The Great Thief

The entrance to Molten Core was in the Blackrock Depths. It was behind the Room of the Seven and at the very end of the bridge, which was also next to the Forge where they smelted dark iron.

Of course, this wasn’t the only entrance. There was a room at the end of the Blackrock Mountains that contained an Elf. Players would be able to receive a quest regarding the Molten Core from him. Upon completion of the quest, they would then be able to teleport from that room straight into the Instance Dungeon.

This NPC was a High-Elf called Lothos Riftwalker. After accepting the quest, he would request the players to retrieve a Core Fragment from the inner parts of the Blackrock Depths. This task wasn’t too difficult. After entering the Blackrock Depths Instance Dungeon, the path diverged in front of the Hall of the Seven. One path led to the Molten Core. The Core Fragment was at the left side of the entrance within the Instance Dungeon, but a large fragment of stone was obstructing it.

How could the players progress through? The answer was simple – destroy it.

For the current players, the Blackrock Depths Instance Dungeon was fairly easy.

The formation of the Molten Core dated back to the days of the War of the Three Hammers.

Emperor Thaurissan, after losing in battle to the Bronzebeard Dwarves, was forced to the bottom of the Blackrock Mountains. In the hope of turning the tides of the battle, he planned to summon demons to help fight against his enemies. However, what he had summoned was not merely a demon. It was Ragnaros, the one who was sealed away by Titan.

After breaking the control of Emperor Thaurissan, Ragnaros brought back all the Fire Elementals that were sealed away. After doing this, the entire Blackrock Mountains became the territory of the Fire Elementals. While they did this, they also killed Emperor Thaurissan.

As for the alliance between Bronzebeard and the Wildhammer Dwarves, it was natural to run after seeing gigantic Fire Elementals rush out of the Mountains.

The Bronzebeard Dwarves returned to mend Ironforge. However, after travelling back to Grim Batol, they found that it had been destroyed, with the Wildhammer Dwarves heading to Aerie Peak. After this, the Dark Iron Dwarves promptly became the subjects of Ragnaros.

Ragnaros went into a deep sleep after reshaping the whole of Azeroth. Before he slept, he gave the Molten Core to Majormodo Executus for caretaking. Alongside him, there was Magmadar, Baron Geddon, Garr and Golemagg the Incinerator.

Before the War of the Elementals, Ragnaros managed to absorb a major part of Thunderaan’s power, because of the betrayal of two of Thunderaan’s underlings. The rest of the power was split between Garr and Baron Geddon, who were Thunderaan’s traitors.

This Instance Dungeon refreshed once a week. After killing any Boss in this dungeon, the cooldown would begin. Of course, most of the time, it would be the first Boss, Lucifron.

The Instance Dungeon records of every person would affect the party. This meant that if the 40-member party had already killed one of the Bosses, any member wouldn’t be able to join another party and fight the same Boss as it wouldn’t appear.

This also meant that the replacements would be losing out on some benefits.

It would be even more beneficial to avoid entering the Instance Dungeon, rather than being named as a replacement. After all, the cooldown wouldn’t be affected at all. However, if a player was named as a replacement, then the chances of them entering the dungeon were extremely high. Furthermore, if the party only wiped and couldn’t clear the Boss, the party might change members again without even clearing a single Boss. As such, their chance to enter the dungeon this week would be gone.

Lu Li didn’t think that many people would respond to his request of being a replacement, especially the stronger players.

He expected that they would all be newer or weaker players. After all, stronger players would be able to fight it themselves after receiving the strategy.

However, the result was nothing like what he had expected!

The ones who signed up were all strong players. There were a few from the elite squads, whom Lu Li had trained himself.

Wandering doubted Lu Li’s intelligence. He couldn’t understand why Lu Li thought that replacements wouldn’t receive any benefits. Even if they were replacements, they were still a part of Ruling Sword’s 40-man party, which was one of the most capable around.

There was also a chance for the replacements to increase their strength.

As for wasting a week on the cooldown, no one cared. After the release of the strategies, there would be so many elite squads clearing the dungeon, so there was no way of showing off.

The final squad consisted of 40 people, with 15 people as replacements. A total of 55 players from Drizzle Court and Peerless City combined to form the squad.

Water Fairy brought her Priest, Star Baby and her Mage, Deadly Green Orange, and joined the group.

The three of them were females, which was quite representative of Drizzle Court.

Lu Li originally considered including a few more people from Peerless City. In doing so, he would be able to improve the squad strength and also form a stronger relationship with Peerless City as an ally.

In the long term, Lu Li hoped to reinforce this alliance of Drizzle Court, Ruling Sword and Peerless City. This would be able to protect all three of them from other guilds, big or small. Even Glory Capital was constantly improving their own power by splitting up their strengths and creating more allied guilds.

Other guilds were also doing the same.

However, no matter how spread out Glory Capital became, they would always be the number one organisation in the game.

If an opportunity presented itself, no one would hesitate to hinder Glory Capital. After all, they were simply too powerful.

Lu Li also planned to form a subsidiary guild from Ruling Sword after a little more time. Ruling Sword already had 100,000 battle-ready players.

However, of the 100,000, there were only a few thousand who were worthy of being considered as elite players. Compared to other major organisations, this was much too small a number. This was why Lu Li always invited Drizzle Court and Peerless City, or other guilds in the Alliance during the large battles.

However, Water Fairy rejected Lu Li’s proposal to bring in Peerless City.

Peerless City was an individual organisation, with no ties to other guilds. Even if Drizzle Court wanted to release the Molten Core’s strategy to them, they would still request for a fee. Ruling Sword had even less reason to include them and not charge them for it.

As the head of the organisation, Lu Li had the responsibility to take care of the members of his guild first.

It was better to include people from his own organisation first.

Before entering the Instance Dungeon, Lu Li led everyone to a small island in near Azshara. The reason was because they would find the Hydraxian Waterlords here. These Water Elementals were the nemeses of Ragnaros and his Fire Elementals.

They were given an elixir, which provided them with Fire-resistance effects. Although the elixir was not overpowered, it was still useful. At the very least, it would give them a chance of survival in tight situations.

After checking and preparing thoroughly, Lu Li brought them into the Instance Dungeon.

The Molten Core could change the fate of any player, if they were lucky enough to receive an item.

Windseeker’s Blade and the Hammer of the Fire Elemental were among the other godly items that could drop here. Even small monsters had a chance of dropping extremely exquisite and powerful items.