The Great Thief

”Do you guys think we’re getting the First Clear bonus?”

It wasn’t an equip for Lu Li, so he wasn’t paying attention.

”I don’t know. Do you want me to check the game’s chronicles?”

”Check it,” Lu Li said as he went off to one side to recall the course of the fight. Perhaps it was dumb luck, but he had managed to achieve a 99% Skill Completion on Shadowstrike, causing more than three times the damage to the Boss. If he was on the same level, it would have been at least five or six times.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he could only achieve around 95%.

The feeling was exhilarating, but he didn’t know how to do it more consistently. All he knew was that his dream of getting 100% could soon be a reality.

As such, after the fight, he tried as hard as he could to remember how to replicate it.

There shouldn’t have been a difference in his physical movements; he had used the skill tens of thousands of times. At this point, they had been tuned to an almost-robotic perfection.

But what else could have effected the Skill Completion level?

He had read many strategy guides in his previous life and had deeply analyzed Skill Completion. However, no one had never analyzed a Skill Completion level that was this high.

On one hand, this may have been because he had simply become more advanced. Even now, most players could not achieve 95% Skill Completion, but Lu Li could consistently achieve 95% and was aiming for more.

On the other hand, it could just be human nature.

No one would simply share the knowledge they had worked so hard for. Not only was this knowledge precious, but they would also lose their advantage if they revealed it.

Even within a club, a player might not share their secrets.

In retrospect, it had all happened so quickly that he couldn’t even imagine what he had done. Lu Li had messed up his attack and in an effort to catch up on DPS, had somehow managed to cast a Shadowstrike with 99% Skill Completion.

Often, the truth was thinly-veiled. He knew that he was very close, but he just couldn’t work it out.

Lu Li had been thinking about it for some time, but still hadn’t come up with anything. Azure Sea Breeze then called him over, so he had no choice but to put this aside for now. He was eager for the next breakthrough, as after this experience, it was bound to happen again soon.

”Boss, there isn’t a record. Maybe no one else has received this Instance Dungeon Scroll yet? Why didn’t we get a prompt for the First Clear then?” Azure Sea Breeze couldn’t work out what had happened.

While there were a huge number of players in Dawn, there were also many adventures and quests. Not a single duplicate Instance Dungeon Scroll could exist at the same time.

”This Instance Dungeon is difficult, but as for why we haven’t received the prompt, it’s because we haven’t finished it yet,” Lu Li answered. He wasn’t surprised at all.

The team lined up and Lu Li tried a different exit. If they were an average team, they would have been close to death by now, and would likely be finished off by what was coming next in the Temple of Hakkar.

The most intuitive thing to do was to jump into the hole in the entrance hall. However, Mu Fish had already tried that, which resulted in his tragic death.

As such, Lu Li took everyone through another entrance. The terrain was very complex; it was no wonder why the temple was one of the easiest places to get lost in.

”Lu Li, how do you know the directions?” Kitty Likes Meat asked.

She had previously thought that Cat Dad was the best player in the game and had admired him, but now she was a little shaken. After seeing Lu Li in command of the Instance Dungeon party, he was quickly catching up to her father in her mind.

”It’s actually quite easy – Dawn likes to add elements of reality into Azeroth. This Temple of Hakkar is actually like the Mayan God of Water in the Belizean Forest. If you look it up online, you would know. The terrain is roughly the same and you can follow it,” Lu Li said, making up some answer.

In the still forest of Belize, a deep pool hid the remains of the Mayans. They performed sacrifices in this pool to the Mayan God of Water, which made the answer plausible.

If you searched online, you would see that the restored map of the Mayan ruins was just as complex as the temples in this game.

The seemingly mysterious inscriptions on the walls were Mayan characters. Apart from telling the story of their history, they also gave clues to the right path.

There were similar notes about this in the huge national library in Stormwind City.

An NPC had once ventured deep into the temple, and there were many descriptions of the terrain in his biography. As long as a player could match them up, they could navigate their way through the temples.

When they reached the bottom, they were left dumbfounded.

”So many Bosses…”

”Relax, they’re just quasi-Bosses. We’ll divide into two teams to deal with them. After you engage them, make sure you remember the serial number that is on the statue behind them. This is very important, so don’t get caught up in fighting,” Lu Li instructed.

The six quasi-Bosses were very weak, which meant that their drops were even worse. They were just there to protect the statues, but the most important thing for the players was to remember the sequence in which the numbers on the statues lit up.

”Have you recorded them?” Lu Li asked after he had finished.

”I got it. From my position and in a clockwise direction, it’s 264135,” Sakura Memories quickly recalled. She was worried about forgetting the numbers, so she kept repeating them over and over.

”You can just send the number to the team channel. That way, you don’t have to remember it,” Lu Li sighed.

”Oh yeah…” Sakura Memories wanted to cry.

Lu Li then sent six players to each stand in front a statute. Following the numbers recorded by Sakura Memories, they pressed the, one at a time.

The bottom of the Temple of Hakkar began to shake as if something was boring its way out of the ground. In the middle, the huge pool began to boil and bubble.

”Intruder, I will eat your flesh and bones!” a figure boomed as it rose out of the water.

It was a huge, sluggish-looking Troll, but it could not be underestimated.

”How do we fight it?’ Azure Sea Breeze asked as he tightened his grip on his shield.

This was the final Boss of the Temple of Hakkar. He wasn’t sure if they could finish it with the two chances they had left, and some of the party members like Lu Li needed to compete in a match soon.