The Great Thief

At the beginning, the Druids immediately started sprinting, but Lu Li was jogging at a leisurely pace. The road near the start was very smooth and almost completely straight.

Jogging consumed very little stamina, but he was quickly overtaken by nearly everyone.

After running for a few minutes, the road began to roughen up. It wasn’t just a bumpy road – there were piles of rubble which forced the players to run around them. The Druids’ ability to sprint was no longer an advantage.

Without any other alternatives, they had to revert back to human form to reduce their stamina loss.

Lu Li then summoned his Headless Paladin’s mount. These Undead Warhorses were very suitable for this terrain as they could almost hover. Even if Lu Li couldn’t fly, his mount could easily avoid the pits.

The difference in mounts was obvious here.

The velociraptor had the strongest jumping ability and had the greatest advantage in this terrain. There would also be a variety of flying mounts in the future.

The previous gap between Lu Li and the others had now greatly reduced, but he had significantly more Stamina than them.

Once they had passed through the rough road, they were presented with a section of water.

A marathon in the real world was nothing like this. People who attempted an exercise this strenuous might actually end up dead.

Normal players would use an Underwater Breathing Potion to swim through the water. There was also some high-end equipment that could increase their swimming speed, along with a fishing rod that was awarded in the fishing competition that transformed a player into a fish. This gave them unlimited underwater breathing and swimming.

Druids didn’t have any trouble here, and simply transformed into Seals.

The same was true of Lu Li, but he was much faster than an ordinary Druid, despite his Stamina consumption remaining the same.

After they passed the body of water, the path became relatively smooth again. Lu Li was no longer jogging this time – instead, he transformed into a crow and flew in a straight line.

Although this section of the road was smooth, it snaked around several mountains.

As was common knowledge, the shortest path between two lines was a straight one. The constantly twisting and turning path was not nearly as efficient as the straight path in the sky.

However, Lu Li discovered that there were actually other players who could also fly. One of them had a pair of red wings, but they flew much slower than him.

If Lu Li’s flying increased his movement speed by 60%, the long-winged person had only gained 15% to 20%.

At this stage, Lu Li finally managed to make it into the top group of players and had become the leader of the pack. Almost none of them were faster than him, yet all of them had sprinted past him at the beginning. Their initial efforts had definitely not paid off.

The mountain section was quite long, and after a while Lu Li no longer had the Stamina to fly. He didn’t even have the Stamina to sprint.

Dawn was a virtual reality game, which meant that movement speed was really just data. This piece of data could change according to a person’s choice of movement. However, it was divided into three categories, which were made especially evident during a marathon – walking, jogging and sprinting. Sprinting consumed Stamina the fastest and walking the slowest, but you could recover stamina while walking.

While the players around him were jogging, Lu Li decided it would be better for his Stamina to walk.

Sprinting could of course give him a quick burst of speed, but it consumed Stamina too quickly. On the contrary, walking was slow and most players could overtake you. As such, experienced players knew how and when to alternate between the three states.

In the later stages of the race, Lu Li kept up his lead and didn’t suffer any more significant losses in position.

Even if someone could increase their speed to reach him, it was only a matter of time before their Stamina was exhausted and they would fall behind once again. Lu Li didn’t even need to change into leopard form; he won the race by making sure he maintained his Stamina.

By the time he crossed the finish line, his Stamina was almost exhausted and had been used almost perfectly. This competition wasn’t about beating the other players; this was something Lu Li now knew from experience.

Of course, there were many other marathons running at the same time.

The temptation of an Epic equipment was quite strong, and most players didn’t mind trying if they thought they had even the slightest chance of winning.

It was human nature to try and leave it up to luck, even when they weren’t particularly good at something. Most players were unlike Water Fairy, who knew herself well enough to skip the competition.

It wasn’t just Druids who won in the different matches either.

There were Mages who had learned flying skills, Paladins with special auras or even some with flying mounts. There were Warlocks who could summon Flying Gargoyles, and a few special pets that could increase their owner’s speed.

Lu Li had been very conservative in today’s game.

He didn’t even need to use any of his skills, despite knowing that skills and equipment effects did not cost additional Stamina.

Even by the time that the first marathons concluded, it was still too early. High school students like Remnant Dream, Hachi Chan and Sesame Rice Ball still hadn’t come online.

The virtual game was almost like a second world. Game companies designed every aspect of their game in an attempt to make it something more than just a levelling game.

From Christmas to the Spring Festival, there was some kind of activity almost every day.

No one had the energy to participate in all the activities, even if all of them had great rewards.

Lu Li had decided to join a murder game today. He was put into a modern city with numerous other players who were participating.

There was a large number of local people in the city who looked no different from the players and were almost as intelligent as them. According some posts Lu Li had read in his previous life, many players suspected that the NPCs here were controlled by people in the real world.

After entering, Lu Li quickly found an NPC that was similar to him and Stunned him.

This poor guy was carrying a piece of bread that he had a bite taken out of it and a laptop book. He looked exactly like a person who worked in the city.

After changing into his clothes and fixing his hair, Lu Li picked up the laptop bag and bread. He carried the laptop bag in one hand and the bread in the other, strolling down the sidewalk. Not too far from him, a player was surrounded by the NPCs and killed.