The Great Thief

As Unforgettable Maple continued to chip down Lu Li’s HP, he kept his eyes on the cooldown of his

ultimate skill. He knew that he had to be patient because his opponent had yet to use Gale Steps.

Lu Li was still at 70% HP, while he was only left with 43%. However, Lu Li began sweating because he

felt anxious.

How come his Skill Completion had become so low all of the sudden?

He realised something that was very surprising to him – Unforgettable Maple’s low-cooldown skills

were affecting his damage output. He appeared to be casting the skills randomly, but each of them

were timed perfectly to disrupt Lu Li’s Skill Completion.

For example, Lu Li would flinch slightly when hit by Ice Lance. Unforgettable Maple timed his skills to

hit right before Lu Li casted his own, which caused his Skill Completion to go down.

It may have been coincidence the first couple of times, however, Lu Li soon realised that

Unforgettable Maple was very good with his timing and tempo.

Apart from using his skills, Unforgettable Maple also reduced Lu Li’s Skill Completion with his

positioning and movement.

He would move in random directions while kiting Lu Li with his skills. Sometimes he would zig zag,

then stop suddenly and other times, he would move sideways, or even closer towards Lu Li.

The combination of these two factors mean that none of Lu Li’s skills had a Completion of over 60%.

By the time the Mage reached 25% HP, Lu Li only had 40% left.

Unforgettable Maple had not casted any main skills or ultimates during this time. The reason why Lu

Li had lost so much HP was because he was constantly being hit by Unforgettable Maple, in addition

to the Water Elemental. Even though each hit only dealt around 10 to 30 points of damage, he was

able to slowly bring Lu Li down to critical HP.

Ambush!

Lu Li activated the spell effect from his gloves and managed to change the tempo of the fight.

He then followed this up with Kick!

Unforgettable groaned – he was unable to cast his skill in time.

Luckily, his Water Elemental was slowing Lu Li down, which allowed him to take a breather.

Before he could recover, Lu Li casted Gale Step to remove all the debuffs on him.

When he reappeared, he cycled through his combos again.

Technically, Cheap Shot had no cooldown. As long as the player was in Stealth, it could be casted

again.

Unforgettable Maple’s Frost Nova had finally come off cooldown, so he commanded his Water

Elemental to cast it immediately. He had to crowd-control Lu Li as soon as possible, otherwise, he

risked losing at that very moment.

Shadow Cloak!

Lu Li was having none of this and casted Shadow Cloak immediately.

Unforgettable was stunned and couldn’t do anything to interrupt Lu Li from casting his skills. As

such, Lu Li was able to take him out in a couple of hits.

‘Victory’ flashed across his screen along with the Dawn logo.

Some of the spectators were expecting Unforgettable Maple to turn the tables around and naively

thought that the Mage had the advantage over the Thief.

However, they had forgotten about Lu Li’s massive arsenal of tricks and skills.

He had three escape skills – Shadow Meld, Vanish and Gale Steps.

There were also three skills that boosted his speed – Sprint, Gale Steps and Ambush.

As well as these, he had three more skills that improved his flexibility, including Ambush, Shadow

Cloak and the active on his shoes that he had yet to reveal to the audience.

Lu Li thought that his skills weren’t as powerful as what the players from the major guilds had.

However, in reality, they were definitely on par. The only skills he was missing were Kidney Strike

and Blind.

The grass was always greener on the other side.

This was a stupid concept that many people had.

Unforgettable Maple did not get teleported outside of the arena immediately but instead, was

interviewed by reporters.

This was one of the options after the end of a match. There was a total of three options – stay until

the arena timed out, teleport back to the player’s original map or be interviewed.

Normally, the interview option was greyed out for the average players. The option was only available

when reporters were willing to interview the player.

Lu Li had the option of being interviewed as well, but ignored it every time.

Unforgettable Maple was a celebrity player and needed the exposure to the media. Therefore, when

the opportunity came, he would always choose to be interviewed.

The loss was very devastating for him and he was very willing to share about his experience to the

audience.

A reporter from the Home of Esports bluntly asked him, "Teacher Maple, sorry for the loss. Is this

your first defeat in the Top 100?

Unforgettable Maple was very friendly with the reporter despite his blunt question and replied, "No,

it’s not the first time. I’ve lost to Professional Healer from Peerless City.

"Professional Healer" was a very deceiving ID, because everyone assumed that he would be a healer.

However, he was actually a full-damage Shadow Priest.

Shadow Priests could heal as well, but they were more similar in play-style to a Warlock than a

Priest. They focused on dealing consistent Shadow Damage over time to diminish their opponent’s

HP. Healing took a secondary role for them.

Shadow Priests were a counter to Mages because they could deal damage while healing at the same

time. Additionally, they also had the Mana Burn skill, which was very advantageous for them.

"For today’s loss, do you think the level difference played a big role in the outcome?" the reporter

asked sympathetically, but continued to rub salt into his wounds.

"The level difference definitely made a difference, but it wasn’t the major factor," Unforgettable

Maple replied as he shook his head.

"If not for the level, then I assume the gear didn’t make much difference either? What would you say

was the decisive factor in today’s match?" the reporter asked.

Unforgettable Maple paused as he recalled the match in his mind and said, "Skill Completion. His

Skill Completion was crazy."

"But you were doing well with interrupting his Skill Completion the whole game..."

"There would be no way of winning if I hadn’t controlled his Skill Completion," Maple laughed. "I lost

most of my HP after the initial stun. A match between a Mage and a Thief is based on whoever

crowd-controls their opponent better."

"Do you have confidence for the team match coming up?" The reporter asked.

"I’m looking forward to it." Unforgettable Maple was still smiling. However, everyone could tell that

he wasn’t very hopeful.

He was the core of his team and excelled in 1 on 1 situations, yet he had still lost to Lu Li.

On the other hand, Lu Li’s team had two major threats, as opposed to just one. Moonlight was very

well-respected in the professional scene and no one had ever doubted the role he played on the

team. No one had ever doubted the impact he had on their success.

The match was between a Warrior, Thief and Priest line-up, and a Mage, Warlock and Shaman.

Lu Li was confident in this match-up but didn’t let his guard down at all.

The reason was because this was their first time fighting against a Life-Steal Shaman.

Mage-Warlock- Shaman was a destructive team composition. The core of their team was the Life-

Steal Shaman.

This team was capable of unleashing powerful area-of- effect damage and their skills complimented

each other well. The ability to instantly burst the opposing healer was their speciality.

There weren’t many options Lu Li’s team had when facing this composition. As long as they worked

together to get past the life-stealing, everything would work out fine.

The match began.

Each team tested the waters and the Shaman instantly activated life-steal.

They couldn’t find any openings or errors made by Lu Li’s team, not that it would have mattered

much. They were hoping to instantly kill March Rain while life-steal was still active.

As soon as the Shaman activated life-steal, Lu Li ambushed the Warlock with his Cloak active.

While he was stunned for 4 seconds, Lu Li directed his attention towards the Mage.

Moonlight coordinated his attack with Lu Li and Charged towards the Mage.

Offence is the best defence, so they successfully advanced past this group.

The next three matches were all against teams that were from guilds below top 50 on the Guild

Rankings. These teams were a piece of cake compared to Unforgettable Maple’s team and team Lu

Li successfully gained 12 points from the day’s matches.

From his past experience, if they received 6 more points or won two more matches, they would be

able to advance into the Top 16.