Chat Group: Starting by Swapping Bodies with Elysia?

"As per the doctor's instructions, everything is inside."

After Jiang Qiao left the Elysian Realm and returned to reality, Klein, the Elysian Realm's maintenance personnel, took out a safe, opened it, and showed it to him.

Inside was a very delicate sphere.

Of course, it wasn't unfamiliar to Jiang Qiao. There was something similar beside the "souvenir" he dug out from Mount Taixu—a Soulium computer left by the Previous Era. According to the game, these things were buried all over the world, containing a large amount of data from the Previous Era.

"This is a Soulium computer for storage… I've written the details in the manual. If you have any questions, you can read it yourself." Whether she was overworked or was just like this, the listless Klein gave a brief introduction.

She didn't quite understand why Dr. Mobius would prepare such a thing. Even World Serpent only obtained the improved "Stigma Project" plan from the Elysian Realm, maybe at most some MANTIS soldier and medical technology.

But this Honkai Steel computer lying in the safe… this thing was basically a copy of the "essence" stored in the Elysian Realm.

Was it for Project EMBER? She remembered that it had already failed.

But Klein didn't bother thinking about it.

"And this, Elysia asked me to give it to you."

"She said you must keep it with you…"

"?"

Jiang Qiao was a little puzzled—if it were other Flame-Chasers, it would be fine, but SIM Elysia… he even knew the color of her underwear, what else could she want to give him?

He opened the other box that Klein took out and froze for a moment. What came into view was a small, pink-haired girl with her eyes closed.

"Fairy Elysia?!"

[Elysia] blurted out, somewhat surprised, recognizing her true identity at a glance.

"This thing actually has 'stock' in reality?"

Although according to the story, there were thirteen "Fairy Elysias" in stock, unlike Klein, even if they were both battle ELF, Fairy Elysia was a product created by Elysia in the Elysian Realm, essentially no different from a Flame-Chaser memory body.

Therefore, seeing "Fairy Elysia" in reality, he could only conclude—Elysia had made this thing during the Previous Era.

"Um… I guess so?"

Klein wasn't quite sure.

—After the Battle ELF rebellion in the Previous Era, their attitude towards this technology became somewhat subtle. At least on the surface, it was banned, although they couldn't completely control someone as lawless as Mobius.

Creating such a thing after that was probably just to "commemorate" something.

Unfortunately, people at that time didn't have such leisure. After the first Herrscher was defeated, they had to face the final Finality with the grief of losing their companions.

The "Fairy Elysia" that Jiang Qiao was currently seeing was actually made from her spare parts.

As the designated Elysian Realm maintenance personnel, when the Previous Era established this, this No. 1 base stored a large amount of replacement materials and parts for Klein to repair the Elysian Realm and maintain herself.

Later, when they reached the new era, World Serpent also provided her with a lot.

And occasionally, there were some strangely sized parts in this parts library—slightly different from her own, but Klein didn't pay much attention.

Not long after Jiang Qiao entered the Elysian Realm, Vill-V asked her to assemble those parts. Some parts made of Soulium, after being injected with some "data" provided by Elysia, produced this thing.

"Then I probably understand."

Jiang Qiao, holding Fairy Elysia in his arms and lifting her high, understood after analyzing her with the Authority of Truth.

—Just like commemorating Klein, during the Previous Era, the original Mobius probably had thought of creating this after Elysia's death.

But because time was tight, only some of the parts were made.

Later, after connecting with World Serpent, they gathered the parts bit by bit over a long period of time, and Fairy Elysia's parts were almost complete—except for the data.

Probably because there wasn't much happening in the Elysian Realm, this matter was put on hold. As a result, later, the Herrscher of Erosion caught them off guard, and the data belonging to Elysia in the Elysian Realm was completely wiped out.

Now, the commemorative Fairy Elysia, which was just missing assembly and data injection, was "stillborn."

"Um… is she in sleep mode now?" Holding Fairy Elysia, feeling the extremely realistic texture, like an interesting doll, the pink-haired girl showed considerable interest.

"Yes."

"It seems that Fairy Elysia's activation method is a 'wake-up word,' but unfortunately, I don't know what it is… Elysia didn't tell me either. She asked me to tell you—if you want to know, you have to guess it yourself. It seems to be like this."

Klein said with some helplessness.

Perhaps because she was also a battle android, she found it hard to judge SIM Elysia's "prank" regarding the wake-up method.

If he couldn't guess it, wouldn't she just keep sleeping there?

Don't add unnecessary trouble to other people's work!

—A complaint from the Flawless.

Jiang Qiao didn't care much about this and instead recalled the story—

"Let me guess… I remember when the Tuna Cooker used it, the wake-up word should be…"

"—Dear Elysia?"

As the words fell, "Fairy Elysia" reacted, opening her eyes and making a face, then a sentence clearly preset by SIM Elysia sounded in her childish voice,

"Incorrect wake-up word—hmph, I knew you would definitely guess this, so I've already changed the original wake-up word!"

Then, Fairy Elysia entered a lifeless state again.

All of this was seen by SIM Elysia, who was peeking at their actions through external facilities.

The Elysian Realm's Pink Fat Woman sitting on the edge of the sofa showed a smug expression.

Hmph, luckily I was prepared and changed the wake-up word in advance—no matter how much you pretend to be "Elysia," in front of me, the genuine Elysia, you still have to obediently drink my bathwater!

Just you guess! Even if you rack your brains, you'll never guess that the wake-up word is actually—

"Elysia—I love you?"

The next moment, Fairy Elysia opened her big blue eyes and said with a smile, holding her magic wand,

"Hmm, I love you too~"

"Eh—?"

SIM Elysia was instantly dumbfounded.

No way… you guessed it just like that?!

W-why so fast!

She had spent a lot of time thinking of this wake-up word, one that this bad guy wouldn't be able to guess even if he racked his brains, and even if he did, he wouldn't be able to say it out loud because of embarrassment!

"Oh my~ is this a high-quality replica of me?" While SIM Elysia was dumbfounded and in disbelief, the awakened Fairy Elysia circled around [Elysia] with her magic wand and nodded in satisfaction. "Hmm~ As expected of me, even cuter than my mature self!"

"?"

SIM Elysia's head, which was already full of question marks, instantly started "mass-producing question marks."

What did she mean by—cuter than my mature self?! Did she have no taste?! She and that bad guy clearly looked the same! No! She was more real! And cuter!

A little annoyed, but thinking that it was the battle android she sent out, she could only sulk.

After all, Fairy Elysia was using her data.

—Of course, SIM Elysia sent Fairy Elysia out of pure kindness!

She definitely didn't have the intention of letting "Fairy Elysia" act as a "supervisor" to monitor this bad guy using her body to flirt with other beautiful girls!

"You're also very cute, Fairy Elysia~"

Fairy Elysia, being praised, giggled and waved her magic wand non-stop, replying in a sweet voice full of childishness,

"Hehe, of course~ I'm a fairy from the fairy kingdom—although I'm a high-quality replica of you, I really like you~"

For some reason, seeing the two "Elysias," one big and one small, getting along so harmoniously, SIM Elysia felt a sense of crisis—it must be an illusion, right?

...

When Fu Hua found the returned Fenghuang Down on her desk, she knew that Jiang Qiao had finished what he needed to do.

And Jiang Qiao, who returned to the Previous Era with a full harvest, naturally sent the "Soulium" computer prepared by Mobius back to headquarters—to Dr. MEI—immediately.

For her, this was an unexpected "surprise."

After reading the data in the Soulium computer using the most advanced equipment, Dr. MEI glanced at the pink-haired girl sitting on the side, teasing Fairy Elysia—although she had already guessed and understood the situation of this [Elysia], she didn't expect him to be able to do this.

"You've been a great help, Elysia."

Although she already knew the name "Jiang Qiao," out of habit, and out of convenience for some reason, she still used this name to address the charming pink-haired girl. Dr. MEI said this quite seriously.

The "Previous Era's Essence Technology Collection" he brought back was extremely important for the Previous Era, where the fight against the Honkai was becoming increasingly fierce, but they were still exploring and pioneering little by little in the unknown.

Mastering these technologies would save the Previous Era at least ten years—the "Global Network" that Dr. MEI was currently planning, there were many technologies in this data that could help.

Especially the "Stigma Project."

In fact, the Previous Era had already mastered a shortcut to "defeat the Honkai."

But Dr. MEI didn't intend to take this shortcut—not out of some noble reason, the Previous Era wasn't as luxurious as the new generation in terms of "choices," but simply because they could only choose this path.

After all—

Just like Mobius warned Jiang Qiao.

How could someone as smart as Dr. MEI not realize that their world was currently hanging by a very twisted thread?

Only by mastering the power of the Cocoon could they possibly escape this predicament—this was the price the Previous Era had to pay for getting another chance from "destruction."

Of course, this didn't mean that the Stigma Project was no longer necessary.

Even if it was difficult for it to be a "shortcut" to defeating the Honkai, its appearance did give the current Previous Era a new direction.

—A direction for fighting against the Honkai.

"With the outbreak of the Fourth Honkai Eruption, although under our mediation, the scale of Fire Moth has gradually expanded, gaining the mainstream voice and control in the world's fight against the Honkai, a new problem has also been placed before us—ordinary soldiers are already struggling to cope with the Honkai."

In fact, this problem had already appeared as early as the Second Honkai Eruption.

The Second Herrscher's power of the Imaginary directly made humanity's proud high-powered weapons a joke. The Third Herrscher… this Herrscher, along with the Fourth Herrscher, still had mysterious causes of death within Fire Moth.

If it weren't for the Herrscher cores as proof, some would even suspect that these two Herrschers hadn't died—Dr. MEI paid close attention to these colleagues who were concerned about the fight against the Honkai.

In short—although under the guise of cover-ups, human thermal weapons were still making great achievements in the fight against the Herrschers, Fire Moth and even countries around the world experiencing small Honkai eruptions, and even the Herrscher of Dominance causing trouble, all believed that to fight against the Honkai more effectively, they had to develop more advanced and targeted weapons.

The original Divine Key Project was born under this background.

Dr. MEI, who proposed this plan, was even assassinated several times for touching the interests of Fire Moth's top management and even various countries.

She no longer considered this plan—not because she was afraid of assassination. Who could assassinate a Herrscher of Thunder? Even though the current MEI had removed her core to avoid disputes, even the small fraction of her power available without Honkai energy was enough to let the world's best assassins understand how terrifying it was for one of the four fundamental forces, "electromagnetism," to fall into the hands of humanity's top intellect.

The reason for not considering Divine Keys was simply that they could borrow them from the future—and using Herrscher cores as Divine Keys was an extremely wasteful act.

In the eyes of Dr. MEI, who had become a Herrscher and understood the difference between a living Herrscher core and a dead one, the plan proposed by her future self was no different from using nuclear weapons as pistols—of course, she also understood the limitations imposed by the situation.

After all, her original self wasn't as wealthy as she was now, with such a "Super Elysia" to assist her.

Driven by the situation, from a human perspective, wanting to wield the power of "Herrscher authority," which belonged to "gods," they naturally could only choose the inferior plan of "Divine Keys."

"MANTIS soldier technology?"

The pink-haired girl stopped poking Fairy Elysia with her index finger. He remembered that Mobius had included the "most complete version of MANTIS soldier technology" in the data.

But honestly, Jiang Qiao wasn't very optimistic about this technology.

Because this thing, like the Divine Keys, was a product born out of necessity.

The high mortality rate, difficulty in selection, various side effects, and the fluctuating combat effectiveness of MANTIS soldiers were all quite serious.

The high mortality rate went without saying. Even the latest, most complete version of MANTIS soldier technology provided by Mobius still had this Achilles' heel.

Compared to the initial version, the difference was just from one survivor in one hundred thousand people to one survivor in fifty thousand people.

It was also for this reason that Dr. MEI, who was overworked and seriously ill from fighting the Honkai, didn't become a MANTIS soldier—because the risk was too high. The Previous Era absolutely couldn't afford to lose Dr. MEI.

The side effects were okay; this aspect had been basically perfected—non-heaven, Vishnu, these still weren't that great, which could be seen from the fact that Kalpas became a MANTIS soldier only when he became a Herrscher of Restraint.

As for the fluctuating combat effectiveness… Pardo was a classic example. This technology actually selected people based on genes, not genes based on people. Not all MANTIS soldiers could fuse with those powerful Honkai beasts.

The peak MANTIS soldier unit was selected from millions of people, but there were only more than two hundred of them. There were definitely many similar to Pardo among them.

In fact, the only advantage of MANTIS soldier technology might be its low cost.

Compared to the samples and reagents needed during the experiment—this project was always held in Mobius's hands. Almost all MANTIS soldiers were operated on by her, and during this process, Mobius would spare no expense to use expensive potions to "maximize the success and survival rate of the subjects," even if it was only a "0.01%" chance. The higher-ups always had objections to this practice.

Originally, the most expensive cost of this technology might just be a single human life. If they died, they died. But because of Mobius's actions, the cost of this experiment was increased to at least hundreds of times the original.

This greatly reduced the only cost-effectiveness advantage of MANTIS soldiers.

However, almost only Mobius could perform this kind of surgery. Fire Moth's higher-ups had no choice but to invest in the less cost-effective "battle ELF" technology.

Later… the ELFS rebelled. Before the annoyed higher-ups could deal with it properly, the Ninth Herrscher directly blew Mu away.

There was no other way, so they had to rely on MANTIS soldier technology again—Project Chimera was born.

All these things about MANTIS soldier technology flashed through his mind, a helpless and disgusted expression appearing on his beautiful face. Taking off the "facehugger" from his face, Jiang Qiao really couldn't be optimistic about the so-called MANTIS soldier technology.

Schicksal's half-baked artificial Stigmata Valkyries were more cost-effective than MANTIS soldiers!

MEI naturally knew Jiang Qiao's rejection of the "MANTIS soldier" plan. She shook her head and said,

"No… I plan to try developing from the Stigmata direction."

Although in terms of cost-effectiveness, MANTIS soldiers were actually okay—after all, there was an extremely powerful individual like Kevin in the end, but whether it was out of consideration for "Elysia's" thoughts or other reasons, MEI excluded the originally mainstream MANTIS soldier plan.

She even gave up the idea of "just letting Kevin become a MANTIS soldier." Although rationally, this was necessary for humanity to defeat the Honkai, and after hearing a little from Jiang Qiao, she could also use Kevin's feelings for her to make the boy voluntarily lie on the operating table.

But she absolutely couldn't do such a thing, even if she didn't have much affection for Kevin.

That would be too unfair to Kevin, and MEI could also be certain—if she dared to do this, the current "Elysia," Mobius, and even Vill-V would definitely not be happy with her.

Although she knew that even so, the "Elysia" in front of her wouldn't choose to "give up," and would at most be "disappointed" in her, whether it was out of consideration for Elysia's feelings or to avoid creating a rift in their small group, MEI chose to directly shut down the MANTIS soldier technology.

If they needed cutting-edge power, weren't there herself and [Elysia?] They weren't inferior to MANTIS soldiers, it's just that there were very few situations that would force MEI to take off her researcher's clothes and fight personally.

The intellectual girl stared at the [Elysia] holding Fairy Elysia, showing a little helplessness.

She really had another difficult "constraint" to deal with.

MEI, maintaining "absolute rationality" in work matters, thought this, but also showed a slight smile.

This was also a good thing.

At least, with "her" presence, she could at least maintain her bottom line as a human being.

This was also a "once-in-a-lifetime" luck.

Otherwise, MEI could be certain—with her personality and style of doing things, as long as it was a measure beneficial to defeating the Honkai, she would absolutely not hesitate for even a moment.

—Just as Hua and most people said, MEI was always trustworthy, but never worth following.

She wasn't the kind of leader who could unite people; the only thing she could do was lead people to the "right" path.

When he heard that the MANTIS soldier technology was passed over, the pink-haired girl was clearly relieved, even Fairy Elysia in his arms was quite happy.

The power of a MANTIS soldier was definitely not a gift, but an exchange, like a curse.

If it weren't for the pressure of the Honkai, those two hundred or so MANTIS soldiers probably wouldn't have been willing to obtain this power.

"Stigmata…"

"Yes, I plan to refer to the Stigma Project designed by Mobius, and use the 'Global Network' system I'm designing as the core to design an armament system that can strengthen the basic soldiers and the public."

"And the first step to doing all of this is undoubtedly—"

—To find someone to write the plan!