Cultivating in Honkai!

The incident this morning is massive for Schicksal and Anti-Entropy. World Serpent's attacks in five different places made them realize its strength. The anti-honkai reagent they used in Schicksal's Atlantic Branch and the Far East made them wary of them.

The mobilization of a tremendous workforce came next.

This, however, did not concern the orphanage much. The children woke up, had breakfast, learned some techniques, and played around. Whenever they are confused about something, they will gather it in their notebooks. Shi Tian's weekly teaching session comes in handy.

This daily routine was disturbed by the entry of a captured "Valkyrie".

"Ugh…"

Raven opened her eyes. She found herself in an office.

"She planned to force entry? So much for that."

She looked over for the voice's source and saw a girl whose height does not exceed the desk by much. She looked very healthy. Her heterochromatic eyes swept over Raven.

Sin Mal continued to propose some harsh plans.

"Can't we just…"

She made a throat-cutting gesture. Seele's eyes widened and hurriedly stopped her.

"No! We… we don't know her…"

"Things are simple. You are strong enough to prevent her from trespassing. If you didn't have that strength…"

Sin Mal left the latter half of the sentence. Seele knew what she meant and fell silent.

Bronya did not say anything. A part of her agrees with Sin Mal. Another part of her wants to side with Seele. She is torn apart between the two.

She looked at Shi Tian and then to Kiana. The latter remained silent too.

Bronya saw Kiana pass the decision-making back to Shi Tian.

"Okay, okay. Don't talk about killing so casually. It's something that shouldn't come from a kid."

"..?!"

Sin Mal's eyes widened in shame. She did not have the strength to retort his words. Her ears turned red as she crossed her arms with a "humph!"

Raven did not have the time to process everything. Except for Sin Mal, the rest of the kids inside the room gave her an oppressive feeling. Her hands are free, and so are her feet.

Yet, she felt that one wrong move will result in a bad end.

"I will ask questions. You will answer. If you are not lying, we will let you off. As easy as that."

Raven looked at Shi Tian. She determined him to be the "leader" out of them all. For some reason, she felt a strange sense of trust towards him. Similarly, she felt wary to Sin Mal whom she disregarded.

"Go on."

Seeing her agree, he began his round of questioning.

"Name."

"Natasha Ciora."

"Affiliation."

"World Serpent."

…

Five minutes soon passed.

"...ordered to capture Cocolia's experimental subjects. It goes against my code. I planned to retreat after a huge fight. I did not expect one girl to overpower me."

Snap-!

Raven's entire body jolted. Her eyes widened. Her thoughts went to the questioning.

'Truth serum?!'

To her, it felt natural to respond honestly to Shi Tian's questions.

Natasha did not notice how she spilled World Serpent's top secrets!

As an agent—a Cadre-level atop that—she is trained in all sorts of truth serums. Even hypnotization won't work. They even had a fake Seventh Divine Key to build more resistance to mind-based confessions.

Yet…

'How did he do it?'

"Don't worry. It's not only you that failed. Most of them did."

Shi Tian "comforted" her by speaking of World Serpent's failures. Only Chiyou's corpse was stolen. Even that was something laid out by Shi Tian.

"So, feel free to leave with ease. You said it yourself. You wanted this mission to fail." He paused before continuing, "Rather, this mission is destined to fail. Your boss wanted to use you to gauge how far we would go. You are lucky we did not go to the extremes."

"..."

Nobody else spoke aside from him. The silence formed a deterrence of sorts.

Finally, Natasha stood up and spoke.

"I will keep this in mind… and repay you someday."

She was about to walk out when Shi Tian threw something. It was her Third Divine Key. Natasha gave him another look before she left.

"Phew!" Kiana was the first one to take a deep breath. "This is just like in the movies! But why didn't you let me play a role?"

"What role would you have? A lazy paramecium who sleeps all day?"

"I am not a paramecium!"

Shi Tian merely shook his head. He is the one who came up with this setup.

Sin Mal and Seele will act according to their personalities; a good and bad cop. Sin Mal then deploys her dream techniques to subtly influence Natasha. It serves as her practical training of sorts.

Finally, Shi Tian finishes it using his late stage mental cultivation. He amplified Sin Mal's abilities and led Natasha to confessing everything.

Just then, Seele asked something to Sin Mal.

"Sin."

"Hm?"

"Will you really do… that?"

The girl with heterochromatic eyes paused for a while.

"Of course not! Killing is letting them too easily. I would have beaten her up instead."

Seele sighed out of relief. Sin Mal's "act" earlier scared her.

Only Sin Mal knew she truly meant it. She did not have the strength to admit it to others, more so when things are going extremely well.

'I don't want to…'

She hid her thoughts to herself.

"Tian. The Bronya wants to talk with you for a while."

"Hm?"

"Alone."

The three other girls looked at her in bewilderment. Then, they dismissed Bronya's unusual antics.

As such, she was able to pull out Shi Tian outside the room.

"The Bronya asks you to arrange a sound-insulation barrier."

*****

Out of everyone, Bronya is the one who did not grow up much. Her biggest change is her one centimeter height increase. Kiana, and I grew up to our eighteen-year-old selves; Seele grew up to her fifteen-year-old self. It was Bronya who looked unmoved by time, remaining the same as her past self.

Our height difference is huge. Hence, when she asked that strange request, I looked down to her eyes.

My [Encompassing Eyes] saw hints of her anxiety and worry.

In the end, I heeded her request and set one up with my spiritual consciousness.

"Do you like Kiana? Does Seele have a chance?"

I stopped breathing.

…

My mind worked at fast speeds. I deduced why Bronya will ask these questions. It did not take long to find reasonable conclusions.

Bronya is Seele's friend. She is also Kiana's friend. I am not blind to the way these two act around me. Factoring Bronya's seriousness, I can see they are concerned about them.

I am not as blind as to not see what is brewing around me. I need to resolve it prudently.

As to how to resolve it...

I am not sure how.

…

I looked at the silent duck. I chose to give a roundabout answer.

"I... Care for them both."