The Great Thief

“This is just the beginning,” Lu Li said slowly.

All the fights in the past began playing in his mind as he analyzed every time he had shot-called incorrectly. Although talent was important, he still needed to continuously learn in order to become a great shot-caller.

In the previous fight, there were so many mistakes that he had made. If he had done better, there would be less casualties.

Casualties were unavoidable, because it was impossible to have everyone survive.

After the Magma Giant, there were two more Fire Elementals.

Son of Flame was such an arrogant name, so players preferred to call him by his pet name Fiery.

“These two monsters…”

The Magma Giant was probably more of a gatekeeper and the size of the Son of Flame was close to Ragnaros. Perhaps they were even related by blood.

“Let’s try it,” Lu Li suggested.

“Lu Li, you’re becoming less and less cute.”

Azure Sea Breeze shook his head and charged towards one of the Sons of Flame with his giant shield.

World’s Best Friend charged towards the other one almost at the same time. Both successfully grabbed aggro on their targets.

Sons of Flames were vicious creatures. They weren’t as powerful as Magma Giants, but they had an equal potential of wiping a team.

These monsters had very simple attack patterns – all they did was burn their enemies to death.

There was no need for tanks to worry about being instantly killed. Their AOE skills only dealt about 500 points of damage, although the area of effect was quite large. Upon seeing this, everyone let out a sigh of relief since they had so many healers to cover the damage.

Lu Li knew that they were letting down their guard too early.

Finally, someone discovered something terrifying. Upon the second wave of Fire Breath, they realized the damage from the first wave was still ticking and almost everyone had a burn status applied on them.

“The damage can stack; everyone spread out.”

It was impossible for the Priests to cleanse 40 players one by one since they had to heal at the same time.

“Ranged classes surround Sesame Rice Ball.”

Lu Li saw that the timing was right and began setting up his strategy. He didn’t want to let everyone wipe again.

Everyone was a little confused, but Lu Li’s voice acted as a beacon on a stormy night. All the ranged classes immediately began gathering around Sesame Rice Ball. They needed to stay close enough together, but still leave enough room to cast skills.

Lu Li estimated the size of the group and was happy.

“March Rain, it’s all up to you now.”

March Rain caught on quick and casted Mass Dispel on the group of ranged and melee classes. This was the first time using this skill outside the Ruling Swords usual dungeon team.

Originally, she had planned on saving it until they faced off against Glory Capital, but unfortunately, they were able to see it beforehand.

Priests would always feel a huge sense of achievement whenever they dispelled a Mage’s Ice Block or a Paladin’s invulnerability. Managing to accomplish such feats was a lot more satisfying than just healing others.

Mass Dispel was a skill that dispelled all effects in a certain radius from the target.

In the current patch, the cooldown was low so it could be casted quite often. It could be casted on a maximum of 10 targets and March Rain was basically spamming it in order to cleanse all the burn effects.

This way, she could ensure that they didn’t take double the burn damage.

The only downside was her mana pool since it was quite the costly skill. Fortunately, the Sons of Flame were killed before March Rain’s mana pool was depleted.

“That was easy,” Lu Li commented.

If it wasn’t for March Rain with her Mass Dispel, then he would have organized eight smaller teams, each with a class that could cast dispel. However, if one of the healers messed up then that small group could wipe very easily.

The player in charge of cleansing everyone could forget to cleanse themselves or struggle to keep up with the refresh timer which would mean certain death.

The two Sons of Flames were quickly dealt with and there were no drops that were worth mentioning.

Lu Li had heard that these Elite monsters had a chance of dropping Dark Gold or even Legendary drops, since they were almost as powerful as the actual Bosses. Unfortunately, they weren’t very lucky today.

They took a turn and two more Magma Giants appeared. Azure Sea Breeze wanted to cry and everyone else were traumatized from the previous experience.

“We defeated the Sons of Flames before. Why are you guys scared?” Lu Li asked. He knew he had to raise their morale.

They shouldn’t be held back by these Elite monsters because there were many more difficult challenges for them to face.

When they heard this, they realized he was right. Now that they know what to do, as long as they concentrated, no one would die.

This proved that they were too naive as they immediately lost two players in the first 60 seconds. One was Lonesome Flower who made a silly mistake on his positioning and the other was Wandering. However, it was more of the Healing Paladin’s fault than Wandering’s.

“Hachi Chan, revive Wandering. World’s Best Friend, keep aggro of that monsters. Anyone else who makes these noob mistakes will be punished,” Lu Li threatened angrily.

He knew it was impossible for them to not lose anyone, but they had lost two of their key players at the very start.

The fact that they knew what to do but still made those silly mistakes made Lu Li extremely upset.

However, he still needed to save face for Lonesome Flower. If he was to punish him by bringing in a substitute, not only would their overall power decrease, but it would also hurt his friendship with him and his younger sister March Rain.

The fact that Lu Li used the phrase ‘noob mistakes’ really impacted Lonesome Flower.

Lonesome Flower was a man of pride. He was one of the original members that joined Lu Li and had participated in almost every Nightmare mode dungeon clears. Although he was a more lowkey person, most top players in the game knew that his equipment was insanely powerful and almost comparable to that of Sorrowless.

Everyone else in the party became more alert when Lonesome Flower was scolded.

They had a few more casualties as the fight went on but when the two Magma Giants were defeated, less than ten people had died.

Lu Li wasn’t exactly happy, but the results was acceptable.

Lonesome Flower was revived and remained quiet. He knew that Lu Li had already saved face for him because he was aware of the 15 other capable players outside the dungeon waiting to take his place. This sort of pressure acted as motivation for the active members to perform well.

He knew the mistake he made was very avoidable.

If Lu Li was really going to substitute him out, then he wouldn’t argue.

But how would his own sister look at him afterwards…?

Someone suddenly held his hands; Lonesome Flower looked back and saw March Rain’s smile. He could tell that March Rain wasn’t disappointed that her older brother made a mistake and got scolded. Her expression told her that he was still the big brother that she had always looked up to.