Oh, Oh, Oh! Super Vacation!

"Mm, okay... Sorry, Professor Mornye."

"It won't happen again. I promise it won't..."

"Oh, I'll talk to Dania about it..."

"Goodbye, Professor Mornye. Get some rest..."

After ending the call from Mornye, Lu Guan let out a long sigh and lay down on Dania's bed.

Dania thoughtfully leaned over and began massaging Lu Guan's head.

"What did Professor Mornye say?"

"It's nothing. She's just docking some marks from our coursework." Lu Guan reached out and played with a few strands of hair hanging naturally beside Dania's face. "Professor Mornye looks hard to get along with, but she's actually pretty reasonable..."

"That's why... I think the people here are all lovely." Dania's words were a little heavy. "If the president's plan succeeds, everything at the academy will disappear. That would be such a shame."

"Don't worry... She won't succeed..."

Though Lu Guan didn't know why the Fractsidus kept winning in the game's story, now that he had come to Solaris, he wasn't about to sit back and do nothing.

But he wasn't stepping in for some notion of justice. He simply couldn't stand watching the Fractsidus constantly stir up trouble everywhere for that little bit of darkness behind them...

Just as Lu Guan and Dania were being affectionate with each other, Lynae brought Sigelika back to Stardust Academy.

"Um... Sigelika, the academic affairs office is just ahead." Lynae forced a smile as she pointed the way for Sigelika. "I have something else to do, so I won't go in with you..."

"Mm, okay. Thank you, Senior Lynae." Sigelika got off and gave Lynae a sweet smile.

"...Also, when you meet Teacher Voss at the academic affairs office, whatever you do, don't tell her I brought you here." Lynae pressed her hands together in a pleading gesture.

"Huh?" Sigelika was puzzled, but seeing how earnest Lynae looked, she asked no more and nodded. "Okay, I understand."

"Hia↗hia↘hia→hia↗" After letting out a sugary laugh, Lynae patted Sigelika on the shoulder. "Once I have some free time in a few days, I'll take you out for another ride!"

With that, she climbed onto her survey motorcycle and prepared to ride off, but no matter how she twisted the throttle, the motorcycle didn't budge.

"Holy crap, who locked my motorcycle?"

"After you entered the school, I asked Mr. S.I.G.M.A to disable your access to it..."

Teacher Voss's voice came from behind Sigelika.

"Lynae! Skipping class again! Let's see where you run this time!"

Sigelika: ???

Dekopon, who had yet to be corrupted by the academy's atmosphere of eccentricity, couldn't make sense of what was happening, but she was deeply shocked. "Senior Lynae was skipping class this whole time?"

"And you are...?" Teacher Voss stepped forward and hauled Lynae off the motorcycle, then looked questioningly at Sigelika.

"Teacher Voss, she's a new student this year... She was delayed by her coming-of-age ceremony... so she's only reporting in now," Lynae explained from the side, though she looked comical from every angle, like a kitten being held by the scruff of fate.

"Is that so..." Teacher Voss nodded and set Lynae down where she was. "Lynae, you stay right here and behave. I'm going to process this student's enrollment."

With that, she turned around, her expression becoming gentle as she took the somewhat nervous Sigelika into the academic affairs office.

"Now then, what's your name?"

"I... I'm Sigelika!"

"Did you bring your admission letter? Let me see..."

"It's in my bag. Here-for you!"

As Sigelika cooperated with Teacher Voss, she pondered a deeply philosophical question.

Just how does Senior Lynae make that laugh?

Time passed quickly at the academy.

In the blink of an eye, the semester was almost over.

During this time, besides raising Dania's affection to 100, Lu Guan had also gained varying amounts of favorability through his interactions with the others.

The reward for 100 affection was a 20% increase in resonance efficiency. Combined with the two cores Lu Guan had previously comprehended, his resonance efficiency had now increased by 40%, making him comparable to a normal Resonator.

Aside from Chisa, who had already left Lahai-Roi, the romanceable characters Lacerta, Lu Hes, and Sigelika had all reached the initial reward threshold of 20.

Naturally, he had also accumulated four rewards, each increasing his resonance ability development by 10%.

In plain terms: he had saved up a few ultimate bang snaps.

It was worth mentioning that, perhaps by an arrangement of fate, Sigelika and Dania had still become genuine best friends. Lynae, meanwhile, had not been exposed in Lacerta's academy investigation for pretending to be an undercover Fractsidus agent.

What would happen later was hard to say, but Lahai-Roi's real story wouldn't begin until Rover arrived.

And with Sigelika's unlocking, the bond system had gained a new bond-[Peerless Best Friends].

[Bond: Peerless Best Friends]

[Sigelika, Dania]

[Effect: When the host pursues a romanceable character who has a best friend, he will simultaneously gain favorability with that best friend.]

Sigelika's favorability had risen while Lu Guan was hard at work raising Dania's affection. It was already as high as 32, just eight points away from unlocking a breakthrough quest.

What was harder to take seriously was... wasn't there a bond called [Earthshaking Three Figures] before?

After the system's 2.0 update, each character bond in the bond system had gained an icon.

The [Earthshaking Three Figures] icon depicted three sweating yellow faces with the hairstyles and hair ornaments of Changli, Suisui, and Lacerta.

The [Peerless Best Friends] icon, meanwhile, depicted Dania and Sigelika dumplings from Dumpling Race 2.0.

There was another pleasant surprise: Augusta.

At some point, Augusta's icon had quietly appeared among the system's romanceable characters. From the preview, Lu Guan could even see that, like Dania, Augusta had a special reward for reaching maximum favorability.

According to what the system had said before, to achieve a "perfect ending," he had to finish pursuing every character with a special reward.

Dania was manageable, but Augusta...

Pursuing her would be no easier than turning Dong Zhuo, who burned Luoyang, into a loyal minister of Great Han, restoring the Luo River's credibility after the Incident at Gaoping Tombs, or making Phrolova give up on resurrecting her family from the town.

"Now that I think of Phrolova, why do I have a bad feeling about this..." Lu Guan felt an inexplicable chill down his spine. "That crazy woman isn't also a romanceable character with a special reward, is she?"

If so... she would be much harder to deal with than Augusta.

In his previous life, plenty of people in the community called themselves Phrolova fans while whitewashing her actions. Leaving aside what mentality they had, the crucial question was, did Phrolova herself want to be whitewashed?

The answer was obvious-she didn't care.

Would a true Phrolova fan want her to be whitewashed at the end of her story and turn back into that pure girl in a white dress?

The answer was equally obvious-no one wanted that.

If a character's will was twisted because the plot or a certain group of people needed it, forcing a villain who had already resolved to follow one path to the bitter end to turn around and embrace the light...

Who was that supposed to please?

Lu Guan believed that if a character was driven by the plot, they no longer possessed self-awareness. Only characters who could drive the plot were truly flesh and blood...

Though this depended heavily on the writer's skill, in the end, it was still up to the players and readers to vote.

And Phrolova needed no vote.

Because a pure villain needed no one else to understand her. Five hundred years spent waiting for the person who might once have understood her had been far too long. She would wait no longer, nor was there any need to...

"If pursuing Phrolova really is one of the keys to the perfect ending... what should I do when the time comes?"

Lu Guan wasn't good at making choices, and besides, this question was still far removed from him, so he left the choice to his future self.

"I'll take it one step at a time for now..."

As the vacation drew near, Lu Guan received quite a few letters and messages from home.

His father asked how well Lu Guan had mastered his resonance ability.

His mother asked if Lu Guan was coming home for the vacation.

Suisui sent him some strange little trinkets.

Yangyang, meanwhile, invited Lu Guan to visit Jinzhou during the vacation once again.

"Hmm... So what are you planning to do for the vacation?" Dania tilted her head and looked at Lu Guan. "You can't stay at the academy for two months, can you?"

"That depends on you." Lu Guan smiled. "Do you want to come home with me and meet my parents, or go on a trip to Jinzhou together?"

"Meet... meet your parents!!!" Dania's face instantly turned bright red, and wisps of steam began rising from her head. "Isn't that a little too fast... I'm not mentally prepared yet..."

"Then how about we go to Jinzhou together?" Seeing Dania shy away, Lu Guan promptly offered another suggestion. "We don't know when the president might come back, so I can't leave you alone at the academy."

"Can't we pick a more relaxing vacation option?" Dania seemed to deflate and flopped onto Lu Guan's back. "Traveling sounds so tiring. Can I choose to sleep at the academy for two months?"

"Even bears don't hibernate in the summer." Lu Guan spread his hands helplessly. "Come to think of it, you haven't really traveled much, have you... You ought to broaden your horizons, right?"

"Jinzhou works too..." Dania's eyes turned as she spoke coquettishly. "But you have to promise me one thing!"

Lu Guan asked, "What is it?"

"Promise me first..." the girl said sweetly, suddenly leaning forward. Her ample figure made Lu Guan feel as though two sandbags were pressing against his back, leaving him a little short of breath.

"All right, all right, I promise." Lu Guan hurriedly begged for mercy. "Just get off me first. My back's about to break."

"Hehe..." Dania got off Lu Guan triumphantly, then leaned close to his ear and whispered her request.

"That's it?" The corner of Lu Guan's mouth twitched.

It wasn't that he thought Dania's request would be difficult. It was just a little bizarre, not like something Dania would come up with...

Buy a birthday cake and leave it in the underground laboratory facility in Darkhollow, write Dania's name on it, and finally bury a handmade, trigger-activated concentrated Void Matter bomb inside.

If the president came back and saw the cake, she would definitely take it, and then she would get a huge surprise!

"Well? Isn't it genius?"

"Genius, sure, but it doesn't sound like something you'd think up..." Lu Guan teased. "Coming up with such a nasty trick-who taught you to be so bad?"

"As if you don't know!" Dania gave Lu Guan a pretty roll of her eyes. "Who else could it be? It's all thanks to someone's words and example..."

"All right..." Lu Guan couldn't argue with that.