he started to give out orders, “Sea Breeze go and draw aggro. When the charge bar for its Venom Spit is about two thirds full, use your Shieldstrike to interrupt it.”

If he used it before two thirds, the Guard would start to charge it up again. If he used it after two thirds, he wouldn’t be able to interrupt it.

These sorts of things were impossible to find out without trying a few times. However, Lu Li had experienced rebirth, and didn’t need to waste time on things like this.

After 30 seconds, the Spider Guard started to howl.

“Get ready, it’s starting to charge up…”

Just as Lu Li spoke, a light grey charge bar appeared above the Guard’s head.

Azure Sea Breeze held his breath, and as soon as the charge bar was two thirds full, he smashed into the Guard’s head with his shield.

The Guard was stunned, and its charge up was cancelled.

Things went smoothly from there. The Guard soon ran out of HP, and fell to the ground.

It was a pity that it didn’t drop any equipment, only a Mana Potion.

That was to be expected; the drop rate was quite low, and it was rare for even Elite monsters to drop equipment.

“This was even easier than trying to clear the Normal Instance Dungeon yesterday,” Northern Tang Dream’s eyes flashed with excitement, “Lu Li, how about you join our Union, and join the main group?”

The main group only had 100 people, and to a large Union with thousands of people, they were the elite of the elite. This was an excellent offer.

However, Lu Li shook his head and replied, “I’ll think about it.” He had joined the Star Moon Union for the game helmet. As soon as he had enough money to buy the game helmet, he would immediately leave them, but he didn’t plan on joining the Grand Hegemony either.

Comparatively speaking, the Grand Hegemony would offer him better treatment than the Star Moon Union, but it was less than ideal. After all, the thousands of people there all had their own agendas and goals.

Seeing that Lu Li had rejected her offer, the beauty didn’t seem offended, and continued to walk. However, Lu Li called out to stop her.

“Everyone, put your weapons into the brook.” Lu Li went around the bridge and put his Dagger into the brook.

What could be special about the water in a spider’s lair? The black water looked incredibly dirty, and had a striking smell to it. The two girls’ faces both became pale.

“After soaking your equipment in there for 30 seconds, you’ll gain a Buff which increases damage to Spider-type monsters by 20%...”

Hearing this, everyone charged over.

“This doesn’t work for Druids and Warlocks; only melee professions benefit from this…”

Drinking Alone and Northern Tang Kitty looked depressed.

This was why Lu Li said having a melee team wasn’t so bad. In Lu Li’s ‘past life’, everyone knew about the effects of the water here. People who were farming Spider-type monsters would come to the Instance Dungeon just to get this Buff, even though it only lasted for an hour.

After passing by the bridge, more and more monsters appeared. Sometimes, a wave would have two Spider Lair Guards, but with the Buff, the speed at which they advanced did not fall at all.

One of the elite monsters dropped a Bronze grade Bracer, which gave 3 Armour and 1 Strength. Northern Tang Dream graciously gave it to her fellow Warrior Azure Sea Breeze. After all, the stronger the Defence of the main tank, the easier the Druid’s job would be in healing him.

The Spider Lair had 2 Bosses. One of them was a big spider called the Fallen Spider Chief. The other was a man-faced spider called Mandelin.

The team stood in front of the Spider Chief. Team leader Lu Li was LV3, Azure Sea Breeze was LV5, and everyone else was LV4.

The Spider Chief was a LV5 Boss, and had 12,000HP.

“The Spider Chief isn’t very hard to beat. There are two stages that are important,” Due to his experience from his ‘past life’, Lu Li didn’t need to work out the Boss’ attack patterns bit by bit. He started to give out orders, “Every time it loses 20% of its HP, it will summon a wave of smaller monsters. We don’t have any Crowd Control, so don’t try to attack them. They’ll explode after 5 seconds, so just keep away from them. When its HP drops to 5%, it might go berserk. Our Druid needs to heal everyone as much as possible, and Azure Sea Breeze needs to prepare a lot of Potions to drink.”

“How did you know this? Oh, right, you have a lot of friends.” Northern Tang Dream was curious to the point of exploding, but she knew that Lu Li wouldn’t tell her. As such, she could only vent using some sarcasm.

“How much HP does the Boss in the Normal level Instance Dungeon have?” Azure Sea Breeze felt quite a bit of pressure. He had never heard of anyone killing the Spider Chief before. After all, only 5 people could enter this Instance Dungeon.

If the main tank’s equipment or skills weren’t up to scratch, or if the healer couldn’t heal enough, or if the attackers couldn’t deal enough damage, they were finished.

“The Normal Instance Dungeon’s Boss has about 10,000HP, and looks a bit smaller,” Drinking Alone bitterly smiled, “We only got the Boss down to 70% HP yesterday. I don’t think we’ll even be able to see this one go berserk.”

“Alright, let’s start. As long as you listen to my instructions, we’ll be fine.” Lu Li didn’t think that this Instance Dungeon would be difficult at all. If it wasn’t because of his equipment and lack of good Skills, he would even dare to solo this Instance Dungeon.

Azure Sea Breeze used Charge on the Boss, dealing 5 damage and a 1 second stun.

Even Lu Li was shocked by the damage taken by the Boss. He remembered that in his ‘past life’ when he had faced off against the Boss, the main tank’s equipment wasn’t much better than Azure Sea Breeze’s, but still dealt a lot more damage.

The truth was that in the beginning, the Spider Chief was very strong. It was only later that its Defence had been nerfed.

Although he was surprised, since they had started this, they would have to finish it.

Ambush, Shadowstrike…

The Boss’ Defence was higher than Lu Li had expected, but its Attack Power was about the same as what he had expected. Azure Sea Breeze wasn’t in much danger from this Boss.

Since Azure Sea Breeze could hold up as the tank, it all came down to the Druid’s healing and the attackers’ DPS.

Their Druid was quite experienced, but didn’t have any good healing skills yet, and didn’t have enough MP either. After healing 10 or so times, she was out.

This was when the Potions that Lu Li had ‘earned’ with everyone came into play.

Just as Azure Sea Breeze liked to say, “A Potion in the hand means no fear in the heart.”