The Great Thief

Lu Li and the others continued to grind in the Snake Valley from the morning until the afternoon. On average, everyone gained half of their EXP bar. Lu Li was now LV9 and he had found 11 Snake Trust Grass. He only needed 5 to upgrade his ring, so the rest could be used to make Intermediate Health Potions.

The NPC did not teach him how to make anything higher then Basic Potions, so if he wanted to make Intermediate Potions, he would need to find the recipe on his own. The Intermediate Health Potion restored more health and had more value, considering the relatively low crafting cost.

Because of his rebirth, Lu Li knew where to find the recipe, but that would have to wait until next Monday’s patch. For now, his goal was to make an Intermediate Antidote.

The Intermediate Antidote recipe wasn’t hard to find; as long as a monster used venom, it could potentially drop it. Lu Li had already found 4-5 copies. If he sold them he could make quite a few silver coins.

As for the materials required, the Basic version required one Snake Bile, while the Intermediate one required two. This had an 80% success rate.

“Do you need anything else for the Intermediate? Is there a quest?” Azure Sea Breeze was determined. Even after half a day of training he still wasn’t tired.

“You don’t need to from Basic to Intermediate; only from Intermediate to High would you need to do a quest. I’m just missing 3% EXP.” Alchemy couldn’t be performed repeatedly - even if you did have the materials, there was a cooldown period. Throughout the day, Lu Li would immediately start making potions as soon as the cooldown refreshed. If you made many of the same potions, the required proficiency for it would decrease.

After half a day, Lu Li’s Alchemy was finally Intermediate level.

Now his Trade Skill would start to show its usefulness!

System: You can now manufacture Intermediate Antidotes, Alchemy Proficiency increased by 1.

Intermediate Antidote: Cures LV20 and below Poison effects. Grants immunity to Poison for 15 seconds.

One or two Intermediate Antidotes were not enough to beat the Boss, but after 2 hours, Lu Li had made over 30. Four of them had failed, which matched the 80% success rate.

“Everyone take 7 bottles. Sea Breeze you take 2 more. We’ll the give the boss one more try and if it fails, we’ll let it go for today.” Looking at the time, there were less than 2 hours before night fall when the wild would become very dangerous.

They started attacking the monster as usual; Azure Sea Breeze led the charge and drew the aggro of the boss.

Lu Li refrained from yelling out every profanity he knew. It was too bad that this Boss was immune to stuns. Even a 90% Skill Completion on Shadowstrike could not stun it. However, the that Lu Li damage dealt surpassed his expectations.

Performing an 89% Skill Completion would deal 112% damage. However, the damage suddenly spiked to 150% when he attained 90% Skill Completion. Skill Completion was one of the least talked about subjects in his previous life. It was reserved exclusively for the experts and seemed forbidden to the masses. There had only been a handful of forum posts which seriously talked about it. After 90%, it was a completely new playing field.

The advantage of rebirth was that his knowledge was one step ahead of the other players. However, Lu Li knew that to become a true expert, he still had a long path to walk.

After all, in his previous life he was just an ordinary player!

He suddenly focused and shrugged off his exhaustion. Azure Sea Breeze looked at him curiously and mumbled, “Why are you suddenly trying so hard, did you have some potency medication?”

Lu Li ignored him, diligently trying to make every Skill Completion as high as possible.

Under his leadership, the others also gave much of their strength. They quickly took the Boss down to 90% HP.

The Boss whined and raised the first half of its body.

“Get ready to take the potion...3, 2...1, do it!” Lu Li stopped attacking and threw his head back, staring at the Boss’ big mouth.

The pale-green venom erupted out of it at the same time as Lu Li’s command, surrounding the area around him.

“Dammit,” Lonesome Flower cried out, throwing aside the Intermediate Antidote bottle and taking a Basic Healing Potion.

“Careful everyone. Listen to my instructions or you won’t last more than a few seconds,” Lu Li said.

“I almost died, I only have 10-20 HP left. Give me some HP!” Lonesome Flower patted his chest in fear.

Mages have naturally higher Magic Resistance and later on, he would gain shields to defend from physical attacks. However, his resistance to poisons was relatively low and Lonesome Flower had put all his points in Intelligence. The poison that the Boss released dealt 250 damage initially and 50 damage afterwards every 3 seconds. He wouldn’t be able to survive that.

“The duration of the Intermediate Antidote might not be enough. Everyone pay attention and take them appropriately,” Lu Li calmly instructed, while trying to estimate how much damage he was dealing to the Boss.

“If it releases the poison every 10% of its HP, we won’t have enough potions, as we only have 7 each.” Lonesome Flower put on a long face; this Boss was particularly effective against Mages, so he could die at any moment.

“Continue dealing damage and let me observe it. At worst, we could give up, but would you be satisfied if you gave up after only dealing 10% of its HP?” Lu Li asked.

“Continue, continue,” Azure Sea Breeze called out and increased the frequency of his attacks.

Wild Bosses would definitely drop a Steel armour. They had been grinding for this Boss the whole day and Lu Li had even learned Intermediate Alchemy. If they gave up now, it would be incredibly unsatisfying.

The second spray of poison was about to go off, right when the Boss’ HP was reduced to 80%. Lu Li saw the Boss draw its body back and immediately shouted, “Everyone except for Healer and Main Tank, run!”

Lonesome Flower had long anticipated these words and he took many more steps than even the Thief. With the threat of the Bosses poison, the normally slow Mage ran as fast as his short legs could take him.

As for Lu Li and Remnant Dream, the two Agility occupations, they ran even faster.

March Rain had added points into Constitution and Intelligence, while Azure Sea Breeze had added all his points into Constitution. These two lost less than 50% HP when hit by the Poison, so this strategy didn’t need to be explained by Lu Li.

In reality, they were fighting this Boss really early. After a few weeks, when this portion of the map became known to the public, several guilds would send their elite parties to farm this Boss. They would not have the same flexibility of being able to leave the fight whenever.

To successfully beat a Boss in Dawn, one had to be aware of their competitors.

Basic materials could be used from early to late game and could be quickly snatched after the Boss had been beaten. The old turtle at Moon Reflection Lake was only a level 3 Boss, but over 100 players were now there, waiting for it to spawn.

The third time it released the poison, Lonesome Flower ran too slowly, so he took an Intermediate Antidote and a Basic Heal Potion. He barely made it through this dangerous phase.

This was not the only way; he could have exchanged some equipment with Azure Sea Breeze. This would net him about 100HP and increase his Defence, improving his survivability.

Of course, this would mean abandoning his Offensive Mage build. He would have less damage than Remnant Dream.

Remnant Dream’s pig died after the third wave of poison. If she wanted to revive it, she would need to wait another 3 minutes. If they had to solely rely on Lu Li to hit the boss, this would take a long time.