"Looks like I was worrying for nothing..."
Though she was a little disappointed that she had not gotten to play the role of a caring big sister, Elysia's voice carried unmistakable relief:
"Let me praise you...
Gwen, you really have the potential to become a philosopher~"
"I must decline that title."
Gwen had no intention of accepting Elysia's praise at all.
"I only reached those conclusions because I was standing outside the situation and had plenty of time to think.
If I had actually gone through it myself, I probably would not have done any better.
Rather, precisely because I know my intelligence is limited and that, at best, I possess the wisdom of an ordinary person, I chose to work hard to improve my strength, so that when conflict arose, I would have the leeway to think and choose.
After all, tolerance and choice are often privileges of the strong...
I do not mean the condescending kindness shown toward the weak. It is simply far too pathetic otherwise.
Compared to desperately struggling on the brink of life and death, I prefer moving forward with room to spare."
Well, as everyone knew, the wisdom of an ordinary person was greater than that of the terrifying ape-man who later carried around Chu Xuan like a Doraemon, but less than Chu Xuan's.
"Wow, hearing you put it that way makes you sound even more like a philosopher."
Elysia's smile only deepened at his words.
"If I really had that kind of ability, I would not be thinking about finding myself an external brain right now."
Gwen replied casually.
"Pfft...
An external brain?"
Elysia laughed, then asked mischievously:
"Would adorable Elysia do?"
"You?
No."
Gwen answered mercilessly.
"How could you say that? I even gave you my first time~"
Elysia pouted pitifully as she whined.
"...You are suited to being a girlfriend. The kind that never expires."
Realizing he had misspoken, Gwen fell silent for a moment before answering slowly, trying to force Elysia into retreat.
"Oh my..."
Elysia let out a startled little cry, as though she had been frightened. After a moment of silence, she smiled and asked:
"May I take that as a confession?"
"Zzz..."
The only response Elysia received was steady, even breathing...
"Mm..."
The pink-haired girl puffed out her cheeks, but she did not continue trying to wake Gwen to get a clear answer.
Although Gwen's thoughts were opaque to Elysia, she could still sense his condition.
Thus, Elysia knew that while Gwen might have wanted to end the topic, his exhaustion was genuine as well.
And as a beautiful girl who understood people's hearts, Elysia naturally would not be so inconsiderate as to wake him...
Though she had considered staying behind to chat with Fu Hua, Fu Hua was still an active Valkyrie of the Far East Branch. With the Far East Branch overwhelmed with work, coming to chat with Gwen was clearly not very appropriate.
As a result, Gwen slept soundly for a long while, only waking when a faint pale light appeared in the eastern sky.
After one night, the Far East Branch Valkyries had also basically completed their mission—
Though this was a Honkai incident that had produced a Simulated Herrscher, there had been neither a large number of Honkai Beasts or zombies, nor any survivors. Poisonous mist still lingered in the quarantine zone. After repeatedly confirming that there were no survivors, the Far East Branch handed the zone over to the regular military, left behind some personnel to stand guard, and returned home.
Thus, Gwen easily arranged to meet Fu Hua.
"Good morning, Gwen."
After greeting him, Fu Hua, dressed in training clothes, entered Gwen's resting cabin carrying two breakfasts.
"I received your message after finishing my morning exercises. Since you had been resting all night and had not eaten, I brought you breakfast."
"Thank you. I was hungry as soon as I woke up, so this is perfect."
Gwen nodded and accepted the breakfast Fu Hua offered him.
Although this was only their second meeting, they had chatted online many times before, so they were not strangers. Sitting at the same table to eat did not feel too awkward.
Yet during their casual conversation, neither of them mentioned anything about the Previous Civilization. Instead, they talked about their recent experiences.
Fu Hua had mostly forgotten the matters of the Previous Civilization. Since she had not been responsible for any experiments, she had no impression at all of Gwen, an obscure volunteer. It was both to avoid awkwardness and to avoid bringing up the past and making this junior sad—
Fu Hua was not someone who cared much about seniority, but Gwen had become much younger after crossing over. Therefore, in Fu Hua's view, when he had volunteered to receive the Hyper-Evolution Factor injection and entered hibernation, he could only have been younger than she was at the time.
Combined with the information she had gathered from their previous online exchanges, Fu Hua had already come to regard him as a junior she needed to look after.
Thus, rather than bringing up old memories that might leave everyone silent, Fu Hua preferred to give Gwen, who might still have been in middle school back then, some life advice to help him avoid unnecessary detours.
Knowing that many of Fu Hua's memories were incomplete, Gwen was naturally happy with this arrangement. Having once taken his first steps into society himself, he could tell that Fu Hua was offering practical advice. While inwardly sighing that the Immortal was such an honest person, he listened obediently.
Aside from life advice, Fu Hua also especially explained many precautions regarding the use of his own power—
The strength Fusion Warriors gained after success was certainly immense, but the Honkai Beast factors that granted that power also brought beastly instincts.
This was not the Previous Civilization, after all. There were no great seniors like Kevin and Elysia keeping them in check, nor was there the pressure of one increasingly terrifying Honkai disaster after another.
To be honest, Fu Hua was worried that Gwen might become addicted to his powerful strength, or even be dominated by those beastly instincts through frequent use of that power—
Some events from the Previous Civilization proved that the concerns of the pureblood faction were not entirely unfounded.
Gwen agreed to every piece of Fu Hua's instruction—
Though Gwen's circumstances were rather special. His Hyper-Evolution Factor had first been stimulated into awakening somewhat by Ginga's and Nexus's power, but due to a lack of Honkai Energy, it had been influenced by the energy of those two beings. Later, under the effects of the Gene Lock, it had been completely assimilated, setting him on a path different from that of ordinary Fusion Warriors.
Still, Fu Hua meant well. And aside from her warning not to be influenced by the beastliness within the Hyper-Evolution Factor, her advice not to become intoxicated by power and her teachings on the use of Honkai Energy were indeed things Gwen needed—
As a warrior who had protected Shenzhou for more than five thousand years, even with missing memories, Fu Hua's combat experience was incomparably precious. Even more rare was that the honest Fu Hua truly held nothing back.
Of course, Fu Hua also asked about the pink-haired girl who had flashed by yesterday.
Gwen told her the truth.
Regarding the fact that Elysia had actually appeared on Gwen's body in the form of a stigma, Fu Hua felt both joy at the reappearance of an old friend and complicated feelings because of what had happened back then.
Unfortunately, even after Fu Hua gave Gwen one of her feathers and used the power of the Feather of Dust, she still could not establish direct contact with Elysia in Gwen's mind. They could only communicate through Gwen.
Though Fu Hua was somewhat disappointed by this, she did not pursue the matter too deeply.
After confirming Elysia's existence, Fu Hua also reduced some of her advice to Gwen—
With Elysia around, Fu Hua felt there was no need for her to say too many potentially irritating words of instruction. Instead, she focused on passing down combat experience.
And when it came to combat experience, theory alone was not enough. After eating, the two simply rested for a while before heading to the training grounds, where Fu Hua, concerned for her junior, personally demonstrated and taught him.
Within the sealed training room, Fu Hua's actions also made Gwen clearly realize the gap between himself and a true powerhouse.
Though Fu Hua only gave him a few simple compliments, she was inwardly shocked by the terrifying learning ability Gwen displayed. Praise the Gene Lock.
However, the pleasant instruction lasted less than half a day before Gwen's private lesson was forcibly interrupted—
Gwen's terminal rang with a pleasant chime. The caller ID showed Rita.
"Alright, take a break for now."
Hearing the sound from Gwen's communicator, Fu Hua withdrew the fist she had pressed against his chest.
"Thank you for your hard work, Senior Fu Hua."
The confusion in Gwen's eyes faded, replaced by a somewhat dim expression. His body also began to tremble violently on its own.
However, as an almost imperceptible light flickered, Gwen eventually steadied himself and did not collapse.
Several steps away, Fu Hua could not help showing some surprise at Gwen's reaction.
In Fu Hua's impression, whenever Fusion Warriors did anything involving the use of energy, they would produce extremely obvious fluctuations of Honkai Energy.
This was true of Kevin's ice, Kalpas's fire, and even Fu Hua's own recovery.
Yet when Gwen recovered just now, although Fu Hua had sensed obvious energy fluctuations, the aura of Honkai Energy within them had been very faint—
At the very least, compared to the other Fusion Warriors Fu Hua remembered, including several psychic-type Fusion Warriors, the Honkai Energy aura on Gwen was much fainter.
It was as though Honkai Energy was not something he required at all.
This condition on Gwen undoubtedly piqued Fu Hua's interest.
Still, Fusion Warriors had all sorts of strange abilities, so it was normal. The faint Honkai Energy aura within Gwen's power surprised Fu Hua somewhat, but compared to the other strange things Gwen had shown, it was not all that astonishing—
That morning, in just a few hours, Fu Hua had personally witnessed Gwen's rapid improvement in martial arts—
Originally, in Fu Hua's eyes, Gwen's martial skill had merely been average. Though he was passable among ordinary A-ranks and looked fairly decent, some of the details in his movements revealed that his fundamentals were not actually solid.
Fu Hua did not hold back over this. During their sparring that morning, she constantly guided Gwen and helped him discover his shortcomings.
However, Fu Hua had originally only intended to point out those flaws and have Gwen go back to make up for them himself.
Yet the shortcomings that Fu Hua believed required serious hard work to fix quickly vanished after she pointed them out.
Had Gwen not explained that this was one of his special abilities rather than merely his own learning talent, and had he not consumed all the energy potions stored in his armor that morning—going so far as to ask Himeko to requisition some supplies from the Far East Branch's stockpile—Fu Hua might have believed she had truly encountered one of those monstrous geniuses who existed only in legends, a genius even more gifted than Cheng...
Seeing Gwen make up for his deficiencies so quickly, Fu Hua became even more serious—
Since Gwen could learn, Fu Hua would naturally teach him as much as she could.
And so the morning passed amid Fu Hua's occasional pointers. Gwen, continuously downing energy potions, kept the Gene Lock open for nearly half a day. Under the pressure Fu Hua brought, he even felt that the second stage was already within reach.
Arriving beside the training grounds, Gwen grabbed several energy potions with one hand and smoothly poured them down his throat, while using the other to take out his communicator from the pocket of the clothes hanging on a rack.
"..."
Seeing the caller ID, Gwen raised an eyebrow instinctively and pressed the answer button.
"This is Gwen. Did something happen, Rita?"
The morning before yesterday—the morning before Gwen had set out—Yolandale and Rita had received a mission to lead a team to Southeast Asia and deal with a sudden Honkai incident.
Based on Gwen's understanding of Rita, unless necessary, she would not message him during a mission—
The maid always knew her priorities. A mission was a mission, and she would not do anything unrelated.
Unless... she had no choice...
"Thank you for your concern. However, Lady Yolandale's and Rita's mission went smoothly, and no accidents occurred."
Rita easily understood what Gwen meant and explained with a smile. Then she said:
"If it is convenient, could you open the training room door? A surprise is waiting for you outside."
"Then I shall look forward to it."
With a vague guess in mind, Gwen drank several more energy potions. He exchanged a glance with Fu Hua, and after she gave a slight nod, he walked toward the training room door—
Fu Hua's identity at St. Freya Academy was merely that of an ordinary A-rank student. It could still barely be explained if she fought an A-rank elite from headquarters on equal terms, but directly suppressing Gwen while acting as his instructor would be far too exaggerated.
Therefore, to avoid causing Fu Hua trouble, they had completely locked the training room while sparring. Unless Theresa, lying in a hospital bed, personally came with the highest authorization to open it, anyone outside could only wait for the two inside to unlock the door.
The lock disengaged, and the training room door opened.
Standing before Gwen was Yolandale, heroic and valiant, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale coral-colored tips. With a maid following behind her, she looked like a Himekishi who had stepped out of a fairy tale.
"Mm... it really is a surprise."
Gwen raised an eyebrow and smiled.
"I am glad you like it."
Before you continue