The Great Thief

The three ranged players all stood with their backs to the walls, while Azure Sea Breeze pulled the Boss to the center. He and Lu Li stood apart from each other. Everyone’s positions were very carefully chosen so that no two people would be sent flying together.

Based on Lu Li’s memorized strategy, these were the correct positions. With the Intermediate Health Potions and a bit of luck, this Boss wouldn’t be too difficult.

They were able to kill the mechanical monster smoothly and Helix didn’t pose too much of an issue either. After 10 minutes, he fell before them.

A Steel Dagger!

Bayonet of Vengeance (Steel): Damage 20-28, Agility +8, Strength +4. Effect: On hit, there is a chance that the target will bleed, taking 20 damage per second for 5 seconds. Equipment Requirement: level 15. Durability 35/35.

There was no doubt that this was Lu Li’s weapon.

This was a high-quality dagger too. It had high damage, good attributes and a good special effect. It was almost impeccable.

It even caused a bleed effect that could not be removed. This could stop stealth!

For fights between Thieves, there was no better effect than bleed.

It was a pity that Lu Li was still half a level below the level requirement.

After killing Helix, the EXP that everyone had lost was mostly regained. No one got a Skill Point reward this time; it seemed like the probability of getting one was very small.

According to the Quest Tracker, the third Boss was called “Death God 5000”.

It sounded like a very scary name, but it was really just a mechanical harvester.

Around it stood four mechanical monsters. The Death God 5000 would start to move after the four mechanical monsters had been killed.

This Boss wasn’t really difficult to defeat and didn’t require any special strategy. As long as they dodged its swiping attack (which was like Whirlwind), they would be fine. The only difficult part of the fight was when the room would periodically be filled with ‘Molten Slags’.

Molten Slags were a fire elemental monster with a molten shield that dealt 4000 damage to surrounding enemies.

Currently, no one could tank this kind of damage.

Fortunately, there was a machine next to the Boss—the prototype Harvester. It was activated when the fight started and could be operated by anyone. It had high damage and was immune to shield damage. It could also crowd control the Molten Slags, which would allow the ranged players to quickly wipe them out.

The small Xin Xin Mercenary Group killed the Boss in one try without losing a single member.

It was too bad that this Boss was really stingy; it didn’t drop a single Steel equip. It only dropped one Bronze equip and an engineering material.

The fourth Boss was the Piercing Heart Wolf General.

In Dawn’s lore, James Harrington was cursed to become a Worgen. In that one unfortunate night, he destroyed his beloved family and his maritime career. After that, he renamed himself the Piercing Heart Wolf and fled to the western wilderness. He later accepted his appointment by the Defias Brotherhood to command their fearless ships.

This Boss didn’t have any special active skills, but had one passive skill—Bloodlust.

Bloodlust slowly increased the Boss’ attack speed and damage. The longer the fight went for, the more unlikely his defeat became.

This was the reason why Lu Li had asked everyone to level up before going into the Death Mines. If they were three levels lower than this Boss, then the damage reduction and its own damage buff would be too much to overcome. They would simply be unable to kill the Boss in a short enough timeframe. Once the Main Tank was killed, the rest of the team would soon go down with him.

Lu Li, Azure Sea Breeze, Lonesome Flower and March Rain were all level 14. Remnant Dream was level 13 and the Piercing Heart Wolf General was level 16. The level difference was not that wide.

“Let’s give it a shot. If we can’t do it, then we’ll go back and level up. We can come back when everyone is LV15,” Azure Sea Breeze suggested. The others didn’t oppose him.

Taking down 50% of the Boss’ HP went relatively smoothly, because the Boss’ bonus damage wasn’t too high. However, when his HP dropped to 30%, the damage started to become ridiculous. The Wolf General would deal 500-600 damage per strike, with the occasional critical hit.

When the Boss reached 20% HP, Azure Sea Breeze squealed and was killed.

Team kill!

The second time, they did slightly better and managed to lower it to 15% HP.

However, they were unable to get its HP below 15% in their successive attempts.

Losing 1% EXP each time didn’t sound like a lot, but it added up quickly.

Moreover, Dawn’s other players’ were continuing to gain EXP while their own EXP was decreasing. If they were continue like this, they would soon be unable to maintain their positions on the Level Rankings.

They soon realized that they couldn’t do it and gave up.

There were already some posts on the forums, describing some pioneer guilds who were still stuck on the first Boss.

These people didn’t have any Intermediate Health Potions.

After the Instance Dungeon, Azure Sea Breeze proposed killing the Demon Warlock and Snake Bosses. He was dressed in Steel items, but most of them were only LV5, so his defence was considerably weaker.

They were going to go kill Akereus first. Now that they had the prior experience, this would be an easier boss to fight.

In order for the other players to gain more EXP, Lu Li quit the party when the Boss dropped to 20% HP and left the battle. He went back to the city to prepare Intermediate Antidotes.

The EXP distribution in Dawn was very fair. As long as you participated and didn’t die, you would be assigned some EXP. However, if you quit the fight, you wouldn’t receive any EXP.

When Lu Li got back to the city, he took out the gold he had made through the Intermediate Health Potion sales from the mailbox. He then went around looking for Snake Bile and other cheap items.

Before long, Azure Sea Breeze was assigning the loot. Akereus didn’t drop anything good this time, just some Heal Leather which was exclusive to Healer Druids and some common materials.

The Heal Leather was consigned in the Exchange Hall.

Lu Li checked the items he needed to upgrade his supreme ring, but he expectantly found nothing.

He browsed the skill books that were available and stumbled upon one called ‘Kick’.

Kick: Instant cast. Cooldown of 15 seconds. Quickly kick the target to interrupt spell casts. This also prevents the target from casting related spells for another 5 seconds. Proficiency 1/5.

This was a very good Skill book; it could be used for both Instance Dungeons and PVP.

However, the price was quite expensive at 20 gold coins.

Although the price of gold had fallen to 300:1, 20 gold was still thousands of dollars. This was still far beyond what the average player could afford.

This was probably the reason Lu Li had found it. Otherwise, it would have already been bought.