The Great Thief

It took no less than one and a half days to wait for the Azure Drake. In this time, the other clubs caught up with their progress.

The first time the blue dragon spawned, Lu Li set everyone up in motion to defeat it, which caught the other clubs by surprise.

After the blue dragon was killed off, a giant spirit came up from where his body was.

At this point, they stopped attacking. This blue dragon spirit was a friendly spirit.

Actually, this was the what the quest was getting at. Talking to the Wild Azure Drake was a pointless exercise – it would attack any player upon seeing them.

“Are you here to look for the pieces of the blue dragon’s protector’s scepter?” Azuregos’ spirit asked, with what looked like a smile.

“Yes, the bugs are getting restless. If we don’t take the appropriate measures, then the second War of Shifting Sands is going to start. Nozdormu’s son – Anachronos – told me to come find the protector of the three dragons and bring back the pieces of the scepter.”

“Protector…” Azuregos laughed with a bit of a sneer. He then shook his head, saying, “Of course I don’t have shards. Bringing those with me would be a ridiculously stupid thing to do. Me, living in this cursed, overgrown land, can’t walk five steps without a mad beast or person attacking me. I could kick the bucket at any time. In short…I’ve stored it up somewhere. Hehe, continue – ask me where I kept it.”

Lu Li could only obey and ask, “Azuregos, sir, can we respectfully ask where you kept it?”

“You’ll like this story, elf,” the blue dragon said, shaking his head with satisfaction. “When Malygos let me take care of the scepter pieces, I know it would be a headache.”

“I only wanted to do some research work on this coastline and look for magic weapons that were left behind from the last time the world split apart. If you want to know, these are the ruins of Azsharin city, the home garden of Queen Azshara! You don’t need to tell me that there are magical artifacts around here – I can smell them!”

“So did you find magic weapons?” Lu Li asked with great interest.

He felt that he and Azuregos’ interests and hobbies were one and the same. They were both filled with a yearning for these legendary magical weapons.

When Azshara was ruling, there was no stronger, more prosperous group than the Night Elves, and they didn’t lack any treasures. However, after the explosion of the Well of Eternity, many things had been lost.

“Nonsense, if I had found magic weapons, would I still be here?” Azuregos retorted with a disdainful look before continuing, “It’s just like I said – I’ve already protected the scepter for over 500 years. This thing is annoying. All of the other lifeforms covet this shard, but I just want to look for treasures, so I just threw it away to a fish.”

“Um, are you saying that you gave this shard, which relates to the fate of all Kalimdor, to a fish?” Lu Li asked, really speechless.

“Not an ordinary fish, mere mortal. I’m talking about a minnow, an extremely special minnow,” Azuregos said, really not wanting people to think he was a careless dragon.

“Minnows aren’t extraordinary at all – there are thousands of them in the sea. How do you plan to get it back?” Lu Li asked.

“This is a genius idea, I know…it’ll never be found. In order to guarantee this, I imbued this minnow with some special powers.”

Azuregos had found a rare chance to chat. Under normal circumstances, when he saw players, he would attack straight away.

“Ok, so you imbued the fish and tossed it into the vast waters between the mainland and the eastern kingdoms. Can we ask what special powers this fish has?” Lu Li said.

“You’re right. You were listening carefully all along,” Azuregos replied in satisfaction. “When I was creating life, this minnow could be considered a suitably scary guy. Every time I took a rest, I’d like to think about those unfortunate fishermen, imagining if they bumped into this fish and being swallowed whole. I’d bet they’d be a million percent scared by it!”

“Those poor fishermen,” Lu Li said, observing a moment of silence.

“Genius is always misunderstood, mortal. As for that shard…if you want to get it, and you don’t want to waste your time by spending thousands of years searching in the vast sea, then you have to listen very carefully,” Azuregos said in a deliberately serious tone.

“I am focusing all my attention on listening to you, sir. If you don’t believe me, I can repeat everything that you’ve just said and I can guarantee I won’t get a single word wrong.”

“Arcanite Buoy!”

“What does that mean?” Lu Li asked really wanting to give him a slap across the face. When talking about unimportant stuff, he was like a chatterbox that hadn’t opened his mouth for hundreds of years and would just keep jabbering on, but when he finally got to the important topics, he was fashionably indifferent.

“Ok…you need to make an Arcanite Buoy and put it in the sea. Minnows are attracted to the Arcanite Buoy. When they get close to the buoy – bang! The Arcanite Buoy will release some mysterious power and make the fish show its original shape. However, when this happens, it might bring about Neptulon’s Aggro. The odds are probably about 50%!” Azuregos said with uncertainty.

The Tidehunter Neptulon was the ruler of waters, lakes, rivers and oceans. All those who were of water elements or used water and cold as their main strengths would respect him.

To those he noticed had dared to ignore his anger, he would toy with as he pleased. He especially liked to attack those who were busy taking advantage of his people, washing away the huge rocks of the rock mother (Therazane), and putting out the raging flames of the Firelord.

Neptulon enjoyed playing around with the things he hunted. He would toss his prey into the water and let them escape for a bit. Sometimes, he would put an unfortunate victim on a desert island and let them enjoy the torture of the tides and whirlpools. He would often try to distinguish who couldn’t live in water for long and send them far away and then pick up what was left of them later.

Offend Neptulon?

This was too much of a joke, and there was a 50% probability.

“Haha, I can see you’re scared. Your little face has turned green,” Azuregos commented, clearly satisfied with Lu Li’s expression.

“Honourable Azuregos, your highness, can we please ask you to be honest with us? You put Anachronos with the minnow you created, but what is this Arcanite Buoy? Is it used to track this fish? And can it also stir up the anger of the elemental lord?”

Angry wasn’t enough to describe how Lu Li was feeling. The guide that he had read in his last life wasn’t this detailed.

At the very least, they didn’t mention that the spirit of the blue dragon had such an attitude!