In the Taralam Star Cluster, a spaceship hovered outside the atmosphere of the small planet numbered 51687. This was a deserted planet marked as a resource planet in the database.

“Low oxygen density in the atmosphere, an average temperature of sixty degrees, not suitable for human habitation. A large amount of heat-preferring plants covering a large area of the surface. The soil contains rich nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, suitable for plant growth…”

Han Xiao looked through the planet information, pointed at a tall forest on the map, and said, “There’s a secret stronghold of a small group of scavengers here—they’re our target of this trip. They have something that I need.”

His target of this trip was an item that could trigger a high rating mission, and that item was in the hands of this scavenger group.

“You’re planning to break in? How strong are they?” Herlous asked.

“Not strong, just one Grade B. The main issue is that their defensive measures are quite tight, but they have a secret pathway that leads to the underground spaceship garage, which is located here.” Han Xiao drew a circle on the map.

“How did you even know this?” Herlous was surprised.

Without speaking, Han Xiao answered by pointing to his eyes. “The plan is simple. I’ll kick the door open and crush the enemies—you’ll go to the garage and wait for them. Don’t let anyone go. Everyone else, standby on the ship.”

After quickly finalizing the plan, the spaceship ejected two egg-shaped airdrop cabins. They penetrated the atmosphere like two meteors, falling down to the forest.

…

The descent was full of turbulence.

Boom!

The airdrop cabins crashed through a few trees and buried themselves deep in the ground. Soil and wood splattered all over the place and created a mess.

The cabin door opened. Han Xiao walked out, identified their location, and said, “The landing location is about four hundred meters from the enemy’s base. There are many automatic machine gun traps ahead. Hmm… there’s not much oxygen, so breathing is a little difficult.”

The bone-white Void Dragon shrouded his body and filtered the air. Han Xiao inhaled a full mouth of oxygen, and mechanical energy flew into the compressed orbs as they fell onto the floor. With the sound of mechanical parts moving, the compressed orbs expanded into thirty mechanical Black Panther mechanical beasts and surrounded him.

“Go.”

With a snap of his fingers, the mechanical beasts charged forward into the alert area of the enemy’s base. Gaps quickly opened up one after another on the ground, exposing ten or so automatic machine guns that started to fire immediately. Blazing red bullets landed on the mechanical beasts’ armor, causing fire sparkles and continuous clanks.

This extent of damage was nothing worth mentioning to the enhanced mechanical Black Panther beasts. Thirty mechanical beasts culled the enemies one after another, cutting through muzzles quickly and swiftly with their sharp blade tails. The sound of gunshots disappeared very soon—all the automatic machine guns became scrap metal.

The other benefit of the Hounds Style was that the mechanical beasts could be used to scout ahead.

After Han Xiao learned the advanced artificial intelligence knowledge, he swapped the mechanical beasts’ smart chip. Previously, the mechanical beasts could only carry out combat tactics in groups of four, but it had become sixteen, making them much more flexible and swift.

Crossing through the machine guns, Han Xiao activated the metal detection device in his helmet. The full structure of the base showed on the analyzing screen. He found the door on the ground and pulled it open. Inside was a pitch-black path toward inside of the base. A faint buzzing sound came from within—the alarm.

“Looks like they already know I’m here.”

His fingers moved. The shoulder armor plate opened, and three mini mechanical flying insects flew out into the path. These flying insects were equipped with all kinds of detection devices that could be used to find traps, among many other things.

“One Laser Corridor with more automatic machine guns… Mobile Crushing Walls and Vacuum Seals… quite many defensive measures I see. One-meter thick gate made by high strength alloy, cannot be opened by hand.”

The analyzing screen was showing the view of the detection flying insects. They were very small, and they were covered in coatings that could block all sorts of detection methods, so they safely passed through the infrared detection of the corridor and came to the gate. Beside the gate was a password device.

Han Xiao sent a new order. The two flying insects suddenly stuck onto the edge of the device. Mini rotary saws popped out from a flying insect’s mouth and pried open the exterior of the password device. A chip plug popped up from the other flying insect’s tail and connected to the password device. The pair of flying insects were tiny cuties made from another advanced knowledge, [Mini Machinery Modification], which he had bought some point in the prior nine months. They had very rich functions, capable of scouting, detecting, and remote hacking.

The data stream of the base appeared on the analyzing screen. Han Xiao started to hack it while keeping an eye out for enemies to suddenly strike. However, as he hacked through the gate’s program, no one appeared.

This time, Herlous’ communication came with a sigh. “I’ve arrived at the garage; there’s no spaceship here. Don’t bother wasting your time; there’s no one here.”

Han Xiao’s eyes twitched. The player in his previous life had needed to break into this scavenger base to get the mission item, but luckily for him, none of the enemies were even home.

No wonder no one had appeared despite him having already arrived at their gate.

“We really came at a good time…”

Han Xiao was speechless. It turned out that he was fighting with the air all along. He quickly stood up and walked into the base casually. He had already shut down all the defensive measures. After he entered the stronghold, there was indeed no one inside.

Although the base was not huge, it had everything it needed. Han Xiao spent some time and completely hacked the system firewall, took over control of the base, and went straight to the warehouse.

The warehouse was stacked with things collected by the scavengers, most of which was useless. Han Xiao was mainly looking for the item that could trigger the mission, and after searching for a while, he found it without any twists and turns.

It was a beautiful and detailed mini statue that looked like it was made by some kind of brown wood, yet it was as strong as high strength alloys. It was the statue of a very strange creature. If it had to be described, it kind of looked like a distorted mantis. As Han Xiao picked it up, a low and unclear voice suddenly appeared in his mind.

_____________

You have received [Mysterious Statue].

Item Introduction: This is a statue that you have never seen before. You don’t know what it represents or what meaning it has, but when you touch it, you hear a soft, faint voice speaking to you in your mind. Yet, when you focus on that voice, it disappears.

Remarks: This item seems to possess certain secret knowledge. Some people might be interested in it.

_____________

“This is it.” Han Xiao’s eyes sparkled. This was a mission triggering item, and he knew the origins of it. This statue was one item included in an item set that came from the Arcane Church and arrived at the central wormhole of the Shattered Star Ring from a distant Star Field. Then, it wandered and ended up there. The players could receive the related mission through two methods. One was, of course, to get this item first then meet the person that would trigger the mission later, and the other was to first get clues from that person then find the item that would trigger the mission. In conclusion, no matter which method was used, it required a certain amount of luck. However, Han Xiao did not need to go through such trouble—he could head straight for the key item.

This phenomenon of giving someone an illusion of hearing voices in their head was a characteristic of the Psychic Current. The Psychic Current was very unique and could occur through various means, such as the thoughts of many creatures being enchanted onto on target. After a certain amount of time, this item would produce Psychic Current once it had gathered enough thoughts, like a container of gathered thoughts. The most well-known example would be sacrifices and prayers, and this statue was made from exactly that.

“I’ve got the item,” Han Xiao said.

“That’s quick, shall we leave now?” Herlous asked.

Han Xiao was just about to reply, but suddenly, his movement paused. He looked around, and a daring idea appeared in his mind. “Don’t be in such a hurry. There’s no one here, and we have plenty of time.”

Since they had arrived while the enemy was out, they definitely had to take more things with them.

No, that was too petty.

They should take the entire place!

Without hesitation, Han Xiao called Herlous and came to help those scavengers ‘move house’.

Base System Chip? Take it!

Defensive devices? Take it!

Alloy wall? Take it!

After quite some time of tearing things down, whatever could be taken from the base was removed and put into more than a dozen supply boxes. For a Mechanic at Han Xiao’s level, the speed of tearing things down was extremely fast.

He roughly estimated that those items could be recycled and turned into more than 2,000 Enas worth of machinery parts.

Han Xiao looked back. The scavenger base had already become an empty shell with opened gates… no, the gates were already gone. Even the floor had been pried open, exposing the wires below the ground. The central computer and energy core had all been dismantled. The rather huge base was only left with walls.

Han Xiao smiled with satisfaction. He ordered the spaceship to land and loaded the full supply boxes into the spaceship.

…

A few days later, the scavenger spaceships finally returned to the planet. They had made quite a good profit from picking up trash near the wormhole clusters, so they were rather joyful.

However, when the base with missing gates and an empty interior entered their visions, everyone froze in place.

What the hell? Where’s our base‽

The scavenger captain rubbed his eyes and made sure that he was not seeing an illusion. His face turned furious, and he howled, “Who tore down our base‽”

This planet was completely unpopulated, and it was in a very rural area. They had spent quite a lot of resources to build a secret base there and never exposed its position. How could anyone know where their base was ‽

In the Taralam Star Cluster, they were just a small group of scavengers. Who would bother to go against them? It had to be a petty thief that got lucky!

“Search! Search for the petty thief who did this!” the captain yelled furiously and regretfully. If he had been in the base, he could have prevented it from happening.

They barely gathered the intel fee and contacted the information seller. After searching, they found out that there was only one spaceship that visited this planet during that period. After uncovering the identity of the passengers of that spaceship, the rage of those scavengers immediately disappeared. In fact, they were dumbfounded.

“Bla—Black Star‽” The scavenger captain was stuttering. “What were galactic mercenaries of that level doing here?”

They exchanged looks and were immediately discouraged. Now, they suddenly felt glad they had not been in the base when it happened.

If they had faced Black Star, they certainly would have died.

Suddenly, the scavengers felt that losing a base was not so unacceptable.

…

As the scavengers were feeling glad, Han Xiao and the others passed through the Star Cluster teleportation stargate and came to the Rain Star System of the Colton Star Cluster. The person that could trigger the mission was there… temporarily.

The ruling civilization of Rain Star System, the New Phylen Alliance, had invited a galactic celebrity that was very popular in Shattered Star Ring to tour the place. The entertainment industry in the galaxy was very developed as well. There were singers, actors, and many other industries that brought entertainment to various civilizations.

The different entertainment shows could be watched from the paid channel in the Galactic Communicator. Although Han Xiao did not watch it much, many galactic residents spent their days watching television. After all, with how developed some civilizations were, most people did not have to work, unless they wanted higher positions or better quality of life.

The person to trigger this mission was rather special—it was indeed the galactic celebrity that had been invited.