Han Xiao did not arrive quietly but made it known to everyone. The army’s subdivision sent an announcement to all its members to welcome the arrival of their Army Commander. The many new faction members all went to watch. They had heard a lot about Black Star of the Shattered Star Ring, but never had they seen this big boss with their own eyes.
On Planet Gilman and in the army’s subdivision, countless players witnessed a spaceship flying out from the blue stargate and approaching the subdivision.
Whoosh!
The spaceship flew toward the entrance of the dock, then linked with the electromagnetic rails and entered the wide dock.
The dock was already filled with players. Countless people broadcast the event to the forums with excitement.
As the hatch opened, wearing a black robe, Han Xiao walked out with a few hovering guards behind his head. He smiled and connected to the quantum network with his mind.
The next moment, Han Xiao’s face appeared on the communicators of the countless people present.
“I’m Black Star. Welcome to the army.”
His voice emerged simultaneously throughout all the communicators and mixed into one sound with echoes. It felt grand.
The people were shocked. They had never seen a high-level Mechanic hack into so many communicators instantly, and it even looked easy. Unlike the old players in the Shattered Star Ring who had been alongside Han Xiao for three versions, the people there had only met Calamity Grades at most during their storylines. This was the first time that they had come in close contact with a Beyond Grade A.
Having heard so many rumors about Han Xiao on the forums, the Constellation Corridor players had a lot of thoughts about Han Xiao. Through seeing Han Xiao with their own eyes for the first time, the initial image that Han Xiao had given them was unfathomable.
Vodka was mixed in the crowd and used the [Detect] ability on Han Xiao. The players around all did the same.
_____________________
Based on your level, only the following information is available.
Han Xiao—Black Star Army Commander (Green)
Level: ?
Attributes: ?
Abilities: ?
Danger Scale: Fatally Dangerous
_____________________
“All question marks, as expected,” Vodka murmured softly.
Ames followed right after and stood alongside Han Xiao. Hila and the others followed them down as well.
Ames looked around at the countless people around. Then she glanced at Han Xiao and said with a faint smile, “Congratulations, your army has expanded again.”
“That doesn’t sound very sincere,” Han Xiao joked.
Suddenly, a change occurred!
Pa!
A strong light suddenly appeared in the crowd and blinded the people’s sights.
Boom!
Dozens of people dashed out from the crowd and suddenly attacked Han Xiao and the others together. All kinds of cannons, spells, and Esper Abilities were thrown toward them.
With an expressionless face, Hila took a step forward and tapped her fingers. Dark red energy beams shot out like lightning and penetrated all those people’s bodies in an instant, killing them with ease.
The next moment, those attackers turned into white light and disappeared—they were players.
Han Xiao’s lips twitched, but he was not surprised.
Although he had tons of players working for the army, he had never forgotten the fact that ‘players’ were the representation of anarchy. There would always be a group of people that would cause trouble for all sorts of reasons. Since a big boss like him had appeared, dozens of funny players decided to attack him without thinking of the consequences.
The Chinese players back in the Shattered Star Ring who had known him for three versions would never do something like this, but the army was new to the Constellation Corridor. Furthermore, the players there were daring foreigners who loved to try out all kinds of possibilities.
The players were startled before they exchanged looks after regaining focus.
Some people had actually attacked the Beyond Grade A boss, Black Star, knowing that they would never succeed. What a group of gamblers! The players there had just joined the army, so they were not angered by this.
The question marks on the character information did not give them too strong an image, but when the officers beside Black Star easily slaughtered dozens of Grade B players, the players realized the power difference. Some players who had initially harbored ulterior motives but had yet to make a move secretly gave up those thoughts.
This kind of boss was stronger than all the NPCs they had ever seen. They would probably die instantly if they tried to attack him.
Among the Constellation Corridor players who had joined the army, there were definitely some time bombs, which Han Xiao was not surprised about. He told Phillip a few words in his mind, and Phillip immediately issued a wanted status to those attackers through the army assistant program. The army subdivision was completely under Phillip’s surveillance, so finding out who those attackers were was a piece of cake.
Ding!
A notification popped up immediately on the players’ communicators. They were shocked to see the wanted order.
“The people earlier are wanted, and there’s a reward for killing them every time!”
“I seem to know a few of them. I even added them as friends.”
“Whoa, even their coordinates are on the communicator. They’ve revived right here on Planet Gilman.”
“Hehe…”
Most people gloated. Having seen the consequences of attacking the army’s officers, some people who had intended to do so gave up.
Being wanted by the army meant those attackers became red named players to the army members and would be chased by countless players. Their future… looked grim.
Han Xiao was already very familiar with this process. Not only did the attackers not anger him, but they made him feel delighted. They were basically handing him a pillow when he was sleepy—they were great friends who sacrificed themselves to help Han Xiao build a reputation!
How nice of them!
Through this, the players of the Constellation Corridor would know that there were consequences for causing trouble!
This small interlude did not stir up any storm. Han Xiao looked around at the players and crossed the crowd with Ames and the others.
The players all stepped back and gave way, watching Han Xiao leave, before gradually leaving the dock themselves.
Han Xiao pondered on the way.
“The Constellation Corridor players have no sense of belonging to the army, of course. Profit and benefits are the main reason they’ve joined. I will let people slowly teach them the army’s history to strengthen their unity…”
He was not planning to personally build relationships with these people like he did back in the Shattered Star Ring. There were a few reasons for that.
Firstly, through all these years, the Black Star Army had already built its appeal through its power, image, fame, brand, and many other factors. This was the main tool to attract the players. The faction store could basically satisfy all the needs of the players. As long as they spent in the faction store, they would bring him profit. He did not have to do things personally.
Secondly, too many players wanted to farm his Favorability to trigger missions or learn abilities. Hence, they always came to chat with him in groups and gave him gifts. Han Xiao did not want to be accepting gifts his every waking second.
The third reason was his identity. As the army commander, it should not be too easy for most people to contact him, as the level system in the army had to be maintained. Therefore, Han Xiao had long set a rule that only those who had accumulated a certain amount of Contribution Points and were at the middle level among all the members could request to see the army commander or the army’s high-level officers.Read more chapter on NovelFull
To the players, this was a chance to learn abilities from these characters. Han Xiao used this player mindset to increase their passion to farm the Contribution Points by doing missions, giving them chances to farm Favorability with the officers of the army. They would only be able to learn special abilities from characters when the Favorability was high enough. This basically made the Favorability of him and the officers a rare item to the players, so the players would put in more effort for them.
Having farmed leeks for more than a decade, Han Xiao was already a complete pro at these things.
“Currently, most of the Constellation Corridor players are still considering whether to stay or leave. I shall stay here for around a month before I leave so that they have enough time to consider. At the same time, I’ll wait for the Crimson Dynasty to prepare the troops to explore the Flickering World.”
…
Initially, Han Xiao thought him being attacked by the Constellation Corridor players was just a trivial matter. But to his surprise, it caused an impact beyond his expectations on the forums—it made the Chinese players in the Shattered Star Ring very displeased.
Throughout three versions, the Chinese players had the deepest emotional connection with the Black Star Army and saw it as their main faction. As the army commander, Han Xiao was their recognized faction leader.
However, when their army commander went to another Star Field to recruit more members, he was attacked by the players over there. It made the Chinese players feel that this was an insult to the army commander’s kind intentions.
Although they knew this would never cause any danger to the army commander, many Chinese players found it unacceptable. It was like something they loved being treated roughly by an outsider. This stimulated their unity, and the atmosphere on the forums changed very quickly, resulting in intense arguments between two sides.
However, this did not affect Han Xiao’s plan. He still stayed in the Planet Gilman subdivision with the others and waited for the players to gather and make up their minds.
Of course, he was not just waiting. While waiting, he spent his days in the mechanical workshop, expanding his mechanical army and inventing new high-level machinery blueprints.
After settling down for two days, Han Xiao contacted the Crimson Dynasty’s people and requested an Ultimate Knowledge. This time, the dynasty did not reject him. By spending 6,000 Contribution Points, he finally obtained the first Ultimate Knowledge that he had been wanting for a very long time.
Energy Branch—[Mechanical Life Tinder]!
This was the prerequisite knowledge to activate the core ability of Emperor Mechanic, [King’s Mentor].
The class knowledge tree of the Mechanic class was divided into five levels—Basic, Advanced, High-End, Cutting-Edge, and Ultimate. Their impact on a Mechanic increased as the levels increased. As the highest-level class knowledge, every single Ultimate Knowledge was able to provide completely over the top changes to a Mechanic in a certain field!
For example, this knowledge gave Mechanics the real ability to turn machinery into mechanical lives. It was basically the ability of a live-creating God!
This ability could turn machinery from lifeless objects into living units. To put it simply, they would no longer have Item Details on the interface but Character Information, like NPCs. They would have levels, attributes, abilities, and could keep leveling up with complete growth potential. They could even grow into elite models or even boss models!
Of course, good things were never cheap. Not mentioning the difficulty in learning any Ultimate Knowledge, just the Potential Point cost of learning one was very expensive.
The cost of learning knowledges originally increased by one at every level—one point for Basic, two points for Advanced, three points for High-End, and four points for Cutting-Edge. The cost to learn Ultimate Knowledges, however, instantly doubled and required eight Potential Points. This was just the cost of the main branch knowledges. If it was from another branch, it would triple just like before and become twenty-four Potential Points!
Han Xiao was a Virtual Mechanic, and [Mechanical Life Tinder] was the Ultimate Knowledge of the Energy Branch, so the cost to level it up was indeed twenty-four Potential Points every level.
It was extremely difficult for normal players to obtain twenty-four Potential Points. Other than leveling up, the way for Mechanic players to obtain Potential Points was basically to level up blueprint abilities to the max level one after another, which needed tons of EXP.
Therefore, to the Mechanic players in the later stages, they did missions and earned EXP to level up their abilities and get Potential Points. They would have to continue earning EXP even if they had reached the maximum level allowed in the version.
Usually, only extremely high skilled players or professional players had such high needs. However, professional players had their clubs to train their accounts for them, so it would not be too tiring. For casual players, however, they had no choice but to give and take. Most Mechanic players only learned the Ultimate Knowledge for their own branch.
Things were different for the Great Mechanic Han. The outrageously expensive Potential Point cost for Ultimate Knowledges of other branches was more than enough to make the players despair, but it was not unbearable for him.
He had leeks!
Due to the penalty from using the Evolution Cube, Han Xiao had not leveled up at all lately. He had stocked up on a ton of EXP, which had now come into use. He opened the interface, picked out many blueprint abilities, and spent EXP to level them up to max level one after another.
On the interface, his Potential Points kept growing little by little, finally reaching twenty-four. This cost him quite a lot of EXP.
As the total level of the character increased, the level up cost of the low-level abilities would also grow. The players could choose to slowly level up to reduce that cost, but it would cost a few problems. Firstly, there were too many blueprints, and the low-level blueprints would be obsolete as the players’ level increased. Secondly, they would only be able to do the corresponding level missions if they did not level up, so the speed of earning EXP would naturally be slower than higher level players. Once they were behind, it would be very difficult to catch up. Therefore, there were pros and cons to not leveling up, and it depended on the individual.
Usually, only those who made smurf accounts, such as account boosters like the Great Mechanic Han, would choose to earn more Potential Points and not level up.
Ever since the beginning, however, Han Xiao had been destined to never walk that path.
“Twenty-two, twenty-three… twenty-four!” Seeing that he had sufficient Potential Points, Han Xiao immediately used all of them to learn the Ultimate Knowledge.
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Learning…
Complete! You have learned [Mechanical Life Tinder]!
Prerequisite met. You have activated [King’s Mentor]!
You have received the talent [Ultimate Knowledge Possessor]!
[Ultimate Knowledge Possessor]: +15% attributes for the machinery you built, +150% Machinery Affinity. You now hold the understanding of a Mechanic class Ultimate Knowledge; you are a Mechanic master.
You have received the talent [Mechanical Life Creator]!
[Mechanical Life Creator]: Mechanical Lives created by you will see you as their god. Their faith and loyalty are deeply buried in their most fundamental logic. When accepting bonuses from your Mechanical Force, they will receive the [Encouragement] effect and have +10% Basic Stats.
You have acquired the ability [Tinder Awakening]!
[Tinder Awakening]: This ability can turn machinery into mechanical lives, igniting the mind tinder of mechanical lives.
Requirement: This can only be used on machinery enhanced by [King’s Mentor] and [Machinery Fusion]. It can be used on multiple targets at the same time. No cooldown.
Cost: 50% health, 50% energy, 80% Stamina.
Due to [Tinder Awakening], your [Emperor’s Gift] has received new effects.
Changes: When you use [Emperor’s Gift] on a mechanical life, there’s a chance to upgrade the target’s model and grant it higher growth potential. For example, a normal model can be upgraded to an elite model. Remarks: The higher the target’s model is, the smaller the chance of this effect being triggered.
