The Great Thief

It didn’t matter if it was a top PvP player or a top PvE player, as long as they showed results in the area they were working in, they could enter the Core Elite team.

Of course, since the goal of this time’s expansion of the Core Elite team was to increase the strength of the Strongholds, the focus was still on top PvP players. The first time the concept of a Ruling Cup was brought up, it didn’t compare at all with Glory Capital’s Glory Cup, but it still led to quite the sensation within the guild.

At the very least, this meant that Ruling Sword was again making headlines.

There were also a lot of players who thought that Ruling Sword was being too naïve with this competition they had suddenly announced. That Glory Cup had already been running for 10 years.

Lu Li didn’t care in the least about what others thought. He gave everyone three days to sign up. Those outside the club could also sign up to join, as long as they weren’t affiliated with any other organizations.

This competition only had individual contests, which were held in groups. At the very beginning, there were ten in a group, and the top three would advance.

What happened later would be the same. They would decide the top players, with as many as 300 prize winners. It all sounded very appealing, but the prize was rather small. The top prize was only one million dollars with a piece of Epic equipment thrown in.

However, a lot of people didn’t focus on the prize, but were instead focusing on whether they could directly enter Ruling Sword’s Core Elite team.

Ruling Sword had stated it very clearly. Everyone who received a prize was of a standard where they could enter straight into Ruling Sword’s Elite teams.

If someone was thought this was beneath them, and only wanted the million dollars and Epic equip, there would be no qualms either. Ruling Sword wouldn’t force them. There was no condition that forced them to join in order to receive the prize.

Lu Li saw many people continuously signing up for the competition. Ruling Sword reputation as powerhouse guild had already been established. They were leading the way in Instance Dungeon First Clears, they occupied three Strongholds, they were allies with Drizzle Court and Peerless City, and they had taken their fair share of Wild Bosses too.

No one could refuse an opportunity like this.

Other clubs wouldn’t reject this chance either, so when they received the signup sheet, Wandering saw a lot of IDs that looked rather suspicious.

“There’s an issue with this one – I remember they went to Blood Red War Flag before, then they left and went into Seventh Heaven. Then there’s this one – there looks to be a problem too. According to the info I found he was once wanted by Wings of Dawn, apparently because he once betrayed their intelligence. There’s also this one…and this one… On this signup sheet, there are at least more than 200 people which I suspect are working undercover. Lu Li, what do we do?”

Wandering didn’t have a good impression at all of Lu Li’s authorized rules.

“It’s not a big issue,” Lu Li said. “You think I wouldn’t know that these bunch of people would join our competition?”

“Then why are you still doing this? Why don’t you limit these people from entering.”

“You think you can control them just by saying the word control? Let me see you control them.”

Lu Li was speechless.

“But you can’t just let people come in like this.”

Wandering was sharing information now. He saw things clearer than anyone else what sort of disaster could happen if these suspicious people entered into the club.

“Hehe, with you here, what do I have to worry about?” Lu Li laughed. “I gave you this list because I wanted you to add up those from the outside who are able to enter into our Core Elite team and conduct a thorough inspection. Only those who are confirmed to be clear will you let in. With those we haven’t grabbed hold of, we can just find a chance in the future to expel them and it’ll be fine.”

“Expel them all?” Wandering was speechless. “Then what’s the point of us doing this anyway? We can simply not allow people from outside.”

“Don’t you know, that as long as these undercover agents don’t get the info they want, they’ll put in more effort in their performance than the average club member? They have to do that to be trusted, to be able to join in the more secret operations. These people are more powerful than you think.”

“What you mean is, we can borrow these peoples’ strength for a bit, then after our own people are sorted out, we’ll expel them?”

“That’s right – if they not 100% guaranteed to be fine, we’ll definitely throw them out.”

“Damn, that’s just too insincere. Lu Li, you’re too shameless.”

“Sincere or not, you better check yourself. You’re always faking it, pretending you don’t know what’s going on,” Lu Li said in disdain.

The two days for signing up came to an end, and so the competition started.

Lu Li applied for a competition space with the System, but it was simply too expensive. It was so expensive that average clubs simply had no way of affording it, so the space that Lu Li applied for was only for the final competition. Those at the very beginning of the competition were simply chased into the arena.

After all, to rent a room in the arena only cost a few coppers.

Actually, if it didn’t appear so poor, Lu Li would even have these people fight in the Wild.

There were over 10 000 people who had signed up for the competition this time. It wasn’t as big as those large-scale competitions. Actually, it couldn’t even be compared to the minor competitions. Since Lu Li clearly prohibited those who were affiliated with an organization to join the competition, having over 10000 people participate was already an astounding number.

In the first round, 70% of this 10 000+ group were eliminated right away, and 30% advanced. With this method, they rapidly narrowed it down to 300 people, which was the number that Lu Li wanted.

Of these 300 people, some probably wouldn’t enter into Ruling Sword. They just wanted their prize. Even if it was the lowest commiseration prize, there was still a piece of Dark Gold equipment to be won. For the top level players, they wouldn’t even take a second glance at Dark Gold equipment, but for those unaffiliated players who weren’t able to enter into Instance Dungeons, even Dark Gold equipment was something that they would scramble over for.

Lu Li sent people to discuss with the winners about entering into Ruling Sword’s Core Elite team, and while he did that, he made the most of having Cat’s Dad do some promotion work. He had spent so much money to set up this two-day event. This was actually an ideal time to get some publicity as well.

The competition was broadcast live, but it looked like there had been a lot of edits made.

Quite a few players saw it and felt their blood boil in excitement, turning them into fans even of Ruling Sword members they met on the street. Some unaffiliated players who were originally unsure about joining Ruling Sword now made their firm decision.

Of the 300 players, about 160 were originally members of Ruling Sword’s elite teams. They had gone through some serious assessment. If they officially became members of the Core Elite team, they would enjoy more benefits and participate in more high-level club quests.

Lu Li didn’t have to worry about these people.

Of the remaining 140 people, about 20 or 30 clearly expressed that they declined to sign a contract with the club, which was to say they would take the reward and leave.

There were still 110 people left. What left Lu Li and Wandering speechless was that these 110 people were all suspicious. Seventy or eighty of them were suspected of smuggling themselves into the Core Elite team. It was just like what Wandering said. This was a ticking time bomb.

Actually, after thinking about it, this was normal. Since they were sent out to work undercover, then their abilities must have been quite good, at least good enough to be able to go through Ruling Sword’s reviews.

The one who took the championship was a player whose ID was ‘Lonely Fireball’. He really was quite powerful. The only thing was they had never heard of his name before. According to his own explanation, he had entered the game relatively late, and was an unaffiliated player in other games as well.

Of course, Lu Li and Wandering didn’t believe it, because according to their intelligence, this ID had once posted on an official message board thread that criticized Glory Capital to defend them.