"...Weak heartbeat and pulse. Their condition seems critical."
"Wait—what should we do! We can't just leave them to die here..."
"March, you better do CPR."
"Eh!? I-I've never done anything like that before. Dan Heng, you do it!"
—Aren't I dead?
Syuen stirred slightly due to the bickering and forced his eye open, revealing a pair of golden pupils.
The first thing he saw was the face of a man few inches away with both eyes closed, looking as if he was about to lean in for the kiss.
Startled, his body jolted to the left, narrowly dodging at the last second.
"Dan Heng, stop! Look out!"
The girl noticed first and quickly called out in a panic.
However, the man who was apparently named Dan Heng wasn't able to react in time. Carried by his own momentum, he went past Syuen and crashed lip-first into the metal wall behind him with a solid smooch.
Dan Heng blinked his eyes in surprise as he sat in an awkward position.
"Well... that was a surprise..." Syuen laughed dryly. "Sorry, but I prefer a long talk over a nice dinner first."
Dan Heng, on the other hand, wordlessly straightened his body, now standing a respectable distance away, rubbing at his mouth with a serious face as if pretending none of that had ever happened.
Suddenly, a pink-haired girl appeared beside him, giggling uncontrollably as she clutched her stomach.
After a short while, she let out a sigh, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear and wiped an unshed tear.
'Hold on... these two.' Staring at the two weirdoes wondering what they're doing, his eyes went round in realization. 'Why does it seem like I knew them beforehand?'
The scene just now rang a bell in his mind.
Ignoring them for a moment, he pinched the bridge of his nose as he leaned back against the wall. 'From what I've heard just now, she called her Dan Heng.'
'And from the looks of it, this doesn't seem like an anime convention either...' looking around the room, he pondered. 'Ugh... So where am I?'
Syuen tried to jog his memories before being woken up but came up with absolutely nothing. 'I only remember dying for some reason, but in that case, I should be at the morgue right now, or at the very least, I should have woken up at a nearby hospital.'
He was almost certain he had never been to a place like this either.
'No way... Could it be?'
After gathering his thoughts, he quickly realized what was happening. Considering he was supposed to be dead yet somehow found himself in an unfamiliar place, accompanied by strangers dressed in peculiar outfits to boot...
And as ridiculous as it sounds, the situation felt vaguely similar from what he had experienced in a game as well.
He had only one conclusion:
Isekai.
[Role-playing System: Activated. Distributing the beginner package.]
[Template: Tatsuya Shiba.]
[Path: Destruction]
[A destruction-incarnate with great knowledge in magic theory and technology, he is also well-versed in general sciences, often with a logical approach to situations... except for matters related to his dearest sister...]
[Congratulations—the Aeon of Erudition has gazed upon you!]
[An additional x1600 Stellar Jades has been deposited into your account.]
[Welcome to Honkai: Star Rail!]
'...A system!' His eyes almost popped from his sockets after reading the system prompts. 'That confirms it.'
Syuen scrutinized the system window without making it obvious. Seeing them having no reaction, he continued to navigate the interface in order to familiarize himself with the system functions. After all, he wasn't sure if there would be another opportunity later, having a rough idea on how the events will unfold at the Space Station.
First was the Status Screen. A neatly arranged profile appeared, listing his name—Syuen—along with a string of stat names that was clearly copped out from the game. Beneath that was a slot with Tatsuya Shiba's template already activated.
'Is that why my mind felt sharper all of a sudden?' Syuen wondered as he moved to another tab.
Unsurprisingly, the inventory was bare—aside from the template and his current stash of Stellar Jades.
Although he has tempered his expectations for a modest start, Syuen couldn't hide his disappointment. 'No other freebies?'
However, he didn't brood over it for too long since there was no point.
Next, the gacha interface looked like it had been ripped off wholesale from the game. There was a bunch of character lineup for the backdrop, with banners floating in a sleek carousel, exactly as it looked in Honkai Star Rail. The rate, as well as the cost, remained the same too it seemed. Additionally, there was a glowing prompt at the center:
1x Free Warp – Guaranteed 4★ Within 10 Pulls.
A chibi assistant hovered at the bottom corner, waving at him freely. "Ready to test your luck, Trailblazer?"
He was not.
Syuen promptly dismissed the gacha interface and opened the system shop. He felt more curious on the items that were currently available for sale.
'Kevin Kaslana... Jinhsi... Uchiha Itachi...' He mumbled the names at the top of the list, his eyes narrowing slightly as the prices sank in. 'Damn, each of these template starts from thirty to one hundred thousand stellar jades.'
'Figures. There wouldn't be a point to the gacha then,' he commented dryly, continuing to scroll through the shop.
The further he went, the more absurd the list became—strategists, tacticians, cold-blooded masterminds pulled from every genre. Lelouch, Kars, Shiroe, Conan… even that self-proclaimed average citizen Yoshikage Kira was tucked between two characters he didn't even recognize.
Syuen began seeing a pattern not long after.
The prices were absurdly low base on his assessment. Take Ayanokouji and L for a measly hundred each. Light, smug grin and all, was priced just a bit higher at 200. Even Blank and Johan Liebert felt like they were discounted items on a wet market in a slow afternoon.
Seeing the price tags made him ponder. 'I'm not complaining, but why though?'
'Is it because they don't have any special abilities aside from their ridiculous intelligence stat?' Thinking to himself, he shrugged. 'That might be it, really.'
As he set his eyes on the system once again to close the shop, he suddenly had a crazy idea—
'Hold on... If I can load up on tens of these for the price of a single multi...' he trailed off, a grin forming on his face.
If his understanding of the system was accurate, activating the template itself did not seem to require energy at all and demanded no effort to keep them active, which means he could leverage multiple templates simultaneously and compound their intelligence to boost his own.
'Just like my mind sharpened the moment I switched to Tatsuya Shiba's template,' Syuen mused, resting his thumb lightly against his lips as he thought.
At first glance, it seemed like it was a gamble, but he was convinced he'd simply stumbled upon a major loophole.
Essentially, it was akin to obtaining access to a global passive that boosted his intelligence, one that scaled with every smart pick.
In addition, he genuinely thought it was hardly a stretch spending a fraction of a gacha pull on well-known, high-intelligent characters a massive bargain. Whether or not his plan succeeded, he could always make an audition using the individual templates to see if he could make it to the Genius Society.
In any case, what better use of currency there is than to buy a guaranteed template, portioned out in calculated risk?
The only thing he stand to lose was a single multi anyway.
[Purchased Template: Ayanokouji Kiyotaka (Preservation)], [Purchased Template: Johan Liebert (Nihility)], [Purchased Template: L Lawliet (Hunt)], [Purchased Template: Light Yagami (Hunt)], [Purchased Template: Blank (Erudition)], [Purchased Template: Lelouch Lamperouge (Nihility)] [Purchased Template: Yuuichi Katagiri (Destruction)], [Purchased Template: Shogo Makishima (Destruction)], [Purchased Template: Leonardo Da Vinci (Harmony)]
[Congratulations—the Aeon of Erudition has extended its invitation upon you!]
With a pulse through the void, resonating not in sound, but in thought—words were instantly conveyed inside his mind.
"You, who have wrestled with paradox and emerged unfettered," thus THEY spoke to him. "You, who dared to question not merely the answer, but the premise itself. You have glimpsed the latticework beneath reason."
"Truly, worthy bearer of the name Universal Genius."
"Huh..." Syuen smiled as he ran one hand over the left side of his face. "That was easy."