"A change of tactics?"
Su Qingqian blinked her big eyes, looking curious. "Boss, aren't we just going to run them over? Like before?"
After the one-sided slaughter earlier, the once-delicate campus beauty seemed to have developed a strange confidence in this simple, brutal style of combat.
"Running them over feels great, sure, but it's not a long-term strategy."
Watching the red dot gradually move away on the central control screen, Lin Hui patiently explained:
"First, we don't know whether they have any trump cards that could threaten the RV. Its defenses are incredible, but what if they have some bizarre Extraordinary Item like the [Eye of Scapegoating]?"
"More importantly..."
Lin Hui paused, a teasing gleam flashing in his eyes.
"We're hunters now. The greatest pleasure of hunting isn't wrestling with wild beasts. It's setting a perfect trap, then sipping coffee as you elegantly watch your prey jump right in, struggle, and finally despair."
Su Qingqian nodded thoughtfully, then stared at Lin Hui's face and couldn't help saying, "Boss, you're so wicked..."
"Heh heh..."
Lin Hui chuckled, then asked, "Qingqian, can you modify Anti-Tank Mines?"
He had obtained ten crates of Anti-Tank Mines from the abandoned Arsenal, five hundred in total. But those mines were pressure-triggered, making them rigid and inflexible.
If they could be modified for remote detonation, his new tactics would be easier to execute.
"Yes!" Su Qingqian puffed out her chest, her little face full of confidence. "As long as I have the right components, I can modify them."
"Good."
With that, Lin Hui took a [Drone] out of his spatial dimension and handed it to Su Qingqian.
"Modify this too. I want it to do more than watch. It also needs to... lay eggs."
"Lay eggs?" Su Qingqian froze, then her eyes lit up. "Boss, you mean... aerial bombing?"
"Smart girl."
Lin Hui patted Su Qingqian's head and continued, "Finally, I have another difficult task for you: make an electronic device that can clone voices. I have a big use for it."
"No problem!" Su Qingqian clenched her fists.
Lin Hui took all kinds of materials and the Anti-Tank Mines out of his spatial dimension and handed them over to Su Qingqian.
Once Su Qingqian left, Lin Hui turned toward the cool, striking older woman wiping down her sniper rifle.
"Liu Xi."
"Mm." Liu Xi stopped cleaning her rifle and looked up at Lin Hui.
"Your job is to control the battlefield. If they spot the Anti-Tank Mines early, open fire. Your first shot must take out their lead vehicle and block the road completely. Then... pick off anyone who dares get out."
"Understood." Liu Xi nodded lightly, then met Lin Hui's eyes and couldn't resist asking.
"Boss Lin, what did you do in your original world?"
Lin Hui answered without thinking, "I was a college freshman."
"At a military academy?" Liu Xi asked again.
"No." Lin Hui shook his head, then casually added, "I did think about applying to one. My grades probably would've been good enough, but I probably wouldn't have passed the political background check."
Liu Xi opened her mouth, intending to ask why, but swallowed the question before it came out.
She felt that the young man before her had a story.
But years of professional experience told her never to pry when someone didn't want to talk.
After a brief silence, Liu Xi stood and said:
"I'll go help Qingqian. I don't understand machinery principles, but I know weapons well. That's knowledge I gained from awakening my 'Shooting' specialization."
"Go ahead..." Lin Hui nodded lightly, then sharply turned the steering wheel. The black RV veered off the highway toward the road where the Feral Wolf Guild convoy was traveling.
As he drove, he opened the system panel, intending to check the regional chat channel for any information that interested him.
Just then, however, Lin Hui noticed a private message.
He opened it and saw a familiar ID-"Li Xian."
The messages had been sent two hours earlier. He hadn't opened the system then, so he hadn't seen them.
[Li Xian: Are you still there, boss? The five of us worked ourselves to the bone! We stripped all the scrap iron out of a ruin! We also bought more from lots of players in the regional chat channel!] [Li Xian: We've collected 150,000 units of scrap iron in total! Can we... trade now? (image.jpg) (image.jpg)]
The pictures showed neatly stacked piles of scrap iron, each like a small mountain.
150,000 units?!
Lin Hui raised an eyebrow, a satisfied smile curling his lips.
Li Xian was pretty efficient. He had potential.
[Lin Hui: I'll take it. As agreed, 150,000 units of scrap iron for 50 portions of Universal Fuel. Or you can take an equivalent amount of food and ammunition.]
The reply came almost instantly. Lin Hui could practically feel Li Xian's excitement and trembling through the screen.
[Li Xian: Universal Fuel! We only want Universal Fuel! With it, we can travel farther and find more scrap iron! Boss, you're a living saint!! We'll keep doing this business for the rest of our lives!!]
A living saint?
Lin Hui smiled and completed the trade with a few casual taps.
At the same time, he told Li Xian that he also bought scrap glass at the same price as scrap iron.
Scrap glass could be synthesized into advanced bulletproof glass, another material needed to upgrade a vehicle to level 5.
Closing the system interface, Lin Hui willed his consciousness into his spatial dimension.
There sat a mountain-sized pile of scrap iron.
"Synthesize!"
Lin Hui spoke softly.
Hum!
The enormous mountain of scrap iron instantly broke apart. Countless impurities were removed, and the metal atoms rearranged and recombined on a microscopic level.
[150,000 units of scrap iron → Synthesize → 15,000 units of refined steel] [15,000 units of refined steel → Synthesize → 1,500 units of armored ballistic steel] [1,500 units of armored ballistic steel → Synthesize → 150 units of high-strength titanium alloy] [150 units of high-strength titanium alloy → Synthesize → 15 units of blue titanium alloy (Perfect-grade critical!)]
In just a few seconds.
The heap of junk that had occupied so much space disappeared.
In its place were fifteen top-tier alloy plates emitting a faint blue glow.
Fifteen units of [Perfect-Grade Blue Titanium Alloy]!
High-strength titanium alloy was already extremely rare, let alone blue titanium alloy, which was a grade above it.
The market price of one unit of high-strength titanium alloy was a hundred portions of Universal Fuel.
No one had ever sold blue titanium alloy, but its price had to be at least ten times that of high-strength titanium alloy.
Yet Lin Hui had obtained fifteen units of perfect-grade blue titanium alloy for just fifty portions of Universal Fuel.
His profits were simply ridiculous.
But to Li Xian and his group, the scrap iron was junk that took up space, and even throwing it away was a chore. Trading it for fifty portions of Universal Fuel was practically a windfall!
Both sides felt they had profited, but Lin Hui was clearly winning on an entirely different level.
Lin Hui then synthesized the steel and armored ballistic steel in his spatial dimension into blue titanium alloy as well.
He now had 270 units of blue titanium alloy in total. His luck had been good, and ninety of those units were perfect-grade blue titanium alloy.
Although upgrading to Lv5 only required high-strength titanium alloy, Lin Hui wanted to use blue titanium alloy instead.
He was now only thirty units short of the three hundred required.
He was sure he would collect enough soon!
Of the nearly four hundred thousand surviving players, only fifty or so had vehicles that had reached Lv5.
Aside from the rarity of Lv5 Vehicle Upgrade Blueprints, the main reason lay in the materials required for the upgrade.
High-strength titanium alloy, advanced bulletproof glass, and reconnaissance radar chips (1.0) were equally rare.
For Lin Hui, the first two were no problem. He could synthesize them using scrap iron and scrap glass.
The crucial item now was the reconnaissance radar chip (1.0)!
He couldn't count on the regional chat channel. Almost no one would put anything truly valuable up for trade.
However, Lin Hui already had another idea: steal it!
Steal it from the Feral Wolf Guild players!
Some of them were bound to have level 5 vehicles. As long as one of those vehicles had reconnaissance radar, couldn't he obtain a reconnaissance radar chip by capturing and disassembling it?
Before you continue