Chapter 225: Altar of Tides
What happened to Buggy was only an accident, so Lu Li didn’t take the incident to heart.
The only reason he had lent money in the first place was because of Aunty Niu. Even until her very last moment, the kind, old woman was still hoping for her son to repent and start again.
There was nothing wrong with playing games, especially when the government was promoting them. At the very least, playing games was preferable to becoming a gangster.
At the same time, Lu Li wasn’t worried about not being able to get his money back. Buggy was a man with great abilities and if it wasn’t for the fact that he strongly upheld his principles, he would have already become a real gang leader.
Although he only had a small crowd that couldn’t compare to the other average guilds, they were much more united.
Like Lu Li, these people who started from the bottom all had some sort of tenacity. They could withstand loneliness, endure through bitter pain and were all suited to playing games.
He only made Buggy remain under his command in order to annoy the man.
The next day, when Lu Li logged on, the weather was nice and sunny in Astrana.
Many people were still discussing the defense of Meisnera on the streets outside the inns. Of course, even more people were talking about Sorrowless and the mysterious player who had assassinated him.
Lu Li stopped by the mailbox outside of the inn.
Inside the first package was a Jade Statue, sent by Hornet’s Nest, alongside another 28 Starwood.
There were another 76 of them in another package, sent over by Jade Flower Lover from the Blood Red War Flag.
On top of the $500,000 transferred to Lu Li in the real world, these were the total gains he had made from yesterday.
He had forgone his chance to level up and receive precious skill points in exchange for these gains.
Azure Sea Breeze and the others had all received a skill point, which compared to EXP, were much more desirable. Skill points were something that one could only hope to come across with luck. If Lu Li was given another chance to choose, he was honestly not sure if he would insist on staying to level up.
Lu Li shook away his pointless thoughts and set his attention on the materials that he had finally managed to acquire.
It was hard for him not to look back and sigh. He had spent one month to achieve what Azure Sea Breeze could not achieve in two years – to acquire all the materials for upgrading the Supreme Ring to LV3.
Lu Li had no clue about the statistics of the Supreme Ring after the upgrade, but that wasn’t a big issue. He only needed to know the location to upgrade the ring.
This information was all given to him by Azure Sea Breeze during the past life. Azure Sea Breeze had spent a great deal of time to gather this information, but in the end, it was Lu Li who ended up up using it.
Since they had all spent too much time online yesterday, the two high school students from the Xin Xin Mercenary Group were still catching up on sleep. The others also wanted to take a good rest as well. It was still six hours away from twelve o’clock, the time that everyone had agreed to come online and run through the dungeons.
There was probably enough time to upgrade the ring.
After teleporting to Booty Bay, Lu Li spent another half an hour sailing on a boat before he arrived at the The Vile Reef.
The Great Sea was only a little further ahead.
There were some who claimed that you would be able to reach Kalimdor, the other continent of Azeroth, if you travelled across The Great Sea. Rumor had it that great wealth was hidden in the depths of the Sea, and some also believed that the big whirlpool within it would take you to another world.
However, there was no proof to prove these legends as true. Those who dared to adventure deep into The Great Sea for evidence had never returned.
To be fair, there was no need to try at all. Teleportation channels had connected the two continents since ancient times, so there was absolutely no need for anyone to explore the depths of The Great Sea.
Lu Li had no interest in investigating these sorts of things either; he was only here to travel to the desert island near the coastline of The Vile Reef.
It was much more dangerous to travel to his destination by swimming – the monsters underwater were not only a high-level, but also come in great numbers.
Fortunately, he could fly, courtesy of Mr. Medivh.
Lu Li had already passed on his Bloodstained Badge, which was also given to him by Medivh, to Azure Sea Breeze.
After upgrading his crow transformation to LV2, the damage that he received was almost negligible. As well as this, he could also travel at a faster speed.
However, after Lu Li got closer to the island, he didn’t dare to act presumptuously anymore. These ferocious seabirds were extremely xenophobic and would attack anything that looked different to them.
Lu Li cursed under his breath as he landed on a surrounding reef and cancelled his crow transformation.
Even before he had the chance to jump off the reef, a tentacle emerged from the water and launched towards his chest.
Despite being caught by surprise, Lu Li still reacted in time with a successful block.
-126!
Unsuccessful with its first attempt, the tentacle struck again.
Lu Li could now finally see what had attacked him.
Squid?
It was a squid indeed. After Lu Li dodged another attack, even more tentacles emerged from the sea and shot forwards in a flurry towards him.
This would be a frightening and suffocating situation to be in for anyone.
Fortunately, a strong mentality has always been Lu Li’s greatest asset. Leisurely drawing back his dagger, he jumped and escaped.
Seal transformation!
His Seal transformation had become much stronger after also being upgraded to LV2.
Firstly, the LV1 seal transformation provided no Armor, and was therefore unable to absorb any damage. The LV2 transformation came with Armor that was equivalent to 50% of Lu Li’s Armor from his gear. Normal attacks would no longer kill him instantly.
Secondly, the LV2 seal transformation allowed him to stay underwater without time restriction.
Last of all, swimming speed was also greatly increased. Lu Li was small, but agile, and although the squid chased him relentlessly, it was still unable to catch him through the reefs.
This place was too close to the shore, and it had no intention of going on land.
Even though Lu Li had set foot on solid ground, he didn’t feel safe at all.
A few Murlocs beside the campfire started charging towards him with their harpoons after they noticed him. They were chanting things that he couldn’t understand, but one thing was certain – they definitely weren’t trying to be friendly.
The Murlocs were all LV25 elite monsters.
Their attacks would often cause attribute-decreasing debuffs, making them even more troublesome for thieves.
Killing them was quite hard for Lu Li, but fortunately, he was equipped with extremely good gear and was only two levels lower than them. He would be fine as long as he didn’t aggravate too many monsters.
Murlocs had been around Azeroth for a long time. They had a strong belief in the Water Lord - Tidehunter Neptulon and could can be considered as the rulers of the seas from the past.
After the appearance of Nagas, the Murlocs fell from their dictating position.
Murlocs were intelligent beings, often cooking a great variety of food. There would be a pot on top of almost all of their campfires.
However, Lu Li wouldn’t ever dare touch their food, especially after the time when he looted a particular recipe of theirs.
The title of the cooking recipe was “Barbecue Murlocs” and it had the following description: “After I completed a quest for the Murlocs, one of the Murloc Elders gave me a book as his token of gratitude. It was a book about how to cook the best Murloc dishes.”
Lu Li was bewildered by the recipe that he had looted.
The Murloc Elder must have been insane to give out a recipe book on how to barbecue his own kind.
Lu Li appreciated this joke – it was hard to not be impressed by the staff members who wrote the lore.
However, even if the dish was capable of removing the hungry status from a character, and gave a short buff of +5 to all attributes, Lu Li was determined to not touch the recipe.
He ended up placing the recipe on auction at a high price. Perhaps there would be a player out there who was into this sort of thing.
After two hours of tough battle, he finally made it into the depths of the island.
The Altar of Tides – what Lu Li was searching for had finally come within eyesight.