"Ready?" Hela's voice came swiftly with her fists. Quick punches were laid on Xiao like bullets. Xiao took a chance of the coming fist. He grabbed Hela's suit and tried a suplex on her. Hela was not frightened. She supported herself with one hand, rolled her body and landed with ease. Xiao stood still without taking the chance to fight back.
"Your improvement is disappointing", Hela frowned.
Xiao remained silent. He deliberately performed poorly. The organisation should have given up on him. But Hela still trained him for half a year. Hela was not angry at Xiao's silence. She knew that Zero was dumb like a robot. Although she was the commander, there was not much to do in the research-focused base. Xiao's daily training was a routine for her. She felt uneasy when the leader agreed to Gramme's application.
She couldn't remember if this would be the 100th or 1000th time that a familiar disappeared and never came back. Even her sister was not around. If Zero showed any potential in fighting today, she could argue in front of the leader. That's why she was serious about the training today. Sadly, a miracle didn't happen.
"The leader allowed Gramme to study you." Hela sighed.
Technically, this was the first sentence which was not related to the training in their conversation. Hela didn't notice that Xiao's eye became sharp for a sec and then returned to emotionless.
The day finally came. Xiao knew that his standstill would lead to this consequence. For the sprout, a failed subject was useless.
He did not regret his choice. If he showed the talents, he would be trained as a tool, warrior and Deadpool. There was no chance for him to reach the core of the organisation as a subject. He would only be a tool. The difference was a good or bad tool. That's why Xiao had decided to leave the sprout.
Xiao noticed a photo on the floor. Maybe Hela dropped it during the suplex and roll. He picked it up. Two lovely girls were in the photo. The sunrise with a beautiful sea view, they stood on a nice beach. The photo was full of peace and joy. Both girls had a big smile. Another girl with white hair looks similar to Hela. She looked kind and clever.
Hela's face went cold and she took the photo back immediately. She was relieved after she found the photo was intact. She put the photo in her pocket carefully and looked at Xiao. Then she shook her head and left the training room.
Suddenly, a message popped up on the panel.
[You trigger class D mission |Owl's plot|, accept/decline?]
Xiao was excited. This was the first mission in half a year. No hesitation, accept!
[Mission background: the dark and bloody thrive of the sprout is a secret to sex nations in Blue Planet. Hela has an unknown past. Is she loyal to the sprout? You already have a clue. Follow it, there may be unexpected gain or danger. Of course, you can choose to offer this clue to chosen ones or keep it only to yourself. The choice is yours.]
Obviously, the photo triggered the mission. And Xiao happened to know the girl with white hair - Aurora. Aurora also possessed a superpower and hers was completely different from Hela's. Hela possessed death power and the blood of Aurora was a strong recovery potion. Enough blood could prolong lifespan and even bring the dead to life. In the game, Aurora was controlled by the sprout and as a stake to threaten Hela to work for the organisation. The only one Hela cared about was her younger sister, Aurora.
At the end of version 1.0, the war between six nations and the Sprout was on the corner. The sprout dismembered Aurora to make a strong recovery potion which could recover anyone who was dying. Hela was on the front line and only knew her sister's death after several months. The Sprout knew she would rage and sent many top-class superpowers to control her. She was imprisoned and tortured. But her will for revenge helped her survive all the misery and she managed to escape. Since then, Hela became atrocious. She would consume thousands and millions of lives to gain power. She was an evil and scary 'Death goddess' in the Broken River.
Although the present Hela was aloof. She was very kind compared to the future 'Death goddess'. Xiao would like to help Hela escape the miserable future. Not for mercy but for his own benefit. 'Death goddess' was insane and killed anything in her sight. In-game, Xiao met her several times in space. Every time all his space ships were destroyed and causing huge loss.
The key to changing Hela must be Aurora. Every two months, Haila would leave the base to visit Aurora and he had enough experience now. His chance finally came.
Back in the modification room, Xiao revoked the panel. He had one specification and two professions at the moment - Elementary machinist, Citizen and Agent. Citizen was useless, the other two were the key to his escape.
Back in the game, Machinist was the weakest in the lower power class. But Xiao was the best. After version 3.0, with top-end knowledge, the power of Machinist boosted. In later versions, a high-class machinist equated to an army! Besides, the talents of Machinist were countless. Every new blueprint meant a talent. Consider the thousands of blueprints that exist in the universe. The great potential of Machinist led to different fighting strategies - trap, machine position, cannon, sniper, Jaegers etc. The disadvantages were obvious too. To manage those talents requires a huge amount of experience. More than double or triple than other specifications.
Without hesitation, Xiao put his experience in Elementary Machinist to level up.
[|Elementary machinist| reach lv.3 stamina +10, intellect+1, endurance+1, 2 free attributes obtained, 1 free talents point obtained]
...
[|Elementary machinist| reach lv.10 (max) stamina +30, intellect+1, endurance+1, 2 free attributes obtained, 1 free talents point obtained]
The limit level of all elementary specialisations was lv.10. Transfer mission was required to further level up. It took Xiao 130,000 experience to level |Elementary machinist| to lv.10. He got 8 points of endurance and intellect, 100 stamina, 16 free attributes, and 8 free talent points. He didn't meet the requirement for transfer and had to leave it. Then Xiao level up |Agent| to lv.9, cost 80,000 experience and obtained strength+12, agility +9, charm+3, 9 free attributes, and 9 free talent points. The character level reached lv.20.
A character could have unlimited professions, but he needed transfer missions to break the bottlenecks. The first bottleneck was lv.20. The glass ceilings were different for each version and that of version 1.0 was lv.60. Xiao noticed that there was no character level limit for him. This meant that he could have more power than players in this version.
In versions 1.0 and 2.0, all players were restrained in the new players' stars. They were not aware of the super organisations in the universe. That restraint was for players not for him. He is an NPC now.
[Transfer mission (lv.20) : learn one advanced knowledge of machinist]
The requirement before learning advanced knowledge was to acquire five basic knowledge. The basic knowledge in the base was not complete. He couldn't do anything about it. Xiao level |Elementary repair| and |Elementary modification | to lv.10(max) and gained two more free talent points. This cost 150,000 experience. He spent 10,000 experience to level up |Elementary machine affinity| to lv.3. Based on his experience in the game, Xiao spent 60,000 experience to level up |Basic fighting| and |Basic shooting| to lv.6 and acquired |Catch| and |Precise shooting|
The left 170,000 experience was saved to 'gamble' on blueprints. Blueprints were important for Machinist. There were four ways to acquire blueprints. Firstly, there was a low chance of acquiring a blueprint when levelling up knowledge. Secondly, special blueprints could be acquire from special missions or NPCs. They were very rare and usually powerful. Thirdly, disassembling a machine gave the chance to reverse engineer the blueprint. The success rate was low and would cost a huge amount of experience. Last but not least, 'knowledge combination' - merge two or more machinist knowledge. If the combinations were correct, there was a chance to invent a new blueprint. Each combination costed experience.
60 kinds of knowledge meant a great number of combinations. Valuable blueprints were hidden in those combinations. Each combination may develop many blueprints but only some of them were useful. Some blueprints even required intellect, the level of knowledge or other blueprints as a precondition. It was hard to figure out how many blueprints there were as the experience cost would increase exponentially. You would never know what you were going to get. Welcome to the 'casino' in SL.
Before Xiao was put in the game, players found and shared thousands of combinations which would lead to good equipment. Xiao remembered most of them. This would be a big advantage against the coming players. He gained 19 free talent points from level-up and two talents were level up to max level which offered another 2 points. That's 21 points in total. In the modification room, Xiao took out the books he had hidden in the corner of the bookshelf and invested the free talent points.
[You are going to spend 1 talent point to learn the equipment branch |Elementary machine engineering|, confirm/decline?]
[You are going to spend 1 talent point to learn the equipment branch |Elementary bionics|, confirm/decline?]
"Confirm!"
Loads of knowledge went into Xiao's head. The overload feeling was painful. It took him a while to recover from the pain. Now, all that knowledge was solid in his mind. 2 more talent points were invested into |Elementary machine engineering| and |Elementary bionics| to level them up to lv.2.
[You are going to merge knowledge (|Elementary machine engineering| and |Elementary bionics|), this time it will cost 10,000 experience, confirm/decline?]
"Confirm!" A dizzy feeling came to the head, and a new blueprint appeared from nowhere.
[The combination is successful, congratulations for you developed |Swift Rogallo |!]
Not this one. Continue.
[This time it will cost 20,000 experience, confirm/decline?]
[The combination is successful, congratulations for you developed |Artificial limb|!]
Wtf, the worst one. Not this one. Continue.
[This time it will cost 40,000 experience, confirm/decline?]
[The combination is successful, congratulations for you developed |Light powered arm|!]
Here it is! Xiao was so excited! Light-powered arm, this was exactly what he needed. The saved experience in half a year was almost gone.
-------------------------------
Name: Xiao Han
Race: Carbon-based human (coloured)
Model: NPC (Counting down for Version 1.0: 182 days 8 hours 23 minutes)
Level: 20 (Transfer mission unfinished)
Experience: 100k
Specialisation: Elementary machinist lv.10 (max, Transfer mission unfinished)
Profession: Citizen lv.1 (0/50), Agent lv.9 (0/25000)
Health: 320/320
Attribute: Strength 21, Agility 17, Endurance 22, Intellect 15, Mystery 1, Charm 5, Lucky 1.
Free Attribute: 27
Stamina: 120/120 (lv.3)
lv1(10) - Strength +1, Agility +1, Endurance +1
lv2(50) - Strength +3, Agility +2, Endurance +3
lv3(100) - Strength +3, Agility +3, Endurance +5
Power: 48 - 55
Class: F
[Compared to the weakest super power, you are a worm!]
Talents:
- Machinist:|Elementary machine affinity| lv.3, |Elementary repair| lv.10 (max), |Elementary modification| lv.10 (max) . Blueprints: |Swift rogallo| lv.1, |Artificial limb| lv.1, |Light powered arm| lv.1
- Agent:|Basic fighting|lv.6 - grant +6% damage on bare-handed attack
|Basic shooting| lv.6 - grant +6% hit rate
|Catch| lv.1 - grant +3% strike back rate, +2% damage on bare-handed attack
|Precise shooting| lv.1 - grant +3% hit rate, +2% strike rate on shooting
Free Talent points: 17
Legend points: 0
Equipment: N/A
-------------------------------------------
With the accumulation of over half a year, Xiao's power had increased significantly. He invested 5 free attribute points in intellect to add it to 20 - the requirement to make |Light powered arm|. Last thing before escape was to arm himself. A chilling smile appeared on Xiao's face.
"Ready for revenge? Here I come"