What, I Have to Open the Door Too? / Everyone, Eyes on Me!

(So... Little Xia Ling had worked so hard to enter the Elysian Realm and meet me while carrying such thoughts and feelings...)

(Ugh... how sly. Just because she had learned about my past and future on her own, she wanted to make up for my regrets...)

(I really wanted to hug Little Xia Ling and tell her that I received her feelings~)

(But...)

Elysia wiped at the corner of her eye with a finger and refocused on this fragment of her consciousness.

(Only you know Elysia's past, while Miss Fairy knows nothing about you. I won't let myself suffer such a loss~)

(From now on, let Miss Fairy get to know your story a little more deeply, shall we?)

What, I Have to Open Doors Too?

After finishing this week's Elysian Realm trial, Flame Willow and Xia Ling had no interest in continuing their sparring session at the training grounds, so they each left the system space.

Meanwhile, Elysia, who had been standing by nearby, shifted her perspective back into the Elysian Realm.

After a night of exploration, Elysia had discovered that this body's composition was incredibly stable. Even without her controlling or maintaining this fragment of consciousness, it would not dissipate on its own.

That meant she only needed to shift her perspective back whenever this fragment sensed someone entering the system space, and she could continue "observing Xia Ling in secret."

Don't think I'm gone. I'm always here.jpg

Still, that was all Elysia could do. Unable to break through the system's permissions, she could neither initiate a conversation with Xia Ling nor interfere with Xia Ling's choices. She could not even eavesdrop when Xia Ling only used the system's communication channel without entering the space. She could only obtain information when Xia Ling entered the system space.

This counted as some kind of strange idle game play, didn't it?

Fortunately, Xia Ling entered the system every night to train, adding a touch of unusual amusement to Miss Fairy's unchanging life.

Several days passed amid this ordinary yet far-from-monotonous routine.

Xia Ling continued her campus life, eating, sleeping, and teasing Kiana every day, while Flame Willow found a quiet place in Changkong City and began her post-apocalyptic survival journey.

During that time, she had tried looking for the Corrosion Key, but unfortunately, she found nothing.

Worth mentioning was that, after a few days, Flame Willow noticed that Raven seemed to have left Changkong City.

With nothing to do every day, she started playing her stalking game again, secretly following Little Kong and the others as if she were going to work while they gathered supplies, then returning to her little nest to sleep at night.

Soon, the second week arrived. This time, Xia Ling and Flame Willow decided to challenge normal difficulty.

Naturally, they were much more cautious when facing a normal-difficulty trial.

They skipped every Unexpected Encounter and every emergency operation. Following Xia Ling's policy of only fighting regular battles, Flame Willow cleared the seventeenth floor without much danger.

Then, after discussing it, Flame Willow cautiously selected Serpent as the target of the Herrscher Trial under Elysia's amused gaze.

And, as expected, Serpent utterly crushed her.

"Ugh, I feel so weak right now. It feels like Serpent sucked me dry."

Flame Willow lay sprawled across Elysia's lap, whining.

"You at least struggled for a while. I got instantly killed by Serpent the moment I showed up."

Xia Ling leaned against Elysia, looking completely burnt out.

(Mm-hm, now you know how good Miss Fairy is, right? Mobius won't wait until you're ready to attack~)

That was right. Although Xia Ling was not particularly strong, her speed meant she should not have died so quickly.

The problem was that, on normal difficulty, the Herrschers' intelligence and reaction speed had both risen by nearly an entire tier.

Xia Ling had fallen into Serpent's dark green slime almost the instant the support system summoned her in.

A perfect score right into the goal.

Flame Willow, meanwhile, struggled for a while before realizing that her damage simply was not enough to deplete Mobius's health bar.

It was not that she could not break through her defenses. The key issue was that her control over her own Honkai Energy was far too crude.

Short engagements were fine, but once a battle dragged on, or she encountered an enemy like Mobius who specialized in draining energy...

It was not enough. Her Honkai Energy was simply not enough. Especially since Flame Willow did not even get the chance for SP +3, because Serpent drained energy faster than she could recover it.

In the end, Flame Willow, completely drained of Honkai Energy, was sent back to the reception hall by one of Serpent's lightning strikes.

"Sigh, rushed strength really isn't enough. Controlling Honkai Energy takes time to hone, and so does developing my abilities... I still need to train slowly."

(Hmm... Flame Willow lacks ways to recover Honkai Energy. Once she comes to the Elysian Realm, I'll have her learn properly from Eden. If she can obtain the Signet of Gold, it should help her a great deal, shouldn't it?)

Although Xia Ling could not even clear normal difficulty yet, that did not stop Elysia from planning her future training schedule.

"Forget it, let's not think about that for now." Xia Ling sprang upright in one swift motion.

"My Originium Ingots and Hope should be enough now, right? System, level me up!"

Does the host wish to exchange for the Elite Phase 2 enhancement?

"That's right. Hmph, since there isn't an opportunity to make any other arrangements right now, I might as well Elite 2 my main body first. At least then I can spar with Flame Willow."

Xia Ling opened the system screen and directly selected the Elite 2 enhancement.

As her Originium Ingots and Hope rapidly decreased, Xia Ling's body began to be enveloped in light.

After Elite 2, the host should awaken another aspect of her abilities. I just don't know which aspect it will be.

"Huh? Even you don't know?" Flame Willow looked at the system suspiciously.

This is related to each person's talents... I can only make an estimate. I do not know which aspect she will awaken.

"Are you sure it's only an estimate? Why do I feel like you're completely confident?"

Uh... all right, it's almost certain. As for exactly which ability it is, let's wait until the host finishes enhancing herself. Otherwise, if I'm wrong, wouldn't that be embarrassing?

Before the system had even finished speaking, all the light around Xia Ling had been absorbed into her body. She slowly opened her eyes, and her originally black pupils seemed to have lightened slightly.

"Well? What ability did you get?" Flame Willow asked excitedly.

"Um..." Xia Ling did not answer immediately. Instead, she lowered her head with a strange expression and looked at her jade-white hands.

"How should I put this... Maybe you could understand it as opening doors?"

"Huh?"

(Eh? An ability similar to Felice's?)

"Mm... like this." Xia Ling stretched her hand forward, and her arm seemed to reach into the void. Her forearm abruptly vanished. At the same time, a hand suddenly emerged from the air beside Flame Willow and pinched her cheek.

Flame Willow curiously looked at where the arm connected to the air, but there was nothing there. When she touched it, she only felt empty nothingness.

"Then if you bring me into this so-called door of yours, where would I fall?"

"Into Imaginary Space," Xia Ling answered with certainty. "Of course, if you have a positioning device like Genius's and can survive in Imaginary Space, you should be able to find your own way back."

"Looking at it that way... doesn't it feel a bit like the Herrscher of the Void?"

Everyone, Look This Way

"No, not exactly the same." Xia Ling shook her head. "When it comes to space, neither the upper limit nor the output of my abilities may compare to the Herrscher of the Void."

"But based on how it feels right now, I think this ability might also be able to open certain conceptual things... For example, I can even trigger a small-scale, low-intensity Honkai outbreak."

(The more I look at it, the more it resembles Felice.)

"Even so, I still have a strange sense of déjà vu." Flame Willow fell into thought.

"Say, if someone can use spatial abilities and trigger a small-scale Honkai outbreak, could that person be the Herrscher of the Void?"

"Well said. Don't say it again next time. Even I think it sounds suspicious." Xia Ling hurriedly covered Flame Willow's mouth. "What do you mean, the Herrscher of the Void was me all along?"

Ahem, I can actually explain that.

The system spoke up at that moment.

Earlier, I said that the ability awakened after Elite 2 was related to a person's talents. That statement was not entirely complete.

In truth, every person has many talents, and the ability awakened at Elite 2 is usually the most outstanding among them.

So from that perspective, where do you think the host's talent lies?

"Uh, getting lost?"

"Uh, being a masochist?"

(Uh, getting embarrassed easily?)

"Wait? What do you mean by masochist?" Xia Ling turned and glared at Flame Willow. "Aren't you me too? Is insulting yourself like this fun?"

"Ahem, you already said getting lost... I had nothing left to say." Flame Willow wore a teasing smile. "Besides, no one else can hear us here. Are you really afraid of dying from embarrassment?"

(Exactly, exactly. No one else can hear us here. I'm just a cute Elysian Realm Mascot Girl. What bad intentions could Miss Fairy possibly have?)

(Mm-hm, Xia Ling with her flushed cheeks is adorable too~)

Ahem, watch it when you're driving. I'm just an innocent system. Don't get me censored later.

What you said wasn't entirely wrong, though. Well, I mean the getting lost part.

Xia Ling's terrible sense of direction was indeed related to her talent to some extent.

"Stop beating around the bush and just say it!" Xia Ling, feeling her face heat up, hurriedly changed the subject.

The answer is that you're a transmigrator, host. And you're even one of the very rare transmigrators who crossed over physically.

Becoming a transmigrator itself means having some degree of adaptability toward space. And since you managed to preserve your body intact after crossing over, your talent in this area is self-evident.

Your poor sense of direction is also because your sensitivity to space is too high. When you try to perceive directions normally, you are often disturbed by information from other spaces and dimensions, making it difficult to distinguish directions properly.

That is why I could be certain that your Elite 2 ability would definitely be related to space.

I just didn't expect that this was how you would solve your navigation problem... Since you couldn't find the way, you simply skipped the process of looking for it and opened a door directly to the destination, huh?

"No matter what, the result is good." Flame Willow gave that final summary.

"That's right. If I want to save Teacher Himeko without changing the plot later on, I'll need a way to freely enter and exit Imaginary Space. I had originally planned to wade into the mess surrounding Thousand Worlds Layered in London..."

"But now that I have this ability, I can make my plans less aggressive."

(Thousand Worlds Layered... I remember Vill-V was involved in its design, wasn't she? Then Vill-V should have left a backdoor. When the time comes, I can ask Vill-V about it. Maybe she can help Little Xia Ling a little~)

"Phew... since that's settled, let's call it a day." Xia Ling yawned. "I deliberately entered the trial space early today, and it's only past one... Should I play some games before bed, or just sleep?"

"Sigh, being a teacher really is nice." Listening to Xia Ling's humblebrag, Flame Willow pulled a long face. "Little Kong and the others have to head out early every day to collect supplies. I haven't slept in for days."

"Hehe, that's for the children's safety too." Xia Ling smiled and directly left the system space.

At night, St. Freya Academy was as quiet and peaceful as ever. Aside from a few night owls, most students had already drifted into peaceful dreams.

Of course, some people could not sleep.

Like Theresa and Himeko right now, and Welt far away elsewhere.

For people whose strength had reached a certain level, their perception of Honkai Energy was naturally exceptionally sharp.

Especially a sudden eruption of Honkai Energy. To them, it was like forgetting to turn off the light after lights-out in the dormitory while sleeping on the top bunk without bed curtains, then getting suddenly blinded when the power came back the next morning.

So who had suddenly thrown a flashbang at them in the middle of the night?

"Xia—Ling—" Theresa's resentment practically threatened to blow off the roof. "What are you doing in the middle of the night!"

Inside the villa, Theresa and Himeko stood in Xia Ling's room like a judge and plaintiff in a courtroom, glaring at Xia Ling, who had pulled a "Zhang Huai-min is also not asleep" on them in the middle of the night.

"Uh... well, I... um... had a tiny little accident..." Xia Ling sat trembling on her bed and tried her hardest to gesture a tiny amount with her fingers.

This could not entirely be blamed on Xia Ling. She had genuinely forgotten to conceal her Honkai Energy fluctuations. First, she had just finished the trial and was truly exhausted in body and mind. Second, since she often shared senses with Flame Willow, she had grown accustomed to the feeling of possessing Honkai Energy reserves equivalent to an S-rank Valkyrie.

After instinctively leaving the system space, Xia Ling sat on her bed and first felt the abundant Honkai Energy within her body. Then she realized that her Honkai Energy seemed a little too abundant.

Then she understood.

This was bad.

Immediately afterward, the two women, startled by the sudden eruption of Honkai Energy within the villa, rushed into Xia Ling's room. After all, in their understanding, if a B-rank Valkyrie erupted with Honkai Energy at this level, she had probably exploded in the literal sense.

"Come on, explain it to me. What kind of accident multiplied your Honkai Energy fluctuations several times over?" Theresa rolled her eyes. "Give me a few more accidents like that, and tomorrow our Far East Branch will rise up in revolt, punch Schicksal, kick Anti-Entropy, and conquer the world."

"Pfft—" Himeko could not hold it in and burst out laughing.

"Be serious!" Theresa unhappily rapped on the table. "Can't you see I'm in the middle of lecturing her?"

"All right, all right, don't mind her. Theresa was just woken up by your flashbang in the middle of the night and thought something had happened to you, so she got scared." Himeko pressed a hand on Xia Ling's head. "After finding out you were fine, she got a little irritable along with her morning temper."