Alicia is the Real Cheat in Honkai!

"So, it seems I was worrying for nothing..."

Although there was a slight regret that she couldn't be a close, understanding older sister, Alicia's voice carried an undisguised sense of relief:

"I'll praise you...

Gwen, you have great potential as a thinker~?"

"I must decline that title, if you please."

Gwen had no intention of accepting Alicia's compliment:

"I'm merely drawing these conclusions by standing outside the situation and thinking for a long time.

If I had to experience it myself, I probably wouldn't fare any better.

Rather, it's precisely because I know my intelligence is limited, that my wisdom is at best that of an ordinary person, that I chose to focus on improving my strength. This way, I can have the leeway to think and make choices when conflicts arise.

After all, in many situations, tolerance and choice are the privileges of the strong...

This isn't to say I disdain the kindness shown to the weak, but it can be quite pathetic.

Compared to struggling desperately on the brink of life and death, I prefer to move forward with some breathing room."

Well, as everyone knows, the wisdom of mortals is greater than that of later-stage terrifying apes with Chu Xuan's Doraemon, and less than Chu Xuan's.

"Wow, hearing you say that makes you sound even more like a thinker."

Alicia's smile deepened upon hearing this.

"If I were truly at that level, I wouldn't be looking for an external brain for myself right now,"

Gwen replied casually.

"Pfft...

An external brain?"

Alicia chuckled at his words and asked playfully:

"How about cute Alicia?"

Chapter 82: A Girlfriend Who Won't Expire

"You?

No."

Gwen said mercilessly.

"How can you say that? I even gave you my first time~?"

Alicia whined pitifully.

"...You'd be suitable as a girlfriend, the kind that doesn't expire."

Gwen, realizing he'd misspoke, remained silent for a moment before slowly replying, trying to ward Alicia off.

"Oh my..."

However, Alicia let out a startled gasp, then after a moment of silence, she asked with a smile:

"Can I take this as a confession?"

"Zzz..."

The response Alicia received was steady, even breathing...

"Mmm..."

The pink-haired girl puffed out her cheeks but didn't continue to wake Gwen to ask for clarification.

While Gwen's thoughts were opaque to Alicia, she could still sense his condition.

Therefore, Alicia knew that while he might want to end the conversation, Gwen was genuinely exhausted.

And as a beautiful girl who understood people's hearts, Alicia naturally wouldn't be so inconsiderate as to wake him up...

Although she had also thought about staying to chat with Fu Hua, considering Fu Hua was an active Valkyrie in the Far East Branch, it was clearly inappropriate to come chat with Gwen when the Far East Branch was swamped with work.

Thus, Gwen slept soundly. He woke up when the eastern sky began to show the first light of dawn.

After a night's rest, the Far East Branch Valkyries had also basically completed their missions—

Although it was a Honkai event that produced a Simulated Herrscher, there were no large numbers of Honkai Beasts or dead soldiers. The sealed area still had residual poisonous fog. After repeatedly confirming there were no survivors, the sealed area was handed over to the regular army. The Far East Branch, leaving behind some personnel to guard, then headed back.

As a result, Gwen easily managed to arrange a meeting with Fu Hua.

"Good morning, Gwen."

Fu Hua, dressed in her training attire, greeted Gwen and entered his cabin carrying two breakfast items.

"I received your message after my morning training. Considering you've been resting all night and haven't eaten, I brought you some breakfast."

"Thank you, I'm starving after waking up."

Nodding, Gwen accepted the breakfast Fu Hua handed him.

Although this was only their second meeting, they had chatted online many times before, so there wasn't any awkwardness between them. Sitting at the same table to eat didn't feel too uncomfortable.

During their casual chat, neither of them brought up the previous civilization. Instead, they talked about their recent experiences.

Fu Hua had largely forgotten about the previous civilization. As she wasn't responsible for any experiments, she had no recollection of Gwen, an obscure volunteer. To avoid awkwardness and to spare the junior from sadness by bringing up the past—

Although Fu Hua wasn't one to stand on ceremony, Gwen's age had significantly decreased after his transmigration. Fu Hua figured he must have been even younger than her when he was injected with the Hyper-Evolution Factor and entered dormancy as a volunteer.

Combining the information she'd gathered from their online exchanges, Fu Hua had come to see him as a junior who needed her care.

Therefore, rather than reminisce about events that might silence everyone, Fu Hua preferred to impart some life experience to Gwen, who was likely still in middle school back then, hoping to help him avoid detours.

Gwen, knowing that Fu Hua's memories were incomplete, was happy to go along with this. Having already entered society to some extent, he could tell that Fu Hua's advice was practical and insightful. He couldn't help but marvel at how straightforward the "Immortal" was, and he listened attentively.

In addition to life advice, Fu Hua also gave Gwen many important instructions on how to use his powers—

While the power gained by a Fusion Warrior after success was indeed immense, the Honkai Beast factor that brought this power also brought with it a certain bestiality.

After all, this wasn't the previous civilization, with seniors like Kevin and Alicia keeping everyone in check, and the ever-increasing pressure of the Honkai.

Honestly, Fu Hua was worried that Gwen might become addicted to his own immense power, or even be dominated by that bestiality due to the frequent use of this power—

The past events of the previous civilization proved that the pure-blood faction's concerns were not entirely unfounded.

Gwen accepted all of Fu Hua's teachings—

Although Gwen's situation was rather unique. The Hyper-Evolution Factor had initially been awakened by the power of Ginga and Nexus. However, due to a lack of Honkai energy, it was influenced by the energies of those two beings. Later, under the effect of the Gene Lock, it was completely digested, setting him on a path different from that of a conventional Fusion Warrior.

However, Fu Hua's intentions were good. Apart from the warning about not being influenced by the bestiality within the Hyper-Evolution Factor, Gwen found Fu Hua's advice about not becoming addicted to power and her teachings on utilizing Honkai energy to be truly necessary—

As a warrior who had guarded Shenzhou for over five thousand years, even with her memory gaps, Fu Hua's combat experience was incredibly valuable. What was even more commendable was that the straightforward Fu Hua was truly sharing everything she knew.

Of course, Fu Hua also inquired about the pink-haired individual who had flashed by yesterday.

Gwen answered truthfully.

Fu Hua felt both joy at the reappearance of an old friend and a sense of complexity regarding the past incident, upon learning that Alicia had appeared on Gwen in the form of a Stigmata.

However, it was regrettable that even with Fu Hua gifting Gwen a feather and utilizing the power of the Feather of Dust, she couldn't establish direct contact with Alicia in Gwen's mind. She could still only relay messages through Gwen.

While Fu Hua felt a slight regret about this, she didn't press the matter further.

After confirming Alicia's existence, Fu Hua also reduced some of her instructions to Gwen—

With Alicia present, Fu Hua felt she didn't need to offer any more potentially unpleasant teachings. Instead, she shifted her focus to imparting combat experience.

Speaking of combat experience, mere theoretical instruction wouldn't suffice. After finishing their meal, the two decided to head to the training grounds after resting. Fu Hua, concerned for her junior, would personally demonstrate and teach.

In the enclosed training ground, Fu Hua's actions made Gwen clearly understand the gap between himself and a true powerhouse.

Although Fu Hua offered only a few simple words of praise, she was inwardly astonished by Gwen's terrifying learning ability (all thanks to the Gene Lock).

However, the pleasant training session lasted less than half a day before Gwen's special tutoring was abruptly cut short—

Gwen's terminal emitted a pleasant ringing sound. The caller ID showed Rita.

Chapter 83: The Surprise Rita Brought

"Alright, let's take a break."

Hearing the commotion from Gwen's communicator, Fu Hua withdrew her fist, which was planted firmly on Gwen's chest.

"Thank you for your hard work, Senior Fu Hua."

The bewilderment in his eyes receded, and his spirit regained its slightly dulled luster. Gwen's body trembled violently, involuntarily.

However, with a subtle surge of light, Gwen's figure finally stabilized, preventing him from falling.

A few steps away, seeing Gwen's reaction, Fu Hua couldn't help but show a hint of surprise.

In Fu Hua's experience, all Fusion Warriors exhibited extremely noticeable Honkai energy fluctuations whenever they engaged in any action involving energy manipulation.

This was true whether it was Kevin's ice, Qianjie's fire, or Fu Hua's own recovery.

However, when Gwen recovered just now, although Fu Hua felt distinct energy fluctuations, the presence of Honkai energy was faint—

At least, compared to other Fusion Warriors Fu Hua remembered, including several psychically perceptive ones, the Honkai energy aura around Gwen was much fainter.

It was as if Honkai energy wasn't essential to him.

This condition of Gwen's undoubtedly piqued Fu Hua's interest.

However, Fusion Warriors were known for their diverse abilities, so while the faint Honkai energy around Gwen surprised Fu Hua, it wasn't as astonishing as the other peculiar aspects Gwen displayed—

That morning, in just a few hours, Fu Hua had personally witnessed Gwen's rapid progress in martial arts—

Initially, in Fu Hua's eyes, Gwen's martial arts were just average. While passable among the regular A-ranks and seemingly decent, some of Gwen's movements revealed that his fundamental skills were actually not solid.

To this end, Fu Hua didn't hold back, constantly pointing out Gwen's flaws during their sparring sessions that morning.

However, Fu Hua's original intention was merely to point out these flaws and have Gwen catch up on his own later.

Yet, the flaws that Fu Hua believed would require considerable effort to fix disappeared quickly after she pointed them out.

If Gwen hadn't explained that this was a special skill of his, not purely his own learning ability, and if Gwen hadn't consumed all the energy potions stored in his armor that morning, even requesting some inventory from the Far East branch from Himeko, Fu Hua might have believed she had encountered a legendary prodigy, a genius even more so than Cheng...

Seeing Gwen so quickly overcome his shortcomings, Fu Hua became even more serious—

Since Gwen could learn, Fu Hua would teach as much as she could.

And so, the morning passed with Fu Hua's occasional pointers. By constantly consuming energy potions, Gwen had practically activated his Gene Lock for half the day, and under the pressure imposed by Fu Hua, he even felt as though the second stage was within reach.

Gwen walked up to the training grounds, smoothly downed several energy potions with one hand, and pulled out his communicator from the pocket of his clothes hanging on the rack with the other.

"..."

Seeing the caller ID, Gwen instinctively raised an eyebrow and pressed the answer button.

"This is Gwen. Did something happen, Rita?"

The morning before yesterday, which was the morning before Gwen's departure, Yolandale and Rita had just received a mission to lead a team to Southeast Asia to deal with a sudden Honkai outbreak.

From Gwen's understanding of Rita, she wouldn't message him during a mission unless it was absolutely necessary—

The maid was always clear about priorities and wouldn't do anything irrelevant during a mission.

Unless... it was unavoidable...

"Thank you for your concern, but Rita and Lord Yolandale's mission went very smoothly, and there were no unexpected incidents."

Rita, understanding Gwen's implication, explained with a smile, then immediately said, "If it's convenient, could you open the training room door? There's a surprise waiting for you outside."

"Then I'll look forward to it."

With a vague guess in his mind, Gwen downed a few more energy potions. He exchanged a look with Fu Hua, and after receiving a slight nod, walked towards the training room door—

After all, Fu Hua's identity at St. Freya Academy was just that of an ordinary A-rank student. It was somewhat explainable that she could hold her own against an A-rank elite from headquarters, but to completely suppress Gwen and even be in a position to guide him was too exaggerated.

Therefore, to avoid causing trouble for Fu Hua, the two had completely locked the training room when they were training. Unless Theresa on the sickbed came personally with the highest authority to open the door, only the two inside could open it.

The unlocking was complete, and the training room door opened.

Standing before Gwen was Yolandale, looking valiant and heroic, with golden hair, blue eyes, and pale coral-colored hair tips. A maid followed behind her, making her appear like a Himekishi straight out of a fairy tale.

"Hmm... it is indeed a surprise."

Gwen raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"I'm glad you like it."