Players

The Universe of Galaxy takes the form of a virtual reality game to humans from Earth. It is said to be the most realistic Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG).

Han Xiao himself was once a player, who had played 10 Editions of Galaxy, and was once among the best players of Galaxy (having devoted a lot of time and attention to improving his skill and knowledge of the game and its universe).

Within the universe of Galaxy, players have earned different names: "Inhumans", "Undying", "Immortals", "Calamity of the Cosmos"; they are generally considered to be a phenomenon worth the term "Space Wonder", as there is no in-world explanation for their existence.

Players are contrasted against Non-Playable Characters (NPCs). NPCs are the native inhabitants of Galaxy, living within and limited to Galaxy, while players are outside Galaxy, living on Earth, and thus aren't limited to the world of Galaxy.

## Introduction

*I’ve… transmigrated into Galaxy?*

*His eyes widened with amazement. Galaxy was a fully immersive virtual reality game that ran servers worldwide and boasted a peak concurrent player count of almost 60 million.*

*The game was set in a vast universe with a world map and landscapes that were procedurally generated using the latest generation of quantum computers. The scale of its world was massive, and it was said to be able to run smoothly even with a billion concurrent players. There existed many organizations and companies that specialized in farming gold and running dungeons, and the best pieces of gear could even go for ridiculous prices of up to a million US dollars.*

*Being an extremely popular game, good balance was of the utmost important. While big spenders did have certain advantages, it was not so unfair to the extent that it displeased the casual players. Maintaining competitiveness and improving skills were key factors towards game balance, and Galaxy did a good job in these areas, facilitating its strong allure as an e-sport.*

*Although Han Xiao did indeed make a living out of playing the game, the term ‘professional gamer’ didn’t fit him well. He was, instead, one of the despised power levelers and preferred to work solo.*

*Han Xiao had been playing the game since its very inception, and through the numerous patches, he had made a name for himself. In the last annual top 100 rankings, he placed 47th. He definitely had what it took to try his hand at going pro, but what he enjoyed most about the game was the leveling experience. -***Ch 1**

## Immortal Army

#Immortal\_Army Black Star Army

### Overview

Players are one of the "Calamity of the Cosmos", an uncontrollable phenomenon in the universe of Galaxy, with the power to influence events.

This is because, their actions are generally illogical, unbound by any social rules within the universe of Galaxy, except the specific rules within factions and security areas. Even within factions, the players' mentality cannot be predicted as there is no specific pattern to their actions (a Beyond Grade A friend of Black Star, complained of finding an 'Undying' trying to steal their underwear: players are fearless).

#### Dangers:

1. Forum: The forum allows all players to communicate and organize themselves in a manner that cannot be blocked with means available to the NPCs of Galaxy. Thus they are a potent communication tool within Galaxy, their communication is also a source of intel to factions they are allied to (And to Han Xiao, who can directly view the Forum). This makes them dangerous in sensitive matters, as they have no obligation to keep secrets, and the Forum is accessible to all players (and Han Xiao).
2. Revive: There is no physical threat to players from within the universe of Galaxy (except the Time-Space Amber); they have no fear of pain (because they are able to reduce the pain intensity within the Game), they have no fear of illness, and they have no fear of death. Therefore, the biggest means for the Evil Factions to control individuals (threats of pain or death) are not effective on players. This is also one of the advantages of suicide weapons, as they give a very high damage output, at the low cost of character death.
3. Immunity to Soul/Mental attacks: While the player characters can get status debuffs under mental/soul attacks, they are indirectly immune to the actual effects. This is because, statuses that affect the mind/soul of an NPC (within Galaxy), directly affect the judgment and mental ability of the NPC. However, players are immune to this because their minds are outside the world of Galaxy. Therefore, mental effects (outside of brainwashing at Lv 1-2 when intelligence is low) has no long-term effects on players, and they recover after death. They are indirectly immune to soul possession, as their minds cannot be searched by psychics.
4. Immunity to status debuffs: Effects such as the "Extreme Dao Blast: Cell Limit Suppression" technique for Pugilists, that use 'life potential' as the price for increased combat power, are advantageous to players. This is because, permanent debuff statuses are only effective while the player is alive, and end as soon as they die. This is also the mentality behind 'Evolution Badges', because the permanent debuff status for players is instead temporary, allowing them to use the Badges to produce a very high combat ability relative to their level. As such, the final combat power of individual players, cannot be estimated, as they can easily take risks inaccessible to NPCs.
5. Interface: Allows players to grow beyond circumstantial limits.

### Black Star Army

In the early parts of the Army 's development, Black Star used the players to gain prominence, as the main fighting force of the Army . However, in Edition 4.0, they are overshadowed by the sheer massive scale of the NPC faction. However, they are the single biggest reason for Black Star's rapid rise in power (confused for potential by other NPCs), and so he personally organizes the Black Star Army into a beneficial faction for them ("so that he can harvest the leeks in his backyard").

The pro players, and players in general, favor the legion for the ease of obtaining resources (weapons, armor, ships). This is possible because Black Star himself is now a Beyond Grade A member of the Mechanic Class, and has some of the best production capacity within Galaxy (the Logistics department can rival Star Cluster Grade production capacity). This easily accommodates the expenditure of players (through combat) and the fact that Black Star Army has managed to maintain itself through 4 Editions, signifies it is worth investing in (as resources guarded by the Black Star Army will be protected during the time between editions),

The Black Star Army is also the favorite faction for mechanic class players, by providing an alternative to Blueprint gambling. This is because of a large and varied store of blueprints for sale, saving mechanic class players from gambling for them. Blueprints are also a way of increasing the Intelligence Stat for players, with the ratio of three blueprints to one attribute point. Easy accessibility to blue prints makes the Black Star Army very attractive. (This also includes 'branch-locked' blueprints, that cannot be produced by gambling).

The subsidized cost of materials and resources (for building), also make the Black Star Army attractive to players of the mechanic class (and guilds, which seek to leverage the power of mechanics). Thanks to Black Star's extensive network (and in Edition 3.0 and 4.0, large territory), there are many materials available within the Black Star Army that are not available outside (or are expensive in terms of contribution points, or money).

Therefore, the Mechanic class' biggest drawback (increased cost over time) is mitigated by the Black Star Army .

## Interface

The interface is a game characteristic exclusive to players, that gives them direct goals and means to grow stronger within the world of Galaxy. It is useful for players to develop themselves individually, as it is the means by which players use "Experience Points" which they can use to develop their characters. The interface is able to indirectly transfer work/effort in one direction, into a multi-purpose means to strengthen themselves.

This system means that players can constantly grow stronger, even without directly engaging in the activity needed to improve that skill/ability. The Interface, as a trump card, removes any 'potential limit' that NPCs would otherwise face (requiring them to put in additional time and effort to break that limit).

### Experience Points:

Experience Points is a game mechanism, where:

1. Actions to complete specific objectives (quests), give 'experience'.
2. Level advancement requires a certain amount of 'experience'.
3. Skills and knowledge require 'experience' to gain or improve.
4. Repetition of a task gives diminishing amounts of 'experience'.
5. The difficulty of the task (or quests), gives a corresponding amount of experience.

Players have access to quests, special in-game tasks that allow them to contribute to the game-world, as well as gain 'experience' for their participation. Quests are the biggest motivators for players, as they provide both a goal, and a means to improve their abilities. They are also the only means for NPCs to direct players to act (by directly asking them to). The rewards for quests come in 2 forms: Interface rewards, and NPC rewards.

Specific actions, especially related to professions (or classes), also give 'experience' as a reward. However, these are of the kind that give diminishing returns, as players abilities improve. Repeating the same action does not guarantee the same rewards.

Repeatable Quests are the only repeatable actions that give consistent rewards. The final rewards of engaging in Repeatable Quests can be gauged. However, Repeatable Quests have a higher difficulty, and mitigating factors (within Galaxy) that make them hard to solve.

### Level Advancement:

The interface provides players with a means to monitor their own strength and progress, for targeted improvement in the areas concerned (unlike NPCs: who have a general idea, but can't directly target their bottlenecks). They also use experience to directly 'pay' for higher levels, even with the increased costs, higher levels are able to gain more experience and those 'pay' higher costs.

Even with the bottlenecks formed by 'Advancement Missions', players still have a clear goal to achieve that will then allow them to progress in strength. The potential of their specific power does not limit them, and even E-Grade Esper potentials can achieve S-Grade with time.

The biggest cheat-like feature, is the Mission Completion Card, that directly overrides any requirement / difficulty in completing a mission (especially useful in Advancement Missions). This results in players immediately progressing to the next step. Mission Completion Cards cannot be used on storyline missions, however, their inherent benefit is in difficult Class Advancement, or Level Advancement missions.

go to Levels to see more information and level layout.

### Challenges:

The final benefit of the interface, is the ability to gain skills/talents, through special quests. This means that, through combat, especially combat with powerful individuals, players can gain skills/talents (except 'Molding Talents' exclusive to NPC characters) and grow stronger. This advantage means that players grow stronger through battle.

While players cannot grow stronger purely through combat (because of the random nature of talent draws), however, players can get talents that would otherwise be impossible to gain (or would require a long time to gain). Challenges themselves are ineffective against players, but are especially effective against NPCs. Therefore, players' strength continuously grows.

### Evolution:

An exclusive ability of players, possible only because of the Interface System, is the ability to change race. The requirements are high, and the 'mutation' probability varies, however, players are not limited to their starting race, and can instead change into more powerful races.

The players are first required to obtain materials related to their desired race (such as Void Race body materials), but the use is aided through medicines that cancel side-effects of mutation. The additional promise is that, with each race evolution, player characters can grow stronger with new race abilities.

No other NPC is capable of evolving, except through: 1. the Evolution Cube; 2. Mutation (chance events). The cost of the Evolution Cube (currently in the hands of Han Xiao) is very high, and the risks of mutation are very high. Only special drugs are able to reduce the risks of mutation, but the overall effect is not as effective as 'Race Evolution' that is accessible to players.

## Black Star

Black Star (Han Xiao) was formerly a player (before his transmigration), and therefore holds several advantages compared to other NPCs, especially because he has access to both Player functions and NPC functions. His last major advantage is a knowledge advantage in matters related to the game, up until Edition 10 (which is several centuries into the future, including the gaps between editions).

### Player functions:

Player functions involve the interface system related to growth and development, including quests and evolution.

Black Star is able to use all functions related to players, without the limitation of Edition level caps. He, therefore has no real upper limit in growth potential. Additionally, his potential cannot be compared to other NPCs, as he shows a far higher growth potential than NPCs, and the Character Cards allow him to use powers normally inaccessible to him (including abilities of other systems, or abilities at far higher levels, or talents of his system that he does not normally have).

The last benefit is through evolution, that allows Black Star to change into other races. He decisively leaves behind the human race(Type-II Galaxy Human), and travels the journey of different Void Races.

### NPC functions:

NPC functions involve issuing missions to players, as well as a store for players to obtain products from him. This also includes 'Reputation' mechanics, for players to gauge their reputation in regards to him. The biggest effect is that, as Han Xiao grows stronger (higher character level), he is able to give larger rewards. This motivates him to grow stronger, as well as provides a means for him to motivate players to act (he gives the best rewards, even for seemingly pointless missions).

NPC functions also allow Han Xiao to use players as a source of 'Experience'. Therefore, he is not directly limited to his own ability to produce experience (through missions, challenges, combat), 'harvesting' players instead. With this advantage, Han Xiao does not have many limiters in his growth capacity, as he is able to achieve effects too expensive for players (gaining all Mechanic Class knowledge trees; max-ing out all Mechanic related knowledge; max-ing out all blue-prints , for potential points and attribute points).

Faction Functions:

Black Star builds the Black Star Mercenary Group (that later becomes the Black Star Army ) for players to join. This served a two-fold purpose: increasing the reward limit he could set (the faction had higher limits, related to the number of NPC members), and increase the number of players under his control.

The faction first removed the location limit of the Faction store: players could obtain products from Black Star from the faction store (by going to the store, or by ordering deliveries); additionally, Black Star could use the faction to improve his own production power, to provide higher benefits to players. The products of the Faction Store are not limited by interaction with Black Star, therefore Black Star can gain 'experience' from players irrespective of his distance to them.

The second major benefit of the Faction to Black Star, is that it created an identity and purpose for players, thus they would associate better with the Black Star Army . This increased his ability to retain players, thus increasing his opportunities to 'harvest'. As the Black Star Army grew, Black Star became a charismatic figure to players, improving the attraction of the Army to players (in a feedback loop). As the Army is geared towards providing benefits to players, its fame grew, and as its fame grew it became more attractive.

### Knowledge Advantage:

Han Xiao was a veteran player of Galaxy while still on Earth, as a 'professional power-leveler' he had experience in all professions (classes). He had experience in the various means to improve (through quests, hidden missions, etc) as well as knowledge regarding the universe of Galaxy (primarily because of his interest in the background history of Galaxy).

He also knows a lot about the NPCs of Galaxy, after having interacted with them while a player (through the different circumstances available to players), this has three major benefits:

1. He is able to appropriately interact with NPCs in a manner that is appropriate to them
2. He is able to identify future powerful characters ahead of time
3. He has insight into characters and events through knowledge later available to players (in the future)

#### Skill:

As a former player, and a former 'professional power-leveler', Han Xiao has honed his skills especially in combat (and related fields, such as driving and piloting; he is even able to negotiate Galactic Scale Battlefields with very advanced and dangerous weapons), and has experience in negotiating the universe of Galaxy (such as developing advanced stealth technology that allowed him to move unnoticed on Planet Aquamarine; use of communicators, conversing with NPCs).

His skill level is also higher than NPCs, even long-lived NPCs, because he has been in many life-death situations while a player (such as repeating dungeons). This allows him to fight battles against NPCs several levels higher than himself, because he knows how to strategically and technically position himself (and act) for the best results.

#### Prediction:

As a result of his knowledge of future events and patterns, Black Star has the ability to place himself in the best place to take advantage of events.

This is important when fighting characters more powerful than himself, especially characters who are more famous in his past life as a player. He is able to determine their abilities and combos, giving him an unfair advantage when facing them (as he can predict their attacks).

The last indirect prediction, is Black Star is able to gain insight into unseen actors, when fighting a character who should be unknown to him:

1. He was able to determine DarkStar's involvement through the actions of Ember (A relatively unknown Esper and DarkStar protégé).
2. He was able to identify Thousand Shadows involvement and goals, through the actions of Stephanie (A+ Grade hunter, and Myriad Shadows' shadow).

Because of his knowledge advantage, Black Star has been able to amass resources and treasures through what appears to be 'luck'. This is ironic because Black Star has a Luck attribute of 0 (the lowest among all Beyond Grade As).

### Final Note

With so many players cohesively acting under his control, Black Star can engage in otherwise difficult / risky tasks. With the capacity to gain 'experience' from players, including creating stockpiles to tide him through the gaps between editions, Black Star is able to grow faster than both players and NPCs, and can't be compared with either group.