"Hey Wendy, you seem a bit down these days. What are you thinking about?"
Half a month had passed since the Honkai disaster in Nagazora City, and Kiana and the others were gradually adapting to life at Saint Freya.
Due to the historical deviation caused by Chen Ran, Raiden Mei was not the Herrscher of Thunder.
But because of the inertia of history, Kiana, Raiden Mei, and Bronya were still in the same class.
When Kiana learned that the last Herrscher was Sato Yuna, she felt down for a long time. Her relationship with Yuna wasn't particularly close, but she sympathized with Yuna's plight.
However, after so many days, her mood gradually recovered.
On the other hand, Wendy had been absent-minded for the past few days.
Unlike Kiana, who had just enrolled, Wendy was only one Valkyrie assessment away from becoming an A-rank Valkyrie, so she didn't need to attend classes like them.
But Theresa had intentionally arranged for Wendy to help take care of Kiana, so the four of them were placed in the same dormitory.
However, Wendy almost always left early and returned late, and each time she came back, she looked gloomy, which worried everyone.
Wendy shook her head: "It's nothing, don't worry about me."
The girl clearly couldn't hide her worries.
But she had promised Chen Ran that she wouldn't reveal what had happened in the past few days.
During this time, Wendy had witnessed firsthand how a person could become haggard.
She and Chen Ran had been at Saint Freya for half a month, while Chen Ran had locked himself in the laboratory for half a month, eating and sleeping inside.
In order to implant the 'Wendy gene' into his own body under limited conditions, Chen Ran had constructed countless modules.
Completing this task was not difficult.
After all, he had done similar experiments before.
But the problem was that after obtaining this part of 'Wendy's memory,' he also had to consider how to read the implanted genes separately without confusing them with his own genes.
The genes in Chen Ran's body were almost becoming a 'Honkai Impact 3rd 60 Family Bucket.'
The result of mixing too many genes was like this.
He had been immersed in the laboratory doing research, and without realizing it, he had become quite haggard.
This made Wendy feel a bit guilty.
She had heard from the boy that everything he was doing was just to ensure that the person named 'Wendy' would exist in the original future.
Kiana looked at Wendy suspiciously: "Really nothing? Wendy, you haven't been in good shape these past few days."
"Bronya can testify that Wendy's death count while playing video games with Bronya has increased by 73% due to accidental mistakes in the past two days."
Kiana retorted: "Bronya, what is your brain filled with?"
"These are all very important data. Of course, the Metal Gear Wolf Fang is the strongest, with a death count of zero." Bronya's calm words did not hide her pride.
Wendy's lips twitched slightly as she said, "Well, I really haven't been in good shape these past few days."
"But it's not what you think, it's just... nothing."
"It's because of Chen Ran, isn't it?" Raiden Mei's words made Wendy's eyes flash with surprise.
She said, "I heard that Chen Ran also came to Saint Freya but hasn't shown up, so your current situation must be related to Chen Ran."
The girl was not good at disguising her feelings, and her changing expressions were directly captured by Raiden Mei.
She asked, "Did Chen Ran make things difficult for you?"
"No, to be precise, he should have helped me a lot."
During this time, Wendy had not continued using the time-space rupture system; she didn't know what she would need to say to her future self if she did.
Just a few seconds of time allowed for too little to be done.
She believed every word Chen Ran said because what her future self did was not false.
But, she couldn't tell anyone.
Wendy hesitated and said, "I just... forget it, don't make it difficult for me."
The girl's face showed obvious reluctance as she left directly. Kiana and Raiden Mei exchanged glances but did not stop her.
After Wendy left, Kiana whispered, "Little Pudding, Mei, let's secretly follow her."
"Wendy must have some issues; it would be good to understand what's going on."
Bronya nodded: "Bronya agrees."
Raiden Mei shook her head: "Chen Ran is not the kind of person you think, and his abilities are strong. Even if you follow him, it may not yield good results."
Perhaps because Chen Ran had appeared at the most vulnerable moment for Raiden Mei, she had an extraordinary trust in him.
This trust made her feel that things didn't need to be too complicated; she could just ask Chen Ran directly for clarification.
Kiana blinked and pouted: "If it's just a matter of asking for clarification, then why is Wendy still hiding it from us?"
During this time together, she found that she quite liked Wendy.
Of course, Mei liked her too, and Bronya liked her as well.
Anyway, Kiana liked all pretty girls.
And out of her admiration and pursuit of beautiful girls, Kiana had specifically asked other classmates about Wendy.
Wendy's personality was straightforward, she trained seriously, and she wouldn't hide anything from anyone; in other words, she was not good at lying.
Having grown up in Schicksal's education, the most outrageous thing she had done was probably to eat ice cream without restraint in Nagazora City.
Raiden Mei said: "You should have a bit of faith in Wendy, and also a bit of faith in Chen Ran."
"I'm not saying anything."
Kiana mumbled.
However, the three of them still reached a consensus to look for Chen Ran, who was in the scientific department.
But just as they found Chen Ran, they saw Wendy standing there in a daze.
And Chen Ran stood in front of the laboratory, squinting slightly, his thin face looking haggard, and he had grown stubble because he hadn't cleaned his face in time.
Of course, none of this was the most important; the most important thing was that a girl was standing next to him.
"How can there be two Wendys?"
...
...
While Chen Ran was diligently constructing the Stigmata named 'Wendy,' Wendy was also not giving up her efforts.
"Very good, when that time-space falls into instability, the membrane between consciousness and reality will be opened."
Otto, through Wendy's consciousness, sensed the key information to return to the past: the stability of space.
There was no doubt that to flow back to the past from the torrent of time, one could only bypass time.
Otto knew how to do this: choose either virtual numbers or quantum.
But the problem was that the virtualization and quantization of a person meant isolating them from the world, and in reality, time moved forward. To return to the past, one must have a 'memory coordinate.'
Otto also possessed this.
However, he lacked one condition: that was to return to the world from consciousness.
The transformation of matter into consciousness and then back into matter was fundamentally difficult.
And the era he wanted to return to did not have Valkyrie Armor providing a time-space rupture system.
"But this kind of interaction requires cooperation from both sides, and what I want is for him to be able to come to the future unilaterally, or for you to appear in the past unilaterally."
This was Otto's main goal.
He placed such importance on Wendy and Chen Ran for this reason.
And Wendy did not disappoint him.
"I sense a familiar aura from Chen Ran."
"He has started to collect my blood from the past."
"As long as my consciousness appears in him, then even if it reaches a more distant past, it may not be impossible."
When Chen Ran was collecting Wendy's blood, Wendy saw hope.
She really wanted to participate in his past.
Even if it meant facing Finality and ultimately being buried.
As long as Chen Ran had Wendy's genetic memory, she could sense Chen Ran's coordinates in time, even if that coordinate was very small.
But Otto was still not satisfied.
He was eager to verify these and feared that if Wendy returned to the past, it would change the future.
The butterfly effect was too strong; even a brief journey through time could cause some people, some events, and some memories to vanish into thin air.
Therefore, Otto's first goal was not to return to five hundred years ago.
He needed to conduct an 'experiment' with Chen Ran before he could strive for the fate that might involve him and Kallen.
This was an experiment spanning fifty thousand years.
He had to ensure that when Chen Ran adjusted fate, the person named 'Kallen.Kaslana' would definitely exist.
Undoubtedly, this was a tremendous challenge, and before tackling this challenge, Chen Ran had to undergo a 'test'.
He needed to preserve Wendy from the future.
Only if this experiment succeeded, confirming that Kallen.Kaslana would appear in the future time relevant to Chen Ran, would all his efforts be meaningful.
This was even more important than Otto himself traveling through time.
This was also the experiment Chen Ran was currently conducting.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence of mutual understanding, but after spending over ten days, Chen Ran finally found a way to embed the 'Wendy gene' into his own genes and extract it separately.
He needed to create Stigmata in the past and then transmit it to the future.
The genes of Stigmata might be scattered, and the probability of transmitting a complete person was extremely low.
But if this tiny probability were triggered, it would mean that a person would appear within the expected timeframe, equivalent to Chen Ran setting a life anchor point in time.
After Chen Ran implanted the blood into himself.
Otto couldn't wait to let Wendy try to appear in reality.
Then, he witnessed a collapse that only existed in quantum states.
Wendy disappeared from 2014 and then appeared in 2013.
Quantum collapse refers to the moment in quantum mechanics when a quantum object makes a mysterious choice to become a classical object, also known as wave function collapse. It describes the phenomenon where the wave function of certain quantum systems undergoes a mutation after interacting with the external world, transforming into one of its eigenstates or a linear combination of a finite number of eigenstates with the same eigenvalue.
In simple terms, Wendy had traveled through time.
Even Otto probably couldn't say whether this travel was a necessary event triggered by theory or an incidental probability under the influence of Honkai.
He was surprised to find that he had lost any conscious connection with Wendy, leaving only a portion of information and memories about Wendy recorded in this embedded instrument.
"Time travel, huh."
A hint of fervor flickered in his eyes.
Although he still didn't know the exact principle, there was no doubt that time travel had been proven successful.
"The world has become more complex, but that's good news for me."
However, at that moment, Otto and Wendy were unaware.
While they were conducting this time-crossing experiment, it seemed as if a pair of eyes from a higher place were watching them.
…
…
"So, can someone tell me, how can there be two Wendys?"
In the laboratory of the Far East branch, Kiana instinctively asked, "And they're not even identical; the other Wendy looks a bit more mature, and she seems a bit bigger."
Bronya: "Idiot Kiana, this is not the time to discuss that."
Kiana shot a sideways glance: "Little Pudding seems to be angry."
"Idiot Kiana, Project Bunny, activate annihilation mode..."
"Wait, wait, wait, Bronya, I was wrong!"
The atmosphere in the laboratory lightened considerably due to the two of them.
However, girl Wendy looked at Wendy, her gaze still complex.
"You... can travel to this time?"
Wendy nodded: "I wasn't supposed to, but I'm not really sure."
"It seems like a voice appeared in my mind, and then it was possible."
"I don't really know the reason; maybe it's the power of the Herrscher itself."
There were too many unsolved mysteries surrounding the Herrscher.
Chen Ran thought of the system on him and couldn't help but curl his lips.
He thought he understood why the system hadn't ended the simulation yet; simply put, it was stuck because of Wendy and couldn't get out.
So, why was this system number 666?
It didn't feel 6 at all.
He let out a bitter laugh: "Sounds like a privilege only the protagonist has."
Raiden Mei coughed: "But I want to know, in what kind of story does this protagonist privilege appear?"
She looked at Chen Ran: "You know the whole story, right?"
"Yes, to be precise, all of this was triggered by me."
Chen Ran took a deep breath, and girl Wendy felt a bit uneasy.
She had already learned part of the story from Chen Ran, and naturally, she understood how unfair this story was to Kiana, Raiden Mei, and others, and to this era.
Chen Ran said, "If it requires sacrificing one era to save another, would you agree?"
Raiden Mei frowned: "What do you mean?"
"Nothing."
Chen Ran paused and said, "I come from..."
At that moment, his brain froze for a moment.
[System check simulation scene failure successful.]
[Congratulations to the host for passing the second simulation scene (not fully cleared), the system rewards the host with partial abilities of the simulated plant Herrscher, specific abilities for the host to observe.]
[Due to the failure of the simulation scene 'Thunder in the Sky', this scene will no longer be open to the host in any form, and all future fate evolutions based on this scene will be void.]
[Detected that the memory of the Herrscher of Wind appearing in the future cannot be erased, attempts to trace back to Honkai weapon 666 failed.]
[Once the host's consciousness reaches its limit, the scene will automatically exit.]
[After exiting, the system will initiate a week-long self-check. During the self-check period, the host cannot enter the simulation in any form.]
The system did not force Chen Ran to exit immediately.
Chen Ran's lips curled slightly in bitterness: "Well, my time is also limited."
He hesitated and looked at Raiden Mei: "Do you know, the Honkai that was supposed to erupt in Nagazora City should have been in 2014, not now."
"I come from fifty thousand years ago and have been to the future of this time."
"I changed your fate, and I don't know whether this change will be better or worse. But one thing I can be sure of is... if I cannot stop my next actions, then the future you will most likely not exist."
"I am the one carrying hope from our era."
"And I will also be the Destructioner of your era."
Chen Ran had long understood.
He was using the 666 system, which was very unfair to the future.
Essentially, this was the same as what Otto was trying to do.
If the protagonist group ultimately did not stop Otto, then it would mean sacrificing the present of five hundred years to save the past.
He was the same.
He was sacrificing the predetermined future of fifty thousand years to try to change the entire fifty thousand years ago.
But if fifty thousand years ago changed, would they still exist fifty thousand years later?
No one knew.
What he could do was very humble; he could only set an anchor point in time with an extremely small probability to ensure that a person named 'Wendy' would appear in the future.
Aside from that, he could do nothing else.
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