The Great Thief

It would be impossible to prevent casualties from the Enrage.

It was said that even the lower-level instance dungeon Bosses would still be able to deal large amounts of damage to high-level players while in an Enraged state.

Almost twenty players died out of the forty present, but fortunately, the final victors were the players.

“The game time is about to end. Let’s loot quickly and go,” Lu Li urged as he checked the time. The game company didn’t care whether the Boss’ body was looted or not. The Boss would be refreshed at a set time. No one had dared to test that out, but it was definitely how it had been designed.

“I managed to get a Skill Point! I’m so happy!” Remnant Dream exclaimed in joy.

Once she was in a good mood, the items that she looted would usually be exquisite. The first thing was a Fusion stone which added +15 Movement Speed. For Priests or other slow-moving classes, these types of stones were a godsend.

Even exquisite boots would only add +30 movement speed. Lu Li’s own Champion’s Boots added +25 movement speed, and he had used this item for months already.

Although there weren’t any Enhanced skill books, there were still many normal skill books that were usually quite difficult to acquire. Skill books that dropped from large-scale Instance Dungeons like this were usually quite useful to normal players. Lu Li stored away the skill books that the team didn’t need in the guild storage. Many members of the guild would want them.

It was here that another type of labourer was born.

This job was of a slightly higher rank a gold collector. In his previous life, Lu Li was also in this position for a while.

To put it bluntly, these items that were rarer to acquire for normal players were usually more expensive. This was the case for most guilds. It was hard for normal players to escape their fates. The strong determined the rules, yet the rules only made life harder for the normal players.

For the sake of being strong, Lu Li also had to make life harder for the ordinary people. This was a societal rule; it wasn’t something that he could change.

The only thing that he could do was perhaps to make it slightly easier by allowing more people to receive what they deserved.

Styleen’s Impeding Scarab – this was an Epic Shield and was quite an exquisite item. This Shield was useful while taking aggro, so it was taken by World’s Best Friend.

Shadow Wing Focus Staff. This was an Epic Staff and ended up being taken by a Mage from Peerless City.

Handguards of Transcendence. As a pair of T2 Priest Gloves, it took a considerable number of points for March Rain to acquire it. After this, there weren’t other notable things to distribute. With the remaining time, some went to do quests, while some went back to the Stronghold. They needed to continue fighting this Instance Dungeon the next day.

The next day, Lu Li heard that Innocent Child had terminated his contract with the Gangnam Royals, or more accurately speaking, Dancing Star Dream and Innocent Child had requested it together.

The termination fees were usually quite expensive, but Heart of War was extremely generous. When they joined in the beginning, they signed a special type of contract regarding the termination fees. There were a few contracts of this nature in the game at that time.

Both sides agreed to join on good terms and decided to part on good terms as well. The termination fee was only a small amount of money for formal significance.

The professional gaming scenery was shocked upon the changing of guilds of these two world-class players. Everyone’s eyes were on Gangnam Royals. Their response to this was also quite quick, calling all the regular media companies and putting together a press conference quickly.

Heart of War’s tone were no longer like what it was. He immediately pointed out what the club hadn’t done and that he had failed the professional players.

They lost in competitions, which in turn caused huge losses for the Gangnam Royals. The club also didn’t have any determination at becoming stronger and instead only offered their condolences. This type of generosity didn’t sit well with some players, since the club had become basically become the henchmen of the other clubs.

No matter what he said, the truth was that the Gangnam Royals had just lost a major part of their manpower.

However, during this press conference, they also mentioned another piece of news. Heart of War had announced that the Gangnam Royals would sign contracts with seven mercenary groups. These mercenary groups would support the Gangnam Royals with materials and one of these groups would also be responsible for training their future pro players.

From Heart of War’s perspective, they had managed to take control of the seven largest mercenary groups in Dawn.

Whether in Lu Li’s previous life or this life, the Gangnam Royals had used this type of method to solve their club problems. The only difference with this life was Lu Li’s battle against Heart of War, which forced this to happen at least a year earlier.

This contract model had a definite impact on the Dawn professional gaming scene.

Many clubs would delegate tasks to mercenary groups, such as the gathering of materials, training of pro-players, maintaining Instance Dungeon records or even competing professionally.

Some clubs already began to create multiple squads for competitions, but the relationship between the clubs and these squads wasn’t that strong. The squads were merely only competing in the name of the club, while the club would provide financial support and materials.

With the introduction of the mercenary groups, it seemed that there was even more financial pressure on the club.

However, with the contributions from the tasks that mercenary groups were given, the club would, in fact, lessen their financial pressure and also save a lot of money.

While it might have appeared quite intimidating, managing hundreds and thousands of members in a club was no simple task, since there were only a few of them that could contribute to the club. However, to be able to please the public, the club needed to support the non-contributing players as well.

Even if each player only gave a few dollars per day, the club would be able to save a lot of money.

Therefore, with Heart of War beginning this movement, every large club would begin to set a limit of around 100 000 members. Sister guilds would be even smaller. This would lead to the increase in quality of new members.

This new employment of mercenary groups helped Dawn’s quality of gaming improve.

When Lu Li had just been reborn, he only thought about making a mercenary group.

His plan was to gather a group of capable players at the start and take First Clears. Then, they would take on the requests from large clubs to get First Clears for them. After being financially secure, he would use the knowledge of pro-players in his previous life and team up with them, helping the clubs on a professional level.

However, this would-be mercenary group exceeded Lu Li’s expectation and goals, so he decided to establish a club that took their First Clears for themselves.

Lu Li allowed Square Root Three to get in contact with Innocent Child.

Innocent Child then joined Ruling Sword and became one of their professional Druid players.

This new contract was also the special type of contract. Innocent Child was free to leave Ruling Sword, provided that he didn’t bring harm to the club if he chose to leave. Lu Li didn’t mind this, since he didn’t believe that a contract could bind a person to the club indefinitely.

The only person that could choose to stay was himself.

If he thought that the club’s atmosphere was positive while playing the game and competing for the guild, he wouldn’t leave even if they wanted him to.

The news that Innocent Child had joined Ruling Sword was quickly announced by Square Root Three.

Ruling Sword immediately stole the Gangnam Royals’ thunder at that moment.

This was expected. A professional player had left the Gangnam Royals, then joined Ruling Sword. There were no transfer fees and the agreement was made under amicable circumstances.

What did this mean?

This meant that Ruling Sword was much more appealing to Innocent Child than the Gangnam Royals. Transfers like these had immediate impact, so many clubs would look to recruit members from opposing clubs. Even the largest amount of money was worth it to keep their professional players.

There was also Dancing Star Dream who had also announced to leave the Gangnam Royals.

Unfortunately, he had already made agreements elsewhere. Not even Innocent Child could affect his decision.

Dancing Star Dream decided to go to Grand Hegemony instead. He was different to Innocent Child. Innocent Child’s value didn’t rise, since he had prioritised advancement over anything else. He didn’t

want to follow a goal-less leader like Heart of War.

However, Dancing Star Dream was different. His value exploded when he joined Grand Hegemony.

This was because Grand Hegemony were financially loaded but had nothing to spend it on.

As for future advancement, it wasn’t that Dancing Star Dream was short-sighted. He would eventually become the squad leader of Grand Hegemony, then compose a powerful squad that was under his complete control.

There was also a press conference for Grand Hegemony, welcoming Dancing Star Dream into their ranks.

Lu Li and Ruling Sword didn’t have that much money to be able to have afternoon tea with the media, so the welcoming was only done in a hotel together.

The chaos that ensued after the consecutive release of breaking news finally calmed down. The Gangnam Royals still remained standing after losing two professional players, all the while still maintaining quite a positive look.

The obvious winners were Ruling Sword and Grand Hegemony. Both clubs received fresh and new players. If there weren’t any other interruptions, these two clubs would undergo large changes.

Lu Li’s focus was maintained on the Instance Dungeon.

Innocent Child joined Blackwing’s Lair squad with the role of a healing-specialised Druid. He adapted to the squad extremely quickly. Lu Li didn’t suspect that he was a spy sent by Heart of War to learn about the inner workings of the Instance Dungeon.

The seventh Boss of the Blackwing’s Lair was called Chromaggus.

This Boss looked nothing like the three Bosses from before; it looked like a horribly deformed twin-headed dragon. Frankly, it looked like a dog!

Chromaggus was the Black Dragon Prince’s final experiment and was made from multiple dragon corpses. Its body included five different types of Dragons. Because of these various types of dragons, there were also five types of terrifying power which brought with them ten types of AoE magic.

Although it looked like a twin-headed dog, Chromaggus still maintained its status as a Dragon.