The Great Thief

First of all, he had to solve the problem about members.

This was an area that Ruling Sword really lacked in – they weren’t like other guilds that were brimming with talent.

There wasn’t a solution for this, at least not a quick one. Regardless of how frustrated Square Root 3 and Lu Li were, there was no way for them to produce a bunch of top players out of nowhere and assign them into the competition.

As for poaching from the other guilds, there was no guarantee that this would work. In fact, most professional players wouldn’t leave a guild that they had already established themselves in.

They would have spent a majority of their time training and competing in their club, and would also be well-coordinated with their teams. For example, Fat Monkey finally synchronized his battle-style with Lu Li and the others. If he was tossed into a new club with a new team, it would be lucky if he could even display 70% of his true strength onstage.

If they couldn’t perform at their best, it was almost guaranteed that their value as a professional player would drop. As such, it was very rare for professional players to leave their guilds.

Even if Ruling Sword’s uprising was good enough to attract someone, they might not be able to afford the high contract breaching price anyway. Mu Qiu was an exception – he was someone who had been given up on, so his old contractors didn’t bother too much with him.

In a normal situation, a professional player had to pay three-times their value for breaching a contract.

If Lu Li wanted Monsoon from Seventh Heaven, who was a ’cheaper’ player, Ruling Sword would have to pay around three million. He was currently worth $800,000, but the contract breach would skyrocket this price.

Ruling Sword really couldn’t afford this!

It wasn’t possible for them to poach, so they would have to find another solution.

The competition this time was similar to the previous ones and was divided into two parts – arena and group matches.

In the arena matches, five players would be sent out to battle one-on-one until no one was standing on the team. Victory would be determined by points, which would be decided by the headcount of the winning team. The group matches were similar to before, and were still five players with one substitute player waiting outside.

March Rain was a healer, while Sakura Memories was a supporting damage-dealer. Asking them to participate in the arena matches was equivalent to giving away free points.

The only players who could currently fight in the arena were Fat Monkey, Lu Li and Moonlight.

Mu Qiu’s skills and equipment wasn’t ready yet, so Lu Li didn’t think that he was suitable for an arena match.

Besides the arena players, he also needed enough substitutes. These players would ideally be available to enter the match ground at any time and when they were not competing, be training buddies for the regulars.

This meant that Ruling Sword needed another two damage-dealer competitors.

Lu Li’s first target was a female Warlock. In arenas, Warlocks were a very popular class choice because they many skills that were suitable in a sustained battle.

Drain Life – deals damage while healing your own health bar.

Life Tap – sacrifices a portion of health and recovers double the amount as mana.

Health Funnel – sacrifices a portion of health and recovers double the amount of health to pets.

Life Siphon – deals damage to the target and heals the caster for 0.35% of their maximum health.

Mortal Coil – horrifies an enemy target into fleeing, incapacitating them for 3 seconds and healing you for 11% of your maximum health.

Dark Refund – heals you and your pet for 20% maximum health over 12 seconds; any healing received during this time will be increased by 25%.

Spirit Link – 20% of all damage taken by the caster is split with your demon; 3% of all damage dealt is used to heal you and your demon.

Healthstone – creates a Healthstone, which instantly restores 15% health after use.

Well of Souls – create a Well of Souls which lasts for 2 minutes. Team and raid members can click on the well to obtain a Healthstone.

Soulstone – store the spirit of a team or raid members to resurrect them. Can be used on a dead target. Target resurrects with 60% health and 20% mana.

These were only the tip of the iceberg; there were still plenty of skills that Lu Li didn’t know about or understand. He only knew that Warlocks had quickly became the favorites for arena matches from his previous life. Almost any club had at least two professional Warlock players.

As such, finding a professional Warlock player became an urgent task for him.

Any guild leader would look far ahead from the present and train talent from all the different classes. These players wouldn’t be of a high value and had stricter contracts.

Even if they wanted to leave, they would have to serve their old company for at least a year. The contract might even set a minimum number of competitions that they had to participate in. About a hundred years ago, when the laws were designed, there were plenty of clubs who didn’t send these competitors to the match grounds to punish them.

These contracts no longer existed, but the mindset behind them remained.

No one would want to spend time and effort to train someone and receive nothing in return.

Lu Li wasn’t interested in any of these competitors-in-preparation.

His target was a female Warlock with the ID Kitty Likes Meat. You could tell from her name alone that this was a girl.

Kitty Likes Meat wasn’t a hidden star player blending in with the crowd. In fact, she had been a match analyst in the past and her technique was quite good. She was quite popular within the gaming industry.

After she entered Dawn, she mainly played in the arena.

Lu Li went to the arena a while ago to check her match records. She had a 79% victory rate and had played in around seven hundred matches.

This wasn’t a very high win-rate – real top players were all well above 90%. Professional players had a 95% win-rate in the arena, and a few players like Lu Li had never lost.

As such, Kitty Likes Meat was still at the stage where she was underestimated.

Her win-rate in the beginning was still low because she didn’t understand Warlocks when she first started playing. It wasn’t until her level, equipment and battle experience improved that her win rates began to shoot up.

A few months later, she would be a part of the nine-five club (a special title for arena players with a win rate of over 95%).

Although plenty of big clubs searched around, they gave up as soon as they heard that Kitty Likes Meat had a strict family and that she had to stay in her hometown city.

Lu Li wasn’t fazed of this, because Kitty Likes Meat was from Jiangnan City.

Jiangnan City was a small city in the South and had been around for less than a hundred years. It developed as a tourist city and only housed Star Moon Union as a top-100 guild.

However, the reputation of this guild was average. They had nothing that could attract Kitty Likes Meat, a girl who didn’t need money or anything in general.