The Great Thief

After coming out from the Instance Dungeon, Lu Li had planned to Boost to earn some money. However, he figured that the gains would not make up for the losses.

In Dawn, being 3 levels higher than monsters reduced EXP by half, while being 5 levels higher gave you no EXP at all. Azure Sea Breeze was now LV8 and out-levelled the Elites and Bosses in the Instance Dungeon by 3 levels. The amount of EXP that he earned was less than what he would receive from farming normal LV8 monsters outside. Even Lu Li and the others didn’t receive too much EXP.

In any game, level was the utmost priority, then equipment, then money.

Sacrificing a long term benefit for a short term gain was taboo for players. If Lu Li wanted to earn big money, he had to out-level the other players.

Currently, his level wasn’t that high. There were many levelling maniacs who were now LV8 or LV9. Those who joined later had also received three days of double EXP, helping them catch up to everyone else.

“Let’s form a party to train.” Azure Sea Breeze was quite embarrassed by his current level. There wasn’t much EXP to be earnt in the LV5 Instance Dungeon and most parties in the wilderness didn’t need a tank. A strong healer would be more than enough and adding any unnecessary roles would simply reduce the amount of EXP everyone received.

“It’s not too hard to find a place with lots of monsters. I’ll take you guys to a place, but it depends if you want to go or not,” Lu Li said hesitantly.

“Why wouldn’t we want to go to a place with lots of monsters?” March Rain felt confused.

“Are you afraid of snakes?” Lu Li asked.

“Snakes?!” March Rain and Remnant Dream both yelled out.

“Well, you can change the visual effects in the settings. You’re allowed to change a type of monster’s appearance into a cartoon for a short period of time.” Even so, the visual effects still looked quite real. After all, it was a virtual reality game, so it was impossible to make monsters completely look like they were from a cartoon.

“Are there really lots of monsters there?”

“Yep and the respawn time is quite fast. We won’t have to share the monsters with anyone else and there should be a Boss there as well.”

“Wait are we waiting for then? Let’s quickly go!” As soon as they heard that there was a boss, the team immediately became excited. Even Remnant Dream, who was a newbie, became quite eager. It seemed that they had become addicted, after taking down Bosses with Lu Li.

It was a pity that the turtle in the Moon Reflection Lake had been discovered by other people when it surfaced to breathe. There were now groups of people waiting there for it to respawn. As such, Lu Li always went to open the treasure boxes at night. Luckily, there were many Glow Stones at the bottom of the lake, so he didn’t have to blindly search for them.

The team followed Lu Li to the supposed monster treasure trove.

They followed a path into the forest, passing a grassy plain with small white flowers. Lu Li then led them off the path and into a forest of thickets that were half as tall as a person. There were a few small swamps on the way and they saw crocodiles submerged within them.

“Those are LV16 monsters. If Hunters can’t find any rare monsters, they like to catch those to be pets. They have good Attack and Defence, as well as good stats.”

“I thought there weren’t any monsters above LV10 in the Novice Village.”

Azure Sea Breeze was flabbergasted.

“They never said that on the official website.”

Lu Li couldn’t understand the thought processes of these supposed veteran players. However, this was true for most games; monsters in and near the Novice Village usually only went up to a certain level.

After walking for 10 minutes or so, they saw another path extending from the depths of the forest. Who knew where it led to?

“Why is there a path here? When will we get there?” They had already been walking for half an hour. Did they really have to go so far just to train?

“This path goes to the Grey Valley, which takes about 3 hours to get to by horse,” Lu Li explained. “The opposite direction goes to the coastline. We aren’t very far from where we’re going. It should just be another ten minutes.”

“Alright, we’re here.” Ten minutes later, Lu Li and his party were standing near a canyon crevice. The canyon crevice was quite narrow. If it weren’t for where they were standing, it would have been extremely difficult to find this place.

Everyone else was speechless. They just wanted to kill some monsters for EXP. Who would have thought that they would have traversed past what felt like half of the world? Then again, this place was quite remote and would have been extremely hard to find.

“Elves are friends of Nature and we treat plants and animals with kindness. However, there were some Druids who didn’t like snakes, so the Druid Council confined them here. As such, it’s called the Snake Valley,” Lu Li said as he squeezed into the canyon crevice.

The party followed him through. What greeted their eyes when they got out was completely different to what they had expected.

Everyone imagined the Snake Valley to be an eerie and terrifying place, filled with blood, bones and venomous snakes. In reality, the Snake Valley was quite a beautiful place.

There were trees with jade-green leaves, lush grass and colourful flowers. Bird song echoed throughout the valley and it was even more beautiful here than outside.

“Most of the snakes in the valley use venom attacks, which deal a lot of damage. Don’t worry though: they drop something called Snake Bile, which is used to create antidotes,” Lu Li said.

When he learned Alchemy, the system had given him three recipes. The first was for Basic Health Potions, another was for Basic Mana Potions and the other was for Basic Antidotes. All of three of these could be created at LV0. While he hadn’t practiced any Alchemy yet, creating Antidotes would be a good way to raise his Proficiency.

Lu Li had not come here only to kill snakes, but also to find a type of grass called Snake Trust Grass. It was an important ingredient in upgrading the Supreme One Ring. It could also be used for creating Intermediate Health Potions.

Although Snake Trust Grass could be found in other places, it was abundant in places where venomous snakes resided.

“Where are the monsters?” How could there be snakes in such a beautiful place?

Lu Li didn’t say anything. He rushed into the valley and soon, there were three large snakes chasing him, all as thick as a child’s arm.

The sharp cries of 2 girls rang out. Evidently, they hadn’t changed their visual settings yet.

Azure Sea Breeze had good mental fortitude and reaction speed, and he quickly attacked the three snakes.

Everyone else started to nervously attack. The visuals in Dawn were simply too realistic - there was no difference between these snakes and snakes in the real world.

These snakes were called ‘Black Ring Snakes’ and were LV10. Their attacks were devious and they were hard to hit. However, they had low Defence and not much HP - it only took a few hits to kill them. Thus, they were very suitable for Lu Li’s party to farm. This was made especially easy with Lonesome Flower’s Blizzard. As soon as they were slowed, killing them became as easy as slaughtering sheep.

The only troublesome thing was their venom which they could rapidly spray. The range was quite far and it had a large area of effect. This attack was also almost impossible to dodge and dealt a great amount of damage. Azure Sea Breeze and Lu Li could only rely on Potions to survive.

Eventually, the three large snakes were killed, dropping a Snake Bile, as well as some copper coins. Taking into account the number of Potions they had used, the party had suffered a marginal loss.

“The EXP here is so good. We’re getting way more than we did in the Elite level Instance Dungeon.” Azure Sea Breeze instantly fell in love with these gruesome snakes. He charged forward to draw the aggro of more snakes, while Lu Li took the opportunity to create a Basic Antidote.

[Basic Antidote]: Cures LV10 and below Poison effects. Grants immunity to Poison for 15 seconds.

“Crap, why are there suddenly so many of them?! Help!!” Suddenly, there were more than ten Black Ring Snakes chasing after Azure Sea Breeze.

“Don’t heal him, just run,” Lu Li called out, as he grabbed the terrified March Rain and Remnant Dream.

“Lu Li, you traitor! I thought we were brothers!” Azure Sea Breeze was furious. He felt that he could still be saved. After all, there were only ten little snakes.

“I’ll visit your grave and pay my respects. Hurry up and run, the Poison can stack!”

The Poison can stack?!

Azure Sea Breeze’s face went green and he tossed out any plans of fighting. He, too, started to desperately run.

The Poison effect dealt 50 damage every 3 seconds. If that could be stacked, it would simply be too terrifying.