The Great Thief

Because heaps of money had flowed in, the Stronghold battle had turned from being the most attractive thing to being an auctioning event now.

Each club would bid against a certain Stronghold, and the top 8 would go and fight the monsters protecting it. Whoever was quickest would have the right to attack.

The cost for these eight places kept growing higher and higher, especially for the new Stronghold in Winterspring, which was by far the most popular.

At the moment, Lu Li, having already broke the bank, found it very difficult to get an entrance ticket, but there was no need for him to try to forcibly gain one at this time.

However, he was very happy about those spending gold to attack their own two Strongholds.

The higher the auction price, the more money would finally end up in the hands of Ruling Sword. If they didn’t even have to fight, then the advantage would be massive.

After all, if even Glory Capital couldn’t break into a Stronghold, the other clubs needed to have a good think about their own power.

That was why when the auctioning ended, for a short time, Lu Li was happy.

Eight clubs had made bids for the Grey Valley Stronghold. Even the lowest bid was over 101,000 gold, which was even higher than what Lu Li imagined and broke through the baseline of 100,000 gold.

The highest price reached 140,000, with the average being 123,000.

The Black Sea Coast Stronghold was even higher, with the average reaching 137,000.

Apart from the club which received the rights to fight in the end, the other 14 clubs which were knocked out all had to contribute 20% gold to Ruling Sword.

Lu Li made a rough calculation. From the auction alone, Ruling Sword had earned 500,000 gold.

Including the livestream and rebroadcast viewing fee income, their final income would amount to about 25 or 30 million with the current gold exchange rate of 29 to 31.

Aside from these two Stronghold battles, Ruling Sword was also doing some advertising for a company in Jiangnan City. This company’s advertising was placed temporarily at many Strongholds.

On top of the main doors was written ‘Look the smartest. Revitalize your hair.’

It was clearly an advertisement for hair tonic.

When this product first began to seek promotion, Lu Li actually refused. They could advertise anything but something weird like hair tonic. Apart from Moonlight, not one of them was bald.

Even Moonlight was just a bald guy in the game only, and he was like that from the day he entered it. Compared to his unchanging style in real life of actually having a head of short, spiky hair, he looked really cool.

However, they couldn’t resist all the money they were giving them.

They paid an advertisement fee of two million dollars, and it was just a short-term agreement for this Stronghold battle. They weren’t making money; they were just spending it.

Lu Li also sent people to investigate, seeing if this hair tonic really worked, so he also held on and resisted temptation.

So it was said after all that Lu Li really was a man of principle. Previously, it was mentioned that he could not be purchased with money. But as soon as this money was presented to him, Skinless Lu would really forget what it meant to have standards.

The auction of the 16 clubs was successful. In the morning, they began to attack the System’s monsters defending the Stronghold.

None of these 16 clubs were in the top 10 of clubs. Lu Li hadn’t even heard of some of them, and he had no idea where they had come from. With a price of over 100,000 gold, any club which was rational and had thought there was no way they could win wouldn’t spend this pointless amount of money.

This Stronghold battle was a just a bizarre situation.

The auction wasn’t really all just for some pointless fun.

A few million for a chance to be on the world stage wasn’t too much of a deficit. They would gain some publicity. Even if they didn’t win the fight, having many in the audience know about their club was still a sort of investment.

The two clubs which qualified to fight in the end were the Murong Nobles from Su City in the south, who were attacking Grey Valley, and Frost Castle from the north, who were attacking the Black Sea Coast. Both these clubs seemed to be moderately powerful. By spending lavish amounts on potions and scrolls, they were able to finish off the Stronghold monsters in the quickest time.

Lu Li couldn’t even be bothered to watch their livestream.

There really wasn’t any need to watch it. These so-called clubs presented themselves in a standard pattern. They would have capital to enter the game, acquire a few medium and small-sized guilds, then amalgamate them and come up with a few ‘high-level players’. Because they had money, they were perhaps slightly better than the average guild, but they had no hidden talent, or background or anything to speak of. In wanting to defeat Grey Valley and the Black Sea Coast Strongholds, there was no way, unless Lu Li and his team all disconnected.

In the afternoon, Sky Moon was defending the Black Sea Coast and Wandering was defending Grey Valley.

Lu Li…was off doing quests with his girlfriend.

Or rather, Water Fairy was accompanying him. Recently, they had been relatively busy. They only had time to meet when there was a break after their Instance Dungeon team wiped, but there was relatively heavy work involved in the First Clears, and everyone was physically and mentally exhausted. They really couldn’t do anything in that short time.

Wandering was managing most of the Grey Valley Stronghold. In fact, most of the authority of Grey Valley Stronghold was in his hands.

If he wanted to betray Lu Li, he just needed to declare a surrender in the Stronghold battle and he could sell it off. This was something that Lu Li had entrusted to him. He didn’t simply trust him as a person. What he trusted more was that this guy was simply too lazy to move. It simply wasn’t realistic for him to spend so much effort to consider this.

The Murong Nobles couldn’t even touch the Stronghold wall.

The audience watching this battle were in shock – this was completely impossible. There were actually more people all in a rabble trying to get a ticket refund, because this competition didn’t have a single highlight that could be spoken of. Or rather, they simply thought that the Murong Nobles were too pitiful against Wandering’s reliable defensive force.

The Black Sea Coast wasn’t the same though.

For the audience, Sky Moon brought along a classic spectacle of a Stronghold battle.

Lots of people were still paying to download the battle to slowly savour it afterwards, wiping away cold sweat from this nerve-racking competition. After all, Frost Castle broke into the city many times.

Actually, if it was someone who really knew what they were doing, they could see through to the trick behind this battle.

Sky Moon yet again refreshed his public image in everyone’s eyes – vicious, cruel, and maliciously cunning with insatiable greed.

It was also because of this battle that Frost Castle became famous, with the whole gaming circle knowing about this club. The one-million-plus gold that they spent to enter into this battle was worth it.

According to the list of items that Sky Moon handed over to Lu Li, in this battle, Ruling Sword collected 146 pieces of Epic equipment, nearly 300 pieces of Dark Gold equipment, and God knows how many Gold…

In one Stronghold battle they had earned over 140 pieces of Epic equipment. Lu Li couldn’t help but just gasp in amazement.

This kid Sky Moon was really too ruthless.

If he had followed Wandering in defending, there wouldn’t be any dangers at all from start to finish. Of course, there couldn’t be much equipment to be collected. After all, the two sides were attacking each other while being divided by a wall. Whoever dropped equipment could pick it up straight away.

It was just those few Thieves in the team that went out working together that retrieved a few pieces of equipment.

Sky Moon declined to conduct a Stronghold battle in such a gentle way. At the very beginning, he made it look like that they were weak, allowing Frost Castle to smash against the wall directly. In just over 10 minutes, everyone was already locked into close combat.

The members of Frost Castle actually never had the opportunity to claim this Stronghold. They had, to some degree, a recognition of their own limitations.

However, they didn’t expect that Ruling Sword’s defenders would be so weak either. They appeared to barely be trying and seemed to be unconcerned with the wall being smashed. Because of this, they forgot about their differences in strength and began to hope that they could actually prevail.

The commander cried out that as long as they got the Stronghold, then everyone who participated in the battle would receive an extra prize of 2 million dollars.

There many professional players who might not even be able to earn two million dollars in their whole life. This amount of money was enough to make all the players’ eyes’ water like crazy, crying out as they rushed forwards.

With death after death, any idiot could see that this wasn’t working.

Sky Moon had planned ahead. He arranged for a few people to wear some rubbish equips, who were able to, at the right time, ‘perform’ an act that made it appear as though the Stronghold couldn’t be held for much longer.

Lu Li really felt like wanting to kill off this damn kid. This time, it was real.

In this world, there weren’t so many idiots as there were clever people. Just killing as many people as quickly as possible simply wasn’t a long-term strategy.

However, Lu Li just didn’t care after it was all said and done.

The next time Lu Li bumped into Frost Castle’s people, he could say some polite things, just taking the blame for it. However, he wouldn’t actually try to change Sky Moon.

Every commander had their own way of doing things. If he forcefully twisted him, it would just be like strangling him in a cradle.

Ruling Sword had defended both strongholds, and the other clubs didn’t see any changes. Those who attacked them were basically just using their power from money. When all the major clubs saw the auction prices, they were flabbergasted.

Seventh Heaven was in a relatively desperate situation fighting for Tanaris. This old, established club had almost lost their own Stronghold.

Attacking them was a club called ‘Poop Cat Owner’.

It was said this club had a lot of girls – but they didn’t just accept girls. They used them to mess around with the high-level players in the gaming circle.

With money and girls, there really weren’t many who weren’t lured in by them.

The team they formed to fight against the Stronghold really was valiant. Among them there were quite a few retired competitors, current competitors, ordinary elite players, and even a few foreigners who had come to China from neighboring countries to work.

These few foreigners were keenly aware that their own countries’ e-sports competition didn’t cut it, so they formed teams to come to China.

Although they would encounter various forms of discrimination, the pay and opportunity to flourish was much better than in their backwaters.

After this, someone did the analysis and found out that Poop Cat Owner chose the wrong attack target. If they had changed their focus onto the Gangnam Royals, maybe, just maybe, they would have been easier to handle. The Gangnam Royals were rising from the ashes, but their power was not as high as it was at their peak. Furthermore, Seventh Heaven was an old, established club that always stood tall. Their courage and uprightness were known throughout the whole gaming circle.

Winterspring, the new map, was captured by Blue Universe.

Blue Universe had a very solid foundation. Water Fairy had split from her Shen family behind her, taking away with her Drizzle Court, Peerless City, as well as others like Misty Story, Double Dimension and Concealed Heavens. There were a few leftover clubs. The Shen family integrated these remaining resources and came up with the lineup of Blue Universe.

Originally, in terms of power, Blue Universe was ranked at number 33, but after it was integrated, there was a massive boost to its power, and it easily entered the top 10 clubs.

The Shen family threw two million gold at this Stronghold battle, making it onto the list to attack. In the final capture, because they finished the battle the fastest, they successfully won the Stronghold.

The old Strongholds had remained intact, and the new Stronghold became Blue Universe’s. And so, this time’s Stronghold battle came to an end.