Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 275 - 095. Falling leaves bring news, Meibei where are you?

Chapter 275: 095. Falling leaves bring news, Meibei where are you?

Li Aozi showed the players more than just the DM-101 type Ersha Experimental Potion invested in by Grante, after all, for the productivity of Sky Ring, they couldn’t afford such expensive potions in a short period of time.

"What I have prepared for you here is the new XDM-101 Mutation Inducing Potion, which can awaken your Arcane Energy at a much lower cost. Most importantly, it speeds up the time it takes for the potion to take effect, so you don’t have to worry about the cost at all," he said.

Li Aozi took a ginger-colored potion from the Biological Pool and gently shook it, causing red and black shadows to ripple immediately inside the tube:

"Of course... the downside of affordability is that the instability also increases. You will endure great pain, and you might not even obtain a high-rated Arcane Energy."

The players, not understanding the ratings of Arcane Energy, saw no issues with this. Li Aozi’s prices were very approachable, perfectly suited for trying their luck whenever they wished. If one day they were lucky enough to obtain a superior Arcane Energy, that would be the best outcome.

However, Li Aozi’s subsequent words awakened their dormant DNA from years of slumber:

"Although the probability is unstable, I have roughly summarized a pattern: every 10 consecutive awakenings will consistently awaken a rare Arcane Energy, every 50 consecutive awakenings will awaken an advanced Arcane Energy, and every 100 consecutive awakenings will awaken an advanced rare Arcane Energy..."

King Yan smirked, "Is that a guaranteed draw card feature?"

"Even if you awaken a useless Arcane Energy, it doesn’t matter. As a ’Mutant,’ I will teach you how to crush the gene sequence of the Arcane Energy and collect its Gene Fragments to feed your favorite powerful Arcane Energy," he explained.

Old Blind’s eyes twitched, "Dismantling to feed the card?"

"Of course, if you feel that your Arcane Energy is not powerful enough, I consider myself a somewhat capable ’Mutant.’ I am quite confident in my own Arcane Energy—If you don’t mind, I can sacrifice some of my own strength to lend you my Arcane Energy for use," Li Aozi offered.

The Antarctic Penguin covered his wallet in horror, "Is this a smelting gold game!"

Although the leaders of the three guilds were speechless about Li Aozi’s approach, their bodies accepted his deal quite honestly.

The cheaper XDM series, as a lower substitute, was very suitable for newcomers just entering the field, and the Arcane Energy did not affect a person’s future occupational development. Some had already transferred to ’Martial Artist,’ but this did not prevent them from having multiple ’Physical Strengthening’ Arcane Energies to make them tougher.

Having bought Li Aozi’s potions, players particularly noticed that the Biological Pool was still synthesizing some mysterious potions. Li Aozi, pretending to be mysterious, said, ’This is a product only sold to some warriors I approve of.’

Such a statement, coupled with the previously mentioned cheaper substitute products, convinced people that Li Aozi definitely had more valuable items.

For this reason, the players from the three guilds gathered to discuss fervently.

"Everyone, what do you think? Should we take this task or not?"

"Take it."

"Accept it, this is even harder than an A-level task, do you also want to die quickly?"

"Then don’t take it."

"Don’t take it, but there are still many resources unexplored."

To be precise, it is not a question of whether to take on the task, as obviously, Li Aozi was engaging in bundled sales.

If you don’t accept the task, and later want to unlock Li Aozi’s favorability and buy his products—then sorry, you’ll have to slowly grind for favorability. As for how much use your ’Charm’ Attribute has for Li Aozi, a ’Sovereign’ series Professional Instructor... it doesn’t matter, being rebuked with contempt is also great.

The difficulty of C-level tasks was already insurmountable for the current players, and the task posted by Li Aozi was daunting enough to keep people away.

The guilds were not fools. If it were casual players or streamers facing such tasks, they might just form a friendly team for fun, enhancing interaction and entertainment. But the guilds aimed to profit from the game’s mechanisms.

Since everyone was here for the money, they had to weigh this mess of a task—complete it? What would the benefit be?

Indeed, there was an experience points bonus of 50,000, which wasn’t small initially, but what about after reaching levels 10 or 20?

Furthermore, if players needed to be over level 20 to complete Li Aozi’s main quest, even if the task itself brought decent rewards, the result was still not good looking, considering the manpower, resources, and time costs invested by everyone.

Moreover, what time is it now? It’s Beta testing!

The Beta test was only 15 days before the public test, which converted to a year’s worth in the game, but for people in real life, 15 days was more than enough to clear out the fridge.

As many were planning to change professions and then go back to earn money and grind levels, the always indifferent president of the Fishmen Guild, Old Blind, made a decision:

"Why think so much about it, we may be the first players to trigger the main quest since the game started, and that itself is the top news!"

As a former live streamer, Old Blind had a different perspective from those studio brick-layers; he understood the deep-seated truth that popularity rules. Sometimes people might scoff at certain celebrities, but inexplicably, they become wildly popular and turn into internet sensations.

But as soon as he said this, the way others looked at him resembled the way one would look at the foolish son of a landlord, filled with smiles of kindness and care. Being scoffed at by his peers wasn’t a big deal, but what really bothered Old Blind was noticing the ’boss, are you alright?’ glances subtly thrown by his own guild members, causing him to blush and defensively cross his arms, explaining:

"You guys, seriously, think more carefully about this!"

"At first glance, the task released by Leo seems too difficult, absolutely not suitable for players our level—to complete—but look carefully, among the three settlement conditions, besides C, does any require us to engage in battle?"

As soon as these words came out, everyone immediately glanced at the task description and read it carefully, quickly realizing lots of details had been overlooked.

The three settlement conditions, A required a monetary transaction for a job change, combined with the training mission arranged by Leo, B involved going to the Houjo Group for an investigation, and C was an internal selection competition. There had always been a small dueling ring in Triangle Town that Leo would rent for a while to regularly select the top 25 superb personnel to go to space with him.

Looking carefully... indeed, there was no mention of battling issues.

"That’s not entirely true."

King Yan threw cold water on it:

"Let’s ignore C for now, this task is so difficult without any battle elements, and A is just about spending money and obeying orders—it’s obvious that the difficulty must be dispersed in the preliminary conditions of B."

"You’re right," agreed Antarctic Penguin, "C seems to lack the risk of death penalties, but in reality, if you don’t complete B, you won’t get the key item, the hydrogen bomb; how could Leo possibly value you and take you to space?"

"So here comes the problem," Old Blind muttered with his arms crossed, "just how difficult is this settlement condition B?"

"The point is not how difficult B is, but rather how powerful the Houjo Group is, can we really get in?" the main reason for King Yan’s skepticism was based on this, "If we can’t complete B, then there’s no talking about C. Therefore, if we are to take the task, I think completing A is enough. The later parts of the task are simply not worth the effort, moreover, there is more than one professional instructor on Azure Star, pleasing just one is not enough. Our Bai Ri Guild plans to just complete A and then not participate any further."

King Yan’s change in attitude was largely due to his distrust of the unstable element of Arcane Energy, he vaguely sensed that the career path of a Mutant, an unstable route, might not be as powerful as officially promoted or even as Leo himself.

As a commercially well-established guild, King Yan wasn’t too keen on taking risks; he conservatively chose a strategy of expansion, not planning to wager the precious early manpower on luck.

His reaction, Leo watched intently, though this old tough guy kept irritating him, Leo wasn’t annoyed.

On the contrary, he actually thought King Yan was decent, very steady, just not suitable to be a president.

The issues raised by King Yan had been the main points of doubt about Mutants in the past; although after advancing to the Alpha Stage, Mutants in the Overseer form had the highest burst of magic damage in the early stages, the problem lies in the unstable process of cultivating Mutants themselves.

Not only that, though King Yan’s view seemed short-sighted, it was hard to fault from the perspective of guild management.

However, as a vice president, it was fine to speak such words, but as the leader, one must have courage and ambition.

[However, the Bai Ri has always been managed very stable, maybe it’s just their traditional style.]

Since Bai Ri was a purely commercial guild, having neither produced professional players nor major streamers, Leo barely knew King Yan, and at this moment, he grew somewhat interested and planned to observe for a while.

From the beginning, Leo had been in dire need of talent. On Azure Star, he had to recruit several teammates: the Mechanic, Du Zexin, was slacking off while on vacation in Frost Plated, the Judge, Gretto Yegg, was in jail, the future legendary Architect, Barnum Ziegrin—Master Ziegrin now enjoyed the benefits of a senior civil official in Grante, assisting Alicxia with miscellaneous tasks when he was free, and also doing laborious work like digging, building roads, constructing bridges, erecting dams, hunting, living quite comfortably.

The combat-focused talents were already in place, but logistical talents were severely lacking.

For example, the son of David Lyn, and the talent of Yawen, even if possible, Leo would love to pull David Lyn, a man full of military and political skills into the team, move the whole family, oh, after getting the talent, he would need to kick out Yawen, the weakest link.

There were many capable support personnel among players, but most were not publicly known, the well-known coaches, team leaders, and analysts were essentially the backbone of the national teams, and he had no chance to meet, like King Yan, such guild operators were really suitable to take to space.

War and destruction were never the main themes of cosmic civilization, those were just some visibly evident frictions and sparks, development and cooperation is the eternal and long-lasting path.

[Speaking of which, I wonder how Meibei is doing, it’s been a while without contact, I should find a chance to lure him over and upgrade my Biological Pool. ]

As Leo was daydreaming, the remaining two guilds also made their choices.

"Since the president of Bai Ri has already said so, I will also complete A, and as for C, if there’s a chance in the future, I will bring people to try it," Antarctic Penguin didn’t say everything he was thinking; he was considering both what was in the bowl and what was in the pot, which was normal, as everyone wanted more benefits.

Last, it was ironically the Fishmen Guild, which had been annihilated by the task at level C, that agreed to take on the task under Old Blind’s reasoned advocacy.