Honkai, But I Have Too Many Mods

Liu Bai's goal was to get both sides to their fill.

World Serpent's highest technology was controlling Honkai Beasts. With Mobius in charge, it might even involve Fusion Warriors. Besides that, there was a blueprint for a Honkai Ball, a secret bonus stage, which, once created, would allow players to treat Honkai monsters like Pokémon.

Schicksal had much more, from Valkyrie armors only usable by female characters to general-purpose mecha warriors and precious elixirs. They had everything.

Well, alright, for players starting with male characters, Schicksal's most attractive aspect was still the Valkyries...

With high favorability in Schicksal, players could hire Valkyries by spending money—it was just that raising Schicksal's favorability was incredibly difficult.

Like World Serpent, Schicksal's faction favorability only considered the leader.

The normal procedure was to sneakily eliminate Otto.

Then, a special storyline would trigger. If the player's character was a high-reputation, meaning high-favorability, character within the Schicksal faction, they would inherit the leadership after the plot progressed.

If the protagonist was not affiliated with Schicksal or was not a high-favorability character, Theresa would inherit the leadership after the plot progressed.

After Theresa's succession, Schicksal's faction favorability would return to normal, meaning players could raise faction favorability by diligently completing quests and tasks.

Of course, if they were discovered during the assassination of Otto, it would result in permanent hostility—though if they eliminated everyone who saw them, then no one would discover them.

Moreover, the assassination method was also troublesome. They needed to shut down Schicksal's servers first to prevent Otto from transferring his consciousness, and then act swiftly before Schicksal's defense forces noticed something was wrong.

But Schicksal's servers were not easy to shut down at all...

The hard requirement was max level, which meant Level 10 Computer Skill.

Here's a joke: even with Ai's quantum computer from Anti-Entropy, her Computer Skill was only 9 in the code analysis results.

It's estimated that Prometheus should be implemented in this version?

One could look forward to Prometheus's Computer Skill.

If Prometheus were a BOSS template, it might even have a limit-breaking skill.

While normally a player's skill cap was Level 10, some BOSS units had individual skills that were not restricted by this limit.

For example, High-tier Honkai Beasts generally had Physique levels between 11 and 13, meaning they just had longer HP bars.

Another example, Durandal, although her initial Physique, Agility, and three other stats were all Level 9, the actual skill cap for those three skills was 15, and based on experience calculations, her experience bar was half as long as others...

Coupled with the fact that her favorability was relatively easy to gain, players pursuing a "sugar baby" playstyle usually tried to romance Durandal from the start...

But then again, Liu Bai himself wasn't exactly a normal player. Later on, he could use alchemy to craft breakthrough potions...

Mods were outstanding in that they could do anything.

If he remembered correctly, Rita's three-dimensional stats should have been 667.

Liu Bai had also tried the "sugar baby" playstyle. Although he later found that it was too slow to develop in a modded environment and gave up, he still had a general impression of the stats.

As long as Liu Bai could obtain and read an intermediate three-dimensional skill training book during this period, he wouldn't be afraid of Rita.

"It's hard to say whether this kind of confidence is a good thing or a bad thing," Yelan sighed.

"Don't worry, I'm very cautious."

Liu Bai was merely evaluating this world from a game perspective, not that he didn't know the two couldn't be equated.

If he truly couldn't distinguish between reality and the game, Liu Bai would have already gone to use the Elixir of Love on Mobius...

Chapter 30: Sibling Play

"See you next time."

Liu Bai watched Yelan drive away. He returned to his apartment, went upstairs, and opened the door.

"Welcome back."

As soon as Liu Bai entered the apartment, he saw Raven, who had taken off her hat, lying on the sofa watching TV.

There were also several empty beer cans on the coffee table.

Speaking of which, that black, tight-fitting one-piece combat suit was really sexy...

"Should I say 'I'm back'—like this?"

But speaking of which, it was quite surprising to see this person here.

"Whatever you want," Raven said, lazily changing channels. "Everything okay today? I was fully prepared for you to be completely smitten by that maid."

Liu Bai hung the black jacket Raven had bought for him on the coat rack. "I haven't reached the point where my little head controls my big head yet."

"Oh? So your little head still moved?" Raven showed a rare hint of teasing on her face.

"My dear sister, must you tease your little brother like this?"

"...That address is disgusting. Fine, I give up," Raven pouted. "I bought food. I was going to eat with Guinaifen first, but only you can use that pot—oh, right, call me Natasha from now on, at least while we're playing house."

"Got it, Sister Natasha."

"Ugh... why does that feel even more disgusting..." Natasha sat up, her mouth twitching involuntarily.

Perhaps, in a sense, she had made a bad decision.

"Then try your best to adapt, Sister Natasha~"

"...I'm starting to regret this."

"So, I'm moving next door, then?"

At the dinner table, Liu Bai, Natasha, and Guinaifen ate their boxed lunches while discussing their current situation and the arrangements for Guinaifen.

"After all, your current persona isn't suitable," Natasha replied as a matter of course.

Living together so casually would surely arouse suspicion.

"Oh, and that pot. Rita might find it, but I should put it in my bag when I go out and cover it with other things."

Natasha had tried it. The pot was much sturdier than it looked.

Although she hadn't dared to test it too forcefully, her instincts as a warrior told her it was definitely not something that could be easily destroyed.

So, for Liu Bai, this thing was like a safe house—and strangely, it could also receive signals. At the very least, she could call Guinaifen inside the pot.

Moreover, it could also be used as a prison at specific times. Being unable to get out without Liu Bai's permission was quite against the rules.

Bringing it along clearly had more pros than cons.

"Speaking of which, Liu Bai, did you get a new bracelet?"

"Rita gave it to me. It's something from within Schicksal." Liu Bai held up his wrist, displaying two bracelets, one black and one white.

"Huh? You've already infiltrated Schicksal?"

"I'm just an auxiliary member lurking by your side."

"Lurking by my side..." Natasha seemed to hear a joke, a sly smile appearing on her face.

"Whoa, where's the villain?"

"Where's the villain?"

"You two, shut up!"

The next day

[Mei: Little lab rat, come to my lab in the morning]

[Liu Bai: Understood]

[Mei: Good boy~]

Is she really treating me like a pet?

Liu Bai grumbled inwardly while brushing his teeth.

"Morning, Liu Bai. Looks like you don't like sleeping in. I'm going downstairs to buy breakfast."

"Sis, aren't you going to try cooking yourself?"

"I don't have the time—It's amazing you can call me that so casually."

Without the intention to annoy, Natasha felt a bit awkward taking advantage of Liu Bai.

(Wait a minute, is he calling me that so smoothly because he intends to annoy me?)

Natasha's shoe-tying motion paused for a moment, but she still pushed the door open and left.

"I'm off..." Liu Bai glanced at the closed door. "So, speaking of which, why is there something like that in the gacha pool?"

Before going to sleep last night, Liu Bai had returned to the pot for a ten-pull.

However, there were no characters.

Well, that's understandable. After all, the gacha pool only has soft and hard pity. If they were to implement a four-star pity without a Constellation mechanism, they wouldn't have enough Stellar Jade characters.

After all, five-stars come out much faster than four-stars.

So, what appeared instead was...

[Sweet Dew Celestial Summon Ticket (One-time Use): Use to summon a Sweet Dew Celestial to fight for you (Strength 4, Vitality 8, Agility 4, Special Skill: Abundance 4). Duration: 30 minutes. Upon use, gain a small amount of Abundance EXP.]

A summon ticket for an elite monster, the Sweet Dew Celestial.

Judging solely by its stats, it was just a tanky, weakened mage. However, the "Abundance 4" in its special skill and the small amount of Abundance EXP gained upon use were too intriguing.

Is this the Path?

Too bad it's a Sweet Dew Celestial summon ticket, and the Path is also Abundance.

Otherwise, Liu Bai would really want to try learning it.

After all, "walking with the Aeons" was too idealistic.

Liu Bai had asked Firefly and Guinaifen about this, but their answers weren't helpful.

Their answers, in simple terms, were: "The Aeons haven't blessed me, so how would I know how I'm walking my Path?"

They called themselves Pathstriders, but they didn't feel anything about it themselves.

They embarked on their Paths because of their actions, not because of their Paths that they took action—well, the latter wasn't entirely untrue, like with Abundance.

—Mortals, intentionally or unintentionally, step onto a Path governed by an "Aeon," becoming a "Pathstrider" who embodies its ideals.

Guinaifen is a classic example of someone who stumbled into...

Firefly isn't too sure, but judging by her attitude, she probably doesn't care either way.

Walking your path but not believing in you, that's how it is.

It got to the point where Liu Bai couldn't even play around with his own Destined Path.

Speaking of which, although the Abundance Dam has major drawbacks... isn't it the easiest Destined Path to join without leaving anything behind?

Who told it to have a certain "infectious" ability?

But there's only one life, and Liu Bai isn't planning on courting death yet. The Sweet Dew Celestial will just have to be a trump card for emergencies.

It actually feels pretty good to have a blonde, blind older sister as a trump card.

And if this logic holds, the gacha pool might also include summon tickets for other elite monsters as "guaranteed ten-pulls," just to fill the quota.

Speaking of which, besides the one-time summon ticket for the Sweet Dew Celestial from yesterday's ten-pull, the only other noteworthy item was the "One-Time Hypnosis Pocket Watch."

[One-Time Hypnosis Pocket Watch (Consumable): A swinging pocket watch that hypnotizes any character who stares at it for more than 5 seconds. Hypnosis lasts for 10 minutes. Any action against the character's will, loud noises, etc., may cause hypnosis to end prematurely (may result in a decrease in favorability after hypnosis ends). The pocket watch is destroyed after 5 seconds of swinging.]

The rest were just some vaguely useful but unidentifiable items like "Very Sturdy Binding Ropes" and "High-Frequency Holy Sword."

...So did he install too many weird mods?

It severely diluted the drop rate of useful items in the gacha machine.

Chapter 31: Mobius's Thesis

After a simple classic breakfast of fried dough sticks and soy milk, Liu Bai got a ride with Natasha to Shencheng Pharmaceuticals and was then led to the laboratory by Gray Serpent.

Throughout the entire process, Gray Serpent seemed completely uninterested in his own affairs—he was far too calm, even with his intelligence sources.

"My Lord, the person has been brought."