I Play with Attributes in Honkai: Star Rail Chapter 2

"The people on the space station still haven't finished clearing the Cleft Realm instance—I really can't take it anymore, Gege!"

Sighing mournfully, confirming all the Stat-Sticks were where they should be, Liuge judged the Eraser's position and advance route through the lingering smoke, then crouched low and rolled out.

Even without invincibility frames, Liuge still recklessly rolled behind the Eraser, a reinforced palm strike chopping into the back of its knee. As it stumbled from the heavy blow, he pressed his left hand to the ground, leaning back slightly to dodge the cannon swung his way, and clenched his fist—

"Inch Punch: Mountain Crash!"

Shouting out a made-up technique name with all due seriousness, his suddenly thrust fist struck the Eraser's back. The full-force blow slammed it hard into the ground. Without hesitation, Liuge closed in, straddled the Eraser, and landed several more punches to its head.

"Ugh, that hurts..."

Watching the blue light orb left after the particles dissipated, Liuge leaned against the wall, heart racing and body temperature rising. Panting heavily, he shook his reddened right hand while reaching out with his left to grab the Eraser's drop.

Even if it was just blue—only a step above white—it was still an instance drop... at least it wasn't zero drops.

[Stat-Stick · Firearm]

"Heh?"

Frowning slightly, Liuge activated his peerless wisdom to think it over. Unlike the previous attribute-type ones like strength or speed, or the transformation-type Character Stat-Sticks, this so-called "Firearm" probably belonged to the skill category?

Like making a gun novice a perfect shot?

After all, it couldn't just fuse into his hand and let him shoot fingernails, right? And something like bleeding gun-fu, turning blood into guns for combat, was even more unlikely.

Opening the Stat-Stick Library, Liuge rubbed his chin and couldn't help clicking on the combination option...

"Normally, a character needs personal attributes and personal skills to be considered complete..."

So, Liuge added [Gold Stat-Stick · Genius Hacker] into the combination slot, then added the removed [Blue Stat-Stick · Stealth], and finally the new [Blue Stat-Stick · Firearm] = [???]

"A very scientific formula."

Confirmed submission.

Ordinary fonts overlapped and burst into light. Seconds later, what appeared before him was a brand-new gold Stat-Stick, but with cracks—

[Stat-Stick · Haxxor Bunny (Broken)]

Description: Using this Stat-Stick Character Card, you can transform into this character and inherit all of their abilities. (As the current Stat-Stick is incomplete, only 70% of ability values can be utilized. Please work to perfect the Stat-Stick.)

"...Nice and strong! Time to transform and go play with Silver Wolf!"

The Stat-Stick combination worked just as expected, so Liuge's tone was calm. But a character from a Honkai Impact 3rd bubble universe showing up in Honkai: Star Rail... does this Stat-Stick even fit the lore...

Oh, Old Yang already showed up in the Star Rail setting.

Kiana's graduation trip was also on a train—who knows, she might come to Star Rail one day. It does fit the cosmology.

Still, how to put it, Liuge was a bit iffy about this kind of transformation. It wasn't an armored transformation, and the broken version meant insufficient strength.

No beauty of raw power!

So what kind of Stat-Stick would it take to piece together a Herrscher Core?

Shaking his head, Liuge suppressed that wandering thought.

A Herrscher Core—that Stat-Stick would have to be gold at least.

So, better to just settle in as a junk collector.

As for those things, once things stabilized, sleeping would be more reliable.

With that mindset, Liuge sneaked his way forward, continuing his business.

While dodging Voidrangers, he scavenged junk and unexpectedly stumbled upon one of Herta's damaged puppets.

This discovery caught Liuge off guard.

He remembered the game mentioning that during the Antimatter Legion's attack, Herta was off on a visit. So logically, Herta's puppets shouldn't be scattered around the space station.

Yet here before him was a Herta puppet with its lower half completely destroyed, only the upper body remaining.

Liuge crouched in front of the Herta puppet, looking at it with an expression like an invincible loser dragon and a red father mockingly staring at some genius.

"What's there to stare at!"

Suddenly, the Herta puppet's eyes rolled, locking onto Liuge crouching beside it, and let out a cold voice.

The sudden sound startled Liuge so much his jaw dropped as he watched the Herta puppet start moving its arms, tidying its damaged clothes to cover its broken body.

"Wait, you're this wrecked and you can still control it?!"

003 How About a Transformation?

"Making a fuss over nothing!"

The Herta puppet glanced at Liuge, then began surveying its surroundings and the damage to its current puppet body.

After a moment, she sighed.

"Another discarded body."

"If you don't mind, I could take this body off your hands."

Liuge rubbed his hands together from the side, looking embarrassed yet eager.

I wouldn't dare touch a normal Herta puppet, but a damaged one like this—the owner herself said it's to be discarded—so me taking it should be fine, right?

And, more importantly—

The moment Herta said she was discarding it, he clearly saw a golden orb of light drift out from her puppet body.

[Stat-Stick: Puppet]

Tsk tsk, as expected of someone from the Genius Society.

One sentence, and she just drops a Golden Legend.

A Puppet stat-stick?

There are so many ways to combine this.

If he remembered correctly, the Herrscher of Domination was also a puppet.

Thinking along those lines, the development potential of puppets was extremely high.

"Leaving aside whether I can give you this body or not, could you answer me one question? Who are you, sir?"

Herta looked at the shameless Liuge, paused for a moment, then sized up the young man before slowly speaking.

"Uh..."

"So, sir? As I recall, there's no such person as you in the Herta Space Station."

"Well... is there a chance I'm new here?"

Liuge answered cautiously, having already put aside his thoughts on how to acquire Herta's heavily damaged puppet.

"Sir, I may not manage the space station much, but please don't underestimate the memory of a Genius Society member."

Herta saw through Liuge's lie at a glance and stated it bluntly.

In her view, this man was probably connected to the Antimatter Legion's invasion of the space station.

Of course, the probability was small, but it couldn't be ruled out either.

"Ahem, well... Lady Herta, isn't this hardly the time for that?"

As he spoke, Liuge casually stowed the [Puppet] stat-stick into his lexicon, laughing it off.

Herta knew this wasn't the time to press either, so she didn't continue questioning. She'd conduct a thorough review after resolving the space station incident.

After all, the Antimatter Legion was all about total destruction—they wouldn't cooperate with anyone.

"In that case..."

Herta pondered for a moment, then looked at Liuge.

Though she found his earlier motion of seemingly picking something up a bit odd, she decided she could trust this man for now.

"Is there anything I can help with? Even though this body is severely damaged, I can still be of use within the space station."

Hearing this, Liuge, who had been worrying about not knowing the way, brightened up immediately.

Right!

Instead of wandering around on his own, wasn't there a guide right in front of him?!

Liuge scooped up Herta's half-body, tucking it under his armpit, his expression brimming with excitement.

"If it's possible, please point me the way to the Curio Storage!"

"You wish!"

Herta struggled free from under Liuge's arm, her half-body landing on the ground, her eyes blazing with fury.

She mentally retracted the trust she had just placed in Liuge.

This man before her was definitely no good.

His first request was to go mess with those curios!

"Hey, no! Don't misunderstand!"

Liuge seemed to realize his phrasing was off and quickly explained.

"I just thought the Curio Storage would be safer—"

Before he could finish, a golden, branch-like object suddenly sprouted from the ground beside him.

The branch grew rapidly, slowly unfurling ripples of light like a fissure.

"Get away from there, now!"

The moment Herta saw it, she shouted at Liuge.

Of course, he didn't need the warning—the instant the branch appeared, he had already darted off.

A junker cherished his own life; even without invincibility frames, he made sure his hide was worth something.

"That's—"

"A Cleft Realm Fissure!"

Herta answered directly.

Hearing this, Liuge's heart sank. If a Cleft Realm Fissure had opened here, it meant... monsters were coming!

Almost instantly, six or seven Voidrangers densely packed the entire passageway.

Oh ho, this is the end!

"Hey. Don't just stand there, run!"

Herta had somehow produced a large hammer in her hand.

Though she was only half a body, to Liuge, she seemed utterly majestic.

"Herta, I'll leave this place to you! — Time to skedaddle!"

Without any ceremony, Liuge turned and ran.

As for staying to fight side by side or anything like that, forget it.

Herta had a disposable puppet body, but he was made of flesh and blood—the cost-benefit ratio just didn't add up!

Panting heavily for a few minutes, Liuge dodged several Voidranger attacks in quick succession and killed them in return.

Naturally, he obtained two white word entries.

But while he was on the run, he had no time to check what they were.

"Whatever, I'll just leave them and look later."

Thinking this, Liuge glanced behind him, confirmed no Voidrangers were pursuing, then crouched by the wall, catching his breath and starting to rest.

But the next moment, Liuge's eyes went wide!

He spotted a hall not far ahead of him, and in the very center of that hall, a golden pig was wandering around aimlessly, sniffing here and rooting there—it was truly adorable.

Yet what drew Liuge's attention wasn't the pig's cuteness, but the five light orbs spinning continuously around its body.

The orbs seemed random too, cycling through gold, purple, blue, green, and white in sequence.

Ah, no wonder it's the most valuable pig in the entire game.