Chapter 630: Development Status and Bottleneck
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
In the headquarters of the Black Star Army on Planet Golden Gate, a battle was currently going on.
Bang!
A black, streamlined, mechanical soldier knocked five purplish blue mechanical warriors aside and charged in front of Reynold while withstanding the laser beams being shot out from ten artillery towers. The arm of the mechanical soldier changed form into eight gears that rotated at high speed and struck Reynold’s s.h.i.+eld.
Reynold had a solemn expression on his face and left an electromagnetic trap behind as he retreated. At the same time, he released a blinding bolt of Mechanical Force lightning. He then used a skill to boost the might of his artillery towers and sent out a barrage of never-ending fire.
Ka ka ka!
All of a sudden, the black mechanical soldier suddenly disintegrated into black nanoparticles and flew back to the side of a figure not too far away. The black nanoparticles then reconstructed themselves back into the form of a mechanical soldier and stood beside this figure silently.
“You are becoming more and more powerful. It is only a matter of time before you breakthrough into the Calamity Grade,” Han Xiao said with praise while clapping his hands.
Compared to two years earlier, Han Xiao was still young and handsome with his height increasing a bit. His aura was even more unfathomable than before. Han Xiao was currently dressed in a low-profile black windbreaker and was not wearing a mechanical suit.
“This is all thanks to your tutelage,” Reynold said solemnly.
Han Xiao waved his hand and said out of politeness, “It is because of your talent.”
After two years of guidance, Reynold was growing closer and closer to the Energy Rank of Grade A. He frequently exchanged pointers with Han Xiao, and since both of them were comrades, there was no need to exhaust each other. Thus, they would limit their spar to a small area and only test the strength and control of their machines.
The black mechanical soldier beside Han Xiao was one of the new models that Han Xiao had researched over the past two years. It had the ability of nano transformation, and its individual capability was spectacular, exceeding that of the Protectors. It was an elite machine that belonged to Han Xiao’s Calamity Grade a.r.s.enal called [Phantom].
Reynold would always be shocked whenever he exchanged pointers with Black Star. Black Star would always be able to take out a different but powerful machine and would make use of him to test out his new machines. Reynold could not imagine how many different blueprints Black Star actually had.
Even at his level, it was no easy task to learn a single blueprint, and researching a new machine would take even more effort. However, Reynold just was not able to grasp Black Star’s realm, and he could not understand why Black Star’s efficiency in researching new machines was so frightening.
Furthermore, Reynold could feel that Han Xiao could deal with him more and more easily whenever they exchanged pointers. Black Star was already a Calamity Grade Super, but he did not seem to have a bottleneck and could continuously grow stronger. This made Reynold extremely baffled and felt that Han Xiao was unfathomable.
Reynold had always felt that he was an extremely talented individual and had great confidence in his own abilities. However, Han Xiao truly dealt a huge blow to his confidence. Reynold felt a sense of inferiority before Han Xiao with his att.i.tude becoming more and more humble.
There was truly too much for him to learn from Black Star, and Reynold hated the fact that he could not use every minute of his life to follow Han Xiao and record his every single action.
After putting his machine away, Han Xiao suddenly thought of something and casually asked, “How are the logistic reserves for the army?”
When it came to work, Reynold’s expression grew serious, and he replied unhurriedly, “We have ample stock for all the different resources, and our reserves are healthy. Only Bases 17, 21, and 24 have a shortage of resources, and they mainly lack ammunition, fuel, and materials for commonly used machines. Four days ago, I channeled resources from the five nearest bases, and the first wave of resources should reach in two days…”
Upon hearing the report, Han Xiao nodded and got Reynold to leave while he thought to himself in his room.
Over the past two years, the Black Star Army had experienced rapid growth, and just as industry insiders predicted, they gradually monopolized all the employment missions within the Garton Star System and set up dozens of bases across the Garton Star System. They had even built an office on the mother planet of G.o.dora.
The one million or so players brought the Black Star Army endless benefits. Han Xiao borrowed the hen to lay eggs, and the reputation of the Black Star Army grew continuously. As the scale of the Black Star Army expanded, more and more freelance mercenaries were attracted to join the Black Star Army.
Currently, apart from the one million or so cannon… cough, players, the army had a hundred thousand official mercenaries. Furthermore, the number of students that they were training in the various training camps had three to four times this number. Even by relying on only NPC mercenaries, the Black Star Army was an undeniable super-sized mercenary group.
The target of the training camps was no longer limited to the freelance mercenaries that did not make the cut but also ordinary individuals without any foundation. In the various bases on all the different planets, there would definitely be young individuals who wanted to enter the universe or become Supers.
The entire army was restructured with a clear system being developed to ensure that it could be managed more efficiently. The officers all had their own roles with some of them becoming managers of a region to manage hundreds of mercenary teams, trump card mercenaries to tackle high difficulty missions, commanders of fleets, instructors of the training camps, prosperity figures, and the female secretaries of the Army Commander.
The position of vice Army Commander is still empty. The individual who sat in this position needed to be sufficiently powerful in order to convince everyone in the army. Han Xiao was the only Calamity Grade Super in the entire Army, and his vice commander would also have to be of the Calamity Grade. Among all his officers, only Reynold was the nearest to the Calamity Grade.
Over the past two years, Han Xiao had hired over a hundred Grade B Supers. There were some who took the initiative to join the army, and others were elites who he sought based on his memory. There were some low-grade protagonist level characters to fill up the middle ranks of the army.
After monopolizing the entire Garton Star System, Han Xiao continued his expansion with the Garton Star System as the core. He also began to target the surrounding few Star Systems and s.n.a.t.c.hed a portion of the markets.
The larger the market that his army occupied, the greater the demand on the strength of his market.
As a young teen who grew up in a capitalistic society, Han Xiao invested all his resources into the construction of new bases and the expansion of his fleet. He tried his very best to create a never-ending cycle of benefits.
Currently, the Black Star Army had 26 fleets, which were in charge of various responsibilities such as battle, transport, reinforcements, and so on. The Black Star Army had a total of 1,600 battles.h.i.+ps, and the truth showed that robbing galactic pirates… cough cough, getting rid of tyrants to help the weak was a very beneficial action.
The number of Black Star Army bases also increased to 34, and apart from Noriosse and Rossozzi, the Black Star Army had three new sponsors. Two of them were ordinary financial groups, and one of them was actually the G.o.doran government. They had also increased the strategic resources provided to the Black Star Army, and the relations.h.i.+p between the two had grown even closer.
The influence of their faction expanded even further, and the Black Star Army was now ranked among the famous private organizations within the Colton Star Cl.u.s.ter. This time, it was Floating Dragon Island that benefited from the fame of the Black Star Army. The strength of the Floating Dragon field team made it such that Ames was no longer the only deterrent force in Floating Dragon.
However, Han Xiao could feel that the development of his faction was reaching a bottleneck.
As a mercenary group, the Black Star Army had already reached the peak, and if they continued to expand their operations, their efficiency would only decrease. Distance was a very obvious restriction. The larger the scope of their operations, the greater the requirement of a faction’s strength. Monopolizing the Garton Star System was already the limit, and they did not have the ability to monopolize a second Star System.
The other reason behind the bottleneck of a faction was the nature of a faction. A mercenary group was a more relaxed organization, and if they wanted to enter the next level, the organization would have to be transformed to let the employment missions be of secondary importance. The faction would have to become a semi-private armed organization like Bloodshed Land.
The difficulty of such a task was extremely high, and this was not the right time to make such a change. However, Han Xiao was one to plan far ahead and knew that this was something that they had to do eventually.
“The only thing I don’t have to worry about is my strength…”
In the blink of an eye, Han Xiao was already at level 170. His level had only risen by over twenty levels, and he was currently stuck on the [Galaxy Mechanic] Cla.s.s Advancement Mission.
This was because Han Xiao did not place his attention on leveling up but stored most of his experience points up. His stash of experience points was already sky high, and even at his current level, the amount of experience that he had stored up was enough for tens of levels.
However, Han Xiao did not do so. He had not met any strong opponents over the past two years and was not in a rush to increase his level. As such, he invested his experience points into his skills in exchange for Potential Points and gambled on a large number of blueprints.
More importantly, Han Xiao considered the problem of the next version update.
The time taken for the next version update would be a full ten years in the game. This meant that he would not be able to harvest anything for a full ten years. His experience stash was like his rations for the winter, and the more the merrier.
“We are already at the end of Version 2.0. The version update should be coming after the Pro League. Sigh, that’s a full ten years…”
Han Xiao could not help but let out a long sigh of worry. He then opened his interface to take a look at his personal stats.
_____________________
Level: 170
Main Cla.s.s: Mechanic
Race: Chaos Observer (Human Form)
Attributes: 254 STR, 634 DEX, 608 END, 1956 INT, 263 MYS, 105 CHA, 1 LUK
Free Attribute Points: 0
Potential Point: 31
Health: 93,732
Stamina: 94,180
Energy: 17,580 [Lv.11]
Lv.11 Energy bonus stat: +111 STR, +158 DEX, +174 END, +204 INT, +129 MYS, +21,220 Stamina Limit, +142% Machinery Affinity
Energy Rank: 14,780
Grade: A
Grade A Ranked Bonus: +10 END Bonus, +8 All Resistances, +10% Highest Stat(s), +5% Other Stats, Additional 30 Free Attribute Points, Additional 5 Potential Points
You are an experienced Grade A Super, and your enemies will have a taste of their nightmares.
_____________________
Compared to the development of the faction, his own strength did not face a bottleneck. If he met a perverse Cla.s.s Advancement or Promotion mission, he still had the option of using a Mission Completion Card.
As long as his experience stash could keep up, his own strength would increase rapidly. This was something that Han Xiao did not need to worry too much about.
His level was not the only thing that contributed to his strength. In the past two years, Han Xiao had looked around for talents.
While Han Xiao still had no clue on how to obtain Reynold’s talent, Han Xiao managed to grab a similar talent, [Elementary Grade Mechanical Sense], and finally had a Mechanic Cla.s.s talent.
His [Intermediate Strengthened Life] talent also gave him a few notifications that it was strengthened. Han Xiao estimated that he should be able to level the talent up if he consumed a couple of Genetic Medicine of rare lifeforms.
It was a pity that Molding Abilities were extremely rare, and Han Xiao had only managed to obtain ordinary talents in the past two years.
Apart from the change of attributes on his interface, the change in his combat strength was even more obvious!
Han Xiao’s Mechanical Army had been expanded a couple of times, and he had strengthened the battle tactics of the various styles. He had added many new Calamity Grade machines, and his combat capabilities were more well-rounded than before. He was a changed man from two years ago, and Han Xiao felt that he should be able to fight five to six of himself from two years ago at once.
Whoos.h.!.+
At this moment, the room door suddenly swung open, and Sylvia was standing outside.
“Teacher, I finally found you. There are a couple of mercenaries who wish to meet you. They say that they have some important intelligence.”
Two years ago, Sylvia had still been a budding young lady, and now, she had matured greatly. She was a beautiful young lady with nice curves and the perfect height. She was glowing with radiance, her eyes like the starry night sky.
Her position was Han Xiao’s secretary, and her potential was fully unleashed by Han Xiao.
The homework that Han Xiao gave to her could make the Sylvia from two years ago crack her head with frustration but was extremely easy to the current Sylvia. She grew up faster by the day. Although her potential had not been converted to strength because of the lack of time, she could unleash the strength of a C+ Super with the mechanical suit that Han Xiao had built for her. She was able to exchange a few blows with an ordinary Grade B Super and was slowly gaining the aura of the ‘Mechanical Lady Knight’ from Han Xiao’s previous life.
Han Xiao glanced at Sylvia for a while before asking, “Who wants to meet me?”
“These few individuals.” Sylvia handed some information over to Han Xiao, who was stunned for a moment when he saw it. The ones who wanted to see him were Frenzied Sword, Hao Tian, and the gang.