New Zealand, Destiny's Oceania Branch.
After clocking out, Mo Xie returned to his employee dorm.
The moment he lay down on the bed, his thoughts stirred, and a translucent screen that only he could see appeared before his eyes.
Just as expected, the display was still as simple as ever:
[Loading Progress: 99%]
Used to it by now, he closed the panel, shut his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.
At this point, it should already be obvious that Mo Xie was no ordinary person.
That was right—he was a transmigrator, and one with a system.
Even now, whenever he recalled that day, it still felt surreal.
Back then, he had been watching television from a spot very far away from the window.
After all, he had heard that the unlucky tenant upstairs, surnamed Wu, had been standing too close to his own window when two bolts of lightning shattered the glass and sent him out of this world.
And yet, calamity descended without warning. Even though Mo Xie was nowhere near the window, a freight truck had appeared like a ghost, smashed through one wall of his apartment, and sent him straight into the world of two-dimensional fiction along with it.
To this day, he still wanted to offer some heartfelt greetings to the driver's entire ancestral line.
Heaven have mercy—his home was not on the eighteenth floor or anything like that, but it was still on the sixth floor!
Who knew how that truck had managed to crash up there? The driver was practically Superman!
And then, Mo Xie was reborn—as a baby.
In the blink of an eye, he had now lived in this world for nearly eighteen years.
On the surface, he was a researcher under Destiny. In reality, he was just a nine-to-five office drone, a master of slacking off.
Yes. After years of investigation and observation, he had concluded that the world he had transmigrated into was, unsurprisingly, Honkai Impact 3rd.
As for whether this was the main worldline, he could not say for certain. For now, he could only treat it as such.
After all, there were simply too many parallel worlds in Honkai Impact 3rd. Who knew whether some subtle differences might exist?
To be honest, the moment Mo Xie realized what kind of world this was, he felt as though the sky had collapsed.
Never mind the Herrscher of the End. Never mind the many Herrschers great and small. Even a random minor Honkai eruption would be enough to ruin him.
For an ordinary person living in a world like this, no one knew whether tomorrow or disaster would arrive first.
Still, there was one piece of good news.
He had a cheat.
The bad news was that after racing to ninety-nine percent at astonishing speed, that cheat had stopped moving forever, as though the final one percent did not exist at all.
In the end, people really could only rely on themselves.
Once Mo Xie realized his cheat was hopeless, he chose to become a researcher in order to survive.
After all, he had no way of knowing what his Honkai resistance or compatibility might be like. He had not been born with a stigmata either, so there was no chance of gaining overwhelming power.
And so, relying on memories from his previous life, years of hard study starting from childhood, and the constant threat of death looming overhead, he pushed himself forward.
At last, after skipping grades all the way through school, Mo Xie became a young doctorate holder in biology and successfully joined Destiny, where he was assigned to the Oceania Branch.
But that was about the limit of him.
He was not some once-in-a-generation genius.
Once he realized his talent had its ceiling, he began doing everything he could to plan out how he might survive in the future.
The question was simple:
How was an ordinary person supposed to stay alive in a world ruled by Honkai?
Mo Xie did not know.
All he remembered was that the Oceania Branch was relatively safe...
Probably.
Well, aside from the Fourth Honkai Eruption in 2016, when Wendy became the Herrscher of Wind.
At that point, he could always flee in advance. As a researcher, going to another branch for further study would sound perfectly normal, wouldn't it?
In truth, he had considered revealing everything he knew to Otto in exchange for safety in the second half of his life.
But Otto...
Anyone who knew, knew.
Mo Xie truly did not dare trust that man's integrity.
Sure, if he came clean and let Otto use the Fenghuang Down on him, there was a good chance he would not be treated as a threat. At worst, he would spend the rest of his life under surveillance.
But what if?
What if Otto decided it would simply be more convenient to kill him and be done with it?
So unless he was utterly cornered, telling Otto was the worst option of all.
In the end, it came down to one thing: Mo Xie had no sense of security. He trusted only himself.
After all, he had closed his eyes in one life and opened them in this precarious world after being rammed into it by a truck. He had lived here for so many years, counting down the days of his own life, constantly thinking about how to survive.
That sort of existence had already left his mental state a little...
Not entirely normal.
Then came the sound of a soft click.
It was exactly midnight.
Mo Xie jolted awake, his eyes flying open.
The translucent screen appeared before him.
[Loading Progress: 100%]
[Simulator Loaded Successfully]
"System?" Mo Xie called out inwardly.
The screen changed instantly.
[Simulator System]
[Host: Mo Xie]
[Talents: 1. ??? 2. ??? (Guidance in progress. Estimated completion: ???)]
[Begin simulation?]
[Yes or No]
"System, what exactly does this simulation simulate?" Mo Xie tried asking for more detailed information.
Unfortunately, his system seemed not to have been equipped with intelligence. It offered no response whatsoever to any of his questions.
Aside from opening and closing, it had no extra functions.
Forget it. At this point, if he wanted more answers, the only option was to try it himself.
Based on his experience with web novels before transmigration, dying in a simulation should not pose any real danger. Right now, he could only hope that the system he had waited eighteen years for was actually worth something.
As for letting it sit unused?
What a joke.
The thing had finally finished loading after eighteen whole years. If he did not use it now, then what had all that waiting even been for?
The only real question was whether he should play it safe and wait for those two talents to finish unlocking before beginning the simulation.
But that came with its own problem.
He had no idea when those two talents would be fully released, and after suffering through the system's loading bar once already, he was thoroughly traumatized.
If it took another eighteen years, he would be finished. Either the great Honkai disasters would already have come and gone, or the grass on his grave would be several meters high.
So be it.
Even if he had to start as a useless nobody, so what? It was not as though the game was unplayable without those two starting talents.
"Simulation, begin."
Nothing happened.
"...Yes."
[Simulation Start]
[Selecting Scenario...]
"Hold on, man, is your simulator even legitimate? Where are the disposable starter traits? You're really making me go in as a blank slate?"
So that was how it worked.
His simulator was not the same as the ones in novels. Those so-called talents were the equivalents of the special traits it was supposed to provide.
He only had time to complain about that much before his consciousness sank into darkness, and the scene before his eyes began to shift.
[Age 0: You are born into an ordinary family. Your parents are delighted by your arrival.]
[...]
[You die.]
Mo Xie shot upright in bed, gasping for air like a drowning man, his chest heaving violently.
Cold sweat instantly soaked through the back of his clothes, leaving behind a clammy chill.
One hand clutched desperately at his heart, where a fierce pounding still echoed. The pain of being pierced through lingered vividly in his mind.
He had no idea how long passed before the pain finally receded enough for him to recover.
Only then did he look around at the familiar and unfamiliar room alike, feeling as though lifetimes had passed.
And in a sense, they had.
In his memories, he had spent more than twenty years living through the Previous Era before finally dying in an ordinary minor Honkai incident.
That was right.
His death had been that simple. That arbitrary.
After sorting through his memories a little, Mo Xie came to a rough understanding of what the simulator did.
First of all, this was not some mere text-based simulation. It truly sent him away to begin an entirely new life. His memories from here were sealed away, and he started from zero.
Of course, it was not entirely from zero.
As he aged, the knowledge he had learned in reality would gradually return to him, as if he were "remembering" it, creating the illusion of a genius.
Second, the mentality of his simulated self was subtly influenced by his current self.
For example, in this simulation, he had been utterly obsessed with surviving. As for why, even his simulated self had not really understood.
Lastly, there was the matter of the simulation scenario.
This time, it had been set in the Previous Era. Whether that would change in future simulations remained unclear. After all, he had only simulated once; the sample size was far too small.
Now for the benefits.
Knowledge, naturally, was one of them—but that was not the main point.
The main point was that he seemed to have become much stronger, as though the strength of another person had been added onto his body.
To put it more precisely, it was as if the simulated version of himself had been completely collapsed into his current self.
Which meant that, in theory, as long as he simulated enough times and stacked enough lives on top of one another, he would eventually become invincible.
But that was only in theory.
In practice, these lives were not fake. He truly lived through every one of them.
So if he actually played it that way, he would go insane long before reaching invincibility.
Unless...
Unless he could do what Fu Hua did and burn away his memories with the Fenghuang Down.
Right.
The Fenghuang Down!
The moment that Divine Key came to mind, Mo Xie practically started drooling.
How could such a perfect piece of equipment exist in this world?
Its first active power could actually burn away memories!
What was that?
You said it was a side effect?
Even better.
Did that not mean it had no downside at all?
So then came the question:
How was he supposed to obtain it all by himself?
The answer was obvious.
Take it by force.
But he had no strength.
Then he would gain strength through simulation.
But the whole reason he wanted to seize it was so he could deal with the side effects of simulation.
And just like that, he was stuck in a dead loop.
Mo Xie rubbed his temples and thought for a long time.
Maybe he should only simulate once a day from now on and give himself some time to buffer the memories?
The next second, he slapped himself across the face.
I've really grown lazy.
Once a day? What is this, a healthy lifestyle routine?
No. He had decided.
As long as it would not kill him, he would simulate himself to death.
[Simulation, begin.]
...
The next day, Mo Xie entered the laboratory looking energetic on the outside, though the fatigue in his spirit was impossible to hide.
As he looked at the work in front of him, he froze slightly.
These things...
I remember them...
Well, sort of.
It's been too long. Some of it's already fuzzy.
Last night, he had run many more simulations, but not one of them ended well. Most did not even make it to the later stages of the Honkai era before he died without warning.
The theme, apparently, was freedom in life and randomness in death.
Eventually, Mo Xie simply could not take it anymore, and that was the only reason he stopped.
Even now, he no longer knew what heaven or earth were.
But as he felt the immense strength coursing through his body—physical ability at least ten times beyond that of a normal person—a faint sense of security finally rose within him.
This was the first time in the eighteen years he had lived in this Honkai world, outside of the simulator, that he had felt anything like this.
It was...
Reassuring.
Just then, a colleague approached him.
"Dr. Mo, about this experiment—"
Looking at the researcher in front of him, Mo Xie sighed inwardly.
I hate going to work.
Time crawled past like years. When quitting time finally came, Mo Xie did not stay a single minute longer and left the lab at once.
"Dr. Mo, you're still as punctual as ever!"
A familiar teasing voice rang out.
Mo Xie turned his head.
Black hair with a blue-green inner tint. That distinctive tuft of hair sticking up from the top of her head. The person before him was none other than the A-rank Valkyrie, future S-rank candidate, vessel for the Herrscher of Wind, and the Wendy who would one day fight Truth, Origin, and Finality all by herself—
Wendy the Great.
"When work is over, of course I leave on time," Mo Xie replied in a half-joking tone. "Not even overtime pay could keep me. Besides, I'm just muddling through my days."
"Oh? If someone like you is just muddling through, then most of the other researchers would have no face left after hearing that," Wendy said, covering her mouth in exaggerated astonishment.
"A genius? Don't flatter me. I'm just an ordinary person who works a bit harder than most." Mo Xie shook his head. "If you ask me, you're the real genius, Miss Wendy. Becoming an A-rank Valkyrie at such a young age."
"Ugh—'Miss Wendy'? That's disgusting," Wendy said with a shiver, goosebumps rising on her skin.
Mo Xie chuckled. "Wendy, what did you need?"
"Can't I come find you if there's nothing wrong?" she shot back.
Mo Xie fell silent for a moment, then said, "Valkyrie equipment is distributed uniformly. If a weapon or something is broken, please go find another logistics officer. It's not my field."
"Is that really what you think of me?" Wendy looked displeased.
"Yes," Mo Xie said after a brief moment of consideration. "That is exactly what I think of you."
Wendy looked a little awkward. "Well, I had just arrived here back then. I wasn't familiar with things."
Then she got to the point.
"Dr. Mo, about this experiment..."
Mo Xie's expression turned serious as well.
"Wendy, you've got a bright future ahead of you. There's really no need for you to volunteer for this experiment. As your friend, I'm asking you to think it through one more time."
The experiment he was referring to was the implantation of the Gem of Desire.
"No need to say anything more, Dr. Mo. This is my decision!"
Wendy's eyes were full of determination and stubborn resolve. Even that little tuft of hair on top of her head seemed to stand up straighter with her emotions.
Mo Xie sighed.
What more could he say?
Should he tell her that the experiment was doomed to fail? That she would end up confined to a wheelchair, sink into despair for years, and ultimately become a Herrscher?
And besides, this experiment was being pushed by upper management. He was nothing more than a wage slave. Even without Wendy, some other Valkyrie would become the test subject.
All he had done was offer a few words of warning out of a sliver of friendship.
Since it had no effect, then all he could do was respect another person's fate.
In the end, it still came down to the same thing:
He lacked power, and so he could only drift with the current.
-------
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