The Great Thief

“Sorry, I have many things to do,” Lu Li refused.

In truth, he sympathised with these Trade Profession players. Perhaps it was because of their hobby, or because they were sick of fighting, but they just wanted to peacefully play the game. And yet, other people simply wouldn’t leave them alone.

“Oh, never mind then.” The female Gnome and her friends all looked quite disappointed.

After all, this was a game and levelling-up was the most important thing. No one would be willing to sacrifice their levelling time to protect a few Trade Profession players for a bit of money.

“However, if you issue Bounty Quests, I can kill people for you, as long as you pay a fair price.”

Lu Li smiled under his Bandanna and continued, “Don’t worry about not being able to afford it – if you know any other Trade Profession players who are also being bullied, you can pool together your money. Once the bullies have been killed enough times, they won’t dare to bully you anymore.”

If the Trade Profession players could see Lu Li’s face, they would have discovered the evil behind his smile.

However, he didn’t feel bad about this at all. He could only admit that this devil had revealed its fangs in advance.

Trade Profession players were quite weak individually, but once they established their alliance, they would become incredibly powerful and influential. With their wealth, they would even be able to destroy quite a few second-rate guilds.

Lu Li’s words sounded like thunder in these Trade Profession players’ ears.

This was especially so for the female Gnome. Her eyes lit up with fire and burned so passionately that Lu Li almost didn’t dare to look at her directly.

“What’s your price?”

“I just need rare materials. Any rare materials.”

“I have a Redridge Gem in my bag. Is that alright?”

“Of course…”

“You don’t even need to ask who I want to kill?”

“It doesn’t matter – everyone’s the same.” Killing anyone was fine for Lu Li – it was a Redridge Gem.

Although it was also a mineral resource, Redridge Gems were much more precious than the Eternal Frozen Shards that Lu Li had bought from the Exchange Hall. Not only were their drop rates incredibly low, but they were also region-specific to the Redridge Mountains and couldn’t be found anywhere else.

Moreover, Lu Li wanted to get on the good side of the Trade Profession Alliance.

Hearing Lu Li’s words, the Trade Profession players all saw how confident and powerful this masked man was.

Everyone’s the same!

This was an incredibly arrogant and confident statement.

The female Gnome breathed in deeply and loudly declared, “I want to kill the Guildmaster of that person’s guild. He wants to chase us out of the Redridge Mountains and has already killed us once today.”

“You guys issue a Bounty Quest and I’ll accept it. If you’re alright with it, you can give the rare material to me now.” Lu Li thought for a moment and made a proposal.

“Crystal, don’t trust him.” One of her friends hesitantly grabbed her arm.

What if he took the goods but didn’t deliver on his end?

However, the female Gnome shook her friend off and handed the fiery-red gemstone to Lu Li. She resolutely said, “My name is Half-life Crystal. I’ll make sure that those scumbags never look down on us Trade Profession players again.”

Lu Li looked at her closely and realised that she was Half-life Crystal – one of the three heads of the future Trade Profession Alliance.

It was no wonder that she had so much charm and charisma.

She was a legend within the game who proved to the players that people could become great because of their dreams.

It seemed that fate had brought them together. There were hundreds of thousands of Trade Profession players, but the one he had saved was her.

“What’s your name? How will we find you in future?” Half-life Crystal hurriedly asked, seeing that Lu Li was about to leave.

“Don’t worry about the name; I’m not wearing this mask just to seem mysterious,” Lu Li replied. “You can create a chatroom and I’ll stay in there anonymously. If you need anything, you can message me within the chatroom. Also, if you put ‘Trade Profession’ in your Bounty Quest name, I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

Bounty Quests issued by the Trade Profession Alliance all had ‘Trade Profession’ at the beginning. This was something that Lu Li was used to from his ‘past life’.

There were only two people in the chatroom, as Half-life Crystal didn’t bother to add her other friends. Lu Li became her own personal resource.

Lu Li returned to Astrana and after handing in his Bounty Quests, his PK Points were all cleared except for one. He would simply get rid of this by staying online.

There was no notice yet from the Quest he had issued. At the very least, no one had asked any questions about it. After all, the contact person for it was Wandering.

“I put up the Bounty Quest. Great god, when will you be starting?” Half-life Crystal’s voice rang in the chatroom.

“Hmm, in a few minutes…” Lu Li was currently making ‘The World Is So Big’. With the resources he had left, he could make another two.

Although producing them didn’t give EXP anymore, every single one of them in the Exchange Hall had sold out since he had uploaded his video to the forums. On average, he could earn 25 gold from one of them, so he wanted to reap as much of the benefits as possible before other players began to jump in.

“Can you record yourself killing him?” Half-life Crystal tentatively asked.

“Of course,” Lu Li immediately replied.

After finishing making the two of the ‘The World Is So Big’, Lu Li once again stepped into the Mercenary Hall. He no longer had any PK Points and Number 1189 was now just a legend.

The Bounty Quest system and the PK system were completely different.

Lu Li looked through the available Bounty Quests. There weren’t many of them, so he quickly found the one he was looking for.

Curtainfall, Warrior, Guildmaster of Very Vulgar Very Violent.

After accepting the Quest, Lu Li spent 50 silver coins to check where his target was.

There was good news and there was bad news.

The good news was that his target wasn’t far from him. The bad news was that his target was in Astrana, which was a Safe Region.

Lu Li found him in the Tavern, where he was making advances on a female player.

The female player’s looked decent and wasn’t reciprocating his advances, but wasn’t rejecting them either. Evidently, she was playing hard to get.

“Do you know where their guildmembers train in Astrana?” Lu Li typed in the chatroom.

“Please wait for a bit, I’ll ask someone.”

Evidently, Half-life Crystal had allied with many players and quickly found Very Vulgar Very Violent’s training spot.

Ling Chen was very familiar with this place – the Fire Scar Temple.

Very Vulgar Very Violent had recently took in a group of low level players and were helping them level up in the Fire Scar Temple for a fee.

It took Lu Li 10 or so minutes to get there and kill three players with decent equipment. After, this he stayed there to wait for their Guildmaster.

He wasn’t sure if Curtainfall would actually come. After all, it would be best for him to stay in the Tavern.

Having their training spot being taken wasn’t a big deal, but it would cause them to lose face.

In front of his subordinates, immediately taking action as the boss would cement his position and power. As such, he gave up on flirting with the female player.

He rushed over with tens of players following behind him.

“Where’s the guy? Didn’t you say he’s still here?” Curtainfall’s voice was quite loud and he spoke in a direct and commanding manner. Only by being strong and domineering could one control their subordinates, especially in a guild with a mix of good people and scumbags like his.

“He was here just then. Luckily, our defences were quite dense, so we only lost three players.”

Lu Li turned on his video function and chose a good angle to record Curtainfall. He then stealthily approached him. From the video’s perspective, it looked like Lu Li was simply doing what everyone else was doing.

Curtainfall was a Warrior and his equipment was quite good. Lu Li had to keep some distance between himself and the other players in order to succeed in one blow. Luckily, Lu Li was quite patient.

Perhaps Curtainfall felt that the attacker had left, but after waiting for a while, he began to walk around the training spot. He put on a big show of directing his subordinates to attack monsters and bragged about some mechanics of the game.

It was a pity that he only had money and not much skill. Unless they were of a different profession, even the subordinates could tell how inexperienced and unknowledgeable he was.

Luckily, he found a little Warrior.

The little Warrior’s skills were utter rubbish, but he had a sweet mouth. As soon as he saw Curtainfall, he immediately greeted his boss and flattered him.

Curtainfall decided that he would properly teach this junior today.

There weren’t many monsters where they currently were, so he took the little Warrior a bit further away.

Lu Li knew that his opportunity was here. When Curtainfall’s MP was sucked dry by the Hellhounds, he sprang into action.