What the hell is this? Is this still Honkai? Shun couldn't snap out of it for a moment after Gray Serpent's act of recognizing a "thief" as his father.
He had calculated everything thousands of times but never expected Gray Serpent to kneel directly and want to become his adopted son. He didn't look like some guy who likes eating instant noodles, did he?
Just as Shun's CPU was about to overheat and he was truly brainstorming, Gray Serpent, still kneeling on the ground, had fallen into ecstasy.
He first cut off his own connection to the Gray Serpent network to prevent this news from being known by other Gray Serpents. Although they were all Gray Serpent, they were indeed different individuals. Despite their shared goal of defeating Honkai, individual differences meant they couldn't act like a true hive mind.
He really hadn't expected this he had actually met that lord... Although when he was created by his maker, that lord was already gone, he still held the highest authority in Gray Serpent's eyes.
As for whether meeting someone who had died 50,000 years ago after 50,000 years felt unreal? Maybe it was some kind of similar flower or something what a joke. Lord Mobius had long anticipated such a situation and explicitly told him that, no matter the time point in the future, if he met that lord, he should just obey him.
"Gray Serpent, do you know me?" Shun detected something off from Gray Serpent's reaction. Logically, he had only transmigrated not long ago and this was his first meeting with Gray Serpent otherwise, the other party wouldn't have pointed a gun at his head the moment they met.
So what exactly was going on?
"Yes, my lord. I have thought of nothing but admiring your greatness at every moment."
"Had" meaning he knew me from a long time ago, but that doesn't match my transmigration timeline...
It's impossible that I went to the Previous Era before coming to the Current Era, but that doesn't add up either if I had been to the Previous Era, I wouldn't have been like I was right after transmigrating...
So Shun pressed on. "Gray Serpent, is there anything else you want to ask me?" Let's probe his attitude again.
"This..." From an emotional standpoint, he still wanted news about his creator, Lord Mobius, but the person standing before him was someone he couldn't afford to offend, so Gray Serpent didn't dare act rashly for the moment.
"Fine, I won't make things difficult for you. I'll be direct: Mobius ultimately didn't enter the Fifth Divine Key to head to the next civilization, but I don't know if she specifically survived Finality's judgment."
"Thank you for your leniency..." Though it was bad news, for Gray Serpent it was still a breakthrough from zero to one.
"I wonder if my lord has any further instructions." Gray Serpent continued respectfully.
"Sigh, no need to be so formal with me. I don't know the exact reason, but this makes me uncomfortable too." Shun wasn't born into a wealthy, privileged family; his relationships with others had always been equal. Being treated like this by Gray Serpent really felt unfamiliar.
Gray Serpent was stunned, unable to understand why Shun would say this, but he still respectfully called out, "Lord Shun." Shun suddenly realized that an unfortunate, thick barrier had already formed between them.
"Forget it, call me whatever you want. Also, take me to World Serpent." Though the process had some deviations, the goal was achieved, and he had even gained a loyal little subordinate like Gray Serpent.
So many good things happening at once, yet Shun wasn't happy at all. He would rather Gray Serpent had kept the gun to his head and talked, instead of this current situation.
He still hadn't figured out many things, and now new problems had appeared. This was truly... Anyway, no matter what, today was destined to be a sleepless night for Shun.
Time returned to normal. Shun rode Gray Serpent's plane to the Shenzhou Medicine building in Arc City this was the largest World Serpent stronghold nearby and the site of the Sky Meteor incident in the game.
On the plane, Shun had clearly stated his goal to Gray Serpent: in the coming time, he would do his utmost to become stronger. Gray Serpent listened without comment, only saying he would arrange it as soon as possible. What a dedicated top-tier tool.
Probably having combat power on par with ordinary S-rank Valkyries like Rita and Raven would be enough for him to operate.
As for the foundation of getting stronger Honkai energy adaptability Shun had already experimented with small amounts of Honkai energy in advance. As long as it was Honkai energy, no matter the quantity entering his body, it would be neutralized harmlessly.
According to Gray Serpent, this was converted into pure Imaginary energy the most primitive state of Honkai energy.
Gray Serpent explained a lot to Shun, but expecting a liberal arts student like him to understand it all was too much.
Simply put, Honkai energy is equivalent to Imaginary energy, Imaginary energy is equivalent to negentropy, negentropy is equivalent to thermodynamic free energy, and under the canonical ensemble assumption, thermodynamic free energy is equivalent to Helmholtz free energy. There exists a unified field theory of Honkai energy–Imaginary energy–negentropy that can be uniformly expressed by high-dimensional Helmholtz equations. Under this unified expression, through simple Fourier transform, the time-domain fluctuations of Honkai energy in real space reflect the complex frequency-domain fluctuations of Imaginary energy in imaginary space that is, the real space/imaginary space duality, or Honkai energy/Imaginary energy duality.
From a practical standpoint, treating Imaginary energy as harmless Honkai energy works fine. With the ability to unlimitedly convert Honkai energy into Imaginary energy, Shun's potential essentially matched the true female protagonist of the Honkai world.
The one praised as the goose's pride, Durandal also known as the true Kiana her Honkai energy adaptability grows with the dosage of Honkai energy exposure, roughly equivalent to Shun's ability. The only difference is that the silly goose comes with the Kaslana superhuman physique and the MANTIS gene pool, while Shun has to start from scratch.
But Shun always felt this ability might not be the limit of this "Stigmata." If this Imaginary imprint only had this capability, wouldn't it be a bit insulting to the Imaginary?
Even the trash mobs in the game, like LZX, have some degree of time authority, but for now Shun had no direction on how to develop the "Stigmata," so he could only make good use of this passive for the time being.
While staying in the Shenzhou Medicine building during this time, Shun wasn't idle. After fully utilizing the Imaginary energy in his body, he realized he was now at least on the level of a "Superman from the Motherland." However, by Schicksal's standards, he was only equivalent to a C-rank miscellaneous Valkyrie.
But this still gave Shun immense confidence. Back then, Kevin could surpass the naturally gifted Elysia to become the strongest human in three months. Today, in this post-Dark Age era without the "Emperor," Shun becoming an S-rank Valkyrie on the level of Rita and Raven in three months wouldn't be a problem.
After about half a day, Gray Serpent No. 10086 returned to Arc City. After Shun expressed his desire to grow stronger, Gray Serpent had volunteered to arrange sparring partners, and now it seemed something had come through.
Shun guessed that the person sparring with him was probably Raven after all, World Serpent really only had a handful of members, and the strongest combat power in the organization right now was probably that little island explosive bird.
So Shun asked Gray Serpent directly, but Gray Serpent mysteriously shook his head, as if to say "how could a mere Raven be worthy of being your sparring partner?"
Since he hadn't finished the main story of Honkai Impact 3rd, Shun didn't know World Serpent's true depths. He thought maybe this mysterious person was the feather rabbit who never appeared in the main story?