So far, things were progressing very smoothly. Next, she only needed to wait for the surgery to be completed there, and then she could take the player to the Railway Guild to collect the money.
After taking out Rattlesnake's identity card from the terminal, Lily quickly cut off the network connection. Her next destination was the Gao Family's external office in the 5th Shelter.
However, this time she didn't plan to show up in person. Instead, she would let Sword Qi Soaring to the Sky take Old Dog and the others to negotiate with the Gao Family.
This would prevent her from being exposed and also give the players more sense of participation, making them more devoted to following her.
Lily learned from the conversations between Excavation Princess and other players that Excavation Princess was recently preparing a video column called "Silent Garden News Express," which greatly interested her.
Wasn't this equivalent to her and the Silent Garden's external propaganda window?
She decided to add some more exciting material to the first episode of the video.
Just think, when other players were still toiling for NPCs, they would suddenly discover that players who joined the Silent Garden could already represent the Silent Garden and interact on equal terms with NPCs of considerable status. How would they react?
Envy and jealousy would be all there was!
It was agreed that everyone would be Palu, but you secretly started driving a Land Rover.
Damn it!
Without some comparison and tangible benefits, Lily wouldn't have the confidence to make players willingly act as her spies to steal intelligence from other factions.
She found a random shop by the roadside and sat down, quietly waiting for the outcome of Sword Qi Soaring to the Sky's negotiation with the Gao Family.
About twenty minutes later, her personal terminal rang. It was Sword Qi Soaring to the Sky contacting her.
"BOSS, that Boss Gao from the Gao Family wants to speak with you personally."
Because it was inconvenient to disclose Lily's name to outsiders, Sword Qi Soaring to the Sky always used the vague title "BOSS" when referring to Lily outside.
"Let him speak to me."
"Please wait a moment."
Soon, Lily's personal terminal rang again. This time, it was a stranger contacting her.
"I am Gao Yuan. I heard you eliminated the Red Sand Camp and want to replace the Red Sand Camp to continue cooperating with our Gao Family?"
"No, I think you might have misunderstood." Lily immediately corrected, "I'm not here to replace Red Sand, but to open a new trade route for you."
Gao Yuan became interested in these words: "You speak with confidence."
Lily asked, "When the Red Sand Camp cooperated with you, how many supplies did they purchase from you annually?"
"Around 200,000."
"What was the value of the sand worm materials sold to you?"
"When it was low, two to three thousand; when it was high, five to six thousand."
Lily smiled: "Let's not talk about firearms procurement for now. I mean, if I were to increase the quantity of sand worm materials sold to you tenfold, or even a hundredfold, could you handle it?"
"What?"
Gao Yuan, who was usually composed, was so surprised by Lily's words that his voice involuntarily rose.
He suspected he had misheard something.
Tenfold, a hundredfold – that's not how you joke.
How many people would need to be mobilized, and how many would need to die, to collect that many materials?
Even if all Wanderer in the entire Goli Desert were organized to specifically hunt sand worms, this efficiency wouldn't last too long, because most of Wanderer would soon run away due to fear of sand worms.
"Do you even know what you're saying?"
Lily said, "I'm very clear-headed. I just want to know if you can handle this much sand worm material. After all, it's not a small amount."
Gao Yuan replied, "As long as you can produce it, I can handle it!"
"I'll send over the first batch of goods in a while. You'll know then that I wasn't playing a trick on you."
Lily chatted with Gao Yuan for a few more minutes. She asked Gao Yuan to first send a batch of weapons to Red Sand Camp, which would become the temporary headquarters of Silent Garden. Then, she also asked Gao Yuan to help transport the new batch of players who were scheduled to arrive at 5th Shelter in the next few days.
The number of these players was quite large; there were thirty to forty people who posted in the community saying they were on their way, and the actual number might even be double that.
With Lily's current transportation capacity, she couldn't transport so many players in a short time, so she could only ask the Gao Family for help first.
After reaching an agreement with Gao Yuan, Lily purchased some materials for making Prayer Cards at 5th Shelter. Next was the card gambling session, which made even the unluckiest players tremble.
"Card gambling" refers to using experience points and currently mastered Spirit Energy knowledge to synthesize new Prayer Card blueprints. This is the exclusive ability of an Apprentice Psionic Painter and the core of this card-playing profession.
Generally speaking, an Apprentice Psionic Painter has three ways to obtain new Prayer Card blueprints: first, buy; second, learn; and third, card gambling.
Among them, card gambling is undoubtedly the most exciting and widely used method.
Take a gamble, and a bicycle turns into a motorcycle.
Even an unlucky player couldn't control their hands from wanting to try it, let alone Lily, who possessed the talent of luck.
The frustrating thing is that the card gambling mechanism in Beyond the Stars has no guaranteed pity. When playing other games, drawing characters or weapons at least has a big and small pity system, but in Beyond the Stars, if you don't draw it, you just don't draw it.
However, Beyond the Stars also has no card pool system. Players can choose the type of Prayer Card they want to draw at any time, then invest experience points and mastered Spirit Energy knowledge to gamble for cards. They won't have to wait a long time just because they missed a certain pool. The most important thing is that experience points are free; as long as you're willing to grind, it's fine.
"My turn, draw!"
[Synthesis Failed]
[Synthesis Failed]
[Synthesis Successful, you obtained [General Card: Visual Mist]]
[Synthesis Failed]
After five more failures, Lily finally got the crowd-control Prayer Card she wanted.
[General Card: Space Distortion]: After use, causes the target to fall into a special state where up, down, left, right, front, and back are completely inverted. Covers a radius of 10 meters. Duration depends on the Inspiration difference between both parties. Cooldown for the same target is 10 minutes. (Judgment object: Prayer Card creator)
Although the effect of this Prayer Card was far inferior to the skill card Rattlesnake dropped, it did make up for Lily's lack of crowd control methods, which would be very helpful for her upcoming actions.
The only problem was that she consumed over 24,000 experience points in this round.
You only regret not having enough experience when you need it.
Lily rubbed her temples.
Whether it was leveling up, upgrading skills, or gambling for cards, all required a large amount of experience. She had to do more quests.
She even felt like pulling Little Yulia out for a beating. What are you still doing? Hurry up and give me more quests!
But considering that both sides were currently in a honeymoon period of cooperation, it was better not to make any extreme moves.
"One rich woman simply can't satisfy my current needs. I need to use my discerning eyes to find a few more rich women."
Lily first thought of Shino. It seemed necessary to have players contact Shino to see if they could extract some benefits from her.
After everything was done, Lily filled her car with fuel and returned to Red Sand Camp with the players.
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