"Get lost, get lost. I don't want to keep arguing with this childish brat!"
Liuge put on a disgusted expression as though shooing away a child.
"You're the childish brat! Got the guts to compete with me using hacker methods?"
Silver Wolf's eyes widened, looking as if she would write the words Silver Wolf backward if she didn't beat him flat.
"Sure. I'll be waiting!"
"Hmph, just wait!"
Kafka, who had been watching the two little ones argue from the side, smiled and gave Liuge a deep look before leaving with the still-grumbling Silver Wolf.
Liuge merely glanced at them, then walked off in another direction with a look of disdain.
Only after he could no longer sense either of them did he lean against the wall and let out a relieved breath.
"Phew... Acting is exhausting!"
Combined Stat-Stick · Puppet Control
After canceling his Haxxor Bunny transformation, Liuge headed in the direction Kafka and Silver Wolf had come from.
When Kafka and Silver Wolf had left just now, Liuge had considered taking the opportunity to join the Stellaron Hunters.
But the instant that thought arose, he snuffed it out.
There was no other reason. He had acted as Haxxor Bunny just now, and if he joined the Stellaron Hunters, he would have to maintain that identity long-term. After all, his true body was genuinely weak. Without the support of Stat-Sticks, never mind Kafka and Silver Wolf—
The Voidrangers would have killed him already.
So Liuge only considered the idea briefly before giving up on it.
Now that Kafka and Silver Wolf had left, Liuge's original urge to follow them and see whether the Trailblazer was male or female surged up again, and this time he could no longer suppress it.
"Let's take a look. Maybe I'll even get some rare Stat-Sticks."
Muttering to himself, Liuge remained alert as he traveled back through the corridor, wary of running into another Crack Realm like before. This time, Herta's puppet would not be there to help him retreat.
Come to think of it, wasn't Herta away on a visit? Why had she connected over here just now?
As he remembered it from the story, Herta only returned after learning the Space Station had been attacked and everything had been properly settled, right?
That was pretty strange!
Still, that was beside the point. Once the Antimatter Legion had been fully repelled, the truth would naturally become clear.
Liuge didn't believe Herta would fail to speak with an unregistered outsider like him then.
After sneaking around cautiously for five or six minutes, Liuge found that his caution had been justified. Apart from Voidrangers that had not yet been cleared out, he spotted one Voidranger: Trampler, three Baryons, and three Anti-Baryons along the way.
Speaking of Baryons and Anti-Baryons, he remembered that in the lore, they seemed to function somewhat like entities maintaining a barrier. More or less, they were nodes that kept the Space Station in chaos, allowing Crack Realms and Voidrangers to roam freely.
When it came to academic stuff like that, Liuge, a poor student, only understood bits and pieces, so he could only grasp the general idea.
On the other hand, Guardian Shadows, the guardians of valuable treasure chests, had left quite an impression on him back then.
Because there were treasure chests!
But when Liuge saw the Guardian Shadow now, his first thought was not whether there was a chest nearby, but where he could hide. He knew that even if he transformed into Haxxor Bunny, fighting a Guardian Shadow would still be a hard battle. Haxxor Bunny's Character Stat-Stick was still incomplete, after all.
Wait, incomplete?
Liuge suddenly froze, then slapped his forehead. How had he forgotten about the endurance and Enhanced Vision Stat-Sticks he had just obtained?
Since Haxxor Bunny was a character who used firearms, weren't endurance and Enhanced Vision the optimal choices?
Acting as soon as he thought of it, Liuge tried dragging the Stat-Stick: Endurance and Enhanced Vision onto the finished Haxxor Bunny.
The next moment, both Stat-Sticks completely merged into Haxxor Bunny's panel.
Liuge's heart leaped with joy, and he immediately looked at Haxxor Bunny's description panel.
Although the word incomplete still had not disappeared, the power it could wield had risen from 70% to 90%.
"So it still needs one more Stat-Stick?"
Stroking his chin, Liuge thoughtfully examined the remaining Stat-Sticks in the Stat-Stick Library.
Stat-Stick: Strength had already merged into his right hand, while Stat-Stick: Listening had significantly enhanced his hearing. The only unused Stat-Sticks left were Character Stat-Stick: Femme Fatale and Stat-Stick: Puppet, along with two white Stat-Sticks that had appeared at some point: Silk Thread and Physical Technique.
Although Femme Fatale and Puppet were both golden Stat-Sticks, Liuge had no opportunity to use them at all.
"Hm? Where did these two come from?"
Liuge stared at the Silk Thread and Physical Technique Stat-Sticks in surprise, his mind racing through his memories. A moment later, he finally remembered. Weren't these the white Stat-Sticks he had gotten from the few Voidrangers he had casually killed while Herta held the rear and he fled?
But he had been in too much of a hurry to check them at the time. So it had been these two.
Then, as he looked at Silk Thread and Puppet, a glint flashed through his eyes.
Puppet and Silk Thread—weren't they the perfect combination?
And just as he expected, combining them produced a new Stat-Stick marked NEW: Puppet Control.
Liuge grinned at the new Stat-Stick. He then merged Physical Technique into himself while equipping the new Stat-Stick: Puppet Control.
Just from the name, it was clearly a skill Stat-Stick.
As Physical Technique and Puppet Control merged into him, Liuge naturally gained the close-combat Physical Technique essential for fighting and the Puppet Control ability to manipulate enemies.
It was very similar to Kafka's method of controlling people, but Kafka's methods were far more refined. After all, her Word Spirit and suggestions could manipulate even the mind itself.
Liuge was quite delighted after obtaining the new abilities.
Not only had Haxxor Bunny's abilities improved, but he himself now had some means of fighting back. He would no longer have to rely on rolling and dodging enemies before taking them down like before.
Before long, Liuge arrived at the place where Herta had covered his retreat. It was now a complete mess, with puppet fragments scattered across the floor. At the same time, the Crack Realm that had opened here was gone.
"Well then, does this count as mutual destruction?"
Muttering to himself, Liuge continued in the direction he had come from.
Once he reached this stretch of the path, no more Voidrangers appeared.
Kafka and Silver Wolf had probably dealt with all of them on their way out.
That relaxed Liuge considerably, and he even picked up two more Stat-Sticks along the way. However, they were both Strength and Speed, which he had obtained before. Liuge tried combining the two Strength Stat-Sticks into a new one, but it seemed he was still one short.
That gave him another rule of Aether Edit: three identical Stat-Sticks seemed capable of advancing.
With no other choice, he could only equip Speed.
After all, the other Speed Stat-Stick had already combined with Stealth, then further combined into Haxxor Bunny's character card.
Still, after equipping the Speed Stat-Stick, Liuge's travel speed increased by more than half.
He soon reached the room at the end.
This seemed to be a massive surveillance room, except there was a hidden-looking entrance beside it. That entrance had already been cracked and opened by Silver Wolf.
He knew that inside was the Stellaron Herta had contained on Azure Planet, and that it was also the starting point of Star Rail, this cosmic comedy...
Stellaron Core: I Think I'm Awake Now
Entering the open room, Liuge immediately saw a gray-haired figure unconscious in the center.
The figure had long gray hair and wore a black coat over a white shirt. The blue thigh ring on her pale thigh was especially eye-catching.
Yep, the inherited thigh ring!
Ahem, so it was the female version of the Trailblazer. Then it was fine!
Liuge nodded, then looked toward the root of the girl's thigh, where a golden orb of light glowed.
Oh-ho, there really was something here—and it was a Golden Legend!
A flash of delight passed through his eyes. He looked around despite knowing no one else was here, checking just to be safe.
After all, where that golden orb was located was rather difficult to talk about.
One careless move, and people could easily misunderstand.
After confirming no one was around, Liuge stepped forward and reached toward Stelle's inner thigh.
The delight in his eyes grew stronger and stronger. The instant he touched the golden orb, a scream made every hair on his body stand on end.
"Dan Heng, get him! There's a pervert!"
The cute girl's voice was filled with barely concealed anger.
"No, I didn't, it's not me, don't talk nonsense!"
Liuge's first reaction was to turn around and deny it three times in a row.
But he was still too late. An expressionless young man wielding a spear arrived in an instant, carrying a chilling killing intent.
In his panic, the Physical Technique Liuge had merged into his body took effect.
He tilted his body slightly to the left, barely avoiding the spear tip's cold gleam. At the same time, he stretched out his right hand and struck the spear shaft, forcing its center of gravity downward, then spun halfway around and punched the young man in the face.
The young man showed no surprise at all. After frowning slightly, he shook both hands and raised the butt of the spear.
With a bang.
His fist collided with the spear's butt, producing a loud impact. The tremendous force drove both of them several steps backward.
"Wait, wait, wait, let me explai—ptui, let me explain!"
The moment he steadied himself, Liuge was about to explain when an ice crystal arrow brushed past his cheek.
"What is there to explain? The moment I came in, I saw you trying something on that child. This young lady saw it with her own eyes!"
A pink-haired girl holding a longbow approached the spear-wielding young man warily, her face full of anger.
Liuge truly felt wronged, but to people who could not see the orb of light, he really did look like someone trying something on an unconscious girl.
"March, how about we hear what he has to say?"
After carefully observing Liuge for a while, the young man beside her found that this man did not seem like the sort of villain who would attack someone defenseless. He could not help feeling confused.
"Dan Heng, you saw it too just now."
"But..."
"Um, is there a possibility that I was picking something up?"
"Picking something up?"
The pink-haired girl froze, then looked at Liuge's hand.
There, resting in his palm, was a silver-white cross pendant.
"???"
Wait, was that thing there just now?
For a moment, the pink-haired girl was confused as well.
As for Liuge, he had only just discovered that the golden orb he obtained was not a Stat-Stick, but a physical item.
And that physical item was the silver-white cross pendant in his hand.
Silver Cross Pendant
Description: Transformation equipment from an unknown world. It seemed to be the exclusive equipment of some shameless little midget.
Shout the incantation, "Only I can summon the dead; my charm is irresistible."
Though he really wanted to complain about it, Liuge held himself back. The priority right now was explaining his situation.
"Dan... Dan Heng, did he have that thing in his hand just now?"
"Yes, he did!"
Dan Heng nodded decisively.
When Liuge had launched that series of counterattacks just now, Dan Heng had clearly seen at such close range that the fist thrown at him seemed to be holding something.
And now that it had been pointed out, he knew what that something was.
"So... it seems like we were wrong?"
"Mm!"
Before you continue