The Great Thief

Square Root 3 had only sold the strategies for three Bosses, but that was the limit anyway.

This meant that Lu Li and the others had to rest in order to keep up the act. If Glory Capital, who had just defeated Ras Frostwhisper, was offered the strategies for more than three Bosses, they would know that Ruling Sword had almost finished the Instance Dungeon. There was no way Glory Capital was dumb enough to fall for that.

It wasn’t bad for them to take a break anyway. The Boss that they were facing next could be fought whenever they wanted.

“Glory Capital has defeated three of the Bosses already.”

These Bosses were already quite easy, but the strategies made them even easier. Each Boss after Ras Frostwhisper took them about 10-20 minutes to fight.

“Alright then, let’s get started.”

Lu Li thought that this was a good time to get started on Gandling.

The moment they entered the fight, Darkmaster Gandling boomed, “Your classes will begin now!”

Although this line was short, it had a profound effect. Players who were students immediately tensed up when they heard it. They often heard this while they were in school, and now they had heard it too within the game. There was a huge psychological effect on them because of this.

“Damn you and your class!” Azure Sea Breeze yelled as he rushed up to the Darkmaster and hit him with his shield.

The Darkmaster responded bluntly with a Burnout, resulting in a bunch of injuries appearing over his head. However, Mu Qiu calmly continued to Heal and stabilized the Main Tank’s HP loss. Although he would work with the rest of the team, Mu Qiu was almost Azure Sea Breeze’s exclusive healer.

“Deal as much damage as you can. Memories, use Bloodlust.”

This Boss had to be defeated as quickly as possible, which was why Lu Li asked her to use Bloodlust right at the beginning.

He quietly positioned himself next to the Boss’ Magic Staff. This was actually a trick to fighting Gandling as the first skill was always directed towards the person standing closest to the Magic Staff.

Of course, the Boss would cry out before this happened.

“Arise!”

This Boss must have really have thought he was a teacher. He said “arise” so convincingly that some of the players who were still students almost said “good morning” in response.

In fact, this was Gandling’s signature skill.

Arise – Gandling summons a group of failed students to fight for him. These students will rampage the area, attacking everything in sight. While casting this skill, Gandling takes 50% less damage.

On the one hand, this skill summoned a group of monsters to cause trouble and on the other hand, it also reduced damage caused to himself.

Fortunately, these monsters were relatively weak. They were students who were not good enough for Scholomance and had been sent to Stratholme. As long as the Off Tank got there in time to use his long-range taunt, an area of effect attack would be enough to deal with them.

After these students were defeated, the Darkmaster would revive them.

These students were hopeless in life, but weren’t even allowed to die in peace.

“Lu Li, come and see me in my office…” Darkmaster Gandling said as he pointed to Lu Li with his Magic Staff.

The other players started to break out in cold sweat when they saw Lu Li vanish on the spot. It really seemed like Lu Li had been instantly transported to Gandling’s office somehow.

In fact, this was the other skill that the Darkmaster knew.

Harsh Lesson – Darkmaster Gandling randomly sends a player to his study and teaches that player harshly.

“Dammit, Lu Li, Lu Li!” Azure Sea Breeze cried out as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“You guys continue to deal damage. I have been sent into a small room. I can probably leave once I’ve cleared out the monsters here,” Lu Li said to his teammates through their private channel as he fought off a group of failed experiments.

Failed Experiments: The Darkmaster saved these experiments in a room. These creatures will attack anyone who enters their room.

In fact, these experiments were all Gandling’s students. They appeared quite bloody and it wasn’t clear what kind of perverse experiments had been performed on them. In addition, there were other subjects that were still conscious, but had been locked away. If these subjects tried to escape, they would be remotely detonated. Lu Li wasn’t a healer, so he didn’t bother helping them.

However, this meant that a Healer could still get out if they were sent here, as they could free the subjects. The Healer just needed to make sure that the subjects survived the detonation.

Harsh Lesson was the most difficult part of the first phase when fighting Gandling.

When ordinary players were suddenly transmitted, they usually couldn’t respond quickly enough and weren’t able to kill so many monsters.

After dealing with all the ‘Failed Experiments’ in that room, Lu Li was presented with a glowing halo that transported him back to the Boss when he stood in it.

The reason why he wanted to go in first was so that he could make an example of himself. Now that he had explained the skill to everyone, they would be able to deal with it more quickly if they were sent into it.

It was most troublesome when the Main Tank was sent in.

Azure Sea Breeze was known as Dawn’s number one Main Tank, but not matter how strong a Main Tank was, they didn’t have much damage. As such, it would be a little difficult for him to deal with the monsters in the room.

Fortunately, he had learned a number of high-attack skills. Although these hadn’t been upgraded, he could at least use those to get some kills.

If the Main Tank was transmitted at this stage, the off tank had to assume the responsibility of tanking the Boss.

Ruling Sword got wiped the first time Azure Sea Breeze was sent away in this manner.

In their second attempt, they successfully survived the first stage. After entering the second stage, Gandling began using a number of new tricks in addition to his old ones.

“Assemble!”

After the Darkmaster gave the order, all the players were forced towards the center as pillars of fire erupted around them.

During this whole process, they had to withstand the damage from the two pillars of fire.

After the two eruptions, the players regained control and had to quickly leave. Otherwise, the third eruption would hit and potentially kill many of them.

Although Lu Li shouted for everyone to run, most of them didn’t seem to realize that they had been released.

As such, the party was almost completely wiped here. Only a few players were left and they had no

choice but to start again.

Their third attempt went much better. Everyone knew what to do and they smoothly reached the third stage, where the Darkmaster gained new strengths. Not only did he cast the skills from the first two stages more often, he but he also had two more skills that truly tested the healers.

The Darkmaster’s Fireball was used so often that it became an absolutely brutal experience.

“Move around; don’t just stupidly get hit those!” Lu Li cried out at those being targeted by the Fireballs while he dealt with the large number of summoned monsters.