After a month on Planet Sunil, Han Xiao and the others finally returned to Juberly Hub. As soon as they were in the Hub Hall, the first thing that Han Xiao did was change the medium resting room into a large stronghold. The rental increased, from 40 to 100 Enas, as did the space.

The better the faction’s base looked, the more reliable the players would feel. Han Xiao actually thought that a spaceship was the best mobile base, but a spaceship was way too expensive; they would not be able to afford one even if they sold the kidneys of all the players. The human body did not sell very well in the Galactic Organ Market after all.

Excess money was meant for splurging—the consumption concept of a Mechanic was always ‘money spent will always make returns’.

This trip was very profitable. More than ten thousand had landed in the players’ pockets, and Han Xiao would take that off their hands to gather the funds to buy two class advancement knowledges.

Pro players will always use their residual money to buy equipment. There were private equipment stores in Juberly Hub, and these were all Han Xiao’s competitors.

It’s impossible to have the players only buy things from me. Players have their personal preferences, so I can’t rob away their freedom, or it will be bad for faction development. Nobody likes to be forced. Plus, the things I sell might not satisfy all of their needs… Anyway, I only need a part of the players’ fortune, and the profit is high enough.

Although Han Xiao had plenty of ways to make money, he always kept that desire controlled.

He updated the faction exchange list, adding Offensive, Defensive, and Scouting Enlistee Class armor, with a prerequisite of 500 faction relationship points. Then he set the exchange price at 800 Enas.

In the new stronghold, before the players had started roaming outside, someone had already discovered the new items in the faction shop.

“Is this the Enlistee Class armor that we saw in Sunil?” Frenzied Sword said in surprise.

“It is their technology indeed,” Hao Tian said. “Why can we purchase another organization’s equipment from the faction‽”

The players became curious.

Bun-Hit-Dog had a flash of insight and gave a sensible guess. “A mercenary group might be a faction with growing potential. After completing different mission hires, the faction shop will be updated. The more missions completed, the larger the faction will grow…”

The players thought of Herlous joining and the growth potential on the faction interface when they first joined Black Star, and they felt it made sense. Instantly, they became excited.

The actions of the players could make the faction grow!

“We might have joined a special faction!” Frenzied Sword was overjoyed.

They were all pro players, so they immediately realized the advantages of the mercenary group. If they underwent missions from different organizations, the exchange list would be updated with equipment from those organizations, which meant that the more missions they did, the richer the faction exchange list would become. All they had to do was increase the relationship points with the faction itself—it would save them a lot of time!

They were the first batch of players entering the galaxy, and they had gone through a very difficult selection progress. Was joining this faction the hidden benefit‽

The players felt that this specialness of the mercenary group came from Han Xiao. After all, storyline main characters would definitely possess something special. The players trusted Han Xiao very strongly. No matter how shocking the things that he did were, it all seemed possible—this was the impression that Han Xiao had forged in the players’ minds.

To make the players feel that the growth of the faction was ‘driven’ by them, when they clearly saw the growth of the faction, they would slowly develop a sense of belonging. This was the development path that he had set from the start. Now, the players finally felt this specialness and freshness; his strategy had achieved its anticipated result.

At this time, the players had money in their pockets and were willing to spend. A few of them bought the Enlistee Class armor on the spot. Han Xiao did not have any completed products with him, so it had to be built. The other players wanted to observe when the finished product was made.

During the battle on Sunil, every player had been tempted by the single unit armors, but sadly, they had not been given a way to purchase them. Second Prince almost wanted to steal one.

“We have battled for more than a month; let’s all take a break and rest for some time.”

Han Xiao dismissed them, left the stronghold, and rented a mechanical modification room.

He first spent millions of experience and upgraded the armor blueprint level to Lv.6, only then did he start to build. There was still a lot of material left from what he had brought from Planet Aquamarine—only a small part of the Sunil Enlistee Class armor required him to buy materials from the galaxy. The cost to make one was only about 50 Enas.

For the time being, there was no mission for the mercenary group. The players could finally explore Juberly Hub freely, and naturally, they would not just spend money in one place.

There were many shops in the hub center, and it was full of variety and choices. During this resting period, they witnessed equipment from many different civilizations and bought a lot of gear, such as arms with stronger power, small supportive machinery, and so on.

At the same time, they noticed that some machinery shops were selling single unit armors as well. This was very common in the galaxy, and although these armors’ designs were very different from the ones on Sunil, their technology levels were all rather basic. However, these shops were selling them at a way higher price than exchanging in the faction—even the cheapest one was 3,200 Enas, four times the faction price!

The players became worried because of this. They knew that the price was usually correlated with quality, but Han Xiao’s armor was so cheap. Would its attributes be very low?

They memorized the attributes of the armor in the shop and planned to make a comparison when the finished product from the faction was complete.

Although Black Star’s equipment had good prices, when the pro players were rich, they never looked at price, only quality.

…

Herlous went to the mercenary hall alone to register. He joined the Black Star Mercenary Group then opened the mercenary group records.

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Black Star Mercenary group

Credibility Rating: 154

Scale: 53 members

Class C: 52 members

Class B: 1 member

Missions Completed: 1 (Daily Low-Level Missions Excluded)

Active region: Garton Galaxy

Records: [Sunil Defense Battle] (Expand/Collapse)

Creator: Black Star – Han Xiao

Creation date: Galaxy Calendar Year 688, 02 October

Summary: A small mercenary group with a certain amount of combat power and one grade B Super.

_____________

“A mercenary group created little more than a month back. Black Star didn’t lie to me…” When Herlous saw there was only one grade B Super, he knew that he was the strongest in this mercenary group. He could not help but feel a sense of responsibility.

For the future of his race, he had to protect Han Xiao. He hoped that this captain would not choose hiring missions that were too dangerous.

On the other side, Han Xiao received a notification from the interface while he was building armor in the workshop.

_____________

Faction Reward Limit: 135,7000

Faction Leader Level: 80 (+64,000 reward quota)

Cadres: Herlous (B) (+20,000 reward quota)

Faction Size: 52 (+20,000 reward quota)

Renown: 7 (+14,000 reward quota)

Legendary Points: Leader (3) +15% reward quota

Allies and Enemies: None

_____________

His friendliness with Sunil was on a personal level, so it had yet to become a faction ally.

Han Xiao felt refreshed. The faction had gained its first cadre and taken its first step. Plus, the quota had increased by 20,000, showing that recruiting cadres was indeed a good way to quickly increase the quota.

Two days later, Han Xiao had built six sets of Enlistee Class armor. The players could not wait to equip them, and they instantly felt the benefits of the armor.

Single Unit Armor was something that most civilizations would research on when they reached a certain technological level. Its original purpose was to let users have stronger physical capabilities and adapt better to different environments. The first time wearing single unit armor was like opening the gate to a new world for the players.

In the stronghold, a few players that bought the armor were controlling them excitedly. The fresh feeling had them overjoyed, and the other players surrounded them and touched the armor with curiosity.

“How does it feel?”

“It looks heavy, but it’s actually really easy to move. There are parts inside that helps me move.”

Rainy Kim frowned and said, “Piles of iron, they look so ugly.”

All the male players stared at her. It was the first time that they had shared a common enemy.

“You don’t know sh*t. The mechanical suit is men’s romance!”