The Great Thief

There was no way that a Nightmare Instance Dungeon would only drop three items. Remnant Dream continued looting and found a Synthetic Stone.

Neither the Synthetic Stone nor the Strengthening Stone were bad items. The difference between them was that the Strengthening Stone had a consistent market value while the Synthetic Stone’s market value was based on its properties.

A Synthetic Stone with bad properties was worthless; players wouldn’t even take it for free.

After all, it would take up a spot on their equipment.

Those that had good properties could sell for hundreds of thousands of gold coins without a problem. Water Fairy had given Lu Li the stone because of the Ruling Sword and Drizzle Court alliance, but Lu Li would otherwise have had to pay her at least 15,000 gold coins.

The master looter was at work, so the Synthetic Stone that the little hunter was holding was not bad at all.

Synthetic Stone: Ignore Defence – a certain chance of reducing the target’s max HP to 1000.

”This seems quite strong; you can instantly take someone down to 1000HP. If it was a PVP, you could deal over half their HP in a single hit.”

This was the first time they had seen this special effect and they were all amazed.

”It’s not what you think it is,” Lu Li said, bursting their bubbles. ”This effect needs to be triggered as soon as possible. Preferably, it would activate on the first strike, because once you start dealing damage, the effect becomes less powerful.

‘Max HP’ – that was the key phrase.

For example, if a player had 2000 HP and it activated on the first strike, it would deal half of their HP. However, if a player only had 999 HP remaining and the effect activated, they would still have 999HP.

Even so, the value of this stone had to be acknowledged. It was much more valuable than a Strengthening Stone.

”What items have you been assigned?”

Because they had achieved the First Clear, not only did they receive three Gold equips and a Silver Mold, but they also received 2 Exquisite skill books and two stones.

Additionally, there were also the System rewards.

Lu Li looked at the System prompt which told him he had acquired the skill book, ‘Evasion’.

Throughout the course of these Scarlet Instance Dungeons, Lu Li hadn’t been very lucky. None of the four Instance Dungeons had dropped anything good. However, when he acquired ‘Evasion’, he felt like it was all worth it.

Evasion: Instant Cast, 180 second cool down. Evade the next attack that you receive. Grants a bonus 20% Evasion chance for 10 seconds, Proficiency 1/5.

This skill was incredibly useful in helping him stay alive, but it also tested his ability to make decisions.

If an opponent casted a powerful skill, you could use Evasion in advance to nullify it. In addition, you would also gain a 20% Evasion chance for 10 seconds afterwards.

The key was not to use it too early because if it was noticed by your opponent, they could just cast a weaker skill at you first.

Generally, the better the player, the harder it would be to evade.

However, for an expert, this was a formidable skill.

”I seem to remember that we still need to do something here.”

They didn’t need Lu Li’s reminder, but the ten of them had been entranced by the exquisite equipment.

Before they fought Vishas they had received two quests.

One of them was to help Vorrel Sengutz kill Vishas’ wife Nancy, reclaim his wedding ring and go to the Hillsbrad Hills outside the Horde camp at the Terren Mill to find Monica.

They had already half completed the quest and just needed to find the person now.

The other was from Joseph, who thought that his mentor – the Scarlet Grand Inquisitor Fairbanks – was still alive and wanted them to find him.

Although they had completely cleared the Instance Dungeon, they still hadn’t found any trace of Fairbanks.

”Seeing as it’s a quest, Fairbanks will definitely be here. Everyone search every nook and cranny until we all of this place’s secrets.” Lu Li didn’t directly reveal the secret; that would be too obvious.

The hall was enormous and it was quite troublesome to search through it.

However, they eventually managed to find a switch that opened a secret room on the back of a pillar after a few minutes.

”We might find mountains of treasure; the Scarlet Crusade seems quite rich.”

Azure Sea Breeze was the first to run into the chamber.

”Bleurgh!”

Azure Sea Breeze gagged after smelling the odor.

Dawn deliberately didn’t process smells, so it was rare for them to smell blood. It was only in particular circumstances that the game would present such smells.

”It’s the smell of a corpse; everyone can turn it off if you want.”

Lu Li wisely stood outside the door while he reminded everyone.

In the end, it was only Azure Sea Breeze that rushed in.

”Hey, is there any treasure?” Wandering took the opportunity to rub in Azure Sea Breeze’s misfortune.

”I got here first, so if there is anything good, it’s mine,” Azure Sea Breeze said as he turned off the smell that was killing him.

The basement was very dark and only provided a small green lamp on the wall for light. The lamp flickered in the darkness and revealed the layout of the basement to them.

The basement wasn’t very large. There was a row of bookshelves and across from that was a ‘person’ sitting in a chair.

Fairbanks.

The state of his body was horrendous – it had been completely infected and was producing the smell of a corpse. The only explanation for this was that he had been afflicted by the Scourge.

Azure Sea Breeze raised his single-handed axe, ready to rush at this monster.

Lu Li reached out and held him back as he quickly said, ”Don’t be impulsive – look at his eyes.”

Azure Sea Breeze didn’t understand at first, but he soon realized that Fairbanks wasn’t actually dead.

His eyes were clear, perhaps even clearer than regular human being’s. There was no sign of control by Sylvanas nor the insanity of the Scourge. They had a similar tranquility to the Elven Lake.

”Hello, Respected Grand Inquisitor,” Lu Li said.

”Oh, it’s a group of adventurers! When did the Scarlet Monastery become a place where people could come and go?” Fairbanks’ voice was a little hoarse as the air was passing through the rotted gaps in his throat. He sounded a bit like a monster.

He didn’t sound very polite, so everyone was anxious.

”We, by Joseph’s request, have defeated Mograine and Whitemane and have come to you,” Lu Li said.