The Great Thief

Lu Li stood in front of an unshaven human male Thief.

“Hello, Mr Harris.”

“Hello, adventurer, what can I do for you?”

Lu Li ignored the unruly look that this player had given him and remained polite, staying within character. Ed Harris was indeed a patient, caring, pure and kind Mediterranean man.

“I’m not here to learn a skill,” the man said proudly. “I hear that you are very powerful and I am here to seek your instruction.”

Although he was asking for instruction, there was no humility in his request. This person obviously wanted to defeat his professional trainer so that he could show off to everyone. There were many other people waiting for Lu Li nearby, and some had even started lining up to learn skills or begin quests.

The other professional trainers in Dawn also performed similar functions.

Not only could players challenge one another, but the players could also challenge the NPCs. It was just that not many players dared to do such a thing.

It just wasn’t worth it!

Challenging an NPC professional trainer to save 5 gold was just not something normal people who would to do.

Moreover, if you won the battle and the NPC was a good sport that would be fine, but if they weren’t, you would lose some Prestige. This meant that you would be wasting money and time. If you lost the battle, then you would also lose some EXP. It was the same penalty as dying in the Wild.

“Alright, my child. Whatever happens, your courage is impressive,” Lu Li said, accepting the challenge of the player.

Of course, in order to deal with some of the strength disparity between the two sides, the System would automatically do some balancing. This was the give the player at least some hope of victory.

However, Lu Li’s Attributes were at least 20% higher than this player. This 20% strength difference might not have been fatal in the eyes of an ordinary player, but Lu Li wasn’t an ordinary player. With such a strength difference, Lu Li was easily able to defeat him.

This time, Lu Li didn’t even use any skills!

He didn’t go into Stealth or use any crowd-control. Instead, he just stabbed his challenger to death with his dagger.

The audience was silent; there wasn’t even a single person calling out.

Lu Li was a little embarrassed. Would these players start to feel some hostility towards him after seeing one of their own abused like that?

He didn’t even want to think about who was possibly present in the crowd.

Those who needed to find NPCs to learn skills from were generally the lower-levelled players. This was a scene they had seen before, where someone had overestimated their own ability. The star players in the crowd would subconsciously feel like they wouldn’t have lost so depressingly.

Lu Li suddenly became a guru in the eyes of those who were watching.

As such, on the very first day of becoming an NPC, Lu Li had gained a great amount of Prestige. He had acquired so much more than Water Fairy had in Darnassus.

The female tycoon wasn’t doing too badly, but she hadn’t been nearly as shameless as Lu Li. He was able to lie through his teeth, fake a genuine expression and ruthlessly defeat players that tried to offend him.

The defeated player’s face was sheepish. He had originally thought that he could bully this NPC. After all, artificial intelligence was still not as good as the human brain.

The games that he used to play followed this rule. The monsters were for him to farm and the NPCs were there to serve him. He was going to do well in this game, gather a group of loyal followers and wait for the opportunity to set up a guild.

He had no plans of making himself a king, but after entering a club and participating in the professional competitions, he would be able to defraud some money from the investors.

However, he didn’t expect that his plan would take so long.

What made him even more defeated was that this smiling NPC had actually deducted 60 points of his Prestige. He didn’t have much left as that was the amount he had earned over the last few days.

Even lower-levelled players knew that Prestige was a very important thing to have.

He couldn’t bear to stick around for much long, so the player hurriedly left without any words of accusation.

Lu Li coughed, almost as if to ask if there was anything else. He felt quite cool with the ability to deduct the Prestige of others. Lu Li felt no sympathy for someone who tried to use their Prestige to swindle others.

After seeing Lu Li beat up a player like that, the other players were even more convinced about him.

In the eyes of these rookies, Lu Li was like a hermit in the city. They started lining up more aggressively and finishing their quests more efficiently. Not to mention, they were also very satisfied with Lu Li. When they submitted their evaluations, they were all five-stars, which meant that Lu Li’s EXP and Prestige skyrocketed.

If he didn’t have to worry about gaining practical fighting experience and some other issues, Lu Li would likely just have stayed there as an NPC.

With regards to the rankings, Lu Li had just entered the top 30 on the list and was currently ranked 28th. In just a few hours, he had climbed more than 80 positions on the Level Rankings which was almost unheard of.

What was even more ridiculous was that no one knew where or how he was farming.

Lu Li had just sent off another excited little Thief, but when he looked at the next player, he couldn’t help but want to throw up.

The next guy was a star player, who had come here to join in on the fun. Could the Azure Guard not afford this guy’s skills?

It was Floral Paralysis – Azure Guard’s star player.

“Hello, esteemed adventurer. What can I do to help?”

Lu Li hoped that he wasn’t here to challenge him and his heart was beating out of his chest. He couldn’t say that he wouldn’t be able to beat Floral Paralysis. Under normal conditions, Floral Paralysis didn’t even stand a chance and now he was guaranteed to be 20% stronger than him.

The key issue was that Floral Paralysis was one the players who knew him best.

Star players, especially those who were in the same profession, usually studied each other. No one was able to completely hide their fighting ability. Studying your opponent was not only good for defeating them, but also good for learning from them.

Lu Li was one of the most studied players in the Thief profession by his competitors such as Blood Dagger, Wood Fearing, Floral Paralysis, Midnight Ghost, etc. Floral Paralysis had studied him countless times and learned many things from him.

Almost all Thieves regarded Lu Li as a great rival, so how could they not study him? In some respects, Floral Paralysis knew Lu Li better than he knew himself. Once they two sides fought, it would be easy for him to start noticing some details.

This was why Lu Li was afraid!

Floral Paralysis was definitely going to expose him. If he started to even suspect that Harris was Lu Li, then the combined knowledge of that and Lu Li’s climb on the Level Rankings would be enough for him to make the connection that Lu Li was levelling by pretending to be an NPC.

If Lu Li was in his position, he would definitely expose him to tear him down.