The Great Thief

After reviving, Lu Li devised a new strategy.

“Prioritise clearing the curses on the Main Tank and healers no matter their position. Main Tanks, spread out into a triangle shape. As soon as the Boss teleports next to you, use Taunt immediately.”

The curse was simply too damaging. This curse turned Shazzrah into a Boss who could slaughter players far too easily.

With Lu Li at the helm, the chances of dispelling the curses were much higher.

Originally, the Mages needed to judge who to dispel first, but that was no longer a problem. By following what Lu Li said about clearing the curses on the healers and MT, they could use the weaker dispels on the DPS classes.

“We can stand in a circle so that it wouldn’t teleport too far,” someone suggested.

Lu Li always encouraged innovative thinkers, so people were always free to suggest methods that seemed like they could work. If these suggested methods worked and made life in the dungeons easier, they would be rewarded with DKP and their contribution would be taken into account when distributing items. After all, Ruling Sword was a dungeon-clearing guild. There were principles when clearing Instance Dungeons, not just whoever offered the highest DKP.

This suggested method of positioning themselves in a circle seemed viable, so Lu Li quickly organised everyone’s position.

The new formation meant changes to players’ tendencies and chemistry together. The way to work on this was through deaths or squad wipes. Many people didn’t like to enter Instance Dungeons because multiple squad wipes were inevitable.

The most difficult aspects of this fight were the Boss’ AoE Arcane Explosions, as well as the curses and teleporting.

After wiping multiple times, everyone figured out the patterns of the Boss. It would teleport at approximately every 40 seconds, which was quite a regular occurrence. When they neared that time, they immediately became on guard and observed the Boss’ movements tightly. When the Boss suddenly moved in a different direction, it would teleport immediately after.

It was here that Azure Sea Breeze was able to show off a little by successfully taunting the Boss.

The Warriors that Lu Li came in contact with in his past life were never on the same level as Azure Sea Breeze.

There was also Shazzrah’s Deaden skill. Warriors could use Shield Bash to interrupt the skill. A skilled Warrior’s productivity far surpassed any other class. The squad wipes near the end of the fight would no longer be the Warrior’s faults. Actually, it wouldn’t be the Mages’ faults either. Sometimes they would just be unfortunate and wipe.

The squad experienced wipe after, but Lu Li suddenly realised that they were improving and succeeding in their attempts.

There was only around a third of the Boss’ HP left, while only five players had died. It was an extremely successful run of fighting Shazzrah.

He didn’t remind the team that they were nearing the end of the fight. He only placed more focus on his commanding and was more reminding in his instructions. Most players didn’t realise this, but the ones who were more alert noticed this slight change in his style of commanding.

As they continued fighting, Shazzrah suddenly went berserk.

Berserk?

Didn’t the Boss only go berserk when it reached low HP?

“Everyone, use your burst damage. Hachi Chan, get ready to cast Tranquility when I say so. Healers, just spam your skills. This is it – winning or losing. Mages, remember to clear the curses,” Lu Li said, suddenly raising his voice. If they couldn’t clear it after reaching this point, then they might as well give up today.

“Wow we’re nearly at the end! Haha, we are going to be successful this time,” Azure Sea Breeze laughed as he used mitigation.

Shazzrah wasn’t a Fire-element Boss, so they didn’t need to wear Fire-resistant gear. If they didn’t need fire-resistant gear, then Azure Sea Breeze’s equipment was the better set. There was much more mitigation. He could use it when they were in tight situations and he could guarantee his survival.

Over the duration of the Boss’ Berserk state, tremendous damage was dealt to the team, but he finally fell. A huge amount of EXP was rewarded and three players gained skill points.

At that time, Ruling Sword already had four level 60 players, which meant that they had four of the five Level 60 players in the whole of Dawn. The other level 60 player was I No Understand from Glory Capital.

From this statistic alone, it could be assumed that the Instance Dungeon clearing in other guilds were much more difficult and unenjoyable.

Otherwise, their best players wouldn’t have hit a wall in levelling.

The items were being distributed and Lu Li took the gold for repairs compensation. The stones were fairly ordinary, so they werekept by Lu Li alongside the rare materials.

There were three skill books, which wasn’t too rare, but what surprised Lu Li was the Enhanced Arcane Explosion skill book.

This was the first drop of an Enhancing skill book in Molten Core.

Four Mages faced each other. At the end, Lu Li made a decision to give it to Short Road. He was already a pro-player in training, and the contract had already been assigned. To forgo training him and giving him the resources that he needed to flourish was simply a waste.

Enhanced Arcane Explosion was an Instant Burst skill, instead of an incantation that it required before. It wasted too much mana to be used when fighting monsters. However, this Enhanced skill would be quite strong in a PVP context. Therefore, with this logic, he decided to give the book to Short Road. It wasn’t that Lu Li was targeting Lonesome Flower, but he hoped for Lonesome Flower to collect a T1 set instead from this Instance Dungeon.

After this came a few Gold and Dark Gold items. Some were wanted, while others were not. Those who wanted them purchased them at a low price.

Next was a pair of T1 Priest shoes, which ended up with March Rain.

There was also a pair T1 Thief shoes, but these were slightly worse than Lu Li’s Champion’s Boots.

After all, the Champion Boots gave an extra skill point in Kick and a chance at Silence. The second unique effect was a rare Shadow Step. With the set effect in consideration, the T1 shoes were slightly better in terms of base properties, but the unique effects were far weaker.

Of course, Lu Li wouldn’t dare to raise the price of this, unless he wanted to live alone for the rest of his life. As such, Water Fairy took the shoes for a bargain.

There was also blueprint – Formula: Enchant Weapon – Spell Power. This was quite a valuable item.

Shazzrah wasted a lot of time, so after Lu Li allowed the team to rest for a while, they continued.

In the meantime, the small monsters would be difficult to kill, but they got past them with relative ease. Soon, they arrived at the front of the 7th Boss, Sapphiron. After clearing all the monsters around it, there were still four Flamewaker Priests guarding the Boss.

It was the same scenario that was repeated in the Molten Core multiple times. However, there was also a different mechanic each time.

The lesson from the first squad wipe was not to pull all four together. Instead, they just needed to find four people to each pull one monster. Furthermore, they could prevent the Flamewaker Priests from healing each other by pulling them away from each other. After all, they were Priests, so it wasn’t surprising that they could heal each other.

After killing these four, they could then fight the Boss.

In the process of doing so, Thieves’ Kick was extremely useful here. It was obvious that two Thieves were not enough in this Instance Dungeon. However, there was no need to rearrange the team composition because other classes were also able to interrupt skill animations.

The hardest part was still fighting the Boss. It would enter Berserk when it reached certain thresholds of its HP.

However, Lu Li and his team handled this pretty well, so they did not suffer many squad wipes. It took around two hours for them to defeat the Boss, which was much faster than Lu Li anticipated. He even began to consider attempting the 8th Boss, Golemagg, today.