The Great Thief

No matter how realistic a virtual game was, in the end, it was just a game. Of course, players were not required to create Spanners using the same process as in real life. However, there were a few basic steps that had to be followed: using a hammer to smash Bronze Ingots into rough billets, placing the rough billets into the rolling mill to shape them, and finally, some polishing at the end.

It was impossible for anything to go wrong in the second step, so, one only had to be careful in the hammering and polishing parts.

Lu Li walked over to the workbench and did his best to hammer out 5 identical rough billets, giving them each a number. He then placed them into the rolling mill and took out 5 Crude Spanners. After this, he went to the polishing wheel and started to polish the Spanners.

After a few minutes, five completed Spanners lay side-by-side on the workbench.

This sort of batch production looked efficient, but didn’t give any EXP. However, the finished products could still be used.

1 Low Quality Spanner, 2 Failed Spanners and 2 Normal Spanners.

Normal Spanners could be used to make things, but Lu Li was not satisfied with them. He recalled what he had done to craft each of the Spanners, while taking into account their respective qualities.

He concluded that what influenced the quality of a Spanner the most was the hammering.

If he used the right amount of force when hammering, and hammered the rough billets into the right dimensions, the quality of the Spanner would improve.

Knowing this, what he needed to do was quite simple.

Lu Li noisily hammered the Bronze Ingots, doing his best to control the strength he used as he worked them into rough billets. He then followed the next two steps, turning them into Spanners.

After changing his methods, Lu Li did not produce a single Failed Spanner. The worst one he made was of Normal Quality, and he was even able to produce 2 Good-Quality Spanners. If he wanted to increase the quality even more, he would probably have to use better materials. After all, it was wishful thinking to create a Perfect Quality Spanner with Bronze Ingots.

In order to save money, Lu Li had purchased the lowest-quality raw materials.

As such, he began to produce Bolts. Bolts could also be used to make other things and were quite important, so Lu Li decided to use them to increase his Engineering level

It was a pity that producing Bolts took up too much time. By the time he logged off, he still hadn’t reached Intermediate Level.

He started his next day in Dawn by training and when he saw that Remnant Dream had logged on, he contacted her.

“Dreamy, you’re LV15 now; come over and I’ll help you catch a new pet.”

Lu Li decided to help Remnant Dream increase her strength. No matter how bad her skills were, she would be able to do well as long as she had a powerful pet.

The rest of the group all went off to the Exchange Hall.

It was impossible for players to get stronger by relying on themselves to obtain equipment. It was best to trade or buy from others whenever it was appropriate.

After meeting up with the little Hunter, Lu Li took her to the Amisallan Jungle. It was a famous and dangerous place within the Grey Valley.

The Amisallan Jungle was filled with Nightmoon Tigers and was a forbidden area for players under LV15. Even teams would rather go around it than risk going through it.

One never knew when they would be jumped on by a Nightmoon Tiger in Stealth, let alone how many would jump out at them. Once they were targeted, they would be finished.

“Big brother Lu Li, I think my little leopard is pretty cute.”

Remnant Dream tried to speak up for the little leopard she had been with for the past few days.

“Even though you can only summon one at a time, a Hunter can have two pets. I never said you had to give up your leopard,” Lu Li patiently explained. Azure Sea Breeze would have immediately kicked out the leopard.

“Then what about my little pig?” the little Hunter asked, downcast.

“Just get rid of that pig. When you’re higher level, I’ll help you find an even cuter one,” Lu Li said, as if he was cheering up his little sister.

Lu Li’s words turned out to be quite effective and Remnant Dream immediately released her little pig, which oinked as it ran off. It was unlikely to survive in the Amisallan Jungle.

“What sort of pet are we going to catch today? Is it strong?” Remnant Dream asked, as she reluctantly put her little leopard into the Standby Pet Space.

“It’s called a Shadowclaw Tiger. It has very good stats, and has higher Attack, Defence and Speed than your little leopard. It can even go into Stealth.”

Shadowclaw Tigers were one of the best pets in the early stages of the game. However, they were quite rare, so finding one required luck.

The Amisallan Jungle was incredibly dangerous, but that depended on the player.

Being with a LV16 expert thief, Remnant Dream was never in any danger.

Perhaps Remnant Dream was just as Azure Sea Breeze said – not very smart, but incredibly lucky. She would always draw extremely good equipment and it didn’t take long for her to find a Shadowclaw Tiger. It was lying on a grassy hill with no other monsters in sight.

Lu Li went into Stealth and crept around it, then stunned it with 1 hit.

The Shadowclaw Tiger lived up to its reputation as a rare monster – the 4-second Cheap Shot only lasted for 2 seconds on it and it took less damage than the Elite-grade monsters in Instance Dungeons. Rotating through a set of his full combo only depleted 40% of its HP.

The Elite-grade monsters in the Death Mines couldn’t even handle one full combo from Lu Li.

This big tiger was extremely beautiful. It had snow-white fur, and its body was sleek, but powerfully-built. Its eyes ferocious eyes shone like topazes, but underneath them, it looked innocent and kind. Remnant Dream fell in love with it at first sight.

As soon as the tiger recovered from the stun, it immediately swiped at Lu Li.

This was its ‘Sweep’ skill, which dealt damage to targets in a 180-degree arc in front of it.

-127!

This was damage worthy of a top-grade pet. With Lu Li’s excellent equipment, only a Boss could deal that much damage to him in 1 hit.

However, the Shadowclaw Tiger had other skills.

Tendon Rend: Mauls the target’s ankles, reducing their Movement Speed 50% for 6 seconds. Cooldown Time: 10 seconds.

Thick Skin: When HP falls below 40%, reduces damage taken by 50% for 12 seconds. This skill can only be triggered every 120 seconds.

Adding onto its Stealth, it had 4 skills: Stealth, Sweep, Tendon Rend and Thick Skin.

Indeed, it was a top-grade pet!

Pets with 2 or 3 skills were innately excellent. Having 4 skills made for a top-grade pet, while a perfect pet would have 5. Of course, this wasn’t necessarily always the case. After all, skills had tiers as well.

However, the Shadowclaw Tiger that Lu Li and Remnant Dream had found had 4 excellent skills.

Stealth was for utility, Sweep was an AOE skill, Tendon Rend was for Movement Control and Thick Skin was for defence!

Lu Li felt slightly disappointed. If it also had Smack, a Crowd Control skill, it would have been perfect.

After allowing the tiger to hit him once, Lu Li began to counterattack and quickly brought its HP down to less than 20%.

He stopped attacking and signalled towards Remnant Dream.

“Alright, use your Tame skill. Don’t be nervous, just take it slow.”

Remnant Dream hurriedly used the Tame skill on the Shadowclaw Tiger.

It was impossible to use Tame on a monster at full health, as the likelihood of Tame succeeding increased as the monster’s health decreased. Every monster had 3 chances of being Tamed. After this, it would commit suicide.

Failure!