"Understood, Doctor." Klein accepted the test tube, preparing to take it for component analysis.
Having finished her official business, Irene turned her gaze toward Nuwa and Fuxi, who were secretly peeking in her direction, and asked with a smile:
"Nuwa, Fuxi, we are about to leave the Realm soon. Do you... want to come with us?"
How should she put it? She had saved them, after all, and she genuinely needed two portable think tanks by her side. Besides, with Fu Hua outside, bringing them along wouldn't be a loss.
The only problem was... well, would Dr. Mobius be willing to let them go?
"?!" Nuwa suddenly raised her head, her face written with shock and... a trace of imperceptible longing. She subconsciously looked at Fuxi, and Fuxi also stopped the pen in her hand.
If they had a choice, they didn't want to work overtime here. They hadn't worked this kind of shift in over ten years. Although they had reactivated their brains a bit these past few days, they had indeed cast aside research and work for too long—or rather, they had cast aside their brains for too long. Suddenly jumping back in was truly hard to adapt to.
Fuxi pushed up her glasses, trying to maintain a calm tone. At the very least, she couldn't let Mobius, who was right next to them, hear that they were actually looking forward to clocking out.
"Miss Irene, you mean..."
"I mean, there will be matters outside that require you. I might need your help." Irene blinked, a smile on her face. "It's hard for the others to go out, but you two should be able to, right?"
"Can we really?!" Nuwa almost jumped up, but was immediately held down by Fuxi. When Nuwa looked over, Fuxi passed her a 'stay calm' look and glanced at Mobius.
No matter how good Irene made it sound, and no matter how much they wanted a holiday, if Dr. Mobius didn't nod, would they really dare to leave?
Receiving Fuxi's signal, Nuwa immediately put away the joy on her face. Fuxi also looked at Mobius and asked in a low voice, "Will the Doctor... agree?"
"Hmph." Mobius's lazy voice drifted over. "You two troublemakers. Aside from increasing Klein's workload here, you aren't of much use."
"If you want to go, then go. It saves me from getting annoyed looking at you. Although your abilities are lacking, helping Irene consolidate her knowledge is something you should still be able to do."
These words sounded quite rude, but to Nuwa and Fuxi, it was like hearing a general pardon. Their faces instantly bloomed with the light of pleasant surprise.
"That's great! Thank you, Doctor!" Nuwa cheered, then immediately felt her reaction was inappropriate. She quickly restrained herself, but the smile in her eyes couldn't be hidden.
Mobius gave a light hmph and rotated her floating chair to face away from them, waving her hand to signal them to leave quickly. Now that these two were off the clock, she had to work overtime again.
She knew all too well how significant the effect of that potion was. To say it without hesitation, this could become the most important step in human evolution.
Mobius was very clear that aside from its combat power and endless reserves of troops, the Honkai had one other aspect that was most disgusting: Honkai Resistance.
This was like a sieve. You had to have Honkai Resistance to be qualified to become stronger, to be qualified to step onto the battlefield, and only then could you talk about talent and aptitude.
The same applied to research. Your IQ had nothing to do with whether you could conduct research on Honkai energy. If you touched even a little bit of Honkai energy without Honkai Resistance, something would go wrong.
Mobius had lost count of how many people died or were buried in obscurity simply because they lacked Honkai Resistance. Even the MANTIS technology had been blocked by this issue more than once.
So, if this thing was truly effective, its importance to humanity could be easily imagined. For this reason, Mobius was willing to work this shift.
"Then, let's go." Hearing Mobius agree, Irene looked at Nuwa and Fuxi with a smile. "Let's go regroup with everyone. Is there anything else you need to bring?"
"No, no, let's go quickly, quickly." Nuwa immediately shook her head, terrified that Mobius behind her would change her mind. She hurriedly pushed her own sister and followed Irene out.
When Irene returned to the Realm's lobby with Lixue, Nuwa, and Fuxi, she found Lixue, Kallen, and Pardo already waiting there. Pardo was currently attempting to use various angles to see if she could bypass the glowing mechanism of the wristband on her hand.
However, it was a pity. The things Vill-V made weren't so easily bypassed by luck. Even with the cat's luck, she hadn't found any loopholes.
It was obvious Vill-V had already thought about how to guard against the cat's luck. It made one wonder: when Vill-V made equipment, did she spend more time on the serious functions or these unserious ones?
Kallen watched from the side with great interest, occasionally offering some terrible ideas.
"Everything handled?" Kallen noticed Irene's return. "By the way, you didn't tell me we had a new recruit among us."
Evidently, during the time Irene went to fetch the others, Little Corruption had already greeted everyone and stated she was a new companion. For Little Corruption, this wasn't a difficult task.
After all, two cats couldn't exist in the Realm, and as pure soul bodies, Lixue and Kallen couldn't hide from Little Corruption—especially with Elysia right there.
"Mm." Irene nodded. She looked around the lobby and fixed her gaze on Little Corruption, who was discussing something with Elysia. "Little Corruption, are you ready? We should get going."
"Wait a moment, wait a moment~" Little Corruption trotted over, a happy smile on her face. She then looked at Irene with a mysterious air.
"Irene, I have a surprise to tell you. Can you guess what it is?"
"Hmm?" Irene tilted her head. "I don't know, but to satisfy your desire for mystery, just assume I've guessed twenty-something times. I want to know the answer too much, so just tell me."
"...Can you even say it like that?" Little Corruption looked at Irene, a displeased expression hanging on her face. "Then you might as well guess what I actually did!"
However, having been disrupted by Irene like this, Little Corruption lost the joy of being mysterious. She spread her hands directly, and a pile of glass slips appeared in her palm. Inside each glass slip was a portrait of a Flame-Chaser.
Watching the glass slips in Little Corruption's hand, the corner of Irene's mouth twitched slightly. Flame-Chaser portraits plus glass, plus the fact that Little Corruption brought them out—this was enough to trigger her PTSD.
"What is this for?" Irene took a deep breath to calm her emotions. "Don't tell me you fussed around for so long just to make bookmarks."
"Of course that's impossible." Little Corruption shook her head. How could she have just made bookmarks? "This is just the appearance, the appearance."
"As for the use, it ensures there is a node here that can connect with the outside."
"Connect with the outside? If I remember correctly, the Realm should be an internal black box, right?" Irene turned to look at the exit. The entire Realm only connected to the outside world through there; that was a physical interface.
Only physical entities could leave from the outside. Just like in the story, the Herrscher of Corruption brought in by Mei could only leave through Mei or Klein.
Otherwise, no matter how strong the Herrscher of Corruption was, it could only occupy the entire Realm; it couldn't reach the outside directly.
"That is indeed the case, but it's different with me around." Little Corruption shook the standee in her hand. "Plus, with the cooperation of Elysia and the others, isn't creating a connection channel an easy task for me?"
"Fine, fine, fine, you're amazing." Irene applauded somewhat perfunctorily. "But how about you first tell me what you plan to do with this connection channel? You don't just purely want to chat, do you?"
"Mm, actually, it is just a group chat." As Little Corruption spoke, she produced a photo album. "You can send messages in from the outside. Originally I wanted to make it video chat..."
"Mm, but I encountered a slight technical difficulty."
"Oh, so you built a group chat." Irene listened and nodded. That was acceptable. If anything came up, she could mention it in advance. If Mobius figured out the mass production method, she could know immediately without making a special trip back.
"Ah, it's not just that. If needed—although it's one-time use—as long as you snap the corresponding standee, I can briefly bring Ellie to our side."
"And I can directly use the Corruption virus to build a temporary body for them. I have their combat data here too, so the Corruption virus can reconstruct their combat abilities."
"In short, it's equivalent to saying I can pull thirteen people out, even if it's just a one-time thing."
Hearing this, Irene's eyes lit up. The operational scope for this was huge. "Then can you make two more sets?"
"Mm, no." Little Corruption shook her head. "This is already chiseling a backdoor into the Elysian Realm. Any more and it's prone to problems. Besides, the amount of virus consumed isn't small."
"Oh, is that so." Irene nodded, but she wasn't too disappointed. "It doesn't matter. This is enough. There shouldn't be anything else, right?"
"That should be it." Little Corruption shook her head. The others followed suit and shook their heads, while Nuwa and Fuxi shook their heads so hard they looked like rattle drums.
What a joke. If they waited a moment longer and Dr. Mobius came killing her way out to make them work overtime, would they dare say 'no'? Running away quickly was the righteous path!
Anyway, it wasn't like Dr. Mobius could kill her way out of the Realm to make them work overtime.
"Since there's nothing else, we'll be going then." Irene nodded, then turned to look at Elysia. "Beautiful Miss Elf, we will see you next time."
"Mm-hm." Elysia nodded, a gentle smile on her face. "Do your best, okay? If you feel tired, you can come back to find us and rest anytime."
"I won't do that. There are still many things outside." Irene shook her head. "I don't have much time to stop my footsteps. I still have many things to do."
"Then don't let yourself get tired out either." Elysia rubbed Irene's head. "You must know that you aren't alone behind you. You have to believe in everyone~"
"Don't worry, I don't plan on being a lone hero." Irene looked at Elysia. "I am just a butterfly. I just want the whole story to develop in a direction I hope for more."
"I hope this story can move better toward the Grand Reunion ending I desire."
"I am definitely going to make these dumplings."
"Mm?" Hearing Irene's words, Elysia tilted her head. Although she didn't quite understand what 'making dumplings' meant in this context, Elysia still revealed an encouraging expression toward Irene.
Irene accepted this encouragement, then turned and walked toward the light gate. She stood by the gate, turning back to look at everyone with some confusion.
"By the way, how are you all going to return to me?"
As soon as these words came out, the people around looked at each other in dismay. They had been pushed out by the Realm, but evidently, the Realm didn't cover the return trip.
The Realm handled decompression, but it seemed it didn't provide re-encryption services. This left Irene a bit stumped; this wasn't quite the same as the Palace of Consciousness last time.
Because that was more like a multiplayer dream, whereas here, the Realm had genuinely built bodies for them.
"Mm, right." Pardo scratched her head. They didn't know how they got out, so how were they supposed to go back now?
"Mm, can't we just retract the souls?" Little Corruption tilted her head. It wasn't like she hadn't done this work before. "Irene, don't you have the Bodhi imprint?"
"Haven't studied it yet." Irene scratched her cheek. These past days she had only been frantically cramming knowledge at Mobius's place; she really hadn't looked for a book to learn about the Bodhi imprint and soul-related matters.
"Alright then, leave it to me." The Bodhi imprint flashed on Little Corruption's hand. She could go back directly herself; this wasn't difficult for her, as she had come out on her own before.
But the others obviously couldn't. Irene had the Bodhi imprint but hadn't learned how to use it, so she was clearly unreliable. Thus, it could only be up to Little Corruption to help.
"Come, come, come, stand in a line." Under Little Corruption's command, everyone stood in a single file. At the very front was Irene.
But before Irene could figure out why Little Corruption wanted them to stand like this, she heard the sound of rapid footsteps coming from behind.
Subsequently, Irene felt an extremely strong force from behind. Following this push, Irene tumbled directly out through the light curtain.
And what happened behind Irene wasn't anything too complicated or difficult to describe. It was simply Little Corruption adopting a charging posture for an Iron Mountain Lean.
She slammed everyone directly into Irene's body. Although the others were top-tier warriors and logically shouldn't be knocked over so easily...
The moment Little Corruption made contact with them, their bodies automatically dissolved, revealing their essential souls. Having lost physical contact, they naturally couldn't talk about standing firm.
Just like that, Little Corruption slammed everyone directly back into Irene's body. And just as she was about to return herself, she even had the spare time to turn back and make a 'bye-bye' gesture to Elysia.
Elysia, standing to the side and watching this scene, revealed a smile that looked somewhat helpless.
For some reason, Elysia recalled the situation when Irene had just entered and was pinned under everyone. There was an inexplicable similarity.
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