Chapter 131: Seasoned Players Already Pick Their Own Side Professions
“Teacher?”
Qiao Hanlan, chewing a big mouthful of roasted meat, stared wide-eyed at Meng Wei, who had taken the initiative to make the suggestion, full of surprise.
The foundation of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall was indeed beyond imagination, and its potential for future development was indeed not comparable to the Iron Heart Gang, but bringing the Iron Heart Gang into the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall was really a bit too much.
“Bring the Iron Heart Gang in with you.” Lin Qi could not help looking at Meng Wei in surprise. He had not expected that a meal of player-made monster roast meat could have such an astonishing effect, so he asked, “Vice Gang Leader Meng Wei, can you make decisions on behalf of the Iron Heart Gang?”
Originally, bringing Meng Wei and the others over was only to try to get more profit from the Iron Heart Gang. After all, the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall was short of both money and people. Just the expansion of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall alone was conservatively estimated to cost tens of millions, and that was using the simplest and slowest expansion method. If they used better materials and hired vagrants for the expansion, it would be completely normal for the price to double.
Especially since upgrading the martial arts hall also required the manufacture of a gravity room. This was not comparable to an ordinary room; at least B-grade alloy was needed to build one. In other words, without dozens of tons of B-grade alloy it could not be made. The ancient bronze ore under the martial arts hall was far from enough, and a large amount would still need to be purchased.
If a suburban gang with decent foundation like the Iron Heart Gang could join, then he would suddenly have many more people he could use.
Lin Qi had already considered recruiting some powerful vagrants to form a team dedicated to managing Crimson Moon Mountain, as well as handling materials from Crimson Moon Mountain and daily personnel transport. That way players could focus on wilderness transport and wilderness hunting, allowing the martial arts hall’s profit to be maximized.
Put bluntly, it would be like other virtual games, with players focusing on offense and NPCs on defense, maximizing the speed at which the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall could develop.
It was just that wilderness vagrants were overly complex, and with the current number of players still too small, if they recruited a large number of wilderness vagrants, they could easily be used by other wilderness factions to infiltrate Crimson Moon Mountain. Discovering that Crimson Moon Mountain had very few players, they could coordinate from inside and outside, and even destroying Crimson Moon Mountain would not be out of the question.
But having the people of the Iron Heart Gang join would be different. They were all from one gang. As long as the senior officials were kept in check, there would basically be no big trouble.
And gang members were different from vagrants who were used to being free. As long as the rules were made clear, these gang members would follow them. Those who did not obey would already have been cleaned out by the gang, so there was no need to spend a lot of time retraining them.
“No, I cannot.” Meng Wei shook his head, then quickly added, “But as long as you give me time, I can go and persuade the gang leader and several gang elders to join.”
“What do you want?” Lin Qi was not surprised and asked with a smile.
There was no such thing as pie falling from the sky. Meng Wei bringing the Iron Heart Gang in definitely had something in mind. Otherwise, as a suburban gang like the Iron Heart Gang, they could have joined any of the other major powers in the suburbs, and those powers would have scrambled to accept them. There would be no need to join the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
“Not much. I want elder treatment in the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, and in addition I only need Hall Master Lin to guarantee that my two disciples and I can have monster meat at every meal.” Meng Wei said with great certainty, “As long as Hall Master Lin can guarantee that, I’m confident I can convince the gang leader and the others.”
“A martial artist willing to come to our Obsidian Martial Arts Hall as an elder is of course welcome, and as for monster meat, as long as martial arts hall members pay money normally, our Obsidian Martial Arts Hall will definitely let them eat their fill at every meal.” Lin Qi nodded, then asked with a smile, “I just do not know how long Elder Meng Wei will need to bring the Iron Heart Gang in.”
Monster meat might be an issue for other city factions, but for the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall it was no problem at all.
If he had not explicitly forbidden players to leave the Crimson Moon Mountain area at will, which would leave Crimson Moon Mountain defenseless, he suspected these players would have already run outside to hunt monsters for fun.
“Five days! No, three to four days will be enough.” Meng Wei thought about it and gave a time frame he believed to be generous.
“Alright, I will wait for Elder Meng Wei’s good news.” Lin Qi nodded.
In three to four days, the twenty player resting places would also be fully renovated, and the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall would instantly be able to accommodate two hundred more players. With that many players, it would be enough to keep the joining Iron Heart Gang under control in Crimson Moon Mountain.
“There is no time to lose. Hall Master Lin, I will go back and make preparations.” Seeing that Lin Qi had agreed, Meng Wei’s face showed joy. He then paid three hundred bit and left Crimson Moon Mountain with his two disciples.
After Meng Wei and the other two left, Zhang Qing Wei, who had been sitting beside Lin Qi eating, was left dumbfounded.
“What is going on?”
“Can a new plot really be triggered by just one meal?”
Inviting Lin Qi and the others over for a meal had only been to increase Lin Qi’s favorability. After all, as far as the players currently knew, Lin Qi was the NPC with the highest permissions, so favorability was very important.
But she had not expected that simply increasing favorability would let her overhear such explosive plot developments.
The suburban gang Iron Heart Gang was actually planning to merge into the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, and within three to four days at that. This was quite astounding news.
Once the Iron Heart Gang merged into the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall, it would mean the operating range of the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall might extend to the suburbs of the City of Light Chasing, becoming another new activity map in High Martial Arts Descend.
Pioneering!
New enemy!
New opportunity!
For a moment, Zhang Qing Wei thought of far too many possibilities, to the point that even the extra portion of roasted meat she had ordered no longer tasted good.
“Master of the Pavilion, I just remembered there is an important matter I need to handle, so I will not disturb your meal any longer.” After greeting him, Zhang Qing Wei hurried straight to the mine, intending to tell Luo Wu Shang and the others this shocking news.
Lin Qi did not mind. The struggles between suburban gangs in the City of Light Chasing were only a matter of time for the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
It was a good thing for players to prepare early. After all, once players were promoted to martial artists, their required resources were not only energy ore. Various items that increased blood qi and helped accelerate cultivation were all necessary for players; even he was no exception.
After all, he had only summoned the players into this high martial arts world and, through the system, granted them the power to resurrect repeatedly. The price for that had to be borne by the players themselves.
And martial artist cultivation was not like in Blue Star’s web novels, where it was like a game of killing monsters to level up, where players only needed to kill monsters to level up at will, and even chopping down a stray dog on the roadside would give experience. In such a world, simply killing random cats and dogs every day would keep piling up experience and everyone could become strong. That beautiful world did not exist.
Reality was cruel. If players did not put in enough effort and did not have enough resources, the vast majority who entered High Martial Arts Descend would only reach martial artist level in this lifetime, only slightly better than most residents of the high martial arts world. In the end, only a very small number would reach the top. Otherwise, the system would not have needed to grant him the permissions to screen players.
After finishing his meal, Lin Qi also strolled idly through the trading area to see if he could pick up anything good.
The high martial arts world was different from Blue Star where he had lived. Because of the appearance of monsters and the myriad races, there were countless strong ones who had fallen in battles in the wilderness and destroyed cities and civilizations. So wilderness vagrants could, from time to time, find some good things. Although they could not use them themselves, they could sell them at high prices to factions in need.
This was why wilderness gangs wanted to set up transit markets in the wilderness.
Normally, in order to fetch a high price for such good things, vagrants would go to the trading markets of major cities without fearing hardship. All the benefits were taken by the suburban gangs, while wilderness gangs did not even get a sip of soup. Wilderness transit markets would allow them to intercept a portion.
“Hmm, this is…”
Lin Qi looked over at a player’s private house not far from the mine. The private house was quite large, like a small workshop, and from time to time the sound of metal being polished could be heard.
This piqued Lin Qi’s curiosity, and he walked over to see what these players were trying to do.
Inside the simple house built from wooden planks, several players were busy. Among them was Yi Ye Fu Yun, who was currently at a small machine tool, polishing a weapon that looked very familiar to Lin Qi.
A handgun.
Though the workmanship was somewhat rough, no matter how you looked at it, it was clearly a Desert Eagle.
“Are you insane? Making handguns in a high martial arts world?” Lin Qi watched the excited Yi Ye Fu Yun, momentarily not sure what to say.
The principle of making a handgun was very simple. Anyone who understood or was interested in military industry and had some hands-on ability could make one.
But thermal weapons like handguns were not very effective in the high martial arts world. At most, they had some killing power against those below quasi-martial artist level and were basically useless against ordinary monsters. They were not very effective even against people wearing armor. The defense of random armor sets in the high martial arts world far exceeded bulletproof vests; even heavy sniper rifles would not work.
The only thermal weapons that worked were energy particle cannons in major cities. A single shot could flatten a street block, and ordinary monsters charging in would just be seeking death. This was the greatest source of confidence for major cities.
However, such energy particle cannons were far too large, suitable only for defense, and could only deal with ordinary monsters, so their practical use was limited.
Yi Ye Fu Yun making handguns, he really thought this was an apocalypse world where everyone was an ordinary person who could act like a lord with a gun, without considering whether those apprentices in A6-grade battle armor would agree.
“Master of the Pavilion, why are you here?” Yi Ye Fu Yun saw Lin Qi at the door and ran over excitedly.
“Nothing much, I was just curious what you were doing.” Lin Qi looked at the rather excited Yi Ye Fu Yun and asked calmly, “You are planning to make guns?”
“Yes.” Yi Ye Fu Yun held up the freshly polished “Desert Eagle” and said proudly, “This inspiration came to me suddenly from Lightning Palm.”
“Inspiration? What kind of inspiration?” Lin Qi asked in surprise.
“Previously, when I used Lightning Palm to throw metal ore, the power from the electromagnetic acceleration was astonishing, so I wondered what kind of weapon could reproduce this principle.” Yi Ye Fu Yun said smugly, “In the end I thought of using the lightning force of Lightning Palm to accelerate the handgun bullets. Not only can the penetrating power be maintained, but the consumption of blood qi is much lower, and the accuracy is much higher.”
“So I used a large amount of weapons and armor to exchange from a wilderness caravan for a set of generators and a small machine tool. Although the small machine tool can only cut A-grade metal, using A6-grade metal for experiments is enough, so I made a few to test.”
“How did the experiments go?” Lin Qi asked with some curiosity.
Originally he had thought Yi Ye Fu Yun was making ordinary handguns. If he was actually making a superconducting electromagnetic gun, that would be impressive. From how easily Fang Zhen and the others had killed the Crocodile Fang Rhinoceros, it was clear this definitely had potential.
Once Yi Ye Fu Yun could make it work, the improvement to Crimson Moon Mountain’s combat power would absolutely be a qualitative change.
