The Great Thief

“Follow me. Since you call me teacher and have completed my request, I should probably teach you something,” Garona said as she slowly walked down the stairs.

“How much Alchemy have you learned?”

“Some healing potions…” Lu Li answered as he listed off some recipes.

Garona wasn’t very interested in conventional alchemy, but when Lu Li mentioned a poison, her footsteps slowed. From this, Lu Li knew that they would be focusing on recipes that involved poison.

“Have you ever ingested poison?” Garona asked as she suddenly turned around.

“In…ingested poison?” Lu Li was shocked before shaking his head and saying, “Why would I ingest poison? It’s not like I’m trying to find a poison that the enemy would like.”

He had made a joke, but Garona didn’t smile at all. Her eyes were looking to the side of the room, and Lu Li had no idea what she was thinking about.

During this time, Lu Li felt like Garona was a different person.

He was doubting whether the person in front of him really was his teacher. His impression of Garona was not that she was cold and uncaring, but as a strong Thief, he was quite terrified of her.

Right now, she was just absent-mindedly walking in front of him!

“I have ingested over 967 different kinds of poisons. My favourite tasting one is the one I use. It has a HP reducing effect and prevents healing. You will have the chance to try it,” Garona said as she turned back and continued to walk down the stairs casually. The stairs here were the same as those in Karazhan; the only thing missing were the monsters.

“How can you ingest a poison?” Lu Li asked in a quiet voice.

“There are no rules against it. It will help you understand the poison more deeply, as long as you don’t kill yourself,” Garona said.

There was a path with fences on both sides. You could see through the fences, but it was quite dim. Nothing could be seen clearly, but there was an outline of a forest. There were no insects, birds or beasts – it was like they were in a dream.

The tower was quite scary, so Lu Li chose to break the silence while also satisfying his curiosity.

“So, do you have some kind of goblin here that is good at Engineering? I saw quite a few mechanical units. There was the flying bat beast and the dog that just howled,” he mentioned casually.

“Thermaplugg… if that’s who you’re referring to,” Garona said.

Lu Li’s mind immediately pictured a gnome. It was the gnome that he saw in the backyard of the Southshore Hotel. It was actually Thermaplugg, the gnome madman who was named a murderer and a traitor among a list of other things. He had originally been part of Ravenholdt Manor.

Garona didn’t seem to feel like there was anything wrong with revealing the identity of Thermaplugg. Lu Li seemed to have gained her trust.

“This can be your room if you want to live here,” Garona offered as she pushed open a broken door which crumpled apart.

Lu Li held his place of stay to high regard, so he went in to have a look.

This room wasn’t actually that large; it was tiny compared to Lu Li’s house in Darnassus. A wall on one side had a narrow wooden bed against it and there was a narrow table and shelf on the other side. There were books scattered around, which were all covered in dust.

“Do you think its dirty?” Garona asked.

Lu Li coughed as he picked up the books and responded with a nod.

“I will need to clean it up before I can live here.”

“Then I’ll let you do that. There are other places in the tower that need cleaning too,” Garona said.

Lu Li coughed again, but the System Prompt made him withdraw any further complaints as it said that he had been given residence at the Garona Tower. He also received a buff from the room.

That’s right, the room generated buffs.

The normal buff was an increased regeneration of weariness. After some time, you would also receive a double EXP buff. If you used a System hotel, you would have a weariness regeneration of 10%. If you spelt there for a night, you would have a 1-hour double EXP buff the next day.

The private property purchased by Lu Li was slightly better. The weariness regeneration was 20% and if you slept for a night, you would receive the double EXP buff for one and a half hours.

His property was very expensive and belonged to the luxury category. An average property would only have 15% weariness regeneration and a shorter double EXP buff. However, there were still many players who would buy a house for this increase, even if it was a little bit.

In his previous life, he had bought a simple room in a guild Stronghold. It was only a little better than the System Hotels.

When this advantage was accumulated over a long period of time, it would make a significant difference.

The room that Garona had given him had a 30% weariness regeneration and if he rested for a night he would receive a 2 hour double EXP buff.

It was just too strong!

Compared to this small villa, an extra half an hour of double EXP was an extra 15 hours over a month. This was equivalent to farming for a whole day more than everyone else.

This rundown room was splendid in the eyes of Lu Li. It didn’t matter that he had to clean the rest of the tower too. He could get hired help from the System, or eventually build a robot to do it when his Engineering level was high enough.

“If you agree, then I will show you your lab,” Garona said.

“This is all great. I already have my bags ready,” Lu Li responded.

They went onto the next level where Garona pointed out the kitchen. There wasn’t a chef in the tower and Garona wasn’t a chef, so the kitchen was covered in dust. It obviously hadn’t been used in a long time.

Lu Li suspected that his teacher probably didn’t live here.

The so-called laboratory was located in the middle of the Garona Tower. It was filled with beaker after beaker and was probably the only clean place in the whole tower. There were some mechanical units that were processing some medicines.

“In future, you will spend a bit of time every day to practice poison-making,” Garona said. “I know that you are busy, but this is the only way.”

Lu Li thought about what he was going to do in this next phase of his gaming life. He was thinking about future competitions and Instance Dungeons as he nodded while Garona was telling him about poison making. After he heard all of it, he suddenly discovered that there was no formula to poison making.

There was no formula?

“How is this possible?”

“There is no formula. From now on, you will be fighting with your own poison,” Garona said.

“There are recipes in Alchemy, and we can use other people’s poisons…”

“That is alchemy. You are no longer an alchemist, but you can rest assured that you can still use alchemy items. A Poison Brewer will never make someone else’s poison. I have never ever done that, no matter how desirable it was.”

Lu Li wasn’t listening to anything she was saying, as his brain had frozen.

If he couldn’t use poison, his combat power would drop by at least 20%. Moreover, there were System poisons that were still quite useful. There were important poisons that slowed and reduced healing by 50%.

He had thought that taking the risk of doing this quest to kill a level 65 Boss would greatly increase his strength. In fact, it did, as he had two Enhanced Gouges lying in his backpack, so his efforts were not in vain. But why did this have to happen?

“How can I learn then?” Lu Li asked as he took a deep breath. Now was exactly the time he needed to maintain his composure; it wasn’t like he could defeat his teacher anyway.

“It’s very simple. If you have some herbs then you can mix them together,” Garona explained, seeming to think that this was obvious, then added, “It is best if you use some common herbs at first. You will need to do more practice before using high-grade herbs.”

“My esteemed teacher, I have another strong enemy to deal with soon. Can I get an advance on a poison from you, I am willing to pay for it?”

“I’m afraid I can help you. If I were you, I would start practicing poison-making right now.”

“…”