Han Xiao was wearing the Facial Simulator and had a different appearance, wearing a wool coat. It was already winter, and these clothes were very low profile and ordinary.
Back at the repair shop that he had left long ago, it still had the same structure. Even his workshop remained beside the shop. Han Xiao walked into the shop, and a buzzing sound came from the workstation. Lu Qian was focusing on assembling machinery. She was alone—Old Man Lu, who usually sat at the door, was missing.
Lu Qian turned around. Seeing that a customer was there, she hastily put down her work and approached him with a smile. “Hello, what do you need?”
Lu Qian still had the familiar look, gentle and dedicated, like a spring breeze. Han Xiao sized her up and said without changing his expression, “I would like to customize something small.”
“Customize what?” Lu Qian blinked.
Han Xiao took out a blueprint and passed it to Lu Qian—it was a mini metal statue drawing, not very technical, just needed welding and grinding. Any machinery assembly shop could complete it. Lu Qian looked at it for a while and said while nodding, “No problem, come to take tomorrow.”
Han Xiao shook his head. “I’m leaving the city tomorrow; I need it tonight.”
With a troubled expression, Lu Qian said, “It takes about two hours to build this statue, and I’ll close the shop when it gets dark.”
“Then I can only go to another shop.” Han Xiao acted upset and mumbled, “Which repair shop take 30,000 dollars jobs around here?”
Lu Qian’s eyes sparkled instantly, and she changed her response immediately. “Today’s closing time is delayed; you can wait in the shop and receive the product as soon as it’s finished.”
Han Xiao laughed discreetly. He knew Lu Qian too well—this method worked every time.
There was only a chance to find Old Man Lu’s box if he stayed in the shop. Of course, he could not ask Lu Qian directly as it would raise caution.
At this time, a new customer entered, it was a short hair man, he said, “I want to buy some household machinery. Do you have any?”
“Yes.” Lu Qian pointed toward the metal shelf on the side and said, “Everything on that is for sale. Sorry, I currently am doing something, so you can look at the products yourself.”
Han Xiao casually pulled a chair and sat down. Suddenly, he sensed something and looked to the side. He saw that the man who walked in was sizing up the items on the shelf while discreetly sizing him up and observing him. Old Man Lu’s identity was special, so he had entrusted Division 13 to take care of Lu Qian before leaving. There was always someone that monitored the place nearby, preventing anyone from harming Lu Qian. This new customer was one of the regular field agents, and he had come to observe Han Xiao.
“Division 13’s man?” Han Xiao’s senses at LV 70 were very sharp, so he noticed this man’s footsteps showed unique signs of having trained in the military. He could guess it easily with just a little bit of thinking. His expression did not change, and he watched quietly. He was not afraid of getting recognized as he had changed his face for the time being.
It got dark, and Lu Qian was focused. Han Xiao sat on the other side, and that man was still looking at the shelf and monitoring him.
Han Xiao’s brows rose. He could not move freely when under surveillance. He shook his leg, and a mini spider detector crawled out his pocket, moving stealthily following the shadows. Han Xiao took out his laptop while blocking the vision of the other man with his body. He looked down and opened the controlling panel for the spider detector, then switched it to manual control.
The visual image of the mini spider detector showed on the bottom right of the screen, moving close to the ground. The detector was equipped with a metal detection device, and the pipes hidden under the walls and the ground were all reflected. He remembered Old Man Lu’s safe was metal, so he used metal detection.
Half an hour later, the spider detector found the target in Lu Qian’s room on the second floor. A suitcase-style safe was under the bed. Han Xiao’s eyes spun. He stood up immediately and asked, “Is there a toilet here?”
Lu Qian looked up and wiped her sweat. “It’s upstairs. I can bring you.”
“No need to, you do your stuff. I can go myself.” Han Xiao rejected her and walked upstairs. After a few steps, he suddenly heard that field agent following him up with the excuse of wanting to go to the toilet as well.
Han Xiao felt a little troubled. It was not easy to act when he was being monitored by someone. Suddenly, he had an evil idea. Coming to the toilet on the second floor, he suddenly turned around and punched the field agent in his face. The field agent had no time to react at all and could only feel his vision getting blurry and his nose being in extreme pain. Then, he fainted.
Han Xiao held onto him and laid him down on the ground slowly. He walked into Lu Qian’s room, pulled out the safe from under the bed, and keyed in the password he remembered.
Ka-cha
The cover opened. Han Xiao gave it a scan, and the interface notified him that he had received four rare blueprints, so it was confirmed. He was delighted, rolled the blueprints up, and placed them into his bag. Then he took out the substitutes from his back and placed them into the box, restoring it back to its place.
The substitutes were also machinery blueprints, but they were just normal blueprints. There would be players in the future who would go through countless hardships to complete this mission. Thus, by putting something inside, the player who completed the mission would at least get something. Han Xiao felt that he had such a kind heart, almost so touching it could move the whole of ‘Galaxy’.
He carried the field agent down. Lu Qian was shocked and asked, “What happened to him?”
Han Xiao purposely put on a face of disgust and said, “This guy wanted to use the toilet together with me. It was a disgusting idea, so I knocked him out.”
Lu Qian’s expression became weird. Her eyes looked around on the field agent’s body then mumbled, “So exciting…”
Han Xiao sat down peacefully. He did not panic after knocking a person from Division 13 out. This was because of his strength. Plus, Lu Qian and he knew each other quite some time ago, so he did not want to disappear for nothing and make Lu Qian scared.
He chatted with Lu Qian to fill the silence.
…
“C156 please respond… C156 please respond!”
In a large room of a building a few hundred meters away, a team of field agents to protect Lu Qian was on standby. The captain kept repeating the same line into the walkie talkie, trying to reach the field agent in the repair shop.
After not getting a response at all, their faces started to get serious.
“Sh*t, he’s lost contact. There must be an accident in the shop. Let’s move now!”
The captain stood up immediately, changed into a bulletproof vest, brought along an ammunition belt, and burst through the door with the team in tow.
Chapter 292 - Sonic Sphere
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
The cool night wind blew in from the window, and the buzzing sound of the work station filled their ears. It was a little noisy, but Han Xiao was chatting casually with Lu Qian.
“Your shop has been here for quite a number of years, how’s business?”
Lu Qian’s hair was tied back, and she wore a safety mask. While looking down and welding the metal, she replied, “With such a bad location, of course, the business isn’t good.”
“You seemed busy when I came in.”
Lu Qian shook her head. “I’m the only one here. With the orders stacking up, of course, there is always something to do.”
“Aren’t you going to hire a helper?”
Lu Qian paused and sighed. “Hired one before, left.”
“Probably because the salary was too low.” Han Xiao shook his head in disapproval.
“Was that the reason?” Lu Qian doubted.
She was just an ordinary person and did
not know about these large issues. Han Xiao had left without saying goodbye back then and had been uncontactable since, so Lu Qian still held a grudge.
The apprentice worker whom they had finally been able to hire had disappeared just like that.
Although they did not spend a very long time together, Han Xiao had left a very deep impression on Lu Qian. Old Man Lu and she had been the only ones in the shop before, and with one more person joining in, it had felt much livelier. She had felt happy during the time they spent together. However, even after a very long wait, Han Xiao still had not returned, greatly upsetting Lu Qian.
“Since business is not good, have you ever thought of moving elsewhere?”
Lu Qian shook her head. “This is my home.”
Rapid and dense footsteps approached. A group of field agents arrived in the dark.
At this time, the unconscious field agent slowly woke up. His expression changed, and he immediately wanted to get up with a roll. However, a fist enlarged in front of his eyes.
Bang!
Han Xiao knocked him out once again right before the eyes of the field agent team.
“Freeze, raise your hands!” The field agent team raised their guns and aimed at Han Xiao as the captain yelled, “We are Stardragon Strategic Defense Division. We need to verify your identity. You have to come with us.”
Swoosh!
With a few flashes of light, the muzzles of the field agent team’s handguns were sliced open smoothly.
The captain’s expression changed immediately. “Requesting back—”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
In a blink of an eye, Han Xiao, who had been sitting on the chair just a second ago, was in the middle of the people. The field agent team who had entered ferociously were now all on the floor. With his attributes, knocking down these LV 10 normal field agents in an instant was a piece of cake.
Security is too weak. I hope this will make Division 13 strengthen their guards. Hmm, it would be best if they don’t even let the players in.
Han Xiao shook his head, took out stacks of cash, placed it on the table, and left.
Lu Qian regained focus. She stared at Han Xiao’s back and suddenly asked, “Have we met before?”
Without turning back, Han Xiao smiled faintly and said, “No, we haven’t.”
After he disappeared into the night, Lu Qian put down the things in her hands. She took off the protective mask, tucked her hair behind her ear, and suddenly smiled, a smile with unspoken meanings.
…
Han Xiao smuggled himself out of the Western Capital, boarded the helicopter back to the sanctuary, and then took out the blueprints that he had just received.
_____________________
[Blueprint: Magnetic Chain Style Hovering Shield Shuttle]
[Blueprint: Sonic Sphere—Penetrate]
[Blueprint: Sonic Sphere—Quake]
[Blueprint: Sonic Sphere—Scout]
_____________________
These four machines made up a unique combat style, with both offensive and defensive capabilities. The three different types of sonic spheres were the core equipment; they all had different functions that complimented one another. As the name suggested, sonic spheres were related to sonic attacks.
Ultrasound and infrasound were equipped in the Penetrate style, focused on damage. Noise-sonic and Strong-sonic were equipped in the Quake style, focused on disabling. The Scout style was focused on support, related to sonar detection. It could also enhance the power of the other two types of sonic spheres, as well as create an area where all sonic attacks within the area would be enhanced. Plus, it had MP3 functions.
The requirements to learn these four blueprints were LV 45, more than 250 Intelligence, [Basic Acoustics Lv.5], [Basic Mechanical Engineering Lv.5], [Basic Energy Theory Lv.5], [Basic Energy Conversion Lv.5], [Basic Spatial Sensing Lv.3], and [Basic Electromagnetism Lv.4]. Han Xiao had 68 Potential Points at the moment—he spent twelve to level up what was needed and satisfied the requirements.
One day later, Han Xiao returned to the sanctuary and immediately started building the equipment.
The core technology of the sonic spheres was acoustics; the most important part was the emitter of the sonic attacks. Pipes to produce sound frequencies needed to be made with electromagnetic plates and micro adjusted according to different sonic attack types, and to connect these pipes together into a sphere frame required high skills. He spent quite some time before he finally built the end product.
The three metal spheres lay on the workstation quietly. They were roughly two-thirds the size of an average human head. They were not entirely spherical, and there were some edges and corners. The exterior was made of cold armor to protect the interior core, and the emitters were hidden in the gaps between the armor.
The original control method involved hand signs and whistling. Han Xiao changed that into Nerves Connection control. By wearing a specially-made headset, it would convert the nerve signals and send them into the receivers within the sonic spheres to be identified into commands, and this was effective within sixty meters.
Up, Han Xiao commanded in his mind.
The armor plate of these three sonic spheres split open and exposed black holes. White flames shot out from them, and they flew up, wobbling, hovering in midair. The sonic spheres had flying capabilities and could move freely in the air—it was his mid-range combat equipment. Han Xiao familiarized himself with the controls.
He then started to test the power of the sonic spheres. After some observation, Han Xiao found that the range of Sonic Sphere—Penetrate was about twenty meters. It was used mainly to damage the target, creating armor penetration soundwaves and attacking the target through obstacles. The attack range was in a straight line or an inverted cone.
The basic damage of Sonic Sphere—Penetrate was 81–130. Although that did not look very high, that was not the case. The specialty of sonic attacks was that they are highly penetrative. The damage reduction from armor was very low, and with Han Xiao’s attribute enhancements and skill enhancements, one hit from it could deal 350 – 400 damage. If Flaming Will was used as well, it would not be weaker than the Ghost sniper rifle that had more than 250 damage, Furthermore, the damage output of Sonic Sphere—Penetrate was more stable than the Ghost sniper rifle; it could be used as the main combat method.
Sonic Sphere—Quake had area disabling effects. It could cause debuffs like stunned, shocked, paralyzed, unconscious and such. Its attack range was a sphere of ten meters diameter. Sonic Sphere—Scout could create a sonic enhancing zone in a diameter of one hundred meters, increasing the damage and effects of the other two.
Thud!
Sonic Sphere—Penetrate sped up in an instant, smashed a pit on the metal wall, and made a loud noise.
The sonic sphere was very sophisticated. He smashed it against the wall to test its interior durability. This smash made it lose 17 durability, and the total durability of the sonic sphere was 1,600.
One percent is lost with just one hit. Seems it won’t last long if it’s attacked.
The three sonic spheres—one for offense, one for control, and one for support—worked together. The defense would be taken care of by the Magnetic Chain Style Hovering Shield Shuttle, with about the same technology as the Compounded Magnetic Chain Split Blades but for defense. Technically, it was a ‘shield generator’. The hovering shuttles would form a shape in the air, then connect with each other with electromagnetic energy. The shape it formed would become an electromagnetic shield.
Shielding technology was very common in the galaxy, but there was almost no mature shield technology on Planet Aquamarine. In the galactic standard, this kind of single surface shield was very basic. However, it was rare machinery in Version 1.0.
He could control at most four sonic spheres at one time—controlling more would mean lower accuracy. To Mechanics, receiving strong machinery did not mean that its powers could be fully utilized right away. Many complicated machines required the user
to be very familiar with them in order to be able to utilize their full potential. The skills of Mechanic players were also based on how they used their best machinery, so-called micro-control.
However, micro-control was a piece of cake for the experienced Great Mechanic Han.
Including the sonic sphere style, I now have four combat methods. The core style would be Amphiptere mechanical suit, in cooperation with the other three, capable of ranged, mid-ranged, and melee styles. These will be enough for any situation at the moment. I will not need any new combat methods any time soon.
Han Xiao suddenly remembered that he had taken away what belonged to Lu Cheng, and he wondered what Lu Cheng’s reaction would be after he received the blueprints that he had replaced. Old Man Lu might find him to complain.
That was good as well. It had been quite some time since he last saw Old Man Lu, and he missed him a little.
Chapter 293 - Galaxy Pro League Season One, Commence!
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
A period of stability arrived on Planet Aquamarine. Time passed by quick, and four months passed in a blink of an eye.
Sanctuary Three was completed with tall guarding walls, filtered air, self-sufficient greenhouse farms, and many more. The aim of the sanctuary was to protect humans in times of disaster or even protect the tinder of mankind. In the last four months, Bennett had built more sanctuaries, but none of them could match up to the size of Black Phantom Sanctuary Three.
Alumera and Lu Cheng had already migrated their people over, built the guarding city surrounding Sanctuary Three, paid the money, and provided the manpower to build the transportation network, which spread all over the sanctuary. Han Xiao’s sanctuary could be considered a large city.
The rewards of this main storyline mission were calculated and given. Han Xiao had almost finished most of the constructions, so he was given an A+ grade.
_____________________
[Sanctuary Plan – Sanctuary Three] Completed.
You have received 6,500,000 EXP. You have received 1 Potential Point.
The Legendary Mechanic c1-1385 Page 168