The Great Thief

When Lonesome Flower came, Lu Li had just finished crafting a one-handed sword – Spellfire Longsword.

He was very disappointed with the result because he had very high expectations for this high-quality Paladin weapon. Lu Li was a god-like blacksmith, so anything below Superior was a failure.

However, since the weapon wasn’t for himself, he shamelessly took a sigh of relief.

Wandering would probably hold a grudge against him for this. He was too much of a narcissist and always said toxic things.

“Flower, why did you come?” Lu Li asked as he reached for a kebab in his inventory to replenish his energy from crafting. There had been many instances in Dawn of players focusing too much on crafting and dying of starvation because they had forgetten to eat.

Lonesome Flower looked at him coldly with and threw two pieces of equipment at Lu Li.

“No way, did you make equips for me?” Lu Li was surprised.

They had first met when Lonesome Flower was being attacked by a pack of wild wolves. It was quite a brutal scene.

His sister, who was also present at the time, had been scared to death.

After getting to know him more, Lu Li realised that he was actually a very proud and arrogant person. He rarely asked for help from others and always rejected other people.

The only time he seemed happy was when he was with his sister.

Lonesome Flower was actually quite polite and had a good personality. He was cool and handsome, so he was even more popular with the girls than Wandering.

The reason why Wandering was less popular was because no girl wanted to date someone who was prettier than herself.

Lu Li had expressed before that he despised those with a sister complex, because they were hard to interact with.

However, he was very touched by Lonesome Flower’s gesture. Lonesome Flower was such a prideful person, yet he had humbled himself and crafted an equip for him.

“My sister made It for you; stop making her craft your equips all the time,” he coldly said and went about his way.

Lu Li was wrong.

The equips had been made by March Rain.

“Actually, I didn’t ask her to craft me this,” Lu Li mumbled to himself.

Grim Chest Armour (Fine Silver): Armour +28, Agility +12, Stamina +6. Special Effect: Activate a energy shield which absorbs 300 points of damage, cooldown 120 seconds. Level Requirement 25, Durability 55/55.

Lu Li was currently wearing a level 15 Steel Grade Chest Armor. Despite its decent stats, it was still incomparable to the Silver Grade Equipment that March Rain had crafted.

300 points of damage didn’t seem like much; however, it could be extremely useful with the right timing.

March Rain didn’t have the overpowered Cresso’s Hammer and therefore, most of the gear she crafted was Fine Grade.

However, Lu Li was still very appreciative.

On the other hand, Lonesome Flower was pissed because he was jealous.

Lu Li was much more pleased when he had a look at the stats on the other equip.

Devil Leather Jacket (Superior Silver): Armour +24, Agility +14, Strength +4, Special Effect 1: Dodge +10%, Special Effect 2: Gale Steps skill level +1. Level Requirement 25, Durability 58/58.

This belt provided more stats than his Chest Armor, and the additional 10% Dodge was quite a rare special effect.

In other virtual reality games, Dodge was a very undefined stat because it allowed the player to avoid damage at a certain chance. This created a lot of confusion and randomness in other games, and was often nerfed to compensate.

However, in Dawn, dodge didn’t equate to the complete avoidance of damage.

Instead, Dodge chance referred to the decreased probability of receiving critical damage. In other words, if your Dodge chance was high, the less likely it would be for others to critically strike you.

Therefore, over time, less damage would be received overall.

The second effect was self-explanatory – everyone in the game had heard of Gale Steps and it was high respected.

The cost of the materials to craft this belt was extremely high. The Devil Leather alone was listed at 150 gold at the Exchange Hall.

Lu Li wasn’t sure where March Rain had found the materials, because they weren’t in his personal storage or in the mercenary group storage.

Perhaps she had been lucky and stumbled upon it, but Lu Li decided not to ask and just accepted the gift.

He accepted it as a gift of gratitude from March Rain for all the work he had done for the mercenary group.

It was too bad that Lu Li didn’t have any Weapon Molds for March Rain to repay her.

Lu Li couldn’t return the favour because he was a blacksmith, so he could only craft weapons from Weapon Molds.

Tailors could craft cloth and leather armour, while Leatherworkers could craft leather and mail armour. Blacksmith could craft weapons, mail armour and plate armour, which were all useless for March Rain.

System: The Shadow Cup is about to begin. Do you want to enter?

There were options to accept or decline the notification.

Lu Li wasn’t surprised at all by the notification and calmly selected accept.

On the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the system sent a notification to join the Shadow Cup for all players that were out of combat.

If the player missed the notification, it could still be accessed via the menu option.

After clicking accept, another notification appeared, informing Lu Li that he could form a party. The first round of the tournament started the next day at 10:00am and all party members had to be online to participate. They would then proceed to be transported to the tournament map.

The Shadow Cup was a long-established tournament with a very handsome reward for the winners. There were countless players that signed up for it.

Since the entry was free, most casual players joined in for the experience. The more serious players, however, had been preparing for this tournament for a while and were ready to take the championship.

Lu Li had updated and improved most of his gear; the only thing that he was missing was poison.

He was currently using Beginner Poison, which was lacking in damage. If he could find some Intermediate Poison, this would greatly increase his damage potential.

He couldn’t find any in the Exchange Hall and Shen WanSan didn’t have any either.

After some thought, he decided to ask Water Fairy.

Since he had helped her before, he wasn’t afraid to ask for a favour.

“I have two types of poisons, but they aren’t cheap. I can sell some to you,” Water Fairy offered straightforwardly. It was obvious that she was quite happy.

Even her idol, Lu Li, ran into times when he needed help from her!

Water Fairy didn’t notice, but she subconsciously raised her lips and smiled.

“The price doesn’t matter to me,” Lu Li said.

Lu Li wasn’t annoyed by her haggling, but was amused by her serious business voice. He felt like she was a lot more interesting and less boring when she was doing business with other people.

“And, I have another request. If you see players from Drizzle Court, you must go easy on us…” Water Fairy joked.

Even she was ashamed of herself for saying that.

The famous Ice Queen from a top 10 guild on the Chinese server was asking for mercy.

Lu Li didn’t understand her joke and replied seriously, “We obviously can’t just surrender against you guys, but I’ll make sure not to apply poison when I’m up against you.”

“Oh. Is that so… I’m busy with other things, talk to you later.”

Water Fairy hung up immediately.

Lu Li swore to make her pay for this one day.

He received a mailbox notification shortly after; it was the poison sent from Water Fairy.

The poison came in a set of 10, each costing 20 gold.

Lu Li almost puked because he knew that Intermediate Poison only costed 2 gold at the very most to produce.

How dare she overcharge like this!