The Great Thief

No Berserk?

While everyone else was rejoicing over the Boss not entering Berserk mode, Wandering could only watch as the The Beast fell to the ground.

What made him even more depressed was that Azure Sea Breeze had also gained a skill point.

Was karma even real?

“Quick, loot the equipment. The Boss was cleared on the first try, so stop wasting time. None of you need to rest,” Lu Li nagged.

“Lu pain in the butt…”

“What’d you say?”

Lu Li had heard similar mutters come from them, but he couldn’t figure out what they were saying. These guys were daring enough to come up with crude nicknames for him.

“Nothing, there’s nothing wrong. Remnant Dream, go and loot and equipment,” Hachi Chan said as she nudged Remnant Dream.

“Stones, Skill Book, Materials, Gold equipment, Dark Gold equipment and one Legendary item. This Boss was stingier than the other one,” Remnant Dream announced after she quickly looted all the items.

“Be satisfied. Besides the liking that The Beast took to the Main Tank, it wasn’t that difficult. To have a Legendary item to drop is already pretty good. It’s a DPS item for Paladins, so its unsuitable for Mu Qiu. If this was given to Wandering, it would be a waste. I’ll chuck it in the guild’s storage,” Lu Li decided as he distributed the rest of the stones.

Legendary items would of course be placed inside the guild’s storage.

If a player had enough guild points, then he or she could choose to exchange the points for the Legendary item. A majority of the players would never have enough guild points to exchange for Legendary equipment, but this was a fair system regardless.

The last item was a more peculiar one.

Finkle’s Skinner!

In everyone’s eyes, this was probably a worthless dagger.

However, Lu Li knew its true value. The Legendary item from before was less valuable than this dagger.

Finkle’s Skinner (Gold): Damage 32-48. Agility +25, Strength +12, Critical Chance +15%. Socket: 1. Special Effect 1: Attack Speed +10%. Special Effect 2: Blink Strike, Instant Cast. After using the skill, the user blinks to the target. First strike is guaranteed critical. Level requirement: 55. Durability 130/130.

If this was a level 30 item, the effects would be quite valuable.

Unfortunately, this was a level 55 item. Even the lowest-tier items had higher damage than this weapon. Lu Li’s Felstriker was enhanced and had a damage range of 96-135. Even the minimum damage from Felstriker was double the maximum damage from Finkle’s Skinner.

If this was thrown into the guild’s storage, no one would give it a second look.

This was a common item in the early stages of the game in Lu Li’s previous life, but it was usually used as enchanting material.

One day, a player grew curious as to why it was called Finkle’s Skinner. There was a description of the item, hidden in fine print which read, “The Great Traveller Finkle Einhorn’s treasure.”

In Dawn, only a few items had a description like this. If an item was truly exquisite, then it would have a backstory.

What was a Great Traveller? What was Finkle Einhorn like? Why was his treasure a plain, small knife? Why did this knife drop from The Beast?

All in all, the curious player was stumped.

He brought this dagger with him and asked many people about it. Unfortunately, no one could give him an answer. One day, he unintentionally used it on a wild Boss’ corpse and produced the Skinning effect.

This was a knife with the Skinning effect; a normal weapon would not be able to do this. After skinning the Boss, the player then realised that the meaning behind the name, Finkle’s Skinner.

It was a skinning knife!

This realisation resulted in disappointment, but he was not willing to accept this, so he continued investigating.

Finally, he found the true value of this knife.

The knife had a hidden third special effect. Special Effect 3: Skinning skill points +20. If the target is a Boss, success rate +50%.

Adding 20 skill points was understandable. If a level 55 monster needed 240 skinning points, but the player only had 220, the player would not be able to skin it, no matter how lucky they were. However, if they had Finkle’s Skinner, then they would be able to.

Although this effect alone was already extremely valuable, it was not what elevated this item into Legendary status.

The main selling point was the +50% success rate.

Every monster could only be skinned once. If the first attempt was successful, then the quality of the skin would be the best. Just like in reality, the quality would reduce with successive attempts.

Normal monsters had high success rates.

Most importantly, the +50% success rate was for Bosses. According to the data, the success rate if the player’s skill points exceeded the requirement by 10 was a mere 10%. If the player did not exceed the requirement by 10, the rate would only be around 1%.

Therefore, the most expensive skins were not from normal monsters, but the Bosses’.

This small knife completely revolutionised the laws of skinning.

Imagine having a mind-blowing 60% success rate of completing a perfect skin of a high-quality material when the other players struggled with 10%.

This player did not say anything to anyone. He paid to enter the Instance dungeon teams and skinned the Bosses’ skins for money.

To avoid attention, he avoided staying in one location for too long. He would often leave the party after entering the Instance Dungeon once. This gave the others the impression that he was a skinning enthusiast, but also the impression that he was quite strange.

The sudden emergence of many high-quality skins on the market led to some suspicions by a cunning businessman.

This lucky player then met a gentle and intelligent girl. He chose to invest in love with his status and money, and at the time, it seemed like everything was going right.

However, it was difficult to keep a secret, especially from his significant other. Finally, he told the truth on the day of his proposal to the girl.

After this, his life turned into a soap drama.

It was all a web of lies. After the businessman found the secret, the gentle and intelligent girl that he swore to care for forever instantly disappeared from his life. Then, another person suddenly became capable of selling high-quality skins on the market. This seller was much more able to utilise Finkle’s Skinner to obtain even more money.

The player realised that he had been tricked. In his rage, he decided to do something radical.

He revealed all of his secrets – where to get Finkle’s Skinner, the effects, and even all the locations of Bosses that would fetch a good price for the skins. This information was then compiled and named the Book of Skinning by other players.

Lu Li, in his previous life, had learnt the art of skinning, which meant that he had read and flipped the pages of this book countless times.

Unfortunately, he never obtained Finkle’s Skinner. The knife was a rare sight on the market too. Even it did appear, it would immediately sell at a ridiculously high price.

This knife only dropped from The Beast on Nightmare difficulty. Guild parties would fight it and give the drop to their Skinners. Some other groups were also able to defeat The Beast, but Lu Li was not strong enough to join these parties. Even if he did, and a Finkle’s Skinner dropped, the chances that he would receive it were low.

“I’ve heard of this knife. It…” Lu Li paused for a bit, then used an obscure game book as an excuse and continued to explain the secrets behind this knife.

Everyone present was smart enough to understand Lu Li’s meaning. Therefore, after listening to him, everyone understood the significance of this knife.

“How about giving it to Memories? She’s always grinding, so she would use the knife the most.” After a short discussion, everyone was on board with giving the knife to Sakura Memories.

Remnant Dream was another person who had learnt the skill of Skinning. Actually, the best class to learn Skinning was Hunters. Remnant Dream understood this and learnt it. However, she didn’t grind monsters too often, since she spent the majority of her time nurturing her pets. Furthermore, she was reluctant to skin the more innocent-looking monsters, which was why her Skinning skill was not at a higher level.

After receiving the knife, Sakura Memories immediately went to skin The Beast.

No matter if it was a Lava Hound or a Husky, it was still a dog, which meant that it could be skinned. There was no better time to use the knife that had dropped to skin it.