As a spear, the Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose was overall nothing special aside from looking rather nice. There was no hidden mystery or fancy trick to it.
The only truly special thing about it was a unique attribute native to the Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose.
Namely, 'Demon-Breaking'.
The effect was exactly as the name implied—breaking magic! Any sorcery, magic, magical contract, or spellcraft based on magic could be easily shattered.
To use an analogy, it was somewhat like Mama's hand of physics.
Any unscientific thing could be broken apart.
The Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose had a similar effect.
Yet it wasn't entirely the same! This was also why the Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose earned the title of 'the most useful piece of trash'.
Because its effect was strictly limited to 'magic'. If the opponent wasn't using magic as a foundation, then this 'Demon-Breaking' setting was completely useless.
This is the Honkai world, you know! Li Pu complained mentally. What the heck am I supposed to use magic for?!
Only after the excitement passed did he suddenly realize this fact.
It really felt a bit hard to accept.
He had used a gacha chance, obtained what he thought was good stuff, but once he actually got his hands on it, he found out it was a tasteless chicken rib. Using it wasn't very useful, but discarding it meant it wasn't completely useless either.
Even though it couldn't form a 'Honkai-breaking' effect against Honkai Energy.
However, the spear itself had great strength, moderate weight, and was extremely sharp. From a physical perspective, it was a very fine cold weapon.
Yet those were the only benefits.
Do you have a recycling system here? Li Pu entered the system and asked. How much can this Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose sell for?
This system does not recycle any items, the system replied. Therefore, this Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose is worthless to the system.
You can try using it; perhaps you'll find some alternative purpose.
And in itself, the Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose is still a pretty good Noble Phantasm.
What's so pretty good about it? Li Pu complained. An alternative purpose—do you mean stabbing myself? Besides, this thing is Demon-Breaking! Demon-Breaking! The Honkai world is based on Honkai Energy. The worldview is completely different, so Demon-Breaking has no effect!
Furthermore, this thing isn't very convenient to carry around.
This was also one of the reasons Li Pu didn't think much of the Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose, because it was simply too long. So naturally, he couldn't just lug it around everywhere he ran, could he? Li Pu actually hoped to get some weapons that were easy to carry.
You don't need to carry it, the system said. You can choose to equip it.
Once equipped, you can take it out at any time no matter where you are.
Hearing this, Li Pu felt it wasn't quite such a losing deal after all; at least having the Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose let him learn about some other system settings.
What does that mean? Li Pu said. Equipping?
You know how weapons are equipped in games, right? the system explained. It's about the same concept. As long as it's equipped on your body, you can take it out and use it at any time, no matter where you are or what you're doing.
You can take it out and use it as long as the weapon hasn't been broken.
Simply put, you can understand it as the weapon being stored in a peculiar subspace once equipped.
You can just take it out when you need to use it.
That's not bad, Li Pu said, feeling slightly satisfied. How do I equip it? What are the usage conditions?
There are no usage conditions. You'll understand it yourself after equipping it, the system explained. However, you can only equip two melee weapons and one ranged weapon at a time, three sets of different types of armor, an unlimited number of vehicles, and one red and one blue potion each.
However, you need to bind them before equipping. Once bound, the weapon cannot be sold or regifted.
In short, after binding, even if you don't like it, you can only choose to destroy it.
You can't take it out to exchange for money or sell it to anyone.
Oh~ I get it. Li Pu figured it out and said, Isn't that how equipment in games always works? Can't it be unbound by spending money?
No, the system said. The only way to unbind is destruction.
So please proceed with caution.
That really did require caution, Li Pu clicked his tongue. He had to admit that this equipment feature was indeed quite tempting, but binding was required before equipping. Yet if the only way to unbind after binding was destruction...
Then...
Equipment that you couldn't use, or equipment you didn't want to use after a while, couldn't be turned into money anymore.
What a headache, Li Pu said. This Demon-Breaking Crimson Rose.
A chicken rib, truly a bit of a chicken rib.
Aside from breaking magic, it has no buffing effects.
Li Pu genuinely felt it was such a chicken rib. Theoretically speaking, having something was better than having nothing. But this world was Honkai, which didn't rely on magic. Without that foundation, its greatest defining feature was useless.
So it truly was a pity to discard, yet tasteless to consume.
You can rewrite the attributes, the system quickly gave Li Pu a solution, saying, Rewrite the attributes to a certain extent.
Eh? How do I do that? This instantly piqued Li Pu's interest.
If he could rewrite attributes, that would be seriously overpowered! He could change the attributes to something super awesome!
Side quests, the system said. You do side quests too, remember? The rewards for side quests can be customized. You can customize a reward that rewrites equipment attributes.
If it's just a small-scale attribute rewrite, such as a localized attribute rewrite from Demon-Breaking to Honkai-Breaking.
As long as the custom task evaluation grade reaches C-rank, it can be rewritten.
If you want to rewrite it into stronger or heaven-defying attributes.
Naturally, you have to raise the quest grade.
S-rank starting, with no upper limit.
Oh... Li Pu nodded and said, I get it.
Sure enough, the system wouldn't hand it over to him that easily. But it was still alright, at least his system belonged to the kind that relied on luck; as long as his face was whiter and his fortune was good, it was quite easy to get some useful things.
It wasn't like other people's systems, which forced their transmigrators to go down the path of accompanying people in eating, drinking, and sleeping.
I don't have a chance to draw a quest right now, Li Pu scratched his head and said. What other ways are there to get a chance?
Can't you just leak to me what titles I can get?
No! the system said. However, if you're in a hurry to get a gacha chance, you can try to complete that ordinary quest.
Maternal Love!
Chapter 49: This outfit works well
"You're saying you're currently a teacher at the academy?"
Otto smiled brightly—brightly his foot! He made a serious, textbook-style refusal: "This is a girls' school! We don't hire male teachers, so Mr. Siegfried, please seek employment elsewhere."
"A girls' school doesn't hire male teachers?" Siegfried slammed a palm on the desk and said, "Do you take me for an idiot?"
"Aren't you a man in this school? Isn't Cecilia..."
"My wife is..."
"That Li Pu..."
Siegfried was full of bluster, but the moment Li Pu was mentioned, his momentum truly had no way of soaring any higher. His wife-to-be wasn't quite his wife yet! She hadn't awakened all her memories and couldn't strictly be considered Cecilia just yet.
Yet Cecilia was my wife! And the reincarnation of my wife was that Li Pu!
And Li Pu was...
"Why did it turn out like this?!" Siegfried sat down with blank eyes, clutching his head with both hands and saying, "Clearly it was the joy of reunion, clearly it was passionate love met once again. Clearly these two burning emotions combined together would double the happiness!"
"Then why! Why..."
"Why did it turn out like this!"
Siegfried roared with a heartrending cough: "This is simply unacceptable! A reincarnation like this—are you seriously not lying to me?!"
"You'll get beaten for talking like that, Mr. Siegfried." Otto leaned against his chair with a hint of displeasure, supporting his head with one hand and crossing his legs as he said, "The matter of reincarnation is something neither you nor I could directly determine."
"There exists no inevitable connection between a soul's previous life and its next life."
"To be human in the past life could mean becoming a tree, a blade of grass, or a flower in the next."
"Or perhaps a fox, a cat."
"You should be glad that Cecilia was still able to be born human," Otto said, looking as though he were offering counsel. "At least she came back under the constraints of fate's great iron chain."
"Rather than being completely cast out into the world, leaving you and her with no chance of meeting again."
"In that case, you should thank the Goddess of Fate; she at least sent you new good fortune."
Siegfried still managed to calm down.
To be honest, sometimes when people face things they cannot control while also feeling extremely unfamiliar, their hearts are invariably filled with confusion and irritability. Even the most patient of people would experience massive emotional fluctuations when suddenly struck by two consecutive failures and shocks.
Let alone Siegfried?
This was someone who could hardly be considered very steady to begin with.
Even if he had ideas, schemes, and plans he intended to execute, so what? Ever since he learned the news, what he saw and felt had been like riding a roller coaster—up and down was one thing, but suddenly giving him a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree loop truly shattered his worldview in every possible way.
Exploding just a bit right now could already be considered pretty good.
"Fine," Siegfried said. "I believe you. I want to be..."
"I don't accept male teachers here," Otto said. "This is a girls' school. If you're willing to wear a full set of women's clothing, however, I can consider recruiting you."
"Are you toying with me?" Siegfried slammed the desk and said viciously. "You're a man too, so how is it you get to be the head of teaching here?"
"I bought the land with my own money, and I built the school with my own money," Otto spread his hands with a trace of mockery on his face, saying. "I found the connections myself, and the procurement of the vast majority of professional equipment here is handled by me."
"In other words, from spending money to spending money, I orchestrated every single part of it out of my own pocket."
"If you had this kind of money power, you could sit here too."
Money power! That was something he, Siegfried, genuinely did not possess. After retiring to seclusion, all his savings had been spent in taverns. Furthermore, establishing a Valkyrie Academy was not something that could be managed with the little pocket change he had.
"Is there really no room for maneuver at all?" Siegfried said through clenched teeth.
"There is one," Otto said. "A cleaner, though this position doesn't suit you."
"Besides, what's wrong with women's clothing?" Otto said with full temptation. "I've worn women's clothing myself, and it feels very cozy and comfortable. Aside from overcoming it slightly in your mind, it's nothing much."
"Furthermore, from the perspective of the history of costume development, the vast majority of modern women's clothing—including skirts, high heels, silk stockings, and the like."
"Were all clothes originally made for men to wear. There's nothing wrong with men wearing them."
"Besides!" Otto suddenly raised his voice right before Siegfried's new round of outburst, suppressing him as he said, "Mr. Siegfried, let's stop beating around the bush."
"You didn't come here to be a good teacher, to educate people, to impart knowledge, or to dispel doubts."
Siegfried calmed down.
"Let's stop beating around the bush," Siegfried said with a cold laugh. "That's right, I'm not here to cultivate cannon fodder for you that can be discarded at any moment! If Kiana hadn't insisted, I wouldn't even have been willing to let her come."
"I am only here for Cecilia."
"Then that makes things very easy," Otto said with a faint smile. "Although I didn't expect you to teach here anyway, and from Cecilia's perspective."
"If you want to win favor with the current Cecilia, you have to pay a price of some sort."
"For example, swapping genders," Otto gestured and said. "Of course, I don't mean actually making a trip to those two places—'Sawadika' and 'Front wheels don't turn, back wheels do~ Samida'."
"You only need to pay a tiny, tiny bit. For instance, women's clothing."
"Let the current Cecilia see your sincerity and your intentions."
"Although it's a bit self-deprecating," Otto said with genuine feeling, "the distance between people is sometimes bridged precisely through these kinds of jokes and playing the fool."
"If you act too overbearing and plan to force yourself on Cecilia."
"I believe you'd better just continue living as a bachelor for the rest of your life."
"Cecilia's reincarnation will definitely never acknowledge you."
"In combat strategy, there is a tactic called 'advancing by retreating'," Otto said. "Don't care about those petty trifles; if they break, they break. As long as the truly useful things are preserved, you can win all those trifles back."
Before you continue