Thieves' Den

"Welcome to the Thieves' Den."

Yan Qing felt like he had slept through an afternoon nap and into the evening. Even with his eyes open, he hadn't fully regained his senses, his retina reflecting a disoriented daze as if he were in another world.

Stone ground, marble walls, a ceiling inlaid with night-luminescent pearls. Although there were no windows, a gentle breeze wafted through, preventing any sense of stuffiness—undoubtedly, this was a modified cave.

Why am I here?

Yan Qing subconsciously tried to stand, but his buttocks seemed glued to the chair, no matter how he shifted, he couldn't move from his spot!

Sounds echoed around him, and Yan Qing realized that besides himself, there were three other people in the hall, each occupying a position around the large marble square table in the center.

Like Yan Qing, they were all trying to stand, but were held in place by a strange force.

Their attire, though different, shared a common theme—each was dressed like an animal.

From Yan Qing's perspective, from left to right, they were:

The 'Wolf' wearing a black wolf-skin hood,

The 'Fox' wearing a white fox mask,

The 'Snake' with a scarlet snake molting as a scarf.

But even the 'Wolf' and 'Snake', who didn't have masks, wore face coverings, making it impossible to discern their true faces.

So that's it...

Yan Qing realized something. As if the hall knew their first reaction upon awakening, it had deliberately hung a bronze mirror on the wall in each direction, so Yan Qing could see his own attire with a slight turn of his head:

A furry creature, with fur the color of yellowish firewood... a wolf?

"I didn't expect the rumor of the Thieves' Den secret realm to be true."

The 'Fox' chuckled, his voice full of magnetism, conjuring the image of a peerless young gentleman: "Only the most skilled thieves can be summoned here to participate in big deals. Does that mean you are all fellow professionals?"

"I don't know where you're from, but where I come from, only the dogs of the authorities inquire about others' affairs." The 'Snake' leaned lazily against the chair, but his words were sharp: "I'm here to see if there's a big score, not to make friends."

"See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil." The 'Wolf's' voice was steady, sounding like an adult who had been through the mill in the martial world for many years: "Since the Thieves' Den has provided us with disguises, let us address each other by our code names."

"I am Black Wolf."

"You are White Fox."

"He is Red Snake."

"And the one sitting in the main seat, the Thief King... is Yellow Dog."

Yan Qing's eyes widened, subconsciously forgetting his situation, and he argued, "My mask is clearly a wolf!"

"What wolf? It's clearly a country mutt! And one that's useless except for guarding the house, not even worth taking hunting." White Fox took out a folding fan from somewhere, gently unfolded it to cover his mask, and mocked without reservation: "Strange, strange, according to the Thieves' Den's standards, the four of us should be the most skilled thieves below the fourth level of Qi Refinement, and the one sitting in the main seat should be the Thief King below Foundation Establishment, but this year's Thief King didn't manage to snatch a wolf, nor a fox or a snake, and could only snatch a dog mask?"

"Perhaps the mask has no direct relationship with strength." Red Snake seemed to be speaking up for Yan Qing, but his tone changed: "Maybe the Thieves' Den arranged it according to our personalities? Could it be that the Thief King can't be an honest and loyal canine? Right?"

Faced with their heckling, Yan Qing remained silent, not because he was too angry to speak, but because White Fox and Red Snake's words revealed a very important piece of information.

"Stop arguing." Black Wolf suddenly said.

At this moment, the stone table suddenly contracted, revealing a large hole, and a giant sand table slowly rose from the hole. Taking advantage of this time when no one was speaking, Yan Qing finally sorted out his thoughts and realized where he was!

After graduating, he joined a game company as a level designer. The company mainly operated a fantasy-style MMORPG called The Herald, but Yan Qing was a pure single-player enthusiast and hated having to "go to work" in the game after getting off work, so he had hardly ever played his own company's game.

After following his colleagues to fix a few dungeons, the company felt that Yan Qing's workload wasn't saturated enough, so they gave him more responsibility—designing new dungeons. But after all, he was a new employee, so Yan Qing was naturally not qualified to design the version's final eight-person dungeon. Instead, he was assigned to design a low-level four-person dungeon to practice.

While designing, Yan Qing had a whimsical idea: wouldn't it be attractive to connect the dungeon with the main world? So he tinkered for a week and finally submitted a proposal called Thieves' Den. According to his design, the location of the Thieves' Den dungeon would naturally be in the Thieves' Den, which was a secret safe house arranged by the legendary Thief King. No one knew where the Thieves' Den was, and only the most skilled thieves would be invited to enter.

Thieves' Den was a four-person dungeon. After being invited to enter, players would appear in a cave hall, and their appearance would be automatically disguised by the system as thieves to enhance the atmosphere—after all, many players' appearances were particularly bizarre, and going through the story felt like an alien gathering.

Yan Qing still remembered that he completed this proposal at home while working overtime, and fell asleep as soon as he sent the email. When he opened his eyes again, he had already arrived here.

The cave in front of him, the four thieves whose appearances had been disguised—wasn't this completely in line with the Thieves' Den he designed!

So I not only transmigrated into the world of The Herald, but also entered the dungeon I designed right from the start!?

The sand table gradually became complete, and even moving figures appeared inside, lifelike, as if the entire city had been moved onto this round table. Several lines of text appeared above the sand table, clearly visible to the four of them from any direction:

"Target of this theft: Chang'an, Anguo Temple, Bingzi Jiaolin"

"Landing point: East Archway of Vermillion Bird Avenue"

"Landing time: Three quarters past noon, five days from now"

"Extraction point: Stay within Vermillion Bird Avenue for a quarter of an hour to return to Thieves' Den"

"Extraction deadline: Five quarters past noon"

"Theft successful: Obtain the Relic·Bingzi Jiaolin"

"Theft failed: Deduct 9,000 Spirit Jade, permanently lose the qualification to enter Thieves' Den"

At the same time, golden light emerged from the Golden Hall of a temple on the sand table, and the hall became transparent. Everyone could see a silver-white straight-bladed sword hidden in the giant golden cabinet at the innermost part of the hall!

Just like Yan Qing designed, the special feature of the Thieves' Den dungeon was that the dungeon was only a place for preparation and planning, and the real combat took place in the main world.

However, the focus of this dungeon was still the planning stage. If the plan was prepared properly, it might be possible to succeed in the theft without even fighting, but once combat was triggered, they might be surrounded and beaten, leading to mission failure.

This might be interesting in the game, but it would be different if it became the real world—stealing a national treasure-level item in the central area of the city was simply risking one's life!

"Bingzi Jiaolin? Isn't that Emperor Zhou's sword? It's not in the palace, but in Anguo Temple?" White Fox became excited: "It's indeed a treasure worth stealing."

"This reward is interesting..." Red Snake lightly tapped the table: "It's actually turning Bingzi Jiaolin into a Relic..."

"How will it be divided then?" Black Wolf asked: "There's only one Bingzi Jiaolin."

"Let's not mention that there are other treasures in the safe where Bingzi Jiaolin is kept. We can just sell Bingzi Jiaolin to Great Qi or Great Liang." White Fox laughed: "Even if Bingzi Jiaolin is useless as a Relic, there will definitely be a lot of people willing to buy this sword at a high price to humiliate Great Zhou."

Suddenly, a voice rang in everyone's ears: "Movement unlocked, personal rooms opened, teleportation opened, please return to Thieves' Den before landing, otherwise it will be regarded as theft failure."

Black Wolf tried it and could indeed stand up, so he immediately said, "I have something to do, I'll leave first. Let's gather at this time tomorrow to discuss the theft plan."

After saying that, he ignored the reactions of the others, turned around and walked into the door behind him. The door made a crisp locking sound, indicating that others could not enter the personal room.

"So aloof," White Fox waved his fan and said leisurely, "Then let's ignore him and talk about—"

With a snap, Yan Qing directly closed the door, his speed as fast as if he was running away. White Fox looked at Red Snake, Red Snake returned a cold look, the two looked at each other for a moment, and turned to enter their own rooms.

In the personal room, Yan Qing finally felt relieved.

Logically speaking, they should be teammates in Thieves' Den and unable to attack each other, but this was not a game, and Yan Qing didn't dare to gamble.

He checked his pockets and moved his body slightly, quickly confirming a fact:

Although he had transmigrated into the game world, he was just an ordinary person.

To be precise, an un-promoted, roughly level 1 mortal!

And the entry threshold for the Thieves' Den dungeon he designed should be above first promotion and below fourth promotion, that is, level 10~39, but he hadn't even reached the minimum level.

Similarly, he didn't have the currency of this world: Spirit Jade.

He remembered that many of the Herald's mission penalties were deductions of Spirit Jade. If Spirit Jade was insufficient (generally players wouldn't be poor to this extent), they would directly die and have a certain amount of experience deducted. The more Spirit Jade was lacking, the more experience was deducted.

Losing experience was one thing, but if Yan Qing didn't prepare nine thousand Spirit Jade within these five days, once the theft failed...

Could he abandon the mission?

Of course, he could. Not stealing was equivalent to abandoning it, but it would result in Spirit Jade deduction or death—for players, this penalty was insignificant.

But Yan Qing was a real person!

Yan Qing forced himself to calm down, realizing things weren't so bad—although he didn't know why he had transmigrated into this dungeon as a member of the thieves, the other three thieves seemed very powerful. Perhaps the three of them could complete this theft mission, and Yan Qing could just tag along.

But...

There was a peephole in the door. Yan Qing peered out through the peephole and found that no one was in the hall, indicating that the three teammates had returned to their rooms.

These teammates weren't transmigrators like him, nor were they players. They were probably natives of this world.

Yan Qing was sure because the words he blurted out during the argument were in the language of this world, the same language used by the three teammates. He didn't know why he could understand it, so Yan Qing didn't react at first until he spoke and felt something was wrong.

But they were very familiar with the Thieves' Den dungeon, even knowing what kind of people the Thieves' Den would recruit. They weren't afraid of stealing treasures, indicating they were a group of outlaws who knew the world view well.

Once they discovered he was surprisingly weak, it was hard to say whether they would attack him—even in normal online games, there were small account killers like Three Seasons Rice, let alone in the law of the jungle reality?

Moreover, this was a world with extraordinary power. As long as one reached level 10 and advanced, they would be far beyond what mortals could resist!

Therefore, Yan Qing not only had to get through this theft but also couldn't let his teammates discover he was a very weak freeloader!

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