(Bennett's POV)
-Come on, it's not so bad.- Bennet sighed, looking at Han Xiao who seemed incredibly annoyed.
Han Xiao grunted in displeasure, but said nothing.
They were already in a helicopter, flying towards the airport where they would catch a plane to drop Andrea off.
-Easy to say, the agreement is basically that Ringo's sanctuary must be bigger than mine and have a bigger statue than mine! I don't even have a statue! Now, if I do have one, his needs to be bigger! That was in the damn contract! Son of a bitch!- Han Xiao seethed with rage, he could imagine Ringo's ironic smile looking at him.
Bennet gave a forced smile, the sanctuary built in Andrea would be financed and managed by Hell, so the greater the investment in Black Phantom's sanctuary, the better Hell's sanctuary would be. This secretly pleased Bennet, but he wouldn't say it to Black Phantom's face.
Sure, there were problems with that, the Sanctuaries were supposed to be neutral, but due to Hell's sponsorship, the sanctuary on Andrea is basically neutral in name only. But it didn't matter much to Bennet, as long as humans could take shelter there in case of disaster, he would be satisfied.
Furthermore, there is only Hell in Andrea, which means that anyone who takes refuge in the sanctuary there is basically an inhabitant of this country, so it doesn't really matter, unless there is civil conflict. At that point, Bennet could only sigh and hope for the best.
He ignored the irritated Han Xiao and began to look at the document issued by Hell, which detailed the available investment, including the team responsible for the construction.
Bennet was stunned for a moment, and Han Xiao noticed. He asked curiously. -What is it?
-It seems Ringo followed your example, most of the staff assigned to the sanctuary are inhuman.- Bennet handed the file to Han Xiao.
Han Xiao glanced around briefly, recognizing many players. He wasn't surprised, from the forum, he already knew that a small portion of the players had joined Hell. He wasn't worried, thinking that his "city for players" would attract them sooner or later, especially when he ventured out into the galaxy.
He glanced briefly at the list, then shook his head.
Ringo could build a city for players like himself without even realizing it, but without understanding the players, it wouldn't succeed.
Of course, Ringo knew exactly what attracted the Players, and that was already part of his plan. These guys were very annoying, always looking for things to do all day and causing trouble. Melissa is always complaining about them. So he saw Han Xiao building his sanctuary and decided to follow suit.
In the future, he would transform the place into a gigantic mission center, he had plans to create a version of this Las Vegas world mixed with a low-level mercenary association. Whoever was at the top of the ranks could join Triple Six, it would basically be a way to keep these troublemakers busy and get cheap labor.
He could recruit them all at once, but he understood the player mentality well.
If you spend days trying to complete a quest to get a mediocre weapon, you'll use it even if it's not the best, but if you get a mythical weapon right at the start of the game, you just look at it and say, "Oh, cool".
Ultimately, for the players, it's a matter of effort and usefulness, so when they come to work for Ringo, they won't go around causing trouble everywhere for fear of losing access to a group that was so difficult to join.
The sanctuary was just an excuse Ringo made up, if Bennet hadn't come, he would have simply given it another name and continued with the construction.
Of course, when the news broke, the happiest were the Hell players, they already knew about the city of Black Phantom and were very excited to be able to enter it, but they were reluctant to give up the powerful Hell faction, so they could only be envious of the other side, some even leaving directly.
Casual gamers didn't care about things like consequences, all they cared about was having fun. These are precisely the ones that cause Melissa the most headaches.
Of course, nobody was really interested in the sanctuary, it wasn't an important location in Hell, it was purely a place to shelter refugees. Who would want to work with something like that?
No one knew the true purpose of the city, except Melissa and Li, but Melissa was busy and Li was always training, plus with Eva's departure, Li became responsible for training the Super recruits.
He didn't even want to do it, he only did it because Melissa asked, but the group of recruits soon began to miss Eva, the woman was tough, but she had a fixed training regimen.
Li, on the other hand, was very good at discovering where the true limits lay, this only means one thing: brutal training.
If Eva's training was Spartan, Li's training could be considered hellish, something that could be used as torture rather than being called training.
Aquamarine's medical skills were anything but basic, especially since Hell inherited them from Germinal and Ringo could buy good things from all over the galaxy, so broken bones were treated almost like minor injuries.
Li took advantage of this, he fractured bones to make them regenerate stronger, dislocated joints to train flexibility, made them sleep only a few hours a day to train their acuity, he would throw rabid animals at them while they were sleeping, going to the bathroom, or taking a bath, to ensure adaptability.... In the end, Li found himself greatly enjoying the feeling, as if he had returned to the time when he still accepted students.
But the students themselves were so afraid of Li that they trembled at the mere thought of him, some even had nightmares and woke up screaming during the night.
Of course, Li knew there was a limit to what the human mind could endure, he could heal the body, but the mind? That was more difficult.
The best way to deal with it was to give the mind something to yearn for, suffering for nothing is torture, suffering for something is work.
And work means reward.
Those who met the targets received salary bonuses, access to cutting-edge knowledge, advanced equipment, genetic serums, accumulative time off... whatever these guys might want, Li offered it all, all they had to do was give it their all.
They already had these advantages before, but now the exchange limit was lower while the equipment was better, which allowed these ambitious young people to push through the training, even though they were still unhappy.
This improved the atmosphere incredibly, but the students were still very afraid of Li.
But today Li was offering a new kind of reward. - Price, Bane, and Oscar! - Li shouted as soon as he arrived at the training field.
The individuals in question trembled fiercely as soon as their names were called, wanting to cry but lacking the courage, they stood as straight as possible.
The students distanced themselves from the trio as quickly as they could, no one wanted their names called by Li. The last one was caught sleeping during training and was forced to work non-stop on the construction for three days—he couldn't even eat or sleep!
Next to Price, a chicken ran even faster than the students, getting as far away from Li as possible, the chicken was trembling as much as the students.
Price looked at the runaway chicken with eyes full of fury.
The truth is that the chicken couldn't beat Li, he found that out the hard way. When Li discovered him and saw that he wasn't training, he forced him to train.
Crimson even stooped to using the humiliating argument of "I'm a chicken", in a completely literal sense.
Li's response was: Either you run like a recruit or you get cooked like a chicken.
Thus began the hellish life of Crimson, the mage chicken forced to train like a Pugilist.