Right at the center, three enormous module icons lined up in a row, radiating a cold, faint glow.
At the very top was a line of blindingly gilded text:
[Valkyrie Cultivation System Ver1.0 — "Foster Father's Wish" Special Edition]
"...Your taste in naming things is, as always, borderline criminal."
Su Yu rubbed his temples in his mind and let his awareness drift toward the first module.
[Module I: Imaginary Energy Conversion Engine]
The light-screen instantly unfolded an incredibly complex energy topology diagram.
Su Yu's pupils contracted slightly.
He understood it.
The core logic was surprisingly blunt and simple.
At its heart, the engine forcibly inserted an extremely thin "illegal pipeline" between the roots of the higher-dimensional Imaginary Tree and this parched, withered reality.
Rather than drawing Honkai energy directly, it collected, compressed, and purified the most extreme emotional fluctuations generated by tens of millions of humans across this world.
In the end, it refined all of that into a "pure Imaginary energy" utterly free of corrosive toxicity.
Su Yu's gaze dropped lower. A conversion ratio chart, densely packed, filled half the holographic screen:
[Joy (Mild): 0.3%]
[Sorrow (Moderate): 1.2%]
[Anger (Severe): 2.7%]
[Being Moved/Empathy (Deep): 4.5%]
The more intense and extreme the emotional tearing, the higher the conversion efficiency.
Beneath it followed a line of blood-red text:
[Note: The above are base multipliers. As Honkai Impact 3rd's chapters progress and players' psychological defenses collapse further, the conversion ratio will surge in tiers. Currently at "Tier One."]
Su Yu stared at that chart for a good half minute.
He thought of the flood of danmaku in Elysia's livestream, viewers bawling their eyes out.
He thought of the wails across the entire internet when Sparkle stoked the flames like a madwoman, and how, the night Final Lesson was released, every one of the top ten trending topics had been people cursing his name.
Those tears, that fury, every anguished cry of "you mutt of a game designer, give me back my Himeko!"
All of it was fuel.
A chill crept up Su Yu's spine.
He had finally, completely understood the role he played in this world.
Everything he'd done before — the meticulously engineered "Emotional Engineering," the bone-scraping blades slipped in right after handing out sweetness, peeling back players' psychological defenses layer by layer before driving the knife home—
It had all been far too useful.
Useful beyond anything he'd expected, really.
"And who's available to receive it?" Su Yu asked inwardly.
[Current targets eligible to receive pure Imaginary energy: Kiana Kaslana, Rita Rossweisse. Total: two.]
Su Yu let his gaze slide sideways, unhurried, over the two women beside him.
One was a white-haired fool who, despite being a Herrscher, had been drained of all her power in this magic-less world.
The other was a maid with no bloodline advantage whatsoever.
Here, they had originally had nothing.
But now, the tears of tens of millions of players would become their strength.
[Module II: Stigmata Inscription System]
The instant he opened the second module, Su Yu sat bolt upright in his broad command chair.
Two translucent human models floated at the center of the interface.
One already bore faint markings across its back — the Kaslana family's natural Stigmata.
The other's back was covered in an intricate, tangled mass of artificial Stigmata, riddled with traces of violent modification.
[Note: Stigmata sequences purchased with Emotion Points will be injected into the target's body via nanobot carriers. These do not belong to the natural sequence, but they carry none of the fatal side effects of artificial Stigmata — no genetic rejection, no lifespan drain.]
Su Yu's gaze lingered on Rita's model, then he glanced up at the maid standing quietly nearby, head bowed as she checked the base's logistics inventory.
If Durandal represented the ultimate limit of genius and effort, then Rita was the cruel peak that a mortal body alone could reach.
In the Honkai world, she had been an S-rank built purely out of her own life and skill.
Artificial Stigmata were a crude imitation, copying the form without the substance — every burst of power squeezed out more of the little lifespan she had left.
Su Yu's fingertip traced across the model's back, and a row of selectable sequences popped up.
The price was absurdly steep.
He didn't so much as blink.
"So the purchasing power for this stuff... runs entirely on Emotion Points?"
[That's right.]
[Module III: Cross-Dimensional Store]
After opening the third module, Su Yu fell silent for a long while.
Anything displayed in the Store — toss even a single item into an Anti-Entropy lab — would be enough to keep Tesla and Einstein awake, working like madmen, for three days and nights straight.
Basic Honkai energy circuit designs, advanced spatial-folding algorithms, complete sets of Valkyrie armor blueprints.
There was even a black-bordered item marked "Limited," its price column bearing only a single small line: [Not yet unlocked. Requires achieving a Concept Bond.]
Su Yu didn't linger on it. He ran a quick mental calculation instead.
At the current "Tier One" tear conversion rate, the balance he'd accumulated over the past few days was at least enough to get Rita a side-effect-free Stigmata sequence right away.
Just then, that electronic voice dripping with the worst kind of bad taste exploded straight through Su Yu's nerves:
[Host, did you forget to check out the most exciting thing of all?]
[This Valkyrie Cultivation System is tightly bound to your Tarot Bond Array, you know~]
The light-screen flickered.
Su Yu's familiar Tarot panel unfolded.
The Empress, The Fool, The Chariot, Justice... beneath every single card, a new line of scarlet data had appeared:
[Emotion Conversion Bonus Multiplier]
The higher the Bond rank, the more absurd the bonus.
[Eden (The Empress), Rank 8. Bonus Multiplier: 4.2x.]
[Kevin (The Chariot), Rank MAX. Bonus Multiplier: 3.5x.]
The System's voice turned sticky-sweet, like a pimp hawking business in some back alley at midnight:
[See that? Everyone whose Bond with you runs deep enough — every ounce of emotion they generate in daily life gets converted into fuel at exponential rates. The euphoria of a lucky gacha pull, the despair of getting shipped down, the thrill of a joyride…]
The System paused, deliberately.
[And of course, that also includes the peak of human dopamine and hormonal release... procreation.]
The control room went silent enough to hear a pin drop.
[I'm saying sex counts too, you know. And the multiplier's on a nuclear-explosion scale.]
The hand holding Su Yu's teacup froze mid-air; the tea nearly sloshed onto the console.
Slowly, he raised his other hand and pressed his palm hard against his face.
"You... say that again?"
[In other words, Host, you now have two paths to saving the world.]
[Path one: become an iron-blooded, ruthless game designer, harvesting the tears of players across the entire internet by any means necessary. Path two...]
The System let out a sigh that all but begged to be smacked:
[Let your Bond targets savor life's ultimate pleasures more often! The adrenaline rush when Eden hits 180 on a joyride with you, the illicit thrill of secretly dating someone else behind Elysia's back, even the heartbreak and devastation on Elysia's face when she finds out the truth—]
[Tsk tsk tsk, top-grade purity, all of it! Foster Father would drool with envy just watching!]
Su Yu slowly lowered his hand.
At the edge of his vision—
Rita had tilted her head slightly, her red eyes full of curious tenderness as she studied him, as if wondering why the Supreme Commander's face had suddenly started twitching.
Su Yu turned away and aimed a flat, humorless smile at empty air.
"Fine, fine, fine. So that's the game, is it? Save the world by starting with joyrides with Eden and betraying Elysia's trust? What is this, some kind of Ellie TV reality show? Why don't you just tie me to a cross and burn me at the stake while you're at it."
The System knew when to quit while it was ahead, instantly dropping the act, its tone turning crisp and businesslike:
[Alright, down to business. As a reward for exceeding expectations on your Main Mission's emotion harvest, Foster Father is issuing the following supplies.]
The light-screen refreshed, and a long list cascaded down like a waterfall:
[Imaginary Energy Conversion Engine · Core Blueprint x2]
[Valkyrie Armor Design Blueprint — Void Drifter (Kiana Exclusive)]
[Valkyrie Armor Design Blueprint — Shadow Iron (Rita Exclusive)]
[Weapon Design Blueprint — Firmament Tearer / Genome Reaper]
[New Polymer Material Sequence / Small Quantity of Raw soul-steel]
[Nano Stigmata Inscriber · Basic Model x2]
Su Yu's gaze sharpened instantly.
He clicked open the preview for "Void Drifter."
The holographic model rotated slowly across his retina — a black-and-white skin-tight combat suit, crisp modular armor plating.
He opened "Shadow Iron" next — the familiar green, the familiar design, and that classic headpiece that gave away the designer's particular fetish.
Faithful to the original, exactly as it should be.
He leaned back in his chair.
Armor blueprints, material sequences, Stigmata inscribers.
It was, in effect, laying the entire foundation for him.
As his mind raced, Su Yu suddenly sat bolt upright.
"Wait a second. If Emotion Points can serve as fuel and the engine can convert energy, why not just stuff this engine straight into one of Anti-Entropy's Titan mechs?"
"Mass-producing ten thousand Titans fitted with emotion engines beats messing around with miniature fusion reactors any day, doesn't it?"
The System went quiet for two seconds.
Then a wave of speechless "are you missing a brainstem" energy washed over him.
A deeply mocking stick-figure sketch popped up on the light-screen.
A massive tree (the Imaginary Tree), with two little smiling leaves (Valkyries) sprouting from its trunk.
[The engine's whole principle runs on theft! Kiana and Rita are already recognized by the Imaginary Tree. The engine parasitizes them the way a tree sprouts new leaves — no immune rejection.]
The image shifted.
The leaf turned into a square lump of iron with a skull drawn on it — a Titan mech.
[But if you shove this thing into a soulless hunk of steel, that's like welding a slab of iron straight onto the tree's roots. The Imaginary Tree would spot the foreign object instantly.]
In the sketch, the great tree instantly went dark, countless tentacle-like roots wrapping frenziedly around the iron plate.
[Here's the result: it would trace its way straight down the network cable to you, Honkai would descend early, and it'd reduce you and your scrap heap to ash. The end, roll credits, Foster Father visits your grave. Got it?]
Su Yu stared at the absurd little sketch, his eye twitching twice. "...How long did it take you to draw this garbage?"
[Three seconds. Don't change the subject.]
Su Yu sighed.
"Got it. The System lives up to its name — it only works on Valkyries, and there are only two engines available."
[Of course, don't get discouraged, Host~ If you gain a new Bond target, the corresponding cap will unlock too~ Though Valkyries are rare finds you can't just seek out on purpose. Who knows who your next Bond target might be~?]
Su Yu sighed. The System was, as ever, a riddling menace.
Just as he was about to close the interface and tell Rita and Kiana about the newly upgraded features—
[Ding! Host, don't rush off to be a model worker just yet. The Stage One emotion harvest has already been settled — did you forget your Tarot Bond Array should be getting its own share of the spoils too?]
The light-screen flashed abruptly, forcibly overwriting the blueprint data.
Su Yu's familiar Tarot panel unfolded once more, but this time the visual style was entirely different.
Within the card array that normally radiated a soft golden light symbolizing Bond and hope, four cards now looked as though they'd been soaked in blood, slowly flipping over across Su Yu's retina.
The cards turned from upright to reversed.
The scarlet glow felt almost too harsh in the dim control room.
[Tarot Array updated. Certain Bond targets detected to have met specific conditions. Reversed Awakening initiated.]
[Current Reversed Awakening targets: Death (Sirin), The Chariot (Kevin Kaslana), The Hanged Man (Rita Rossweisse).]
[As well as one in a partial Reversed Awakening state: The Sun (Susannah Manatt).]
As the words faded, beneath the four blood-stained Tarot cards, oppressively heavy skill boxes popped up one after another:
[Death (Bond Source: Sirin)]
Extracted Authority: [Herrscher of the Void Authority (Incomplete)]
[Grants the Host the ability to tear through three-dimensional physical laws — Outclassed by None.]
[The Chariot (Bond Source: Kevin Kaslana)]
Extracted Authority: [Karma Demon Furnace]
[Forcibly converts physical trauma the Host suffers into raging bioelectricity and physical destructive force. The more severe the injury, the more violent the bodily eruption.]
Concept Armament: Judgment of Shamash (NEW)
[The Divine Key representing destructive might — every time Heavenly Flame is drawn, it's to protect someone precious.]
[HIGH-RISK WARNING!! For a Host without Chimera-factor high-speed regeneration, the heat unleashed by [Cleaver of Shamash] will incinerate your body to ash in an instant! Currently, the only viable path forward is to continue raising Kevin Kaslana's strength to unlock new skills.]
[The Hanged Man (Bond Source: Rita Rossweisse)]
Extracted Authority: [Shadow Stalk] & [Perfect Maid's Magic Mirror]
[The former grants absolute stealth, concealing heartbeat and infrared signature; the latter allows the Host to achieve a flawless disguise of appearance and presence by adjusting micro-expressions and biomagnetic field.]
[The Sun (Bond Source: Susannah Manatt)]
[Status: Partially Awakened / Not Fully Unlocked.]
[The Empress (Bond Source: Eden)]
[Status: Partially Awakened / Not Fully Unlocked.]
Concept Armament: Star of Eden (Incomplete)
[The Divine Key representing Gravity Control — tyrant of the heavens, witness the shattering of stars.]
[HIGH-RISK WARNING: Rated Output Zero · Pseudo-Black-Hole is currently locked. Forcibly activating Rated Output Zero will cause irreversible trauma!]
Su Yu studied the cards, each one radiating extreme killing intent and a brutal aesthetic of violence, a strange light flickering in his eyes. "Upright and reversed — what does that actually mean?"
[Simple enough.]
[Upright provides the everyday.]
[Things like Eden's funding, Bronie's intel, or that absurd development speed at the studio. Think of it as the peacetime filter.]
[Reversed, meanwhile, is violence — the kind you're forced into for the sake of protecting this damned world.]
The System pulled up a strict, unforgiving progression chain on the light-screen:
[Completing a Reversed Awakening isn't something you can just stack up through affection alone.]
[Prerequisite one: the target must have opened their Genetic Lock, or — like Sirin — be a Valkyrie/Herrscher and have reached a correspondingly extreme Bond rank with you.]
[Prerequisite two: the Host must have shared a hidden, soul-touching pivotal event together with the target.]
[Something like your battle of wills to Tame the Queen, or that blood-soaked overpass in the rain with Kevin, or the subjugation battle where you made this perfect maid bow her head and swear fealty completely.]
[As for Susannah, that fool may have opened her Genetic Lock, but she hasn't gone through a hidden, soul-touching pivotal event yet — hence only a partial awakening.]
Su Yu's fingertip tapped lightly against the console, when he suddenly realized something didn't add up — if Eden hadn't completed her Reversed Awakening, how had she already granted him the Divine Key boost?
"Wait." He cut the System off abruptly. "By your own logic, only opening the Genetic Lock and surviving a life-or-death crisis can trigger a Reversed Awakening, and only after awakening can a combat armament be granted. So why has Eden, who hasn't even come close to opening her Genetic Lock, already given me the Divine Key Star of Eden ahead of time?"
The System seemed to have anticipated this question, letting out a meaningful, cold laugh.
[Host, you're seriously underestimating the sheer worth of The Empress card.]
[Your Bond rank with Eden is already absurdly high, and on top of that, she herself is the incarnation of gold and this world's most radiant age. The System made an exception and unlocked Star of Eden's usage rights early, just for you.]
On the light-screen, the dark crimson sphere projection enlarged, marked beside it in blood-red text with a note: (Upgradeable).
[Or did you think that "Upgradeable" label was just decoration?]
[What you're holding right now isn't even the complete version of Star of Eden. It's a self-destructing bomb with no safety switch! Every time you fire off Rated Output Zero, you're feeding your own life into that pseudo-black-hole's appetite.]
[If you want to truly, fully wield this Divine Key without any backlash, there's only one way — get Eden to complete her Reversed Awakening.]
[But the opportunity for Reversed Awakening can't be sought out on demand — a flower raised in a greenhouse can never flip its own Tarot card.]
[Meaning, even if she someday actually injects the serum and opens her first-stage Genetic Lock, without living through a genuine "terror straddling the line between life and death," she'll never be able to complete a Reversed Awakening.]
Su Yu fell silent.
Just picturing that scenario, Su Yu felt something clamp down hard around his heart.
[All right, drop that overprotective-father look already.]
The System dumped a bucket of cold water on him without mercy.
[Foster Father must remind you — don't think that just because you've gotten a few skills off these reversed cards, you can strut around this world like you own the place.]
A scan of Su Yu's current body popped up on the screen, dense clusters of red warning lights flickering across every organ.
[With a body only as strong as your measly second-stage Genetic Lock, there's an absolute ceiling on how much Tarot power you can withstand.]
[Something like the disguise and presence-reduction Rita provides — low-cost passive support skills like that, you could run them while window-shopping.]
[But something like the Herrscher of the Void's Authority — small-scale tactical blinks versus large-scale spatial jumps — draws on a completely different order of bioelectricity and processing power.]
[Not to mention the strain from offensive skills is far more terrifying than defensive ones!]
[The System hereby issues its final warning:]
[At the Host's current bodily load limit, in a single high-intensity battle, you can unleash at most one full-power attack equivalent to the original Herrscher of the Void, or one activation of Star of Eden's Rated Output Zero pseudo-black-hole.]
[And that's only because your Bond rank with Sirin and Eden is high enough that their concepts absorb most of the backlash for you on the Imaginary plane.]
[Otherwise, the moment you went all-out, you'd simply vaporize on the spot.]
The System's electronic voice, usually laced with a hint of mockery, now carried nothing but bone-chilling gravity:
[Face reality and keep working hard, Host.]
[And furthermore, I must solemnly warn you: the process by which you broke through your second-stage Genetic Lock was far too reckless.]
[That life-or-death duel with Rita — the constant severing and regrowth of limbs, forcibly driving your cells into rapid division — has already caused severe damage to your telomerase. Your genetic sequence's decay period is now far ahead of projections.]
[If you keep throwing yourself into life-or-death situations like before, wringing every last cell in your body dry over and over... you won't even need to wait for Honkai to descend. Your genetic chain will collapse under the strain first and reduce you to a puddle of rotting flesh.]
Dead silence filled the control room.
Su Yu stared at the scan riddled with red warning lights. After a long moment, he let out a slow breath and nodded.
"I know."
Of course he knew the human body had its limits.
The seemingly terrifying recovery power granted by the second-stage Genetic Lock was, at its core, borrowing against his own future lifespan.
Even without the System's warning, he had no wish to keep enduring the agony of every bone in his body being crushed to powder and then forced back together, again and again.
An image of Fenghuang's stern face surfaced in his mind.
On the training grounds, that immortal being had knocked him down again and again, then told him coldly:
"Your fighting style is too reckless."
"You must learn to slit an enemy's throat while sustaining the least damage possible. Only that way can you last long enough to defeat more enemies — and buy humanity more hope."
"Relax," Su Yu said, raising a hand to shut off the glaring scan. "The whole internet's already branded me a black-hearted old swindler. I'm definitely not about to start running charity at a loss."
[Glad you feel that way.]
The System's tone eased somewhat.
[With that, the explanation of all functions and restrictions for Version 1.0 is now complete.]
The light-screen refreshed one final time, and an enormous golden mission bar floated in midair.
[Main Mission: "Honkai Impact 3rd: If You Don't Play, You're No Skyborn" has been formally registered into the System as a long-term Main Mission.]
[Settlement Rule: Within one week of the Host publishing each new chapter on the real-world internet, the System will perform a comprehensive settlement of global Emotion Points and Bond resonance rewards.]
As the interface slowly faded away, the System's voice left one last echo deep in Su Yu's mind:
[One more reminder, Host — you have less than five months left.]
The faint glow died out completely.
Su Yu sat quietly for a while.
He drew a deep breath and turned to look at Rita beside him, and at Kiana, who was dabbing her mouth with a tissue.
"Next stop, Anti-Entropy headquarters. It's time our plan moved into its next phase."
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