"Take off your clothes."
Under the operating light, Mobius's ear ornament shone even more brilliantly. She looked down at Lín, holding paper and a pen for recording.
Lín followed her instructions, taking off his upper body clothing and exposing his well-proportioned, muscular physique, turning his back to her.
Griseo had been temporarily entrusted to Nuwa and Fuxi. With Kléin watching over them, the two often-hilarious assistants shouldn't run into any serious trouble.
And now, it was time for the regular check-up.
The moment Lín turned around, the large area of pinkish-purple lines on his back was exposed, making even Mobius frown noticeably.
"With this level of corrosion, it's a wonder you dare to hold Griseo." Mobius scribbled something on the paper first, then said to Lín in a deep voice, "After the instrument monitoring, if your corrosion rate exceeds 15%, do not touch Griseo again… and ideally, don't touch anyone else, because your body is already starting to emit small amounts of Honkai energy."
This so-called "small amount" could be basically ignored. Mobius's lab also had some Honkai beast tissue for experiments, and their Honkai energy concentration was much higher than this.
However, she did not have long-term contact with those tissues. With effective prevention, generally nothing serious would happen. But Lín was in frequent contact with people, so this was a sustained and long-term issue. Ignoring this aspect could easily lead to bigger trouble.
"Every time, your Honkai energy adaptability gives me new surprises. It's like unhealthy fried food is merely harmful to others' bodies, but eating those is almost the same as consuming highly toxic substances for you," Mobius used an apt analogy to describe it. "Yet, actual poisons have no effect on you."
"What?"
"Nothing."
Mobius was referring to the neurotoxin she gave Lín during the Third Honkai Eruption. He even survived six doses of a toxin with almost a zero survival rate without any sequelae, yet he was consistently worse than an ordinary person in the most important aspect of Honkai energy adaptability.
However, this also gave Mobius some ideas for special experiments.
"Hold out your arm." She took out a syringe and a blood bag from the side. After retrieving the needle and iodine, she spoke to Lín.
"…What are you going to do?"
Blood tests were part of the physical examination, but not in this format. This was clearly meant to draw Lín's blood for some of her personal experiments.
"Do you remember what you said?" Mobius casually took out two test tubes for the blood, labeled them, and sneered, "Since everything about you belongs to me, you shouldn't question what I do."
"…"
After thinking it over, Lín obediently held out his hand and allowed Mobius to draw about 400cc of blood, then watched her divide the blood into several portions.
"How to optimize a superior human has been a focal topic for humanity since ancient times." Mobius sealed the blood bag and put it in the cold storage. "There are two theories. One is to directly work on the flawed individual, using external forces to complete their flaws. The other is to genetically modify them and then use the improved genes to create offspring. The latter is simpler and more effective than the first."
Lín silently looked at the blood, seeming to understand Mobius's idea.
"Genetics is my area of expertise, and researching how to enhance human Honkai energy adaptability is one of the Moth of the Flame's core projects."
"However, I don't want to talk about the experiment I'm about to conduct, but your problem."
Mobius tapped the keyboard, and a detailed list appeared on the screen.
"Lín, I must admit that apart from Honkai energy adaptability, you truly bring me more 'surprises'."
Lín pursed his lips, looking at the list.
…
Die!
With one slash, the gigantic monster was cut in half.
Blood splashed on the corner of her mouth, making her eyes widen even more with excitement. She gripped the end of the scythe with both hands, kicked away a zombie blocking her path, and swept the blade across the necks of the surrounding zombies. Heads separated from bodies like balls, accompanied by a spray of blood.
Die!
She grabbed a zombie's head with one hand. Under the force of the powered armor, she clenched her fingers. The flesh deformed and twisted in her grip, crushed into a pulp.
Countless corpses lay at her feet. The blood soaked her original sea-blue inner-dyed hair into a deep crimson. Her turbid eyes stared at every foolish Honkai beast and zombie, like a cruel butcher leaping into a weak flock of sheep.
It wasn't enough.
This slaughter was far from satisfying her.
And it couldn't stop Lín from continuing to go to the battlefield.
"Hahahaha…" She laughed wantonly, as if she had discarded her past self, feeling so relaxed.
Swinging her life-reaping scythe, she was now the God of Death.
"Die—"
"Seele!"
The girl suddenly stopped her scythe mid-swing.
"Seele! Did you hear me? Please respond!" The Captain's anxious voice came through the communicator.
Seele looked at the unrecognizable corpses at her feet, then responded to the Captain.
Unknowingly, she had killed all the enemies. She had been venting her frustrations on the corpses for a while now.
"Captain, target area swept clean."
"Phew… Don't scare me like that. The Honkai energy reaction in your area disappeared completely ten minutes ago, but you were slow to report, and you weren't responding to my calls." Himeko's voice, sounding like she was patting her chest, came through.
Dystopia also asked: "Seele? Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine." Seele swung the blood off her scythe with one hand, using the blade as a mirror to look at her own face, gradually revealing an exaggerated smile. "Don't worry about me."
"Then come back and regroup."
"Understood."
…
Himeko looked suspiciously at the smiling Seele: "Are you really fine?"
"I really am fine. I'm just a little tired." Seele maintained that smile, shaking her head.
Seeing Seele's gentle smile appear genuine, Himeko nodded and turned to Dystopia: "Then Seele can rest. Dystopia and I will clear the last area."
"Okay." Dystopia also nodded, agreeing that Seele should rest.
She had been fighting continuously for over ten hours. Even a machine would be worn out.
The two quickly headed to that area, and Seele finally had time to sit in the transport plane and ponder some things.
"Speaking of which, Lín used to be in the Fifth Squad, right?"
A sentence outside the transport plane instantly froze her expression.
Two logistics personnel seemed unaware that someone from the Fifth Squad had returned and were brazenly talking next to the transport plane.
"Aiya, I heard people say his Honkai energy adaptability is pathetically low~"
Honkai energy adaptability.
"How can someone with such low adaptability have such great achievements?"
"Need you ask? He must be fooling his teammates and taking all the credit himself. Otherwise, do you think a newcomer who only joined a little while ago could become a Captain?"
"What about Kevin of the First Squad…"
"Come on, Kevin's Honkai energy adaptability is very high. He's not the same as Lín."
Not the same.
"Hmph, walking around with that aloof attitude all the time. He really thinks he's so amazing."
"Don't say that. Maybe he has low Honkai energy adaptability and will be corrupted and die in a few years?"
"Haha, that's true. After all, even with our level of adaptability, we can only do logistics. He's on the battlefield all the time, so he's definitely going to die faster."
"Sacrificing his life for a bit of credit. I'm not as stupid as him."
"You're right…"
"Clang."
"What's wrong… Ahhh! You, you, you, don't come—"
"Clang."
Seele stood on the rooftop, kicking the corpse down to the street, where it splattered into a pulp on the ground, indistinguishable from the corpses of zombies and Honkai beasts.
Trash should stay with the trash.
Seele smiled, turned, and walked away.