The Great Thief

The terrain here consisted of dense vegetation and bushes. The height of these bushes was as tall as a person. This meant that players would struggle to hide their movements and their movement speed would be reduced.

Lu Li always avoided these types of terrains; he always chose a detour route instead.

The question now was were these people from Ruling Sword? Or perhaps Gale Legion? Or was it just a normal monster?

Lu Li leapt from a tree, then transformed into a leopard and rolled as soon as he hit the ground. He managed to avoid being damaged this way. Then, he stayed in his leopard form and continued to traverse across the forest.

The underbrush covered a vast area, so the detour route was much longer.

It was fortunate that players were much slower in dense vegetation, so Lu Li was successfully able to position himself in front of his target.

He didn’t enter Stealth, but instead chose to hide behind a tree. As long as he could hide from his target, it didn’t matter if it was using Stealth or tactical covert skills. In places like these, hiding behind trees was quite safe.

The ones among the underbrush were not monsters.

He saw a person part the dense vegetation and loudly complain, “Why was this map chosen? Is our leader that formidable? What the hell…we could lose in an even worse fashion in this map.”

Wendelian was the one who had chosen this map.

Even for Ruling Sword, this map was quite disadvantageous, but it was not as though Gale Legion enjoyed this map. Even though they trained so much in this map, it was plain torturous.

After all, this was a virtual game, and physical and mental strain were still present.

Torrent tried his best to keep walking in a straight line and summoned an Ice Bear. Although the bear’s offensive and defensive capabilities were fairly mediocre, it was his largest summon. He used this bear to part the vegetation by crushing it, so it did not pose much of a problem.

However, the Ice Bear did not fare well in a hot and humid environment like this, so its Loyalty level rapidly dropped.

For Hunters, not only the levels of the pets mattered. The other two important stats were Loyalty and Mood.

Pets also had moods. There were three typical moods: Happy, Calm and Tired. When the pet was Happy, its Loyalty would grow the quickest. When the pet was Calm, then its Loyalty wouldn’t change much. However, when it was Tired, the Loyalty would drop extremely quickly.

There were many reasons for a pet to become Tired. After fighting for an extended period of time without getting fed or receiving attention from its master, the mood of the pet would drop. Newbie Hunters, or Hunters that overlooked the importance of Hunger, would forget to feed the pet. Obviously, the pet would become unhappy.

Another cause was that the pet did not like the environment that it was in.

There were six levels of Loyalty.

The first level was ‘refusal’. The pet would not go and fight, and would only growl at its master.

The second level was “uncontrollable’. At this level, the pet would also not listen to its master. However, if it did attack, then its attack power would be severely weakened.

The third level was ‘obedience’. Although the pet would listen to its master, the power of the pet was limited.

The fourth level was ‘reliable’. The pet would listen to its master and attack desired targets.

The fifth level was ‘trusted’. At this level, the pet would do what was best for the situation, such as shifting from offense to defence.

The sixth level was ‘loyal’. At this level, the pet gained an extra 20% buff to its stats. However, to get a pet to this stage was extremely difficult and even if it did reach this stage, it wouldn’t last long. The nature of the pet also had to be taken into consideration.

The Ice Bear was not a pet that easily hit level 6. However, Torrent did not need the bear to be at level 6. As long as the loyalty level was above level 2, it would be fine.

The bear kept walking and panting with visible discontentment in its eyes. Although the bear was already at level 2 loyalty, they were already nearing the end of the dense brush, so Torrent didn’t think to change pets.

As Torrent saw that they were at the end, with no more bush in sight, Torrent nearly sat down on his butt to rest.

He threw a piece of cooked fish to the bear and planned to restore its loyalty level. However, he sensed a blade flying right at him.

Thief!

Lu Li!

This type of attack could only be made by a Thief. Only Ruling Sword Thieves were active in this map.

“Damn it!” Torrent’s reaction time was never that quick, and it was even slower because he was tired. However, he could still pinpoint Lu Li’s position. This was a testament to his efforts to improve his skills.

He fired a spell towards Lu Li which countered Thieves and Warriors.

Lu Li’s dagger flew across Torrent’s neck, making no contact. This ambush had failed. Lu Li had to admit that he had underestimated his opponent.

The cursed rain!

Torrent’s Wing Clip lowered Lu Li’s speed. However, he didn’t think that it was enough to pull away from Lu Li. He quickly commanded the Ice Bear towards Lu Li to buy him time to run.

From the bear’s angle of attack, it was ideal. The distance was not a problem. If the bear’s Charge landed on Lu Li, then a single second of Stun would be enough to get away. Perhaps he could even set an ice trap.

After distancing himself from Lu Li, a Hunter with Flare would not be afraid of a Thief.

The Ice Bear was already hugging its fish, but got up reluctantly after being commanded to attack. If it was on level 5 loyalty, it would have gotten up the instant that its master was ambushed.

As a result, the bear did not Charge towards Lu Li as Torrent had hoped.