Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 94 - 075. Pathway

Chapter 94: 075. Pathway

Li Aozi did not lie.

In his previous life, he started in the Arlanca Kingdom and later emigrated to the Red Arrow Empire, becoming an empire citizen. As he leveled up and developed, he got himself a GTB Legion Commander membership card, making his gaming experience much more enjoyable.

This route was called ’company dog’ by the players.

Players pursued freshness, excitement, fun, and benefits.

To this end, some became war criminals at Sky Ring, some wandered as vagrants in the Outer World, and some even worked in the family planning office at Zhengxu. Naturally, there were also those who worked miserably for GTB and the Four Nations.

GTB had an extremely vast influence, and Li Aozi was well aware of the filth and darkness behind this ’bank.’

However, this did not prevent him from spending lavishly in Extreme Joy Heaven and Mobilun with his Legion Commander card, becoming infatuated with the experience...

Hmm, it was indeed a legitimate venue, just that the projects were somewhat niche.

The Legion Commander membership card had no overdraft limit. It was common for players who had processed it to overdraw tens or hundreds of thousands of Galun.

Compared to Frost Plated’s Derby, the Galun of the Red Arrow Empire was much more resilient and would not suffer from severe devaluation issues like Derby did during the 226 financial crisis.

Unfortunately, if he had known earlier that he would be blowing up planets, Li Aozi should have racked up more debt.

Nimotin sent a bounty application to GTB in disgrace, and then she urged Agent Yawen to run away quickly.

Staying with this madman, Li Aozi, any longer would sooner or later cost her life.

Yawen briefly made eye contact with Li Aozi. She did not understand his intentions, but based on his look and reaction, he seemed confident in his actions.

Ultimately, she said nothing and supported Nimotin as they left.

As for their subsequent plans, Li Aozi no longer cared. Nimotin had a dedicated network; as long as she escaped his sight, she would have no trouble finding support.

["Yawen Heskixin has left the team"]

Li Aozi was not bothered by Yawen’s departure. He truly could not improve her Favorability in the short term, so he let her go for now.

After all, he would eventually return to Frost Plated.

After all, she was David Lyn’s daughter; if he really wanted to increase Favorability, he might as well rescue David Lyn directly, which would be more effective than anything else.

Having mastered this point, Li Aozi was in no hurry.

David Lyn was a legendary figure, a rare combination of character and talent. His personal virtue was almost praised by half the Azure Star People, incorruptible and proficient in national defense affairs.

He could not be let off so easily.

Additionally, David Lyn’s eldest son, Dykesyn, was also a graduate of the Frost Plated Business Academy. If it weren’t for his father’s implication, he would have long joined GTB as an executive—he was a talent, and Li Aozi needed a knowledgeable financial manager to monopolize jewelry and equipment trade in the future.

"Starry Abyss was too deep and vast, and developing it required an enormous amount of manpower and populations. I needed a mass of various talents."

Li Aozi calculated meticulously.

Initially, players thought that since the levels in the game "Starry Abyss" had no cap, reaching hundreds or thousands of levels was just a matter of grinding.

They naturally assumed this game, similar to a traditional fantasy worldview, glorified personal heroism, where the stronger the individual’s might, the greater the power.

However, subsequent development completely exceeded their expectations.

The first reason was that in the universe, there was no concept of time. Thirteen Narrative-Level Civilizations each controlled a part of spacetime, and no matter how strong a person’s ability... unless one’s size exceeded tens of thousands of light-years and caused spacetime collapse, they had no right to challenge the Narrative.

Take the Empire of Heralds as an example. The strength of this Narrative was enough to interfere with dimensions and planes, a power established on the vast scale of the Narrative dominating the universe.

But forming neutral organizational alliances made things much easier.

Whether for trade or military actions, the Narrative welcomed these neutral organizations.

This was the second point—in the interstellar journey spanning hundreds of natural years, these Transcendents actually became more tolerant. Some principled issues that mortals could not tolerate were trivial matters for these Longevity Breeds.

Aliens prioritized profits, but the more long-term interests were obviously supreme.

If an issue couldn’t be resolved in a few years, it could be discussed again a few thousand years later; it would eventually be resolved.

And for ordinary player groups, filling the Star Map with populations of Transcendents allowed them to claim it as their homeland. When individual extraordinary might occupied several Starfields, it easily drew the dissatisfaction of neighboring civilizations and star clusters. But if it housed a ’civilization since ancient times,’ they gained the interstellar public opinion high ground.

Yet this wasn’t the major issue; power was earned in battles, and individual combat strength could tolerate not expanding one’s influence, or even disdain it.

But they could not tolerate the setback of their individual strength.

Especially as they submerged deeper into Starry Abyss, they discovered in horror that individual strength appeared particularly powerless at the narrative-level depths, for their enemies came not only from the outside—but also from within themselves.

The cost of each submergence and ascension was enormous; the stronger the individual, the stronger the curse from Starry Abyss they bore.

If you didn’t submerge deeper, you could only stop there, never reaching higher levels, waiting for death in the shallow starry sky.

In these circumstances, the power of the Meteor Fall Master was useless individually and brought inconveniences due to their immense strength, obstructing descents and ascensions.

One could guard the front door and command the scene, but if the rear caught fire, no matter how powerful they were at the front, they could only watch helplessly as their accumulated wealth demolished.

If it weren’t for being a narrative-level civilization, forming greater elite teams made sense, spreading personnel across each layer of Starry Abyss to consolidate influence.

But this required sufficient numbers of Transcendents among the affiliated group, and these powerful Transcendents were rarely truly united due to narrative-level civilizations’ interventions.

Of course, Meteor Fall Masters were an exception, to Li Aozi’s regret—they were too few and too arrogant to unite.

Fortunately, this issue was slowly being resolved at the source. If the number of future [Meteor Fall Masters] could increase by half, Li Aozi would consider it a great success.

"My strategic deployment was basically set, and whether players could elevate [Mutants] depended on my performance."

Seeing the rewards of the "Imprint," Li Aozi was convinced it was the main quest for Frost Plated players [Mutants].

Especially its Settlement Condition C: "Uproot"—its quest rewards included a choice of [Biochemical Nest], [Gene Extractor], or [White Obelisk].

New players would be puzzled, having no idea what these three items were. But Li Aozi knew very well.

"[Mutants’] Pathway Buildings."

Li Aozi squinted:

"The first player to complete the occupation’s main quest would unlock Pathway Buildings—simply put, they were tools that allowed everyone in the occupation to follow the same development route."

Pathway Buildings were like establishing a mountain for a sect, solidifying a profession’s foundation and enabling later members to grow and advance swiftly.

These items were useless for solo players but extremely important for guilds.

Any guild or organization faced high costs for training newcomers. While skill, awareness, and experience could slowly be cultivated, obtaining a suitable set of skills, specialties, and arcane energy required real money.

Pathway Buildings’ primary benefit was drastically reducing the training cost for the guild and organization. As long as newcomers took this Pathway, they could request aid and consult the pioneers through the Pathway Buildings, regardless of distance.

Moreover, Pathways provided numerous important features.

[Biochemical Nest] focused on Physical Strengthening, capable of replicating and cultivating Bio-beasts modeled after the Pathway pioneers, suiting powerful individuals with insufficient manpower.

This Pathway Building was geared towards war, helping newbies gain powerful pets (or "mothers"), making it convenient for rookies to farm monsters and level up.

It also allowed using Bio-beasts for surveillance, which subordinates wouldn’t refuse as they’d see these powerful fighters as a sign of the Leader’s trust, fostering mutually satisfied cooperation.

The only shortcoming was [Biochemical Nest] required extensive manpower for maintenance—a tricky situation.

Those needing it were likely the very strong individuals already lacking trustworthy personnel.

If a big shot handed out Bio-beasts and everyone went out fighting and leveling up, who would maintain the building then?

[Gene Extractor] took an exploitative route. Simply put, once a Pathway pioneer set up the Gene Extractor, his subordinates only needed to bring over individuals with Super Genic genes to extract a portion of their genes, modify bodily defects, and enhance attributes—very practical.

However, based on Li Aozi’s past experience, the [Gene Extractor] was a headache to use...

The main issue was its immobility and large size (1.4 kilometers tall, covering 600 hectares). Each activation was so loud it could be seen from outside the atmosphere.

If too many enemies were provoked, it would be too conspicuous. They could simply drop a meteor from the atmosphere, smashing it, leaving you grieving with nowhere to turn.

As for what [White Obelisk] was, Li Aozi had no idea.

The similar structure he’d seen was the [Black Obelisk], with a length-to-width-to-height ratio of 1:4:9.

That was a terrifying Pathway Building, made of Strong Interaction Force materials: indestructible, immutable, immovable, absolutely precise—standing there, it issued a silent warning.

Choosing the [Black Obelisk] yielded continuous buff gains, preventing diseases, bodily distortions, and granting full cellular evolution every 2001 days, eventually allowing the Pathway followers to abandon physical bodies and become energy lifeforms, enjoying endless life and unyielding will.

Its sole downside was the slow effectiveness, taking four or five versions to show results, and after one player achieved a perfect body, only then did they receive a message—’you can transform into an energy lifeform now.’

Wow, all that painstaking effort and preparation wasted in the blink of an eye—what a monumental fool. Countless hours invested in quests and material collection for nothing.

And why did Li Aozi know this so well...

Because he was that monumental fool.

"The Black Obelisk was an incredible creation, rumored to be made by the Narrative."

But what the [White Obelisk] was, Li Aozi honestly had no clue.

Pathway Buildings were rare items, and even he hadn’t seen them all.

Compared to these, Li Aozi’s focus was on the gains from slaying the Incarnation of the Professor, the ’Infant Eater.’

A quick tally... the results were astonishing.

Unexpected events, side quests, scattered kill experiences, and the substantial yield from defeating the over-leveled Infant Eater—the total came to 781,250 points.

With that much experience, Li Aozi could finally level up to 20.