"Keep it up, Wendy! You can do it!"
Wende cheered on Wendy, who was now able to walk the entire length of the parallel bars completely on her own.
After several days of training, Wendy had reached the point where she could let go of the bars and walk independently for a continuous half-hour without anyone's support!
Although she would be drenched in sweat and collapse into Wende's arms afterward, asking for a leg massage, this was already incredible progress in Wende's eyes.
The Power of Primordial Chaos within Wendy's body was nourishing her. Imperceptibly, Wendy found that she could now command a gentle breeze...
Of course, the power of the Gem of Desire was capable of more, but this was Wendy's own power, a force born from the fusion between her and the Gem...
Time passed far too quickly. In the blink of an eye, only a week remained until Wende's departure. The promise he had made to Wendy—to let her run in the wind once more—was about to be fulfilled...
Through nearly a month of exercise, Wende had successfully rebuilt the atrophied muscles in Wendy's legs. As long as Wendy didn't overuse her legs excessively afterward, she would recover into a truly normal person within a year.
"Wende, are we about to succeed?"
Wendy asked excitedly. She could feel it; she was about to be free from her wheelchair, just like everyone else...
"Yes, we're about to succeed."
Wende smiled, but for some reason, the smile seemed a little forced.
Seven more days... and he would have to leave Wendy. He hoped she was prepared for his departure...
Wende felt a pang of reluctance. Wendy was truly a good kid. If only Stelle and March were half as well-behaved as she was... he wouldn't have had to research a hundred different ways to play with a lightning rod.
"Oh, right. It's been getting cold lately, so I knitted you a scarf. Wear it when you go to school, it'll keep you warm."
From a gap on the sofa beside him, Wende took out an exquisitely wrapped box, tied with a lace ribbon, looking very grand.
"A scarf?"
Wendy tilted her head and accepted the box from Wende.
"That's right. I knitted it myself, you know."
Wende looked quite proud of himself. As a qualified transmigrator, knitting a scarf was... alright, this wasn't really something a transmigrator would do. It felt more like something his harem would do for him...
Nevertheless, he was quite confident in his handiwork. After all, for his first time knitting, the result was pretty impressive.
Feeling Wende's expectant gaze, Wendy's own anticipation for the scarf inside the box began to grow...
"Wende knitted it himself..."
She untied the ribbon and opened the box. Staring at the wedding dress-white scarf inside, Wendy couldn't help but gasp.
"Wow! What a beautiful scarf!"
Wendy unfolded the scarf. At the very ends, two miniature figures were even embroidered on it. Though simple, one could tell at a glance that they were Wende and Wendy.
The two small figures stood out against the pure white scarf, and if one looked closely, the knitting wasn't perfect. But none of that mattered to Wendy. She adored it, and with Wende's help, she wrapped it around her neck.
"How does it feel?"
Wende looked at Wendy, thinking she looked even cuter with the scarf on.
"It's warm and very comfortable!"
Wendy's face was slightly flushed as she nodded at Wende.
"That's good..."
---o---
In the real world, in Sister Guoguo's livestream.
Sister Guoguo was propping up her chin with a bored expression, repeatedly grinding the mind-numbingly tedious Relic cavern. It was so boring...
She had just finished farming a full set of relics for her 5-star Tingyun and Veyl, but their power level still hadn't peaked. While it was more than enough for her purposes, she felt like something was missing.
After all, a gentle lady's explosive damage needs to have sufficiently large numbers!
That's right. Upon her release, the 5-star Tingyun was immediately on par with Jingliu. With the current Fire team supports being well-established, Tingyun's existence was like installing a nuclear warhead into the Fire team's launcher...
Tingyun's Skill allows her next three Basic ATKs to enter the "Foxfire" state, and upon use, she can immediately perform another Basic ATK.
While in the Foxfire state, Tingyun's Crit Rate and Crit Damage are increased by 10%. Foxfire can be stacked up to three times, and each attack consumes one stack.
Although Tingyun in her Foxfire state is a single-target attacker, her damage is incredibly high.
Tingyun's Ultimate is an AoE attack that deals damage to all enemies. It instantly grants her three stacks of Foxfire, deals Fire damage to all enemy units, and applies a [Yang] Mark to them. Attacking an enemy with a [Yang] Mark provides the attacker with additional ATK.
As for her Technique, it's also very simple: she instantly gains three stacks of Foxfire.
Tingyun's passive, "Yin Spirit's Fall," increases her ATK when she has three stacks of Foxfire.
Her other passive, "Yang Fox's Rise," enhances her survivability. When Tingyun's HP falls below 50%, it provides her with a shield equal to 50% of her max HP for two turns.
For some unknown reason, 5-star Tingyun drew an extreme amount of enemy aggression, even more than the 5-star and 4-star versions of Wende. It was unclear whether this was a probability issue or something else...
But it wasn't a big problem. Thanks to this passive, Tingyun's survivability was more or less guaranteed.
Her signature Light Cone is named "Foxian General Mobilization." The art on the Light Cone depicts Tingyun and Yukong racing on an athletics track.
The Light Cone's effect is that each Basic ATK grants one stack of [Racing]. When [Racing] reaches three stacks, the wearer's Basic ATK DMG is increased by 100%.
The gameplay loop for Tingyun was now obvious: stack Basic ATKs to build Foxfire, then use her Skill to enhance those Basic ATKs and unleash tons of damage!
The AoE damage from her Ultimate was just a bonus. The truly terrifying weapon was the harmless-looking Tingyun holding her fan—a genuine Star Rail Barrett sniper rifle!
One Basic ATK, and instant explosion!
The common team composition now was: 5-star Tingyun + 5-star Wende + Veyl + flex spot.
The last slot could be filled with any support. If you wanted to make the lineup ridiculous, you could add Asta. If you wanted to increase its fault tolerance, you could use the Fire Trailblazer. There were many team variations, and you could still have a lot of fun even without Veyl and Wende.
And so...
In Kakaya's livestream room, a "re-energized" Kakaya once again appeared in person.
After a week of inhuman calculations, he had finally finished his latest video! Damn! This was fucking inhuman work!
It just so happened to be a period of frequent new character releases, and Star Rail had just thrown another massive problem his way...
This was... going to be the death of him!