Chapter 57 Preparing for the Version Update

The main members of the mercenary group were currently players. When they disappeared, the only team he could command would be Sunil's squad. There were still too few NPC characters.

"During the period when the players disappear, the mercenary group's income will decrease, so we can temporarily close down and take the time to recruit more characters. When Version 2.0 opens, the Evolved Civilization disaster will break out. Planet Aquamarine's players will begin to connect with the Star Field. Just in time, I have time to do my preparatory work during the version update."

Now, he was already creating huge profits with only fifty or so players. Version 2.0 was the period of explosive profit growth. The fields were full of lush green leeks (players), which could not be harvested enough. After a spring breeze, they would grow again. Just thinking about it, Grand Technician Han was looking forward to next year's harvest.

His goal was to recruit thousands of players and make the Black Star Mercenary Group the guiding force for players entering the interstellar world. Of course, it wasn't as easy as it sounded. He had hidden competitors, namely Godora and DarkStar.

These two forces would use planets as battlefields during the Evolved Civilization disaster and launch local conflicts. Players would choose factions in this situation, and Han Xiao's attempt to intervene was equivalent to snatching food from a tiger's mouth.

But the benefits were also obvious. The two sides were mainly focused on fighting, while he was the only one who was specifically targeting the players. His position in the players' hearts, as well as the faction influence and sense of belonging created by the "Meat Bun" program, could attract players.

The more players recruited, the better. This required him to be fully prepared—the so-called preparations included various benefits, such as equipment, missions, rewards, and so on, to enhance his own strength and influence. Second, there were measures to deal with the Evolved Civilization disaster. The former was aimed at players, and the latter was aimed at the main storyline.

"I have more than 800,000 Enas, which is almost enough to buy two high-end knowledges and complete the class advancement mission. However, I am now level 95. At level 100, I am stuck with an advanced mission. Spending all my money can only raise me by five levels. The most cost-effective way is to get a sub-class first. When I reach level 100, I will take a look at the advancement requirements. If it can't be completed in a short time, then I won't be in a hurry to spend these 800,000. It can be kept as capital. I still have about 1.5 billion experience points. It's not enough to rush to level 120, let alone keep experience to gamble on blueprints and upgrade skills."

Since there were no players to harvest this year, Han Xiao began to calculate carefully. The level 100 advancement was the second chance for race sublimation. He obtained the void gene from the Void Dragon Bone Marrow, which affected the direction of race sublimation and would greatly improve it. He still wanted to advance.

"Sub-classes are easy to find, but the rare ones are more troublesome..."

Han Xiao rummaged through his memory. Those fancy rare sub-classes generally required various complex operations to obtain. If the difficulty was too high, he would have to put in too much effort. If the difficulty was low, it wouldn't match the Mechanic class. For him, the sub-class was just an embellishment. He wasn't pursuing rarity, he just needed one that could cooperate with the Mechanic class.

"In that case, attribute classes are not bad. It just so happens that I can get this class in the Juberly Hub. Although it's not rare, the effect is simple and direct."

Han Xiao's eyes lit up.

...

After completing the daily cargo transportation mission for Planet Longtan, Han Xiao was called to Ames' house for a visit as usual, to ask about the progress of finding her teacher. Then, he took everyone back to the Juberly Hub to rest.

The professional players had just finished the competition and were tired. They raised both hands and feet in agreement. Running daily missions in the hub city was much easier. It was like a vacation.

However, Han Xiao wasn't doing this to take care of them. The main thing was that the version update was coming soon, and he wanted to take this opportunity to harvest the last wave.

He sold some eliminated machinery to the players, occasionally selling some high-quality goods, and then accepted enhancement and repair missions. For this reason, Han Xiao secluded himself for a few days to manufacture them. When there were more players in the faction, no matter how fast he manufactured them, he would not be able to keep up with the needs of the players unless he could assemble a production line, but that was a long way off.

However, Han Xiao had already found a solution to this problem, which was to enhance the faction's NPC resources and use his connections to open up opportunities for players to do missions and make money in other maps. Sunil was one of his prepared player training bases.

After selling things for a few days, Han Xiao took a flying saucer vehicle to the fifty-seventh floor of a tall building in the center of the hub city. This was the office of an absolutely neutral organization called the [Space-Time Research Society]. The name sounded grand, but it had nothing to do with space-time. It was a scholars' association that stored knowledge and exchanged academics. It had offices in various star systems, was membership-based, and had a loose structure.

The Space-Time Research Society aimed to preserve the information and history of all civilizations in the universe, such as academic knowledge, historical records of cosmic civilizations, literary works of various races, and so on. It was a mixed bag, similar to a knowledge base, and provided a platform for many member scholars to exchange new research topics. The academic atmosphere was strong. This kind of organization was naturally public. The leader was the EsGod Civilization, which had the strongest cultural atmosphere among the universe-level civilizations. It had countless members in various star systems, and even the Purple Crystal Civilization and the Crimson Empire later joined the ranks of the association's managers.

The Space-Time Research Society's inventory included practical knowledge, such as the technology and magic of different civilizations, Esper knowledge, and so on. Practical knowledge was more precious, and the more sensitive ones were generally not displayed to the outside world—this was also the requirement of advanced civilizations. To browse this important knowledge, one had to obtain higher authority. The only way to improve the faction relationship was to donate unknown information and documents, but improving the authority was very complicated. There was no clear path. One could only wait for the managers to screen them. First of all, one had to participate in various exchange meetings organized by the association, put forward new insights, show their presence, and improve their position and reputation among the members. When the faction relationship was sufficient, the membership time was long enough, and the background was clean and had a practical social status—for example, having a very high positive Legendary Point or having a very high faction relationship with the advanced civilization that was a manager—then there was a chance to be promoted by the managers. In short, it was extremely complicated.

In his previous life, players only started to care about the Space-Time Research Society in the later stages. At that time, it was to seek the top-level class knowledge. This thing was extremely rare, and the Research Society had relevant information. This was one of the ways to obtain the highest-level class knowledge, but to get it, one had to put in a lot of time and energy, and there were no shortcuts. Anyway, he didn't have to pay attention to it for a long time. It was better to join the association sooner than later. Han Xiao simply joined now.

There was no threshold for joining the association. All he had to do was pay. Compared to the level of the Research Society, the membership fee was very affordable, only 500 Enas.

Of course, Han Xiao's goal for this trip wasn't that long-term. Joining the Research Society could directly get him a sub-class, which was what he wanted.

...

The membership procedures went smoothly. He entered the information, filled out the form, paid the money, flirted with the receptionist, and did it all in one go. The whole process took only ten minutes.

Walking out of the Research Society's office, Han Xiao opened the panel. At this time, there was a new item in the sub-class column.

[Scholar]!

He directly invested experience points to raise it to level five, reaching the advanced upper limit of level 100.

[【Scholar】 has been upgraded to lv5, Intelligence +10,获得1点潜能点]

There was a type of sub-class called "attribute class", such as the current [Scholar]. Each level up would greatly increase a single attribute, and there were no free attribute points, only potential points.

[Scholar] increased Intelligence by 10 points per level. After leveling up 5 levels in a row, it directly increased Intelligence by 50 points.

Intelligence was the core attribute of the Mechanic class, which was related to Mechanical Affinity. Han Xiao's current specialty [Mechanical Analysis Comprehension] increased Mechanical Affinity by 1% for every 10 points of Intelligence.

Han Xiao basically added all his points to Intelligence. His current Intelligence was more than 600 points, which was more than 60% bonus. This was a core specialty, and Han Xiao knew that this was just one of the skills related to the Intelligence attribute of the Mechanic class. He would obtain more class skills in the later stages.

In addition, the [Scholar] sub-class gave him another specialty called [Research Theory], which increased Intelligence by 1 point for every 3 skills mastered. It was extremely suitable for the Mechanic and Mage classes. These two had a lot of skills, and their combat power enjoyed the Intelligence bonus. Compared to the Mage class, which also needed the Mystery attribute, the Mechanic class got the highest bonus from [Scholar]. The two were a perfect match.

A blueprint was counted as a skill. Han Xiao now knew more than a hundred blueprints. Just the level 5 [Scholar] increased his Intelligence by 90 points.

Among all the sub-classes that were easiest to obtain at the moment, attribute classes were the most useful option in Han Xiao's opinion.

Every player could easily obtain this kind of attribute sub-class (provided they knew there was such a thing). The bonus was extremely considerable, and it also provided growth-type attribute specialties. Even in the later stages, it could play a good role. In his previous life, many top professional players would choose to learn one or two attribute classes. This thing was very practical.

The most awesome one was the "Luck" attribute class, and one could tell what this class was like just from the name, [Gambler]!

He still remembered the specialty effect of [Gambler]. Winning a certain amount of things through gambling, betting, and other behaviors could increase Luck. The amount won would continue to accumulate, and the Luck bonus would be higher. On the other hand, losing a certain amount would reduce Luck, perfectly interpreting the name of this sub-class and the meaning of the Luck attribute…

In fact, Han Xiao really wanted to get the [Gambler] class. After all, even if it dropped, it would only be from 1 to 0, which was useless. Winning would be a huge profit!

After experiencing the feeling of clear mind after upgrading for a while, Han Xiao looked at the panel and checked the level 100 advancement mission. That was his main goal.

After only one glance, Han Xiao suddenly began to doubt his life.

"Should I go learn the [Gambler] class first..."