095 Fallen Leaves Bring News, Where Are You, Mouldy Crotch?

Li Aoz showed the players more than just the DM-101 Esha Experimental Potion that was deployed in Grand, since Sky Ring's production capacity couldn't afford such an expensive potion in the short term.

"What's inside is the XDM-101 novel Mutation Inducing Agent that I've prepared for you. It can awaken your Aoneng, and the price is relatively low. Most importantly, it speeds up the process of the agent taking effect, so you don't have to worry about the cost at all."

Li Aoz took a ginger-colored vial of medicine from the Biochemical Pool, shook it gently, and immediately red and black afterimages rippled inside the tube:

"Of course... the price of cheapness is that instability also increases. You will suffer great pain, and you may not even be able to obtain high-grade Aoneng."

Players didn't understand the rating of Aoneng, so they didn't see anything wrong with it. The price offered by Li Aoz was very reasonable, making it perfect for people to try their luck here from time to time. If they were lucky one day and got an excellent Aoneng, that would be the best outcome.

However, Li Aoz's words immediately awakened their long-dormant DNA: "Although the probability is unstable, I have roughly summarized a pattern: every 10 consecutive awakenings will always awaken a rare Aoneng, every 50 consecutive awakenings will always awaken a high-level Aoneng, and every 100 consecutive awakenings will always awaken a high-level rare Aoneng..."

The Yan Wang grinned. "Guaranteed drop rate in gacha pulls?"

"Even if you awaken useless Aoneng, it doesn't matter. As a [Mutant], I will teach you how to crush the Gene Sequence of Aoneng, collect their genetic fragments, and use them to feed the powerful Aoneng you like."

Old Blindeye's eye twitched. "Disassemble and feed the cards?"

"Of course, if you feel that your Aoneng is not strong enough, I myself am a fairly capable [Mutant], and I am quite confident in my own Aoneng —if you don't mind, I can sacrifice a part of my strength and lend you my Aoneng."

Antarctic Penguin clutched their wallets in horror. "It's a pay-to-win game!"

Although the three guild leaders were speechless at Li Aoz's actions, they still obediently accepted Li Aoz's deal.

The inexpensive XDM series is a great alternative for newcomers to the game, and the Aoneng doesn't affect a person's future career development. Some people have already switched to the [Martial Artist] class, but that doesn't prevent them from having multiple [Physical Enhancement] Aoneng, making them even tougher and more resilient.

After purchasing Li Aoz's potions, the players noticed that certain mysterious potions were still being synthesized in the Biochemical Pool. Li Aoz mysteriously said, "These are products that are only sold to a select group of warriors I approve of."

Such remarks, coupled with the previously mentioned cheap, lower-end products, have convinced people that Li Aoz must have some good stuff up his sleeve.

For this reason, the players from the three guilds got together and started a heated discussion.

"What do you all think? Should we accept this mission or not?"

"Go ahead and accept it."

"Take it. This is even harder than an A-level mission. Do you want to die at the speed of light?"

"Then I won't answer."

"If we don't take it, there are still many resources that haven't been discovered yet."

To be precise, this isn't a question of whether or not to accept the task, because it's obvious that Li Aoz is engaging in bundled sales.

If you don't accept the mission, and later you want to unlock Li Aoz's Favorability and buy Li Aoz's products—then sorry, you'll have to slowly grind for Favorability. As for how useful your little bit of [Charm] attribute is to Li Aoz, a [Dominator] type professional mentor... it doesn't matter, being scolded with a look of disgust is also great.

The difficulty of C-level missions is an insurmountable mountain for current players, and the mission issued by Li Aoz is enough to make people give up.

Guilds aren't stupid. If it were a casual player or streamer, they might just team up with their friends to play around with this kind of task, which would increase interaction and entertainment value. But the guild's goal is to profit from the game's mechanics.

Since everyone here wants to make money, we should think carefully about these random tasks.

Complete it? What are the rewards? Yes, you get 50,000 experience points, which is a lot in the early stages, but what about after you reach level 10 or 20?

Even if we take a step back and assume that players need to reach level 20 or higher to complete the Main Quest issued by Li Aoz, then even if the quest itself offers good rewards, the result will still not be very attractive considering the manpower, resources, and time invested by everyone.

What's more, what time is it now? It's the closed beta! The closed beta is only 15 days earlier than the open beta, which translates to more than a year in the game. But for people in real life, 15 days is more than enough time to empty the food out of their refrigerator.

Just when many people were planning to go back to grinding for money and leveling up after changing jobs, the blind old guild leader of the Murloc Guild, who had always been lukewarm, made a decision:

"Why think so much? We might be the first players to trigger the Main Quest since the server opened, which is the biggest news in itself!"

Old Blindeye, who started as a live streamer, has a different perspective than the studio's laborers. He deeply understands the principle that traffic is king. Sometimes people may scoff at certain celebrities, but they inexplicably become popular and become internet celebrities.

But as soon as he said that, everyone looked at him like they were looking at Landlords man's foolish son, with smiles full of kindness and concern. Being ridiculed by his peers wasn't a big deal, but what really bothered Old Blindeye was that his guild members were also subtly casting "Boss, are you alright?" glances at him. His face flushed red, and he simply crossed his arms and explained:

"You people should really read the question carefully!"

"At first glance, the mission issued by Li Aoz seems too difficult and not suitable for players of our level to complete at all—but look closely, of the three settlement conditions, apart from C, which one requires us to fight?"

Upon hearing this, everyone immediately glanced at the mission description, read it carefully, and promptly realized that they had missed a lot of information.

There are three settlement conditions. A requires paying money to change jobs and then cooperating with the training tasks arranged by Li Aoz. B requires investigating intelligence at the Hojo Conglomerate. C is an internal selection competition. There has always been a small Duel Arena in Triangle Town. Li Aoz will spend money to take it over for a period of time so that players can select 25 of the best people to go to space together.

Upon closer inspection... there was indeed no mention of combat.

That's not how you say it.

Yan Wang poured cold water on the situation. "Let's not talk about C. This task is so difficult, but it doesn't have any combat elements. A can be completed as long as you pay money and obey orders. So it's easy to imagine that the difficulty will be spread out on the settlement premise of B."

"That's right." The Antarctic Penguin agreed, "C may seem to have no risk of death penalty, but in reality, if you don't complete B, you won't have the key item, the Hydrogen Bomb. How could Li Aoz's possibly be interested in you and take you to space?"

"So here's the question," the Old Blindeye muttered, arms crossed, "Just how difficult is settlement condition B?"

"The key issue isn't how difficult B is, but just how powerful the Hojo Conglomerate is. Can we really get in?" This was the main reason for Yan Wang's skepticism. "If we can't complete B, then C is out of the question. Therefore, if we're going to take on a mission, I think completing A is enough. The later missions are too difficult and thankless. Besides, Azure Planet has more than one career mentor; trying to please just one isn't enough. Our White Day Guild plans to complete A and then stop participating."

The Yan Wang's change in attitude largely stemmed from his distrust of the unstable element of Aoneng. He vaguely sensed that the profession of "Mutant" was probably not as powerful as the official propaganda or Li Aoz himself.

As a guild with relatively well-developed commercialization, Yan Wang was not willing to take risks. He conservatively chose an expansion strategy and did not intend to gamble his precious manpower in the early stages.

Li Aoz noticed his reaction. Although the old man with the dark face kept bothering him, Li Aoz wasn't annoyed.

On the contrary, he thought that Yan Wang was a good person, very calm, but he was not suitable to be the Guild Leader.

The questions raised by Yan Wang were basically the same questions that were questioned about the [Mutant] in the previous life. Although the [Mutant] who have the [Overlord Form] after advancing to the Alpha Rank, the problem is that the process of cultivating [Mutant] is not stable.

Moreover, although Yan Wang's statement may seem short-sighted, it is not problematic from the perspective of guild management.

However, it is acceptable for a vice Guild Leader and second-in-command to say such things, but as the person in charge, one must have the courage and ambition.

However, it's worth noting that Bai Ri has always operated very steadily; perhaps that's just their traditional approach.

Since Bai Ri is a purely commercial guild that has never produced professional players or top streamers, Li Aoz knew almost nothing about Yan Wang. However, he was somewhat interested at the moment and planned to observe him for a while.

From the very beginning, Li Aoz was short of talent. On Azure Planet, he had to recruit several teammates: [Mechanic] Du Zexin was on vacation and slacking off in Frostplate; [Judge] Gretwar Night Song was in prison; and the future legend [Architect] Barnum Ziegler —Master Zieglin was currently enjoying the treatment of a senior civil servant in Grand, doing odd jobs with Alexia, and in his spare time he would go to the fields to work, repair roads, build bridges, construct dams, and hunt. He was living a more comfortable life than anyone else.

The combat specialists are all in place, but we're really short on logistics personnel.

For example, Dai Weilin's son, and Ya Wen's talent. If possible, Li Aoz would even like to bring Dai Weilin, this tough guy with top-notch military and political skills, into the team and move the whole family away. Oh, and once they get the talent, they'll kick Ya Wen, the bottom of the class, out.

There are many capable support staff among the players, but most of them don't show their faces. Well-known coaches, team leaders, and analysts are basically the backbone of the national team, and he has no chance to contact them. Guild operators like Yan Wang, on the other hand, are very suitable to be taken to space.

War and destruction have never been the main theme of Cosmic Civilization; they are merely visible frictions and sparks. Development and cooperation are the eternal and lasting path.

[By the way, I wonder how Mouldy Crotch doing. We haven't been in touch for so long. I need to find a way to trick him into coming over so I can upgrade my Biochemical Pool.]

Just as Li Aoz was lost in thought, the other two guilds also made their choices.

"Since the Guild Leader of the association has said so, I will also complete A. As for C, I will bring people over to try it when there is an opportunity in the future." The Antarctic Penguin did not make any definitive statements. He was thinking about both what he had and what he wanted. This was not a problem, after all, everyone wanted to get more benefits.

In the end, it was the Murloc Guild, which had been wiped out by the C-rank mission, that finally agreed to accept the mission after Old Blindeye's reasoned arguments.