The Great Thief

Of course, others had tried to defeat this Boss before.

Previously, Lu Li had fought it while he had a bounty on him. There had been many Imperial Secret Service players and people from other guilds who were after his bounty. As such, the Boss under the whirlpool no longer remained a secret.

Some Druids had transformed into seals and attempted to enter. Those who could endure the ferocity of the whirlpool were thrown into the cave.

However, none of them could open the stone door, so they quickly gave up.

As such, Illidan’s Shadow became Lu Li’s private Boss. Unless other players received quests from NPCs and were sent here directly, this Boss would only be accessible by him.

This time, after putting-on his better equipment, he only spent 3.5 hours to defeat it and consumed 40 Intermediate Health Potions in the process. Intermediate Health Potions now costed 30 silver coins per bottle. Adding on the few quivers of Arrows he had used, the cost of killing this Boss was around 10-20 gold coins.

Lu Li would still be determined to fight it, even if he made a loss.

After killing it, his EXP rose by 45% of his bar. If he killed Illidan’s Shadow again tomorrow, and trained for a bit, he could easily reach LV17. After this, he could then consider accepting the upgrading-profession quest.

Apart from the handsome EXP reward, there was also the equipment, materials and Skill Books to look forward to.

The Boss had once again dropped a Shadow Cloak Skill Book.

Although Lu Li had already learned that skill, he could sell it for quite a bit of money. This Skill Book was worth far more than any piece of Steel grade equipment.

The Skill Book alone made killing Illidan’s Shadow worthwhile.

This time, it also dropped a piece of Shoulder Plate Armour. Although it was Steel grade and had a special effect, it simply couldn’t compare to the Shadow Cloak that he had obtained last time.

Lu Li sent its information to Moonlight, asking him if he wanted it or not.

Moonlight was not picky and immediately replied, saying that he would pay 5 gold coins for it.

Five gold coins for a piece of Steel grade equipment that had a special effect was a reasonable price.

Apart from equipment and Skill Book, Illidan also dropped a material – Shadow Essence. This could be used to forge Warlock equipment and was therefore useless to Lu Li. It also couldn’t be sold for very much at this stage, so he could only put it in his storage and wait for its value to increase.

After killing the Boss, Lu Li did not continue to train, but instead returned to town.

He was still the top ranked player in the Level Rankings by at least half a level, so he wasn’t in a rush to continue training. Moreover, in Dawn, level didn’t determine everything. There were many other important things to take care of, for example, Trade Skills.

Trade Skills in Dawn were quite complex and even Lu Li didn’t have a full understanding of them.

However, his knowledge was enough.

The were 4 main ‘collection’ types – Herbalism, Mining, Skinning and Logging, which branched out into further sub-categories.

Lu Li planned to learn Herbalism and Mining.

He chose Herbalism for his Alchemy, and Mining because he knew many places that contained rare and valuable resources. It would be a pity not to harvest them.

Moreover, Mining brought the most benefits in terms of profit.

Normally, players would learn Mining and one of the other three collection Trade Skills. Players often opted for Skinning or Herbalism. Logging had limited uses, so most players only chose it because that was their role in their guild.

Lu Li actually wanted to learn Skinning as well – apart from being able to obtain large amounts of fur, one could also obtain many different food ingredients.

However, Dawn only allowed players to choose two different types of collection Trade Skills, so he gave up on the thought.

Skinning didn’t have much skill requirement – as long as a monster was beast-type, anyone could skin it. As such, fur and meat were quite common in the Exchange Hall.

There were also many non-collection Trade Skills. These included Jewellery, Engineering, Enchanting, Forging, Tailoring, Alchemy, Brewing, Planting, Cooking, Fishing, etc…

Even after playing the game for three years, Lu Li hadn’t been able to fully investigate all of them.

There was no limit on how many of these other Trade Skills a player could learn. However, they were restricted to only learning two within a town’s Trade Skill District. If a player had learned two or more Trade Skills already, the NPC would no longer teach them.

However, these restrictions were nothing to Lu Li. After all, he knew many ways to obtain Trade Skills, such as finding NPCs in the wilderness, doing secret quests, or trading in Fame Points.

Nevertheless, he didn’t plan to be a Trade Skills player for his whole life.

After giving it some thought, he decided to learn Engineering, Alchemy, Fishing and Cooking.

He would have to wait until he found the opportunity to learn Fishing and Cooking, while he had already learned Alchemy. He had far-surpassed the Intermediate level, and was sure that after a few days, he could become an Advanced Alchemist.

Lu Li had learned Engineering from an NPC at Rattan City by paying money. This took up one of the skills he could learn from NPCs in towns or cities, and had cost him 10 times more than it normally would.

Because his high-quality Bomb Blueprint required Intermediate Level Engineering to use, he had to learn Engineering and level it up.

With the Bomb, training would be much faster and more efficient.

Currently, his level of Engineering could create three things: Spanners, Bolts and Low Quality Gunpowder.

As of now now, there wasn’t much he could do apart from collecting materials and making what he could. At least he could then use them to creating other things in future.

Creating Spanners and Bolts required Bronze Ingots, while Low Quality Gunpowder required Low Quality Stones, which were a Refined Product.

Lu Li cleared out the Bag with 18 bag spaces that March Rain had given him and bought a bunch of raw materials from the Exchange Hall. He then rented a private room in the Engineering Laboratory and started to make Low Quality Gunpowder.

Luckily, players did not actually have to know how to make gunpowder.

Through Lu Li’s efforts, his Engineering EXP bar slowly filled up. The best thing about doing this was that players didn’t need to concentrate at all. As such, many people found someone to talk to while they practiced.

Doing this required much patience, but this was no problem for Lu Li.

System: You have successfully produced some Low Quality Gunpowder. You received EXP in your Trade Skill.

System: Production failed.

Lu Li put away the Low Quality Gunpowder he had made and continued to level up his Engineering. He would gain a bit of EXP every time he produced 3-5 Low Quality Gunpowder. By the time he had reached 30 points, this EXP was drastically reduced.

As such, Lu Li started to produce Spanners.

Spanners were essential in Engineering, but were quite difficult to make.

System: You have successfully produced a Low Quality Spanner.

Lu Li threw it away.

System: You have created a Failed Spanner.

Lu Li also threw it away.

He made another 5 or 6, all of which were Normal Spanners, however, they still weren’t good enough to be used.

Spanners determined the success rate of Engineering products. The better the Spanner, the more likely the player would be to successfully create something. Any player would want a Perfect Spanner and Lu Li was no exception. However, even after failing so many times, he didn’t feel dejected at all.

He left the workbench, walked over to the centre of the room and sat down, closing his eyes. Of course, he wasn’t practicing some kind of martial art, but rather, meditating to calm himself down as he went through each step of the production process.