Chapter 366: Synchronous Tasks and Roleplay

Wu Chang recruited the final Arcane Knight, returned along the original path, and walked toward Zhu Li.

Phantom placed the cracked wine glass aside, looked at Wu Chang walking toward him, and a flash of helplessness crossed his eyes.

It was clear he could have been recruited directly, yet Wu Chang insisted on putting him in his place, preferring to waste a faction slot to recruit a seemingly mediocre guy first rather than acknowledge his excellence.

Hah, young people, they just can't keep their composure.

Since Heping wanted to save face, he didn't mind giving it to him; after all, he was a mature and steady veteran player who had long passed the age of competing for the spotlight.

Phantom waited for Wu Chang to speak, but to his surprise, Wu Chang walked straight past him, arrived in front of Zhu Li, and said:

"Archbishop Zhu Li, the Arcane Knights have finished recruiting, and there is still work to be done in the order, so I shall take my leave."

Wu Chang did not lower his voice, and Phantom, whose attention was entirely on him, heard it clearly.

Phantom froze in place, watching Wu Chang’s departing back, his fair face rapidly flushing with blood.

Leaving St. George’s Cathedral, Wu Chang saw Bu Ke and Veronica waiting outside at a glance.

Bu Ke was thick-skinned, so he spoke first:

"Boss Heping, does your organization still have any slots? I’m a pure-blooded cowboy; I grew up on horseback. Whether it’s riding horses or driving carriages, I’m as skilled as I am with my motorcycle."

Wu Chang took out two identity cards and handed them to the two, saying:

"The coachman position is already filled; you can't outcompete him. But since we are all old friends, I’ve saved two spots for you."

"If there’s nothing else, you can go report to the Secret Security Department now."

The two took the identity cards and, without a moment's hesitation, chose to accept the recruitment.

After sending the two off, Wu Chang took stock of his current lineup.

Although he had brought in quite a few people through connections, there were also many powerful players.

He possessed both Leng Shan and God's Tongue, two ranked players, as well as two experts in the top fifty of the combat power rankings, Killing Intent Fluctuation and Jian Xing. Ma Jia had hidden his own combat power, but judging by Wu Chang's perception, he likely also had top-fifty strength.

Even without counting his own strength as a super-ranked player, looking solely at the combat power of the ordinary faction, the Arcane Knights he belonged to were the strongest existence among player factions.

Moreover, within the Arcane Knights, there were a large number of plane-native transcendents who could also provide no small amount of power.

Having brought such a group of powerful players under his command, it was now time for them to prove their worth.

The West District was the political center of Grimland.

White House Street in the West District was the center of the political center and the representative of the administrative departments.

The Parliament Building, the Prime Minister's Residence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior, the Police Department, and other institutions were all located here.

The office of the Secret Security Department was naturally located here as well.

The location of the Secret Security Department was named 6 White House Street, a three-story gray-white office building; the structure was very new, having been built not long ago.

This building originally belonged to the Police Department.

Prime Minister Luo En was a firm believer in order supremacy. To cope with the gradually increasing crime rate in the city and the growing worker protests, he vigorously pushed for the construction of the Police Department.

With the Prime Minister's support, the Police Department's funding was exceptionally abundant, and this building was originally prepared as the new office building for the high-level leadership of the Police Department.

A month ago, the interior decoration of the building had just been completed, and the furniture and furnishings were brand new, but the high-level officials of the Police Department had not yet had the chance to move in.

Before the Police Department leadership could find the time to move, the Pine Coal Mine explosion, the labor movement, and the assassination of the Prime Minister occurred one after another.

They had intended to wait until things settled down and the World Industrial Expo ended before moving, but they never expected that this wait would be an eternal farewell.

Wu Chang, having established the department but lacking an office location, was strolling along White House Street with his people when he took a fancy to this place at first sight.

Regarding Wu Chang's request for the land, Acting Prime Minister Grade naturally had no objections; after all, the entire Secret Security Department was a product of the compromise between Grade and the Queen.

Grade had no objections, and of course, the Queen had no objections either.

The Police Department did have objections, but nominally, the Secret Security Department was the superior of the Police Department, so their objections were useless.

Just like that, 6 White House Street went cheaply to Wu Chang and his Secret Security Department.

By the time he arrived at 6 White House Street, except for the two undercover agents, Leng Shan and Jian Xing, who needed to cut ties with others on the surface, all other members of the Arcane Knights had arrived.

This included the players who had attended the transcendent gathering, who had left the scene almost at the same time as Zhen Wo.

Looking at the twenty Arcane Knights before him, Wu Chang was very satisfied with his current team.

In front of everyone, Wu Chang used his main body to express absolute trust in Zhen Wo.

Sir Xiao En did not even ask too many questions about the candidates provided by Heping, simply saying, "I trust your judgment," before conducting a simple induction ceremony for the players.

That kind of absolute trust, let alone the group of players, even Lei Wendun, who was already familiar with Wu Chang, felt uneasy just watching it.

While the players were receiving simple training, he pulled Wu Chang's main body aside and asked:

"Is that guy named Heping really that trustworthy? The guys he recruited, although they all look strong, what if there are undercover agents from the Steam Council among them?"

Wu Chang said indifferently:

"Even the most core Lower House of Stilan can have an undercover agent like Baron Philip mixed in, let alone an Arcane Knights order."

"Even if they are clean today, who can guarantee they won't be bought off by the Steam Council tomorrow?"

"As long as we ensure that every step they take is under our control, an internal mole might even turn into an asset."

Lei Wendun curled his lips and said:

"Since you have such confidence, you're the commander, you call the shots."

After a dozen minutes of simple training, once the players understood the duties and powers of the Secret Security Department, the first internal meeting of the Arcane Knights began.

Wu Chang's main body, known to everyone as Sir Xiao En, began to assign the current tasks to the members of the order.

The Arcane Knights currently had three tasks, the first of which was to investigate the anomaly who had almost self-destructed earlier.

The Steam Council had pushed the technology of cyborgs to such a degree; if they didn't strike hard against them as soon as possible, who knew what they might actually cook up.

His Wu Chang's lifelong reputation, having successfully broken through so many dungeons possessing divinity, could not be ruined in this gutter of only Source Power.

He had to find the Steam Council's direct line as soon as possible, at the very least to destroy that Franken-class transcendent machine tool.

However, in front of the other players, Wu Chang did not mention too much information about the Steam Council.

The existence of the Steam Council was hidden information he had discovered by relying on finding the secrets beneath the Pine Coal Mine and transcending the resentment.

This kind of high-level intelligence could increase the dungeon exploration rate by at least 2-5 percentage points at the time of settlement; naturally, he couldn't tell the players directly, but rather use it as a reward after the task was completed.

To the players, he only said to pay more attention to intelligence on anomalies and try to infer the situation of the anomalies before their deaths from their identities and movement trajectories.

As the leader of the faction, Wu Chang held the authority to issue tasks to a certain extent.

At the same time he finished speaking about the first task, a line of prompts popped up before the eyes of the players present.

"Obtained side quest: Investigate intelligence related to the attempted self-destruction of the mechanical cyborg at St. George's Square."

"Task reward: Obtain corresponding faction contribution points and partial rewards based on the value of the intelligence submitted. The amount of faction contribution points will determine the reward settlement for side confrontation tasks at the time of dungeon settlement."

Seeing the side quest pop-up window appear, the eyes of the players flashed with light.

Even though this group of players was already at the pinnacle of the pyramid in the Desolate Realm, side quests with system prompts were not common for them.

Except for professional puzzle-solvers like Leng Shan, the exploration of dungeons by other players was extremely limited; being able to complete all main quests and incidentally decrypt the dungeon's worldview was already considered an over-completion of the task.

Side quests were things that were triggered by chance.

Zhen Wo, who occupied one of the Arcane Knight slots, also had the side quest pop up before his eyes.

However, his task prompt had a suffix: this task cannot be stacked with the faction leader reward.

Although he couldn't kill two birds with one stone and receive two rewards, the prompt before him was enough to make him understand the reason for the players' high spirits.

This showed that the players didn't hate him issuing tasks; they were even willing to act as beasts of burden and thoroughly enjoyed the process.

Since that was the case, he could feel free to squeeze this group of subordinates.

Don't forget, this was the Steam Phantom dungeon; he had to learn from those industrial capitalists and let the players max out their work intensity.

The second task was also the players' main quest: investigate the assassination of Prime Minister Luo En.

Similar to the first task, the progress he and Lei Wendun investigated would naturally not be synchronized to the other players; if they wanted to obtain enough intelligence, they had to demonstrate more value.

After all, the Arcane Knights was not a charitable organization; ensuring the players left alive as much as possible was already doing his utmost. Having the commander of the Knights work for free for his members would be turning the world upside down.

He would not provide too many clues to other players, only providing them with the identity of members of the Secret Security Department.

How much they could investigate with this identity would depend on their own methods.

The second task Wu Chang issued overlapped with the main quest and did not trigger a side quest.

This made the players' reactions much colder.

Seeing this, Wu Chang used a heavy hand; he drew the Lake Light Holy Sword and released the lake light from the blade that could illuminate a distance of half a meter.

"Since the founding of Stilan, the Arcane Knights have been the Queen's Sword, guarding the safety of the Empire."

"Now that anomalies are rampant in Grimland, one after another, there are shadows of transcendents involved behind the scenes. As the Queen's Sword, we must find the true culprit and clear away the haze covering the sky of Grimland."

While speaking, a task prompt popped up before everyone's eyes again.

"Obtained hidden side quest: Assist Sir Xiao En in catching the mastermind behind the Grimland anomalies."

"If the task is successful, you will receive a large amount of faction contribution points and receive extra rewards at the time of task settlement. There is no penalty for task failure. Do you accept the task?"

A hidden side quest?!

Seeing this task prefix, everyone instantly perked up.

Their expressions at this moment were even more exaggerated than the expressions of Jian Xing, the Negotiation Master, and others when they saw the hidden side quest in the Silent Route dungeon.

Because the hidden task at that time carried its own risks; if they couldn't stop the New Universe Church, they were likely to encounter danger as a result.

But the hidden task before them was different; at least from a literal perspective, failing to catch the mastermind behind the anomalies would not cause them any direct risk.

In other words, there was no penalty for task failure; it was a true no-penalty task.

Without a doubt, this kind of hidden side quest was a pure bonus round.

If it weren't for the wrong dungeon plane, the players would almost be unable to hold back their feelings of reverence and shout "Loyalty!" at Wu Chang.

Even a ranked player like God's Tongue had never encountered such a good thing; his eyes were full of excitement as he looked at Heping, and he secretly thought he owed the other party a favor.

Having arranged the three tasks, the first collective meeting of the Arcane Knights was dismissed. Zhen Wo acted freely, while Wu Chang's main body pulled Lei Wendun aside to start a small meeting between commanders.

Unlike the ordinary members, their task was to investigate the cause of the mass abnormal deaths of workers in the textile district on the south bank of the Hills River, based on the clues provided to him by Connor.

The lead on Connor was something he had tracked down himself, so naturally, it was impossible to share it with other players.

Of course, if his and Lei Wendun's investigation hit a dead end, and other players had earned enough contribution points, it wasn't impossible to use this investigation as a reward to share with contributing players.

Lei Wendun felt puzzled that Wu Chang had sought him out alone to discuss the case, and he asked:

"You just recruited so many new members; why didn't you have them help investigate such an important lead during the meeting just now?"

Wu Chang said as a matter of course:

"Because I don't trust them. The current lead is exceptionally critical, and the investigation cannot afford any mistakes. In the Secret Arcane Knights, you are one of the people I trust most. Only if we investigate it ourselves can I be at ease."

Lei Wendun took out his pipe, took a puff, and continued, "Then why didn't you call that Heping?"

Wu Chang said, "You two are the only ones I trust completely. When we were training in etiquette earlier, he helped us make contact with Connor, which is how we obtained this lead."

"Now he has to help me watch that group of foreign transcendents; I can only rely on you now."

Lei Wendun shrugged and said with a hint of helplessness, "Fine, who told you to be the commander."

Meanwhile, the transcendent gathering at St. George's Cathedral was coming to an end.

Most of the transcendents attending the gathering had already chosen which faction to join.

Influenced by the plane's rules, although native factions like the Alchemy Association had no limit on the number of recruits, they would subconsciously keep the number of players they absorbed under twelve.

Faction leaders like Zhu Li, who had little desire for power, only took a fancy to six players during the gathering.

The Clock Tower Mage Association preferred players with energy-based specialties; they picked a larger number, but still only eleven.

As for the Alchemy Association, they only selected experts with powerful combat abilities, but they also stopped after picking ten.

These three factions, like the Secret Arcane Knights, were independent factions.

Most of the remaining players in the venue were invited by high-ranking nobles to become their security consultants.

They looked scattered, but the factions they were prompted to join were actually influenced by their employers' political leanings.

For example, players following members of the Upper Academy and those following army generals all belonged to the "Land Nobility" faction.

And players following the chairman of the Trade Committee, the permanent undersecretary of the Caiwu Force, or certain members of the Lower Academy all belonged to the "New Nobility" faction.

Phantom, who had not been chosen by Wu Chang, did not join the three transcendent factions but chose the chairman of the Trade Committee instead.

The situation in Stilan was clear; the trend of industry and free trade was unstoppable. The New Nobility controlled industry and trade, which was equivalent to controlling the vast majority of resources.

Setting aside the Secret Security Department where Wu Chang was, the "New Nobility" camp was definitely a superior camp; even if they couldn't win the final confrontation mission, they could still obtain significant rewards.

It was just that for Phantom, who liked perfection, he was not satisfied with this choice.

When he left the banquet, his expression was very gloomy.

Heping—that guy would sooner or later pay the price for the humiliation he dealt him today.

He was walking through the corridors of St. George's Cathedral when a figure in a black robe called out to him as he passed a patch of shadow.

"If you are dissatisfied with the current situation, then follow me."

Phantom hesitated for a moment, then followed the black-robed figure to the basement of St. George's Cathedral.

Once there were no other people around, the black-robed figure said:

"I can tell that your abilities are exceptionally powerful. The hearts of the powerful always have their own pride."

"You surely wouldn't be content to follow the orders of a cabinet minister and become their security consultant. If you want a better future, would you like to work for me?"

Phantom narrowed his eyes and asked, "Who are you?"

The black-robed figure took off her hood, revealing an elegant and noble face. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly, her smile more dazzling than the sunlight.

"I am the King of Stilan, Olivia."

"Queen Olivia of Stilan has issued a recruitment request to you. Do you choose to change your current faction and join the special faction—Royal Family?"

Phantom was stunned for a moment. The Secret Security Department had a royal prefix, which had always made him think that where Wu Chang was, was the Queen's faction.

But looking at what Olivia meant, the situation did not seem to be what he had thought.

He asked, "Then what is the Secret Security Department where Sir Xiao En is?"

Olivia said with a smile, "Has anyone told you that a queen can only have one minister?"

Phantom seemed to understand something and immediately performed a knight's salute, saying:

"Your Majesty, I am willing to serve you."

The transcendent gathering attracted a large number of players, and those eyeing these players were not just the high-ranking nobles and transcendent factions that appeared at the gathering.

Nor was it just Olivia.

Other factions that could not see the light, shrouded in black robes year-round, also sought out the talents they had their eyes on.

Tonight, the players were destined to be very busy.

The next morning, when Wu Chang's main body woke up, he saw Lei Wendun already sitting in the dining room, waiting for breakfast, as usual.

After breakfast, Wu Chang and Yu Ailin got into a carriage, and Lei Wendun continued to play the role of the coachman, carrying the two to the East District.

After dropping Yu Ailin off at the Gray Cathedral slums and helping her finish the preparations, Lei Wendun took two police uniforms from the back of the carriage and temporarily borrowed Thomas's house as a changing room.

"Put these on. In a while, we'll have to rely on this getup to openly sneak into the textile district on the South Bank."

(End of this chapter)