Occupation: Office Manager
Reputation: Somewhat famous
Skills: [Firearms Mastery LV1][Basic Fighting LV2]
Gained a bit more in attributes, and as for the additional skill, he learned it last night using a Superdream headset, watching a Huang Ban [Fighting] chip for the whole night.
Lin Miao’s panel might look similar to a player’s, but the difference is players have skill points. Theoretically, as long as they have skill points, they can upgrade their skills. But Lin Miao doesn’t have such a thing; he has to learn skills on his own. Attribute points, however, are more challenging for players to gain than skills, which they can learn or point up. Even asking the system couldn’t clarify the mechanics.
It’s friggin’ ridiculous; Lin Miao suspects that this is related to the fact that players can resurrect while he cannot.
And the next main storyline task given by the system is even more headache-inducing, even contradicting his ideas to some extent.
[Main Task: Factory Construction]
[Task Introduction: If you’re going to farm, you need to act like it. Fighting all day long is ridiculous. You’re a mature host now, don’t make me teach you everything. Look at Jimmy, he had a hard time transitioning to selling dumb DVDs. Brother, you’re still young. Avoid crime on your path.]
[Task Goal: Build a factory, location unlimited, type unlimited, with a production line totaling at least 100KW, and must align with society’s broad definition of a factory]
[Task Reward: Basic Card Pool Lottery Ticket*10, Bio-modification Pods*5]
To Lin Miao, now isn’t the time to farm peacefully. Night Wanderers could raid the office for revenge at any moment, so the vicinity of the office is temporarily not a good construction environment, and industrial land in Night City is insanely expensive. Renting a small room and setting up two 50KW CNC machines would be a waste of time and money.
And what would he produce?
Lin Miao discussed with Sol about building a water plant, but that’s for the future. Just securing water source land, factory land, inspection certificates, and sales channels would take a lot of effort, and it cannot be accomplished in a short time, let alone construction.
He scratched his chin, feeling troubled, then a thought snapped in his mind.
Why not let the players handle this, wasn’t that what I brought them here for, to share my worries?
Apart from this, there are also two side tasks: one is to get legal documents for the office, which means Lin Miao wants to get company registration done through the old captain, and the other is to expand the number of players to 50, which can be done smoothly.
After thinking about these serious matters, Lin Miao took out the chip Lucy tossed to him upon parting, and held it up for a look.
Well, that woman did tamper with it indeed.
This is not the data chip he gave her—it’s a copy. Apparently Lucy kept the original for herself.
Upon connecting the chip to the Superdream, his view switched to across the highway from the Phoenix Club, looking up, Lucy was watching him from the upstairs balcony.
[System, when updating the data chip, replace Lucy’s model, just throw in a generic NPC.]
[Chilling possessiveness]
[Do you even have a back? Shut up and get to work.]
The next day, when the young players logged on, as per their regular routine, they first showed shock mixed with awe. Lin Miao kept to the rulebook, waiting outside the gate until the new players, under Natural Curl’s instruction, got dressed and he could repeat the line that embarrassed even him.
The door suddenly echoed with several coarse exclamations, making Lin Miao curious, so he stepped inside.
Could have been close; he almost blurted out "whoa" as well.
Actually, it wasn’t anything major; it was just a pile of black hair and suddenly, a golden one emerged.
Jianxue Nameless: "Bro, which country are you from?"
The blonde Egyptian Beauty glanced around; indeed, he was quite standout, so he explained, "My ancestor was English, right under the Union Jack. Later, after WWII, they immigrated to the United States. My old man went to Jinling when he was young and never returned. I came back home last year after studying in the United States."
After speaking, the people around didn’t believe him, so he burst out with a cultured Jinling dialect.
"Genuine Jinling native, what, do you lot plan to claim another nationality?"
"Amazing, a white dragon is still a dragon."
Lin Miao never checked the real identity of participants for his slots; he had no clue this guy had such a peculiar background. Bio-modification pods as well, the resulting appearance would bear some resemblance to reality, but the height, dimensions, etc., wouldn’t differ significantly.
However, Lin Miao was merely surprised at first before calming down. In Night City, this is no big deal; even if you dyed yourself in all colors, you wouldn’t stand out in public.
Natural Curl scratched his ear was shouting, "Hurry up, don’t waste our game time. Tsk, making a fuss over everything. I even chopped off someone with no hair yesterday."
Everyone listened with a shock; only then did they realize standing before them was one of the survivors from yesterday’s fight, and a BOSS to boot!
A short-haired female player, just dressed, upon seeing Lin Miao, widened her eyes, and swiftly approached him, attempting to grab his chest with both hands.
Lin Miao quickly flicked her hand away, glaring at her.
"What are you doing?"
"Sorry, BOSS, couldn’t restrain myself for a moment."
Bun awkwardly laughed twice, apologized with a bow, and trotted back into the player crowd, excitedly talking to Natural Curl, "He actually refused me, so intelligent, OMG! Does this game have a favorability system, can I romance him?"
The two of them were acquaintances, the game was even introduced to the other by Natural Curl.
Natural Curl looked at the woman lost in her fantasies with a dead fish eye, and said disdainfully, "Who would like you, a tomboy—"
Natural Curl doubled over holding his stomach and dry-heaving, while Bun extended her right hand, clenched a fist before him, knuckles creaking, eyes fierce.
"Got it! Got it! Your body is definitely at least 7 points."
Other players’ eyes twitched watching this; damn, where did this female tyrant come from, daring to hit a seasoned veteran player?
Watching this, Lin Miao felt mentally exhausted, even forgetting his scripted line, only managing to cough and shout, "Alright, after getting dressed, come outside with me, this new world is waiting to welcome everyone."
Due to the 24-hour penalty, Wildman and his seven still needed to wait until the afternoon to log back in, so for the moment, only Natural Curl could guide this batch of new players.
As for Pandora, Lin Miao feared if she was placed outside, she’d simply get lost as she didn’t know how to communicate effectively with people.
"Hey, wait, why did the items suddenly increase so much?"
Natural Curl initially planned to skim through the store before leading the players to gather materials, only to discover that two new purchasing options and a new section were added in the store.
[Superdream Training: 40 Euro/hour]
[Superdream Combat: 60 Euro/hour]
The new [Task Panel] featured many available tasks
Besides daily scrap material collection, Night Watcher tasks became permanent security and warehouse construction
There were also defense reinforcement tasks that were ineffective due to the lack of architectural blueprints
Machine gun bunker modification—mounting yesterday’s spoils, vehicle-mounted machine guns on the watchtower and office machine gun slots, and rearranging machine gun forts.
Among these seemingly ordinary tasks, there was a unique task
[Main Task: Design a Product Exclusive to the Office]
[Task Description: The manager is considering building a factory for the office, but doesn’t know what to produce. Can anyone solve this problem?]
[Task Goal: Submit your works or designs on the official website or in-game to the manager. The more detailed the submission, the higher the chance of winning]
[Task Reward: The contest winner will receive a mysterious gift from the manager himself]
Come on, dear players, show me your limits.
Add some points for me, BOSS!