The Great Thief

The race was set on a small island. This island was quite deserted, and no players came here. It didn’t even show up on the map, so the players could only be teleported there.

Every player needed to pay a fee of 20 gold to participate in the race, while the to spectate was 2 gold.

The exchange rate for gold to dollars was around 1 to 25. This meant that it cost them 500 dollars to participate in the race, and 50 dollars to watch the race. The pricing was similar to watching a movie at the cinemas. Lu Li believed without doubt that this was a cash-grab for the company.

Although this was a free to play game, they were still able to earn a huge sum of money from the sheer numbers of players despite there being not many pay-to-win aspects in the game.

From the earliest virtual reality game, Otherworld, to a virtual reality game that conquered the whole gaming market, New World, to now another extremely popular and groundbreaking virtual reality with Dawn, the gaming industry had seen 200 years of constant advancement. Every time people thought that they had reached the peak of gaming, there would always be something better that exceeded their expectations.

Including all the other nations and their regions, there were around one million players who participated in the races. There were also tens of millions of players watching in the audience’s seat. The amount that the company would have earned from this was close to ten billion dollars.

Comparing this to the amount that Ruling Sword earned from each Stronghold battle, which was in the tens of millions, Ruling Sword’s gains were miniscule. These tens of millions were inclusive of all three Strongholds and Stronghold battles that were held once every fortnight or so. Furthermore, there were talks that they would lengthen the time gap between each Stronghold battles to being monthly.

Although earning tens of millions per month would be a dream come true for the average person, Lu Li would be in poverty. This was because it wasn’t anywhere near enough to manage a club.

In the time that they registered and were teleported to the racing grounds, the System had already arranged their lane for them. According to the data, Lu Li and Water Fairy were placed in lane 1457.

There were more than ten thousand lanes and was a spectacle indeed. This was only achievable in the game.

There were three stations, and each station allowed 5 minutes of rest. The points were calculated from the time that it took to reach the finish line.

The players with the highest number of points would be crowned the champions.

“How about letting me control the horse?” Lu Li said, keen to volunteer. Although he hadn’t participated in the race in his previous life, he still knew the mechanics of riding a horse.

“Why are you the one riding? I know how to as well!”

Water Fairy wasn’t a shy girl who was dependent on people. She was very strong and independent, to the point where not many males could compare to her, let alone females.

“How about this? Since there are three stations, I’ll start, then you ride the second stretch. We’ll see who is the faster one and the winner will ride the last stretch. How about that?” Lu Li suggested.

“Alright then. Don’t fall behind too much, otherwise it’ll be hard for me to come back,” Water Fairy reluctantly agreed.

“…” Lu Li was speechless.

Water Fairy sat in the front, while Lu Li sat in the back. Lu Li had one arm wrapped around Water Fairy’s waist and the other on the reins. As soon as the gun was fired, Cupid’s Love Pegasus immediately rushed out.

It didn’t matter whether it was an aerial or ground mount. They all had to be on the ground today. Therefore, the normal movement speed was 100%.

Everyone also had different mounts.

Lu Li had no idea and didn’t want to think about it. Why were there so many different couple mounts? Then, he later realised that the Valentines boxes could drop blueprints of a mount tool called Inseparable Couple. This was a saddle, which could make single-rider mounts into couple mounts.

They had lots of Love Red Wires, which could have been used to exchange for the gift boxes, but they just never used them.

As for Lu Li in his previous life, he was single, so he never had the opportunity to come in contact with such things. Lu Li’s riding mechanics were quite solid. Although they didn’t have a huge lead, they weren’t behind either.

“Sigh. Someone passed us again. Hurry up!” Water Fairy wasn’t honest with her feelings. She needed to direct her attention somewhere else to distract her from the fact that she was completely enveloped in Lu Li’s arms.

“Horses get fatigued too. If we rush forwards, then it’ll get tired quickly,” Lu Li reasoned as he glanced over at the Pegasus and saw that its fatigue was slowly decreasing.

This was similar to the Ram Racing during the Brewery Festival. There were levels to the speed. To slow the increase of fatigue, they needed to be running at a pace that was around 100%. There was Charge, which raised the movement speed to 120%, but this would greatly increase fatigue. There was also the slow speed, which could be used to recover fatigue levels.

“We’ve been passed by so many people.”

“Stop moving around. Your hair is blocking my vision.”

“On the left! There’s a ball on the left! Hurry and eat it!”

“That’s a yellow ball. It decreases your speed. Did you read the rules before the race began? Yellow decreases your speed. Red increases your speed. Green recovers fatigue levels, while we need to avoid white balls at all cost, or else we’ll be stunned for a second. Even though the 1 second stun isn’t that lethal, it resets our movement speed back to zero. It’s very time-consuming to get the mount back up to speed.”

“Sigh. Do you know how to ride or not? Once we get close to a turn, you need to slow down accordingly, then speed up again…”

The both of them were constantly arguing. Lu Li didn’t have his usual calm composure, while Water Fairy also didn’t have her usual elegance and coldness. Fortunately, both of them had masks on and had different clothes on. Otherwise, they would have been recognised immediately, since they were both public figures.

The audience were watching the race from a range of different perspectives.

They could watch it from a bird’s eye view, or they could zoom into a particular pair and see the racers’ expressions, hear their voices and see their actions and movements.

Of course, if any male riders were showing their indecent sides and the audience saw it, there would be sudden bursts of cheers and screaming.

The pairing of the masked Lu Li and Water Fairy didn’t seem all that interesting. However, as they appeared to be secretive, this only attracted more attention. There were already quite a few people who already locked their cameras on them. Naturally, they could also hear their exchanges.

They were ranked around 700 when they arrived at the first station. They needed to wait here for 5 minutes before continuing.

Water Fairy was insistent on her being in control of the horse.

“How can we win like this? Let me try. Don’t you know that I’m an experienced committee member of the China Horse Union? I learned how to ride a horse from the young age of nine. I’ve ridden horses for at least 200 kilometres every year.”

“Okay, then you go. It’s not like I said that I didn’t want to give you a try. We already agreed to give you a stretch to ride,” Lu Li mumbled.

“Then why do you seem like you have no confidence in my skills? We’re already in the 700s,” Water Fairy complained, beginning to lose her temper.

“Cough, cough. Even though we’re in the 700s, there are over 10000 participants in this race. If I continue, then I’ll surely be able to catch up,” Lu Li kept arguing, not knowing when to stop.

They had no idea that there were many ears listening to their conversation. These audience members already had an idea who this couple was.