"I need to use your military transport planes."
Inside the Farian stronghold, Han Xiao spoke to Antonov.
Antonov was slightly taken aback, and said slowly and deliberately, "We only use arms transport planes for large transactions. Even if you're a VIP, you still have to bear the corresponding costs."
"I know."
"Okay, how many people do you want to transport, and when do you want to leave?"
"Just me, right away."
Antonov's obese face trembled like ripples on water, and he remained silent for a long time before finally managing to stammer, "What a waste."
The arms transport plane will arrive at its destination in about a day. It's equipped with a makeshift workshop, allowing Han Xiao to gain experience by manufacturing machinery on board, saving him travel time.
"Fifty thousand for one trip, are you sure?"
Han Xiao pulled a wad of banknotes from his briefcase containing 100,000 yuan and threw it on the table. "When are we boarding the plane?"
"One hour later."
Farrian has long leased a runway at Morning Wind City Airport, where several giant, dark green transport planes are parked on the platform. Han Xiao, carrying equipment and materials, boarded one of the planes and soon felt the aircraft's structure vibrate. The plane began to accelerate and take off, soaring straight into the sky.
Once the stratosphere stabilizes, he can begin manufacturing machinery.
The scorching Blazing Sun beat down on the boundless desert, heating the yellow sand to an unbearable temperature.
A group of twenty-odd people trudged through the desert, their steps faltering.
They wore tattered gray robes, unwashed for who knows how long, emitting a foul stench. Sweat soaked their clothes, clinging damply to their bodies. Their lips were cracked, their eyes sunken, and their faces betrayed their exhaustion. They swayed as if they might collapse at any moment, and the packhorses they led were also sickly and emaciated.
There once existed an oasis nation in the Somar Desert, where people lived a prosperous and peaceful life. After the outbreak of war, the nation was destroyed, and the oasis was completely wiped out by gunfire and assimilated into the surrounding desert. These ragged people were once the people of that nation.
A legend circulates in the old kingdom: deep within the Somar Desert lie the ruins of another civilization from millions of years ago, preserving a treasure that could control the desert! Decades ago, during a war, the Somar Desert underwent an abnormal transformation. The sand, like ocean currents, formed a massive whirlpool that swept across the desert, constantly swirling as if controlled by a force. This whirlpool lasted for seven days before automatically dissipating. Evidence and documents vanished with the destruction of the oasis kingdom. Some survivors of the old kingdom firmly believe in this legend and, placing their hopes for restoring their nation on it, have been searching for it for many years.
Pilgrims, a derogatory term for these remnants of an old kingdom, referring to wanderers near the Somar Desert.
These twenty-odd people were the last pilgrims.
"The Feronya Ruins, the power of magic, must exist..." the oldest pilgrim muttered to himself.
In the Somar Desert, a convoy returns to a heavily fortified fortress.
"Dorothy, still no luck this time?" Luo Qing, the leader of the Rose Armed Forces, asked coldly.
"The search area is E4, E5, and D4, but there are still no clues about Feronya."
Dorothy answered in a deep, muffled voice. She was a strong Black woman with a centipede-like scar that made her face look terrible. Her arms, exposed outside her tactical vest, were strong and powerful, with bulging muscles and tattoos, but these were covered by her skin color and were almost invisible unless you looked closely. She didn't know what the purpose of the tattoos was.
The Rose Armed Forces are an all-female armed mercenary organization based deep in the Somar Desert, and they search for Feronya year-round.
The Rose Armed Forces have two instructors. The other instructor, Ghost Fox, is a petite, slender white woman who is a skilled assassin.
"During this search, we exchanged fire with Gordon's men, and Wenli and Ceci are dead."
Almost all of the returning female mercenaries were wounded, with bullet holes in their bulletproof vests and shattered ceramic linings.
Luo Qing's eyes turned cold, and he said indifferently, "Be more careful next time you search. The Chaisrod Family, who are the backers of those bastards Gordon, have always wanted to eliminate us."
Each armed group in the Somar Desert has a backer. They occupy the desert in search of Feronya, engaging in small battles every three days and large battles every five days. The mercenaries who survive here have at least ten lives on their hands; they are all ruthless people who have tasted blood.
Han Xiao felt the plane jolt, and the powerful thrust pressed him into his seat. After a while, the pressure gradually subsided and the plane came to a stop.
"We've landed," the pilot's voice came over the loudspeaker.
Han Xiao carried his luggage off the plane, and the sweltering air hit him in the face.
The landing site was a medium-sized warehouse base surrounded by barbed wire, with many armed personnel patrolling the area. This was Farrian's stronghold in the Somar Desert. Farrian, a global arms group, has strongholds in every region for convenient logistics, since the courier companies here don't ship weapons.
"Welcome to the Somar Desert." Antonov also stepped off the plane, his stout body making his white shirt look very full, the outline of his flesh clearly visible, not much different from being bare-chested.
How did you get here?
"Hehe, the person in charge here in Somar got caught up in a shootout a while ago. That unlucky guy had his skull blown off by a stray bullet, so I came here to arrange some business. It just so happens that I haven't been on vacation for a while."
Han Xiao nodded, and without being polite, "I need intelligence on the distribution of forces in the Somar Desert, along with a map of coordinates, and I'd also like to borrow a desert off-road vehicle."
I'll have someone arrange it for you.
The Somar Desert is vast. Even if a person drives an off-road vehicle without sleep or deviating from the course, it would still take ten days to cross it. Because the desert environment makes it difficult to discern directions, only coordinate radar can serve as a map. Many armed groups are stationed in the Somar Desert.
Han Xiao couldn't understand why people were gathering in this barren land to fight to the death.
"In search of Feronya."
"What is that?" Han Xiao asked curiously. He didn't recognize the name, so it was obviously a hidden quest that no one had triggered in his previous life.
Antonov chuckled and said, "I don't know either."
Han Xiao saw through Antonov's attempt to evade the issue, raised an eyebrow, said nothing, picked up his equipment, got into the car, and set off to conduct an on-site investigation of the Rose Armed Forces ' stronghold.
"Have a safe trip," Antonov lazily, waving his hand.
The barbed wire gate opened, and Han Xiao drove his desert off-road vehicle out.
Using coordinate radar for positioning, Han Xiao arrived at the distance of the Rose Armed Forces stronghold a few hours later and observed it through a multi-magnification telescope.
The Rose Armed Forces Outpost is a heavily fortified small fortress with concrete walls covered in barbed wire and only one metal gate for entry and exit.
Inside, sentry towers were built, with lookouts constantly monitoring the surroundings. The visibility was excellent, and they were also equipped with high-powered searchlights that would be turned on at night.
Han Xiao concluded that unless one could escape through the sand, it was impossible to sneak in.
Moreover, the Rose Armed Forces consist of a group of women with large breasts and perky butts. While their own butts are indeed perky, their breasts can't be squeezed out no matter what, and even with Simulation Mask, they can't fake it.
The infiltration plan failed.
Han Xiao glanced at the several howitzers and dozens of heavy machine guns mounted on the sentry tower, as well as the solid concrete exterior walls.
Well, the frontal assault plan is also doomed.
"We can only lure the snake out of its hole; we must use trap tactics. We need to create something new." Han Xiao's gaze shifted, and he quietly retreated.
He set off back to the Farrian outpost and borrowed the workshop from Antonov.
He had seven potential points left, and he used four points to upgrade [Basic Electromagnetic Principles] to level four and [Basic Wide-Area Detection] to level three.
[Whether to perform knowledge fusion (Basic Electromagnetic Principles Lv4, Basic Energy Theory Lv3, Basic Wide-Area Detection Lv3), this consumes 15000 experience points.]