Chapter 717 - Changing in a Blink (2/2)
“How convenient. I thought we’d have to look for leads ourselves.”
Frenzied Sword’s eyes gleamed. He was actually thinking about what had happened between the two versions. He did not expect this guiding mission to directly publish the information they most wanted to know. How good this was!
Their mission requirement was to update their internal procedures, which was the Phillip subprogram. This was the toy installed by all members of the Black Star Army and contained the ability to check their resumes, accumulated achievements, browse the faction store, call airdrop supplies, and more.
The tens of thousands of players took out their communicators and opened their subprograms. This time, there was some response for them at last. Phillip’s virtual image turned into a 3D projection, which was suspended above the communicator.
“Coordinate detection… Coordinates confirmed. Your current position is the base of the Black Star Army. Permissions have been unfrozen. You have obtained permission to update your database. Please scan to verify, hum…”
Before the version update, Phillip’s subprogram could not support the function of stereo projection. Players could only use words to tease Phillip. However, he now had an avatar. Phillip appeared as a finger-sized boy that appeared as cute as a girl would.
Many of the female players’ eyes lit up when they saw him, and they could not help but touch Phillip with their fingers. Although there was no tactile feeling being transmitted, Phillip acted as though he had been hit and covered his little face, which was full of tears. His innocent expression seemed to convey that he was in pain because his projection had the function of virtual sensing.
Instantly, the majority of female players, including Maple Moon, were captivated by Phillip, their motherly love disastrously overflowing:
“Waa, how can something be so cute!”
“Oh no, this is the feeling of having a child!”
“He’s so cute. My heart is gonna melt…”
“So cute, how apt.”
Hao Tian squeezed on Phillip’s head, causing it to explode and turn into a pile of light debris. The next moment, it reformed, and Phillip shivered in a corner of the screen. Hao Tian mused, “There’s no notification on combat information. It seems like he cannot be reared as a pet to fight.”
Standing by the side, Frenzied Sword’s mouth was twitching incessantly. “Are you the Devil himself?”
The crowd teased Phillip for a while before he announced that the update was completed. The players present all then opened the subprogram. Phillip retracted back into the screen before issuing a notification.
“Permissions have been reactivated. Welcome back to the Black Star Army. Please access your academic program.”
A beam of light shot out from the communicators of everyone present, forming a 3D screen as the video played. The title of the video was ‘History of the Black Star Army’, and this was exactly the academic program that they were required to watch.
Han Xiao had set up the activation program to automatically play the academic program. Not just the players, every single member of the Black Star Army had to undergo this course. This was basically a textbook used to establish the culture of Black Star Army, and the producer was Rossellin.
In his previous life, the players basically had to dig out the background of each version update by themselves, which was very inefficient. Han Xiao simply used his advantage to directly tell the players the history of the version update in this way, such that they would be able to figure out the situation earlier. This would save them a lot of trouble while improving the sense of identity the players felt, increasing their belonging to the Black Star Army.
The spirit of the players was stoked. They were trying to know what the Black Star Army had become at this point, so they quietened down, their gazes staring fixedly at their virtual screens.
“The Black Star Army was established in the Year 688 of the Galaxy Calendar and has been established for 17 years. Its original name was called the Black Star Mercenary Group, and its founder was (Black Star] Han Xiao…” Rossellin’s voice sounded, and the screen showed a silhouette of Black Star at the forefront, with the figures of his Officers behind him.
Just by looking at the opening, Bun-Hit-Dog’s eyes lit up. “This feels like a blockbuster here…”
After explaining the creation as well as the leader of the army, Rossellin’s tone changed as she immediately began to describe the process of the Black Star Army’s transformation in scale.
The picture showed a star map of the Garton Star System. On the upper left corner, there was a time indication of Year 688. This was exactly when the Black Star Mercenary Group was first established. Within the vast star map, a humble and small green dot represented the forces of the Black Star Mercenary Group at that time.
As the time on the upper left corner started to move, the tiny green dot slowly moved around, finally finding a base and beginning to expand into a small, irregularly shaped green area. This gradually expanded over time, showing the development trend of the Black Star Army.
Not only were the hundred thousand players at the headquarters watching this, but players from the other bases were also watching the video at the same time. This portion was the events that had taken place from Version 1.0 to 2.0, and to have it displayed in this manner attracted the attention of all the players.
As the green area slowly expanded in the Garton Star System, the time shown on the upper left-hand corner finally reached the mark of ten years ago, just before the version update.
The players started to pay attention. From now on, it would be the decade that they had not experienced, which was the unknown changes.
At this moment, the view on the virtual screen suddenly zoomed out tremendously, directly expanding to show the entire Colton Star Cluster. The star map was enlarged dozens or hundreds of times!
At the same time, the green area that was originally confined to the Garton Star System suddenly ballooned out to spread to more than half of the Colton Star Cluster, occupying half of it!
Everyone present was stunned silly.
Following the time skip, the sphere of influence rose sharply. If the expansion of the Black Star Army in Version 2.0 was considered that of running, then the period of ten years between the two versions was as though it was riding on a fighter jet!
The time finally arrived at Year 705. Out of the entire Colton Star Cluster, close to ninety percent was green in color.
At this moment, Rossellin’s voice sounded in the background.
“Today, the Black Star Army has completed its transformation, having branches throughout the whole Colton Star Cluster. Its business scope includes warfare, planet mining, and more. It is also the long-term ally of the Purple Crystal Civilization, the ruler of the Colton Star Cluster, with over ten other civilizations as collaborators. The Calamity Grade Supers under His Excellency have also grown to almost twenty people, with tens of thousands of battleships and hundreds of planet mining rights. The Black Star Army stands at the forefront of the organizations in the Shattered Star Ring.”
Frenzied Sword and Bun-Hit-Dog stared at this commentary. They were not alone, as the players around them had the same expressions as them, full of shock and surprise!
When they originally arrived there, Frenzied Sword had already grossly inflated the power the Black Star Army had after a decade, but even he did not expect that he had still underestimated the Black Star Army! His imagination had truly limited him.
This sort of feeling was like, after falling asleep for a night, waking up and finding out that the factory in town that you worked for had turned into the world’s top five hundred companies! Overnight!
I only looked away for moment, and you had already ascended to the sky?
The curiosity of the crowd was so great that they were anxious about the deeds of the Black Star Army in the past decade. They could not help but wish to scrub the video straight to the end.
Just what exactly happened when we were not here? How did the Black Star Army leap up to become such a great influence?