"This?"
Herta looked puzzled. "Why would you want this...? While you can still tell it was originally a weapon, it's so badly damaged it's practically useless in a real fight."
"No, no, no…"
Lynelle shook her head repeatedly. "Didn't you say yourself, Herta, that when these Curios are transformed into items through the system, their abilities are derived from either their practical utility or their background significance? Even if this Curio's usefulness is next to zero, the story it represents is anything but ordinary."
"In a way, this fragment represents another possibility for the world in my dreams, a product of a parallel world, you could say."
"I see... Wait, did you just say par—"
Herta jolted, staring at Lynelle with an intensely peculiar look that made the girl squirm a little.
"W-What is it?"
"...No, it's nothing."
Herta shook her head, then spoke to Lynelle with unusual gravity. "That explanation you just gave for this Curio—it's best you never speak of it again, in any context. Understood?"
"Oh, okay…"
Though she didn't fully grasp the reason, seeing Herta's stern expression, Lynelle obediently nodded.
After all, Herta didn't seem to have ill intentions; it was more like Lynelle had stumbled upon some kind of taboo.
No, perhaps it was more like she'd just skirted the edge of some fundamental boundary?
She vaguely recalled that Star Rail did have related plot points. But thanks to her memory issues, while she remembered the Honkai Impact 3rd storyline crystal clear, her memories of Star Rail's were… only general at best.
With that little interlude, Lynelle's Curio selection process became much more cautious.
Under Herta's guidance, she touched seven or eight different Curios, each with its own use.
Compared to the nearly empty Character Warp, which only had four figures, the Weapon Warp had accumulated nearly ten 4-star items, plus a good number of 5-star ones.
What was worth mentioning, though, was that now that Lynelle was truly relaxing for the first time here in Star Rail, she finally had a chance to properly check the Character and Weapon Warps available here.
According to the system's explanation, over in the Honkai Impact 3rd side, she could only pull Star Rail weapons and characters, while the Star Rail side was the exact opposite.
As for characters, aside from Otto, with whom she'd had a rather 'heart-to-heart' exchange, the only one she'd encountered was Sirin. Those researchers didn't even qualify as 3-star and were filtered out entirely.
And regarding weapons… Lynelle discovered something completely unexpected.
"Void Archives [Altered]?"
Looking at the description for this 5-star weapon, confusion spread across Lynelle's face. "What does this 'Altered' mean? Is this the Void Archives that Otto… marinated to his taste?"
[No, no, no.]
Customer Service Kiana-chan appeared promptly to clear things up.
[It's because Void Archives is a special case. It counts as a weapon with an extremely strong sense of self, even exceeding the system's designated limit for independent consciousness. So, the Void Archives within the system doesn't include its own will; the host needs to control it personally.]
"Eh… The system is really something else."
[Besides being convenient, this limit on independent consciousness is also to prevent certain bugs.]
Kiana-chan explained helplessly.
[For example, if you touched some intelligent mechanical lifeform, and that lifeform could also be classified as a weapon or something like that…]
"Oh, I get it now."
Lynelle had a sudden realization. "So, even if I touched someone like Screwllum and genuinely considered him a weapon, I still wouldn't be able to pull him, right?"
[That's roughly it. Also, because the flow of time differs between the two worlds and the Warp pools aren't interconnected, while the host's Crystals aren't specifically distinguished for each side, the Crystals for the Warp pools in the two worlds are actually calculated separately.]
[Simply put, if you have enough for one 10-pull, you can pull once in the Star Rail pool, and then go pull once in the Honkai pool as well.]
"That's actually quite reasonable, and it saves me the trouble of allocating resources between the two sides…"
Lynelle scratched her head. "Should I use my pulls now? Not that I even have enough for a single 10-pull at the moment."
[If you're going to pull, I'd still suggest the host wait until the need arises. Also, you should allocate your pulls reasonably between the Character and Weapon Warps.]
Kiana-chan advised.
[Because I was looking through the system's underlying protocols again recently and discovered that the first twenty pulls in each Warp pool count as a beginner's bonus, with a drop rate far higher than usual.]
"Little tricks to improve user retention, huh."
Lynelle said, a bit exasperated. "So why didn't you mention such an important setting earlier?"
[Uh… Well, it's not like anyone usually reads the user agreement for fun in their spare time…]
Kiana-chan's voice sounded a bit guilty.
After all, when a certain someone had tossed this system framework to her, the original system spirit had long since departed. If she wanted to check anything, she had to go dig through the system's code herself.
As a system spirit 'press-ganged into service,' dear Kiana-chan had used up her lifetime's worth of learning ability just to get the system running in a short time. A slightly subpar service experience was… somewhat understandable.
"Whatever, it's not a big deal anyway…"
Lynelle sighed. "More than that, I just hope too much time hasn't passed when I get back this time…"
"Lynelle, come over here."
Herta's call sounded from nearby. Seeing Lynelle approach, she pointed to a device that looked like something out of a next-generation gaming pod.
"Here, lie down in this."
"This is…"
"It's a stasis pod I've specially prepared for you, to maintain your body while you're in the other world."
Herta patted the pod beside her, which shared almost the same color scheme as she did. "It's equipped with a life support system, consciousness monitoring, dream transmission systems, and a series of supporting features. It also has some defensive capabilities, usable even out in the wild."
"Also, to prevent you from being inconvenienced by carrying such a large pod around, I specially acquired a tool with spatial folding effects for you. Strictly speaking, this counts as a Curio too. You can call it… a Ruan Mei Bag."
"It's actually her?"
Lynelle was somewhat surprised.
"You know Ruan Mei too? Hmm… I'm growing more and more interested in the information in your memories. But, you'd better hope you don't run into anyone from the Garden of Recollection in the future."
"Is it because they might try to peek into my memories?"
"No."
Herta shook her head. "To be precise, it's that they absolutely wouldn't be able to resist peeking into your memories."
"However, what I mean is, you'd better prepare yourself for being labeled something like a 'Memokeeper Hunter' by the Garden in the future. After all, that Emanator-level power in your mind isn't something that can be casually spied on."
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.