Chapter 289
There is no inherent superiority or inferiority among cute girls.
If you absolutely have to judge by how delicious it is, that would be a decent middle ground.
"Let me think about what I can give you..."
"Alright, stop thinking about it. The half of the Envoy of Beauty power you gave me is very precious; there aren't many of it in the entire Honkai: Star Rail world. If you really want to give me something, you might as well unlock higher-level access to Elysia's Mysterious Shop."
"Oh dear, I forgot I had this feature! Okay, no problem! I'll add a 'Elysia's Beautiful Girl Strategy Guide' to Elysia's Mysterious Shop in a bit."
"Uh... Sister Elysia, when you say 'Elysia's Beautiful Girl Strategy Guide,' do you mean helping the boss conquer other beautiful girls, or do you mean helping the boss better conquer you, the beautiful girl?" Because the title Elysia chose was too abstract, Pardo scratched her head for a long time without understanding what the guide was for, so she asked.
"Of course it's for teaching Xiao Li how to get along better with other beautiful girls. Why would I publish a book that teaches others how to win me over? But it's not impossible, unless Chen Li upgrades Elysia's Mysterious Shop's access to the highest level." Elysia winked at Chen Li.
"How many levels of access do you have in your Mystery Shop?" Chen Li asked, a little curious.
"I don't know." Elysia shook her head.
"So what's the point of this book? The boss doesn't seem like the type to be a womanizer."
"Pardo, oh Pardo ..." Elysia suddenly sighed.
"What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?"
"Don't you think Xiao Li is very popular with girls? And eight out of ten of his customers are girls. With a guidebook like this, Chen Li can navigate among so many customers with even more ease... probably." The more Elysia spoke, the more she felt something was off.
Well, whatever, Chen Li can be resurrected anyway.
As long as you don't keep making mistakes!
"That's slander! I'll show you how popular I am with men!" Chen Li directly revealed his Miraculous Forging Guide then put three Miracle Crystal into it.
Three Miracle Crystal are already the limit.
Chen Li can juggle three relationships at most... Chen Li means that he can handle matters from three worlds simultaneously.
Furthermore, triangles are stable... and best-of-three games are also stable.
It's impossible for a client to be in a state of superposition of male and female, right?
Soon, three new commissions appeared in Chen Li's commission column.
"... Wait a moment!" Pardo suddenly grabbed the Miraculous Forging Guide and quickly closed it.
"What are you doing?"
Miraculous Forging Guide in public mode can be encountered by other players.
"Place your bet now!" Pardo didn't answer Chen Li's question immediately, but instead launched a prize-winning guessing game in her group chat—guess the gender.
The stakes, of course, are Starstones.
"... You're a real genius! Be careful you don't lose everything!" Chen Li warned.
"As long as you don't place a bet, I can't possibly lose! I'm incredibly lucky! And this time it's a prize pool system. I'm not the bookmaker; I'm just initiating the vote. The winner takes all. In the case of multiple winners, the prize pool is divided according to the proportion of their bets."
"Okay, I won't place a bet..."
Chen Li quickly saw that the poll was rapidly gaining popularity in the Miraculous Item group.
Some group members even used the customization feature to define some very abstract voting results.
After the dust settled, Pardo slowly opened the Miraculous Forging Guide, and everyone craned their necks to look...
[Deliverance]: To prevent the universe from falling into heat death, and to protect world peace! An improved method for using Magical Girl!
Posted by: Kyubey
Rewards: 30 to Crystal
Risk: Low to Extremely High
[Little Man]: Help me forge a Miraculous Item that will allow me to display my masculinity and become the most manly man!
Posted by: Kino Shūyoshi
Reward: 10-30 Crystal
Risk: Low to High
[Restore]: Restores the players' mental state to a normal level.
Released by: Mental State Management Support Program, Prototype No. 1
Rewards: 10-40 Crystal
Risk: Low to Medium
"..." by Chen Li.
To be honest, Chen Li's original intention was not to prove to Elysia whether he was more popular with men or women. Chen Li originally wanted to go to another world and have a great life.
Because Chen Li is currently stuck on the "Reputation" Novice Task.
At the same time, obtaining more Crystal and crafting more Miraculous Item will allow Chen Li to level up and unlock to level 10 faster.
After releasing the Pixie, Chen Li can finally enjoy a carefree life!
However, the three delegates obtained this time are all extremely abstract.
"So what's the result? None of the three people who made the announcement specified their gender, Chen Li? Do you know Chen Li?" Everyone looked at Chen Li.
"Well... wait a minute, let me check." Chen Li took out his hacked version of the Friends Circle Terminal.
People in the Honkai world all know that Chen Li's world has a game that corresponds to their own world, and other group members also know this to varying degrees.
However, for the sake of Haruhi Suzumiya's physical and mental health, Chen Li did not fully open the functions of the Friends Circle Terminal. Instead, he selectively uploaded some anime products and games that were insignificant even if they were discovered to the Friends Circle Terminal.
For example, Touhou Project...
However, for the sake of Satou Kazuma's physical and mental health, Chen Li did not upload the work "KonoSuba!".
Chen Li did this so that he could be with Zhen Hao...
Chen Li knew the situation for the first two, but Chen Li was really confused about the third one, so Chen Li needed to investigate.
"Mental state management support program, prototype number one... Yui, just say Yui, why are you talking nonsense!" Chen Li almost dropped the Friends Circle Terminal in his hand.
Yui a character in Sword Art Online. In the Game World, she is the adopted daughter of Kirito and Asuna. Her true identity is the "Mental State Management Support Program, Prototype 1" or AI (Artificial Intelligence) in SAO (Simulation Game). She is a program responsible for managing and caring for the mental state of SAO players and has the ability to imitate human emotions.
"Ah, wait... the other party might not have a name yet, okay, that makes sense." But then Chen Li thought about it again, and realized that the current timeline of the story might be relatively early, so he felt relieved.
"Have the results come out yet? What are the scores?" Pardo, the initiator of the poll, asked first.
"Uh... when you started the poll, did you say what the Starstones would be used for if no one guessed correctly?" Chen Li asked.
"Used for the next team building activity, what's wrong? Is the result surprising? Like, one of the three posters' genders is uncertain?"
"No."
"That's good!"
"The genders of all three cannot be determined."
"???"
"The first one is an alien creature. If you have to say it has no gender, its gender is Kyubey."
Kyubey, an adorable alien intelligent being, is actually an "incubator" who can Extraction a girl's soul and create Soul Gem in exchange for granting her wish. At the same time, she collects energy when the Soul Gem becomes twisted due to Miracle and turns into a witch in despair.
His purpose in doing this was to sacrifice humanity in order to meet the energy consumption of his entire universe and avoid the heat death of the entire universe.
Simply put, he's a damned pyramid scheme leader!
It's not a fraudster because it never lies... but the truth can also be made into a lie.
"The second Kino Shūyoshi, for various reasons, his gender was Hideyoshi, which was an accepted fact in their world."
At least Chen Li believed that Hideyoshi's gender was indeed Hideyoshi!
"The third one... might be adopted as an adopted daughter in the future, but for now she is still an AI, and AI has no gender."
"..." Everyone fell silent.
"So let's use the money in the prize pool as funds for the next team building activity."
"Um... excuse me, I think I won," Pardo said, raising her hand.
"Huh? You're using X-ray vision?"
"Not Closed Is Trailblaze?? Cough cough, what I mean is... I created a custom option called 'Freedom'."
"???"
"And the explanation I added was: the genders of the three cannot be defined. I was originally thinking of putting my 'Empty Dream' entry into practice and adding some brightness..." Pardo scratched her head.
Pardo only threw in one Starstones in this vote. Pardo's idea was that one Starstones could not enhance the brightness of the attribute by much, but using this Starstones to pursue "freedom" might bring a bonus that could reach ten Starstones or even more.
This is the advantage of the mechanism that allows Exclusive Profession to increase its brightness both by using Starstones and by practicing "professional spirit"—achieving success in both cultural (spending money) and physical (practice) aspects!
Considering that choosing this bet wouldn't result in a loss no matter what, Pardo made the bet!
Then Pardo won.
"... Kid, you're invincible."
If it weren't for the fact that even Chen Li couldn't immediately tell who these three were, Chen Li would have suspected that Pardo had peeked at the Miraculous Forging Guide when she closed it.
"As for the Starstones reward, I will return my one Starstones in full, and we'll split the remaining profits 30/70," Pardo said.
"I'll take 30%?"
"No, no, no, 30% is mine."
"Protection fees?"
"Yes, I'm afraid of being murdered to silence me!"
"It's not that bad... Just take it, everyone will get used to your good luck. It's only 100 Starstones, not a lot of money." Chen Li patted Pardo's head, then paid special attention to Pardo's ears.
It feels so good, petting this cat is so satisfying.
It's likely that Pardo's proxy drawing business will see a surge in the future!
While it's unnecessary to use Starstones for gacha pulls, the "Bequest of Fate" chest can be influenced by luck.
Chen Li didn't know whether Satou Kazuma or Pardo had better luck... but Chen Li felt it was Pardo.
At least Pardo won't die as long as she doesn't do anything reckless, while Satou Kazuma has died more than once.
"So, Chen Li, which request do you want to complete first? I think this one is better. This Kyubey says he wants to Deliverance... This alien civilization doesn't seem like a despicable outsider. But why does the idea of improving the way Magical Girl are used sound weird? It feels like... they're using Magical Girl as tools." Elysia, somewhat puzzled.
Although few of the extraterrestrial beings encountered in the Honkai world are of good character, and even the Cocoon of Eternity is a "gift" from extraterrestrials, surely not all alien lords are so despicable as to be utterly wicked?
"You're right, in that world, Magical Girl are just tools."
"Well?"
"Kyubey may seem harmless, but it's actually incredibly cunning. It tricks people into signing contracts, brainwashes them through pyramid schemes, manipulates people's hearts, and controls things from behind the scenes... Its daily work is to lure innocent girls into becoming Magical Girl, take them to eliminate witches that threaten the world, and let the Magical Girl consume a lot of magic power in the process of eliminating witches, so that you can witness these Magical Girl becoming witches, and then take new Magical Girl to eliminate these witches."
"Kill it!" Elysia's expression changed faster than flipping through a book!
Elysia had felt something was off from the beginning, and now she was certain.
So Beauty! This Kyubey is worth a fight!
"Therefore, almost all outsiders are despicable outsiders, and you must not trust them!" Chen Li uttered his outrageous statement.
"Does anyone really think that after the alien Japanese rulers take over the world, they will implement an 8-hour workday, only provide three meals a day plus snacks, only have milk in the morning, only have a one-hour lunch break, only give out bonuses three times a year, only have two months of annual leave, or even be so cruel as to only have one day of psychological counseling a week, only get a raise every four months, only get triple pay for overtime, and force people to exercise for an hour after get off work?"
No way, really?
"But... isn't that what Honkai-Moe Paradise does? I remember they even asked for your opinion back then." Vill-V scratched her head.
After no longer facing the threat of Honkai, Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, and World Serpent suddenly discovered that the world's productivity had become excessively high.
At least we have already achieved the goal of enabling the whole world to live a moderately prosperous life.
The technologies such as mecha, modification surgery, and Valkyrie armor are secondary; the most crucial thing is that Honkai energy has truly become an "endless energy source."
Especially after Vill-V led the people from Honkai-Moe Paradise to visit those famous big companies one by one, using Approval of Noble Morality to test their good and evil, and selectively confiscating their property, everyone realized—Wow, our civilization is so rich!
Although there are always some "little gluttons" who want to devour the social rice jar, which represents social wealth, that is instantly filled when there is free time, every single one of them has been captured by Vill-V to become Dream Network jinchūriki—after Fusion Spider, Vill-V has begun to lay out the dream network all over the world.
And these cowards, parasites, and oppressors are the best connectors!
Don't these people often like to say, "You need to think about the bigger picture"?
They really are needed now for the greater good.