Then Praise Aha!
1: A Future Foreseen?
Then Praise Aha!
Chapter 1: A Future Foreseen?
Then Praise Aha!
Blue Star, Jiangnan Prefecture.
In the sweltering heat of June, the city of Yi was saturated with the sweet, heavy fragrance of gardenias.
The college entrance examinations had just ended, and a restless, uncertain energy fermented in the air, thick as the summer humidity.
At the school gate, Celeste was draped over a stone pillar more than leaning against it, a study in elegant entropy.
Despite her impressive height of nearly five-foot-nine, she held herself with a decadent slouch, as if she might slide down the pillar and melt into a puddle on the pavement at any moment.
Her entire body was limp, a posture so boneless it seemed her skeleton had taken a vacation.
She wore a loose white shirt over a sea-blue, ankle-length pleated skirt.
When a breeze ghosted past, the hem of her skirt swayed, momentarily outlining the graceful curves hidden beneath the fabric.
By all rights, she should have been the most captivating sight in the bustling crowd.
Unfortunately, set into that exquisite, cool-as-an-older-sister face was a pair of dead-fish eyes that broadcasted a single, deep message to the universe: ‘I’m so over it.’ This look single-handedly transmuted all her stunning beauty into sheer, unadulterated laziness.
Two buttons at her collar were undone.
When the wind brushed a few stray strands of hair against her cheek, she couldn’t even be bothered to lift a hand to move them.
“Sis!
If you keep standing there like a statue waiting for your long-lost husband, my ice-cold Coke is going to sunbathe itself into herbal tea!” A crisp voice, carried on the wind, sliced through her apathy.
Before Celeste could even begin the laborious process of turning her head, a familiar hip-check nudged her gently.
She rotated, a half-beat too slow.
Her twin sister, Selene, was already bouncing in front of her like an energetic deer, holding two bottles of Coke that were fizzing and sweating with condensation.
They shared the same face, the same tall, striking build.
Yet, due to the difference in their awakened classes, Selene’s posture was ramrod straight, her frame taut with athletic potential.
Dressed in a short-sleeved shirt printed with a Paladin’s emblem, she radiated the vibrant energy of a fully drawn bow.
Selene’s fingertips pressed lightly against her own waist.
With a soft flash of pale gold light, a pack of tissues materialized out of thin air from her equipment space.
“Wipe yourself.” She stuffed the Coke and tissues into her sister’s arms, then twisted the cap off her own bottle and took a huge, noisy gulp.
“Your written exam scores are a guaranteed shoo-in.
What’s with the long face?” Celeste bit down on her straw, her gaze drifting toward the distant combat training field.
The clang of armor, the percussive boom of fireballs, and the vigorous shouts of students mingled into a display of noisy, youthful passion.
She pulled her gaze back.
As the icy liquid slid down her throat, her voice emerged, raspy and lazy as if she were only half-awake.
“It’s nothing.
I was just thinking…
was our entire future nailed shut the day we awakened our classes at six years old?” Two boys passing by slowed their steps, unable to resist stealing a glance at her.
She was, after all, the only person in the entire school who could so smoothly blend the face of a campus queen with the aura of a world-weary sloth.
Over thirty years ago, games had bled into reality.
Classes and status panels became the new, unshakeable rules of the world.
Celeste’s class was Priest.
The rarest, most precious of the healing archetypes.
It was just that Celeste’s personal style was… uniquely unsuited for it.
Selene, long accustomed to her sister’s intermittent bouts of existential dread, simply grabbed her arm and began dragging her toward home.
“What do you mean, ‘nailed shut’?
Priests are worth their weight in gold!
In the last simulated Domain, if you hadn’t pulled us back from the brink of death with that perfectly timed Circle of Healing, do you think those meatheads from the Warrior class would be chasing you around, calling you ‘Sister Celeste, our Eternal Goddess’?” She patted her waist, where the phantom image of a Knight’s Shield shimmered for a moment in her personal inventory.
“In the future, you can just relax and hide behind my shield.
Heal me, buff me, and I’ll protect you.
It’ll be super stable!” “Stable is one word for it…” Celeste allowed herself to be towed along, leaning her center of gravity back like a giant, uncooperative anchor, relying entirely on Selene’s superhuman strength to move.
“Boring to death is another.” “Look at everyone else: Charge, Whirlwind, Fireball, Ice Bolt—how awesome is that?
And me?” She curled her lip, raising a hand in an exaggerated, theatrical gesture as she drew out her voice in a dramatic, operatic tone.
“My entire existence boils down to watching health bars.
‘In my eyes, you’re just a life bar that never grows up…'” “And then it’s ‘Power Word: Shield’!
‘Renew’!
‘Flash Heal’!
‘Prayer of Healing’!” “For the next few decades, it’ll be the same infinite loop, maybe swapping in a few higher-level healing spells.
I could calculate the exact number of merit points I’ll get at retirement with my eyes closed.” Her laziness wasn’t innate; it was the resignation that came from seeing the path ahead with suffocating clarity.
When she was fifteen, a lifetime of memories had appeared in her mind out of nowhere.
They belonged to a stubborn, sharp-tongued, and mechanically gifted male streamer from a world called Earth.
He—a hardcore gamer famous for his high-risk, high-reward plays and speedrun challenges, a man with a fanaticism for burst damage and dancing on a razor’s edge flowing through his very bones—had become ‘her’.
When the memories first surfaced, the biggest problem was her occasional, ingrained habit of turning toward the men’s restroom.
Thankfully, her sister was always there to yank her back.
By the time the memories had fully integrated, her Priest level was already 16.
All her free attribute points had been dumped, following the established ‘meta,’ into Intelligence and Faith to maximize her healing output.
Want to respec for DPS now?
It was a joke.
She couldn’t learn offensive magic, her Strength and Agility were pitifully low, and she couldn’t even win a fight against a newly awakened Warrior Apprentice.
The flashy, god-tier plays were fully formed in her head, but her body was like a set of rusted machine parts that simply refused to obey.
Her attacks couldn’t break through basic defenses, and her dodges relied entirely on precognition.
The massive gap between her mind and her body had ground all her passion into dust.
Her current status panel was a proof of her fate: [Celeste – Priest Lv.20] [Strength: 10] [Agility: 10] [Constitution: 70] [Intelligence: 70] [Faith: 80] [Free Attribute Points: 0] (The initial value for each attribute of a combat class is 10 points.
Every level-up grants 10 attribute points, with 8 automatically assigned by the class and 2 remaining as free points.) A standard, squishy, cloth-armored support.
Her only attack skill, [Smite], dealt less damage than Selene hitting someone with the flat of her shield.
The future was suffocatingly clear: get into a top university’s healing department, join an official or freelance adventurer team after graduation, and then hide behind her teammates, casting heals, shields, and dispels, day after day, until she retired.
“Oh, don’t overthink it.
The martial exam is still coming up, right?
Just coast through the arena tournament.
The real focus is the Domain point race.
With the two of us working together, I’ll keep you safe!” Selene thumped her chest, radiating the solid reliability of a fortress wall.
When they arrived home, their parents were still on duty at a Domain.
Celeste immediately threw herself onto the sofa.
The soft cushions swallowed her whole, perfectly demonstrating the excellent ‘shock absorption’ provided by 70 points in Constitution.
Staring up at the crystal chandelier, the memories of her past life grew increasingly vivid.
The crisp clatter of a mechanical keyboard, the sharp flick of a mouse, the gorgeous special effects exploding across a monitor, and the version of herself who would scream with raw excitement late into the night after landing a frame-perfect parry.
Then she looked at her current skill bar, which was so boring it was practically growing mushrooms.
She rolled over irritably, burying her face in a cushion.
Her voice came out muffled and full of frustration.
“I’ve lived two lives.
I refuse to spend this one being so damn bored…” An absurd thought, a wild seed of chaos, sprouted from the deepest corner of her heart.
It was about the followers of a certain Aeon of Elation from a game in her past life—those cosmic-level troublemakers who spared no effort in their relentless pursuit of fun.
She let out a sudden, self-deprecating laugh.
In a tone that was half-joking, half-desperate, she whispered to the empty living room: “Life is so boring.
Why not…
praise Aha?” As the words fell, the world remained utterly silent.
The cicadas outside continued their shrill, monotonous chirping.
The refrigerator compressor hummed its steady, mundane tune.
‘As expected.’ The curve of her mouth twisted into a more mocking smile.
It seemed she’d really let her imagination run away with her.
Propping herself up, Celeste habitually reached into her equipment space for a piece of chocolate, but her fingers found nothing.
The pitifully small storage space of a cloth-armor class was already crammed with robes, staves, and potions.
The snacks she’d managed to squeeze in had been devoured long ago.
“Tsk.” Resigned, she shuffled toward the kitchen in her slippers.
However, in the unobservable depths of the Void, a twisted, smirking red mask quietly coalesced from nothingness.
It spun with manic glee, its very posture a hymn dedicated to chaos and elation.
「In a place Akivili the Trailblazer never reached, someone is actually praising Aha!
What an honor!
Aha has so much face!」 「Let Aha see which little cutie it is…
Oh?
This little girl…
the games she played in her past life actually featured Aha…
Ha!
Interesting!
Truly, deeply interesting!」 「A little Priest who finds her future boring?
Craving the unexpected?
Aha appreciates you!
You’ve given Aha a brand new toy!」 「Praise alone is not enough…
Aha must give you a red packet!
I hope you can bring Aha even more joy, little one…」 A wisp of formless, quality-less power, saturated with an extreme, chaotic intent for amusement, penetrated layers of cosmic barriers and silently merged into Celeste’s soul just as she reached out to pull open the refrigerator door.
Celeste stopped dead, a distinct ‘ding’sounding in her head.’An auditory hallucination?’ She shook her head, opened the fridge, and picked up a carton of milk.
At that exact moment, a visual assault of an interface detonated in her vision with a resounding ‘BOOM’!
It was a crime against graphic design.
The background was a swirling, kaleidoscopic black, grotesquely decorated with tacky, grinning red masks and gaudy, fluttering streamers along the edges.
It looked less like a divine system and more like a pop-up ad for a bankrupt circus.
[Ding!
Detected Host’s strong desire to ’cause trouble’and call for’Elation.’ The Elation System is now fully loaded!] Celeste’s hand trembled, and the milk carton nearly flew from her grasp.
‘A system!?’ [Welcome to the Hall of Elation, Host Celeste!
This system is dedicated to collecting, creating, and spreading all forms of fun!
As long as you create joyful events, you can obtain Elation Coins!] [Elation Coins can be used for the Gacha!
The prize pool is linked to worlds from your memory, such as ‘Genshin Impact’and’Honkai: Star Rail.’ Wondrous rewards from thousands of worlds are all at your fingertips!] [Friendly Tip: 160 Elation Coins per pull, 1600 for a ten-pull!
As for the pity system…
hehe, how can the luck of someone who creates fun ever be bad?
(MaskSmirk.jpg)] [Newbie task released.
Come and claim your first taste of fun!] Celeste was completely dumbfounded.
She stared, utterly transfixed, at this garishly styled, snarky system interface, feeling like her brain’s CPU was about to melt.
The vibe was unmistakable.
It felt like it had been personally crafted by Aha, the Aeon of Elation from Star Rail.
She knew all too well about that cosmic-level agent of chaos who, for the sake of a good laugh, would treat other Aeons like punchlines and use himself as a stepping stone for a joke.
If this system really was Aha’s handiwork, the number of hidden traps and pranks buried within it probably outnumbered the smile lines on His mask.
One day, just to watch a good show, He might shove her, the Host, directly onto center stage—under the brightest spotlights, wearing the most ridiculous costume imaginable.
But…
This salted-fish life, where she could see her own end from the very beginning…
Her fingertips curled unconsciously into her palm.
Her heart began to thud against her ribs, a heavy, insistent beat.
Half of it was the cautious vigilance of facing an unknown and potentially catastrophic risk.
The other half was the burning, desperate expectation of finally seeing a spark of change after being suffocated by a boring routine for so long.
It was like seeing a treasure chest teetering on the edge of a cliff.
Even knowing it was probably rigged with a spring-loaded pie, you couldn’t stop yourself from wanting to peek inside, just in case it held the key to escaping mediocrity.
She focused her thoughts and used her intent to click on the newbie task icon, which was flashing with a ridiculous, winking emoji.
[Newbie Task: A First Taste of Elation] [Task Description: Elation is hidden in every awkward twitch of the lips, every silence born from a misunderstanding, and even in a small, delightful scene of social death!
Please, Host, go forth and create a joyful event.] [Task Reward: 100 Elation Coins.] ‘Create a joyful event?
How?’ Should she run out onto the balcony and scream “It’s Morbin’ Time!” at the people below?
Or maybe put a jack-o’-lantern that barks like a dog on a neighbor’s doorstep?
Just as Celeste was staring at the system interface in a daze, wondering if her understanding of ‘Elation’ was fundamentally flawed, the doorbell rang.
“Who is it?” she called out habitually, a trace of annoyance in her voice at having her thoughts interrupted.
She walked over and turned the doorknob.
Standing outside was a boy from her class, his face flushed a brilliant, beet red.
His fingers were clutched so tightly around a pink envelope that his knuckles were white.
He was a Warrior.
They had been grouped together for combat practice before; his mechanics were decent, but he was quiet and rarely dared to meet her eyes.
“Cl-Classmate Celeste…” The boy sucked in a sharp breath, as if summoning a lifetime’s worth of courage.
He thrust the letter forward, his voice stuttering with deep nervousness.
“P-Please accept this!
I…
I’ve liked you for a long time!” The system interface in Celeste’s mind hadn’t fully faded, the words ‘Create Elation’ still pulsing softly.
Faced with this classic, textbook-perfect confession scene, the battle-hardened streamer mindset from her past life—with nerves thicker than steel rebar—instantly seized control of her body.
There was no blushing, no racing heart.
She instinctively reached out, but not to take the letter.
Instead, in a gesture so natural it was terrifying, she brought her hand up and gave the boy’s tense shoulder a solid, resounding slap.
The crisp, loud smack echoed in the quiet hallway.
“Bro, I treat you like a brother, and you actually want to hit on me?” She stared at him, her expression a complex cocktail of shock, disbelief, and a ‘how dare you betray the squad’ look.
Her tone was utterly heartbroken.
The boy: “…???” The flush on his face vanished as if it had been wiped clean, replaced by a deathly pallor.
His eyes, which had been shimmering with nervous expectation, went completely blank.
That blankness was instantly washed away by a tidal wave of embarrassment and shame so immense it threatened to drown him.
A ‘Brother Zone’card—a concept far more abstract and devastating than any mere’Friend Zone’ card—had just struck his crown like a bolt of heavenly tribulation.
He felt his very soul rattle in its cage, on the verge of being knocked clean out of his body.
[Ding!
Detected a high-quality scene of awkwardness/misunderstanding, causing intense emotional fluctuations in the target (Shame: MAX)] [The Spectator (Void Observer · Aha) feels extreme elation!
Laughter is penetrating dimensions!] [Newbie task ‘A First Taste of Elation’ complete!] [Reward issued: Elation Coins +100!] [Obtained extra newbie reward: Weapon [Black Tassel Spear] ×1] [Obtained special reward: [Millelith Soldier’s Experience Book (Five Years)] ×1] [Obtained special reward: [Glamour Charm – Elysia’s Staff] ×1] A rapid-fire series of notification chimes exploded in Celeste’s brain.
She looked at the boy before her, who seemed to have petrified, cracked, and was now moments away from weathering into dust.
She blinked, the realization dawning a second too late.
‘Did I just…
instinctively execute a perfect social death combo?’ And the effect was outstanding.
It even dropped loot.
“Uh…
well…” she started, opening her mouth to say something, anything, to patch up the situation.
But the boy had already given her one last look of utter despair—a look that screamed ‘my youth is officially over’—before turning and fleeing down the stairs with the stiff, uncoordinated limbs of a malfunctioning robot.
The pink love letter lay forlornly on the ground, a perfect metaphor for its owner’s shattered adolescent heart.
Celeste bent down and picked it up.
Her mood was…
complicated.
On one hand, there was a tiny sliver of guilt for the pure-hearted boy.
It was probably about the size of a fingernail clipping.
On the other hand…
Her gaze fell upon the system inventory.
One hundred sparkling Elation Coins.
The phantom of a long spear, unadorned but radiating a heavy, evident sense of power.
An ancient-looking tome whose cover seemed saturated with the memory of sweat and gunpowder.
And a delicate, pink-and-white charm, its edges shimmering with floating crystal petals, imbued with a dreamlike quality.
The lips of the cool ‘big sister’—lips usually tinged with a signature laziness—uncontrollably, slowly, curled into a dangerous and utterly charming arc.
The door to a new world, it seemed, had just been kicked wide open.