Volume 12: Yaguna Kotor Chapter 567 Development Plan
If this world is a novel, then the "meme crisis" can only be regarded as an unexpected episode... However, this episode almost ended the main plot, and Ke Lan also obtained some very important information... and power through it.
Perhaps it should not be called a small episode. It would be more appropriate to compare it to a side quest independent of the main character. It is also a challenging quest that is mandatory to accept and cannot be abandoned. It has extremely high difficulty and failure penalties, but at the same time, you will receive extremely generous rewards after completing the quest.
Bright red blood oozed out from the pores on the back of Ke Lan's hand and instantly condensed into a pair of exaggerated gauntlets. As Ke Lan's mind moved , the gauntlet quickly melted away like ice and snow and retracted into his body along the original path.
This "living armor" should be considered the most important "reward" he got in this side quest, but what made him a little uneasy was... no one knew what kind of side effects this "reward" came with.
Even the Undead Crew knows very limited information about this living armor.
Ke Lan believed that Pan had not concealed any information about the living armor from her. Given the Undead Crew's style of doing things, if they couldn't let her know those things, they would either choose to be a riddle teller or directly tell her that they "did not have enough authority" instead of making up a false excuse to evade her...
This approach may seem a bit "pretentious", but there is really no way to deal with them. Ke Lan even has a feeling that the Undead Crew Association has been separated from the entire human beings on the Ark. They have jumped out of the chessboard of "Ark"... Although from a macro perspective, they are still part of the chess game, but for the people on the Ark, they already have the ability to control everything.
With humans’ original technological level and development speed, they shouldn’t have acquired such capabilities... Even if the technology of the Alpha civilization was taken into account, Ke Lan still felt that it was not enough.
It has only been fifty years since the Ark landed on Alpha. Including the early exploration phase, it has only been nearly seventy years since humans began to come into contact with the legacy of Alpha civilization.
Seventy years is almost a lifetime for a person, but for a civilization, it is like a flash of lightning.
A thought suddenly popped up in Ke Lan's mind, which he himself did not dare to believe: Could it be that someone in the Undead Crew had already obtained the complete inheritance of the Alpha civilization? Or to be more bold... they found an Alpha who survived to this day, and through some means, made it join the Crew?
An indescribable strange feeling occupied Ke Lan's heart. Somehow, he felt that he was very close to the truth.
Ke Lan opened the notebook on the table. This was Zofia's personal computer, but she didn't know when the young lady had included her facial password in it. Ke Lan's face just flashed in front of the camera, and the computer screen, which was originally locked, suddenly lit up.
The window at the top of the screen was a plan for exploring Yagunakotor. It seemed that before he arrived, the eldest lady was obviously having a headache about this matter.
Ke Lan had previously informed Zofia through the network of Fleet Zero, asking her to prepare for the development of the new ruins, but judging from this almost blank plan, the actual progress was only slightly better than "creating a new folder".
After all, the Soma Group's business originally had little to do with ruins exploration, and the few employees with field experience in the Group were almost wiped out in the "Leviathan Incident". Even Director Manstein and his female secretary, who had managed to escape with Ke Lan, were ultimately unable to escape the assassination attempt by the heretical sects.
The Soma Group is such a big company, but at this moment, it can't even send out a few qualified and trustworthy expatriates.
The Soma Group was not as wealthy as the Ye Group, and could not directly rent a complete group-level hunting group. This kind of "industry miracle" created by spending money could only be achieved by a behemoth like the Ye Group.
Although the total assets in the Soma Consortium's account are very large, in fact, the liquidity is not sufficient - a qualified businessman will not keep money in the bank... They will only invest the money, use the money to make more money, and keep the capital snowball rolling. Instead of being like a miser, guarding the pile of gold coins that can't produce anything.
Even if the board of directors is willing to give all the liquid assets under the name of the consortium to Zofia, it will be difficult for them to form a qualified exploration team before the "Aguna Tor" ruins are officially opened - starting from scratch, if you want to create a hunting group capable of exploring S-level ruins, funds, time, and resources are three indispensable elements, but the Soma Consortium has not even passed any of these elements.
According to Zofia's original idea, she was going to hand over the ruins exploration business entirely to Ke Lan, and let the God Hunting Group fill in the gap in the bucket. Given the relationship between the two, even if the God Hunting Group was not an asset of the Soma Group, as long as Zofia could inherit the family and the group, then her and Ke Lan's children would naturally become the common owners of the two families.
This was also the main purpose of marriages between royal families of European countries in the old era - since it was impossible to annex the other country through war, then the two countries would have the same master in the name of blood ties.
This idea is very beautiful, and Ke Lan does not feel repulsive...but the problem is that although their God Hunting Group is nominally a consortium-level hunting group, its actual scale is not as large as those old-fashioned corporate-level hunting groups.
To put it nicely, they are taking the cutting-edge route of "few but good"; to put it bluntly, it is simply because they are "poor".
But there was nothing they could do. After all, Ke Lan and his team had started from scratch, and they had to "borrow" even the deposit for registering the hunting group from Zofia. The problem of the headquarters building was solved by the Ye family's "half-selling and half-giving away". They did not have a complete system for training new recruits, nor did they have enough capital to poach talents from other hunting groups - just as Zofia's uncle Lu Che had said: Don't look at Ke Lan and his team who are in the limelight now. As long as their main force encounters an accident during an exploration, this consortium-level hunting group will collapse instantly.
The God Hunting Group is more like a "fixed team" composed of Ke Lan and a few others than a hunting group. Although this fixed team is very powerful, it has no ability to bear any risks. If the main team of those old hunting groups with profound roots is buried in the ruins, although they will inevitably suffer serious injuries, they will most likely be able to recover. But for Ke Lan and his group, one mistake may mean the annihilation of the entire army.
"Few people... still too few people." Ke Lan thought while tapping the table lightly. The God Hunting Group has been established for some time. During this period, it has completed several high-level tasks and its ranking has skyrocketed. But looking at the size of the hunting group, apart from the logistics personnel, there are only two more people, Qin Zhao and Valentina.
The guy nicknamed Thirty-Three is quite capable and his personality suits Ke Lan's temperament...but Ke Lan is not sure whether he can get him to join the group.
This kind of person seems easy to talk to on the surface, but is actually extremely stubborn in his heart - in this respect, he is quite similar to that guy Lao Gou.
"Yes, there are too few people." Zofia's voice came from behind. Ke Lan turned around and found that while he was browsing the documents, the eldest lady had woken up. At this moment, she was wrapped in a nightgown as thin as a cicada's wing, sitting on the edge of the big bed in a somewhat strange posture.
Her shoulders, arms and chest were all covered with traces of the "fierce battle" just now, which made Ke Lan feel a little embarrassed - was she really that rough just now?
However, the eldest lady didn't seem to care about this, and continued to talk about the previous topic: "I supported you to create a hunting group in order to fill the gap in this field of the Soma family... But the problem now is that you have too few people. Yaguna Kotor is a very big cake, and the God Hunting Group alone cannot eat it."
"You're right, that's why I want the Soma Group to get involved..." Ke Lan glanced at the clearly visible red tooth marks on Zofia's snow-white neck with some guilt, and moved his eyes away embarrassedly, "At least, the benefits won't flow to outsiders."
"But the problem we face is the same as yours... Yaguna Tor appeared too suddenly. Even if the Soma Group now allocates all the resources it can mobilize in this direction, it will be difficult to reach the level of the Ye Group." Sofia sighed.
"It seems that you can only be responsible for the logistics preparation. Frontline exploration work may be out of the question." Ke Lan shook his head. "Although I have the main control over Yagunakotor, this is an S-class ruins after all. The various mechanisms and traps inside are so complicated that it is unimaginable, not to mention the 'foreign inhabitants' like the mutant lava leech... Those rookie hunters who are just making up the numbers will probably just be delivering food."
"But if we participate in the logistics preparation work, the Soma Consortium will only get the leftovers of the front-line exploration teams." Zofia smiled helplessly, "I'm not complaining about this distribution system. The front-line exploration teams need to take the biggest risks, so they naturally have to take the biggest piece of the pie... But if we can only get the leftovers, then the extra main course will definitely make everyone jealous."
"Yeah." Ke Lan nodded in agreement. The main course that the Soma Consortium couldn't eat could be eaten by plenty of people on the Ark. If they simply refused other forces to participate, it would undoubtedly greatly slow down the exploration progress. The Undead Crew would probably not be happy to see this situation of occupying the toilet without doing anything.
Although Demeter said nicely that everything would be left to Ke Lan to decide on her own, when the time really came, whether to revoke Ke Lan's authority would be a matter of a word from the crew.
"I'm afraid the Soma Group won't be able to participate in the first phase of the exploration mission, but..."
"Actually, I have a backup plan." Sofia suddenly interrupted Ke Lan and said.
"Backup plan?"
“The people at the Leviathan base are actually not the only ones in the Soma Group who have field experience,” Zofia said seriously.
"You mean... the crew of the Pioneer?!" Ke Lan reacted immediately. He and Zofia met on this icebreaker. At that time, Zofia had been the captain for two years, and the crew under her command would probably stay on this ship longer than her.
Not only that, the Pioneer icebreaker has also participated in the exploration . Every one of these crew members can be regarded as experienced veterans.
"I actually forgot about this!" Ke Lan patted his forehead lightly, "But...if you transfer these people over, what will happen to the Pioneer?"
"Just leave it in the port." Zofia said indifferently, "You may not know that the Pioneer icebreaker has been sailing in the middle sea for so many years, but it has not created much value for the Soma Consortium... Especially after the 'Underwater City' was blocked by the authorities, we have not gained any profit in the past six months, but we have even lost a large amount of budget. There have been many objections from the family for a long time."
"That's not the case. The greatest value of the Pioneer is that it can train this group of crew members... This kind of 'wealth' cannot be bought with money." Ke Lan laughed, "If it were them, they would only need two weeks of targeted training, and then they could be used as the main force of exploration!"
"There's one more thing." Sofia looked at Ke Lan and said.
"What's up?"
"I want to participate in the training too."
"You?" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment, "You want to go to the ruins?"
Zofia nodded.
"No." Ke Lan refused flatly, "It's too dangerous."
"Do you think I'm a weak vase? Will I hold you back?" Zofia glared at Ke Lan with some dissatisfaction and asked back.
If we only talk about physical fitness, Zofia is indeed not weak... It is impossible for such a weak young lady to last two years on the Pioneer icebreaker. Moreover, judging from the "battle process" just now, the young lady's tolerance and physical strength are far beyond Ke Lan's expectations - if his body had not been strengthened by "crystallization" and "living armor" many times, I'm afraid that the person who just lost would be Ke Lan.
"That's not what I meant..."
"What do you mean?"
"There's an old Chinese saying, 'Over-concern leads to confusion', you should have heard of it, right? I don't want you to get hurt, so I'll only feel at ease if you stay in a safe place." After saying this, Ke Lan immediately gave himself a big thumbs up in his heart - if the straight man from before was here, he would definitely not be able to say these words... It seems that his progress is still very obvious.
At least he no longer feels embarrassed by such words... All thanks to the "strategy" that Hound had sent him before. Although Ke Lan only glanced at it a few times in his spare time, he really benefited a lot from it.
However, what he didn't know was that when Hound sent him the strategy, he deliberately deleted the title of the strategy - in fact, the strategy was a paid tutorial posted on a social networking site, commonly known as the "Scumbag's Secret Guide"...
"..." Zofia looked at Ke Lan, with a hint of complicated emotions in her eyes. After several seconds, she said, "How about this? I won't enter the ruins. Let me be responsible for the logistics. Is that okay?"
