The Great Thief

7 hours…

Even if there was all sorts of encouragement from Unforgettable Maple and the other supporters, players were starting to leave in large quantities.

Nearly everyone had died once before, though it wasn’t uncommon to have died seven or eight times. Even though Epic equipment often dropped out of nowhere, the majority of players hadn’t seen it for themselves, let alone touched it. As such, they had started to become discouraged.

The main issue was that it was so tiring!

“I can’t play this game anymore. There’s no end to killing these insects.”

They still saw no end even though it had been 8 hours of continuous fighting. Anyone would be feel both mentally and physically drained.

Hence, large quantities of players started to retreat.

“We’ve helped Ruling Sword fight for so long. We’ve done as much as we possibly can. They won’t give us anything good after completing the quest, so why should we still continue to help them?”

Guild players were starting to retreat as well, along with a few clubs as well. They were much more hostile towards Ruling Sword and Lu Li, for example, the Gangnam Royals, Imperial Secret Service, Star Moon Guild…

“The frontline is no longer stable,”

If they wanted to farm monsters smoothly, they couldn’t let the insects rush out of the city walls all at once. As such, the players blocked the gap in the wall in order to kill them off. Relying on the massive quantity of players meant that not many insects had entered into Silithus and other areas.

Evidently, as the gap in the Wall grew bigger and bigger, and as players continued to retreat, the original frontline naturally appeared deficient in comparison.

“Okay, let them out then,” Lu Li said to Water Fairy.

Water Fairy nodded and commanded the new order. A large-scale team of over 100000 people began to enter the arena. They were under the command of Water Fairy and the other clubs and guilds.

However, they were much stronger than the ordinary players in comparison.

With these 100000 people, many of the players who thought they couldn’t hold on and were originally swayed towards retreating gave up their doubts.

“No way. They hid so many people even at a time like this,” Elevenless gasped, feeling dumbfounded, then kicked his other mate and said, “You gotta learn from this guy’s shrewdness.”

“Don’t mess with people like him. Everyone is putting in their all at a time like this, unless he knew from the start that they needed more people. Now with this new force, even if there are more insects, they will be able to hold out.” Dream 13 was also in disbelief.

These 100000 or so people were nursing their strength up until now. Watching everyone else looting equipment and materials was suffocating them.

Now that the cage was open, they immediately rushed to the frontlines.

The players who had been fighting for over 7 hours made room for them. The pressure on the frontlines was instantly relieved as the gaps from players that had retreated were filled.

“I reckon this is probably Lu Li’s last trick up his sleeve. If we wanted to defraud him, we could still have a chance if we leave now. Haven’t you found there are more and more insects?” Jade Flower Lover discussed with the commanders of the other clubs.

“It probably won’t be long. Holding on a little while longer will get us through,” the other players disagreed.

“Exactly. It’s been nearly eight hours. The people down there are so high from looting Reputation they probably won’t be very happy to leave now.”

There was never enough Reputation in their minds. The Cenarion Circle’s Reputation was quite valuable as it could be exchanged for learning Enhanced skills.

The most valuable Reputation was of course world Reputation, then faction Reputation, followed by main city Reputation, and lastly all the other Reputation.

There were many functions for Reputation. The most common two were exchanging for equipment and materials from the corresponding quartermaster, and to learn rare skills or enhanced skills.

Normal skills could also actually be learned with Reputation, which would save a considerable amount of gold. However, most people were not so extravagant in their spending and would save up for learning enhanced skills.

Any Reputation could be used to learn an enhanced skill. The only difference was that different levels of Reputation could turn into different quantities.

Of course, the Bronze Dragon and the Cenarion Circle’s Reputation was not comparable to the main city’s. However, it was much easier to use.

People from clubs and guilds had a much higher demand for Reputation. They were the players who had real opportunities in obtaining enhanced skill books.

The players were now high on farming Reputation. To ask them to leave now and it would no doubt make them upset. The club commanders could order them to retreat and they wouldn’t disobey orders, but they would feel that they didn’t care for their interests.

“Thank you everyone for your help. You must all be tired. How about we leave it for today? You guys go back and rest,” a voice sounded as a few people riding mounts came out of Ruling Sword.

“Damn, so sneaky,” Jade Flower Lover couldn’t help but swear.

Some people were confused.

“Didn’t you just say Lu Li needed people? Why is he shooing them away? This doesn’t seem like something that someone who was asking for help would do.”

“What don’t you guys understand?” Jade Flower Lover sighed. “Lu Li actually just said they can’t hold on for much longer, so he told people to not go so that people who don’t like him and other ordinary players can plan to leave. No one wants to be taken advantage of. But now, Lu Li wants to drive people away. They will feel as though Lu Li doesn’t want to let them farm Reputation, so they will be determined to stay instead.”

“Woah, feels like we’re so despicable,” the players on the side mumbled as they blushed with shame.

“That’s the way people feel. The commander on Lu Li’s side is very good at toying with people’s hearts. I just don’t know if this decision was made by himself or not.”

Jade Flower Lover truly admired this person. In fact, he didn’t want to see Ruling Sword finish this quest so easily.

Only a small minority knew that this strategy had come from Wandering.

Out of the three major commanders of Ruling Sword, Wandering was definitely the smartest and most observant of people’s true intentions. His IQ was unmatched by anyone since he was young. If it wasn’t because of his natural laziness, he would’ve already become the gaming circle’s most well-known commander.

As expected, the players who originally planned to retreat because they were too tired all didn’t want to leave anymore when Ruling Sword started driving people away.

People usually wouldn’t cherish things they received easily. As the saying went, ‘wives are inferior to concubines and concubines are inferior to stealing’.

As soon as they heard that Ruling Sword was driving people away, they felt as if they were stealing the Reputation of Ruling Sword.

This feeling made them instantly forget their exhaustion.

9 hours!

Lu Li watched his teammates around him, who were all terribly fatigued. His eyes travelled beyond the sea of insects towards the depth of Ahn’Qiraj. There was still a never-ending stream of insects gushing out and it still didn’t look like they were going to relent.

10 hours!

This had already surpassed the amount of time in his past life. He didn’t know what effect his rebirth had on this.

However, he did know that if they didn’t stop relentlessly farming insects, a time would come where everyone would collapse – and it would definitely be a full-blown crash.