[Crystals +50]
"Mobius, you truly haven't disappointed me. I, Chen Li, hereby declare you, Mobius, to be the strongest!" Chen Li gave Mobius a big thumbs-up.
"What do you mean?" Mobius was confused.
"I'm just marveling at how technical specialists like you are truly the most worthy investments," Chen Li said.
He had once again been profoundly reminded that technology is the primary productive force.
The acquisition of Miracle Power was related to the strength of the Curio, but it was even more dependent on the magnitude of the miracle the Curio's wielder could create.
To leverage 15 Crystals into a 50-Crystal return meant that Mobius was indeed a person suited for creating miracles.
But then again, miracles themselves had no concept of positive or negative.
The more miracles Mobius could create, the more closely Chen Li had to watch her, lest she play the Previous Era to its collapse.
Mobius did have a bottom line, but it wasn't a very high one.
"Does that mean I'm not worth investing in?" Elysia's slightly resentful voice reached Chen Li's ears.
"Whoa, a ghost!" Chen Li jumped in fright, only turning to see Elysia staring intently at him.
"..."
"Well, you can't put it that way. After all, no matter how powerful the results of Mobius's experiments are, don't you all have to be the ones to use them?" Chen Li quickly added.
"Your explanation doesn't feel very sincere."
"Ahem, that's not important. What's important is, has Griseo's mood meter been refilled? I'm going to go play with her now," Chen Li said, changing the subject to one Elysia might be interested in.
He wasn't lying.
If one were to speak of the greatest miracle that could be achieved in this world, Chen Li could think of nothing other than defeating the Honkai.
But defeating the Honkai also required Crystals.
Chen Li had the Herrscher of the Void's material card, from which he could extract [Space], [God's Apostle], [Herrscher], [Honkai Energy], or the complete Herrscher of the Void Entry.
The most important among these was obviously the [Honkai] Entry, which had a decent brightness.
With this Entry, as long as Chen Li added another like [Control], [Conquer], or [Slay], he could create a Curio to defeat the Honkai.
But to minimize the cost of defeating the Honkai, the Entries needed to be brighter.
Just as there are differences between [Sure-hit] and [Sure-hit], the same applied here.
So, Chen Li's most important task right now was to save up Crystals.
This was how defeating the Honkai worked: the Flame-Chasers only needed to charge forward, while Chen Li had to consider a great many things.
And once the Curio was made, it naturally wouldn't be him using it.
He just needed to sit back and wait for the Crystals to roll in.
---o---
"Elysia, did you know?"
"Know what?"
"In life, you shouldn't take things from strangers, because they might have drugged them. But you can snatch things from strangers to eat, because they won't have time to drug them," Chen Li said, eating a lollipop.
"...Is that why you ignored the candy on the tray Mobius brought over, insisted on snatching Griseo's candy, and ended up making her cry?!" Elysia's voice rose.
"It's Mobius, after all. It's normal to be careful," Chen Li said with a shrug.
"..." A vein throbbed on Mobius's forehead.
It was a rare occasion for me to personally deliver candy, thanks to the budget this major backer provided, and you're going to view me with such malicious suspicion?
Honestly, why must you speak the blunt truth?
In reality, Mobius hadn't done anything too excessive. She had just added a little cold medicine. It would only affect the taste.
She certainly couldn't drug her biggest investor and drag him to the lab for experiments. Where would her budget come from then?
But she could observe the different constitutions of people from different worlds based on their reactions to common medicines.
Mobius had just created a new document on her computer titled: Outlander Observation Diary.
"And don't worry, Griseo isn't crying yet, is she?" Seeing the blue-haired little girl frozen in place after having her candy snatched, Chen Li stuffed a gold coin into her hand just as she was about to burst into tears.
On this glittering gold coin was the image of a small figure giving a thumbs-up. Behind the figure was a set of scales, seemingly symbolizing something.
"What's this? A Curio that stops crying children from crying?" Elysia asked, curiously examining the gold coin that Griseo was now happily playing with.
"How could there be such a strange Curio? This is called... an Approbation of Sublime Morality. Consider it my gift to little Griseo," Chen Li said.
He was also testing the effect of this item.
The effect was remarkable. See? Now no one was accusing him of snatching little Griseo's candy anymore.
Approbation of Sublime Morality—can even be used to do certain things not permitted by morality.
Using this coin for snatching Griseo's candy was certainly overkill, but it was also genuinely a gift.
Normally, the Approbation of Sublime Morality would disappear after being used, but because what Chen Li had done wasn't immoral enough, it had only consumed a tiny fraction of its power. The rest could now belong to Griseo.
"With this coin, Griseo can avert disasters and overcome difficulties. It's absolutely perfect material for a protective amulet," Chen Li said.
"I..."
"You're not thinking of snatching something from a child, are you?" Chen Li cut Mobius off before she could finish, looking at her with disdain.
"I just want to understand the principle. Lend me one, I'll return it later," Mobius said.
"I'd like to borrow one too," Elysia said, raising her hand.
"Although I doubt you'll be able to figure anything out, I can't just discourage your enthusiasm like this. But I can't give it to you for free."
"What do you want now? I have nothing left to give you," Mobius asked.
"Don't worry, I don't want anything valuable from you. I recall you have a Flame-Chaser No. 1 Medal, don't you, Mobius? To commemorate your status as the first member of the Flame-Chasers."
"..."
"..."
The moment Chen Li brought this up, both Mobius and Elysia fell into a strange silence.
"It was tricked away from me," Mobius finally said slowly after a long pause.
"Hahaha!" Chen Li laughed without restraint.
"Child, that's not funny."
"Exactly, everyone makes mistakes," Elysia nodded along beside her.
"Mobius, you truly know how to delight me. Here, you can borrow one, and you can borrow one too." Chen Li lent an Approbation of Sublime Morality to both Mobius and Elysia.
Of course, Chen Li knew that it was Elysia who had tricked Mobius out of the No. 1 medal. He was just looking for an excuse to laugh at Mobius.
It was her own fault for putting cold medicine in the candy.
Chen Li could observe the Entries of items. Just now, when he touched the candy, he had seen the extra [Treats Cold] and [Aids Sleep] Entries on it.
They were faint, very faint, but they were definitely there.
Although he didn't know why Mobius would put cold medicine in candy, he would laugh at her first and ask questions later.
"Is this thing very valuable?" Elysia asked.
If it was, Elysia would have to consider trading something for it.
"If you feel bad, just prepare a few more Crystal Flowers for me. I might be able to sell them for a high price when I go to other worlds. As for this gold coin... its value lies mainly in how it's acquired," Chen Li said.
Simply helping an old lady cross the street could earn you a "fragment" of the Approbation of Sublime Morality. But as Merit, it was something countless people dreamed of obtaining.
"Are you a Curio Forger who moonlights as an unscrupulous merchant?" Mobius asked.
"You can't say that. All my money is hard-earned. After all, transmigration has its costs," Chen Li lamented.
A single trip cost 10 Crystals, which wasn't cheap.
But then again, not even counting the 300 Crystals he'd get for delivering the scalpel to Mobius, he had earned 30 Crystals just for transporting the youkai flesh.
It seemed the youkai flesh wasn't very useful for Mobius's research, but it had some use.
And just like that, Elysia believed Chen Li's nonsense and handed over ten Crystal Flowers.
"You two chat. I'm going to run some experiments," Mobius said, taking her leave.
"I should get to work too. Time to finish the backlog of 100,000 weapon orders in one go," Chen Li said, stretching.
He was still the head of the Engineering Department, after all, and he had an agreement with the Flame-Chaser leadership to trade weapons for Soul Steel.
Although he now had Executive No. 1 as his mole, Chen Li also craved Merit.
He makes weapons, the weapons are used to eliminate Honkai Beasts—how is that not Merit?
It was truly rare to encounter creatures like Honkai Beasts, which were natural-born villains.
"Then I'll go with you," Elysia said, patting Griseo's head and choosing to accompany Chen Li.
"Goodbye, Uncle Li," the well-behaved Griseo said, waving.
"Call me big brother," Chen Li couldn't help but correct her.
"Goodbye, Brother-Uncle."
"...Is Griseo messing with me on purpose?" Chen Li asked, turning his head to Elysia.
"Well, who knows?" Elysia said, lightly scratching her cheek with a finger.
She certainly couldn't tell Chen Li that she was the one who taught Griseo to say that while he was busy forging a Curio for Mobius.
---o---
"Right, speaking of which, how is Vill-V doing?" Chen Li asked as they were walking.
"Vill-V... she escaped from five prisons in three days. I hear the infuriated Flame-Chaser leadership has locked her up on some nameless little island now. But, thanks to my forceful arguments, it seems the leadership has decided to give her another chance. A chance to be recruited. But the authority to assess her seems to be in Dr. Mobius's hands," Elysia said.
She had pried this information out of Mobius herself. Her recent frequent trips to Mobius's lab had not been in vain.
"Is that so... How about we go bribe Mobius in a bit?" Chen Li suggested.
"Are you saying you miss Vill-V?" Elysia asked.
"Yeah, I miss the days when we fought side-by-side."
"But I heard from Vill-V that she tied you up in five different positions in three minutes," Elysia said, tilting her head.
"Let's go bribe Mobius in a bit... and have her keep Vill-V on that damn island forever."
"Ahem, no need to get so worked up. Why don't we talk about that dragon-slaying, white-haired lady who was there before I arrived on the battlefield?" Elysia steered the conversation in a direction she found more interesting.