The Great Thief

Chapter 197: A Statistical Anomaly?

Translator: Halcyon Translations Editor: Halcyon Translations

Damned Xin Xin Mercenary Group!

They must have been cheating!

Someone should report them to customer services - these slags needed to be punished!

However, those people were bound to be disappointed. After some investigation by the system, all the data had been found to be normal.

A blueprint had been ‘stolen’ by a player from an NPC. The player then crazily levelled up their Engineering EXP to reach the appropriate level for the bomb. The only jaw-dropping fact was that this player clearly had the ability to mass produce these bombs.

A group of game designers, Technical Advisors and Sociology Experts had been called together for an urgent meeting.

“We have no right to delete something that is natural within the game – this is contrary to the spirit of the game. Various player unions are constantly watching the data within the game,” the legal advisor said seriously.

He made no reference to the law, because he knew that the law wasn’t the strongest power.

The spirit of the game wasn’t something that had always been taken seriously. However, it could now become a matter of life and death for a game. Once a game company had violated the spirit of the game, many players would be disappointed and rival game companies could easily use this against them.

Although Dawn was controlled by high-authority figures throughout the country, these figures still had political enemies.

These enemies were always lurking, waiting for any kind of error to pounce on.

As Dawn seemed to become more and more popular, there were bound to be people who were eagerly waiting for its downfall so they could drag their enemies down into the abyss.

“That is correct. We also don’t have the ability to make such a change. The key to modify the main program lies with the board of directors,” supported the technician.

“This really isn’t much of an issue,” the CEO said as he waved his hands, “I don’t understand why you guys wanted to meet so urgently.”

“All of Dawn’s player base is concerned about this player. This is no small matter,” the head designer responded while wiping the sweat off his forehead.

This man had gone straight to his boss’ superior. He thought that the issue was so big that he had called out the CEO. However, he didn’t realize that they would have a completely opposite opinion.

This was what people were most afraid of in a workplace. Could he have done something dumb?

“Concerned about this player? This really isn’t an issue.” The CEO operated the control panel, bringing up a large picture Lu Li on the screen. “We have been closely following this player since the beginning of the game.”

“His ability has destroyed the balance of the game,” the director declared, trying to draw everyone’s attention.

“Can he fight 100 people at once? Or kill a person in one hit? Or does he have some kind of godly equipment on his body?” The CEO stood up as he grew impatient.

It was probably unlikely that Lu Li could fight 100 people at once. Although his PVP battles were stunning, this was nothing compared to fighting 100 players at once. Realistically, there was even a chance of failure when facing a party of five players. If it were 10 players, he would probably have to avoid them, while if it were 100 players, he wouldn’t even dare to reveal himself.

As for killing a person in one hit, it took him a whole skill rotation.

His Supreme Ring – the godly item – had been slightly abused. It was originally designed for entertainment purposes.

The fact that Lu Li had already upgraded it to level two was beyond the designer’s expectations. Even the head designer felt embarrassed about this.

“We need a hero, the players need a hero and Dawn needs a hero. The more players there are like this, the better,” the CEO said as he left the room. When he was a few steps short of leaving the room, he said, “Mr Chen, you have abused your power and attempted to tamper with the natural data within the game. Submit your resignation to HR tomorrow. I’m sure I don’t need to explain the non-disclosure agreement”

The head designer slumped into his chair. His mind was a mess; the only word that he remembered was resignation.

“Mr Chen, take care now.”

His deputy, who had pushed him to call this meeting, smiled as he walked over.

“You…” Head Designer Chen was now blue in the face, as he finally understood.

“If you think about it, it really isn’t a problem. The Fool’s bomb isn’t really that good. Starwood’s drop rate is also quite low and the ghosts aren’t that common either. Once they level up, the ghosts will eventually yield no EXP. The balance hasn’t been destroyed,” the deputy sighed as he shook his head. “Don’t blame me – you were blinded by your own greed. You really wanted to interfere with natural data? This is natural data we are talking about…”

Lu Li had no idea that he had even caused some ripples within the game company.

It was a good thing that everyone had listened to Lu Li’s instructions to clear out their bags, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to hold as many things. Even so, there was still so many Bronze and Common equipment that they had to throw away as trash.

The ghosts were all ordinary monsters, so the best that they could drop was Bronze equipment. The chance of them dropping Steel equipment was almost non-existent.

However, it was still worth collecting the Skill Books and the materials.

After farming tens of thousands of these ghosts, a dozen Skill Books had been dropped. Of course, one shouldn’t hope to obtain an Ultimate Skill from these ordinary monsters.

Lu Li himself had managed to obtain a Thief Skill—Gouge.

Gouge: 2 second cast time. Gouge the target’s eyes, paralyzing them for 1 second. The target must be facing you when the skill is cast. Any damage to the target will cause them to recover. Proficiency 1/5.

With a two second cast time, this skill would never be taken seriously. Regular players were more likely to use Instant Cast skills like Kidney Strike, which had a longer crowd control.

However, the experts had a different opinion.

When this skill was upgraded, its cast time would be shortened and its crowd control duration will be increased. It would then become a very good crowd control skill.

Lu Li already had quite a few crowd control skills, but no one would ever complain about ever having too many. As such, he quickly learnt the skill.

“Sell whatever equipment you can and take whatever materials you need. Everyone can do their own thing now,” Lu Li declared as the battlefield cleared.

“These are all basically trash; selling them won’t make much money. We’ve spent a few hundred gold today… Actually, if you calculate it with the market price rather than the cost, we would have spent even more,” Wandering said, looking extremely uncomfortable.

“You old fart. Where can you buy levels from?” Azure Sea Breeze immediately refuted Wandering.

To a levelling madman like him, there was no price that was too high. Sakura Memories, who was also a levelling madman, nodded at this.

She still felt like she was dreaming. She was only LV17 in the morning, but in a flash, she had suddenly reached LV19 with only a little more to go until LV20.

As a female player who had joined with the second batch of players, such an achievement was already something to be proud of. She had now even ranked on the leaderboard among the top 16.

“Alright, stop arguing about it. I made the bombs so we could all level up; don’t worry too much about the money. If you feel like you need to compensate me, you can help me find some special, rare materials that I will need down the line.”

“I can’t do that. We should at least compensate the costs,” Wandering insisted, “Otherwise, who else would dare to come and farm this free EXP again?”

They really were farming free EXP today.

Other than Lu Li’s bombs, Lonesome Flower was the only other person who had contributed, by casting Blizzard.

“Everyone can share the cost price then. We currently have two tasks. Those who haven’t upgraded their professions should do the Profession Upgrade Quest and everyone else should get ready for the Howling Caves!” Lu Li resolutely ended the dispute and announced the beginning of the Howling Caves plan.