Chapter 522: New Combat Mode (1)

After joining the mercenary group, the players took the initiative to interact with the various activities that the mercenary officers were involved in. Mercenaries were also a resource for them, and the good-looking ones such as Aroshia, Feidin, and Sylvia were swarmed by the players like bees to flowers, making them uncomfortable as they were not used to the enthusiasm of players.

However, toward their ‘new companions’, the mercenaries felt a little impatient.

Some of the players were attracted to the Wayne Card game that Herlous played and immediately grew addicted to it. The Wayne Card game was full of charm, with each card possessing simple enchantments on it. When played, they would display various effects, which was not only interesting but also a display of the influence of characters present in the universe. All of this made the players extremely interested in the galaxy.

To think that playing a card game could actually boost their knowledge!

With the presence of the forums, anything novel would always catch the attention of the players. There were stickied posts about the various playstyles of the Wayne Card game as well as introductions, attracting the curiosity of players from all over the world

To be able to play a mini-game within a game, this was equivalent to adding two happy matters together, double happiness!

In his past life, the Wayne Card game had also been popular among the players. Right now, having been introduced to this card game in advance, the trend of the Wayne Card game was thus brought forward.

The Shattered Star Ring deck, which Herlous proudly showed the players, was also photographed and uploaded. The cards were all famous characters of the Shattered Star Ring. While the majority still went unrecognized by the players, there were a few that they knew, such as Dragon Emperor Ames. More than a few still remembered the long, white legs that filled up their entire sight.

One player even discovered the card of Black Star and was stunned silly. He did not expect Han Xiao to be a part of the deck as well!

To be made into a card, this was naturally a symbol of status. Was this not saying that Black Star had some fame within the Shattered Star Ring?

The players could not help but feel a pleasant surprise. The stronger their faction was, the happier the incoming players would be!

However, all this caused Han Xiao to feel extremely helpless. To him, the players were capable of generating value for him every minute, and for them to spend their limited time and energy on playing cards, was this not reducing his income?

Diligence pays off, while leisure serves no purpose, men! A great man once said that there was no problem that could not be solved through playing cards. If it existed, then just play another round!

Hearing the players’ laughter and joy, Han Xiao could not restrain them. He could only silently bear with the heartache. This was because his overall goal was to attract all the players to his camp, so the strength of the players would be equivalent to the strength of his influence.

After agonizing over it for the whole day, Han Xiao thought of a new idea.

“Since the players love to play card games, I should just take the opportunity to organize a playing card competition and put up prizes and such. Such a large-scale collective leisure activity could also enhance the players sense of belonging to the camp...”

Han Xiao felt that this idea was plausible. This way, it would not cause any trouble to the players who fell in love with playing cards earlier than usual.

However, even if he wished to hold such an event, this was not the appropriate time. He had to at least wait till he led the players into the interstellar base. At that time, he could also take the chance to sell a bunch of card decks to the players.

...

Version 2.0 had already been out for more than ten days. The players were slowly adapting to it, moving back on the right track. The previous version’s level limit was up to sixty, the watershed before the first Race Evolution. Now that the upper limit of the level in the game had been lifted, the players started to complete their advancement, which lead to many feeling surprised at the effects.

This topic quickly spread across the entire forums, causing the entire planet to boil.

The players started to pick apart the details behind the Race Evolution. This had been the same in his past lifetime, so Han Xiao did not bother paying any attention to it. He went to look for his officers, with the intention of learning a new Energy Training Technique.

The Energy Training Technique was nothing unique, with the majority of it being general skills without any restriction in occupation. After going around asking once, Herlous favorability toward him was high enough to simply give him a new technique without any additional conditions.

_____________________

Sunil Energy Training Technique: Foundation technique in training energy for Sunils.

Overall Effect: +20 Energy

/100 Cycles. Each cycle depends on STR, DEX, or END (Select highest attribute). Every cycle will exhaust 50,000 experience and 1,500 stamina.

_____________________

Han Xiao was currently not lacking in experience, and his stamina recovery rate was also high. Within the span of two to three days, he finished learning this technique. Each cycle would add 3 Energy, for a total of 320 Energy. However, he was still a few hundred short of his target of 9,000 Energy, so he had to learn another technique.

The more of such Energy Training Techniques one learned, the more the consumption of experience would increase. However, with Han Xiao’s current experience reserves, he was not worried about such an issue.

Harmon also promised to share an Energy Training Technique with him, but he had a request, which was to go all out to fight him, and he would only obtain the technique if Han Xiao defeated him. This madman was a main character build but also an addict for combat. In order to form a War League and temper himself, he would not give up on any opportunity.

Han Xiao was helpless about it. When he first recruited Harmon, they had exchanged blows. His own abilities were at the top of the list for the Grade B Supers, and he would not shirk away from a fight from anyone of the same grade as him.

The duo went to the training room within the spaceship.

They deliberately avoided the players for this battle as Han Xiao did not wish to display his abilities so early in the game. Furthermore, at their level, the arena would be too weak to withstand their blows. It would be too troublesome if they needed to repair the place after their battle.

However, Han Xiao still had certain plans. He called the mercenaries to bring all the prisoners over so as to allow them to feel the combat capability of the interstellar mercenaries.

Hannes was not included within the prisoners as Han Xiao had already given him his freedom, allowing him to stay in the Sanctuary. When Bennett saw his missing friend, he had received a good shock, and after learning about Hannes hypothesis, his mood had also grown heavy. However, Han Xiao was not bothered by it.

“Come whenever you’re ready.” Han Xiao nodded as he spoke toward Harmon.

Bang!

Babbling was not Harmon’s style. One only saw his muscles swelling exponentially, his body shape becoming several times larger than Han Xiao. With a burst from his legs, he shot forward like a cannonball, hefting up his axe and hacking straight at Han Xiao.

Ka ka ka!

Two giant mechanical hands rapidly unfolded on top of Han Xiao’s head, seizing the axe. Flames burst out to propel the hands forward as they begun a wrestling battle with Harmon, pitting strength against strength. A wave of air billowed out from their point of contact, knocking all the prisoners surrounding them away.

The group of prisoners could not even withstand the aftereffects of their collision. They crawled up, bedraggled, all of them wearing expressions of surprise on their faces.

While they had seen Han Xiao act before, their strength had been insufficient for them to comprehend the actual battle strength Han Xiao had. Standing by the side and watching the battle, they finally understood that, in front of these interstellar mercenaries, they were as good as commoners.

Han Xiao’s hands shook, and another two mechanical hands unfolded beside him, striking out.

Boom! Boom!

With two heavy blows, Harmon was sent flying. His legs hit the ground with a loud thud, and the metal flooring was actually dented by him.

The four mechanical hands pursued triumphantly, continuously sending out blows. The force unleashed by the machinery was in no way light, and Harmon could not evade in time, only able to use his tomahawk to directly withstand it. The tomahawk constantly clashed against the metal hands, the resulting sound deafening.

Clank!

The metallic clashes echoed continuously in the room.

Han Xiao remained in his original spot, without even bothering to don his armor. In the past year, he had improved on his fighting style, adding a few new elite machinery systems. He no longer needed to employ third-rate tactics such as the Army Style, for he had many more means to deal with people his level.

For example, this enhanced melee tactic originated from the combination of High-End Knowledge [Huge Duplex Machinery Technology] and the Advanced Knowledge [Heavy Machine Modification]. With the giant mechanical hands as the core of this system, in addition to melee battles, they could also be equipped with other weapons, combining attack and defense.

The material used for the [G75-Type Claws] was the strongest alloy that Han Xiao could currently produce—his current material crafting was still stuck at the Advanced Knowledge [Advanced Material Synthesis], as he did not manage to learn the High-End Knowledge of material studies.

The four giant mechanical hands suddenly disintegrated, the various parts akin to butterflies weaving around flowers as they scattered. This caused Harmon to cleave down on empty space, resulting in a flaw in his defense. At that moment, the parts once again reformed, and the four palms combined together from front to back, forming a circle that trapped Harmon in the center. Only his head remained exposed.

The mechanical fingers of each hand tightened, gripping Harmon’s body and restricting his movements.

Hum!

The four palms simultaneously released a sonic blast, causing even the ground to shake. One could see with their own eyes the surrounding air distort, and the shock wave radiated outward in the limited space of the training room.

While the prisoners had attempted to retreat, they were still caught up in the aftermath. The pressure of the shockwave forced all of them up against the walls, much like human paintings. The skin of everyone present undulated, like ripples on a water surface, and all their expressions looked more distorted than someone in the process of diving.

A string of damage values popped up from above Harmon’s head. Because the shock wave penetrated directly into his body, Harmon’s rigid muscles immediately loosened in shock, and he entered a temporary [Weakened] status

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Han Xiao jumped forward, giving a vicious kick toward Harmon’s head. Numerous mechanical parts expanded in an instant around his leg, unfolding into a black mechanical foot. It viciously stomped on Harmon’s face with a dull thud.

This foot landed hard, and the huge force behind the leg caused the metal flooring below Harmon’s feet to distort and warp into a concave shape.

Not waiting for Harmon to be free of his negative status, the components within the mechanical leg once again let out clanking sounds as the mechanical parts came to life. The alloy casing at the bottom of the mechanical leg opened, revealing a huge cannon nozzle, completely plastered on the face of Harmon. An eye piercing glow lit up from within the cannon.

Boom!

Harmon ate a light ray cannon shot right in his face!

The duo violently ricocheted off each other, and a bulky body emitting black smoke plumes bounced heavily on the floor whilst Han Xiao landed gracefully. The mechanical hands and feet disintegrated at the same time, turning into tiny components before regathering together as a compressed orb, returning back to its original position.

This set of combo moves was a common form of combat that Han Xiao currently favored.

Xiu!

Suddenly, Harmon threw out his tomahawk while he was still tumbling. The ax spun, bringing with it a sharp whistling noise.

Han Xiao did not budge, instead the halo array deployed behind him, spraying out motes of light to form a golden light shield in front of him. The ax head violently slammed into the shield, leaving behind a large crack. Another 10 cm, and the blade would have touched Han Xiao’s forehead!

After prying out the tomahawk, Han Xiao turned over to look. Harmon had just stood up, and although he had suffered from a series of blows, with black patches all around his body, he was still as ferocious as ever, bringing out a war hammer next.

“Heh, how exciting!” Harmon wiped the corners of his mouth. His tone was rough, panting, but full of fighting spirit.

“How tough can you get?” Han Xiao was helpless against him. Harmon was an organism with a single brain cell, only knowing how to solve problems using his fists. He was unlike Herlous who knew when to retreat. Instead, one had to knock him out to end the battle.

While both were proficient in close combat, Herlous could serve as a damage dealer and meat shield, while Harmon was an MT ¹ through and through, extremely fleshy!

Han Xiao could see Harmon’s attribute panel, which showed two overpowered specialties. There was [War God’s Tenacity], whose effect was that every time Harmon’s HP fell below twenty percent, there would be a chance for him to recover his HP back to fifty. The other was [Desperate Straits], where he would obtain a +2 Buff to his Strength, Dexterity, and Endurance attributes for every one percent of HP lost. In a battle, there was no cap to the limit obtained.

In theory, if Harmon was lucky, his strength could be improved infinitely—and with his Luck Glow, it was as good as him being the darling of the Fortune Goddess. These two specialties that he possessed were akin to a ‘Last Stand’ plus ‘Bloodbath Berserk’. Thus, there was actually a high probability for the ‘theory’ to become reality.

This was a true genius made for battle!

As for Harmon’s shortcoming, it was that all his attacks were toward a single target, without any long-range attacks. He was not a Pugilist, so he had no way to utilize the Shockwave Blast skill. He was a purebred warrior!