Chapter 410: The Beginning of Suffering
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
After glancing over the players’ anticipation-filled eyes, Han Xiao opened the faction panel and put in Sunil NCO Class armor along with some low level machinery blueprints that he had combined earlier and did not need anymore.
Blueprints were only usable for Mechanics. The main seller was the NCO Class armor. He earned the extra repairing fees and enhancing fees from the players’ Enlistee Class armor last time. Now that he had introduced the NCO Class armor, those players with money in their pockets would not be petty.
There were three types of Sunil Armor—Defense, Offense, and Scouting. The NCO Class armor was enhanced in all three types. On average, their armor durability was three times higher than the Enlistee Class armor, the total attributes bonus was fifteen points greater, and the melee damage was increased by twenty points.
There were also new parts. The scouting style armor could move very fast; it had spring mechanics in its legs, which allowed the user to jump higher and further, and chain blades could be ejected out of the arm, which meant that it would not be afraid of close distance combat.
The defense style armor was equipped with heavy firepower. Weighted toward long-range combat, it had a handheld high caliber cannon with armor-piercing bullets, and the cannon could be folded. After expanding it, the cannon was about one-man size. With every shot, the flame from the cannon was like a cloud of thick smoke from an explosion, and the bullet shot out was like a mini flaming meteor. Its fire rate was very high, its bullet magazine capacity was 250, and there were many backup magazines.
The offense style had the advantages of both of the other styles—it was well rounded.
Some time ago, Li Ge had exchanged an NCO Class armor for the Secret Message Bead—it was a scouting style armor. Because of this, the others knew about the attributes of the armor and were all envious. Once they saw that the faction store had updated, they were all excited. There was no need for introduction, they all bought it as fast as possible.
The price he set was 1,400 Enas, and he also set a Reputation cost, which was 1,000 Reputation points. He had set that between 0 to 1,000 Favorability, 50 Enas could exchange for 100 Faction Reputation. The players had spent 500 Reputation points last time when they bought the Enlistee Class armor and spent all their Reputation points. After this mission, Han Xiao had rewarded them another 300 points. Such a scheme meant that the real cost of buying an NCO Class armor was 1,750 Enas.
The players received about 5,000 Enas from the Silver as a reward, and this would cost them more than a third of that. However, the players did not hesitate at all. The pro players earned money for the sake of buying equipment to increase their strength as much as they could.
There were seven NCO Class armors in stock—the rest were all preorders. The players were used to it, and they did not doubt the faction’s credibility at all. The first seven people to purchase got the physical item. It was made of gray metal—thick, tough, and angular. It was uniquely attractive.
Frenzied Sword got one. He wore it quickly and put on the helmet. His vision became overlapped with the analytical vision from the helmet. Every item that he saw had a database tag on it. A mechanical mixed voice appeared in the helmet.
“Welcome to Black Star. Your serial number is H-A0001. Carrying out auto-check... Check complete. Armor status: 100%. Liquid power: intact. Weapon system: intact. Spring system: intact. User vital signs: normal.”
Frenzied Sword tried moving his arms and legs, creating the clankings of mechanical parts moving, adding power to his movements. His punches made whooshes in the air.
This armor is so much stronger than the Enlistee Class armor. I bought the scouting type, so it’s very mobile, which works very nicely with heavy weapons, decreasing the effect of the bulkiness. I will be able to battle very swiftly, Frenzied Sword happily thought.
As a Mechanical Pugilist, he used melee weapons most of the time. The NCO Class armor gave him the most benefits as compared to others.
The Mechanic class was the class with the highest armor bonuses. The players of other classes could use them too, and its effect was pretty decent; it gave them extra protection and firepower as well as more health. Mostly, they needed the various functions of the armor. For example, the very paper 1mages could wear a protective armor, then stand still and only do damage output. This kind of mixed style was very strange and funny.
The Enlistee Class and NCO Class armors were uniform armors. The stronger Commander Class was for Supers, and it had even stronger attributes. Han Xiao had yet to learn how to build it.
As always, Han Xiao held back when building the armor, leaving room for enhancements.
Other than armor, the few Mechanic players in the faction liked the newly added blueprints more. They were afraid and careful every time they gambled on blueprints, and now they could directly learn quite a few blueprints from Han Xiao. They were overjoyed.
The blueprints that Han Xiao put in were, of course, types that were not important but were still useful regardless. He kept the important blueprints for himself and sold the not-so-important ones. It was more effective this way.
Maple Moon’s eyes were shining, and her cute face was filled with joy.
“Optical Confusion Trap, this is not bad. Wait, that Scattered Shot Turret is quite good as well...”
Even though Maple Moon was considered as a quite casual girl, the Mechanic class had still made her develop a habit to control her spending very tightly. One blueprint only cost 300 to 400 Enas, much cheaper than gambling blueprints. She used her fingers to press one time after another, buying again and again.
Han Xiao paid more attention to the Mechanic players. Not only because they were of the same class as him and it was easier to earn their money, but also because they could become his helpers once they grew stronger, which might help him to enter the next stage of the Mechanic class in advance.
Of course, the other pro players did not care about these blueprints. Only the NCO Class armor suited their taste.
Selling things was not Han Xiao’s main goal. He gave out a number of faction missions, which he had prepared long ago, and their rewards were all Dungeon Crystals. He had intercepted some later parts of Germinal Organization storyline and created level 60 dungeons, as well as the recent [Warfare: Power of the Dragon Emperor].
Dungeon Crystals could only act as a mission reward and could not be sold directly, but rules were dead and inflexible. He planned to make these missions that rewarded Dungeon Crystals repeatable missions, and the only requirement to complete that mission was to increase a certain amount of Faction Reputation after accepting the missions.
He purposely set it as ‘increase’ and not ‘reach’ a certain amount. For example, after accepting the mission and increasing Reputation by 500 points, the mission for [Warfare: Power of the Dragon Emperor] would be complete, and that Dungeon Crystal would be rewarded. At the same time, the other dungeon missions with lower numbers would be completed as well, making the players feel they took a shortcut. This way, more players would be attracted to spend money to buy Reputation. Once they spent money to purchase Reputation, they would have to spend it one way or another. The Faction Reputation could only be used with Han Xiao, so this would, in turn, encourage expenditure.
Also, once above 1,000 Favorability, the cost of buying Reputation would increase. If the players wanted more Dungeon Crystals, they would have to repeat the process of ‘buy Reputation, spend money, buy Reputation again’. Although, sometimes, there was no new product, he had many extra services, such as repairing and enhancing.
If the player wanted to buy something initially, this kind of mission would become a bonus reward. It would work as a promotion. If the player just wanted the Dungeon Crystal, it would attract spending.
Anyway, there was only one service belief—Don’t ever have to worry about not being able to spend your money here!
Han Xiao was very bad. He only gave out this mission after the players bought the armor.
“Wow, new missions, and the rewards are Dungeon Crystals.”
“The requirement is to increase Reputation. How sad, if there was this mission earlier, it would already be completed.”
“Actually, it doesn’t matter. We still need to enhance armor and whatnot anyway. Furthermore, there will definitely be chances to use Black Star’s Reputation in the future.”
“Hey, there’s a new dungeon here, Power of the Dragon Emperor? Isn’t this the event that we experienced a few days ago? So, not only does the faction update the store, it also turns our experiences into dungeons!”
They were surprised. The benefit of a growing faction was really so good. This was a pleasant surprise. After they followed Black Star into space, they had yet to meet a dungeon. They did not expect that this faction had dungeon of its own. After they experienced more hires, new events would be turned into new dungeons as well, which meant that they could choose it themselves.
Seeing this, Han Xiao thought, That’s right, if a faction can stably provide dungeons, it’s another type of attractiveness.
The people were most curious about the Dragon Emperor dungeon; this was a new dungeon that they had never seen before.
In the crowd, Bun-Hit-Dog saw [Warfare: Power of the Dragon Emperor]’s mission. Suddenly, his heart started beating faster, and his eyes became brighter.
“This dungeon... the scene back then might be displayed again!”
His heart was pumping fast. He immediately bought 500 Reputation. With excitement, he touched the Dungeon Crystal, and a message popped up on the interface.
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LV 90 Dungeon Crystal—[Warfare: Power of the Dragon Emperor]
Introduction: At the border crossing of Colton Star Cluster’s Holy Stone Civilization and Black Raven Civilization, a mercenary group was chased by the DarkStar fleet. At the most urgent time, [Dragon Emperor] Ames arrived. This will be your test.
Dungeon Type: Backward Time Travel Dungeon
Player limit: 10
Player Completion Count: 0
Highest Dungeon Completion Rate: None
Record Holders: None
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The people extended their head to this direction and saw the item introduction, and they were all shocked by it.
“Level 90 dungeon‽”
This had exceeded their level limit!
The level on Dungeon Crystal did not represent the required level to enter but the suggested level to complete it. Even a level 1 player could enter a level 60 dungeon, but of course, the result of that would be obvious—that player would not be able to do anything inside. Even if the level 1 player found a team of boosters, because of the large difference between them and the dungeon enemies, there will be a very high experience penalty and rating penalty.
Dungeons could be used to farm experience and train skills, but the equipment inside could not be taken back out. However, if the rating was high after completing the dungeon, one could be rewarded with the chance to draw items and equipment from inside. These were the benefits of dungeons. Dungeon had a challenge time limit, which would be refreshed every certain period. In order to receive top tier weapons in the dungeons, if one could not get the highest rating, it would be a dream. Till now, the players from various planets had challenged many dungeons, but the number of dungeons that rewarded good equipment or items was very low, not to mention the difficulty.
Regardless, players had never seen a level 90 dungeon before. They were all shocked by the fact that Black Star Mercenary Group could give out such a high-level dungeon.
Han Xiao smiled in his mind, turned around, and left.
NCO Class armor, blueprints, and dungeon missions—a total of 98,000 Enas profit, close to 100,000. Including the money I already have before this, the balance in my account is already more than 130,000, which is at least enough for three class advancement knowledges! Han Xiao was very satisfied and felt fulfilled.
After he left, the players in the stronghold could not wait to team up. They wanted to see what a level 90 dungeon felt like.
Bun-Hit-Dog teamed up with Frenzied Sword, Maple Moon, and Hao Tian, who were his friends, plus players from Long Sky and other clubs, making up ten players.
He crushed the Dungeon Crystal, a fog flew out and covered everyone, bringing them into the dungeon.
...
The world in their eyes changed. Suddenly, Bun-Hit-Dog and the rest could not control their bodies. The angle of their vision became higher, and they looked down at a very familiar planet—Fawn-122 Planet, where the pursuit took place.
The Silvers’ spaceship took off and rose up through the sky, then was suddenly destroyed. Right after, the DarkStar mothership appeared, sending out a large number of hovering ships to chase the three mercenary spaceships. This was indeed the event that they experienced, but back then, they were all on the spaceships. Now they were watching the process with a third-person perspective. It was a brand new experience.
“This is the cutscene.” Hao Tian was experienced.
Quite a number of dungeons had cutscenes, so they were not surprised. They all could not take their eyes off.
The enormous DarkStar fleet, the chase of countless hovering ships, and the crazy escape of the three mercenary spaceships. The scenes were very impactful. Then, they saw the Sky Ring spaceship suddenly speed up, and its movements became extremely swift and unpredictable. The hovering ship fleet behind was running around like dogs being walked.
“Wow, this is even stronger than drunk driving!”
“I remember Black Phantom was the one piloting that time, no wonder the people on the ship were this dizzy.” Fear still lingered in Frenzied Sword’s heart.
The cutscene was about three minutes long. This was a copy-pasted scene made by the dungeon, not the real scene. The event progress was compressed and modified. The mercenary spaceships went underground at the same time as when the alliance fleet’s reinforcements arrived.
The cutscene ended there. As the captain, Hao Tian received a message.
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The dungeon is about to begin, please choose a faction!
Remarks: Faction chosen will affect the dungeon’s completion targets and difficulty.
Escaping mercenaries: Your mission is to run from the pursuit and last until the Dragon Emperor’s arrival.
DarkStar chasers: Your mission is to capture a certain number of mercenaries before the Dragon Emperor arrives.
Reinforcements: Your mission is to fight against the chasers, protect the target mercenaries from being captured, as well as pick them up—all before the Dragon Emperor arrives.
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