The Great Thief

After reaching level 68, there were more new Instance Dungeons to attempt.

Netherstorm had three five-person Instance Dungeons and one 25-man Instance Dungeon. The three five-person Instance Dungeons were Arcatraz, The Botanica and The Mechanar, while the 25-man Instance Dungeon was The Eye, where Kael’thas Sunstrider resided.

Of these Instance Dungeons, Arcatraz required a key to be able to enter.

The key wasn’t hard to obtain, but these Instance Dungeons had additional conditions.

If players wanted to attempt these Instance Dungeons, they needed to travel into the sky.

Here, the importance of having a flying mount was made apparent. If you didn’t have a flying mount, you couldn’t even enter into the Instance Dungeon. If others saw that you didn’t have a flying mount, they wouldn’t join up with you.

Alternatively, a Warlock could use a Summoning Portal to transport the team, but not every team had a Warlock.

The main members of Ruling Sword’s team all had flying mounts. The worst one was a Gryphon that could be bought by anyone if their capital city Reputation had reached a certain level. The requirements for buying this were to have enough Reputation, to have learnt Riding and have enough gold saved up to buy the mount.

The gold system, which was originally already not that balanced, had stabilized because too much gold had been spent these days.

As before, the conversion rate was about 1:26.

The gaming traders who hoarded gold in speculation and were waiting for inflation to rise made a ton of money.

However, Lu Li knew that it was too early for them to celebrate, because there was no way to reverse the continually falling trend of the price of gold. After all, there were more and more players who were farming Instance Dungeons in the Outland, and the monsters in the Outland as well as those in the Wild dropped plenty of money.

Furthermore, after the Isle of Quel’Danas was opened up, no matter how high or low your Charisma was, there would always be quests for you to complete regularly.

Each person could earn a regular amount of about 10 gold a day, which caused even more destructive damage to the gold market. In this end, the gold in this patch would finally settle down to be a price of 1:5.

The new Instance Dungeon, The Eye, in the area of Netherstorm, which was an area of the Outland. It was to the north of Blade’s Edge Mountains, while the other three sides were bounded by the Twisting Nether. Made up of shattered floating islands of all sizes, of all of the Naaru’s giant Star Warships, The Eye floated in the most northernmost area.

The air was filled with the Arcane power of the Nether, attracting a lot of adventurers who had come before to explore.

The Draenei’s ruins had been scattered to various lands, but their master had already left. The land was occupied by Demons, Ethereals and so on.

The Eye was originally used by the mysterious Naaru in their travels around the universe as an interdimensional flying craft.

The leader of Burning Legion, the fallen titan Sargeras, realized the wisdom of the Eredar on the planet of Argus, and decided to appoint them as one of the top commanders of Burning Legion. Moreover, he promised to give them unlimited intelligence and strength.

At that time, of the three leaders of the Eredar, Archimonde and Kil’jaeden accepted Sargera’s invitation, and transformed into giant and evil Demons.

However, the third leader, Velen, knew all that would happen if he accepted Sargera’s invitation. The followers he led escaped from Argus’ world and called themselves the ‘Draenei’ or ‘the Banished’.

Kil’jaeden saw the departure of his dear brother Velen as a betrayal, fueling his deep anger. The forces he was leading hunted down and killed the Draenei in that limitless world.

Amidst the endless chasing, killing and fleeing, a race called the Naaru would be encountered. The Naaru had innate strength from Holy Light, and for the purpose of destroying Burning Legion, they assembled all the strength they could.

Our male supporting role finally showed up here, offering up himself without any complaint or regret.

With the help of the Naaru, Velen and his followers successfully escaped from Kil’jaeden’s pursuit and finally reached a new world they called Draenor. There, they lived peacefully together with the Orcs who believed in Shamanism.

However, the line of vision of Burning Legion finally reached the Draenor mainland.

Through deceitful methods, Kil’jaeden successfully degenerated the Orcs, turning them into evil, violent warriors who massacred the Draenei. At this time, because the Naaru were searching for allies in this limitless world, they didn’t come out to help the Draenei.

This was definitely something that was worth taking points off for. When they needed help, the Naaru had gone off on a holiday somewhere.

Around the time that the second war ended, at the same time as when Ner’zhul’s portal split up the mainland of Draenor, A’dal, as the leader of the Naaru, drove them off on their flying craft (which was the future Eye), to come back down to this shattered land. Perhaps this was because they had felt the great fluctuations on the destroyed mainland.

Making up for their late arrival, they managed to win back Velen’s young heart. After all, the Naaru had helped the Draenei to win back their capital city Shattrath.

At this time, The Eye only had M’uru as the Naaru who was left protecting it.

However, when the forces of the betrayer Illidan came to the Outland, the Blood Elves and the Orcs started a war with the Draenei for no reason. Although the other teams under Illidan also had hostile relations with the Draenei, they weren’t like the Kael’thas’ Blood Elves who massacred the Draenei.

It was seriously suspected that these Draenei were constantly casting a Taunt spell, otherwise, everyone wouldn’t be bullying them all the time.

With the backing of Illidan, the Blood Elf forces launched a surprise attack against The Eye, capturing M’uru and taking him as one of the spoils of war that was sent back to Silvermoon City.

However, the Draenei were successful in recovering something, as well as being able to escape yet again. The part they recovered was called the Exodar. It fell into in the sea that was to the south of Teldrassil on the Kalimdor mainland. Now, the Draenei had appeared on the stage of Azeroth history.

Meanwhile, the remaining parts of The Eye were occupied by Blood Elves. This included their leader prince Kael’thas, who was also on the biggest flying craft.

When comparing these few ordinary little Instance Dungeons, Lu Li was more interested in ‘The Eye’, the 25-man Instance Dungeon. The final Boss here, Kael’thas, dropped something called ‘Ashes of Al’ar’.

It could definitely be said that the Ashes of Al’ar were an incomparably perfect flying mount.

No matter if you were looking at its flight speed or its outside appearance, it satisfied all the aesthetic demands of vain humans. This also meant that ‘The Eye’ was a place that any player would be willing to die hundreds of times each week if need be. Of these players, many belonged to teams that simply didn’t have the power to implement a strategy.

The Ashes of Al’ar could definitely cut down the length of struggle for an ordinary player by years.

Lu Li hadn’t come to this Instance Dungeon in his last life, because he had understood himself enough to know wiser. All the teams that he entered simply didn’t have the power to fight strategically for The Eye. After the Phoenix came out, it wouldn’t be hard at all too guess what would happen.

Aside from this, when the lovers system was first released, in order to have this system succeed on the first go, Lu Li and Water Fairy were invited to ‘be ambassadors’ for it.

This odd couple were now official. The price the officials paid would let them keep steadily earning without making a loss. One of the rewards they paid was a ‘Phoenix Transformation’. The difference was in the Phoenix mount. The Phoenix Transformation and Lu Li’s Crow Transformation were both considered Transformation skills.

Moreover, if Water Fairy had Phoenix Transformation, she would gain the ability of being able to respawn at her original point once a day.

Rising up from the ashes!

With Hachi Chan’s help, Water Fairy’s Phoenix Transformation quest was already more or less finished. The last step in the quest was to kill prince Kael’thas in The Eye. If she could get the special quest weapon, then that would be icing on the cake.

The chance of finding this was different to the chance of the Ashes of Al’ar being dropped. Water Fairy’s Heart of the Phoenix was an item that was considered guaranteed to be dropped

This also meant that when Water Fairy defeated prince Kael’thas here, she would gain the ability to fly and respawn after.