Players’ NPC daddy.

Herbie is an adult, a reliable adult, so this reliable adult is sometimes more difficult to deal with than a child.

"But if you complete the three meals a day check-in, you will get a reward." Blazer tried to persuade.

"I can get what I want through my own ability!" As an adult, Herbie was extremely stubborn.

"You don't have to waste time thinking about what to eat every day. Just wait for Jasmine to deliver it to your door. If it doesn't taste good, you can complain and enjoy the happiness of the small kitchen. The most important thing is, as long as you eat and drink every day for a week, you can go to the highest crystal of the Age of Gods, the Ark AI, to redeem prizes." Blaze whispered in Herbie's ear.

"You were just enjoying yourself from the beginning to the end. As for changing your daily routine, to be honest, you woke up much earlier than breakfast time."

"But this is a good business that would be wasted if it weren't done."

Hebie frowned. As a real businessman, she really couldn't refuse [good business].

To be honest, she was actually fed up with the alarm clock and all she needed was someone to give her a way out.

"Since you said so, I'll do this deal reluctantly." Herbie coughed lightly and took out the three meals a day punch-in ball from the warehouse with reluctance.

After twisting it open, the lunch box appeared, and the lunch box was a quite rich, perhaps even a little too nutritious lunch.

"What does this mean? Does she think I'm a person who likes luxury?" Herbie raised her eyebrows. She had to admit that Jasmine's lunch was quite gorgeous and looked very delicious, which was very worthy of her current status.

In most people's imagination, the current president of [Hermes' Traveling Hat] must eat very luxurious food, and must have a special chef, and the food can be delivered from far away.

In fact, this is true, but it is paid and extremely expensive. Even the president can't use the service of [Hermes' Traveling Hat] for free.

Therefore, most of the time, even Kullene, who is at the pinnacle of hidden power, chooses to eat the free employee meals.

"No... I don't think she meant that." Blaze saw through Jasmine's subtext and hidden passion at a glance.

He kind of regretted telling Jasmine about the form that Hebby had appeared in before. Now Jasmine was probably using a lot of computing power to think about how to make Hebby develop a second time.

This nutritious lunch is probably one of the plans prepared by Jasmine.

If Herbie found out about this, he would undoubtedly make a scene, so it was better to pretend that he didn't know.

"So you're planning on a long-term salvage operation next?" Blazer continued with his business.

"Well, actually this matter is quite urgent. We counted the losses after the Anti-Life Tree invasion. We lost nearly a thousand small teleportation towers, hundreds of large teleportation towers, and dozens of super-large teleportation towers."

Herbie sat on the huge building materials that Blazer had moved, tapping the chicken wings from his luxurious lunch with chopsticks and sighing.

"Small teleportation towers are a small matter, but large and super large teleportation towers are really fatal."

Blaze nodded. This was a big deal that even a city boy like him understood.

Small teleportation towers are a convenience for residents, while large teleportation towers are business channels. The super-large teleportation towers are the only stable things that can connect this huge six-sided world together.

"Based on the current reserves of Hermes's Travel Hat... we can only build a rough passage. It is impossible to repair all the transmission towers in a short time. How long it will take to repair them all depends on the results of the salvage activities."

"But this shouldn't be your headache." Blaze leaned against the huge piece of wood, "Tell me about it."

"...Actually, there are still some hidden dangers." Hebi held it in for a while, but couldn't help but say it out loud.

"You should know that the rise of Hermes' Travel Hat is related to the teleportation tower project that bankrupted the company 20 years ago. Before that, Hermes' Travel Hat was mediocre. Apart from its high-end chocolate product, it did not have any competitive products."

"After the teleportation tower network was successfully built, [Hermes's Travel Hat] went all the way up." Blaze echoed.

"That's the problem. The teleportation tower network is the reason for the success of [Hermes's Travel Hat], nothing else. But now the teleportation tower network has collapsed by nine out of ten, almost returning to the era when there were no teleportation towers."

"Then do you know what's going to happen next?" Herbie said with a serious expression.

“Competitors are emerging.”

Chapter 1488 The Dark Ages

The teleportation tower is indeed a convenient thing. A place that would take three days and three nights to reach by carriage can now be reached by just stepping into the teleportation tower. As long as the teleportation tower is big enough, it only takes a moment to reach the other side of the world.

The bandit industry suffered a severe blow in an instant. They no longer had the luck to snatch the super rare goods that were secretly transported in an ordinary-looking caravan.

It is so convenient and profitable. It reduces the cost of use and expands the user range. The teleportation tower can continue to attract money like a cornucopia.

Hermes's Travel Hat's largest and most stable source of revenue remains the fees from using the teleportation tower network. Strangers, as always, are the company's largest customers, paying without batting an eye.

The second source of income is the advertising revenue that comes with the teleportation tower network. If you want to promote your own products, you only need to pay to put them in the teleportation tower.

However, the income from this advertisement still comes from strangers. They use it to promote the products of the strangers' world. They buy the advertising space without blinking an eye and invest millions of gold coins.

Sometimes the Knights of the Giant Kingdom Alliance would come to investigate to determine if this was money laundering, but fortunately the Stranger’s bills were truly clean.

But the best place for the teleportation tower to be used is indeed [war].

[War] is a very good term. As long as it is related to [War], all unreasonable conditions can be met, such as transporting goods during war, deploying troops during war, etc.

If the teleportation tower is used in war, the biggest losses in war, marching time, and supply transportation will not be a problem at all, and starting a war will become extremely easy.

At that time, in order to use the teleportation tower to fight the war, blood-stained gold coins will fall like heavy rain, and once the teleportation tower's dominance in the war is demonstrated, the heavy rain of gold coins will continue.

[Hermes's Travel Hat] has firmly rejected all malicious uses of the teleportation tower network since its inception, and using it for war is the first thing that is prohibited.

But this is just the [Hermes' Traveling Hat]. There is more than one Chamber of Commerce in this world.

Although Blaze and even Herbie did not live in that era, there were many chambers of commerce in the top world twenty years ago when the [Hermes's Traveling Hat] had not yet risen and grown.

Those chambers of commerce are in competition with each other just like the three major kingdoms today. Of course, their means of competition are similar to those between the three major kingdoms, or even more... despicable.

They use their wealth to operate kingdoms, usurp states, provoke wars, control prices, and treat human lives as nothing.

They do human trafficking, monster trafficking, and alien trafficking.

They also invest in extremely talented scholars and then keep the research results for themselves.

Compared with the above-mentioned evil deeds, maintaining private armed forces and bullying civilians like local tyrants are relatively insignificant.

That is because these chambers of commerce cannot be described as businessmen. A more accurate and appropriate term is chaebol, which is a combination of conglomerate and warlord.

Before the rise of [Hermes's Traveling Hat] and the end of the influence of the chaebols on the world, the Holy Cross Kingdom had always been a veritable paradise.

The Crusades were absolutely violent, with unreasonable attacks and crushing, and coupled with the dual control of the economy and faith by Theresa and the Pope, two remnants of the Age of Gods, the financial tycoons could not set foot even once.

The Third Kingdom's territory and the Giant Kingdom Alliance are completely under the influence of the chaebol.

There are constant wars between the kingdoms in the territory of the Third Kingdom, and they are basically puppets of the chaebols. The Giant Kingdom Alliance has not yet completed its alliance status. The chaebols have been causing disputes between the kingdoms in various territories, trying to turn the territory of the second largest kingdom into a war-torn area like the territory of the Third Kingdom.

It was a very long and dark period of history. Even after twenty years, it is still an unforgettable disaster in the eyes of those who once lived through it.

So were the former chaebols completely wiped out by the powerful appearance of [Hermes's Traveling Hat]?

Of course not. A lean camel is bigger than a horse, and a centipede is still alive even after its death. The small chaebols may have been completely destroyed, but those extremely large chaebols, which are even older than some kingdoms and city-states, still exist in some way and continue to spy.

The biggest evidence is the evil stranger. Almost no one will do business with the evil stranger. Only when people are forced into a desperate situation like Herbie and have no other choice will they do business with the evil stranger.

Herbie's situation is indeed special, but Hebie is definitely not the only one who has to make deals with evil foreigners for profit.

"You are worried that those hidden chaebols also have a large reserve of [Ika Black Stone] and will take this opportunity to erode the [Hermes's Travel Hat] transmission tower network."

"That's right, but being eroded is not the point. The current [Hermes's Traveling Hat] has become a giant. Even if they want to steal our teleportation tower business, they will never be able to do so." Herbie said with certainty. She rubbed her fingers together. "We charge very cheaply. As long as we can make a little profit, it's fine. But those chaebols are completely different. They are here to take advantage of us."

"What I'm worried about is that they can't wait to give the teleportation tower network to those warring elements as if they were showing off their weapons. Once they actually see what the teleportation tower network looks like when used in a war, even the kindest and most naive king will be wary."

Hebi rested his chin on his hand and sighed.

"Not only will the peace we have worked so hard to achieve be ruined, but some small kingdoms may refuse to use the teleportation towers to prevent themselves from being invaded, and the economic system we have worked so hard to develop will also collapse."

"Do you know how difficult it is to convince the city lord king to build a teleportation tower in the most prosperous area?"

Herbie kept complaining, as if he was complaining to Blaze, or as if he was talking to himself.

This appearance is exactly the same as Kulene. If Kulene had not denied it, Blaze would have almost suspected that they were related by blood.

"Really? I don't think there's a problem." Blazer leaned against the wood and said calmly, "The chaebols in the past couldn't do anything. This time it's not even a crisis."

"Hey~" Herbie's face was full of weirdness. He stretched out his hand to pinch Blaze's face and said seriously, "You are fake, right? At this time, Blaze should say..."

"[You'll offend the God of Flag if you're so confident!]"

Blaze remained noncommittal, but he had his reasons.

"Normally, yes. But, I believe that the Flag God can only punish those who only take the path they think is right. God cannot defeat those who take all kinds of detours and wrong paths."

"[Hermes' Travel Hat] is not a lucky thing that came out of nowhere relying on the teleportation tower network. It was born after a god, a group of people, and many people walked for a very long time."

Chapter 1489 Talent

[G] At the company's headquarters, it was a rare sight to see no one working in the office, instead they were chatting leisurely.

Although everyone here is a workaholic who has turned work into a hobby, and can even rest their bodies in a virtual submarine cabin while their brains are still active in the virtual space, they still need a relaxing chat occasionally.

After all, they are not made of steel. There are one event after another in the game, and players only need to play and worry about how to complete the games, but they have to worry about it, fearing that something extraordinary will happen in the chain of events.

Of course, this is called "it's their own fault". They have to be responsible for the design that they once made on a whim and claimed to be "real", "shocking reversal" and "brilliant". Only the penguin is really working overtime.

They were not all chatting, they were also eating chocolate, which is really a good thing to replenish sugar. Except for the otaku with glasses, who was extremely self-disciplined and whose second hobby besides work was fitness, everyone had a piece of chocolate.

Kitchenware was chewing chocolate and chatting about random things, while she squinted her eyes at the penguins sitting around the bespectacled otaku. Finally, she couldn't help but ask.

"How can you stand that smell?"

The smell refers to the thing in the glasses otaku's hand. Everyone was eating chocolate, and they couldn't just let the glasses otaku watch. Even the weird geniuses didn't want to leave the group occasionally, so the glasses otaku held a piece of something similar to chocolate in his hand.

It was broccoli mixed with chicken breast gravy and something that looked like chocolate.

That could be called a chemical weapon. Just the smell would be unbearable. Only the penguin sat next to the otaku with glasses with a calm expression.

"I've eaten it before when I was losing weight, and now I'm reminiscing about the good times." The penguin smelled the horrible smell of the perfect blend of chicken breast and broccoli in the air, and showed an expression that wanted to vomit.

"Whenever I smell this, I will recall the feeling of having to eat these things in order to lose weight. In order to no longer experience that kind of pain, I will now be self-disciplined and control my diet."

"Oh, come to think of it, you used to be a fat man." The kitchen utensil drew a circle with his finger, as if he was imitating the penguin's previous appearance.

"So you achieved your super-evolutionary body shape by torturing yourself like this. I wanted to learn your weight loss secret, but if you lost weight like this, I can't stand it."

"..." Penguin was silent for a moment, and whispered to the glasses otaku, "Is she still maintaining her image of [never getting fat no matter how much she eats] and [being gifted]?"

"Yes, I saw her eating broccoli yesterday, crying and laughing at the same time. In the middle of the night, she was wandering around the kitchen with disheveled hair like a ghost, muttering that she wanted to eat rice."

"is it necessary?"

"Yes, because there really are two women here who are extremely gifted. They won't gain weight no matter how much they eat, and even if they gain weight, the nutrients will magically go to the right places." The bespectacled otaku put the emphasis on the word "women". Of course, a more straightforward hint was the turn of his eyes hidden behind the thick lenses.

One was a man with glasses wearing a thick sweater and rarely coming out of his room to participate in group activities. He was curled up on the lazy sofa. The other was a woman with electronic shackles on her feet, talking to an electric fan.

The penguin immediately understood.

"I think she shot herself in the foot by not only being stubborn but also liking verification, eating a lot of it in front of us."

Snapped--

The kitchen utensil slapped his hands on the two of them, with a forced smile.

"It's not nice to say bad things about someone to their face because you're jealous of their talent. You don't want to see me come in with boxing gear on when you're working out."

The two men shook their heads violently, cold sweat breaking out on their foreheads. The food they ate in large quantities to prove that they were really gifted was not wasted at all, and all went to the right places.

To some extent, the woman in front of him was truly gifted, but only as a warrior.

"Ahem, alright, alright, it's time to get down to business." The eldest brother received the distress signal from the geek with glasses and immediately spoke up, trying to change the subject with business.

"Most of the teleportation tower network has collapsed. This is a major crisis. Not being able to move around the game map will reduce the player experience."

"The ocean environment of the previous World F is the best example. During that period, players' comments on the ocean world were all like [it was fun at first, but soon became unbearable], [it needs more islands to build teleportation towers], [it lacks content], etc."

The boss sighed helplessly.

One of the things that "Godlock" has always been touted for is its super huge map. A large map means that there is almost unlimited game content, but if you want to turn these massive game experiences directly into player experiences, you must add some convenient channels.

Just like appreciating the beautiful scenery of an area, if you feel it down to earth you may be able to notice a lot of details, but you will soon get bored of the fatigue of walking and the same scenery.

In contrast, although the sightseeing cable car will miss many details, it can appreciate the magnificent overall landscape, and the transmission tower network is the sightseeing cable car.

Now, most of this sightseeing cable car is scrapped.

No matter how fast the players are and how fast they ride the fastest mount, it is impossible for them to get from one city to another within a few minutes, let alone running at full speed the entire time.

Although there is a temporary teleportation tower as a substitute, this item is quite advanced and is a disposable consumable. Even high-level guilds would not be so luxurious as to use it as a means of daily transportation.

“The original intention of designing a super large map is to allow players to experience an absolutely primitive and magical world that cannot be felt in modern society, but players must be willing to experience it, and cannot be forced to experience it with cumbersome processes.”

The geniuses nodded in agreement. No matter what, they are in the service industry, and the most important thing is that they really want to hear players praise their games.

Conversely, they can’t stand bad reviews and will be really hurt.

"I saw in the forum that they have begun preparing for long-term activities to deal with the current crisis. But because several large-scale events have already taken place, the players are somewhat exhausted." Penguin took out the sorted data, and it was not good news.

"Plus, the ocean map already dampens players' enthusiasm, so I expect the popularity of this event to be quite low."