The Great Thief
chapter-39

“Hello, Carolina sends her regards. She hopes that my friends and I will escort you back to Moon Shadow Valley.” After waiting for everyone else to complete the Exploration Quest, Lu Li went up and interacted with Tap.

“Send my thanks to Chief Carolina. O brave Elf, you are finally here.” Upon seeing Lu Li, Tap regained some strength and stood up before saying: “Your friends have brought me some new information. The Cynocephali are trying to transport something from the other side of Sacrificial Altar. Go with your colleagues to destroy them. A couple of years ago I found a few skill books; they can be your rewards.”

Skill books!

Everyone’s eyes lit up.

All of them were only here to help out Lu Li with his Quest; they had no expectation that would yield such high exp and potentially net a skill book.

There were both newbies and strong players here, but this was the first time that any of them had heard of a quest with a skill book as a reward.

Only Lu Li who had experienced ‘rebirth’ knew that Dawn Quests didn’t have a set pattern. There was no guarantee that if you completed a quest with a certain number of stars you would receive a skill book. Sometimes, a quest that only required killing a few monsters could reward you with a skill book or a skill point. Other times, a quest of high difficulty would not reward you in this respect at all.

Skill Points would be part of the update next Monday. Every 2 levels, a Skill Point would be gained. Otherwise, you could gain them by getting lucky in quests or beating bosses. With these Skill Points and some gold, you could increase your skill level.

When Lu Li was reborn, he found out that many quests that gave Skill Points were currently compulsory. However, the current players had no idea about them.

Of course, that was something to be considered next Monday. Lu Li gawked for a bit, before decisively saying: “As one of the Elves, we will defend the dignity of Master Elune with my life. The dirty Cynocephali sacrificial offering will be completely torn to pieces.”

“Moon Goddess be with us.” What Lu Li had said was so inspiring that Tap began shaking with excitement. If not for the fact that he was determined by the system to be wounded, he would have already rushed into the Cynocephali mine.

The others had never seen a player talk to an NPC like this before and were dumbfounded. They slowly realized that Lu Li’s success wasn’t just because he was lucky; he played this game with a certain kind of earnestness.

“Let’s go,” Lu Li didn’t say any more, leading his party back into the mine.

The way to the Sacrificial Altar was clear, but after they had taken the quest, the Sacrificial Altar had changed significantly. Other than the 8 Cynocephali Mages that were gathered around the altar, there were 4 more level 12 Cynocephali Priests.

“There are 8 of them with shared aggro; I’ll stun one and kill another. Then, we’ll focus-fire one of them together, and after I’ve gotten aggro, we’ll just attack the closest ones. Remnant Dream, you can take one on, Azure Sea Breeze and Moonlight should be able to take 2 each.” There was not much strategy involved in this situation; they just needed DPS and healing.

“I can’t do this.” March Rain was the most nervous.

“Don’t worry about me or the other two Warrior’s HP. Just take care of your brother and Remnant Dream. Let’s go.” Lu Li went invisible and Sapped one of the Mages. He then turned around and used Cheap Shot on another.

Everyone else then selected their targets and started casting all of their spells.

March Rain who was the most worried found that after the fighting had started it wasn’t so bad. Azure Sea Breeze and Moonlight had a full set of equipment and a high level of armor. Even when they were hit by the Cynocephali Mages who were 3 to 4 levels higher than them, they only lost a little bit of HP.

Lu Li was responsible for two of the monsters; one of them was completely motionless and the other completely stunned, unable to raise its staff.

With Lu Li and Lonesome Flower both attacking, it quickly keeled over and died. After dealing with that, Lu Li escaped from the fight by going invisible and giving the target that was sapped another Sap (Sap can be chained but the stun duration will be reduced by a third). His next target was the monster that had already been taken to half-health by Moonlight.

Before long, the 8 Mages were all killed before they could do anything. Although the Priests were high-levelled, this didn’t translate into their attack damage. What was challenging about defeating them was their ability to restore HP.

However, this wasn’t really an issue either as there were 3 who could be considered experts in this party. Whenever, they saw a Healing skill being cast, they immediately stunned the caster to interrupt the skill.

Even if they missed a few times, this didn’t have much of an impact on the overall situation. Soon enough, all the Priests lay dead on the floor too.

“The power of darkness is coming and you insects will soon bow down to the Great Yogg-Saron,” the last priest said before falling into the Sacrificial Altar, his blood flowing like a river.

“Too bad they didn’t drop anything,” Azure Sea Breeze disappointedly said as he kicked the body of the Mages.

“You can’t be sure, maybe it’s not over,” Lu Li shook his head.

Even though he hadn’t done this quest in his previous life, his experience told him that it wouldn’t be this easy.

“Are you talking about the blood?” Moonlight was similarly curious.

“This blood flow is definitely more than usual.” The others were beginning to become suspicious.

The 4 Priests that were killed on the altar weren’t moving. However, their wounds hadn’t stopped bleeding after they died. The whole Sacrificial Altar was now filled with blood.

The symbols on the Sacrificial Altar gradually lit up.

“Oh no, there’s no way Yogg-Saron will really be summoned right? That’s just too insane.” Azure Sea Breeze held his shield tightly, somewhat anxious.

“Yogg-Saron was one of the Old Gods, dubbed The Beast with a Thousand Maws. Even the Titans couldn’t destroy its evil, they could only imprison it deep underground. There’s no way it would be so easy to summon,” Lu Li thought otherwise.

In his previous life, 25 people who were level 40 couldn’t even defeat the Tentacle of Yogg-Saron, which was the final Boss of an Instance Dungeon.

The dark light on the Altar shone unceasingly, before finally gathering together to form a Cynocephali Elder—Cynocephali Elder Allen.

“Why is it a Cynocephali?” Azure Sea Breeze had been anticipating something bigger, but was disappointed.

“Don’t underestimate it, this is a Boss.” Lu Li suddenly thought of something that he had read before about Bosses, one of which was Cynocephali Elder Allen. One of its skills was Charm, which possessed players.

For players, Charm was a Warlock skill that made the target aimlessly wander around for a while.

But for Allen, it was different: he could directly control the players. He could control a healer to heal him or force a damage dealer to attack a teammate.

Other than Allen, there was a level 15 public Instance Dungeon boss that knew this skill. When Lu Li was fighting this boss in his previous life, he became so frustrated that he wanted to kill himself.

At the moment everyone was only level 5-6, but they had bumped into Allen who was level 10. Even Lu Li felt a bit of despair.