The Great Thief

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

Besides the T0 set part, there were also other T0.5 and T0 set items that could be obtained through quest levelling.

These class sets and other parts that provided fire resistance attributes were a necessity for exploring the Molten Core. For example, the Mage set had a special effect that reduced the aggression for dealing spell damage.

After all, it was too easy for Mages to take aggro in the Molten Core and they were on alert the entire time while dealing damage.

Although there was a small chance for set parts to drop and Nightmare mode didn’t contribute anything to the drop rate, there were so many monsters in the dungeon. As long as they were willing to spend time here, there was bound to be some sort of reward.

Quite a lot of rare materials dropped as well. Earth’s Core was a common material used for Plated gear and shields. It increased Armor and if you got lucky, it would give your equipment an Earth Guard effect. The Earth Essence was similar, but it had a better drop rate, so price-wise, it was less valuable.

Other useful rare materials that dropped included Fire Essence and Elemental Fire. These rare materials were all suitable for crafting fire resistance equipment and were all in-demand on the current market.

If they were fortunate enough to get a Fiery Core then it would be even better since it was worth more. This was the kind of material that was suitable for everything. It could be used to replace Fire Essence and Elemental Fire, while providing special effects.

All the way, Lu Li had already collected quite a bit of rare material.

If Lava Annihilators were described as fast movers, Lu Li wasn’t sure how he should describe these Lava Surgers.

Lava Surgers were a type of Golem with fast movement speed. Wherever these Golems stepped, a pillar of dust and smoke would rise. From the dust and smoke, a monster formed of broken rocks would reveal its true form. These would appear to be like a complete Lava Surger, except that they only had the top half of the body and no feet. When they moved forward, the ground was pulled towards them, as if they were on a treadmill of rock and rubble. Whenever rocks fell off from their bodies, other pieces would replace them so that their bodies would always maintain their form.

By the time you could see it clearly, it would already be in front of you.

This was a very interesting monster because it had an interesting way of attacking. You could see this monster slide very fast ahead to attack and it didn’t just target the Main Tank. Sometimes it would ignore aggression and slide to other targets. Anyone who was attacked would be knocked away.

The good news was that this monster could be banished. Banish was a type of control spell that was used by Warlocks.

Lu Li’s shoulder piece had a similar effect called Exile, but because Lu Li wasn’t a Warlock, this meant that his special effect wasn’t useful on this Golem monster.

As such, Warlocks were valued higher than Mages in Molten Core.

Golems couldn’t be Polymorphed, and because of the fire in the area, ice-type magic was also weakened.

There was also another kind of monster which moved a little slower – the Ancient Core Hound. This was a type of slow and stupid monster that wandered around in the Molten Core. It seemed slow because of its body size, and it looked like a lumbering tortoise.

However, it was actually one of the most difficult monsters to deal with at the start of Molten Core. It refreshed very quickly in the dungeon and would often reappear when you were dealing with other monsters. The worst thing was that this monster also had a huge aggression range.

It would attack all players within 180 degrees in front of it. As such, Main Tanks had to pull them so that their backs were faced against the rest of the team.

However, when it began to spit fire, the Main Tank be able to hold it back anymore.

It would start spinning in a random direction, spewing out fire that would damage the players. This attack would also stun players for a brief period, reduce fire resistance by 20%, and reduce cast and attack speed by 50%. It could also cause momentary confusion, 30% total mana reduction etc…

Fortunately, these effects weren’t applied on the players all at once, or else it would simply be easier to just forfeit the game.

Their team wiped twice fighting this monster. The first time was because they had no clue what it was, and the next was because they accidentally lured other monsters. Lu Li didn’t say much about it. There was no way that people would never make mistakes, so he saw it as a fee for their learning.

After they killed this monster, Lu Li had Sakura Memories come over to skin it.

She had an exquisite skinning knife and could even remove the skin of a Boss, not to mention an average monster. She easily peeled away a layer of hide from this Ancient Core Hound.

Lu Li packed the skin away carefully. Although this monster was hard to kill, at least the reward was valuable.

First, there was the skin. Money alone wasn’t enough to describe its value. Even though it wasn’t a rare material, it was just as valuable. Secondly, there was the Experience. Just killing one was enough to give everyone’s Experience bars a noticeable boost. Finally, there was the legendary Ancient Core Hound pet and mount.

Lu Li was sceptical of this last drop to say the least.

In his previous life, Lu Li had seen both the Ancient Core Hound pet and mount. The first was kept for fun, mostly for visual purposes. If a Hunter class looked after it well, they might be able to turn it into a battle pet through some quests. However, there were also plenty of Hunters who refused to complete these kinds of quests. A Core Hound before the quest transformation didn’t look aggressive at all; it was actually quite the opposite. The Core Hound pet was famous for its cuteness and was popular amongst ladies who liked dogs.

As for the Ancient Core Hound mount, it was one of the fanciest mounts of all time and had an incredibly low drop rate. Lu Li had barely encountered any in his life.

The reason why Lu Li was sceptical was because he didn’t believe that an average monster would drop pets and mounts. There was probably a better chance of obtaining this loot at the second Boss. People were probably just imagining things because they wanted the pet and mount so much.

They pushed all the way in and quickly arrived before the first boss, Lucifron.

Lucifron was a monster that had a similar appearance to Naga. He had a snake-like tail but no fins and gills, and his colour was different too. Lucifron was the standard lava rock color, and was clearly a fire-type of monster. Layers of sharp needles protruded from his skin, each standing tall and looking threatening on his gigantic body.

Everyone felt tired after they arrived, considering that they all refused to properly rest before. Lu Li announced resting time on the spot.

It had already been 2-3 hours since they entered, and it had taken them a long time to reach the Boss. This dungeon would have been too hard to imagine for the team back in the past.