The Great Thief

Dawn’s Instance Dungeon system was quite player-friendly. You could instantly transport to one from a town; you didn’t need to actually travel to the location of the Instance Dungeon.

What was even more convenient was that if you left the Instance Dungeon, you would appear outside where it was located.

However, acquiring the Scarlet Halo required players to physically travel to the Scarlet Monastery. The Xin Xin Mercenary Group had fulfilled this condition and now they just had to kill enough mobs.

As Lu Li left the Instance Dungeon in Stealth, several skills were already flying in his direction.

The outside was just too chaotic; there was fighting happening everywhere.

In fact, it wasn’t just the Alliance players who were dying; the Horde players were also suffering heavy casualties. All of the players were losing a lot of EXP. They had gotten so bloodthirsty that they had forgotten the reason they had come here, and that they should have actually been saving their strength.

There was also fierce fighting at the Instance Dungeon’s entrance.

Lu Li was still a person; he couldn’t react that quickly and was revealed on the spot. The Horde players had not expected anyone to come out from the Instance Dungeon entrance either.

As such, he acted quickly and vanished without a trace.

It was difficult to escape from the fight, but Lu Li had Shadowmeld, Vanish, Gale Steps and even his cloak’s effect. Once he was out of battle, he could immediately go back into Stealth.

It was difficult to catch a Thief in Stealth, so no one was able to find him afterwards.

However, he wasn’t here to kill anyone – he was looking for some trouble with the Scarlet Paladins.

There weren’t many PVP experts here, and those that were weren’t as strong as Lu Li. He quickly killed the sufficient number of Scarlet Paladins and also killed a few Horde players along the way.

When everyone in his party received the Scarlet Halo, he returned to the Instance Dungeon’s entrance.

"You can almost come out now," Lu Li said in the party chat. "When you come out, Flower and Riceball should use their area of effect skills at a 45-degree angles and Moonlight should use Whirlwind in the center. Everyone else, follow from behind."

This was the biggest problem with the Scarlet Monastery Instance Dungeon Group. Even after finishing one of the Instance Dungeons, there was still the possibility of death when travelling to another Instance Dungeon.

Fortunately, there wasn’t anyone blocking any of the Instance Dungeon entrances yet.

Perhaps they hadn’t thought of it or maybe they didn’t dare to, but even Glory Capital didn’t have the resources to do something like that yet.

If you sent players to block all of the Instance Dungeons, you would have to face the attacks of all players. This could escalate into an all-out war.

Glory Capital had two to three hundred thousand players, but the top 30 guilds combined probably had at least 10 million players. If they were attacked by all of those players, they would lose, no matter what.

If that happened, the loss of EXP would drag the guild into the abyss.

Despite the flow of blood at the Scarlet Monastery, everyone was actually maintaining some minimum level of calmness. If Glory Capital wasn’t blocking off the Instance Dungeon, that meant that the bulk of their forces were inside completing it.

The Xin Xin Mercenary Group left the Instance Dungeon before Lonesome Flower and Sesame Rice Ball immediately casted their area of effect skills. This caused significant damage to the groups of players nearby, and Moonlight chopped right through those players who were directly in front of them with Whirlwind.

In a few seconds, they had entered the library and had left several corpses behind.

"Dammit, who were they and why were they so strong?" The survivors felt a lingering fear as they wiped the cold sweat off their foreheads.

"Their area of effect skills dealt damage in the hundreds. Who was that guy? That’s just unfair." Those who witnessed what had just happened quickly rushed over to pick up the equipment that was dropped.

"It was the Xin Xin Mercenary Group; the guys that just took the First Clear. Did you guys not recognize the Ruling Sword badges that they were wearing?" There were some players that understood; they were the ones that didn’t try to stop them as they were passing.

Those who were doing the Instance Dungeons were good to hunt. However, you had to discern between them – some were worth offending, but others were completely out of consideration.

Lu Li then also rushed into the library as the next Instance Dungeon officially began.

Before doing the Instance Dungeons in the Cathedral or the Arsenal, they needed to do the one in the library, as it would give them the keys required to unlock those areas. Additionally, there were also several books in the library that were very useful.

"Beginnings of an Undead Threat" – this book described the story of the Undead. Lu Li had previously read it and found that it was a very interesting book.

Paladins could take this book to Light’s Great Hope Chapel to trigger a quest that would yield a random Paladin skill book as a reward. If any other player had the book, it would grant a high EXP reward.

"Compendium" – this book referred to the Scarlet Crusade and was regarded as highly biased by some people.

This book could be exchanged for a lot of prestige, but you would need to wait for the main city to open up for that. Alternatively, it could also be exchanged for a wide variety of different items that varied from person to person. In his past life, Lu Li had received a little creature that wasn’t much use to him, but he had managed to sell it to a female player for 20,000 dollars.

The third book was called "Mythology of the Titans".

This was basically a story book. Lu Li distinctly remembered the sentence on the title page: The future is predetermined and our fates are futile like a drop of water falling into the ocean.

This book described the lore of Dawn in the context of its most powerful presence – the Titans.

The Scarlet Monastery Instance Dungeons was something that all players eventually had to face. The reason was predominantly because of this book. After reading it, a player would receive a quest of varying content. It could be easy like delivering a letter or something difficult like defeating a Boss.

The reward of these quests was the "Adventurer’s Exploration Badge", which was also known as the Adventurer’s Badge or even ‘the badge’.

The badge had different attributes for different races and professions, but it always had one common effect: "Disperse all movement speed de-buffs and crowd-control from your character".

From that moment onwards, ordinary players couldn’t be bullied by the experts.

Of course, noobs wouldn’t suddenly become gods because of this item, but they would at least have an opportunity to fight back.

This equipment was considered by game critics to be an integral part to Dawn as a game. It represented the spirit of fair play in Dawn.

The three books each had their own uses which made the library Instance Dungeon one of the most valuable in terms of gold.

Lu Li had read many of the books here. Many of them contained lore about Dawn, but there were some books on strategies as well. It was in this Instance Dungeon that Lu Li discovered that Dawn’s lore was not only fun to read, but also useful. Despite not having graduated junior high, he had a lot of time to read and absorb this massive amount of knowledge.

"Let’s do this Instance Dungeon in the Nightmare Difficulty," Lu Li solemnly said to this teammates.