The Great Thief
chapter-17

Chapter 17: Cynocephalus Mine

Translator: Halcyon Translation Editor: Halcyon Translation

As Lu Li was carefully advancing using Stealth, the rest of the Dawn players were in an uproar.

Everyone had the same question on their minds: who was Lu Li?

Lu Li was so low-profile that no one had even heard of his name before. There were hundreds of thousands of players who had currently bought a game helmet, but no one knew who he was.

Only the few people who had seen him try to sell the Bronze grade equipment and Skill Book remembered him. As it turned out, that ordinary-looking Thief hadn’t obtained all those pieces of equipment by pure luck.

There were so many Unions and elite groups in Dawn- if he didn’t have some skill, how would he have been able to clear it, and not them?

Currently, it wasn’t just Lu Li’s team who were attempting Instance Dungeons.

In actuality, there were thousands of teams attempting the Elite level Instance Dungeon. Large unions in the top 10 unions, such as “Glory Capital”, “Drizzle”, “Blood-red War Flag”, etc, had all send at least 10 teams to attempt the Instance Dungeons.

Many of them were able to defeat the first Boss, but the second Boss had far too many Guards. As such, they couldn’t go according to the normal plans, but had to try again and again.

None of them had expected to hear that system announcement.

If it was another large union’s elite team, that would have been acceptable. However, they had never heard of this guy before.

Very soon, this information was passed through private chats to high profile members of different unions.

“Northern Tang Dream isn’t a surprise. I’m sure big sister Water Fairy is familiar with her.” A female player wearing a white Priest robe read out the information while looking at her beautiful teammate who was squatting down and using her dagger to dissect a spider leg.

The woman was as beautiful as a goddess, and she didn’t even look up as she gave a soft harrumph.

“It’s only been a few days, but people have already started making a ‘Beauty List’. It’s expected for big sister Water Fairy to be on there, but why is Northern Tang Dream ranked higher than big sister?” Another teammate wondered out loud, surprised.

The female Thief didn’t say anything, and put the dissected spider leg inside her bag. She then pointed her dagger towards the spider’s poison sac. Her dissection of the spider made her cold demeanour feel even colder yet, causing everyone else to gulp in anxiousness.

“Drinking Alone and Northern Tang Kitty are also in the Grand Hegemony,” The Priest continued to speak, “There isn’t much information about Azure Sea Breeze, but was a little famous in Shadow Realm. There was a period of time where he sat at the top of the Player Level Rankings. He was probably an expert hired by the Grand Hegemony.”

“What about Lu Li?” The female Thief carefully put away the poison sac, unable to hold herself back from asking.

“We don’t know anything about him.” The Priest bitterly smiled.

“I might know something, but I’m not sure if it’s that person,” One of the people in the team hesitantly said, “I saw a player called Lu Li selling things on the street before, and he was also a Thief like big sister.”

“Speak!” The Thief addressed as “big sister Water Fairy” was expressionless. Her voice was very pleasant to the ears, but she spoke in short sentences.

None of the other players found this weird, though. This was one of the Drizzle Union’s legendary players- Water Fairy. Not only was she on the ‘Beauty Rankings’, but if there was an Expert Ranking, she would definitely be on that as well.

“Last night, he was selling things at the Moon Shadow Valley. He had 2 Bronze grade equipment, as well as a Skill Book…” The player described the 3 things Lu Li were selling, causing everyone to breathe in sharply.

“There’s actually this sort of skill book?” Water Fairy’s face was full of disbelief. For someone who enjoyed fighting other players in games, she knew just how powerful this skill was.

Not only was it a Crowd Control skill with an AOE of 12 yards, but its duration of 8 seconds, was incredible. Currently, the longest Crowd Control skill was the Thief’s 4 second Ambush. However, compared to this, Ambush was nothing. Of course, the advantage of Ambush was that after stunning their target, they could continue to attack them normally.

“That Thief should be part of the Star Moon Union,” The person reporting looked a bit confused at this point, “But seeing how they interacted with each other, it seemed that he didn’t have a good relationship with the people there. After all, he didn’t choose people from the Star Moon Union to do the First Clear of the Instance Dungeon with him.”

Although Water Fairy was a high profile member, she didn’t care about the union’s matters, and wasn’t very interested about this.

Female tycoons were only interested in experts.

She was only interested in experts to buy good equipment, or to cut them down.

And now Lu Li had entered her field of vision.

Other unions were also investigating Lu Li, so they could pull him to their side, or to ask him for the strategy to clear the Spider Lair Instance Dungeon.

Currently, Lu Li was slowly advancing into the mine.

There were many mines in the forest, and this was one of them. There were many dog-headed people, called Cynocephali wandering around that ranged between LV8 to LV10. They sometimes dropped equipment, but they always dropped a lot of money. After a day or two, this place would become filled with people.

Lu Li didn’t come here to earn money. It wasn’t that he wasn’t strong enough, but earning money this way was too inefficient. Moreover, if he faced off against more than 2 of them at once, he would be finished.

After using Stealth to wander around for a bit, Lu Li finally found the NPC he was looking for.

Explorer Tap, Moon Shadow Valley Guard, LV13, heavily injured.

“Greetings, my kinsman. There’s something I need your help with.” Tap got straight to the point, and issued out a quest.

It is worth mentioning that after leading his team to the First Clear of the Spider Lair, Lu Li gained a suffix to his name in the eyes of NPCs.

Lu Li the Spider Lair Pioneer. This was similar to a Title, but it didn’t give him any bonus stats. However, when he had enough reputation, NPCs would start to take the initiative to offer him quests. Although Pioneer was a low-grade suffix, it was still a symbol of power.

“Of course, it would be my honour.” Lu Li slightly bowed. He was much more familiar with etiquette than other players.

Tap nodded in satisfaction, took out a mask, and gave it to Lu Li, saying, “There are some strange noises in one of the mine tunnels. Please take a look for me.”

System: You have received a quest, Check the Mine Tunnels… Quest Rank F, Quest Reward: 1 silver coin.

This was a very ordinary quest, and had the lowest Quest Rank. Although the Quest Reward was decent, it wasn’t a fortune by any means.

There were many LV8+ Cynocephali walking around, and Lu Li was only LV4.

The key lay in the mask in his hands.

Cynocephali Mask: This piece of equipment has mysterious illusion magic, causing the wearer to look like a Cynocephali.

Lu Li put on the mask, and instantly transformed into a Cynocephali soldier. He had a ferocious looking dog-head, a muscular body clothed in some tattered Leather Armour, and was holding a crude wooden club.

With this mask, Lu Li didn’t even need to use Stealth anymore. Just like this, he walked past a small group of Cynocephali. They looked at him dumbly, but didn’t react at all.

If there was anyone else present, they would have seen an incredibly independent Cynocephali swaggering into the mine tunnel.

All of the Cynocephali he passed by acted as if they hadn’t even see him.

It was much darker inside the mine tunnel, and there were many Cynocephali working inside. However, there weren’t as many as outside, and most of them were mining with pickaxes. Practically all of them were working separately.

Lu Li ignored them and went further into the tunnel.