The first few days were rather leisurely.
Aside from occasionally assisting Mobius in her research, Adam basically spends most of his time in his dorm meditating and tightening his bond with Kyoka Suigetsu.
The mental space is also very convenient as he can train much more discreetly as the mental space is basically indistinguishable from reality in terms of his ability's performance.
As usual today, Adam woke up early and prepared some simple breakfast with portions enough for three people.
The institute is well equipped with a proper kitchen to handle live-in staff. It has several expensive and high end cooking equipment like cooking wares, a large oven, food processor, microwaves, even a deep fryer, etc. However, all except the microwave, water heater and coffee maker have a thick layer of dust.
Clearly, neither Klein or Dr Mobius had ever cooked anything in this kitchen.
He even had to go out to the city outside the Fire Moth headquarters to stock up plenty of groceries with his own money. Not that he cared as he had no other use for his money.
After making a simple waffle top with jam using a waffle maker and a pot of coffee, he first divided them into three portions and then went to the lab.
In the lab, Adam greeted the overworked yet still tirelessly typing Klein on her desk and left her portion there.
"Uhm… thanks." She said without turning her eyes away from the screen and took a sip of the still steaming coffee.
"You're welcome." Adam replied and moved deeper into the lab.
When he arrived at Mobius's workplace, Adam saw a frustrated Mobius gritting her teeth and furiously analysing the information on her computer.
He placed down her breakfast on her desk before moving to another empty desk nearby to take a seat and eat without bother to inform Mobius.
She dislikes being interrupted as she could be thinking of something important and interrupting her could cause her to lose that important thought.
So, he let her be and waited until she took a rest on her own volition.
It didn't take long either before she furiously scratched her head in frustration and slammed her desk then turned to glare at Adam. He just watched with amusement in his face while enjoying his breakfast.
After all, he understands her source of frustration.
To try and analyse a spiritual energy with physical devices is futile. Sure, the research devices can pick up the energy presence. But that's all it could do.
They even make a bet. Mobius bets that she can understand Reiryoku more than Adam with the condition of his full cooperation in the research.
"You! I know you know the origin of this energy. Tell me!" She demanded angrily.
In reply, Adam just shrugs his shoulders and plays dumb.
"As I told you before. I really don't know much. This power just came to me suddenly one day."
"You!" She squeezed out through her gritted teeth.
After all, Adam really didn't know much about Reiryoku itself and his understanding has mostly come from his personal deductions.
To admit Adam could understand more about Reiryoku than herself with his limited understanding is the same as admitting he is smarter. But she is too prideful to do it.
Indeed, Adam has advantages like knowledge of Bleach Verse power. But his situation as a Human and Shinigami hybrid made most of the advantages meaningless and he had to start from scratch most of the time.
In fact, most of his accurate understanding of Reiryoku and Reiatsu came from Kyoka Suigetsu who taught him during his training in the mental space.
Seeing how Adam refuses to budge no matter what. Mobius became increasingly more frustrated.
Even if she still can't understand the property of the energy Adam used. It does display its effect during several experiments she conducted with Adam's help.
One of them is what makes her very desperate to harness this energy.
The experiment was to use this energy on a patient with Honkai Corruption to see how the energy reacts on a patient's body.
The effect was miraculous!
Once injected into the patient's body, the once helpless body cells that couldn't resist the erosion of Honkai Energy suddenly become revitalized and immune to Honkai Energy erosion as long as there's constant supply of this energy.
Not just that. Adam even explained that this energy could carry his thought or intent which he displayed by willing his energy to purge the Honkai Energy out from the patient body.
Although the process is very violent and even potentially lethal. This is the genuine method to cure Honkai Corruption!
This energy could even potentially be the key to overcoming the bottleneck on her Fusion Warrior research which is a project to create a Human Honkai hybrid capable of harnessing the abilities of Honkai Beasts.
Since then, Mobius became obsessed with unraveling the secret of this energy. But she could never pass through the very first hurdle which is to harness the energy.
Mobius is certain that Adam knows the origin of the energy he uses and he is willing to cooperate based on his performance during the research from the past few days. But, for some reason. He is unwilling to reveal the details to her.
After giving it a thought, Mobius nearly facepalmed when she finally came to a realisation. Her obsession in unravelling the secret of the energy blinded her to Adam's intention.
Realizing what he wanted, Mobius calmed down and her previous frustration vanished before being replaced with a calm and confident smile.
She didn't immediately insist on demanding an answer from Adam and instead took her breakfast to the desk Adam sat on and ate.
Adam saw her sudden changes and raised an eyebrow at her as he took the last bite of his waffle before sipping on the coffee.
Seeing Mobius smiling and smirking on her own always makes Adam feel unsettled. It was like being a prey stalked by a snake even if the current Mobius had yet to become a Fusion Warrior.
As the atmosphere becomes strange and more uncomfortable, Adam makes a cough and looks at Mobius still smiling as if she is in control of the situation.
Mobius lifted her head slightly from her breakfast to glance at Adam before she smirked and said, "What's the rush?"
Adam feels speechless at this scene.
Who is rushing who?
Who was it that kept rushing him for answers just now?
"So, what is your price?" She suddenly asked mid chew.
"Price? What price?"
"Oh, stop playing dumb. Just say it. As long as it is within my capabilities, I will do it." Mobius rolls her eyes at Adam with confidence in her guess.
At this point, he stopped evading the topic and got straight to the point with Mobius.
"Well, your guess is correct. But not entirely." He replied with an air of mystery before his gaze suddenly turned sharp as a blade. "Rather than demanding a price from you. What I want is mutual cooperation."
"Mutual cooperation, you say?" Mobius frowned, her eyes glanced at him with a hint of suspicion but quietly shook it away as she sighed.
Seeing her hesitation, Adam didn't rush and instead turned his attention to the coffee in his mug as he took a sip.
The air around them turns tense as if they were performing interrogation instead of discussion with Mobius silently scrutinising Adam with various thoughts and guesses.
But in the end, she found nothing and asked Adam to present his terms for the cooperation he mentioned.
"I can assure it's nothing difficult and in fact beneficial to you, Dr Mobius." Adam gently placed his mug on the desk and reassured Mobius.
"As you might already know from your own findings. The special property of Reiryoku or Spiritual Energy is its ability to be infused with my will that allows fine control over this energy's actions." He explained while condensing an orb of Reiryoku in his palm that transformed into various shapes.
Mobius followed his explanations word by word, her eyes focused on her orb of transforming energy in his palm with nods.
"Indeed, it is as you said. The miraculous property of your energy allows endless possibilities in applications." She spoke with agreement.
Suddenly, he clenched his fist to snuff out the energy orb in his palm and gaze straight at Mobius's eyes with intensity that made her unconsciously bobbed her throat.
Even Adam himself hadn't noticed the expression on his face as he is engrossed with leading the discussion.
"Surely, you had thought of using this Spiritual Energy as an alternative to Honkai Factors Suppressant for the Fusion Warrior surgery."
Mobius nodded again with her eyes shut as she thought of his words. But suddenly her eyes snapped open and she slammed her hand on the desk.
"You! How did you know about the details of this classified Project?"
"Someone like you shouldn't have the clearance to touch upon such information." Mobius declared instantly and stood up in shock, her eyes filled with suspicion and confusion.
Adam remained calm and collected as he took another sip of his coffee before he said, "Dr Mobius, everyone has their secrets…" His eyes sharpen and his voice laced with a tinge of threat that makes her scalp tingle. "And I doubt someone like you truly cares about something as trivial as this as long as your goal can be achieved, right?"
Hearing his emphasis on her goal, Mobius frowned deeper. The person in front of her had become incomprehensible unlike Adam prior to this conversation.
The aura and presence he exudes, his tone, his speech, body language. All of them had changed. As if, the current Adam in front of her is not Adam. But someone else was wearing his flesh and skin.
As much as she wanted to object to his offer due to her suspicion that he was a spy working for other factions. She also knew that Adam could summon his blade out of thin air and cut her down if they failed to reach a cooperation.
Besides, he isn't wrong about herself not really caring who or where the help comes from as long as she can achieve her goal. After all, her morality is rather flexible and progress cannot be made without sacrifice.
But, she also has a bottom line that she wouldn't cross, which is the survival of humanity.
Biting the bottom of her lips, Mobius had no other choice but to agree. But, she also has her own terms and conditions.
Hearing her terms, Adam couldn't help but chuckle and comment.
"I am hurt by your words, Dr Mobius." He mutters with a sigh and dispel the serious atmosphere. "My purpose to aid you with the Fusion Warrior project isn't for some selfish reasons."
"Think about it, Dr Mobius. Does humanity truly have a chance to win this war against Honkai with our current strength?"
This sudden question caught Mobius off guard and before she could find an answer to reply, Adam answered it himself.
"I, as a frontline soldier, think I have the qualifications to say that, no. Humanity has no chance to win against Honkai."
"Up until now, three Herrschers had descended in all three of these wars, it was all pyrrhic victories gained through immense loss."
"Does the Fire Moth plan to use nukes to deal with all the Herrschers that descended in the future? Sacrificing cities and millions of lives to take down each Herrschers?"
Unknowingly, Adam's tone and voice become filled with fervor like a leader that stood before millions to deliver his passionate speech.
"Because that is exactly what I see from the attitude of the Fire Moth's higher-ups."
"They care little about the war against Honkai and squabble about their personal interests."
"Fire Moth, the very organization that was founded to fight against Honkai, is rotting and filled with those parasitic maggots from the inside."
His eyes locked straight at Mobius's and she stared back at him with an indescribable emotion that can be described as disbelief, mocking and pity.
In her opinion, what Adam said is indeed true. However, wishing to change everything with just him alone is nothing but a foolish dream. A dream of an idealist that is too far detached from reality.
The higher-ups of the Fire Moth are filled with powerful leaders of top nations, mega corporations, military forces and political parties. To oppose them is to oppose the established world order.
Even if Adam is part of some kind of organisation, she doubts there's any organisation with enough power to topple the world order.
Thus, his speech is nothing more than the idealistic words of a fool in her opinion.
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