The Great Thief

“Did you hear that there is a Hidden Profession Transfer item in the Exchange Hall?” Azure Sea Breeze immediately asked when he saw that Lu Li had come online.

“Yep, Demon Hunter,” Lu Li casually responded.

“Are you interested? I can send some money for you to get it. I read in the forums that Thieves are good for becoming Demon Hunters,” Azure Sea Breeze said enthusiastically.

Although he wasn’t as rich as Lu Li, he spent all his days in Instance Dungeons and got free potions from Lu Li. He was considered a rich man compared to the ordinary players.

“Uh… didn’t I tell you that I put that onto the Exchange Hall?” Lu Li was a little touched, but he was never going to admit it.

“Dammit, you got a Transfer Item… and you consigned it to the Exchange Hall? Why?”

Azure Sea Breeze was incoherent; he once again felt like Lu Li was some kind of alien.

“The advancement of a Thief is pretty good. Why would I become a Demon Hunter? Hidden Professions aren’t as good as everyone thinks,” Lu Li explained.

If hadn’t experienced rebirth, he probably wouldn’t have hesitated to perform the transfer.

“But it’s a Hidden Profession, you dummy.”

Azure Sea Breeze was bitter.

“Listen to me, if you ever find a Hidden Profession, don’t just transfer right away,” Lu Li solemnly warned.

It wasn’t only his rebirth insights that told him Hidden Professions were a dead end. In a year’s time, there would be an official statement made in response to all the crying of the Hidden Profession players: “Hidden Professions are not bad, they are just not as strong as everyone imagined. Dawn’s Hidden Professions are supposed to fun.”

The key word here was ‘fun’.

It would be okay if they weren’t particularly strong. They just needed to be on par with the regular professions. The problem was, that Hidden Professions were hard to attain and were far weaker than the regular professions.

Lu Li knew a few Hidden Profession players. Their equipment was often a complete mess. At LV30, they would still be using LV20 equipment.

“If they’re that bad, then never mind.”

Azure Sea Breeze was still disappointed.

“How did your levelling go yesterday? Can we clear the Fire Temple yet?”

There was no way Lu Li would be able to solo the Instance Dungeon.

“Remnant Dream still needs 20% EXP. We are currently at the Dilan Ruins using our double EXP boosts. She should level up soon. I am a little over LV15, but I’m still incomparable to you. You just go around soloing Bosses at random,” Azure Sea Breeze responded.

“That place was under a body of water. Otherwise, I wouldn’t dare fight a Boss while there is a bounty on me.”

Lu Li was concerned that Azure Sea Breeze would misunderstand, so he further clarified, “The Boss took 3 hours to kill and I used dozens of potions. It wasn’t exactly the easiest experience.”

“Don’t worry about it, as long as you remember me when you get good items. Don’t be stingy. I’m almost out of potions, so make some before you join us,” Azure Sea Breeze said with a laugh. He didn’t think too much about it.

“You go ahead and keep training then. I’ll make some potions.”

Lu Li picked up some materials and two recipes from the Exchange Hall.

He had a Basic Agility Potion Recipe, but it required Intermediate Alchemy (180). Currently he was at Intermediate Alchemy (156), so he hadn’t quite met the learning requirements. Making more Intermediate Health Potions now no longer granted any additional EXP. He needed to learn some new recipes.

One of the two recipes he got from the Exchange Hall was a Basic Intelligence Potion. Its effects were almost the same as the Basic Agility Potions, but its learning requirements were lower. It only requirement an Intermediate (150) to learn.

Basic Intelligence Potions increased Intelligence by 3 points. This wasn’t overpowered, but the materials to craft it were cheap. Lu Li intended to use this recipe to quickly level his alchemy.

The other recipe was a pleasant surprise.

Recipe: Luck Potion

Use: teaches you how to make Luck Potions

Luck Potion: Enables you to occasionally find extra treasures on hostile targets. Lasts 20 minutes.

Many people did not know what this potion actually did. For a long time, there was doubt that this potion even did anything at all. After endless testing, it did not seem to have any effect on a monster’s drop rate.

It was only later that people realized that this potion wasn’t supposed to be used for fighting monsters, but rather to gain additional income when using the Thief’s Pick Pocket.

Pick Pocketing humanoids had always been an unstable source of income, but after using the Luck Potion, the number of coins gained increased by around 50%. What would originally result in 5 coins would now be 7, which allowed for a slow but steady increase in income.

More importantly, this potion gave Pick Pocket a certain probability to steal blueprints.

If used correctly, this recipe that he had spent 20 silver on would give him up to one thousand times the profit.

In the private hotel room, Lu Li first made that Intermediate Health Potions that were going to be used in the Instance Dungeon. He then used the materials he had bought from the Exchange Hall to make a dozen bottles of Basic Intelligence Potion, successfully raising his Trade Skill to Intermediate (160). The new recipes were very good for upgrading his Trade Skill.

After reaching Intermediate (160), Lu Li tried to make some Luck Potions.

Luck Potions were very special, in that their failure rates were very high. The officially released probability was 50%. However, this was only an approximation and having dozens of potions continuously fail wasn’t unheard of.

Hence, the production was much slower than the Health Potions.

Lu Li first washed his crucible before putting in the Golden Lotus that he had bought from the Exchange Hall. He grinded it into a fine powder and put it into a crystal bottle. He then added some extra herbs before carefully swirling it above the stove.

Bang! The bottle exploded, releasing a charred aroma throughout the room.

Obviously, this first attempt had failed.

The temperature was probably a bit too high.

Lu Li made that observation based on what he had remembered from an alchemy post.

In his second attempt, lady luck smiled upon him and he successfully created a Luck Potion.

At this time, the communicator on his waist vibrated. Lu Li carefully put the Potion into his bag and opened it up.

“Just so you know, we got chased away.”

It was Azure Sea Breeze.

“Were you killed?” Lu Li frowned. The Dilan Ruins were quite a remote place, which was why he had recommended that they train there. Why would there be other people?

“Those people were crazy. They didn’t say anything, but just attacked us,” Azure Sea Breeze said a little angrily. “March Rain and Remnant Dream are okay, but Flowers and I died. I even lost my shoes.”

“I’ll go take a look. Were they guild members? Did you see any guild badges?” Lu Li started to pack up his things, ending today’s alchemy session. He could do this at any time in the future.

As he messaged, he flew towards the Dilan Ruins in his crow form. His friends had been attacked, so he had to attack back. Even as a second rate player in his previous life, he had gone up against large guilds. Now that he had experienced rebirth, the idea didn’t even phase him.

“I didn’t see them clearly, don’t worry about it. They had many people in their group. We were going to fight an Instance Dungeon anyway, so I’ll just pretend it was a free teleport back to the city.”

Azure Sea Breeze tried to discourage him.

“Get out of here, it must be a big guild. Are you afraid of the conflict between them and me? I’m already on the way. I want to see which big guild this is.”

Lu Li knew that Azure Sea Breeze was lying.

“You’ve already offended the Imperial Secret Service. Don’t provoke another big guild,” Azure Sea Breeze said bitterly.

Had he known this would happen, he wouldn’t have told Lu Li about this. They were only a few players; how could they go up against a big guild? The Imperial Secret Service already had them on the run and now there was going to be another…

Lu Li turned off his communicator, flapped his wings and dived towards the Dilan Ruins.