Chapter 269 Elites? Selection?

As soon as these words came out, many players immediately thought of the "Thirty-Second True Man Club" that had left with Black Star, and they were immediately discouraged.

Could it be that Black Star meant to do this test again? But we can't do it! If we could pass, we would have soared into the sky with you in Version 1.0!

"As long as you can pass the test of my warriors and prove your strength, the door of the Black Star Mercenary Group will be open to you..." Han Xiao briefly explained, and then threw out the task he had already set up.

[【Mercenary Selection】]

[Mission Introduction: The Black Star Mercenary Group has been fighting in all directions in the interstellar world, and its members are all strong. Only by successfully passing their tests can you join Black Star and become an elite mercenary.]

[Mission Requirements: Pass a combat test of any mercenary]

[Reward: 1 point of experience, Black Star Mercenary Group camp unlocked, Black Star Mercenary Group relationship +100]

The players hurriedly read it and talked about it.

"So it's not Black Star personally choosing people."

"There is no introduction above about what form the combat test is in. Is it a one-on-one fight like before?"

Han Xiao winked, and the mercenary behind him moved out a semi-transparent large screen that had been prepared, and stood it next to him. He pointed to the screen and said, "If you want to participate in the selection, enter your information on it. Phillip will give each applicant a number, which will show the selection battles in batches. Pay attention to which one you are participating in."

The screen lit up, and a blue ring pattern appeared in the center, with particles suspended around it, shaking slightly. At the same time, the built-in speaker made the sound of artificial intelligence.

"Black Star Artificial Intelligence Phillip, buzzing...very happy to serve you, buzzing..."

Many players looked surprised and did as they were told, entering information such as their name and profession, and got a number representing their identity. Soon, a new interface appeared on the screen, prompting that a new selection was about to begin. Hundreds of numbers would participate in the test and go to the arena.

It also showed that the mercenary hosting this selection was Melos.

After studying for a while, the players understood the selection mechanism. This was not a one-on-one selection, but a one-to-many selection. A Black Star mercenary assessed hundreds of players. What they had to do was persevere for a certain period of time. When the time limit arrived, if they were not in a near-death state, or still remained within the field, they would be considered to have passed the test and could join Black Star and become a winner.

And at the same time, there was more than one selection session. The number of participants was different, and the opponents in each session were also different. Which Black Star mercenary they would encounter was random and completely depended on luck. The most important point was that even if the player was defeated in the selection battle, they could apply to Phillip again, without any restrictions, just like a challenge that could be carried out continuously.

The many players did not doubt him and felt quite interesting and eager to fight, and they all submitted applications.

Han Xiao decided to conduct the selection in this way, letting hundreds of his mercenaries help him assess the players. Anyway, these mercenaries were idle and wasting time playing cards every day. It would be better to find something for them to do, which would not only save his energy, but also be more efficient.

The selection was just a formality. Of course, he knew what level the players were at now. Although the more players recruited, the better, it was impossible for a player to come over and say, "I want to join," and immediately let them join. That would be too simple. Which of the better camps didn't require prerequisites to join? Setting up a selection was just a pretext to make the players feel that there was a threshold for joining the mercenary group, that it was challenging, and that they couldn't join if they wanted to.

He thought about it yesterday and decided to make the selection a daily activity in the eyes of the players. A mercenary selected dozens or hundreds of players at a time—the specific number was controlled by Phillip, depending on the mercenary's strength, to ensure that the number of participating players was within the mercenary's ability and could be easily dealt with, and Phillip, who recorded the mercenary's data, would not make mistakes.

Each session had dozens or hundreds of players, just like matching a melee. In addition to dealing with the Boss (mercenary), they also had to pit each other to ensure that they could stay until the end and become one of the final winners, so there was competition.

In fact, Han Xiao's initial idea was that no mercenaries would participate, and that players would select themselves, gathering batches of players to engage in a grand melee, similar to a battle royale mode, but in that case, the efficiency of recruiting people would be very low—because without a powerful external factor like mercenaries, each selection would take a long time, after all, there were scoundrels everywhere, and the strength of the Black Star mercenaries could not be displayed.

Moreover, this kind of gladiatorial selection might make some players feel disrespected, so Han Xiao finally chose the current mode, letting his mercenaries host a test, which not only improved efficiency, but also served as a lubricant to reduce the probability of player dissatisfaction, making the selection less barbaric.

Players did not spend any resources to participate in the selection, and if they failed, they could wait for the lottery and challenge again, which ensured that the threshold would not be too high and gave players the opportunity to keep trying. At the same time, due to the current stage of the Mutant Disaster, players could only do tasks in the shelter, and the selection challenge was quite interesting, which could serve as a recreational activity between tasks.

As for the selection venue, it was naturally the shelter arena that he had built with his own hands. The professional league had been held here, but now it was vacant and Han Xiao had taken it back for his own use. Bennett and Huang Yu naturally had no objections.

...

More than ten minutes later.

Thousands of players poured into the arena. This was the first selection battle. Even players who were not scheduled to participate chose to come and watch the specific process so that they would know what to expect.

Melos stood in the center of a large arena, holding a Zhandao (a type of Chinese sword), surrounded by hundreds of players watching him like tigers watching their prey, giving him the feeling of being surrounded and facing a hopeless situation.

The onlookers were talking about it.

"The time limit is two minutes. After two minutes, as long as you don't fall out of the arena and are not in a near-death state, you can join the Black Star Mercenary Group."

"Hundreds of people, it should be simple to last for two minutes, right..."

"Simple? Don't be funny. Haven't you watched Meatbun's Black Star series of videos? He's Melos, a powerful Black Star cadre. With one slash, this arena will be gone! Even if you haven't watched the video, you've experienced yesterday's big battle, right? Didn't you see him sweeping through the beast hordes?"

"I didn't see it, I died."

Melos looked around. Han Xiao's instructions were for him to release the water appropriately. If he used his full strength, two minutes would be enough for him to chop down all the participants. Most of these players were Grade D, and only a few had reached Grade C. This small number could not make up for the gap.

Looking at the sea of Supers, Melos felt a burst of heat in his heart. Black Star really didn't lie to him. There were really hundreds of thousands of Supers here!

Planet Sunil was suffering in the disaster. Han Xiao had once promised to bring a tide of people more terrifying than the disaster to solve Sunil's predicament. Melos had always believed in Han Xiao's promise, and at this time, seeing the promise come true, his mood was uncontrollably excited.

Silently counting the time, Melos grasped the Zhandao and nodded.

"Selection begins, buzzing..." Phillip's voice echoed.

Boom!

In the next moment, the vast majority of the players rushed towards Melos. All kinds of attacks focused on him. The number gave them confidence. They didn't care about persisting for two minutes. They just felt that they could deal with Melos like a Boss, and they all output their damage.

Only a small number of players retreated instead of advancing, hiding behind others.

Attacks came from all directions, but Melos' expression did not change. He casually used a whirlwind slash, and the circular blade wave spread out in a 360-degree dead-angle, covering half of the arena, directly annihilating all ranged attacks. The martial arts players who approached could not resist the aftermath and were directly slashed away, falling on the edge of the arena, and their health instantly dropped by about 40%.

"Damn, this AoE damage is too terrifying!"

"That was close, I almost got knocked down."

The charging players suffered a big loss, and their expressions changed drastically. The small number of players who dodged were outside the range of the slash and escaped, rejoicing.

—— Fortunately, we didn't stubbornly resist. We know our limits.

For the current players, Melos' strength was completely crushing. Han Xiao had long guessed that the players would definitely deal with the selection battle with the mentality of fighting a Boss at the beginning. Letting Melos host the first battle was to establish an invincible image in the players' minds, and in the next few battles, the executive members would also be the ones to take action.

The result was without any suspense. Even if Melos released water, he still cut down these players until they were battered and exhausted. One slash, one little friend.

The players had to change their thinking of stubbornly resisting and frantically wander around, playing on the edge, seeking survival in chaos, which was very exciting.

When two minutes arrived, less than ten people could still stand. Melos put away his sword. The surviving players looked like they had just woken up from a dream. When they came back to their senses, a look of ecstasy appeared on their faces.

"W-we won?!"

The hundreds of defeated players looked envious, jealous, and angry. Those lucky guys had won a big prize. There was no justice!

Out of hundreds of participants, only less than ten were successful, which was a very low proportion, but this was deliberately done by Han Xiao. He lowered the pass rate at the beginning to make the successful ones seem rare, and then slowly let the mercenaries release more water to increase the pass rate.

"Congratulations on passing the test. Black Star welcomes you. After you go to the interstellar world, register with the Mercenary Alliance, and you will be official mercenaries."

Melos stretched out his hand and shook hands with the survivors one by one—this was Han Xiao's request to show differential treatment.

These people were overjoyed and found that the camp panel was indeed activated. They didn't need to go to Black Star to browse the camp store, and the items inside were no longer gray. Although Inar could not afford anything, the colorful interface was at least better than a gray one.

Only the [Mercenary Selection] task of these people was settled, and they received 100 points of camp contribution. They had watched Meatbun's video and knew that 100 points of camp relationship below [Friendly] could be purchased with 50 points of Inar. They all felt that they had earned 50 points of Inar!

These people were immediately overjoyed.

The onlookers were very envious, and they keenly grasped a piece of information, hearing Melos say "go to the interstellar world."

"In other words, as long as we pass the test, we can leave with Black Star after the Aquamarine Star storyline ends?"

"I guessed right, Black Star is the guide who will take us to the interstellar world in Version 2.0!"

The players' eyes shone, and they were eager to try and could not wait to participate in the selection.

The next selection sessions proceeded in an orderly manner, and Han Xiao did not stare at them all the time.

Because there were a lot of players, Han Xiao's schedule had many selection sessions every day, about every twenty minutes. There were several arenas in the arena, and several selection sessions were held simultaneously each time. It was estimated that one or two thousand people would be selected every hour, and forty or fifty thousand people would participate in a day, and the pass rate was temporarily controlled at about five percent.

Hundreds of thousands of players in the shelter, cycling back and forth, every player had a chance, and this activity could be carried out for a long time, slowly but surely. After all, the selection battle was not without interest, and most players had a fluke mentality, believing that they could get lucky—Technician Han had always felt that this illusion greatly facilitated his plan, allowing players to take the initiative to jump into his pit.

"After about a few more days of adaptation, the players will get used to the existence of the selection battle. When it gets on the right track, I will slowly increase the pass rate. I don't need to worry about it."

Regarding the camp's plan, Han Xiao had also prepared many methods, but it was not time to use them yet. The selection was just the beginning.

Moreover, the difficulty of the selection challenge created a need for players to enhance their strength in the short term, which could also increase his sales. He didn't know how many birds he had killed with one stone.

...

From dawn to dusk, the square was crowded with people, noisy all day long, and Han Xiao was ready to call it a day.

In one day, his experience income broke through the one billion mark.

"A total of 1.29 billion experience, it's been a long time since I've felt so comfortable..." Han Xiao exhaled, feeling satisfied. The last time he had such a large-scale harvest of experience was two years ago when he left Aquamarine Star, which felt like a long-awaited rain.

"This experience is enough to level up to level 120, and there is some left over."

Opening the panel, just as he was about to invest experience in leveling up, at this moment, a rumbling airflow suddenly sounded in the sky.

Looking up, he saw a new spaceship slowly descending. This was the spaceship he had sent to pick up Crazy Knife and others, and it had finally arrived.

Chi——

The hatch opened, and Crazy Knife, Meatbun, Haotian and other fifty players jumped out with jetpacks on their backs and landed on the square.

Most of the players in the square recognized this group of professional players and looked over, their faces full of surprise and uncertainty.

"Yo, you guys are back too."

Many people greeted them, very enthusiastically. This group of top players had performed well in the professional league and was very popular. They hadn't seen these professional players for a long time.