The Great Thief

On the same day that Lu Li had achieved the first clear of the Elite Spider Lair, Azure Sea Breeze sold the strategy to Blood Red War Flag. Blood Red War Flag then sent out their elite teams under the godlike leadership of Indifference in Dawn and shortened the record to 1 hour 12 minutes and 32 seconds.

This record was created yesterday and given that most players had only levelled up once since then, no one had beaten the record yet.

Now Drizzle Court had invited Lu Li to set a new record, at the price of 3 Jade Spider Webs and all the loot in the Instance Dungeon.

There were two types of public dungeons in Dawn, those that were open to everyone and those in a restricted area that required a payment before entering. The Spider Lair was in the Whispering Forest, an area where everyone could enter.

The three mages from Drizzle Court, Lin, Ling and Beautiful Moonlight, were standing by the transmission area, waiting for Lu Li and Azure Sea Breeze. Someone who had money obviously wouldn’t need to save the few copper coins required for transmission.

Among the three of them, Lin and Ling looked exactly the same: they were both twins. This was the first time Lu Li had seen twins in a video game and it was a strange sight.

These three Mages were all at level 7, making Lu Li the lowest level member of the party. He was still 10% of EXP bar away from reaching level 7.

The highest level was Azure Sea Breeze, as he was only a few monsters away from reaching level 8.

“Is it alright to not have a healer? Stopping to drink pots is a waste of time,” Beautiful Moonlight asked.

“In order to break a record like this, there an aspect of luck, but it is also important to shorten the time taken to do things wherever you can,” Lu Li said affirmatively, “We won’t be needing a Healer for this round.”

Since Lu Li insisted, no one else protested. Beautiful Moonlight seemed to be high-ranking within the Drizzle Court, as she immediately added Lu Li and Azure Sea Breeze to the guild.

If all members of the party were from the same guild, the System Announcement would broadcast the name of the guild. The reason that Drizzle Court wanted the record was for this advertisement.

“Have any of you learnt crowd control skills?” Lu Li asked.

All three of them shook their heads, with a look of shame on their faces.

The point of Mages in Dawn was for Area of Effect attacks. Blizzard was one of the skills that a Mage could learn, which enabled them to attack large groups. However, Area of Effect crowd-control skills were gained based on luck.

If Mages were all capable of area attacks and area crowd control, why would anyone bother playing the other classes?

“That’s okay, you guys just have to manage your damage. Don’t worry about not having an off-tank; Sea Breeze’s skills and equips are good enough. Even if you guys wanted to play off-tank you couldn’t,” Lu Li spoke the truth, but the girls were offended and secretly talked amongst themselves. They vowed to give it their all to deal as much damage as possible.

After entering the Instance Dungeon, Lu Li asked for the rewards of his services.

“We always pay our debts.” Beautiful Moonlight was angered.

Female gamers were no longer a rarity, but in the virtual world, everyone appeared like their real selves. A beautiful woman like her, one who was part of a top ten nationwide union – Drizzle Court, would never have been questioned like this before.

“I can’t relax until I’ve got it in my hands,” Lu Li spoke plainly and without thought.

Beautiful Moonlight traded the three Jade Spider Webs to Lu Li, who internally breathed a long sigh of relief. When he was doing the first clear, he had received one Spider Web. The Grand Hegemony had then given him another and Azure Sea Breeze had given him 4 more. Now, with an additional three, he had nine spider webs in total.

He needed 7 to upgrade his Ring and 2 to study the Trade Skill. This was perfect!

“Make sure you bring enough potions, but control your mana consumption. Try to minimize your time spent taking potions.” Lu Li was formally giving out orders, “You don’t need to carry too many HP potions; everyone should only need 3. Trade the rest to Sea Breeze, as we don’t have a healer…”

You said we didn’t need a Healer, but now you’re using it as a reason to take our HP potions?

The girl’s hearts were indignant, but for the sake of the record, they gave Azure Sea Breeze the potions.

If they really were a big guild, then someone must have learnt how to make potions already, which meant that they would have extra potions. Azure Sea Breeze grinned from ear to ear and Lu Li also kept some of the potions for himself, for safety purposes.

“Follow at the back, but don’t attack anything. Let me pull them together before you begin.” Lu Li’s first decision almost shocked them to the point of crying.

How long would it take to pull them all together?

Lu Li didn’t mind them, baiting the 2 little monsters by the entrance and taking them deep into the Instance Dungeon.

At the entrance of the brook, there were a total of 4 waves of 8 monsters. Lu Li pulled them to the entrance of the brook and signaled Azure Sea breeze to draw aggro.

Azure Sea Breeze immediately charged into the group of monsters and cast Taunt, successfully drawing aggro of the 8 monsters.

After being hit a few times, the nervous Azure Sea Breeze felt calm. He had barely lost any HP and didn’t even need to take a potion.

He hadn’t considered his current level or equipment; he had only been thinking of when he had come.

The three Mages had decent skills; when they saw that aggro had been drawn, they immediately cast Blizzard into the group of monsters.

Attacking large groups like this felt good and was much more satisfying than only using blades.

Of course, one or two Mages would be unable to achieve this effect. Furthermore, only Lu Li would dare to not bring a Healer into an Instance Dungeon. However, because of that, the Blizzard skill could be used to its highest potential.

When he noticed that the aggro was fading, Azure Sea Breeze would take the opportunity to attack the monsters or cast Shieldstrike. If that didn’t work, he would use Trample: a strong aggro drawing skill.

The Trample skill book was traded to him by Remnant Dream and drew the aggro of a crowd, making it an essential skill for a Main Tank.

Azure Sea Breeze had an unusual talent for PVE; this aggro drawing technique could be shown in big guilds as a tutorial video.

It would normally take quite a few minutes to clear the four waves of monsters, but they had completed this task in just over a minute. The three Mages finally believed that Lu Li was here to beat the record and not to steal their potions.

Lu Li and Azure Sea Breeze soaked their weapons to gain the attack buff and pressed on.

From the Brook to the first Boss, there were 6 waves of monsters, with a total of 16 monsters and 4 elites. Lu Li didn’t worry too much; it didn’t matter how many monsters there were. He continued to pull them all together and soon reached the boss.

“He’s not thinking about pulling the Boss into the group as well is he?” Beautiful Moonlight’s voice trembled.

“You’re thinking too much; if we included the Boss we wouldn’t be able to fight it. Big brother is a tactical mastermind,” Azure Sea Breeze smiled complacently. He charged ahead before Lu Li gave the instruction to, stopping just in front of the crowd of monsters that Lu Li was leading.

“Move around while you aggro them. Everyone else don’t worry and attack it with all you’ve got.” Lu Li waited for Azure Sea Breeze to draw aggro, then went behind the monsters. He didn’t kill any of them, instead gaining enough combo points for his Ultimate Skill before moving on.

The 4 Elites were his main targets. While he was attacking, at least one of the Elites would be under the effects of crowd control.

Azure Sea Breeze persistently pulled the group around, carefully stepping backwards while making sure the Elites weren’t hitting him. Even though his HP was steadily reducing, he always kept it above half and was never affected by potion resistance.

The crowd of alarmed spiders seemed to quickly fall before the players. Beautiful Moonlight and the two others discovered that they had all simultaneously fallen.

Thinking back, that was probably why Azure Sea Breeze and Lu Li had kept changing targets.

Without thinking about how surprised they were, the two helpers quickly picked up two Bronze equips and some materials that had dropped.

Now they were heading towards the boss, but Azure Sea Breeze was only at half HP!