The Great Thief

Marin Noggenfogger was the manufacturing machine. He would continually produce the Noggenfogger Elixir from his workshop, which would be sent off to the market.

As for Lu Li, his biggest contribution was tricking Marin.

This despicable Elf had done nothing. Marin had relied completely on White Bread, yet Lu Li was going to receive 40% of the total profit.

"Demon, he’s a demon..." was what Marin Noggenfogger said to himself in the days that followed, cursing Lu Li every morning and every evening.

Unfortunately, Lu Li was completely oblivious to all of this. He had gone offline to accompany his sister.

The reason why he had so desperately levelled himself up wasn’t to maintain the top position in the rankings. He knew that there would be a time when someone would eventually overtake him; he just wanted to give himself more time to be able to spend with his sister.

Lu Xin was always very happy when these opportunities came.

She was like a puppy waiting at home every day. Other than her brother, it seemed like she didn’t have any other meaning in life. Although Lu Li didn’t want her to be like this, he simply didn’t have the time right now and didn’t trust her to expand her circle of friends on her own.

The next day, Lu Li went back online, mainly for the finals of the marathon competition.

No one could resist the appeal of receiving an Epic equip, so the number of participants had reached an all-time high. With the sheer number of competitors, most players had little hope of winning.

After two elimination rounds, there were only 100 players left who had qualified for the finals.

The live replay was broadcasted to all the players with two well-known professional marathon commentators. Of course, they were also players within Dawn – otherwise, they wouldn’t understand the rules of the game.

A marathon in reality was still vastly different from a marathon in-game.

Lu Li didn’t know how to react to players that had a coach with them. The scene around him was no different from a marathon in reality.

"This is my first experience in commentating a marathon in a game, but I must thank Dawn for this game. Some real-life sports that were in decline have now found a second life because of this game." The name of this player was Little Quincy. In reality, he was Li Yidong, a well-known marathon commentator.

There were many activities that occurred at the end of the year, which often took inspiration from reality.

Could you imagine a group of Orcs and Tauren playing football together? That rampage was the way one of the Dawn Cup finals had ended the day before. It was a match between a team of Orcs called ’Saar’s Football Club’ and a team of Tauren who were called the ’Mavericks’.

Their competition was a huge success.

After the game, both the Mavericks, who were the winners, and Saar’s Football Club, who were the runners-up, received massive advertising endorsement deals.

Today’s marathon had also received a great deal of attention. Everyone was looking forward to seeing players from all races running through the mountains and the plains. It was an unusually cheerful occasion.

"Actually, I think this marathon has incorporated too many game elements, which makes the competition less interesting."

The other player was older, and was an internationally renowned commentator called Jiang Guzhen.

In fact, he was quite right. The number of rounds had trivialized the competition to some extent.

"There are many players participating in this competition. There are even 2 star players among them."

Li Yidong didn’t continue on, otherwise, the audience was bound to lose interest.

"That can’t be right. I only saw one star player enter the competition. I believe his name was Innocent Child..." Jiang Guzhen said in confusion. Although he was only a Trade Skill player, how could he not know Lu Li’s name? In fact, the reason he was doing this was for dramatic effect.

"Among our marathon runners, there is a player who has not be officially certified as a star. However, he has definitely become a top player. He is..."

Even without this explanation, there were countless players who already knew.

"That’s right, it is Lu Li – the dark horse of the professional circle this year," Jiang Guzhen confirmed with a nod. "He is also the most promising player to take the championship, despite not being a Druid."

"Druids have accounted for 83% of the 100 players who have entered the finals. There were only 17 non-Druid players and 12 of them are Thieves. This shows how ruthless this competition is for the other professions and races," Li Yidong said just as the competition began.

Lu Li kept the same strategy as before and maintained his level of Stamina.

The other players had also reached this stage in their strategizing and knew the importance of this. As such, there weren’t many players who took the lead at the beginning.

When there was no great burst of speed at the beginning, Lu Li’s advantage could clearly be seen. His normal speed was comparable to the speed of a Druid Transformation, which eventually took him towards the leading group of players.

"Lu Li is currently in sixth place. Is he already speeding up right at the beginning? That doesn’t seem to be a wise choice," Jiang Guyu commented.

"It doesn’t look like it, but that is his normal speed which is quite terrifying. Let’s have a look at Innocent Child; he is actually in fifth place. Amazing!" Li Yidong had played the game and had a deeper understanding of it. This meant that he knew what was and wasn’t difficult to achieve.

"He has maintained this speed for 1 minute and 37 seconds already. It really does seem like this is his normal speed," Jiang Guzhen said emotionally. "How can there be such a big gap between the players?"

This was the feeling that most older-generation gamers felt.

"The rise of Lu Li truly is amazing. Let us look at the second stage of the mountain road. Will he be able to maintain his superior position?" Lu Yidong spoke with passion, which evoked the enthusiasm of the audience.

If there were players running at full speed before the second stage, everyone knew that their Stamina

wouldn’t last for much longer.

The advantage that Druids had was that when they reached the mountain roads, they could transform into Leopards, which had great jumping power. This allowed them to overcome the rugged surface with ease, and put distance between them and the other players.

"Look at Innocent Child!" a commentator shouted.

When Lu Li was running wildly in the form of the Child of the Forest, he also took the time to observe the other players’ transformations. He had finally realized why Water Fairy said that Innocent Child would be a formidable opponent in taking the championship.