Hot Springs / The Evolution of Stairway to Heaven

Theresa circled Qin Mo several times, frowning at him as if she wanted to figure something out, but she soon gave up.

Though perhaps she had not completely given up. In any case, while Qin Mo typed away in his room afterward, Theresa remained beside him with her chin propped on her hand, lost in thought.

Qin Mo could not be bothered with her. As he typed on the keyboard, he opened the system in his mind and submitted the mission. After placing the Tree of Harvest and the Beauty Hot Spring, the completion rate of this place had risen to a very high level.

Mission Complete: Obtained 700 Crystals

Looking at the result after submitting the mission, Qin Mo figured that to reach 1,000, he would probably have to gain complete control over St. Freya Academy.

But now that he had become a teacher here, he had gained a portion of its authority. Combined with the academy's only villa and the 700 rating, it was more or less enough.

Hot Spring

As the melodious bell rang, amidst the girls' laughter and chatter, St. Freya's Valkyries ended another day of classes.

"Finally, class is over. I'm exhausted. Mei, Mei, what are we eating when we get home today?"

The moment class ended, Kiana practically wanted to hang herself off Mei.

"I'm making Kiana's favorite fried chicken wings today. I already asked Qin Mo to buy the ingredients while he was home."

"Yay!"

Bronya stood nearby, hugging a Homu toy and carrying a Homu backpack. She looked at Kiana and quietly remarked, "Lazy Kiana clearly slept through class the whole time."

"What? I only slept for a little while. History class was just way too boring."

The three girls chatted as they walked out of the classroom.

"Why are there so many people at the door?"

The moment they stepped outside, they saw many students gathered by the classroom entrance.

"Why is there a boy here?"

"A new student?"

"He's so handsome."

Hearing the students' murmurs, Kiana and the other two realized something. They squeezed through the crowd and ran over, only to find Qin Mo standing by the roadside with a book in hand. He was reading, utterly unconcerned by the other Valkyries surrounding him.

"Qin Mo, why are you here?"

Kiana wanted to pounce on him, but seeing the other students around them, she forcibly stopped herself.

"I came to pick you up. The new residence is ready."

Qin Mo glanced at the three girls before adding, "Himeko already went over. Come to think of it, she really doesn't act like a homeroom teacher at all. The students weren't even out of school yet, and she ran home first to drink. So she took all your luggage over with her. You don't need to go back to the dorms."

"Really? That place has already been built?"

On their first day, when they had gone to collect their textbooks and uniforms, they had seen the villa already under construction. They had told Qin Mo about it when they returned, and he had even remarked on Theresa's efficiency. But now it seemed that Theresa herself had been in quite a hurry.

"Kiana, Raiden Mei, Bronya, is this someone you know?"

While the four of them were talking, a voice came from outside the crowd.

"Huh? Class Monitor, why are you here?"

Kiana looked toward the gray-haired girl who had made her way through the crowd.

"I saw many students gathered here and was worried that something had happened."

As she spoke, she turned her gaze toward Qin Mo.

"My name is Qin Mo. I'm also a prospective teacher at the academy."

Hearing Qin Mo's words, Fu Hua sized him up and adjusted her glasses. "Are you the teacher for the two new courses?"

Fu Hua nodded and did not say much else. "I spoke out of turn."

"What was she here for?"

Kiana scratched her head in confusion as she watched Fu Hua leave after saying only a few words.

"The Class Monitor is looking out for everyone. She also wants to prevent accidents."

Mei smiled awkwardly.

"More importantly, Bronya wants to see the new home as soon as possible."

"That's true. Follow me."

He led the three girls back to the villa. Himeko was already drinking in the living room, while Theresa sat beside her reading comics.

"Oh, you're back. Let me tell you, this place is way better than the dorms. There's even a hot spring."

Himeko waved the beer can in her hand at them, looking as though she were already drunk in broad daylight.

"A hot spring! Where is it? Where is it?"

The moment Kiana heard the words "hot spring," she became excited.

"I'll take you to see it. This hot spring is great for the skin. Soaking in it for thirty minutes every day will have an effect, and any minor skin problems can be fixed."

"A hot spring... It feels like it has been a long time since I last soaked in one."

As the former young mistress of ME Corp., Raiden Mei had naturally soaked in hot springs often. But after Raiden Ryoma was imprisoned, she had not done so again. Mentioning it now made her feel especially nostalgic.

"This is Bronya's first time seeing a hot spring."

The three girls were all excited when they saw it. Kiana even ran over and started playing with the water. "It's so warm! Is this a hot spring? Where is it heated? Is there a stove underneath?"

"Idiot Kiana, hot springs get their heat naturally."

Bronya also reached out and dipped her hand into the spring. "According to Heavy Tank Bunny's analysis, the water temperature is stable at 37°C. But Bronya believes St. Freya Academy's geographical location should not have a hot spring."

"As long as it really is a hot spring, isn't that enough?"

Mei looked around at the surroundings, then at Qin Mo, and smiled. There was a hot spring in the yard, but no related facilities around it. No matter how she looked at it, it was abnormal. But she was already used to Qin Mo pulling out all sorts of strange things, so she was not surprised.

"Still, aren't you planning to separate it? Are we going to bathe together?"

Since Qin Mo had only just created the hot spring, there were no partitions or anything of the sort. When she mentioned bathing together, Mei blushed and looked away.

Kiana instantly realized the issue as well. Her face reddened, and her two braids seemed ready to fly up. But before she could say anything, Qin Mo stared at them with dead fish eyes and spoke.

"How could that happen? That Theresa even arranged my room in the farthest corner, so there's even less chance of something like that."

"All right, hurry up and choose your rooms. There are five bedrooms upstairs and five downstairs. My room is the one in the farthest corner near the entrance. Theresa and Himeko are both staying upstairs, so you girls should stay upstairs too. That way Theresa won't accuse me of seeing something I shouldn't and come over to lecture me."

Mei smiled awkwardly, but Kiana was far more direct. "I don't want to live on the same floor as Himeko. Qin Mo, you don't know this, but Himeko always comes into my room at night after drinking."

A furious roar of "It's Sister Himeko!" came from the living room, followed by silence.

"All right, all right. It's getting late. Once you've chosen your rooms, it will be time to prepare dinner. We can talk about the hot spring tonight."

The hot spring kept Kiana excited the entire time. Though Bronya maintained a cold expression, everyone could clearly sense her anticipation. After all, she was no longer in the state where her emotions had been damaged. She was merely suppressing her emotions to a certain degree for the sake of her "mission" while undercover.

As a result, the two of them did not even play their usual games that evening. After all, they had just moved into a new home, and they were looking forward to the hot spring that night...

"Ah! The hot spring!"

Kiana shouted in the living room. Theresa, however, looked toward Qin Mo. "Boys aren't allowed to come and peek. Otherwise, I'll tie you up with Judah."

"Do I look like that kind of person?"

Qin Mo replied with dead fish eyes. "I'll head back to my room first. The teaching materials for Ripple are already finished, and there are still some things to write about Haki. Let me know when you're done."

Heaven's Gate's Evolution

Though he had said he was returning to his room to write teaching materials, Qin Mo was not really in the mood to type, and he would not be able to write much at night anyway.

Because he had been busy moving into the new home that afternoon, he had not had time to study the system much after completing the mission. Now that he finally had some free time, he got to it.

First was the dungeon that had been locked due to the main mission, as well as the new changes after completing that mission.

As it turned out, although the main mission had been completed, the dungeon remained locked. However, a percentage had appeared beneath the dungeon option, and it had now reached 31%.

"Is this the progress of absorbing Honkai Energy?"

Qin Mo had not forgotten that he had first unlocked the dungeon by absorbing a large amount of Honkai Energy, including the Honkai Energy of a Herrscher that he had absorbed passively.

Looking at it this way, the charging speed was quite fast. During this period, Qin Mo had not come into contact with a large amount of Honkai Energy, much less actively absorbed any. He had only passively absorbed the Honkai Energy scattered around him, which could not compare to the absorption speed of a Herrscher.

However, the concentration of Honkai Energy in the air at St. Freya Academy was not high. He did not know how long it would take to reach 100%, but he could roughly calculate it by observing the progress tomorrow.

Setting aside the matter of the dungeon for the moment, he opened the mission panel. No new mission had appeared after the main mission was completed. Perhaps a new mission would arrive tomorrow, or perhaps it would require some special trigger like before. Still, the fact that he had triggered the main mission less than a day after arriving in Chang Kong City was not much of a reference.

After closing the mission panel, Qin Mo looked at the character cards he had been most looking forward to.

After all, they were related to the growth of his Stand. If possible, he did not want to remain in White Snake form and plunder DISC everywhere. Besides, there were no Stand users in this world, so he did not even know whether he could plunder anything.

But if he could create Stigmata as nourishment, things would become much easier. It would cost some Crystals, but Qin Mo believed that he would achieve Crystal freedom sooner or later. After all, the main storyline had not even begun, and having more character cards was useless anyway.

"Let's try King Crimson first."

He still did not know whether Stigmata transformed from ordinary characters would work, so he chose a Stand from the same origin first. Moreover, what Qin Mo wanted more was for his Stand to obtain multiple Stand abilities. The abilities of other characters might not be compatible with his Stand.

He spent 100 Crystals to transform Diavolo's character card into King Crimson's Stand Stigmata, then manifested it.

Although Stigmata could only be installed through the system, they could still be manifested.

Heaven's Gate appeared at Qin Mo's side as well. It pinched the red Stigmata from Qin Mo's hand, then opened its mouth.

"This mouth can actually open?"

Qin Mo was surprised to see the mechanical-looking face open its mouth. Then he was even more surprised to watch Heaven's Gate eat the Stigmata just like that, even chewing twice.

Then the image of King Crimson appeared on the display screen on its forehead.

"It worked!?"

Qin Mo naturally chose to absorb its ability, and he successfully obtained King Crimson's power. After trying it out, Qin Mo discovered that King Crimson's ability had mutated to a certain degree within Heaven's Gate.

Qin Mo took out Laplace's Paper and looked at the new ability that had appeared on it. Though cracks had appeared, it could still continue to appraise things. As expected of a high-level gift.

The future-seeing Epitaph had disappeared, but the ability to erase time had evolved. In addition to the ordinary use of time erasure, it had gained the ability to independently skip time. The reason it was called time skipping was because this ability was even more unreasonable than time erasure.

Although the range of time erasure covered the entire world, and Qin Mo's main body would not be affected by the outside world during that period, the movements of other people and objects would not be affected. They would continue along their original trajectories.

If an attack launched by someone else hit him during the time erasure process, it would still hit him. It was merely that everyone would lose consciousness during that period and only continue their previous actions. In essence, it was as though everyone lost their memories of those few seconds after their actions ended.

But the time-skipping ability could be cast on a single individual. For example, when facing an attack, he could directly make the targeted person skip several seconds into the future to avoid it. During those few seconds, the target would seemingly be in the same state as during Qin Mo's time erasure, but in reality, they had directly arrived several seconds into the future. The intervening seconds had completely detached from the river of time.

It had its advantages and disadvantages.

However, King Crimson's ability was not what Qin Mo cared about most. This was only a test. What he truly valued was the ability of another Stand.

Looking at the S-rank character card named The President, Qin Mo spent 500 Crystals to transform it into a Stigmata.

Five hundred Crystals were already enough to draw a new S-rank character, but drawing more character cards was meaningless. It would be a waste if he could not equip them. But if it could help Heaven's Gate grow...

After watching Heaven's Gate swallow D4C's Stigmata, Qin Mo felt a strange force envelop himself and his Stand.

"This power!"

Qin Mo watched as King Crimson, which had originally occupied Heaven's Gate's forehead, shifted to its left shoulder, while D4C's image appeared on the screen atop its head.

Not only that, Qin Mo could feel that every one of Heaven's Gate's abilities had improved. It was not merely its precision and destructive power; even its range had increased.

And the new abilities had become more complex.

D4C: Can observe adjacent worlds. Through a clamping motion, it can send people or objects into them, or bring people out from those worlds. This ability can only be used in worlds with a multiverse concept. If there are no parallel worlds or adjacent worlds, the ability cannot be activated.

Love Train: Connect you and me with love. Can connect two or more people or objects. Between connected targets, power, damage, stamina, and energy can be transferred unconditionally and without delay.

The ability had changed, and changed significantly!

Qin Mo had never used the original D4C, so he did not know exactly how its parallel-world ability worked. But this version now...

After activating the ability, Qin Mo clearly saw...

The Imaginary Tree and the Quantum Sea!

But it was only a fleeting glimpse. Under the protection of his Stand's power, both vanished completely. The only things remaining in his vision were light spots as dense as stars in the universe—World Bubbles.

"Dim means World Bubbles that are about to disappear?"

At every moment, dim spots of light completely lost their radiance, but new spots of light also appeared.

To the Imaginary Tree, these World Bubbles were merely experimental products. World Bubbles that failed the test would quickly be discarded. After losing the energy supplied by the Imaginary Tree, they would be completely eroded by Honkai Energy and disintegrate.

Qin Mo did not choose to visit the other World Bubbles. He closed the ability and looked at Heaven's Gate, which had now obtained four Stand abilities...