The Legendary Mechanic, page 120
Construction of the blueprint was originally a three-month plan. The target is to complete the basic layout within that time. It took Sanctuary One a month to complete around half of the basic layout. Using them as a reference, three months seems plenty.
Han Xiao suddenly remembered something and thought, No, Bennett has tens of thousands of workers over there; I have only one thousand for the first month. There will not be enough time if the missions are done the regular way.
Suddenly, the noisy sound of human voices came from the front. The convoy stopped hastily—thousands of people had gathered at the entrance of the abandoned city.
“There’s a problem!”
The guards got out of the cars immediately and surrounded the team in the middle. The group of people had also noticed the convoy and started moving toward them.
The people of Dark Net immediately recognized their identity by their strange clothing.
Inhumans!
Nervousness filled their hearts. Everyone felt a lack of confidence when they faced the mysterious Inhumans. Inhumans were much more dangerous than beasts because they could come back to life! Just by depending on the machinery that Black Phantom had built might not protect everyone.
Huang Yu was shocked.
“So many Inhumans‽ Why are they gathered here? The organization sent people to the Graymetal Ruins to investigate the terrain not long ago, and there was no one here!”
In Han Xiao’s eyes, the concentrated and large number of IDs above these players’ heads made him dizzy. He then flipped the corner of the coat to the side and walked out of the car with a lot of style. He walked out of the crowd and stood at the front of the convoy with hands behind his back.
Standing in between the two parties, his standing posture was like a javelin that pointed straight at the sky. A gust of wind blew on his coat, and it waved in the air like a black flag. Just with this awesome and stylish appearance, all eyes were focused on him.
What happened next had the people of Dark Net stunned. The Inhumans stopped as soon as they saw Han Xiao.
“Black Phantom, we’re here to do missions,” said someone straight in front of him.
“Heard you are building a sanctuary. We are here to help,” said by someone who seemed to be role playing.
“I almost thought it was fake news after waiting for so long,” commented one relieved player.
With his hands behind his back, Han Xiao stayed in character and gave a faint nod. “I appreciate everyone’s help; it’s all to serve the people. Our convoy is going to enter the city. Please open a path. After we settle down, we will plan the construction targets of the city. There will be many job opportunities then.”
The players followed his order and opened a path in between.
The people of Dark Net opened their mouth very widely, their faces filled with surprise.
These Inhumans have come here just to help Black Phantom, since when did Black Phantom have so much influence among the Inhumans?
Huang Yu was stunned. Han Xiao had the confidence to complete the basic layout in a month because he could order the Inhumans?
To Planet Aquamarine, the appearance of the Inhumans was a very strange phenomenon. Everyone was wary about them, and those who came in contact with the Inhumans all did it with caution and a cold attitude. Therefore, Huang Yu could not believe what he had just seen.
How did Black Phantom do it? Why do the Inhumans respect him?
I have to report this to Mr. Bennett.
With the players joining in, the team multiplied in size, and they entered the Graymetal Ruins.
The convoy found a placed and stopped before Coney Fury asked hesitantly, “Your excellency, we need to first clean out a place for a temporary residence. It’s getting late, and it’s best to complete that before dawn. We don’t have much manpower, so we’ll have to start now.”
“You, ask for help from the Inhumans.”
“Me?” Coney Fury was a little scared.
“I’m here, what are you scared of?” Han Xiao patted his shoulder.
Coney Fury did not have anything else to say. Without a choice, he went out of the car, took out a horn, prepared what he wanted to say, and loudly declared, “I need some people to help me clear out a safe area nearby big enough for everyone to camp in temporarily. Since all of you are here to help, I would like to trouble you guys.”
These words triggered missions immediately; every player received it. They split out within seconds and started work right away.
The surroundings became a construction site in a flash—the cleaning of the area and eviction of beasts had started.
Coney Fury’s face was filled with surprise as he did not expect these Inhumans to give him so much face.
He turned around and looked at Han Xiao. He knew that it was not him whom the Inhumans gave face to but this mysterious boss of his.
…
With the help from the players, a safe area had been cleared out by evening. It was a stadium, naturally suited for camping, and the dangerous insects and beasts around had all been chased away by the players.
The people of Dark Net received permission from Han Xiao and placed the mini batteries around the stadium for guarding purposes, and it attracted many players’ curiosity.
The camps were protected by vehicles, which acted as barriers, and the players were resting in the remaining areas. The inside of the stadium was filled with people. Thousands of players conversed with each other—many of them knew each other, and some people even started a store. The despair in the air of this abandoned city had been taken over by liveliness.
A sound had appeared again in this ruins that has been silent for decades.
“Le—legend!”
Hao Tian heard someone calling him when Bear Cub was walking him. He looked back, and Jade Green Sky and a few core members of the Sky Territory Guild were all behind him, looking at him with excitement.
Hao Tian nodded. He looked at them and said, “Thanks for your hard work.”
“It’s what we should do.” Jade Green Sky was filled with excitement. The Sky Territory Guild was under the Long Sky club, and Hao Tian was a pillar of Long Sky, so they were colleagues and knew each other.
Club Guilds had to provide help to the pro players because they were the face of the club. Hao Tian’s position was even higher—he was also an idol to their guild members.
A very important reason that Jade Green Sky had brought people to the sanctuary without hesitation was because he knew that Hao Tian was with Black Phantom, and he hurried over to provide him with help.
Among the players who came to the sanctuary, Sky Territory was the only large guild—most of the others were casual players. Bun-hit-dog was instantly recognized. As the most popular video host at the moment, he had many fans, and they were very ‘passionate’.
“Dog author, stop running!”
“Reach out your head, I will show you something special!”
“Taste the anger of Africans!”
“Still not an update‽ I’m going to break your leg!”
A group of fans filled with hatred chased after Bun-hit-dog while yelling. The other players gave them a path and rubbernecked from the sides. There were even people who started selling snacks. There was a loud commotion, and phrases like “Kill him!” could be heard multiple times, together with laughter.
Bun-hit-dog did not forget to record even as he was running. He yelled at the camera lens, “This meeting has been going very well; the fans are very passionate.
“You know what they say, beating signifies closeness and scolding signifies love. I am indeed very pleased at heart.
“Come on, smile at the camera for your daddy.”
Bun-hit-dog turned the lenses to record the players who were chasing him, living up to the phrase ‘not knowing what death is’. This was a well-known culture among video hosts—how else would they be able to capture moments that normal players would not be able to witness if they were afraid of trouble?
“Eat my axe!”
Huuu—
An axe flew past his head rubbing against his scalp.
Bun-hit-dog retracted his head in fear then escaped in a flash without turning back. The players chasing him all became short of breath.
“What the hell, how does he run so fast? My stamina is almost finished.”
“He followed Black Phantom after all. His level is higher than any of ours.”
“Ah, damn European!”
The players outside the camps were joyous, but Frenzied Sword was facing a very important and serious decision.
He had successfully advanced his class and was torn between the three paths—Cannon Master, Mechanic, and Mechanical Pugilist.
The power of Mechanic that Han Xiao had displayed was scarily strong, but Frenzied Sword was more interested in Mechanical Pugilist personally. His intuition told him that the Mechanic path was not suitable for him.
Han Xiao had given him a suggestion before as well, saying that he had more potential in close ranged combat, which hinted that the Mechanical Pugilist path was more suitable for him.
This main account was the one that would join pro leagues, so if he made a wrong choice, the disadvantage would be way too vast when he created another account. Therefore, this decision was extremely important.
Frenzied Sword could not make a decision, so in the end, he decided to toss a coin…
They say that the moment the coin is tossed, the answer will appear in one’s heart.
As the players were not allowed to enter the convoy’s camp, the players formed a fair near the camp and waited for Black Phantom to come out and give missions.
A petite and delicate female player walked in the fair carrying a backpack that was bigger than herself. She looked left and right in curiosity.
Crossing through the fair, Maple Moon stopped outside the camp. She took a deep breath and held tightly onto the phone in her hand.
“Level 20 finally.”
A hint of nervousness and anticipated appeared on her lively, adorable face.
Chapter 222. Arrival of People from Everywhere! (1) |
In the center camp, Han Xiao looked at the blueprint on the table and wondered how to maximize the advantages of the players.
His mission reward limit had increased—his single mission reward limit was a little more than 60,000 experience, coming up short of a C-ranked mission with 80,000 experience. The daily limit was seven times the single mission limit, which meant that he could give out missions worth up to 420,000 experience daily. He realized that the easiest way to increase this limit was to build relationship points with organizations. Level and ranks would come naturally, and the legendary level could not be gained easily.
Any experience points given out as a mission reward would not be deducted from Han Xiao’s own experience points as long as it was within the stated limit.
For such a large mission like constructing a city, his own quota was insignificant. Thus, Han Xiao pondered carefully and decided on the way that he was going to distribute the missions. That was to divide the construction of Graymetal Ruins into many different departments to take charge, then assign one person to each department who would be responsible for the distribution of missions. That way, he did not have to use his own quota.
Constructing Sanctuary Three was a main storyline, and since he could give out missions to the players, logically, the other NPCs in the team should be able to do so as well.
This should resolve the problem of mission quotas. Although the other NPCs don’t have an interface, they definitely can distribute missions since they are part of the construction team.
The other NPCs would not be limited by his quota when publishing missions for him, and it would still contribute to his mission progress as the mission that he had received was an overall mission. Therefore, the final result of the city that the players helped to build would also be his final result. This difference in the mission was an advantage that Han Xiao had being the overall in charge of the sanctuary; it was the difference in their identities.
Han Xiao suddenly had a new idea—if he ever faced this type of large mission again, he could duplicate this and use his advantage as being an NPC to gain a higher relationship with organizations, thus becoming the distributor of missions and using the players’ power to achieve his goals.
By doing that, I only need to manage the people that are in charge of distributing missions and nothing else. Then, I will have a lot of free time to build machinery to try to meet the class advancement requirement of building five purple quality equipment, Han Xiao thought as he nodded to himself. He could do main storyline missions and also have time to make his own progress at the same time. It was perfect.
Furthermore, this was not an act to con the players. The players could also do missions and benefit from it. Them joining in with the city construction would build a sense of unity. All of the people that took part would have a sense of achievement when the sanctuary was completed, and they would feel honored with the thought— This city was built by us, the players.
It was a win-win!
Han Xiao had an ambitious idea.
I could maybe make this sanctuary into something like a main city for the players, and that would remarkably increase my influence. Everyone that comes to the sanctuary would see my name!
Having decided on the details, he summoned the cadres of the construction team and guard team for a meeting.
Han Xiao looked around and said, “Where’s Liu Zhao? Why isn’t he attending this meeting?”
The people could not react for some time. Then someone carefully said, “You sent him out to approach the wanderers.”
“Nonsense, you think I’d forget that?”
Han Xiao gave a stare. Before anyone could react to it, he coughed and said in all seriousness, “It’s an enormous construction project to start building a sanctuary from nothing. I have divided the blueprint into thirteen departments. This is the information for the construction, exploration, and so on. Every department will have a head who will be in charge. My target is to complete the blueprint construction as soon as possible, best in a month.”
“We don’t have that much manpower, even if we include all the Inhumans outside,” someone said.
“Don’t worry about that. There will be more people sooner or later,” Han Xiao said. He knocked the table with his fingers and asked once more, “All clear?”
Everyone had no choice but to nod. One month was way too much of a rush, but since it was an order from a higher-up, they had to do their best, otherwise they would be in trouble. Although Han Xiao was considered to be rather easy going, no one had forgotten the fact that he was one of the strongest in the organization, a legend who had killed countless people and had the top spot in the current killer leaderboard.
Han Xiao then names the heads of departments. Huang Yu was not mentioned.
Huang Yu was happy that he had nothing to do. Although thousands of Inhumans had come to help, it was still far from being enough. It was impossible to complete the basic layout in a month, so Sanctuary Three would still end up doing it the regular way and take months to complete its construction. By then Sanctuary One would have long been completed. As an assistant, he really did not have many benefits, so he did not even plan to help.
When Huang Yu informed Bennett of how the Inhumans came to help Han Xiao, which Bennett was very calm about and did not have any problems with. It was clear that Bennet had a very close relationship with Black Phantom and trusted him a lot. From that, Huang Yu also had a rough understanding of why Bennett assigned him to be Black Phantom’s assistant—it was because Bennett wanted a capable assistant to help a friend of his.
Sighing, he lamented, It’s all because I’m too capable.
The meeting was coming to an end. When Han Xiao had finished clearing up all the responsibilities of the various departments, his face then turned very serious, and he said in a low voice, “I’ve said all the things I needed to. Now, there’s this extremely urgent mission that must be done first.”
Seeing the seriousness of Han Xiao’s face, everyone became nervous as well.
Han Xiao looked around the table and said seriously, “When you write the name of the sanctuary, remember to include my name.”
The tightened expression on everyone’s face instantly collapsed.
…
The heads of the various departments left the camp and organized their men orderly, following Han Xiao’s instructions. The long-awaited players immediately rushed over and triggered different city construction missions based on their own likings.
The Graymetal Ruins was divided into five distinct areas—North, South, East, West, and Central. The missions that were given to the players were also divided according to the areas. Upon receiving the missions, the players immediately formed teams among themselves and started doing mission together. The night was even more lively than the day.
The first and most important task was to expel the beasts and clean the ruins, only then could the construction commence. Teams of players spread out from the stadium into the various areas of the Graymetal Ruins.
The sound of gunshots could be heard very often—there was quite a number of beasts that lived in the Graymetal Ruins, so the players had plenty of opportunities for combat.
Those construction missions could be repeated, and the rewards were quite handsome. Also, the interface informed the players that they were taking part in the construction of Sanctuary Three, and there would be a large amount of bonus experience when it was completed, which made them even more motivated.
Black Phantom Sanctuary Three—the name of this city had the words ‘Black Phantom’, so the players’ impression of Han Xiao became even deeper.
Having one’s name in the sanctuary sounded very honorable.
By the night of the first day, the players had already cleared out a very large area. Their efficiency had the people of Dark Net completely stunned. This could match up to the amount of work from ten thousand workers!
