"Mm, understood. Just a moment." After Theresa operated the system for a bit, a Titan popped up from the underground of the training ground.
"Huh, a Titan?" Irene looked at the Titan that had popped up and tilted her head. "Isn't this thing from Anti-Entropy? Where did St. Freya Academy get it?"
"Captured on the battlefield, though it was pieced together after being dismantled." Theresa looked at Irene. "Recovered from the battlefield to be used as a target. After all, Titans are indeed solid and durable."
They had friction with Anti-Entropy, and Anti-Entropy used various Titans most frequently. Some Titans remained relatively intact after battles and would be recovered to serve as targets or training dummies.
Usually, they were used to train Valkyries on how to efficiently deal with Titans. Expecting these Titans to fight was unlikely; many of their systems were damaged, hard to repair, and unnecessary to repair.
As a training target, being solid and durable enough, with a certain ability to counterattack, was sufficient. There was no need to repair them meticulously; Schicksal didn't use these things.
After hearing Theresa's explanation, Irene nodded. "That sounds pretty good. Since you don't mind, then I'll just go ahead freely."
"Go ahead, don't worry." Theresa gave Irene a thumbs up. "You won't have to pay even if you smash it."
Irene nodded, then stood facing the Titan. Just when Theresa thought Irene would transform into the Kallen figure glimpsed back at Senba Academy, strands of blue lines suddenly appeared in Irene's hands.
A shape that was both familiar and strange to Theresa gradually emerged amidst the outlining lines.
Irene's palm grasped the empty air, holding the chains outlined by the blue lines. With a sound like a shattering mirror, the golden-glimmering Starry Judah appeared in Irene's hand.
[Mirror Sync]
[Type: Skill]
[Effect: Consumes Honkai energy and a certain amount of mental power to replicate weapons and equipment belonging to a Possession Card. The strength of the replicated equipment depends on the invested Honkai energy and mental power.
The minimum Honkai energy consumed by different weapons varies, depending on the performance of the weapon to be replicated.
Strength includes all performance aspects of the weapon itself, such as hardness, sharpness, toughness, etc. However, under the same Honkai energy consumption, one can sacrifice strength in other areas to enhance strength in a specific area. For example, when replicating a sword, one can sacrifice sharpness to enhance hardness.]
[Note: Mirror Sync is a base skill and can be used in the Possession state.]
This was the skill rewarded to Irene last night along with Cheng Lixue. The skill itself was simple and crude: it allowed Irene to borrow weapons and equipment from other Possession Cards while in her base state or in a Possession state.
This was her first time using this skill. Even in the Palace of Consciousness, she hadn't performed a simulated use. After all, it was really too late last night, and she had gone straight to sleep. But looking at it now...
Irene tugged at the chains in her hand. It had to be said—as expected of Judah. Even though she had constructed this Judah by treading the bare minimum requirements, it still consumed nearly eighty percent of her Honkai energy reserves.
And this was the result after she used the Taixuan Sword Qi to draw upon the surrounding Honkai energy. If she had really relied solely on her own Honkai energy reserves, she probably wouldn't have been able to complete the sync.
However, Irene had only just started using Honkai energy to strengthen her body and build up reserves. Even though her Honkai Adaptability was First Rated, she didn't have much Honkai energy right now.
Nevertheless, this Judah constructed on the bare minimum naturally didn't have much performance to speak of. But since it was a demonstration, Irene poured all other attributes entirely into replicating the Binding ability.
So right now, this Judah only looked imposing. In reality, a slight tap with a brick would likely cause it to shatter into pieces on the ground. Apart from the Binding ability, it was a good-for-nothing showpiece.
Therefore, using it for a demonstration should be barely enough.
Below the stage, Theresa watched the Judah gripped in Irene's hand, a flash of surprise passing through her eyes. So Irene could actually use powers without transforming?
Seemingly confirming that Irene was ready, the Titan used for testing began to walk slowly toward her. Unhurriedly, Irene manipulated Judah, imitating Kallen by fixing Judah onto her arm with the chains.
Due to the 'rob Peter to pay Paul' style of enhancement, the sharpness of the thorns on the chains wasn't enough to tear through her clothes and skin. Watching the slowly approaching Titan, Irene seized the moment, gripping a chain in her hand and lashing it like a whip at the Titan's raised foot.
The chain shattered instantly upon hitting the Titan, but a layer of dim golden barrier instantly condensed on the Titan's foot.
"This is called Binding · Anchor. It can bind the momentum of an object moving within that area—for example, the force exerted by the object itself."
Following Irene's explanation, the Titan seemed to feel as if it had stepped onto a step, using the foot constrained in place to provide support.
When it lifted its other foot preparing to step forward, the Power of Binding—which was already dim due to the low replication strength—instantly failed. The golden cube shattered.
At this moment, the Titan's foot was already raised. Losing its balance point in mid-air, the Titan toppled directly onto the ground.
"Um, I... I don't seem to have understood." Theresa looked at the toppled Titan and scratched her head. She could roughly tell that this was indeed an application of the Power of Binding.
It was much stronger than her method of simply smashing with Judah or the spontaneously scattered Power of Binding. But looking at it like this, it was really a bit hard to understand.
"In that case, why don't you come up and experience it?" Irene waved to Theresa.
Theresa operated the Titan that had just fallen to return to the spot where it had popped out. The floor instantly split open, retracting the Titan back down. Finally, Theresa climbed onto the arena.
"But how exactly am I supposed to learn?"
"Mn, first I'll let you see the effect again. Then I'll tell you the experience, and then wait until you can produce the approximate effect."
Irene looked at Theresa as if this were a matter of course. Although part of her experience came directly from Kallen, this was exactly how she learned the usage methods of Judah from Kallen after obtaining the Palace of Consciousness.
Kallen would first demonstrate the general effect of the skill, then hand over the experience and insights to Irene, and then Irene would attempt to replicate the application with the same effect.
As long as she could do it, Irene would consider the skill learned. It was quite a metaphysical method, but Authority was a metaphysical thing to begin with. Expecting to use scientific methods to fully explain it was basically very difficult to achieve.
Especially the Power of Binding, which didn't pay much heed to physics anyway; one could only rely on insight and imagination.
Fortunately, after using Kallen's Possession Card, Irene would naturally gain a boost from Kallen's experience, so learning was relatively fast. However, Theresa didn't have such good benefits.
"First, watch closely." Irene extended her other hand. "Binding isn't necessarily used only to bind others to achieve an attack; it can also be used to bind oneself to achieve defense."
"Bind oneself?" Three question marks seemed to flash above Theresa's head. The Power of Binding... if she bound herself, wouldn't she be binding her own Honkai energy?
In that case, what kind of defense would that be? Wouldn't that be weakening herself?
Seeing the confusion in Theresa's eyes, Pardo's Chakram was gradually constructed from blue lines in Irene's other hand. As for this Chakram, aside from sharpness, it was good for nothing else.
Then, under Theresa's somewhat puzzled gaze, Irene ruthlessly slashed the Chakram in her hand across the arm of her other hand. Just as Theresa wanted to stop her, Irene was already displaying the cut wound to Theresa.
"Look." There was a smile on Irene's face. Theresa pursed her lips and looked at the cut wound on Irene, only to discover that no blood was flowing out from there at all.
"Eh?" With Theresa's eyesight and experience, that cut from Irene just now should have caused bleeding no matter what. But currently, no blood appeared on the wound.
"Binding · Blood." Irene covered the wound. "By using the Power of Binding to bind the flow of blood, one can learn to prevent situations like massive blood loss due to external wounds."
"And accompanying this is Binding · Stasis. It uses the Power of Binding to bind the deformation of the wound. As long as the opponent's attack power doesn't break through the Binding's restraint, it won't cause serious injury."
Irene originally wanted to continue speaking, but seeing the swirly eyes appearing in Theresa's gaze, she knew Theresa's brain had reached its limit.
"Anyway, that's how it is. As long as you can proficiently use the two skills of Blood and Stasis, you can learn how to defend through Binding."
"I... I roughly understand." Theresa's eyes were full of spirals. "Although I can tell these are indeed achieved through the Power of Binding..."
"Next, I will take you to feel it."
"Feel it how?" Just as Theresa was confused, Irene had already dismissed the two items she had just constructed and leaned in close.
"Don't resist." Irene placed her hand on the Judah Theresa had just brought up. "Carefully feel the movement of Judah's Power of Binding. After that, you can only slowly learn it yourself."
"Mn... I know." Feeling Irene's breath behind her, Theresa blushed for some reason. "Come on, I'm ready."
"Mn." Irene nodded. After communicating with Judah for a moment, Irene took over control of part of Judah's abilities and began to actively guide Judah's Power of Binding.
In a pitch-black room, Cocolia held a tablet in her hand, watching the video playing on it. This video was none other than the one from Irene's promotion assessment to A-Rank Valkyrie.
"Mn." Cocolia tapped her finger lightly on the chair. "Yellow hair, cat ears... This should be the person Gray Serpent is looking for. But I didn't expect it to be some kind of transformation."
From a combat power perspective, it was roughly at the A-Rank level. If anything, the blue light shadows flickering on the opponent's body should be the most special thing about this girl.
"Blue flickering shadows..." Cocolia's eyes shimmered slightly. Although she couldn't know the details through the video, it could be seen from the battle that after entering that blue flickering shadow state...
The Valkyrie's attacks couldn't harm the girl in the slightest. At least within that blue area, it was like clipping through a model; the greatsword swept directly through that area.
"...Blue, blue." Cocolia closed her eyes slightly, her consciousness drifting to the depths of her memory. After a moment of silence, a voice as faint as a mosquito came from Cocolia's mouth.
"Blue, Seele... Quantization."
Perhaps it was just intuition, or perhaps Cocolia recalled the blue light shadows that emerged from Seele's body when she dissipated, as seen through the surveillance back then.
"So that's it." Cocolia opened her eyes. She felt she had understood. The reason Gray Serpent needed to find this girl—what he sought was probably this ability of Quantization.
When she cooperated with Gray Serpent before, she had heard Gray Serpent say that he needed a Gem of the Herrscher or a Herrscher Core. After obtaining it, he required it to be sent into the Eye of the Deep.
Although she didn't know Gray Serpent's purpose for doing this, Gray Serpent likely had designs on the Sea of Quanta. In that case, this was probably the reason Gray Serpent wanted to find this girl.
"Hmph..." Cocolia put down the tablet. She also needed the ability of Quantization. Gray Serpent, however, concealed this and did not report it. Was he worried she would jack up the price and scam him, or was he worried about something else?
Cocolia couldn't figure it out, but she and Gray Serpent had been cooperating for a long time. Gray Serpent should have known her demands long ago; she also needed the technology of the Sea of Quanta to save Seele.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have put so much effort into trying to obtain control of the Eye of the Deep base.
Although she couldn't quite figure it out, Cocolia still made a call to Gray Serpent. For now, she still needed the cooperation with Gray Serpent. The technology she got from Gray Serpent last time had indeed helped a lot.
And Cocolia, who believed she had seen through Gray Serpent's desire to conceal information to reduce the price, would not let go of this good opportunity. No matter what, she had to knock some more useful technology out of Gray Serpent.
Moreover, she had to pressure this guy for concealing information. It was very likely he didn't want to help her rescue Seele. Furthermore, if she could obtain that girl, perhaps she could bypass Gray Serpent entirely and enter the Sea of Quanta directly to rescue Seele.
A sigil composed of a snake immediately appeared on the gray screen, and Gray Serpent's voice came from it: "Cocolia, do you have business? Or perhaps there is progress on the matter I entrusted to you before?"
"There is indeed progress." Cocolia nodded. "I found her, the girl you are looking for. But I also hope you can explain something."
"Why does she have the ability of Quantization, yet you didn't tell me?"
Hearing Cocolia's words, Gray Serpent on the other end of the screen frowned. Quantization ability... according to records, [Reverie] Pardofelis shouldn't have that kind of ability.
Could it be that this was the reason Lord Reverie survived? Or did Cocolia find the wrong person?
The red glow in Gray Serpent's eyes flickered slightly, and then he spoke again tentatively.
"I wonder why Miss Cocolia says this?"
________________________________________
🌸 Help Love Bloom!
Our girls need a little push... and you can help!
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 10 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉