The Great Thief

“I say, Lu Li, why have you been logging on so late for the past 2 days?”

Seeing that Lu Li had finally logged on, Azure Sea Breeze began to complain in the Mercenary Group’s chat.

“Had some family matters to take care of. How have you guys been going in the Instance Dungeon?” Lu Li gave a short reply, showing his intention to say nothing further about it.

“Those guys finished off the first Boss, but couldn’t beat the second Boss even after trying a few times. I helped them finish the second and third Bosses and now they’re at the Piercing Heart Wolf General, but they’ve already been killed twice,” Azure Sea Breeze replied.

“Where’s Wandering?” Lu Li asked.

“Didn’t you issue quests for rare materials? He went to help other people do quests in exchange for rare materials. He should be back soon,” Azure Sea Breeze uncertainly replied.

He and Wandering were both tanks, so they would never go into a five-man Instance Dungeon together. If Azure Sea Breeze went in, Wandering would be out of a job.

“He went to earn rare materials? When was this?” Lu Li was both a little surprised and touched, as Wandering was quite a lazy person. Even if he knew a quest had good rewards, he wouldn’t bother if he thought it was too much effort. Who would have thought he would have gone out doing quests to earn rare materials for Lu Li?

“The friggin’ hell, what sort of people don’t even know when to heal?!” Wandering roared in the chat, cutting Lu Li off.

“Heheh, why would they ask you for help if they weren’t noobs?” Azure Sea Breeze smugly replied.

Lu Li laughed, but didn’t say anything. Wandering was narcissistic and sharp-tongued, but he definitely wasn’t a bad person.

“Big brother Lu Li, have you been busy with something?”

A message came in from Remnant Dream. She didn’t talk in the chat, but privately sent a text message.

“It’s nothing much. I’ve just been working on upgrading my Trade Professions, so I haven’t been very active lately,” Lu Li replied.

“Big sister March said that some problems probably came up in the real world, but you didn’t want us to know. All of us want to help you. Yesterday, when it was nearly time to log off, big brother Sea Breeze took us to steal a Boss, but we weren’t successful. Today, big brother Wandering went to help other people with quests, but I think he died once,” Remnant Dream said as she secretly told Lu Li everything.

“Everything’s fine – don’t worry unnecessarily. Oh, right, I’ve got some fun things for everyone,” Lu Li paused. Was it really that obvious?

He felt quite weird having so many people concerned about him.

In a way, Lu Li wasn’t a very sociable person and wasn’t very good at expressing himself. He had never been cared for or worried about by strangers before.

“What is it? What is it?” Remnant Dream could be quite childish sometimes and quickly forgot about asking Lu Li what had happened.

“A small toy. Go collect it after finishing the Instance Dungeon.”

Lu Li sent everyone a ‘The World Is So Big’, which he had prepared in advance for his teammates. Although he needed money, he didn’t want to become a slave to money. There would always be ways to earn more money.

“Alright, big brother Sea Breeze is going to start, so I’ll stop chatting. I’ll be scolded if I make mistakes,” Remnant Dream replied.

“Young master Breeze, how’s it going? Can you clear it?” Lu Li asked in the chat.

“It should be fine. You don’t get EXP from here anymore, so it’s best if you don’t come,” Azure Sea Breeze confidently replied.

“That’s fine. I’ll continue to level up my Trade Professions.”

Lu Li also hoped that they would work hard by themselves. If they were too reliant on him, they wouldn’t be able to grow as much.

He had now reached a new bottleneck in Engineering. The Maintenance Robots no longer gave him much EXP and it took too much time to create them.

Lu Li needed to find newer and more suitable blueprints.

The Maintenance Robots he had put in the Exchange Hall were still there and their price had risen quite slowly. On average, they were worth around 4 gold each and were on a completely different level to ‘The World Is So Big’.

This wasn’t surprising.

‘The World Is So Big’ was naturally quite interesting and because he had marketed it well, it had become a luxury good in the game. It was desired by many players, so it could be priced accordingly.

On the other hand, the Maintenance Robots were ordinary goods and their uses were quite limited.

If player’s equipment was badly damaged, they would normally go back to town and repair it at a shop. Only the elite groups of big guilds would use Maintenance Robots to save time.

Lu Li first made a few bottles of Deadly Poison. Even now, they still couldn’t be found in the Exchange Hall.

He set the price at 10 gold coins, non-negotiable.

Lu Li never even considered the possibility of mass-producing them and hoping that a large wave of people would snatch them up.

That simply wasn’t realistic.

Deadly Poison and Intermediate Potions were different. After all, the former only made one’s life a bit easier, while the latter could save one’s life.

Lu Li then began to look for more suitable blueprints.

His goal was to find Engineering blueprints that could help him rise to Intermediate level, as well as Basic blueprints for Forging.

These were the two Trade Professions that he wanted to upgrade. He chose Engineering so that he could create the Fool Bomb, which was a heaven-defying item. Forging, on the other hand, was for Hachi Chan’s Mold and his extraordinary Forging Hammer.

Basic Forging blueprints were very easy to find. Lu Li chose a LV5 Single-Handed Sword. It was a Bronze grade weapon with decent Attack and even gave +2 Strength.

This sort of equipment was suitable for Warriors, Knights and other professions that wanted Strength. After the game helmet’s prices had been slashed, there were more and more players joining every day. Lu Li didn’t worry at all about not being able to sell these swords.

Moreover, Single-Handed Swords were easy to Forge, so Lu Li didn’t have to worry about failing.

Intermediate Engineering blueprints were a little more troublesome. After deliberating for a while, Lu Li gritted his teeth and bought an ordinary Sightscope blueprint. He was a bit reluctant because ordinary Sightscopes were only useful for guns and even then, could only give guns an extra 2 Attack.

If this was the only caveat, Lu Li wouldn’t have felt too bad. After all, even if he couldn’t sell them, he could use them to gain EXP.

However, they also took up quite a lot of resources and were usually made by Trade Profession players who had too much money.

What was even worse was that ordinary Sightscopes required Intermediate level (135), while Lu Li was only at Intermediate level (128). As such, he had to choose yet another terrible blueprint.

After continuing to look, the best he could choose was the ‘Small Blue Firework’.

Dye, Medium Leather, Gunpowder and Wool Cloth.

It actually required four, quite expensive materials, which made Lu Li feel like almost giving up.

However, when he thought to the Fool Bomb and Mechano-Hog, he was determined to raise his Engineering level.

After creating Fool Bombs, levelling up would be no problem for him anymore. After creating Mechano-Hogs, earning money would be no problem for him anymore. Furthermore, there were also Rocket Boots and Goblin Jumper Cables.

Most people thought of Engineering as a Trade Profession without a future. Only Lu Li knew of the benefits and rewards of studying Engineering. After all, the game wouldn’t design a Trade Profession that was incredibly difficult to level up without any rewards.

Filled with hope for the future, Lu Li bought a large amount of materials from the Exchange Hall.

The gold coins in his bag were rapidly flowing out.

The resources required to create a Small Blue Firework costed about 3 gold coins, which wasn’t too bad. However, fireworks in the Exchange Hall only sold for 20 silver coins.

This meant that Lu Li had to be prepared to make heavy losses.

System: Successfully created a Small Blue Firework, Engineering EXP+1.

They weren’t difficult to make, but they didn’t give much EXP either.

Lu Li bore the pain in his heart and continued to create fireworks.

Of course, he would occasionally fail.

Because he was using Gunpowder, failing would result in explosions which were impossible for Lu Li to dodge at a close distance. It would be fine if he just suffered the loss of materials and was covered in soot, but the explosion would also reduce the Durability of his equipment.