The Legendary Mechanic, page 172
We are not! Han Xiao’s lips twitched. That speech had been completely copied from Bennett’s original words in his previous life. The last time that Han Xiao had gone to look for Bennett in Sanctuary One, he had seen the speech hung in Bennett’s office and was specified that the original author was Han Xiao, showing Bennett’s admiration to the speech, and that had been a little awkward for Han Xiao.
Anyway, although their motive was different, their goal was the same, so the motives would not matter.
Since Bennett knew about Han Xiao’s thoughts, he completely left Raylen’s demands behind.
“How are you going to leave Planet Aquamarine?”
“I have already made the arrangements; you will know by then.”
Seeing that Han Xiao did not want to give the details, Bennett held back his curiosity and said, “If you leave, Sanctuary Three will need to elect a new person in charge, do you have anyone to recommend?”
Han Xiao pondered and said, “Huang Yu. He has been dealing with all the daily matters in the sanctuary, and he is very familiar of the situation here. It will be most suitable for him to take over.”
Through the influence of the Pro League, the Players’ Main City impression of Sanctuary Three was complete. Even if Han Xiao left, the sanctuary’s position would not be affected. Sanctuary Three had his name in it, and every player arriving at the place would be reminded of him.
However, the sanctuary players would not be able to enjoy all of his ‘functions’, which might cause the sanctuary to lose some of its popularity.
Han Xiao suddenly had a new thought. Maybe there’s a way to continue strengthening the influence of the sanctuary even after I leave the planet…
Since he had already told Bennett about the Mutation Disaster, this ‘foresight’ should be able to make more impact. Han Xiao gave it a slight thought and came up with a plan, memorizing it in his heart.
Bennett agreed that Huang Yu was a suitable candidate as well. Suddenly, Bennett said with a serious tone, “There are too many Inhumans in Sanctuary Three, even more than the refugees; they’re taking up too much space. They have unknown origins and are too mysterious. This is a potential security threat, I don’t know how you make them work for you, but if you leave, what are we going to do with them?”
“When the disaster is upon us, the Inhumans will most likely be the pillar of sanctuary’s protection. Don’t be too strict toward them—accept and include them.” As the players grew, the various organizations in Planet Aquamarine feared ‘Inhumans’ more and more, and naturally, Bennett was not an exception. He had to convince Bennett to make sure that his achievements in Planet Aquamarine would not be destroyed.
Upon hearing this, Bennett’s expression changed. “If that’s the case, I will take it very seriously.”
Although he feared the Inhumans, he changed his attitude immediately upon knowing that the Inhumans could protect the sanctuary; this reasoning was very effective on him.
The two of them chatted for a while, then Bennett stood up and said his goodbyes. He had come to deal with Raylen’s message but unexpectedly heard about Han Xiao plans. In this case, Raylen’s warning would not be worrying at all.
On the other hand, the disaster that Han Xiao had told him about gave him a heavy heart; it felt like there was a dark cloud above the path in front of him. He decided to immediately return and write the crisis protocols, strengthen the sanctuaries’ protection, and speed up the plan.
Bennett was sad to see a partner like Han Xiao go, so he said sincerely, “I wish you all the best, and I hope that we can meet again one day.”
Han Xiao reached out to give Bennett a firm handshake.
They smiled at each other.
…
Bennett’s arrival reminded Han Xiao that he should notify some of his friends. Hila and Aurora had stayed in the sanctuary because of him, so he decided to tell them about it first.
On that same night, under the clear sky and Sleepy Winter, he summoned Hila and Aurora to tell them that he was going into the galaxy soon.
As expected, they were surprised, and their faces were filled with disbelief.
“Han Xiao, what is the galaxy like? Have you met an alien?” Aurora asked hurriedly.
During these days, Aurora had been resting in the sanctuary and regained health. Han Xiao also corrected what she called him; he was finally not called an uncle.
Han Xiao asked Kerlodd to come closer and said, “This is an alien.”
Aurora’s eyes were filled with curiosity. “Aliens look quite similar to us. Does he bite?”
This question again! Can’t you natives be more knowledgeable!
Kerlodd could not take it anymore and yelled at Aurora, “I don’t!”
Pa!
Kerlodd fell onto the ground with his face down.
Han Xiao put his hands down and said hastily, “Be kinder to kids.”
“Aliens are so scary,” Aurora mumbled softly.
Hila pointed at Han Xiao with an expressionless face and said, “he’s obviously scarier.”
Chapter 311. Could It Be That I'm Not Charming? |
Lying beside Aurora lazily, Bear Cub suddenly stood up and growled at Kerlodd as a warning. Han Xiao had made Aurora raise Bear Cub for a long time, and this bear had already grown to the height of half a human. It was reaching its youth stage and had developed a strange mutation with characteristics that it should not normally have—its hair glowed lightly, and its attributes seemed to be gradually growing toward an elite level.
Aurora’s power seemed to have a catalytic effect on life forms; young beings could receive special growth by being staying near to her. Some time ago, Han Xiao had come to know that Aurora’s Esper power was called [Dawn of Life]. Its potential grade was also S, just like Hila. That had been an exciting discovery.
The source of this discovery came from combat information. Of course, it was not from him attacking Aurora. He had realized that he had misunderstood how it worked—he could just let Aurora attack him. However, even after a lot of persuading, Aurora had still kept shaking her head, unwilling to attack Han Xiao. She had even been incredibly distraught, thinking that Han Xiao might have been unhappy with her for some reason.
To Aurora, there were only two people in the entire world whom she was close to—one was her older sister Hila, and the other was the person who had torn open the darkness and brought her light when she was at her lowest point, Han Xiao. Other than Hila, Han Xiao was the only one that treated her very well. She only had these two to rely on, so she cared for Han Xiao like an older brother.
After Han Xiao finally convinced her to shoot him with the excuse of testing the performance of his mechanical suit, Han Xiao got the combat information. His initial target was only Hila, and to his very pleasant surprise, Aurora had the same level of potential. To him, it was like a ‘buy one get one free’.
In the original storyline, Aurora had turned into jam, so her future achievements were unknown. This time, she had the chance to grow. Furthermore, with how much she relied on Han Xiao, she was much more dependable than her older sister.
Han Xiao gave Hila a look, signaling that they needed to talk privately, then walked to the side.
Not long after, Hila walked over, stood beside him, and frowned. “What?”
“Do you want to leave this planet with me?”
“Why are you inviting me?” Hila’s expression in her eyes changed a little, and she looked at Han Xiao’s profile.
“Not just you, your sister as well. I know that you two will never separate.”
Hila looked down to consider, and after a long silence, she said slowly, “No.”
Han Xiao raised his brows. “I asked Bennett the same thing. It’s understandable that he’s not coming, but why did you reject?”
“Dangerous,” Hila said. “I need to take care of my sister.”
“It’s dangerous to stay too.”
Hila’s expression turned serious and said, “what did you foresee again?”
Han Xiao roughly described the Mutation Disaster and said, “The disaster will come to you sooner or later even if you stay on this planet. You and Aurora both have very high potential, so your future will definitely be in the galaxy. Even so, do you still not want to come with me?”
Hila’s closed her eyes and fell into contemplation.
The silence continued, like the lonely moon hanging high up in the sky.
After a long time, Hila turned to Han Xiao and said softly, “No.”
Han Xiao looked at her meaningfully, lit a cigarette, and exhaled some smoke. “Okay then.”
His tone was very casual and did not show any signs of wanting to know more, which made Hila doubtful. She frowned and said, “Do you not want to know why?”
Han Xiao laughed and said, “Don’t think of yourself too highly, I just asked. Whether you come or not doesn’t affect me much—you won’t be much of a help with the strength you have now.”
Hila’s eyes turned cold a little. Although she had rejected Han Xiao, feeling the man’s careless attitude, she felt like she was not important to him, and it was embarrassing.
This time, Han Xiao added, “This is your own choice; I won’t force you to do anything under the guise of ‘for your own good’.”
As he was speaking, he took out a string of keys, threw them to Hila, and said coldly, “If the darkness devours the sanctuary one day, these keys lead to my secret base. It can provide a place to hide for you. I’ve left the location information in my office, the laminated back side of the third drawer on the left; I’m leaving it there for you.”
Hila played with the keys. Suddenly, she said, “Are you not coming back?”
Han Xiao put on a half-smile and said, “Do you care about that a lot?”
Hila snorted coldly, raised the keys, signaling that she would remember what he had said, and left.
After she walked a few steps away, Han Xiao’s voice came from behind with a light tone.
“Don’t die.”
Hila’s footsteps paused.
“You too.”
After Hila left, Han Xiao’s smile disappeared. He threw the cigarette butt on the floor and extinguished it with his foot.
From what he estimated, there was more than a fifty percent chance that Hila will leave with him, but Hila had made the other choice unexpectedly. Even after he explained the pros and cons, Hila had still chosen to stay. Other than her sister being the reason, she might have other considerations. The personality of Hila before she turned evil was not easy to guess.
However, Han Xiao’s need for Hila at the current stage was indeed not high. The amount of help that Hila would be to him was not much before her power matured, and she would not even be as effective as those highly skilled players.
Furthermore, bringing Hila along meant that he had to bring Aurora, and the current Aurora was even weaker and could be hurt easily. The galaxy was full of known and unknown dangers. Even though Han Xiao was familiar with Galaxy, he had to be cautious.
Players, on the other hand, were an extremely great help since they could revive, and Han Xiao could enjoy the freedom of acting alone without constraints. There were benefits to not bringing anyone too.
Therefore, letting Hila and Aurora stay on Planet Aquamarine might even be a good choice. There were still two to three years before the Mutation Disaster would arrive, and these two would be able to grow in a safe environment before that. If they followed him, they would face danger very soon.
Letting them grow and coming back to fetch them after the Mutation Disaster was not a bad thing from how Han Xiao looked at it.
Even so, after being rejected twice on the bounce, Han Xiao was still rather hurt in his heart. He mumbled to himself, “Could it be that I’m not charming? It can’t be.”
A sound came from beside him; Emerald Grass walked out from the shadow in the corner. Han Xiao had known all along that she was hiding there. He looked at her and asked, “How much did you hear?”
“Everything,” Emerald Grass said surprisingly. “Was everything you said true? Aren’t you afraid that I’ll leave after you leave as well? You exchanged me and now have no use for me, huh?”
“You’re free, but it’s best for you to stay in the sanctuary. I wasn’t joking about the disaster.”
Emerald Grass nodded with a complicated expression, turned around, and left. Han Xiao looked at her back with narrowed eyes and shook his head.
The prisoners from the Bell of Death Island were new characters in Version 2.0, Emerald Green being one of them, and he had gotten her out in advance. Emerald Grass was valuable given that she would invent important drugs against the Mutation Disaster in the future.
The heart of a human was difficult to control, but he felt there was quite a high chance that Emerald Grass would stay. She valued her life and was fanatic about pharmaceutical research. With so many players in the sanctuary, it was the best place for experiments—it was attractive to Emerald Grass.
…
Bringing fifty highly-skilled players was a very important part of the plan. When the Pro League finished and the players were still unsatisfied, it would be time to carry out the plan.
It was already the finals and would end in just a few days. Han Xiao was perfecting his plan to bring the players away.
On this day, Raylen skipped Bennett and contacted Han Xiao directly, giving him the final warning with a very aggressive and tough tone.
“Black Phantom, we know you captured Godora’s investigator. You have made a big mistake. We respect the contributions that you made during the war with the Germinal Organization, but we won’t allow you to use that contribution to do whatever you want. Give the Godoran to us; this is the last warning, or we will take the necessary measures. You won’t want that to happen. Although you’re very strong, you will not be able to match up to our nation.”
“‘Kay, bye.”
Ka-chin.
Han Xiao ended the communication and rubbed the bridge of his nose, speechless.
Raylen refused to give up and wanted to pressure him, but Han Xiao did not want to waste his time with them now.
Han Xiao was sitting in his office at this time, and Kerlodd was right beside him. This Godoran was standing next to the window and looking out at the players on the square. He suddenly said, “So, is this the special phenomenon on your planet?”
Kerlodd still remembered his investigation mission. During this time, he had noticed the so-called ‘Inhuman Phenomenon’ as well and seen many of the characteristics of the players.
“This is your investigation mission, right? So, have you reached a conclusion?” Han Xiao asked.
Chapter 312. Inhuman and The Space Wonder |
“There’s nothing much to conclude. I only have some guesses from my observation,” Kerlodd said. “When I received the mission, the government on this planet described the phenomenon from the point of view of undeveloped civilization. You call this occurrence ‘Inhuman Phenomenon’. They said that these Inhuman aren’t anything special, but more and more of them kept appearing. They could not tell where they came from, and they just integrated into this planet’s environment. Their behavior was weird, and they had a special connection with each other. Most importantly, they cannot die, and they learn and grow at a rapid rate…”
What he babbled on about was the view of the Six Nations on the players, in addition to some of his own observations. Han Xiao was curious on how the advanced civilization understood this phenomenon.
“The most special characteristic is that they can revive after they die while keeping the same personality.” Kerlodd finally showed his aura of an investigator. “There are a lot of reasons for the cause of this phenomenon, and the simplest explanation is that this is an evolution of an Esper power of a group of people, which is highly improbable but still possible.
“It could also be due to some complex causes such as the life projection technology, which may be an experiment of an advanced civilization, or it is possible that these people were created from a disruption between clashes of different planes. Another reason may be that the Inhumans are accidental projections from a civilization far away in a different space and time, and they are a new life form created by some unexplained rules in the universe. I know a dozen theories that can explain this phenomenon.
“Space Wonder is the hardest way to understand what is happening, and I personally think that it is the least possible hypothesis out of all theories.
“These Inhumans had another important characteristic—there was a sudden increase in the number of Inhumans. This means that this is not a natural phenomenon. But to be sure of this possibility, I need special tools to find out the cause to see if any civilizations are responsible for this. However, I need to ask management for approval to use a rare detection tool. If the civilization is too advanced, there won’t be a way for us to find out. To be honest, I don’t think that any civilization will find this planet useful to invest their life projection technology in.
“If we hypothesize that it is a natural phenomenon rather than human intervention, then it is possible that the planes crossed each other and that the planet was right on top of the crack that resulted from the clash of planes. But if there is a crack, why aren’t there any instances where people disappeared on the planet?”
Han Xiao froze, and he remembered that Hannes and the others disappeared into thin air. Was there actually a crack in plane?
No, the players definitely did not have any relationship with the crack, but there was a possibility that the planes had overlapped.
If the players’ world was a plane, and that plane crossed with that of the game, then it was not impossible.
“What’s the difference between different planes?” Han Xiao asked. “Does that mean it is another universe?”
Kerlodd laughed. “There are a lot of definitions for planes, but there are three basic categories. First is the Outer Plane, which is often seen in highly developed magic civilizations, where powerful wizards can summon creatures from another plane. They are usually formed from imagination and mental energy. The more realistic way to explain this is that wizards can use their imagination to create an actual tangible object. This is the evidence that the Outer Plane indeed exists, but the plane itself is not tangible. It seems rather contradictory, but theory for this phenomenon is that we are limited by our sense, so there are life forms and Super knowledge that we don’t… um, I’m not a wizard, so I don’t have an in-depth understanding.
