Chapter 60: Continue Grinding Bats

When Yang Bo entered the game, over a hundred senators in the Alliance Senate were all in a foul mood.

The Speaker was even cursing rudely: “What the hell is your Security Department doing? It’s been days, and there’s still no trace of the missing mechs?”

“Speaker, we’ve done our best. Dimension Company cleared all the energy data of the mechs before showcasing them, claiming it was to protect customer privacy,” an official from the Security Department weakly explained.

The faces of the senators below grew even darker. From a legal standpoint, as well as in terms of customer privacy and corporate confidentiality, Dimension Company’s destruction of the energy frequency data was justified.

But now the esteemed senators felt insecure. They were afraid to go out for some fun, in case a mech piloted by an ace pilot suddenly showed up. How many lives would be enough for a guy like that to mess with?

Just like how the Alliance restricted superhumans from displaying their powers on planets. Was it for the sake of the common folk?

Wrong. It was entirely for the safety of the senators. If superhumans were flying around, how could the esteemed senators feel safe? They couldn’t possibly beat those professional superhumans, so using superpowers on planetary grounds was strictly prohibited.

Of course, it was allowed in certain sanctioned areas. Thanks to these regulations, the senators could appear approachable in public. Otherwise, if superhumans could display their powers freely, would the senators need mech escorts just to step outside? How could they maintain their image of being ‘close to the people’ then? This lockdown by the Alliance wasn’t because of the so-called threat from the Red Earl. The real threat was Yang Bo. And Yang Bo had shown absolute brutality at the SkyDome Amusement Park. When he made his escape, he even killed two guys who couldn’t fight back by directly stomping them to death. Now, every time the senators went out, they felt like a giant mech foot was going to come crashing down on them at any moment.

“Still no updates from the investigation?”

“There have been too many people missing. But after the new law was passed, we did uncover some clues, though none were useful.”

“What about Dimension Company? Any solutions from them?”

“Not for now. Dimension Company added three new shareholders: Ping’an Technology Company, Anbang Bank, and the Military.”

Upon hearing this, the senators glared angrily at a handful of individuals, silently cursing them for moving even faster than themselves.

“More importantly, Dimension Company claims that the energy frequencies of each mech they build are entirely unique, so…”

“I’ll give you a month. We need to know the whereabouts of that mech,” the Speaker said, looking frustrated.

“I want to impeach the governor of Pado Planet. He’s obstructing normal citizen migration within the Alliance,” one senator suddenly stood up and declared loudly.

The others looked over and realized, great, they were going back to serious matters. In the interstellar era, population is still crucial. It didn’t matter what level of citizen they were, genetic evolvers needed to consume and pay taxes. Even a bunch of worthless residents were useful because the more residents there were, the larger the welfare investments.

And as for residents being unable to migrate? Well, just like how Wu Bing managed to pass off as a fake resident because the welfare benefits were great!

Furthermore, as long as you have the money, even a genuine good-for-nothing resident can engage in interstellar travel. It’s just a matter of price. What else would the children of higher-level citizens do otherwise? Resident housing reform, food packs, clothing, water and electricity bills, internet usage fees, and public transportation investment.

The more worthless residents, the more taxes are used, and well… ahem, if worse comes to worst, you can find someone to start a company, monopolize a project, and get subsidies—even if it only lasts three days.

These residents were the long-term gain—decades upon decades of profit. A bunch of senators started arguing loudly and even seemed ready to throw punches, stopping just short of taking off their shoes to throw at each other.

After entering the game, Yang Bo didn’t immediately start hunting small animals, noticing that something seemed off.

On multiple occasions, he simply wanted to grind some small creatures, yet strange things kept happening. He started a fire, and out popped a B-rank Stealth Mutant.

Blowing up fish revealed a group of mutants.

Blowing up bats unleashed more strange characters. Last time, when he got lost, he even ran into mutants again.

Yang Bo meticulously reviewed the footage. Last time, when he was being chased by the Silver Armored Rhino, it was because some advanced mechs had flown over his head. Then the Silver Armored Rhino appeared? At that time, he was in the valley, and the Silver Armored Rhino was clearly chasing after the advanced mechs, not him. It only noticed him afterward and then changed course to pursue him.

Those advanced mechs ended up as wreckage in the valley, and the Silver Armored Rhino inexplicably clashed with the mutants…

“Could it be that both the mutants and the advanced mechs were targeting me?” Yang Bo pondered for a moment and came to a conclusion.

The enmity with the mutants was understandable—they were enemies. But why would the advanced mechs target him? Did they just have nothing better to do? After pondering it further, Yang Bo decided to focus on researching the game materials first. While not all of it could be trusted, some parts had to be true, right?

Players controlling mechs remotely to loot resources—that was the core purpose of the game. So, they must have provided some real information.

After careful investigation, Yang Bo learned that the game only provided information for certain areas, including maps, but not the entire planet.

The enemies were mutants, and mutants operated in a ‘lord’ mode, with a boss mutant managing subordinates. Wars even occurred among various mutants.

There were also mutant monsters. Some of them operated in ‘lord’ mode, while others worked solo.

“I’ll still need to grind bats.” Yang Bo’s primary target was still the bats and the auxiliary abilities like Sonic Control.

Plus, the bats were easy to bully. A whole bunch of them lived in one cave. The electric eels, on the other hand, were deep underwater and didn’t group together. As for Light Energy Control, he hadn’t seen any glowing poison frogs yet.

Yang Bo carefully rewatched his mecha footage from last time. When he had gone to find the bats, an advanced mech had flown past him.

“That bastard didn’t chase the bats away, did he?” Suddenly, a possibility crossed Yang Bo’s mind.

Now that he had this suspicion, Yang Bo formed a plan to deal with it.

“Bastard, bastard, that damn scumbag.” What Yang Bo didn’t know was that outside the game base, a group of eight players piloting advanced mechs were about to lose their minds.

Last time, eight advanced mechs got blown up by mutants. Some of the players were so scared they even went to see a therapist afterward. The mechs were a minor issue—shelling out cash would cover that. But it was about pride. These people had been broadcasting their quest to take down Bird Slasher on the forums, so they had to save face. Being rich second-generation heirs, they could swap out hundreds of IP addresses to hunt Bird Slasher down.

When they didn’t expect Bird Slasher to be totally fine while their mechs got blown up. The cost of replacing the mechs wasn’t the problem; they could afford it. But the embarrassment! Now these players were waiting right outside.

“Look, look, that freak’s coming out.” Good news arrived, and the players perked up instantly.

“This time we’ll make him pay.”

“Yeah, we’ll give that psycho hell.”

“We’ve gotta expose his real-life location.”