The Great Thief

“Can we go?” one of them asked in confusion.

“We can just leave, no strings attached?” another asked.

“Yep, if you want to go, go,” Lu Li said with a dark expression.

The other higher level ones didn’t say anything. Although they had already spent quite a lot on these people, if their hearts weren’t in it, forcing them to stay would be even worse.

Simply said, it was simply that the regulations stipulated in the contract weren’t strict enough.

What was more, any club which was training new people couldn’t guarantee they would stay. People coming and leaving were very normal, and they were all used to it now anyway.

“Then…then I’ll go back and pack my things,” the first one said.

“Thank you everyone for looking after us during this time. I hope we can meet again in future,” the second also said politely.

“See you,” a third one grinned, thinking that leaving really wouldn’t be this easy.

And so, three of them went, meaning that five had left in total.

The remaining three had relatively firm expressions. Lu Li recognized them, remembering that they had come from the same place as friends. They weren’t in amazing shape, and actually, they were a little foolish, but since they decided to stay, he decided that they were good kids.

From their gaming IDs, it looked like they were brothers: Sikong Che, Sikong Liang and Sikong Ming.

However, everyone was used to calling them Sikong Fool 1, Sikong Fool 2 and Sikong Fool 3.

Sikong Fool 1 beat his chest, saying, “Us three Sikong brothers aren’t ones to bite the hands that feed us. A man can’t sleep with two masters – isn’t that right, 3?”

“Sleep my arse.”

“Man, getting high with that!” Sikong Fool 2 beamed.

What sort of people were these? Wasn’t it better to chase them away?

“It’s my fault – I never thought something like this would happen.”

Cat Dad thought his work wasn’t up to standard, or perhaps he was rushing too much to train to compete in the Donghua Cup, so he skimped on the mental and political education.

“Leaving is fine. Wait a minute while we contact their families so they can arrive home safely,” Lu Li said.

“I know why they would leave,” Sikong Fool 3 said with his hand on his chin, looking like he was speaking with great thought.

“Because I didn’t let them compete?” Lu Li asked. He actually didn’t care much about why they left. Kids always changed their minds, they could leave without any reason.

“There were a lot of clubs that had contact with us outside, wanting me to go with them. The pay is better than here in Ruling Sword, and they promise that they will let us compete really soon,” Sikong Fool 3 said.

“So, they’re being treacherous,” Sikong Fool 2 added.

“Us three brothers don’t care about them. We never thought there would actually be people who would betray the group. Just a few days ago they even said they would keep struggling along with us,” Sikong Fool 1 said with great resentment.

“I remember last time we were playing cards… they still owe us money from that,” Sikong Fool 3 piped up, suddenly realizing an important matter.

“We didn’t think about chasing it up, but now that they’re leaving, we need to get it back. Let’s go! Get after them!” Sikong Fool 1 cried out in anger.

“Haha, I never thought the day would come when we would get that money back. Bro, if there’s nothing else, let’s go demand our payment,” Sikong Fool 2 agreed.

The three high school students left, and Soulless Grass went with them too.

Only Princely Beauty didn’t leave; she did not want to stop clinging onto Wandering’s leg.

“Can we chase this one away too, or just get rid of her directly?” Wandering asked with a dark expression. If he wasn’t one to not hit women, and if it wasn’t for her age, he would let her know what it meant to be a level three black belt.

He was so handsome, but he enjoyed to offend others with his malicious tongue. The reason he hadn’t been hammered by others was because his fighting level was off the charts.

“Let’s continue the meeting,” Lu Li coughed, ignoring him.

Wandering couldn’t betray them – he was part of the team that created Ruling Sword, so how could be betray himself? Also, this guy was so lazy he couldn’t make the effort to do anything. So naturally, his little admirer couldn’t betray the group either.

As for this whole love to hate affair, unless Wandering and Azure Sea Breeze were going to get their marriage certificate any time soon, they wouldn’t worry about this whole thing for now.

“There have been a lot of problems this time, but it’s a good thing they all came out now,” Square Root 3 said, summarizing all that had happened that day. Actually, he was against having new people compete in the Donghua Cup so early. He also knew about how other players had approached the new recruits in the Sharpening Centre.

Everyone there knew about it, but they just didn’t know how to deal with it.

They couldn’t stop this issue; it wasn’t the sort of thing that could be forcibly prevented.

As soon as the Donghua Cup started, Short Road had attracted a lot of attention.

Princely Beauty and Soulless Grass actually weren’t bad either. They were even able to attract the attention of Glory Capital’s Green training camp. All the big clubs couldn’t sit still, reaching out to the Sharpening Centre in droves.

The three who had gone on to compete were still fine. Road couldn’t leave, as he and Lu Li had a strong deal. Unless they could find someone more handsome than Wandering, Princely Beauty would stay, and Soulless Grass didn’t look like someone who was easily swayed.

Those who hadn’t competed were less predictable though.

They could only watch on from the sidelines.

“I’m stronger than Short Road! If you swapped him with me…I’d definitely be able to take over.”

By the time Ruling Sword lost to Glory Capital, having only achieved third place, these players were even more determined in desire to leave.

To begin with, Ruling Sword wasn’t the legendary victor who would win 100 out of 100 battles, so why did they have to stay here to suffer this sort of ‘humiliation’?

So at this, of the original 14 new trainees, there were only 5 left.

“On the bright side, if these five don’t go, we have our team for the next Donghua Cup,” Lu Li joked. The other instructors also followed along laughing.

Although there were a lot of new trainees in Ruling Sword’s training camp, those which had entered didn’t become competitors. The players that left didn’t amount to a huge loss for Ruling Sword. It just didn’t leave them with a pleasant taste in their mouths.

The departure of new people didn’t detract from the foundation which had already been established.

“Still looks like we need to get more people,” Cat Dad said. “This time we’ll attract instructors, and solve the problem from the roots.”

“Strengthen thought education. When we select them, we’ve got to consider their own moral conduct too. We also have to improve the conditions of the contract, so that they won’t want to leave when they’ve tasted what we’ve got to offer,” Butterfly Dancer said, offering her own opinion. She was usually very nice to these kids and it never crossed her mind that they would just leave when they wanted. It really made her quite disappointed.

“The stuff we talked about a couple days ago, how’s that going?” Square Root 3 asked, bringing up what he discussed with Lu Li last time when they were watching the competition.

After everyone heard this, they began to fall silent.

Getting people from the Common District – would this be feasible?

Yes, of course, the feasibility of this was very evident. Kids of the Common District were used to working very hard, and they were easy to maintain. If they were given a chance, then they would do all they could for it.

However, their weaknesses were also very evident.

They more than likely had questionable ethics and morals. If someone came to them waving money, those who were poor their whole lives really might not be immune to the temptation.

“We can’t rush this issue. I’ve already got people coming over. They should be here soon, Lu Li said.

The people coming were Buggy and Blacky. They rarely travelled over to Ruling Sword’s turf, and they also knew that Lu Li wasn’t too fond of seeing them.

Why did they have to part ways like that? It really was a matter of forgetting his roots.

By the sneering way that Buggy usually spoke, it didn’t look like he had come from the Common District.

Of course, they all had unconditional faith in each other as always.

They were basically sworn brothers for life.

Some knew what these people did, and others didn’t. Now though, everyone basically was aware.

“What’s up? Li, bro, we’re at your command,” Blacky said respectfully.

Buggy didn’t speak up. He didn’t really have much to speak about with Lu Li.

“I need some people from our Common District, aged 10 to 15 and a little more active. You go have a look first, and observe what their character is like. If it looks like they won’t betray us, send them to me,” Lu Li instructed secretively.

“We don’t have anything there, just lots of people,” Blacky said with a twinkle in his eye.

“In the future, these people may end up on the stage. If they’re not successful, they’ll become Elites in our guild, and that will be good too. You can be a bit flexible with age,” Lu Li added.

“We have to have our share too. We’ve got too few people,” Buggy said.

“Up to you. You pick some and give the rest to me,” Lu Li agreed, not minding. However, he knew that Buggy wouldn’t pick away the best. They had this implicit understanding between them.

“After entering the club, they’ll be divided into different levels. They’ll have to keep going through tests and trials before they have the ability to go on stage,” Han Lengxian said. He had done some research into club-control, and had made his own suggestion towards the Sharpening Centre.

“I agree with teacher Han. I’d like to trouble teacher Han to concretely set out the club rules,” Lu Li requested.

Specialist duties were handed over to the specialists.

In this way, Ruling Sword would never fail to have fresh blood come in, from where Lu Li had come from himself. In the beginning, he played Dawn to give his little sister a new life, not wanting to come in contact with that place again.

However, he never truly forgot his roots. The Common District of Jiangnan City was in the middle of massive developmental change. Buggy was working on it, but the idea and capital was coming from Lu Li.

However, when Lu Li had established himself, only then did he realized that the idea of being cut off from this past was a little immature.

No one can truly be cut off from their past, and there wasn’t any need to either.

From then on, the Common District and Lu Li were linked together again, and the club of Ruling Sword decided to always have some association with it. Countless high-level players from the Common District had their origins here, beginning a new life.

All of these things were handed over to Cat Dad, Buggy and Blacky to be dealt with. Lu Li was still focused on Instance Dungeons.

In the first week, they hadn’t even finished analyzing all of Ouro’s skills, let alone progressing to the next Boss. The other clubs were like this too. The official message board was filled with protesting messages. No one thought this Boss could be killed at all any time soon.