The Great Thief

Lu Li was slightly displeased, but he had to accept the truth.

The Thief Skill Books were grey and the colour had faded because of their age. The average person could not tell the differences between each book and would randomly select them most of the time.

However, Lu Li had experiences from his past life, so he was not the average person.

Skill Books had names on them, but they were flipped so that the player had to randomly select one. Despite this, Lu Li could tell the difference between the books due to the patterns on their backs.

Every book had a different pattern, but it was very hard to tell them apart. Someone accidentally noticed this one year into the game and a group of people studied the patterns for weeks, collected data and found them.

Lu Li obviously didn’t memorize the patterns of every skill book. However, he did take the time to memorize the patterns of the rarer and more expensive skill books.

There was a stack of more than ten skill books, but only a few caught his eyes.

Lu Li pulled out a book and expectantly saw Gale Steps on the cover.

Gale Steps: Instant Cast. 60 second cooldown. Forces user into Stealth and gives user 1 seconds of invulnerability. When in Stealth, movement speed is increased by 50% for 5 seconds. The first attack dealt upon leaving Stealth will deal 150% damage. Current Proficiency 1/5.

When Gale Steps was maxed, the invulnerability lasted up to 2 seconds, while the movement speed was increased by 80%. The first attack upon leaving stealth would deal 280% damage.

This was a skill he had always wanted. The drop rate was extremely low and there were no other ways to obtain it. Lu Li was very pleased to have obtained it from the Profession Upgrade Quest.

He still had one more chance, but there were two skill books that he could recognize.

One was Kidney Strike and the other was Ambush.

Kidney Strike was a control skill that used up combo points to stun. It was one of the longest CC skills besides Sap, but its stun effect would not broken by attacking.

Ambush was simply a high-damaging skill that gave the user 2 combo points after using it. This would present them with more combo options.

Lu Li’s current combo order began with Cheap Shot, which gave him 2 combo points. He then followed this by Backstab and Shadow Strike, which gave a point each for a total of 4 combo points. However, this wasn’t enough to use his Ultimate Skill.

For Lu Li, both skills would largely improve his damage output and fighting potential.

After contemplating for a while, he decided to choose Ambush.

Ambush: Instant Cast, 30 second cooldown. Ambush your target from behind, dealing 180% Weapon damage. Awards 2 combo points. Current proficiency: 1/5.

He wanted Kidney Strike as well, but Ambush would be more useful at this current stage.

Lu Li’s main damage output came from Backstab and Shadow Strike. He needed to incorporate a lot of auto attacks as fillers in-between skill cooldowns in order to maximize his damage output. This would work against lower-skill players, but against experts, it was very disadvantageous.

Lu Li was more interested in the special effect of Ambush.

If the Skill Completion rate was high than 85%, the target would be paralysed for 1 second. A Skill Completion rate above 90% would cause paralysis for 2 seconds..

“You are the first player to complete the Profession Advancement Quest and you were able to complete it alone. Five skills points will be rewarded,” the Elf continued.

“Thank you, dear Elder.”

Lu Li was very pleased when he heard this. He was more excited about the skill points than receiving the Skill Books. Skill Books were rare and expensive, but Skill Points could not be bought, even with all the money in the world.

“Because you are the first person to complete this quest, bonus EXP will also be rewarded. Are you ready?” the Elderly Elf asked.

“Of course,” Lu Li nodded.

Lu Li’s EXP bar was quickly filled.

System: You have levelled up to LV19. You have levelled up to LV20.

Two Levels! Even after reaching LV20, his EXP bar continued to be filled until it reached 60%.

“Now, you have 3 choices.”

The Elderly Elf waved and a virtual board appeared, displaying the three different class choices.

Thief, Scout and Demon Hunter.

Lu Li chose Thief without hesitating - he had never intended on playing any other class. He had even found the Job Change scroll for the Demon Hunter, but decided against using it.

Job Advancement Scrolls allowed you to change class immediately. Advancement rewards would still be received, but the user would not be listed in the System Class Rankings.

Demon Hunters were also known to players as the “Hidden Class”, but Lu Li was not interested.

Scouts were even rarer!

Their expertise leaned more in the field of stealth, scouting, detection and deactivating traps. These were skills that were more beneficial in group settings, but extremely useless by themselves. Lu Li would never choose this.

Thieves could everything that Scouts could, just not to the same level of mastery.

The title of the Thief class didn’t change, but players often called the Advanced Thieves “Great Thieves”.

From this point onwards, he could proudly call himself ‘Lu Li the Great Thief’.

‘Hidden’ classes or quests in Dawn referred to classes that didn’t have much information on forums and quests that were limited to a certain group of people. This promoted the mysteriousness and uniqueness of the game.

The System announced the first player to complete Job Advancement.

Before the announcement, Lu Li was given the option to reamin anonymous. Normally, he wouldn’t really care, but he didn’t want to seem boastful, as he had just stolen the Rennesak kill from the Glory Capital.

Realistically, this didn’t make much of a difference. Anyone could tell that he had completed the advancement by looking at the rankings.

Everyone knew Lu Li as a scumbag, but acknowledged that the No.1 place undisputedly belonged to him. He and his team of goons had been able to take almost every ‘first’ in Dawn.

After he completed the mission, Lu Li said his goodbyes and everyone was teleported outside of the map.

Lu Li was heavily rewarded in this quest, with skill books, skill points and EXP. After being teleported out, he immediately used the skills books and added the SP into his skills.

He had gained 10 SP from levelling up, 1 SP from levelling up Shadow Strike and another SP from killing Illidan’s Shadow. If he didn’t use them up, he would have 17 points altogether.