The Great Thief

Perhaps it was the rain that was messing with him, but he had no idea when he had found this Skill book. He had wasted more time than he needed to.

Lu Li could finally leave the beautiful scene of Stranglethrone Vale that he didn’t really like.

Everyone had things that they hated, and there were two things that Lu Li hated the most – being poor and being in the rain. It was probably because he was poor that he hated the rain.

Now that he had acquired Fan of Knives, he abandoned the rest of his plans, because there was no longer any need for them.

He then spent the next two days levelling. His main strategy was to pull the monsters and get four Mages to cast Blizzard together. When the monsters were about the same HP, he would rush in and cast Fan of Knives.

The damage of Fan of Knives was quite low, so it would be considered quite good if he could kill at least ten of the twenty monsters in every wave.

In fact, Lu Li was quite satisfied with how efficient the system was. Without Fan of Knives, he would normally only kill 4-5 of the monsters.

The Mages didn’t wait too long for him to get the last hit either.

After tediously levelling up, Lu Li reached level 37 and was slowly making his way to level 38. At this level, he could already go to Zul’Farrak, but his teammates’ levels weren’t high enough.

He had instructed Square Root 3 to find exquisite anti-toxin equipment from the Market for them, but there was little progress, even after a few days.

He could find anti-toxin equipment, but their other properties would be lacking. Most equipment that had anti-toxin had lower attack and defense. There was nothing that was as good as what they already had.

Without that equipment, their levels just needed to be higher.

Level 35 was the absolute minimum. Otherwise, they simply wouldn’t be able to tank all the different kinds of powerful toxins that those ancient monsters had.

It wasn’t as if there was no one attempting Zul’Farrak right now. In fact, there were actually many players in Zul’Farrak trying to complete it. There were even some elite teams that had defeated the first Boss on Elite difficulty.

The loot was said to be quite bountiful; the team that had achieved the First Clear had received a level 35 Gold equip.

For a Gold equipment to drop at Elite difficulty was unthinkable.

With such a precedent set, thousands of players flooded into the demonic ruins in order to reap some of those rewards.

Even the major guilds couldn’t wait much longer. They drafted their Instance Dungeon teams and officially announced Zul’Farrak as the current main objective of the guild.

Only Ruling Sword had held back their players and continued to strenuously farm.

According to what Lu L had told Square Root 3, there was no point in doing this Instance Dungeon if you weren’t level 35, unless if you had Anti-Toxin equipment.

When he was free, Lu Li would go to the Mercenary Hall.

Since Zul’Farrak’s first Boss had been defeated, perhaps a team had been able to find the Ancient Demon Eye rare material. He hoped to be able to upgrade his ring before they started doing the Instance Dungeon.

The materials that it asked for this time were ridiculous. Everything together would probably be worth around one to two million.

For a rich person, this one to two million wasn’t even enough for clothing. Yet, for a poor person, this money was enough to radically improve their lives.

The Mercenary Hall was quite a lively place.

In his past life, Lu Li really liked coming here and talking to the mercenaries who would just squat around in the corner of the hall.

They would sit around and watch the players coming in to find a suitable target. They would then relentlessly sell themselves in hopes of earning a hiring fee.

This game was like a society for many reasons. One of them was because there were so many players who were living at the bottom of the economic ladder.

”Brother, do you want someone to farm for you? I have a party of four – 3 Mages and 1 Warrior. You can take potions and continually be levelled up. You’ll catch up to the mainstream in no time,” a Warrior said, pushing in and pulling at Lu Li.

As the others weren’t as quick, they had no choice but to back off.

There were few players that would pull out a knife if they didn’t have their way. As this was also a safe zone, most players knew that friendliness was more likely to attract business. Their employers were often wealthy tycoons that didn’t like killing.

”Sorry, I’m not looking to farm,” Lu Li shook his head as he replied out loud.

He saw that these players were all being so friendly and that they were just making money to sustain themselves, so it wasn’t easy for him either.

”Well… do you need a quest to be completed?” The warrior was a little disappointed. His party’s main purpose was for farming. All they needed to do was add the player and go farm. It was relatively risk free and also didn’t get in the way of their own levelling progress.

Some of Dawn’s quests were quite complex and it was difficult to guarantee the completion of every single one.

If they ran into an unreasonable employer, not only would they not be paid, but they would also receive a bad review in the Mercenary Association.

Players here could see another player’s previous employment record. As such, unless you set a really low price, there would be very few players who would hire someone who had been poorly reviewed. As for setting a low price, it was already difficult to maintain yourself, so a low price meant that they probably couldn’t even pay for the potions used.

”No, I’ve put up a quest and I’ve come to see if anyone has accepted it,” Lu Li said as he pointed inside.

The Warrior reluctantly let him go and continued looking for the next target. He couldn’t help anyone who could spend 20 gold to scroll through the quests in the main hall.

Lu Li entered the hall and looked at the monitor in the employment hall.

There was all sorts of information on it. Lu Li waited for his quest to come up. He didn’t actually have any hope that it would be accepted, but he was surprised to find a pair of golden wings on it.

This meant that someone had left a message.

Perhaps that person really did find the Ancient Demon Eyes!

Not all players could leave a message. You needed to have the employer’s item or some useful information. It needed to be inspected by the Mercenary Association before a message could be left for the employer to contact them.

The authenticity of the information was divided into three classes – red, gray and gold.

Red was unreliable, gray had some credibility, but was unconfirmed, and gold meant that the person had the item on hand.

Lu Li found a self-service check in machine and after passing authentication, he quickly saw the message.

Laugh into the Heavens – what a strange name. Lu Li frowned as he tried to send this person a private message. As long as he had the item, Lu Li didn’t care what his name was.

System: Sorry, your message has been rejected.

Dammit, Lu Li was speechless. He hadn’t been rejected for a long time, so it was unusual when he heard the prompt. What was this player doing? He wasn’t playing properly.