The Great Thief

Lu Li’s previous match wasn’t entirely ignored by everyone.

There were almost a hundred million players in Dawn from China alone, so it was only natural that he would have some loyal fans.

They had been watching Lu Li closely to see when he would be promoted from the preliminaries.

Everyone had expected him to be the first to be promoted, if not within the first ten. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen either – he wasn’t in the first hundred, or even the first thousand…

Who would have thought that they would drag on their matches and be promoted after around six thousand other teams?

Despite this, there were still people who paid attention to the list of new promotions.

As soon as Lu Li’s team appeared, the fans knew that the one they had been waiting for had finally arrived.

News of this spread quickly.

Around four thousand people immediately bought tickets and entered Lu Li’s fifteenth match.

There were others who continued to buy entrance tickets, which peaked at almost ten thousand people. All up, this would be an income of around 8000-9000 gold coins.

However, some unexpected problems occurred; even the hosts of Shadow Cup weren’t prepared for it.

Those who had entered at the start were satisfied – they felt like they had seen an amazing match. However, those who entered later weren’t as lucky. All they saw was an empty match ground on the big screen.

We spent money to come here and watch a match, but all we got to see was a map.

The match had finished too quickly.

The arena was a rather small one – players were able to engage each other almost as soon as they entered. The opposing team had wanted to finish the match as quickly as possible, with the Thief and the Mage focusing on March Rain. This forced Lu Li and Moonlight unleash their full strength.

Dawn had an A.I reporting system, which would send a high-level alert to the hosting party if too many players sent reports.

There were no solutions for this in such a short amount of time – all the hosting party could do was to replay the match again so that everyone knew what had happened.

The opposing team were no match for Lu Li and his team members; Moonlight’s Whirlwind alone had nearly killed two players.

After the replay, the system sent everyone out. Some people were still asking for another replay of the match.

“Brother Chang, get an analyst here quickly to prepare for the analysis of this team!” a graduate shouted with excitement at the Shadow Group department which was responsible for the Shadow Cup.

He was a young man who didn’t know how to talk properly – his attitude wasn’t humble enough and neither was his tone.

The supervisor paused, then slowly replied, “Young people just can’t retain their composure. They’ve just won a match, that’s all. We’ll wait until they’ve entered the round of sixteen before we talk about this.”

“What!” The young man almost jumped on the spot and exclaimed, “You’re not having any analysts for Lu Li’s match?!”

Fortunately, he was still quite rational and didn’t blurt out what he had thought.

You must be brain-dead!

“What’s with all this commotion? So what if it’s Lu Li? He’s not even on the Expert Rankings. Take a look at all the analysts; everyone’s been sent out and no one has time.” The supervisor was originally impressed by how the team had finished a battle so quickly, but he was annoyed at the fact that an intern had talked to him in commanding tone.

Lu Li, Moonlight and March Rain were all IDs that he was unfamiliar with.

“Expert Ranking? What about the Expert Rankings? They’re nothing compared to Lu Li!” Since the intern was a newbie, he didn’t know what it meant to be afraid, so he slammed the table as he stood up and spoke.

There was no way that anyone else would talk back to their boss in front of others.

However, Lu Li was a God from the intern’s point of view, and there was no way that he would allow someone else to be so disrespectful.

“You…… You……” Supervisor Chang’s face flushed red as he yelled, “Get out of here! I’ll see what career you’ll manage to land from here on.”

“Haha, I’m not worried about finding a job. Worse comes to worst, I’ll just be a professional gamer. After observing someone like you host the Shadow Cup, I see that the hundred-year legend isn’t as amazing as they all think. I’m ashamed to be training at Shadow,” the young man laughed, chucking the folder in his hands away as he walked out.

“Wait, what happened?” A middle-aged man with a slicked-back hairstyle walked in just in time to run into the intern. Perhaps he had heard the intern’s angry words, but he stopped him from leaving.

“Move. Staying another second here makes me want to puke.”

The young man was biased against the Shadow Group at this point, so everyone he ran into annoyed him.

“Tell me what you meant by ‘The Shadow Group isn’t as amazing as they all think’. Everyone, gather around. Come and have a listen too.”

The middle-aged man wasn’t angry; he waved his hands and all the people in the circular office stood up.

“President Zhao.”

It was clear that the middle-aged man who had walked in was someone of importance.

“Good to see you President Zhao. I should’ve asked someone to tell us you were coming.”

Supervisor Chang quickly approached and his sour expression instantly changed to a big smile.

“What happened?”

His tone was still warm, but all those who knew the Vice-President well would be able to feel the rage that boiled under his words.

Shadow had been famous for a hundred years and was truly a legend in the business world. There was no way he wouldn’t be angry when someone spoke bad of the Shadow Group.

Supervisor Chang didn’t wait for the intern to speak and explained, “This was what happened……”

This office took up the entire floor and there were many who eyed his position, so he didn’t dare to exaggerate anything.

However, it was still possible for him to achieve the results that he wanted by adjusting the way he spoke.

Observing the expression of others and adjusting their language based on it – this was something that anyone with enough life experience would be able to do.

However, what he found weird was that his coworkers that had been gathered by the Vice-President suddenly gave him a sympathetic look.

He hated this kind of look from others – it felt as if he had forgotten to wear his clothes before he left his door in the morning.

“For a Shadow Cup like this…”

The intern didn’t bother trying to correct the little lies that Supervisor Chang had slipped into his previous words. “Will there still be a next season for it?” he carelessly laughed.

“A shame indeed.” President Zhao’s face slightly twitched as he sank into the leather chair.

“President Zhao……” Supervisor Chang wasn’t dumb and he began to have a bad feeling.

“You don’t know Lu Li?”

The Vice-President still wanted to double check.

“Lu…… Lu Li.” Supervisor Chang began to sweat on his forehead.

“I’ll go have a look after I get back home.”

He didn’t dare tell a lie and pretend that he knew. He could try and fool the President, but definitely not the Vice-President; he had seen with his own eyes the things that the Vice-President had done to climb to his current position.

“No need to trouble yourself; you can report back to Manager Qian. Oh, and tell him while you’re at it, I’d like to see his resignation letter in the company’s regular meeting this weekend,” President Zhao coldly said as he regained his usual composure and sharp attitude.

A cold act indeed – he couldn’t even be bothered to deal with Supervisor Chang. Instead, he went straight ahead and dealt with Supervisor Chang’s manager.

Even for those at the top of society, a manager position in the Gaming Department of the Shadow Group was a position that would have taken a dozen years to climb to. In fact, even if they spent the time and effort, there was no guarantee that they would be able to make it to this position. Yet, the career of someone had been ended with a single sentence.

A lot of companies liked to poach employees of the Shadow Group by offering a higher salary because they were talented people who were highly valued.

However, it was rare for other companies to employ those who had been released by the Shadow Group. Those who were released by the group wouldn’t even have a chance to start over again.

His manager had been released; what about him?

Supervisor Chang’s brain became a giant mess as all kinds of thoughts flooded in to eventually focus on one single point.

Who was this Lu Li?