Han Xiao counted his assets. He had 1.5 billion experience and about 900 thousand Enas. In the next year without players, he would have no choice but to do missions if he wanted experience, and the speed of obtaining rewards had drastically decreased. When the players were there, it was like he was dining at luxurious restaurants every day, but now he would have to eat buns and vegetables.

“Black Star?” Sylvia finally finished reading an entire paragraph of machinery theories that she memorized, but she saw Han Xiao had no reaction to it and looked like he was dozing, so she called him.

“I’m listening.” Han Xiao raised his eyes. He contemplated for a while, then put down the book and said, “We will leave Juberly Hub in two days, and you’ll come with us. I will help you to awaken your energy tomorrow. That’s it for today, you can go back.”

After Sylvia left, Han Xiao locked the machinery modification room door, took out a pen and paper, and wrote down some of his thoughts.

“Now that the players have disappeared, the force at my command is only the officers around me and the Sunil warriors. They’re only mortal, so I have to act carefully. This year is the preparation stage for Version 2.0. In order to have the upper hand, I have many jobs I need to complete.

“First and foremost is my Promotion mission. The stronger I am, the safer it is, and the easier it will be to act. I must find a relatively weaker opponent in Grade A. Even so, the risk is still very high… but so are the benefits. Once I complete my level 100 Promotion, I will have the chance for a Race Evolution again, and my combat ability will increase tremendously.”

Han Xiao tapped the table with his pen, furrowed his brow, and contemplated. He searched for a suitable choice in his memories. Names of characters flashed past one after another but were all quickly eliminated. Some were too strong, some were too far away, and some suitable ones had yet to appear.

In his mind, the best target would, of course, be Ember, whom he had fought before. He could counter that guy’s Esper ability, but Ember had yet to reach Grade A and seemed to have died under the bombardment from the fleet. Thus, he could only eliminate this choice as well.”

“Sigh, there are no suitable targets, what should I do?” Han Xiao scratched his head in frustration.

The difficulty mainly came from the strength difference between him and a Grade A Super. Plus, having anyone above his grade interfere and help was restricted. This meant he could not ask the Dragon Emperor for help. In order to kill a Grade A with a group of Grade Bs, it would be many times more difficult than when Sylvia tried to assassinate him. The resistance and health of Grade A Supers meant that many schemes would not work on them. Furthermore, none of those who could reach Grade A would be not cautious and alert; it was impossible for them to fall into traps easily.

With his level, if he wanted to kill them directly, he could only use extremely powerful weapons or traps with significantly high technology, such as a Destroyer Level Battleship Quantum Annihilation Cannon, the Forbidden Doomsday Electric Ring Spell Scroll, or something of the same level. However, he did not have any way to buy those.

Furthermore, his officers were not players. If they knew that they were going to go against a Grade A Super, they would definitely have issues with it and might not be willing to take the risk to do something so meaningless, unless they had incomparable hatred toward the target. If he chose a Grade A DarkStar member, then Herlous would not oppose it.

Although Han Xiao knew the abilities of DarkStar’s Grade A Supers, such as ‘Wind Demon’ Anur, ‘Psychic Explosion’ Vivira, and ‘Mountain Hammer’ Rogue, he did not have the confidence to mess with any of them. Furthermore, DarkStar’s forces were strong, stealthy, and swift, so it was impractical to choose one of them.

He could wait till Version 2.0 started and command the players to fight the opponent. However, wasting a year of not becoming stronger would place him in a very dangerous situation when facing DarkStar in Version 2.0. Secondly, even if a thousand of those Grade C players fought against one Grade A, they would still be wiped out in an instant. Sure, they could revive, but they would not be of any use.

Not to mention Grade A, even the Great Mechanic Han could beat a group of players himself.

Han Xiao was very troubled by his level 100 Promotion mission as he did not know what he could do.

It’s so damn difficult!

If he could revive like the players, he might still have had a chance and would not have been so frustrated. However, he only had one chance, and once he failed, it would be his end. These various factors caused this Promotion to be almost impossible to complete.

“Then there’s no choice but to take a shortcut…” Han Xiao held his forehead and sighed.

The chance to complete the Promotion mission through regular means was almost negligible. Luckily, he had the radical method.

Mission Completion Card!

Its effect was to grant the mission reward of a mission and deem the mission as completed with the lowest rating.

This was indeed suitable for Promotion missions with no mission rating. As long as it was completed, he could be promoted.

To the players, the effect of the Mission Completion Card was very ordinary—they usually used it on extremely difficult missions. However, the lowest rating reward would not be a lot anyway, so they might as well try the mission themselves and see if they could get a higher rating. Therefore, despite this item being very rare, it was not scarce. The Mission Completion Card had once appeared in the random reward after Han Xiao completed the Germinal Organization main storyline, but he had chosen the other choice, which was Esper Ability Potential Enhancing Fluid. Although he needed the Mission Completion Card, the Esper Ability Potential Enhancing Fluid had undoubtedly been the right choice back then.

“There are three methods to obtain Mission Completion Cards. First, it might appear as a random reward, and random rewards are only given when a difficult mission is completed with a high rating. Second, reward from specific missions. Third, cash in and buy from the store, limited to five per month…”

The third method was eliminated straight away without a doubt, and the second method would not work as well, as these specific missions were in other Star Fields—it was way too far. Thus, he could only use the first method.

“The pro is that I can avoid the risk of fighting a Grade A Super—the con is that there’s too much uncertainty.”

Han Xiao shook his head.

Adventures are for the youngsters, old people like me should do it the stable way.

…

The next day, Sylvia came as promised. Han Xiao agreed to help her awaken energy today, so she had hardly slept the previous night. She was looking forward to it, nervous and anxious.

“Sit.” Han Xiao pointed at the chair beside him. The chair had bondage straps on its armrests, back, and legs—it looked like an electric chair.

“Wha—what is this?” Sylvia swallowed her saliva uncontrollably and forced a smile. “I remember being told that awakening Mechanical Force only needs simple training…”

The Mage class could generate magic power through mediation. Although the Mechanic class was focused on external objects, there were also similar methods to awaken their exclusive Mechanical Force.

“You’re talking about the regular way. It’s too slow. I’ve said before, you already have Super-Genes, and you’re talented in Mechanic class. I have a much quicker way.”

Han Xiao’s tone was very calm. If someone was confirmed to have the potential for the Mechanic class, there was a method to quickly awaken the Mechanical Force—have another Mechanic stimulate their body. This way, the speed of awakening would be much quicker. This was what he had found by searching through the Mechanic class articles. Of course, if the target did not have the potential, it was not much different from electrocution.

Although the players grew in a different way and did not have to experience these stages, many articles had recorded the training methods for different classes. To the players, these ‘details’ made it more immersive and real.

Han Xiao tied Sylvia to the chair and spread his palm. Dense electric snakes appeared on his hand and formed a lump of light with shifting shape, flashing terrifying electric light. He glanced at Sylvia, whose body was stiff and face was filled with terror.

“Relax, don’t be nervous.”

Sylvia struggle continuously in terror and yelled, “Do—don’t come here… Ahhh!”

Before she finished talking, Han Xiao’s hand grabbed onto Sylvia’s forehead. The electric light surged into her body and coursed through her, flickering.

Buzz!

Sylvia’s entire body was trembling like a fish being electrocuted. Her body was penetrated by electric currents from head to toe, her muscles were retracting, and she was numb from the pain. It felt like her body was not hers anymore.

“This should be enough, or she might be electrocuted…”

Han Xiao counted the time, pulled his hands away, and stepped back.

Sylvia slumped against the chair with her head dangling from her neck. White smoke floated from all over her body, and she had yet to recover from the pain. She wanted to speak, but her entire body was numb, and her tongue could not move.

A special sense was born in her body—it was very weak, but it was there. Sylvia struggled to focus and tried to control it. A tiny and almost unnoticeable electric current flashed under her skin.

“I activated your Super-Gene; you now have the magnetic-type energy. Keep training, and you will grow. I will teach you the ways to train energy in a few days. Go back and memorize another machinery theory book first.”

Sylvia finally stood up. She looked down, and her face twitched. In the end, she could not hold it back and cried out loud as she ran out of the room.

Coincidentally, Herlous happened to be at the door and almost bumped into her. Surprised, he said, “What did you do to her… Wait a minute, what’s the smell in this room?”

The next moment, Herlous’ expression became strange. With shock and suspicion, he looked at Han Xiao from head to toe, again and again, looking like he wanted to say something but did not.

“I know what you want to say, shut up.” Han Xiao rolled his eyes. “Get to business, what do you want?”

“By the way, all your subordinates disappeared and still have yet to return after one day,” Herlous said.

Players logged on and off regularly—Han Xiao had given a perfunctory explanation, saying that it was the side effect of their immortal body. The other officers were used to it, but they had never seen all the players disappearing together and not appearing after an entire day, so Herlous came to ask Han Xiao about it.

Han Xiao contemplated and found an excuse to get it over with. Roughly, he meant that the price of being immortal was that they had to sleep every once in a certain period, and when they stayed active for too long, they would have to take a very long sleep. They would not appear again for a very long time. Herlous had doubts but had no choice but to convince himself to believe it.

“They won’t be around for the time being, so I’m preparing to stop the mercenary group’s business… not including your Sunils. I’m talking about us.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

Han Xiao pointed at his own eyes and mysteriously said, “It saw some things again. Remember my promise to you? I can feel it, the time is near.”

Herlous’ eyes turned bright.

“But… I need to make some preparations. We will go to the Taralam Star Cluster next,” Han Xiao said.

“That’s the closest Star Cluster to the wormhole cluster at the middle of Shattered Star Ring and the area with the largest scavenger forces. It’s very dangerous, what are we going there for?”

“To find something,” Han Xiao said with a deep voice.

A random reward would only be given after completing a mission with a high rating. Based on this, Han Xiao confirmed his action plan. He was going to target the missions that he knew extremely well, and he was going to choose the ones that were not too difficult but definitely would be intricate to complete through normal means. This way, he could make full use of the advantage of knowing the mission well and obtain a very high rating!

What he was going to find on this trip was an item to trigger a mission. In his previous life, the players had acquired this item coincidentally—the item introduction indicated that this item could trigger a mission—and had gone to look for the person to trigger the mission. Only then did they receive the mission. Han Xiao, however, was very familiar with the process. He did not need a coincidence; he knew exactly what he had to do.

Han Xiao had already calculated everything. The missions that he now had also had a chance of giving a random reward. However, they were either not activated or needed time. What he needed was only the chance to receive random rewards; the mission reward came second. He remembered many missions, and these all had chances to receive random rewards.

Although obtaining a [Mission Completion Card] was full of uncertainties, it was at least much safer than facing a Grade A Super directly.