The Great Thief

Sakura Memories could never skin Bosses perfectly, especially the level 60 ones.

This time, she swapped her old +6 skinning knife for the Finkle’s Skinner. Would it work? She didn’t quite believe in the legend of the knife.

Finkle’s Skinner’s actual knife was not very large; the blade itself was only slightly longer than the handle.

From the appearance of the knife, it was clear that it wasn’t suited for combat because the durability would decrease even faster when parrying enemy attacks. When the durability of a knife decreased, so did the chances of parrying. Proper daggers were long and sharp dagger like the Shard of the Defiler, or Felstriker, which carried a dense and dark energy.

Sakura Memories ran the small knife over The Beast with ease and watched as its armor-like, thick hide just slipped off its body.

This was The Beast’s Blaze Leather!

The art of skinning in Dawn was quite complex. It was different in many ways compared to the rest of the professions.

The different leathers and hides when used in crafting would only affect the properties of the equipment being crafted. However, the Blaze Leather was a sought-after material when using it for other reasons.

Leather was not only used for leather Armor; it could also be used for Plate Armor or Chainmail. In between each plate, leather could be used to fill and connect them together. In doing so, the end product would be much more comfortable, while also having a bit of magic resistance. Armor-smiths would also use leather as inner clothing.

Cloth-armored classes would also choose to wear small amounts of leather to increase the defence of more critical areas.

The significance of the Blaze Leather was in its name – it increased fire resistance, which was currently the most popular type of magic resistance. After all, the Blackrock Mountains contained Elementals, Black Dragons and Fire attribute Bosses.

The lowest-price for Blaze Leather was 480 gold on the market. However, The Beast’s leather was a rarity among rarities. The Blaze Leather from The Beast gave quite a lot of fire resistance, which also led to its exorbitant price of at least 1000 gold. Even 1000 gold would be considered under-priced.

After taking the leather, Sakura Memories’ hands were shaking. She was not only nervous about its value, but that this successful attempt had already proven what Lu Li said.

This knife could truly increase the success rate!

“What the hell!”

Just as everyone began to be excited, Remnant Dream was spooked. This corpse-lover immediately jumped into Hachi Chan’s embrace.

Then, everyone saw it. It was a…gnome? A gnome had come out of The Beast’s corpse?

No wonder Remnant Dream was spooked. Even if one had prepared themselves for this, it would still scare the living daylights out of them.

“Ah, finally out. It must be you guys who have saved me. You are my heroes! Let me introduce myself.”

The little dwarf quickly cleared up the confusion and laughed while continuing, “I am an adventurer. The name is Finkle Einhorn.”

Upon hearing this, Sakura Memories instantly put away her dagger.

There was no way that she was going to return the knife, even if she was beaten to death. But since she was the one who used the knife to save the gnome, he wouldn’t be wanting it back…would he?

“Greetings, Lord Finkle Einhorn. I have heard of you,” Lu Li politely said.

“Aha, am I that famous? Young man, lying is not a good habit. I don’t like suck-ups,” the little gnome said proudly.

“I have heard of other people talking about you. They say that you are insane – an insanely rich douchebag, while also being a great adventurer,” Lu Li calmly replied.

“Who said this? How dare he stain a name of such greatness?” Finkle Einhorn was clearly not pleased.

“(Can’t find name). I’m sure you’re familiar with him. He is part of the Ratchet Engineering Association as a Dark Iron dealer. He gave me a quest regarding you, Mr. Einhorn.”

Only a few people knew of Finkle’s past. He was extremely wealthy, with countless Legendary weapons and treasures in his care. With this also came a large number of followers, as well as thieves, eyeing his treasures.

Thorium Group was one of the organisations that supported him generously. Many groups backed his success, probably because they hadn’t seen someone that crazy, yet lucky before. Despite all that he had gone through, he was still living.

This episode where he was swallowed by The Beast was miniscule compared to his other experiences. The people who knew what he had accomplished had to admit that the gods were watching over him.

This time, there was something special hidden within.

Thorium Group’s Dark Iron Dwarves would constantly mention that they had created a suit of Arrmor that “allowed the wearer to survive even in the Black Dragon’s stomach.” However, the suit could only be worn by a gnome.

It was Finkle Einhorn who had immediately stolen this fire-resistant suit. Furthermore, he also stole Majordomo Executus’ lava dredger.

Majordomo Executus was the person that was mentioned by Lu Li. He accepted the NPC’s quest, then managed to see this great adventurer, full of regret.

“Please forgive me, friend. It was on impulse! You know, I’ve always been keen on exploring the depths of the Molten Core. However, Majordomo Executus tricked me! His lava dredger could only be used for twelve hours, so I got trapped in here. Stupid Beast. It treated me as food and ate me! Luckily, I had the suit on – otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to continue.”

There seemed to be something wrong with his logic.

Lu Li hesitated, then decided to for a reward.

“My condolences, but this isn’t enough for me to ignore the quest.”

His nickname, Lu pain in the butt, came from his reliance on his party to do most of the tedious things, but also came from his habit of tricking NPCs for his own gain. Even the quest master Hachi Chan didn’t have the ability to do that.

“Young man, greed is a sin. However, since you guys have freed me…”

The gnome seemed like he was going to accept what Lu Li was asking for.

“Actually, I’ve always been keen on exploring, especially towards the depths of the Molten Core. So…” Lu Li said with his thick skin, then continued, “Can you give me a suit of fire-resistant clothing? In the future, if I find anything from adventuring, I will definitely share it with you.”

Lu Li really wanted Finkle Einhorn’s suit.

If this was worn, then he might be able to completely ignore the attacks of Fire-based Bosses. Even if this couldn’t be done, then he could at least use this suit to go and open chests within the molten lava.

He knew of a few high-grade chests hidden within the pools of lava. These chests could very well be Legendary grade. It was said that it wasn’t uncommon for a Legendary item to just casually drop out. However, no one was strong enough to go. Even in his previous life, after Dawn had been released for three years, no one was able to open these Legendary chests.

Without hesitating, Finkle Einhorn instantly rejected Lu Li’s proposal.

“Sorry, that can’t be done,” he apologized, then added, “It’s not that I’m not willing to part from this suit, but it’s that this suit only fits gnomes.”

Lu Li was saddened upon hearing this. He deflated like a balloon.

Finkle gave an understandable excuse, but ultimately, it was because the game company didn’t want players to use a suit like this.

“However, I know someone who may have an idea about this. This suit was made by him. He is my friend Malyfous Darkhammer.”

Finkle Einhorn seemingly wasn’t shameful about not being able to accept Lu Li’s request, so he immediately referred Lu Li to the creator of the suit.

“Where is he?” Lu Li asked, with a hint of desperation in his voice.

Everlook. Do you know where it is? It’s in Winterspring,” Finkle Einhorn answered. “Malyfous likes to eat meat. I have a piece of The Beast’s flesh, which is delicious. If a chef was able to work his magic into this meat, then it would be the best thing in the world. You can bring this as a gift to him.”

Lu Li took this piece of meat and thanked The Beast in his heart.

Who knew that the cause of The Beast’s pain came from someone who was inside its own stomach and eating its flesh. Furthermore, he had also picked the best piece too.

Growing, then being eaten…on repeat.

“Tell him that Finkle is fine now. I have to go and deal with some errands. Goodbye.”

Finkle Einhorn was clearly worried that Lu Li was going to ask for more things, so he immediately took out a machine, played around with it, and left.

“Last Boss of the day. Let’s pack up soon,” Lu Li said as he stretched and yawned.

“Let’s stop here. There haven’t been any overnight raids, right?” Sesame Rice Ball seemed to be quite satisfied with himself.

“Well, this is the last Instance Dungeon that’s capped at level 60. The dungeons after this would be uncapped. The difficulty of the dungeons would also be absurdly high,” Lu Li sighed. The cap at level 60 was already no longer a secret; the company had already announced it.

As for the practical use of the level 60 cap, the playable content of the game would remain fresh.

The slackers had their own way of slacking in the game, while the hot-blooded players would still be

able to play the way they want to. The Marriage system, Guild castle system as well as many new modes of competition would all be introduced.

Of course, the game company also said that the level 60 was only temporary. Eventually, the level 70s would be accessible, then the level 80 range and so on.

This was the reason why Lu Li managed to become quite advanced in the game despite entering the game late by a year in his previous life.

His equipment now seemed strong, but when the new content arrived, all the current strong items would be discarded in the trash.