The Great Thief

Lu Li faced off against two dummies – a Warrior and a Thief.

If they had the same skills as normal players, then these puppets would be rather frightening. They didn’t have a reaction time, and their mechanics and experiences were all coded.

The Thief was in charge of crowd-control while the Warrior was for damage output. This was a perfect combination of classes.

He glanced over at Water Fairy and she was in the same exact situation. He slowly edged closer to her and said, “Let’s work together. Crowd control the Thief first then focus fire on the other Thief. Be careful of your positioning because the Warriors might deal a lot of damage.”

This sort of situation obviously required their teamwork; fighting individually would be certain death.

Lu Li wasn’t interested in winning this test fight, but he needed to cast a few quality Gouges because the purpose of Garona summoning him today was to check on his training progress.

Even so, Lu Li made sure not to underestimate these dummies.

Based on his teacher’s relationship with Mekgineer Thermaplugg, these mechanical dummies were probably at a much higher standard than the normal ones.

The fight had begun!

Both of them entered into Stealth and the first step was to eliminate the fellow Thief. In order to work together more cohesively, they both changed their settings so that they could see each other in Stealth.

The two dummies also entered into Stealth.

Truthfully, Lu Li had been meaning to research and look into these mechanical dummies. What was it exactly that gives them the intelligence and life to fight? Unfortunately, this wasn’t something that he could achieve as an Engineer.

Mechanical dummies were Mekgineer Theramplugg’s specialty. Even Gelbin Mekkatorque, his fellow colleague and friend was completely impressed with him.

He made sure that he would pay Thermaplugg a visit in the future to learn more about this, but right now, he had to deal with his creations first.

Fortunately, the dummies weren’t much higher level than Lu Li and Water Fairy. Lu Li believed that these were most likely lv60 dummies, or else it wouldn’t make sense for Garona to make them fight them.

Lu Li did not mess around, nor did he enter the range of the two Warrior dummies.

Who knew if Thermaplugg had installed some kind of Stealth-detecting skill on the Warriors? Their primary objective right now was to take down one of the Thieves.

Lu Li stayed close to Water Fairy.

He was confident in not being detected because he was using Water Fairy as bait. Since he had Advanced Stealth and Water Fairy didn’t, as long as she wasn’t detected, then he wouldn’t be either.

Although he was using her, he still felt the desire to protect her from any harm.

He wanted to bait out the dummies to attack Water Fairy then rescue her by defeating them. He would be killing two birds with one stone.

Lu Li detected a shadow nearby and he knew what to do immediately.

He casted Hex in the same direction and it landed right on the dummy, revealing its identity.

However, Lu Li and Water Fairy remained in stealth.

They first needed to find the other Thief dummy. Water Fairy was no longer the bait because Lu Li had just casted Hex.

Even though Lu Li was still in Stealth, there were many clues to determine the position of the caster.

Firstly, based on the target location, one could judge the distance of the position of the caster. Additionally, when struck by Hex, the target would lean towards one side, giving the enemies further clues.

Mekgineer Thermaplugg were familiar with Thief tendencies and his dummies would likely have similar battle experiences.

Lu Li took a step back because he sensed something where he was standing before. The shadow of a Thief dummy slowly appeared.

Lu Li laughed without making a sound.

No matter how great the invention, it would still be artificial intelligence. No matter how great the design, it would always be limited by its designer. No matter how intelligent it was, nothing would ever defeat human intelligence because at the end of the day, it was just lines of code and pieces of metal.

Lu Li jumped onto the dummy that was tricked.

Water Fairy remained in Stealth. Based on her past experiences with Lu Li, she needed to wait a little more.

If the Thief continued to be Hexed, then she could save her Hex for one of the Warriors. However, if the Thief could dispel the Hex then she would follow it up with her own.

If her Hex was dispelled again then… there was nothing they could do.

Lu Li attacked the target. Water Fairy guessed correctly because the dummy dispelled the Hex, so she quickly followed it up with her own.

After her Hex, she quickly joined Lu Li in bursting down the Thief.

Lu Li did not use Kidney Strike after the stun even though he had enough combo points. Instead, he stood directly in front of the dummy.

When the stun duration was over, the dummy tried avoiding Lu Li’s attack.

How could Lu Li let him go that easily? He casted Gouge with all his focus because he knew that was what Garona was looking for.

Gouge!

System: Gouge completion rate 95%, target stunned for 1.5 seconds.

Garona’s eyes lit up. Not only was it a moving target, but it was also a dummy with very high speed. Despite this, Lu Li was able to perform a 95% completion rate which showed how far her pupil had come.

Lu Li was too focused to see how Garona reacted.

He was slightly disappointed because the highest completion rate he had ever achieved was 98% when he was practicing with Water Fairy.

Although he had casted a near perfect Gouge, the situation was still not ideal.

Lu Li did not continue attacking the Thief but instead, he backed out to deal with the two Warriors. He crowd-controlled them both in order to create an advantageous fight for Water Fairy.

The Hex duration was finally up as well.

He was met with yet another Hex, but consecutive crowd-control skills would reduce the duration by half, which meant he would be free much faster.