The Great Thief

It was mostly just Lu Li answering the old man’s questions.

The old man was quite capable at speaking and alleviated Lu Li’s feelings of being interrogated. He didn’t ask about whether Lu Li had a car, a house or how much money he had. Instead, most of the conversation was just about trifling matters. He heard that Lu Li was recently beginning to listen in for some classes in the university, so they also talked about this.

As for the question when Lu Li would marry his granddaughter, that was more of a joke.

His granddaughter would not be that easily married away.

Lu Li talked about some of the things that he learnt from sitting in some of the classes, as well as the things that he couldn’t quite understand. What surprised him was the old man’s intelligence and understanding of different areas. He was able to give clear answers to Lu Li’s questions and also made it easier for Lu Li to understand as well.

The old man was just as surprised as Lu Li was.

It was already impressive enough that Lu Li, as someone without any academic foundation, could understand what was being said in the university. Furthermore, he even managed to ask complex questions which demonstrated critical thinking.

This was a young man who was capable at grasping new things.

He was only hindered by his life’s circumstances. However, he was putting in effort to fill in those gaps during his younger days.

Generally speaking, this interaction was a peaceful one.

Both Lu Li and the old man left great first impressions on one another.

Lu Li did an especially good job of it. He purposely hid the dark side of his youth and was successful in doing so. The old man thought that Lu Li was just a child who faced trials and difficulties when he was younger and used his determination to survive day after day, until the era of gaming arrived, where he blossomed.

The old man didn’t know that Lu Li had become a gangster when he was quite young.

Lu Li saw many different faces of the dark side of society. At the same time, this also formed the dark side of Lu Li. For the sake of survival, he had not been good person.

If the old man knew of Lu Li’s dark past, then it was likely that they wouldn’t be able to talk like this.

In the afternoon, Lu Li and Water Fairy ate lunch with her grandfather. They ate the kinds of food that the elderly people liked to eat, like porridge. It wasn’t a substantial meal, but it was healthy.

Unknowingly, the conversation topic shifted to the organisation of the club.

This opened a whole new can of worms.

In the time after, the old man used his expert mind and analysed Lu Li’s situation for him, then suggested some solutions. The lifespan of this topic lasted a long time, so they kept talking about it from afternoon to night.

Besides the toilet breaks, it was a cup of tea after another while talking.

What a wise man!

Lu Li realised that this old man’s intelligence was one of his defining characteristics.

Lu Li had to admit that during this process of discussion, he gained clarity on many of his questions and dilemmas and had answers to them.

In the end, it was Water Fairy who pulled her grandfather away.

 Again, this second interaction and discussion was extremely fruitful.

The old man thought highly of Lu Li, while Lu Li also felt that the old man was worth learning from. They even organised a time for their next meeting. After all, they both stayed in the same area.

After a few days, the System announced in the world channel that Glory Capital had gotten the First Clear for the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj. This woke Lu Li up from his beautiful dream.

How shameless!

Lu Li usually was the shameless one, but he was furious this time. He cursed Glory Capital for their lack of sportsmanship.

 Everyone agreed to enter the Instance Dungeon together.

“It was you who said it. No one else did.”

Wandering wasn’t angry at all. There were two Instance Dungeons and the Ruins were the less important one of the two.

“Let’s go. Let’s go.”

Lu Li immediately voided the agreement and commanded everyone to move for the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj.

The forty players were all familiar faces who were the strongest players from the three allied clubs.

The Main Tank was Azure Sea Breeze, without question. This was the reason as to why Lu Li gave him so much, so that he could handle situations like these. There were two vice-Tanks, which were Wandering and Deep Watersong. World’s Best Friend was outside as a backup.

The healing ranks included March Rain, Star Baby, Darkness, Hachi Chan and others.

The other players were either the pro players from the other clubs or more Ruling Sword players. Drizzle Court and Peerless City players were used to fill vacancies.

As for team composition, Ahn’Qiraj was much more extreme than Blackwing’s Lair. Some Bosses within the Instance Dungeon needed extremely high DPS, while some other Bosses required a defensive team. There were even Bosses that Warriors couldn’t guard against. However, all in all, they needed around 7 Warriors and 15 or 16 Healers. As for the other classes, four or five of each were needed most of the time.

As for team composition, it was likely that it would be different for every stage of the battle, so Lu Li arranged for twenty backups outside of the Instance Dungeon.

Ahn’Qiraj was already overcrowded during this time because the First Clear that Glory Capital took ignited a fire in everyone. Players flooded into the area, but they found that they could only do the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, while the higher-tiered Temple of Ahn’Qiraj had the quest requirement of Opening the Door.

There needed to be at least one player who had completed the quest to enter the Instance Dungeon.

From what Lu Li knew, there were probably around ten clubs who had completed the quest.

Upon entering the Door of Ahn’Qiraj, you would find two pathways. The green door on the left side led to the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, while the green door on the right side led to the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj.

In Lu Li’s eyes, the shameless Glory Capital had betrayed everyone’s trust by secretly taking the First Clear for the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj. However, they were not as shameless as Blood Red War Flag, who had completed the dungeon on Elite difficulty instead of Nightmare. This was engraved into Azeroth’s history books.

If only these people were immortalised as a shameless bunch.

“Start to collect your own potions and elixirs that you need. Squads 1 to 8, enter the Instance Dungeon. As for the rest, just stay outside and wait for instructions. You guys can grind for Reputation outside. There are some officers from our guild in the area, so they will prevent you guys from getting attacked by other players.

The group of Ruling Sword officers were led by Her Tears and were a group of PVP-focused players.

The main group selected Nightmare Difficulty and all forty of them successfully stepped into the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj.

The Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj was just a 20-man Instance Dungeon, with six Bosses in total, while the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj was a 40-man Instance Dungeon, with nine Bosses in total.

The main rewards from this Instance Dungeon were T2.5 set items, as well as some other things.

Quests associated with the Instance Dungeon were all received by participating players, even if they were not needed.

Similar to the Ruins, every class’ set of five quests were received and finished within Ahn’Qiraj. This was at the back of Skeram’s room.

All participating players in this Instance Dungeon had also participated in the war against the insects for at least 10 hours.

Therefore, Reputation was not a problem at all.

However, no one would complain about having excess Reputation. It wasn’t difficult to obtain more Reputation anyway.

In the Instance Dungeon, every Boss would drop one Qiraji Lord’s Insignia. This would be given to the NPC at the back of Skeram’s room called Kandrostrasz. The reward of turning the Insignia in would be 500 Broods of Nozdormu Reputation.

Monsters within the Instance Dungeon also could drop an ‘Ancient Qiraji Artifact’ which could be looted over and over again. After receiving the quest ‘Secrets of the Qiraji’ and giving these Artifacts to Andorgos, 1000 points for the Brood of Nozdormu Reputation would be awarded.

Every Boss could drop ‘Imperial Qiraji Armaments’ and ‘Imperial Qiraji Regalia’. On the left side of C’Thun’s room, there were three Dragons sealed away. Of course, they looked like humans, similar to the three NPCs from before. These Dragons were the ones who went missing in the War of the Shifting Sands – Merithra, Caelestrasz and Arygos.

Three Elementium Ores, as well as Imperial Qiraji Armaments and Regalia could be exchanged powerful weapons.

These quests would all be completed during the battles within the Instance Dungeon.

After entering the Instance Dungeon, they would see a patrolling Obsidian Eradicator. According to how Instance Dungeons had been in Dawn, no one dared to underestimate the guardian monsters anymore.

The guardian monsters in the Molten Core had taught everyone a lesson.

Under normal circumstances, after entering the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, they would wipe once or twice

 while fighting the Obsidian Eradicator.

These stupid-looking monsters were not to be underestimated.

As magic-based elementals, they had 0 Mana at the beginning of the battle.

Azure Sea Breeze immediately underestimated it and laughed. The damage that was dealt by the Obsidian Eradicator was less than the insects outside, so he might not even need a healer to heal him.

Lu Li could have prevented a tragedy from happening, but Azure Sea Breeze’s arrogance caused Lu Li to forego that notion.

They might as well just wipe once just to teach them a lesson.

After a little over ten seconds, a wave of energy surged through the battlefield. Besides a few players who survived, the rest were killed.

Lu Li used Gale Steps to save himself.

He knew what was about to happen and also knew when he should use Gale Steps.

Other people had no idea.

Even though everyone had the best items now and all had relatively high HP, not many exceeded 6000 HP. Even Moonlight, who was a Berserker, only had over 5000 HP.

Only death awaited those who dared to face the Obsidian Eradicator’s AoE attack with under 6000 HP.

This elemental that had no mana would constantly absorb the players’ mana. Once the mana bar was filled up, an AoE skill that dealt 6500 Nature damage would be unleashed. This monster was similar to the Obsidian Eradicator in the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj.

However, they didn’t enter the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj, so they obviously did not know this mechanic.

Actually, fighting it was quite simple. Before killing the monster, they just needed to prevent the mana bar from filling up again. Warlocks and Priests had skills to absorb mana, so this was a viable option. Since the Obsidian Eradicator could absorb mana from players, why couldn’t the players absorb its mana?

After realizing the tactic, this monster was a piece of cake to deal with.

After killing the Obsidian Eradictor, everyone was faced with a group of four of Anubisath Sentinels.

Anubisath Sentinel!

Upon seeing the monsters, everyone shivered in fear. The war with the insects had left a mark on the hearts of the participating players. There were even some people who were still dreaming about fighting Scarabs.

The Anubisath warriors were elite monsters in the war against the insects. Their strength and power left a deep impression in everyone’s hearts.

“Don’t be afraid. Let’s go!” Lu Li exclaimed as he pushed Azure Sea Breeze forward.

It wasn’t that these monsters had become weaker. The truth was that these four Anubisath Sentinels were much, much stronger than the ones outside. Squad wipes were only a matter of time.

However, staring at it wasn’t going to deal damage. You couldn’t stare a monster to death.

Everyone killed the first one. This monster had the AoE skill of Shadow Bolt. That attack was like rain, falling down on the players. If they didn’t kill it first, the pressure on the Healers would be too great to handle.

This monster was quickly disposed of. After all, it was only a normal monster.

However, its death didn’t bring relief to the team. Instead, it brought great devastation. This was because after its death, the rest of the three monsters would all begin to use the same skill.

Each of the four Anubisath Sentinels had their own individual skills. Mages could see which Sentinel had which skill. The skills would be learnt by the rest upon the death of one of them. This meant that once the first one died, it would distribute its HP and give its skills to the other three. According to this logic, the last Sentinel would have four skills, which would be the four skills of the original four monsters.

The four monsters would have a different skill each time the battle was reset.

Just then, the one that they killed was the one that knew AoE Shadow Bolt. Upon its death, the other three monsters also knew how to use AoE Shadow Bolt. Furthermore, the HPs of all three remaining monsters skyrocketed.

AoE Shadow Bolt would not be used every time. It was likely for it to be another skill the next time they battled.

The tactic was simple. The Sentinel with the most difficult skill to deal with would be left last to fight. This was because if this Sentinel was killed first, then the other three would gain the skill as well.

After discussing the order of killing, this was the conclusion:

Firstly, it was Fire/Arcane Reflection, Ice/Dark Reflection, then Periodic Knock Away.

The Fire/Arcane Reflection couldn’t be detected by Mages (because it was also arcane magic), so they deduced that if they couldn’t detect it, it would be this skill. Naturally, Magic Reflection meant that they couldn’t use those elements to fight it, while Periodic Knock Away couldn’t be Taunted. They needed to be cautious to survive. These three skills were considered as the easier ones, so the Sentinels with these skills were prioritised.

The next skills were Mortal Strike, Mana Burn and Thorns.

Mortal Strike was also easy, since there were so many Healers here. Mana Burn was to be handled by the melee classes while Thorns was to be handled by the long-ranged attackers.

The next was Recover Wounds.

This was a more difficult skill to deal with, since it provided self-sustainability, so they left it to the end.

Lastly, there was Thunderclap and AoE Shadow Bolt.

These two were AoE skills. Thunderclap had the attacking range of 0-15 metres, while AoE Shadow Bolt had the attacking range of 15-45 metres. Therefore, they needed to watch their positioning. If they dealt with these skills properly, they would be able to minimise the casualties. No matter what, these skills were definitely left to the very end. If more than two Sentinels had these AoE skills, the team would not escape the damage no matter where they stood.

These skills appeared randomly, so they just needed to figure out which Sentinel had which sets of skills and kill them in this order.