The Great Thief

Translator: Halcyon Translations, Exodus Tales  Editor: Halcyon Translations, Exodus Tales

After the event ended, Lu Li didn’t gain much experience. He was still very far away from level 60.

However, there was no urgency in reaching level 60. Everyone was on average around level 58 or 59 and being level 60 wasn’t enough to create a three-level difference, which meant that it didn’t contribute much in terms of battle.

This time, the main event was Bygraves’ death.

Lu Li waited for a few days and was finally summoned by Garona. It seemed like his Thief teacher was patient.

Lu Li opened his eyes and found a giant bat in front of him. At first, the bat appeared to be living, but Lu Li soon discovered that it was just a machine. He couldn’t really comprehend why the designer would favour such an odd appearance.

He was certain that this was made by the hands of a master Gnome. He found the household emblem of a Gnome family on the head of the bat.

An animal’s hide was stuck on beside the emblem. Lu Li saw the hide straight away; the bat itself didn’t draw as much attention as the piece of animal hide. It was as if the animal hide had some sort of magnetic powers.

“This woman is becoming more troublesome by the moment,” Lu Li thought to himself. He didn’t dare to complain out loud.

There were only two words written on the animal hide: ‘Ride it’.

Without any hesitation, Lu Li obediently rode the bat. Lu Li really wanted to tell the designer that this mount needed to be more comfortable. There was only a thin piece of hide on top of the mechanical bone structure and it really hurt his butt.

As the bat took off, it made a soft mechanical noise as it flew deep into the mountain.

The sky was bright with a few stars and the moon had already risen, shining with a white glow. Under the soft moonlight, the red mountain peaks rose towards the air. The mountains were filled with forest and they formed a great shadow under the moonlight.

Lu Li couldn’t figure out what these mountains were from memory or from the system map. He ended up giving up; he had a better chance asking Garona.

After flying for about half an hour and constantly adjusting to prevent his butt from being scraped, he landed on the tip of a high tower.

This area was like the tip of the red mountains, except it had been sliced flat and a high tower was built on it. The high tower seemed to have been constructed of some white rock-type material. Lu Li had recalled seeing this material before. The tower was solid and sturdy, and looked like a lighthouse under the moonlight.

Lu Li studied the tower in detail as soon as he approached it.

At the bottom of the tower, there seemed to be a low wall that surrounded it with a garden around it. Behind the walls were a stable and the ruins of a blacksmith.

Lu Li landed on the platform located at the tip of the tower and realized that this was Karazhan. However, he then immediately changed his mind.

He had been to Karazhan more than once before. There was no way that this place was Karazhan, as besides the tower, he couldn’t recognise anything else.

The bat went silent after it dropped off Lu Li; it was so silent that it seemed as if it was dead. Lu Li felt like this was possibly because the master of this tower liked the quiet. It was probably why the mechanical dog that appeared to guard the area stood silently behind Lu Li. The mechanical dog was more like a mechanical hellhound. As someone who studied engineering, Lu Li couldn’t understand the thought process behind the design. Both of the machines looked incredibly ugly.

The mechanical dog either couldn’t or wouldn’t talk. It just followed in silence behind Lu Li.

The structure appeared to be a Mage tower, that is, if this place was designed by Karazhan-standards. Lu Li wasn’t sure who summoned him, but he hoped it was Garona. He had been waiting for his teacher to reward him for a long time.

Lu Li wasn’t impressed by his teacher because he knew she couldn’t summon him before her with her limited powers.

Granted, she was a strong Half Orc Thief. Although Lu Li didn’t know all of her records, he had read a lot of threads on the analysis and assumptions of her true strength. The majority of the players believed that alongside a few other NPCs, Garona was likely a character in Azeroth with the strength equivalent to some of the demigods.

As an Orc, even one that had lived for a slightly longer time than others, it wasn’t possible for her to be truly that strong. If you compared her to a Night Elf like Shandris, Garona was much weaker.

Under normal circumstances, no matter how talented Garona was, she could not truly be equivalent to a demigod.

However, she did follow Gul’dan and arrived in Azeroth. She failed to assassinate Medivh, but despite her failure, she was still the one sent by Gul’dan. She then got to know Lothar, King Llane and Medivh.

What happened between them was unknown. Some thought that she had a relationship with Lothar, but people knew that she had children with Medivh.

During an unknown process, Garona obtained some sort of energy from Medivh. This energy may have belonged to Sargeras. After all, he rested in Medivh at the time. It remained unknown as to why the energy was transferred to Garona.

Lu Li felt like Sargeras made a mistake, or possibly, he himself had no clue how this happened. After all, he had no real reason to pass his powers to a half Orc, but this was what happened in the end. Since then, Garona’s powers grew steadily, until she eventually began to find the ultimate truth of the power of Thieves.

If they really had to choose the strongest character in the Thief class, it would without a doubt be Garona. This was why Lu Li chose her as his teacher.

The mechanical dog led Lu Li, who was deep in thought, down the stairs. All that Lu Li could hear was the noise of the rusty joints of the mechanical dog and his jumbled thoughts.

Inside the library, with books and shelves that could possibly be illusions, Lu Li saw Garona lying on a soft bed.

This completely changed Lu Li’s impression of her. There was no way that his teacher could be lazy. In his mind, Garona seemed average and calm, but she had an aura of confidence, a kind of hidden but sharp edge. However, everything had now changed. Garona was lazy, like a queen sleeping in her palace.

“Greetings, my teacher. I’ve brought great news about Bygraves,” Lu Li said straightforwardly, as he revealed the head of Bygraves.