The main members of the mercenary group were temporarily the players. When they disappeared, the team that he could command was only the Sunil Division. There were too few NPCs.

While the players are away, the income of the mercenary group will decrease. I can halt our operations temporarily and make time to recruit more people. When Version 2.0 starts, the Mutation Disaster will break out. The players on Planet Aquamarine will start to connect to the galaxy. During the version update, I’ll have time to make preparations.

He had only brought along fifty players for now, and they had already made a huge profit for him. Version 2.0 was the time where his profit would rocket through the sky. The players were mountains full of green leeks—he would not even be able to harvest all of them before they grew again. Just thinking about it made the Great Mechanic Han look forward to the profit that he was going to make.

His target was the tens of thousands of players. He wanted to make Black Star Mercenary Group a guiding faction for the players to enter space. Of course, it was easier said than done. He had hidden competitors—Godora and DarkStar.

These two forces would use planets as battlefields to fight each other, and the players would then choose a faction in this situation. Han Xiao would be snatching meat from the mouth of a tiger by interfering.

However, he also had some obvious advantages. These two sides would be focusing on fighting with each other, so he was the only one that would focus on the players. Plus, the impact and sense of belonging that he had built through Bun-Hit-Dog’s shows, as well as his position in the hearts of the players, would attract them to him.

The more players that he recruited, the better. Therefore, he had to make abundant preparations. First was benefits such as equipment missions, rewards, and so on, enhancing his power and strength. Second was measures for the Mutation Disaster. The former was targeted at the players; the latter was targeted at the main storyline.

I have more than 800,000 Enas, enough to buy two advanced knowledges and complete the class advancement mission. However, I’m now at level 95, and there’ll be a promotion mission at level 100, meaning I can only increase my level by five after spending all my money. It’s best to first get a subclass, reach level 100, and look at the promotion mission. If it can’t be completed in a short time, there’s no hurry to spend this 800,000, and I can save it as funds. I have about 1.5 billion experience, which is not enough to level up to 120 straight away. Plus, I still need to leave some experience to gamble blueprints and upgrade abilities.

Since there would be no players for him to harvest in the next year, Han Xiao had to be more calculating. The promotion at level 100 was the second chance of race evolution. He had received Void Genes from the Void Dragon Bone Marrow, which would largely affect his race evolution choices, so he was quite looking forward to promotion.

Subclasses are easy to find, but the rare ones are rather troublesome…

Han Xiao searched his memories. These rare subclasses could usually only be acquired after very complex processes. The difficult ones were too time-consuming, but the easier ones were not suitable for the Mechanic class. Subclasses were just an add-on for him; he did not need them to be rare, but they had to be suitable for the Mechanic class.

Since that’s the case, attribute classes are not a bad choice. Luckily, I can get this class right in Juberly Hub. Although it’s not rare, its effect is simple and straightforward.

Han Xiao’s eyes sparkled.

…

After completing Floating Dragon’s daily escorting missions, Han Xiao was summoned by Ames to her house, as usual, to ask him about the progress of looking for her teacher. He then took the others back to Juberly Hub to rest.

The pro players had just finished their competition and were exhausted, so they completely loved the idea. Doing missions in Hub City was much more relaxing, almost like having a holiday.

Obviously, Han Xiao did not do this to let them rest; it was mainly because it was almost the version update, so he wanted to use this opportunity to make one last push for profits.

Han Xiao was planning to sell some machinery that he did not need anymore to the players, as well as some elite machinery from time to time, then take one the enhancing and repairing services. For this, Han Xiao isolated himself for a few days to build more machinery. When there were so many players, no matter how quickly he could build the machinery, he would definitely not be able to meet the demands of all these players… unless he had assembly lines, but that was a plan for further in the future.

However, Han Xiao had a solution for this problem long ago—enhance the NPC resources of the faction, then use the connections with these NPCs to give the players opportunities to go to other places for missions and income. Sunil was one of the training bases that he had prepared for the players.

After selling things for a few days, Han Xiao took a flying disc carrier to the fifty-seventh floor of a tall building in the middle of the hub city. This place was an absolutely neutral agency called [Spacetime Research Council]. The name sounded very high-class, but it actually had nothing to do with spacetime. This was a scholar association for people to store their knowledge and discuss their findings. They had agencies in various Star Fields, and it was based on a membership structure, so it was very liberal.

The purpose of the Spacetime Research Council was to store the information and history of all the civilizations in the universe, similar to a knowledge base. Also, to provide a platform for the scholar members to exchange new research topics. This kind of organization, of course, was a public and neutral organization. The Arcane Church was the one that started it. The Arcane Church was the Universal Civilization that focused most on culture and knowledge. They had countless members across many Star Fields. Even the Federation of Light and Crimson Empire were among the executives of this association.

The inventory of the Spacetime Research Council included very practical knowledge, such as the technology, magic, and Super knowledges of different civilizations. Practical knowledge was more precious, and the sensitive parts would usually not be showcased to the outside world. This was a request from advanced civilizations as well. If someone wanted to browse that important information, they had to have higher authorization.

The only way to increase the faction relationship with this association was to donate unknown knowledge and literature, but to gain higher authorization was much more complicated. There was no clear path, and one had to wait for the executives to make the selection. Firstly, one had to attend all kinds of networking gatherings hosted by the association, suggest new understandings, and make one’s existence more known, increasing one’s position and reputation among then members.

When one’s faction relationship was high enough, had been a member for long enough, had made actual contributions to the society, and did not have a criminal background, then there was a chance that the executives would make that person’s authorization level higher. In conclusion, it was very complicated.

In his previous life, when the players started to pay attention to the Spacetime Research Council, it was already the later stages. Back then, the players had been looking for the highest-level knowledges for their classes, but these were extremely rare, and the research council had related information for them. This was one of the ways that one could obtain the highest-level class knowledges. However, it required a tremendous amount of time and energy, and there were no shortcuts. Anyway, Han Xiao did not have to worry about that for a very long time to come, and it was better to join this association earlier, so he might as well join now.

There was not any requirement to becoming a member; he just had to pay some money. Compared to the standard of the research council, the membership fee was really low, just 500 Enas.

Of course, at that moment, Han Xiao’s target was only the subclass that could be acquired just by joining the research council, and that was what he wanted.

…

There were no twists and turns during the admission procedures—enter information, submit the form, pay the fee, tease the lady receptionist, and it was done. The entire process took less than ten minutes.

After walking out of the research council agency, Han Xiao opened his interface. He now had a new entry under his subclasses—[Scholar]!

He directly leveled it up to level five and reached the promotion criteria of level 100.

_____________

[Scholar] leveled up to LV5.

+10 INT.

You have received 1 Potential point.

_____________

One type of subclass was known as the ‘attribute subclasses’, such as this [Scholar]. Every time it leveled up, it would hugely increase an individual attribute, and there were no Free Attribute Points, only Potential Points.

Every level of [Scholar] provided an increase of ten Intelligence. The five levels that Han Xiao had just acquired gave him fifty Intelligence.

Intelligence was the core attribute of the Mechanic class as it was related to Machinery Affinity. Han Xiao currently had an ability called [Machinery Analytical Comprehension], which provided one percent Machinery Affinity for every ten points of Intelligence.

Han Xiao basically spent all his Free Attribute Points in Intelligence. He now had more than six hundred Intelligence, which was more than sixty percent increase in Machinery Affinity. This was a core ability, and Han Xiao knew that this was just one of the Mechanic abilities that were related to the Intelligence attribute. There were more class abilities in the later stages.

Furthermore, the subclass [Scholar] gave him another ability—[Research Theory]. Its effect was to increase his Intelligence by one for every three abilities that he possessed. It was extremely suitable for the Mechanic and Mage class. These two classes were known to have a ton of abilities, and the combat power of both was enhanced by Intelligence. Compared to the Mage class, which also needed the Mystic attribute, the Mechanic class received the most benefits from [Scholar]. The two of them were a perfect fit.

For the Mechanic class, every blueprint was considered as an ability. Han Xiao knew more than a hundred blueprints, so the level 5 [Scholar] alone gave him ninety INT.

Among all the subclasses that were easy to obtain at the moment, Han Xiao felt that the attribute subclasses were the most useful options.

Every player could easily obtain this kind of attribute subclasses—if they knew that it existed. Their effects were all very useful, and they also gave attribute abilities with growing potential that would still be useful even in the late stages. In his previous life, many top pro players would have one or two attribute subclasses.

The most impressive one was the attribute subclass that was related to the Luck attribute, which had a very clear and straightforward name—[Gambler]!

He still remembered [Gambler]’s ability effect—the things won through gambling and betting would increase the LUK attribute. The more one won, the more Luck attribute this ability gave, while losing would decrease it. It perfectly explained the name of this subclass and what the Luck attribute meant.

Actually, Han Xiao did want the [Gambler] subclass somewhat. After all, no matter how much his Luck decreased, it would only go from one to zero, which would have no impact at all, but if he won, he would benefit greatly!

After experiencing the clarity of mind given by leveling up, Han Xiao looked at his interface. Seeing the Promotion Mission for level 100 was his main goal.

With just one look, Han Xiao suddenly started to question life.

I should probably learn the [Gambler] subclass…