Coach, I Want to Learn How to Deliver Food!

She had actually given him the good guy card again, that idiot Kiana.

Watching Kiana sit there like some old master, patting her belly, Mo Yi felt it was time to get down to business.

Other people had to pay the price thirteen times over after eating a six-yuan spicy hotpot meal. Kiana, you had just eaten a lavish dinner from me, Mo Yi. How could you possibly get away without paying any price at all?

Forgive me, Kiana. This was only the first time. There would be plenty more in the future.

"Kiana—"

Mo Yi's expression turned serious as he said to Kiana:

"Kiana, since you're living here, and right next door to me at that, I should at least get a basic understanding of your situation. If you're some wanted criminal or runaway Princess, an ordinary person like me can't handle that kind of trouble."

"Don't you agree?"

That was right. Mo Yi intended to probe into Kiana's background. She had said before that she was an E-class cultivator. As someone with supernatural powers, she surely knew plenty of things Mo Yi did not.

After eating Mo Yi's feast and sensing no ill intent from him, Kiana's favorability toward him rose dramatically. Besides, what he said did make sense.

So Kiana began telling him her story.

Kiana's father had vanished one day, so she began searching for him. The final clue she found was that he had once appeared in Changkong City, so she had followed the trail here.

Mo Yi: Isn't this the familiar opening backstory of Kiana from Honkai Impact 3rd? If I remembered correctly.

Kiana had likely spent all this time on the journey of searching for her father. A girl traveling alone like this was bound to suffer hardship and exhaustion, but the process of persevering alone was just as lonely.

For someone as cheerful and outgoing as Kiana, it was even harder to bear.

So once Mo Yi got her talking, she began chattering away nonstop. Old Master Mo Yi could only guide her along and steer her toward topics that interested him.

After talking for a full hour, until Kiana's mouth was practically dry, Mo Yi had genuinely learned quite a bit of common knowledge about the world of cultivators.

Of course, it was only ordinary common knowledge. With Kiana's status as an E-class cultivator, she had no access to more confidential information.

First of all, cultivators did not have clearly defined ranks. Kiana had encountered all sorts of cultivators: those with superpowers, those with mutated bodies, martial artists, mechanical types... every kind imaginable. Their only common trait was the ability to absorb Aura from the air to strengthen themselves.

As for the E-class rating she had mentioned earlier, it was merely an assessment issued by the cultivators' side. It took into account a cultivator's personal strength, potential, mission records, and various other factors.

E-class did not necessarily mean cannon fodder, but anyone at the highest S-class was definitely a big shot.

When she mentioned being an E-class cultivator, Kiana said indignantly that she simply could not reveal her true strength for certain reasons. Otherwise, she definitely would not be E-class—at the very least, she would be C-class.

Whether Kiana was boasting to save face or telling the truth, Mo Yi could not say.

"Cough, cough—"

Hearing Kiana proudly mention her title, "Sonic Kiana," again, Mo Yi could not help thinking of a certain aloof ninja, Sonic the Hedgehog. Suppressing his laughter, he suggested, "Kiana, I don't think the title 'Sonic Kiana' suits you very well."

"Didn't you say you specialize in Gun Fu? Why not call yourself 'Piltover Enforcer Kiana' or 'Berserk Girl Kiana'? Wouldn't that sound much cooler?"

"You think titles are something you can just change yourself?"

Kiana replied irritably:

"This title was earned based on my mission performance."

"So that means you're really fast?"

"Of course—"

Kiana said proudly:

"By myself, I can deliver takeout to an entire district within the time limit. If someone else did it, it would take at least a dozen people."

Mo Yi: "..."

According to Kiana, registered cultivators could obtain many things from the Cultivator Association that could not be found elsewhere. More importantly, cultivators could accept missions from the association.

It was easy enough to understand. With cultivators being such an unstable factor, major powers naturally needed to pacify and manage them. The Cultivator Association was that kind of organization. Pure restriction would not work, since people needed to make a living. Issuing missions was a way to guide cultivators into using their power for proper purposes.

It also gave cultivators a way to earn money for food, killing several birds with one stone.

However, these missions all had rank restrictions. Newcomers at the lowest rank, like Kiana, could only take on jobs such as delivering takeout.

But the information that concerned Mo Yi the most came afterward: with the emergence of cultivators, little monsters known as Honkai Beasts had also begun appearing around the world. Eliminating these Honkai Beasts was the main duty of high-ranking cultivators.

Because information was being suppressed on all fronts, and Honkai Beasts had not yet appeared frequently, most ordinary people like Mo Yi still knew nothing about them.

But according to Kiana, for some reason, Honkai Beasts had appeared more and more often over the past half year. She herself had encountered several on her journey here.

"Honkai Beasts?"

The moment he heard the term, Mo Yi immediately felt that things were going badly.

And when Kiana mentioned "Honkai Beasts," her gaze clearly shifted away. She obviously looked guilty about something.

Coach, I Want to Learn How to Deliver Takeout!

In Kiana's account, people who could absorb the Aura in the air had begun appearing around sixteen years ago. Those people later became the cultivators of today.

Likewise, humans were not the only species capable of absorbing the new energy that had appeared on Earth. Other animals and plants could do so as well. However, the energy they absorbed was called Honkai Energy, and it differed significantly from the Aura absorbed by humans. Creatures and plants that evolved by absorbing Honkai Energy became more aggressive, with most possessing a high degree of hostility.

Of course, that was merely the mainstream view today.

Before meeting Kiana, Mo Yi might have believed it. But after encountering Kiana, the Heroine of the Honkai World, and considering that the city he was in was called Changkong City, the string of coincidences left him no choice but to be suspicious.

If this world broadly followed the setting of the Honkai World, then according to Mo Yi's guess, it should be like this: Honkai was something created by Earth or the universe to eliminate the pest known as "human civilization." It had existed since the eras of several previous Ancient Civilizations, and had successfully forced human civilization to shut down and restart several times.

Therefore, Honkai Energy was toxic to humans themselves. Only a very small number of mutants could resist its corrosion and use it to strengthen themselves.

As for the newly emerged energy, "Aura," which allowed humans to cultivate or evolve, Mo Yi did not know whether it had existed during the Ancient Civilization era. However, Aura seemed more like something that had appeared specifically to help humanity resist Honkai Energy.

As for why it had appeared, that was harder to say.

In such a short span of time, Mo Yi had already thought of several possibilities.

It might have been a contingency left behind by survivors of an Ancient Civilization. Or perhaps it came from a future powerhouse who had returned to the past to alter history and save the world.

Since Earth had a will, could humanity, having been shut down and restarted several times yet remaining so tenacious, have formed such a "Will" as well?

Who was to say? Perhaps this was something created by the Human Civilization Will to oppose the Honkai Will.

After all, only the mysterious could fight the mysterious. The Honkai Will was clearly taking the supernatural route to wipe out humanity. If the Human Civilization Will did not create something similar to oppose it and instead kept trying to fight with technology, that would just be stubbornly smashing its head against a wall.