For the first time, his mind raced at full speed, solving puzzles, teleporting, jumping, and flying. Soon, Ah Cao stood at the entrance to the divine beast’s lair, the door already open. Had someone beaten him to it?! Ah Cao’s heart sank as he hurried inside. Inside the lair, a chilling wind blew, and he narrowly dodged a deadly gust, gasping as he saw within the winds a creature with a long neck and snow-white fur, resembling a camel, a sheep, or a horse. However, unlike the gentle beings in the animal kingdom, this one, in its frenzied state, had a massive body and a terrifying expression that made everyone’s heart clench in fear.
The frenzied creature was battling a summoner—or at least, the woman looked like one. She played a horizontal flute, summoning demons one after another from the void with eerie notes. But the creature’s wild attacks were too fierce; each demon was either killed by the wind or trampled underfoot as soon as it appeared. Gu Chaoyan was struggling; at best, his skills were average, and with the divine artifact in his hands, he could only unleash seventy percent of its power. Positioning, dodging, and strategic thinking were like clouds to him. Now, with the artifact protecting him, he could summon demons without cooldown, but that was all he could do.
His command skills were just enough to use the creatures as meat shields for self-defense. Thus, the demons, once fearsome under Wang Shenmu’s command, now served only as cannon fodder under Gu Chaoyan, often dying before they could even attack. “Bodhi Flower Dye” was a divine artifact; any ordinary flute would have failed after summoning just a few times. After fighting for a while, Gu Chaoyan realized this approach wouldn’t work. Summoning the highest-level demons one by one didn’t show much, but summoning many quickly drained his mana. As the demons fell one by one, the grass-mud horse had only lost 10% of its health, while his mana was almost depleted. Just as he considered retreating to restore his mana and then summon forty to fifty demons to rush in for a massive attack, someone entered through the lair’s entrance. Gu Chaoyan felt a pang of regret; why had he rashly charged in, provoking the grass-mud horse’s anger? Now, he was in a dilemma: stay and die from mana depletion or leave and let someone else take the grass-mud horse. He had managed to drain 10% of its health, which was no small feat, and he couldn’t let someone else benefit from his efforts.
Spotting an opportunity when the grass-mud horse paused to catch its breath, Gu Chaoyan quickly summoned two demons—one to protect himself and the other to charge at the newcomer, Ah Cao. He decided to deal with the other first and then slowly take down the beast. He knew Ah Cao, the leader of the Xia Country Thieves’ Guild, was a decent man and a skilled player. Now, with the divine artifact at stake, there was no room for sentimentality. Under the roar of the grass-mud horse, this place was destined for slaughter. The top-tier demons were like ants to the grass-mud horse but were bosses to humans. Ah Cao, having just dodged the indiscriminate attack of the grass-mud horse, saw a demon charging at him and smirked. It seemed the summoner had temporarily given up on attacking the beast to deal with him first. In terms of battlefield experience, adaptability, and technical skill, Gu Chaoyan couldn’t hold a candle to him. This was the moment when Ah Cao’s small universe was ignited by Su Yao’s words. With a quick judgment, Ah Cao found a flaw on the right side of the demon, which was also a blind spot for the grass-mud horse’s wind attack. He accelerated and slipped past, slapping an invisibility buff on his forehead.
Ahaha, twenty seconds of invisibility, the signature move of a thief, was more than enough to deal with this summoner. Even if she was a woman, Ah Cao, as the seasoned leader of a thieves’ guild, would not show mercy now. For him, as long as it was for Hongyaotang, he would use any means necessary to achieve his goal.
Gu Chaoyan was in a panic. The invisible Ah Cao, dressed in top-tier gear, a seasoned thief leader who had survived countless battles and taken numerous lives, was not someone he could simply withstand. He hurriedly recalled the few demons he had just summoned, positioning them around himself as meat shields. Never before had he felt such deep despair and frustration. The contest for divine artifacts, he could log off and leave now since he already had one in hand… But why now… After turning invisible and invincible, Ah Cao no longer needed to worry about the attacks from the Grass Mud Horses or the demons serving as meat shields. Each of the 0.1 seconds in those 20 seconds was as precious as gold to him.
“Steal Heaven and Earth,” “Sleight of Hand,” “Sweeping Wind,” “Gallop Across Ten Thousand Miles” — a series of combo moves erupted from his boiling fingertips. Those fearsome demons could only block the attacks of the Grass Mud Horses but couldn’t stop the invisible Ah Cao.
Gu Chaoyan was in dire straits, struggling to deal with both the Grass Mud Horse’s attacks and his own dwindling mana, feeling utterly helpless. Although he held a divine artifact, he was now no different from a scarecrow taking hits. In just eighteen seconds, Ah Cao managed to kill Gu Chaoyan. When the female summoner fell, Ah Cao realized how fragile her health was because she was not a mage, lacking the magic shield skill; she was a ranger. Seeing the flute in the hands of the female ranger, Ah Cao was ecstatic — a divine artifact! The Bodhi Flower Dye!
With his extensive experience in looting from battlefields, Ah Cao, already a master thief, snatched the flute from Gu Chaoyan’s grasp just as he was about to log out, in less than a millisecond.
System Announcement: [At 22:37 on December XX, 2010, congratulations to player “Ah Cao” for replacing the Lord of the East.]
At that moment, looking at the announcement, Ah Cao remembered the evening at the seaside when Hong Yao Tang, his newly acknowledged “big sister,” demonstrated various thief combos. It was the first time Ah Cao realized that skills could be chained for output, and the brilliance of the flowing chain of skills dazzled his eyes. However, despite practicing for a long time, he couldn’t master the combos, which left him both frustrated and unwilling to give up. He asked Hong Yao Tang how to grasp the essence of combos. Hong Yao Tang smiled lightly and said, “Think about the radio exercises you used to do.” Ah Cao’s eyes shattered once again, but he did start doing the radio exercises he hated the most back in school. When he finally mastered all eight sets of the exercises, he found that he was indeed starting to get the hang of combos. Later, as his combo skills improved, he even began to innovate. Excitedly, he went to Hong Yao Tang to claim his achievement: “Hong Jie, I’ve finally made progress!
Ah, to think I had to relearn the radio exercises, what a life…” “Radio exercises? Pfft!” Hong Yao Tang was first shocked, then burst into laughter, “Didn’t you realize I was joking…?”
Recalling those warm and beautiful memories, Ah Cao couldn’t help but smile. He put the flute into his inventory; it was indeed a divine artifact, but he had no intention of using it. The pride of a thief, inherited from Hong Yao Tang, made him unwilling to win through divine intervention. The flute belonged to summoners, and he was a thief — a proud thief who, even after using the shameless invisibility buff, remained proud. Equipment is just external; Hong Jie, you only said this once, but I remembered it for life. Having calmed his excitement, Ah Cao assumed his stance, still holding the thief’s chain. Now, he was alone, ready to engage in three hundred rounds with the Grass Mud Horses without distraction.