"Father, you're joking again."
Mei treated Li Mu's words as a joke.
Building a city at sea was not unheard of. With current technology, it was technically possible.
But the real issue was the cost. The manpower. The resources.
And most importantly, even if such a city were built, how could its development be guaranteed?
"Mei, I'm not joking."
Seeing the seriousness on Li Mu's face, Mei realized that her father truly intended to carry out this so-called St. Freya Academic City Cluster.
She instinctively wanted to persuade him to abandon such an unrealistic plan, but stopped herself before speaking.
Yes, the plan sounded absurd. Like the ramblings of a madman.
But was it truly impossible for her father?
She thought about how much he had changed recently.
He had genuinely turned his life around, abandoning alcohol and gambling.
He had fulfilled his impossible promises, built a massive company, and named it after his daughter.
He had become a father she could be proud of, as if he were a completely different person.
Thinking back on everything that had happened, Mei felt as though she were living in a dream she did not want to wake from.
In the end, she said nothing. She did not even ask why he wanted to do this.
She simply nodded.
"I believe in you, Father."
"Whether it's possible or not… I believe in you."
That was enough. Believing in one's father needed no reason, just like the miracles he had already brought her.
Li Mu replied calmly, "It is possible. And it must be done."
He did not tell Mei the rest.
If it could not be done, then Nagazora City, and even all of East Asia, would be wiped out by the Great Honkai Eruption.
In his script, Nagazora was destined to become the stage for a controlled Honkai disaster.
And he planned to de-urbanize the city completely. Empty it of people.
Of course, not in a destructive way.
He planned to build a new city offshore, named the St. Freya Academic City, as the stage for the next act.
Once completed, all residents of Nagazora City would be relocated there, forming the foundation of St. Freya.
Then, in an empty Nagazora City, he would trigger the Great Honkai and complete the Escape from Nagazora check-in.
The residents would survive the disaster and immediately integrate into the operation of the new academic city, gaining better jobs, higher pay, and better benefits.
A perfect solution for everyone involved.
Li Mu could not imagine anyone opposing such a plan.
Of course, deciding on a plan was one thing. Executing it was another.
Even with the era's advanced technology, raising a city from the sea was no simple task.
Even with unlimited funding, a project of this scale would normally take decades.
But time was the one thing Li Mu lacked. The Third Honkai Eruption was at most a year away.
That meant he had to complete the St. Freya Academic City and relocate all of Nagazora's residents within a single year.
Normal construction methods would never make that deadline.
Fortunately, Li Mu had an unconventional option.
In the future, as Honkai disasters became frequent, MOTH led humanity in a brutal technological arms race against Honkai.
Combined with the near-omnipotent energy of Honkai itself, this led to an explosion of black technologies in the later stages of the Previous Era.
Among them were techniques specifically designed for building massive wonders.
The lunar New Atlas base. The underwater Abyss City beneath the Pacific.
Those were far more difficult projects than an offshore academic city.
The engineering mechs Li Mu had acquired were only a small fraction of those technologies. Many others had remained theoretical due to the collapse of the industrial system late in the Previous Era.
But now, it was not too late.
Those technologies finally had a place to be used.
Mei, of course, had no idea what her father was thinking.
But since he had already finalized the plan, as his daughter, she wanted to contribute.
"Father, I'll study business management as hard as I can."
Hearing this, Li Mu looked at the purple-haired girl clutching her books and noticed that they were indeed management textbooks.
"Mei, why do you want to study this?"
Mei looked at him strangely.
"Of course, so I can help you manage the company."
Li Mu shook his head.
"Mei, you don't need to learn this."
"But Father, I want to help…" Mei's voice softened, disappointment creeping in.
"I think you misunderstood me," Li Mu said as he pulled several books from the office bookshelf and handed them to her. "Having you manage the company would be a waste of talent."
Mei looked down at the books on the table.
They were programming textbooks.
She looked up at him, puzzled.
"I want you to study programming and design an artificial intelligence system to assist the engineering mechs."
Asking someone with zero programming experience to read a few books and then create an AI was absurd.
Li Mu knew exactly how ridiculous it sounded.
But that was only absurd for ordinary people. For someone like Mei, a once-in-a-generation genius, it was another matter entirely.
After hearing his request, Mei flipped through one of the books.
"I've never studied programming before. Starting from scratch will be difficult. It might take quite some time to reach your expectations."
"No rush," Li Mu said gently. "Take it slow."
He was not just comforting her. The system shop sold ready-made AI as well. This was mostly a test, to see if Mei could recreate a certain existence.
Hearing his words, Mei felt deeply guilty.
"Father, I might need a week just to learn programming basics. Building an AI could take a full month."
"…."
Looking at Mei's shy, apologetic expression, Li Mu felt once again that geniuses and ordinary people lived in completely different worlds.
"Fine… just do your best."
After flipping through the books for a while, Mei noticed something odd.
"Huh… the author is… MEI?" She looked surprised. "That's the same name as mine. What a coincidence."
"Yes," Li Mu said with a smile. "What a coincidence."
He was not about to tell her that those books had been written by her future self.
After all, anyone capable of creating Prometheus could reasonably be called a programming god.
And that was exactly what Li Mu was hoping to test. Whether Mei could recreate Prometheus.
Prometheus did not have much presence early on, but perhaps she could take over Bronya's role.
Li Mu had tried to locate this era's counterpart of Bronya, but so far, he had found nothing. He had a hypothesis, but it required confirmation from Mobius.
That was not urgent for now. He had something else to deal with.
He turned his attention to the system panel.
Task: Witness Ryoma Raiden imprisoned for economic fraud
Reward: 300 Crystals, A-Rank Stigmata Selection Box x1
Status: Not completed
Now that ME Corp existed, and both Kiana and Raiden Mei were in place, the script could move forward.
Yes.
Next came one of the classics of the Honkai storyline.
Ryoma Raiden's imprisonment.
"Ryoma has already spent two months picking bananas on a plantation in Africa."
"After that kind of beating from life, he should have learned his lesson… probably."
…
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