The Great Thief

“Ruling Sword has never broken any rules. At most, they’ve just broken your rules,” the female representative corrected him coldly. “This is our mistake this time. We’ll take some responsibility for it, but we’re definitely not doing anything to Ruling Sword.”

If they had designed the event better, they could have prevented this awkward situation.

For example, they could have set the quest item to be untradeable. However, there would still be some problems with this as it was mostly the trade skill players who competed. They weren’t interested in leveling up, so there was no use giving them experience. Usually, the items that they fished were sold in exchange for some retirement money.

Another method was to publicly announce the use of these Scrumptious Fish right from the beginning along with the location of Hemingway. Perhaps there would still be a mass-purchase of the fish on the market, but there was no way that Ruling Sword could obtain 80% of them like they had this time. At the very least, there wouldn’t be such an influx of level 45 players.

What was the difference between level 45 and the mainstream level 43?

The level 45 competitors could equip level 45 equipment. Every guild would have a few prized pieces in their storages.

It was the difference in gear that would predetermine the result of the match.

The most exciting part of a competition was its unknown outcome.

If everyone knew what was going to happen, filling the audience seats would definitely be a challenge.

The profit of a competition was more than just a simple match; it was also dependent on the satisfaction of the investors and sponsors. The long-term impact that competition could have also needed to be considered.

“Then tell us what we should do. You’re the expert,” the chubby man said grumpily.

In his opinion, they had to find an excuse to make life hard for Ruling Sword. That way, they would behave themselves after this whole debacle.

“We’ll double the experience for Christmas and triple the monster refresh rate…”

One by one, suggestions were brought up and a group of experts and game designers discussed the possibilities.

Since this was going to be an unplanned maintenance, they also had to persuade their bosses.

Three days after the mass-leveling of the Ruling Sword players, another announcement arrived late for Christmas.

Firstly, from the 25th of December all the way until the new year, EXP would be multiplied. This included both monster experience and quest experience.

This was the first time that the game has given out experience for free, besides the event at the start of the game which existed to balance out the level difference between players who had just joined and those who had been playing for a while

Second of all, there would be Reindeer Event with a Boss that was refreshed in all areas of the game.

These Bosses would be between the range of level 1 to 50 and would refresh in all maps of the game. Even the Bosses in the dungeons were going to refresh faster.

Reindeer were split into three types. The first were Experience Reindeer, which as their name suggested, provided a significant amount of experience. The second type were Equipment Reindeers, which had the potential to drop exquisite equips. The third type were Reputation Reindeers, which would give the players Reputation points.

Another thing worth mentioning was that the level penalty during the event was slightly changed.

Players like Lu Li, who were level 45, would normally gain nothing from killing a level 1 reindeer. However, this rule had now been changed. Regardless of the level difference, you were bound to receive something from a kill.

Experience Reindeer and Equipment Reindeer ranged from level 1 to 50 and spawned everywhere, while the Reputation Reindeer were level 50 Bosses and refreshed on every map once.

There were also other minor events. In a Western game like this, Christmas was definitely a major deal.

People could tell that the gaming company had lowered their leveling difficult by a surprising amount. It was unusual for a game that had only been released for three months to do something like this.

Apparently, the gaming company had planned to keep the game updated for at least twenty years They wouldn’t offer something like this so easily when they wanted the game to go on for so long.

Everyone couldn’t help but be reminded of the rankings; it was probably Ruling Sword who had changed the company’s mind.

“Shouldn’t they do something about the players from Ruling Sword? They’re not getting rid of them either; they can gain the double experience too. Things are probably easier for them as well, since they’re already level 45.”

“Haha, are you pretending to be stupid or are you actually stupid? Do you not know how much of a difference there is between level 43 and 45? Even if the Ruling Sword players reached level 49, they wouldn’t have much of an advantage over a level 45 players.”

Lu Li understood this too, but he didn’t expect a outcome like this.

He knew of the secret to the Scrumptious Fish and had used it to gain some experience for his own people.

What was wrong with taking an advantage?

Others in the game were upset about their levels, but did no one see the money that they had spent on it too?

He didn’t think that the company’s reaction would be so big to the extent that they would change the Christmas event.

The Christmas event in his previous life was quite similar over the years. Lu Li wondered if the standard for future Christmas would be similar to this.

There were three matches in these two days, and Ruling Sword easily stomped through them.

Lu Li’s equipment was carefully chosen for each match. He didn’t even change to the level 45 equips in the storage because they weren’t as good as his current ones.

However, it was a different story for the others. Almost everyone upgraded what they were wearing.

Kitty Likes Meat replaced seven of her equips as nearly everything in the storage was better than what she had found by herself in the Auction.

Not to mention, Ruling Sword had slain so many bosses, so among these seven equips, at half of them were Gold or Dark Gold grade. Now, she was the definition of a human bomber.

Not only could Warlocks tire people to death, but their burst damage was just as impressive as a Mage.

Fat Monkey and Kitty Likes Meat with Moonlight on their side stomped through the group matches. Their commanding victories frightened the major guilds.

Fortunately, the double experience had arrived just in time.

For Lu Li and Ruling Sword, any further levels they gained were just a luxury, but for the major guilds, this was a life and death situation.