Thanks for the Invite, I'm in Honkai Grinding Stats to Level Up

Back in his room, Gwen quickly cleaned up the dishes. After washing up, he was about to go to bed, looking exhausted from the day's training and eager to rest.

However, once he was under the covers, Gwen, who appeared to have quickly fallen asleep with his eyes closed, saw a blue-gold interface subtly appear in his vision, visible only to him.

Closing the personal status panel, Gwen looked at the empty chat group, still empty except for himself, and sighed silently—

A month had passed, and Gwen's invitation letter, purchased at great expense, had yet to receive a response. It was safe to assume the money was wasted.

Although Gwen had some suspicions when he bought the invitation letter, he couldn't help but feel a bit dejected when it turned out to be true—

That was a thousand points. The points he'd earned from daily check-ins over the past month weren't even close.

Thinking of points, Gwen's mind stirred, and he clicked the store icon with the treasure chest again after a long time.

Over the past month, Gwen had been almost entirely immersed in studying and training. Every day, besides checking his progress in his stats, he would only open the system to get his meager daily points.

As for the store, he hadn't opened it again during this month—

His past life experience had taught him that the poorer he was, the more he'd browse Taobao.

To avoid wasting time browsing the store, Gwen simply avoided looking at it.

He couldn't afford anything anyway, so he might as well go to bed early, maybe he'd even grow taller sooner.

As Gwen's thoughts clicked the store icon, the simple chat group page instantly transformed into a store page filled with densely packed white goods.

Subconsciously glancing at his point balance, Gwen, whose face was mostly covered by the blanket, showed a look of surprise—

"Twelve thousand three hundred and twenty-one?"

Seeing the point balance once again far exceeding his expectations, even Gwen, who was generally calm, couldn't help but feel a surge of joy.

After all, even if ninety-nine percent of the store's items were junk, the one or two rare treasures among them were worth spending a lot of points on, like the "Spirit Awakening Scripture" he'd acquired before.

However, after the initial surprise, Gwen's mind was filled with confusion and bewilderment—

Where did these points... come from?

Initially, Gwen suspected that his points were like the cheat systems in the web novels he'd read in his past life, earned by influencing the course of the world.

But now, with the inexplicable increase in points, Gwen had to question his own assumptions—

Although the Honkai world now had Gwen, a transmigator who didn't originally exist, Gwen hadn't done anything in the past two months that could possibly affect the future.

Even if a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest in South America could indeed cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later, it still required the butterfly to flap its wings first.

Gwen felt he hadn't done anything significant in the past two months. You Lan Dai Er and Rita were still developing according to their original trajectories. Anna might change, but her Herrscher transformation was still years away, and the tornado that belonged to her wouldn't appear until then.

After thinking for a long time with no clues, Gwen could only temporarily set aside his doubts—

Trapped in this Destiny headquarters, Gwen had to be constantly vigilant and careful, with no opportunity to verify anything.

Perhaps, only when he left the Destiny headquarters in the future could he conduct some verification.

Collecting his scattered thoughts, Gwen refocused his gaze on the store interface before him.

Below the golden invitation letter in the background, only a few hours remained until the refresh time—

It was almost a month since the store maintenance was completed. At midnight, the limited-time products in the store would refresh, and new items would appear.

Therefore, a question arose for Gwen—

Should he buy the Earth Shadow Stone?

Buy it?

He might not even need it.

Moreover, even if he could use it, after leaving his original world, there was a question mark over whether the incredibly powerful Zen Ding Seal skill could still be used.

In Gwen's speculation, the Zen Ding Seal, a basic skill that theoretically all armors came with, might not originate from the armor's own power, but rather from the power of the Heavenly Dao symbolized by the Emperor Armor at its source.

And if Gwen's speculation proved true, it would essentially mean the Zen Ding Seal skill was disabled, greatly reducing the value the Earth Shadow Stone could bring.

However, even so, it didn't mean the Earth Shadow Stone was useless—

Even setting aside the theoretical upper limit of the Five Elements Convergence and the BUG-level skill like Zen Ding Seal, the Earth Tiger Armor alone had considerable value.

If nothing else, simply carrying the Earth Shadow Stone, allowing qualified individuals to summon the armor at any time, was already a significant convenience—

As far as Gwen knew, Destiny's current Valkyrie armors still required them to be carried personally, and they needed to help each other put them on before battles. It wouldn't be until the "Time-Space Fracture Technology," derived from research on the Herrscher of the Void, matured and was put into use that this gap could be closed.

In addition, the Earth Tiger Armor's ability to operate unimpeded in outer space was also very appealing to Gwen.

Moreover, for Gwen, the Earth Tiger Armor had another advantage: it wouldn't be controlled by Destiny, or rather, by Otto.

In Gwen's view, even if he himself was equipped with the fourth-generation God-Slaying Armor in the future, if he were to oppose Destiny or Otto, he might still be restricted by methods like permission locks.

After all, it was high-tech equipment manufactured by them, so it wouldn't be strange for Otto to have countermeasures.

However, despite these advantages, there was one more thing that made Gwen hesitate whether to buy it—

"Will I gain the so-called 'Earth Shadow Village' bloodline through contact with the Earth Shadow Stone?"

Looking at the stone, which seemed to emit a faint yellow halo, Gwen was filled with indecision—

"Or rather...

Can I establish an energy connection with the Earth Shadow Stone and thus bypass the restrictions, which can be called permission authentication, to successfully use its power?"

With the remaining money in hand, this was the only thing left that made Gwen hesitate about purchasing it.

As for whether an armor, a product of tokusatsu, would be too out of place in the Honkai world?

How about Valkyrie armors?

Once the spacetime fracture technology matures and is put into use, the Valkyries who summon their armors before battle will be no different from tokusatsu protagonists transforming.

Time ticked by, the countdown above the limited-time item getting shorter and shorter. The stone in the item icon, emitting a faint yellowish glow, seemed to become ethereal and gradually faded away.

Realizing that if he didn't make a decision soon, he might not get another chance, Gwen took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. In the end, he made his choice…

Chapter 36: New Training and New Challenges

As his points balance was instantly halved, an item with an icon of a stone emitting a faint yellowish glow appeared in Gwen's inventory.

This was the backpack provided by the system store, with a total of ten slots. It could store items purchased from the store, and also allow for some operations on those purchased items.

For example, the Impartation Card Gwen had used previously was used here on the Spirit Awakening Scripture.

Having finally decided to splurge, Gwen took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, trying to calm his excitement, which was far greater than when he got his new phone that he had saved up for two years to buy in his previous life. He chose to summon the stone, purchased at great expense, into reality.

The next moment, following Gwen's will, a heavy stone landed in his palm.

The surface of the stone was not smooth; it even felt somewhat rough.

However, although it was just a stone whose weight was far less than the barbell Gwen used for training, Gwen inexplicably felt a sense of heaviness, giving him the illusion that he couldn't hold the stone.

After a quick glance, Gwen was relieved to confirm that the Earth Shadow Stone did not emit a strong light as it did in the story. He then played with the childhood dream stone under the covers.

After playing with it for a while and feeling no special changes in himself, Gwen waited for the joy in his heart to subside before calmly attempting to mobilize the Honkai energy within his body and establish an energy connection with the light-shadow stone in his hand.

Through his studies during this period, Gwen's understanding of Honkai had deepened considerably, such as Honkai energy resistance and Honkai energy adaptability.

In Destiny's textbooks, these were two talents that were somewhat related but not too closely linked.

The level of the former indicated the amount of Honkai energy a person could withstand; the higher the Honkai energy resistance, the less likely they were to be corrupted by Honkai energy.

The level of the latter determined a person's degree of utilization of Honkai energy; the higher the Honkai energy adaptability, the greater the combat power they could unleash.

Under normal circumstances, individuals possessing one talent would generally also possess the other.

However, there was no direct correlation between their levels—

There were those with extremely high Honkai energy resistance but extremely low adaptability, resulting in very low Honkai energy utilization;

Similarly, there were also those with not-so-high Honkai energy resistance but high adaptability, making them very strong fighters.

According to their teacher, the sole survivor of the former Vanguard unit was of the latter type.

Gwen was fortunate; as he had the blood of the Caslana flowing through him, he naturally possessed extremely high Honkai energy resistance.

At the same time, perhaps due to his physique alone, or perhaps due to the boost from his extremely high mental strength, Gwen's Honkai energy adaptability was also quite good.

Therefore, even without starting specialized courses on Honkai energy utilization, Gwen could already perform some basic applications of Honkai energy, such as the "enchantment" in the virtual training room earlier.

And after the training in the virtual training room that afternoon, Gwen had a deeper understanding of how to utilize Honkai energy.

Under Gwen's careful control, a wisp of Honkai energy slowly flowed into his palm and was cautiously injected into the light-shadow stone.

However, facing the Honkai energy sent by Gwen, the light-shadow stone remained silent, like the earth itself, without any feedback.

Gwen was not disappointed by this—

At least, it didn't emit a strong light and blast him away.

It didn't matter if there was no feedback. Gwen simply treated it as energy training, controlling the Honkai energy in his body to slowly flow into the light-shadow stone in his hand—

Without any suitable Honkai energy cultivation methods, Gwen could only try this crude method of consuming and then replenishing, to see if he could improve his energy attribute.

Half an hour later, until Gwen had sent the last wisp of Honkai energy he could control in a calm state into the light-shadow stone, this light-shadow stone, symbolizing the earth, still showed no reaction, remaining silent like the earth.

Gwen, whose spirit was already very fatigued, was mentally prepared for this. He did nothing further, poked his head out from under the covers, and pretended to be asleep.

As for the remaining few thousand points, Gwen wasn't in a hurry to buy Invitation Letters to try inviting his group members—

Compared to the Invitation Letters that were likely to be a wasted effort, Gwen preferred to wait and see the items that would be refreshed soon before deciding how to use his remaining points.

In less than a moment, Gwen, exhausted both physically and mentally, truly fell asleep as he appeared to be.

In this profound silence, a faint yellowish halo quietly lit up from beneath Gwen's covers, illuminating the skin pressed against him…

The next morning, Gwen, who had grown accustomed to his current biological clock and waking up naturally every day, woke up to the annoying sound of his alarm clock, a rare occurrence.

He slapped the button on top of the alarm clock's head, silencing it, and sat up with groggy eyes.

However, before Gwen could throw off the covers and get out of bed, he felt the stone on his stomach, emitting a faint coolness.

!

His groggy eyes instantly cleared. Remembering what he had done yesterday, Gwen touched the somewhat rough light-shadow stone and, with a thought, recalled it into the system space—

Gwen had asked the system yesterday that any item purchased from the store could be recycled as long as there was space in the store's backpack, which was very convenient.

Getting out of bed and stretching, Gwen, feeling inexplicably refreshed, opened his status panel while washing up.

As expected, his energy attribute had grown.

However, at the same time, to Gwen's surprise, his other attributes had also grown to varying degrees.

What is going on?

Gwen, his mouth full of foam, was filled with questions—

"Did the Honkai-energy Light Shadow Stone that consumed so much of my Honkai energy give me some feedback after I passed out?

Or did I achieve a cultivation-like effect during the process of recovering after consuming most of my Honkai energy, thus driving the growth of my physical attributes?"

Secretly noting this question in his mind, Gwen began his new day.

Before his morning training, Gwen checked his terminal and found that You Lan Dai Er and Rita had sent several messages, mostly congratulating him on the successful completion of his first virtual training.

A smile played on Gwen's lips as he replied to each of them, also inquiring if the two on their mission had been injured.

Although he had an extra Light Shadow Stone that could be used to train his energy, Gwen's regular life hadn't changed much. He still had theoretical classes in the morning, training in the afternoon, with combat skill training and virtual combat added to his afternoon routine, and energy training in the evening.

Perhaps it was due to the extremely low starting point of Gwen's current body, but at Lv1, Gwen's attributes smoothly broke through the 1000 mark, with all prefixes being "S".

However, Gwen didn't feel complacent about this; instead, he became even more diligent—

Only by improving his skills would Gwen have the ability to challenge more powerful enemies and attempt to obtain the "great achievements" required for leveling up.

Chapter 37: Rapid Growth

Clang!

The greatsword collided with the cold, gleaming scythe, producing a crisp clanging sound.