"It's... broken?" Caelus stared in disbelief.
His freshly acquired golden finger—not even used once—was already broken? In this river?
"Does the manufacturer offer after-sales service?" Caelus asked with a serious and polite expression.
"..."
These words made the system, which had been shedding tears, stop its whimpering and choking. It looked at Caelus with silent sobs.
Though it lacked human features—merely a screen glowing with a sci-fi blue—Caelus could sense an aura of pitifulness emanating from it.
Still is...
Are you really being polite?!
There's no after-sales service! Though it could be sent back to the factory... but the problem is, it just left the factory!
"Just kidding," Caelus raised his hand awkwardly.
A free golden finger—even if it were broken, or even exploded—he'd have to praise it for exploding loudly.
That said, the fact that the newly acquired golden finger had broken still left Caelus feeling regretful.
After all, it broke down while blocking Aha for him.
Although the system didn't stand up for him, given Aha's personality, he might not actually harm Caelus. As the Aeon of Elation, his only goal was to stir up trouble and have fun!
But becoming the plaything of the Aeon of Elation—regardless of the outcome—the process would likely be "too gruesome to witness."
After all, the system had blocked this "Universiade" for him.
"Actually, it's not completely broken. Just a little bit, yeah, just a little bit."
Facing Caelus's comforting gaze, the system felt that the host seemed to have misunderstood something and whispered softly.
What?
Not completely broken?
Can it still be used?
You should've said so earlier!
Feeling that his emotions had been wasted, Caelus was left speechless for a moment before forcing a smile.
Even a flawed cheat is better than nothing at all~!
"By the way, I still don't know what kind of system you are?"
As a type of "goldfinger," systems come in all sorts of varieties, but the most convenient and user-friendly category is undoubtedly the check-in series—truly the premium tier among systems.
You don't have to do anything—just visit designated spots and check in. It's practically no different from getting things for free.
However, judging by the system's performance so far, Caelus could probably only dream of such a luxury.
Gesturing with his hand as if to say, "Please, begin your performance," Caelus adopted an attentive posture, ready to listen.
"About that, Host, you'll understand with just one look."
As it said this, the system's glowing screen drifted leisurely in front of Caelus.
When he saw the content displayed on the mysteriously shimmering screen, Caelus's eyes widened instantly, and he couldn't help but exclaim:
"Holy crap, Honkai Impact!"
What appeared on the screen was unmistakably the game interface of Honkai Impact 3rd—though not exactly identical to the game's UI.
Caelus's expression gradually turned strange.
The overall layout looked a bit sparse, making it easy to deduce the system's functions from those iconic and unique UI elements.
On the left, the icon buttons had been reduced to just three: [Missions], [Mail], and [Shop].
Similarly, the right side retained only three options: [Equipment], [Valkyries], and [Supply].
The background wasn't the Hyperion bridge but instead depicted the Astral Express racing across the galaxy, reminiscent of the opening animation of Honkai: Star Rail.
Caelus's gaze gradually sharpened: "The interface UI is clearly from the Honkai Impact 3rd, but your background is Star Rail. What kind of system are you?"
"It's just the Honkai game system."
"Host, don't forget the prefix for Star Rail. Ahem, mainly because Star Rail has many well-optimized aspects, so I just copied... borrowed a little."
Can systematic elements even be considered copying?
"Star Rail's optimizations are indeed solid." Automatically replacing "borrowed" in her mind, Caelus nodded.
Auto-battles, daily tasks that can be completed in just a few minutes.
As everyone knows, miHoYo's younger sister games are usually experimental fields.
Caelus tapped into the supply module, but the background wasn't the familiar bridge or Honkai boxes—it was blue skies and white clouds.
"Whoa, Genshin!"
Caelus leaned back tactically: "Just how much have you stitched together?"
"Ahem, no need to worry about such details."
"...Alright."
It's just a few borrowed UI elements, not a big deal.
"So, can I pull for Valkyries?"
Caelus looked at the gacha interface borrowed from Genshin Impact's UI and easily guessed the system's function.
But then, remembering something, Caelus scrutinized the gacha interface.
"But aren't those Valkyries already in this universe?"
While Star Rail was downloading and loading, she searched for Honkai Impact 3rd × Star Rail crossover videos on YouTube.
From the latest Honkai Impact 3rd storyline, it's known that the solar system where the Cocoon of Finality resides seems to be within Star Rail's galactic universe, just in a somewhat remote location.
The solar system appears to have been shielded by the Cocoon of Finality all along.
"The character cards the host pulls aren't the 'original versions.'"
"I see." Caelus nodded in understanding.
With that cleared up, she had no further questions.
Rubbing her hands together, her gaze shifted upward, and Caelus noticed the number before the crystal icon in the upper right corner was '0.'
"System, aren't there any beginner benefits or something like that?"
As a game system, there should be beginner rewards, right?
After stitching together so many elements, surely this wasn't forgotten.
"There originally were..." the system muttered quietly.
Caelus's smile instantly froze.
"My underlying logic is based on Honkai Impact 3rd. Originally, I should have given a guaranteed character supply card."
Caelus knew about this—the tutorial pull in Honkai Impact 3rd guarantees one of the three starter B-rank Valkyries, like Bronya.
"However, the Aeon of Elation just messed with part of my code, and that supply card got corrupted."
"The gacha pool and shop also encountered some issues."
The system's voice grew softer and softer, barely a whisper.
It actually broke my supply card!
"Aha, you damn bastard! I'll kill you a thousand, no, ten thousand times, and it still won't be enough!"
Caelus roared with clenched fists, then suddenly froze as if realizing something belatedly, his mouth hanging open in a daze.
"Wait, System, what else did you say?"
"...The gacha pool and the shop."
"Gacha pool! Shop?"
His voice rising sharply, Caelus wore an expression of horror and disbelief.
He flipped through the gacha interface but found nothing unusual. Returning to the main screen, he opened the shop to find all the slots pitch black.
Beneath them was the label: [Items Sold Out, Restocking in Progress].
"The module for generating items is broken, but it's not a big issue."
The System couldn't be bothered to fix it and had a better idea.
It planned to rent out the shop module as a 'stall' to other systems or simply copy and paste item links directly from the market.
"..." Caelus fell into a certain kind of silence.
The problem... really wasn't that big.
He had no idea what the System was scheming, but...
As everyone knows, in gacha games, the items you can buy in the shop are all trash.
They're either completely useless trash or slightly useful trash.
Not having them didn't matter much.
"What about the gacha pool? What's going on there?"
But the gacha pool was different!
"The gacha pool... aside from character cards, originally only contained equipment and items from the Honkai series."
"Aha shattered four sequence slots in my gacha pool, causing the draw index to point towards the endless void."
"Now, anything could be drawn from these four sequence slots, and they're not bound by the reward mechanism or the ten-draw guarantee..."
Hearing this, Caelus's heart, which had been sinking to the bottom of an abyss, suddenly halted and jumped back to its original position.
Browsing through the gacha pool explanation provided by the System, Caelus hesitantly asked, "Isn't this a good thing?"
The items in the System's gacha pool were divided into seven grades, from one-star to seven-star.
Caelus completely ignored the seven-star tier after seeing the probability.
A ten-draw guaranteed at least one four-star item, and within twenty draws, you were guaranteed a character card starting from four-star.
Now, with four sequence slots broken in every ten-draw, not only did they occupy the guaranteed slots, but the probability of drawing high-star items had increased by several percentage points.
More importantly, the originally fixed, limited item pool had expanded into an infinite resource pool.
"Expanding the range could be considered a good thing, but I hope the host maintains this opinion when drawing Crimson Queen or Amemura Bloodlust."
The System murmured sarcastically.
Caelus froze.
What the hell?
Is this what "not bound by the reward mechanism" means?
"Could there be negative items and creatures that are harmful to me?"
"Correct. Generally, most items in the gacha pool are positive enhancement items, and the few with negative effects are still constrained by the System. But now, items drawn from these four sequence slots are outside the constraint range." If the host draws certain special items containing curses, there's a high chance the curses will directly affect the host."
It's like there were originally ten pipes at the bottom of a swimming pool pumping clean water. Now the pool bottom is broken, four of those pipes are pulled out, and their other ends are placed in the bottomless, mixed-up ocean.
The pipes' filters are damaged. Once the valve is opened to draw water, who knows what kind of monsters might come through from the other end.
"Items without self-awareness, or those with weak self-awareness, I can barely manage to store them in the equipment backpack."
"But for those possessing self-awareness, they can break free from constraints. Conservatively speaking, they might appear anywhere within hundreds of kilometers centered around the host."
The System spoke cautiously.
"And... the probability of drawing entities from the Chaotic·Evil alignment increases."
With the System's power, the suction force of the pipeline might not be strong enough to forcibly capture the big fish in the sea.
Yet across the myriad realms, there are countless villains who seek to invade other worlds and dominate the universe.
Just place the pipeline opening there, and they'll crawl through on their own.
"There are all sorts of other possibilities too. In short, no matter what emerges from these four sequence slots, it wouldn't be surprising."
"..."
Caelus fell silent.
It was clear that Aha's goal was to allow more variables to enter this universe through the System.
The problem... well, it wasn't actually that big.
In Honkai Impact 3rd, there were the Celestials who wanted to invade parallel worlds.
Unfortunately, they were stopped by the St. Freya squad and didn't succeed.
Otherwise, if they had really come, ready to conquer the universe...
The Antimatter Legion & The Xianzhou Alliance & The Garden of Recollection & The Interastral Peace Corporation: "Hmm, go on, we're listening."
Even as he said this, another doubt arose in Caelus's heart.
"By the way, System, since you can expel Aha, why didn't you kick Him out from the start?"
Caelus poked the light screen with his finger.
"Ah, well... um..."
The System stammered for a long time. Seeing that Caelus wasn't giving up on the question, it finally spilled the reason in defeat.
What Caelus heard left him speechless.
It was a simple principle.
The human brain can store 10 trillion bits of information, comparable to the storage capacity of 10,000 computers, theoretically outperforming strategic acceleration computers by 8 to 9 orders of magnitude.
Ancient martial arts also have examples: if a greater burden is applied to an injured area, the body will respond.
The human body is truly miraculous, isn't it!
Yet, with such a complex and wondrous structure, how much of it can the consciousness—you—actually control?
The System's source code counterattacking and expelling Aha is like the human immune system eliminating a virus; the conscious mind has no control over it.
'The System is strong' ≠ 'The System has power.'
The inequality speaks for itself.
"So you're still useless?"
Caelus uttered words that made the System's light screen crack, yet no rebuttal came.
Hey!
At least refute that!
The atmosphere fell into an eerie silence. After a long while, Caelus let out a deep sigh.
"Forget it."
"It's all that damned Aha..."
"Exactly, it's all that bastard Fool!"
Caelus and the System cursed together.
Suddenly, Caelus noticed a red dot on the System interface's [Mail] icon.
"Huh?" Caelus was taken aback. Was this module actually functional?
He had thought it was purely decorative.
Opening the mail, a letter appeared before Caelus, making him gasp sharply before his expression shifted.
"System, shut up! How could you speak like that about our beloved kin?"
His tone was stern and righteous, as if scolding a sinner who had committed an unforgivable act, causing the System to freeze up immediately.
It quickly realized that the mail module, which had been purely for interface symmetry, had actually received a message?
What was going on?
The System swiftly ran a self-check on the mail content, then fell silent.
[For the sake of our precious and sincere friendship, please accept Aha's humble gift—Crystals × 1600.]
Although it was the Honkai Impact 3rd system, the number of crystals required for a single pull had been optimized to 160. In other words, this was a ten-pull.
Watching the host's joyful and eager expression, as if all previous memories had been completely erased, the system fell into silence.
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How was it?
I think it was good but then again. It's very late and I am very tired so it's up to you to tell me if I'm doing good