“Although I don’t know what the rewards for clearing just one floor are, as long as I save up enough, enhancing my own body is a viable option.
At worst, I’ll just stay in the system for two years; it’s still early before the main story of Honkai Impact 3rd starts anyway.”
“That is indeed possible, but the rewards for clearing just the first floor are very small—only one originium shard.
However, as long as you save up six, you can perform an Elite 1 stage enhancement on your body.”
“Although this is a bit of a loss, it should be enough to give you physical and energy strength comparable to a B-rank Valkyrie, and you’ll also receive a random Elite 1 skill and talent from the system.”
“So, next is the squad selection.” Selia looked at the four squads on the panel and fell into deep thought.
“I can guess that in all likelihood, I’m the only one in my team, but do you not even have temporary recruitment for reserve operators?”
“Host, the recruitment here is not quite the same as in your game.”
“Standard recruitment can only recruit characters you have already obtained, but right now, there’s only yourself here.”
“Support recruitment is for your friends in real-time; you can recruit friendly units to fight, but you haven’t encountered a single living person yet.”
“Temporary recruitment is a bit special…
This feature in the system is prepared for the Elysian Realm roguelike and is basically useless in the current theme.
Unless you trigger a synergy like the Foldartal Debate, you won’t be able to recruit operators.”
“Fine.
In other words, no matter which one I choose, I can only recruit myself, right?”
Selia shrugged and tapped on the last squad, “Do As One Pleases.” Three recruitment vouchers immediately appeared on the panel.
Clicking on the first one, “Senior Sniper Recruitment Voucher,” Selia’s own portrait appeared on the screen.
The black-haired girl was smiling and looking forward, as if encouraging herself in front of the screen.
“My ID photo is actually quite pretty.” Selia then clicked on the other two, which were empty as expected.
As the squad selection was completed, the two tents in the camp changed; the curtains opened on their own, revealing the space inside.
“The tent on the left will store the items you obtained at the start, such as Foldartals, collectibles, and detection equipment.
The slightly larger tent on the right is for your team members for this trip.
Of course, you don’t have any teammates this time, so there’s only your weapon in the tent.”
“Weapon?” Selia curiously crawled into the tent on the right.
Before long, she brought out a sniper rifle.
“It’s a sniper rifle?
Is it because I recruited myself via a sniper voucher?”
“To be precise, it’s because of the Senior Sniper Voucher.”
“If it were a standard Sniper Voucher, it might have been a bow or a crossbow.”
“You system, you’re quite logical in these strange places.”
Selia crawled into the tent on the left and brought out a large backpack.
“Hard to imagine, are Foldartals really this big?” Selia struggled to place the backpack by the campfire and took out a complex-looking black box from inside.
There was a screen on the box, which seemed to be a map of Selia’s current location.
In the top right corner of the screen, a small “3” was marked.
At the same time, a message was displayed on the detector’s screen.
“After clearing this floor, you will obtain the Foldartal: Arbor.”
“So this is what the detector looks like.” Selia fiddled with the black box.
“I remember the first floor of the Schicksal roguelike is called First Frost Lake; it seems to be this blue area on the map.”
“That’s right.
Since you are here in person, it’s naturally impossible to have only linear stages like in the game.
The system has created the entire map.”
“However, the paths available to the Host are still the same.
Taking vertical detours will also reduce the Interference Resistance Index.
After all, this isn’t an open world; we still have to follow the underlying logic of the enhancement system.”
“Let me see which Foldartals these are…” Putting the detector aside, Selia took out the three wrapped stone slabs from the backpack.
In reality, each Foldartal was about the size of a book.
Stacking the three stone slabs together was quite heavy.
Spreading the Foldartals out in front of her, Selia’s eyes lit up.
“Silence, Arrival, Affection?
This is awesome?
A perfect start on the first try!”
“After all, you were unlucky enough when you crossed over; you have to get lucky at least once.”
There was a hint of small pride in the system’s voice.
“Then thank you to whoever bestowed this luck upon me.” Selia smiled and silently gave a thumbs up to the little help from the system.
“Now it’s time to set off.
Let me see the map…”
Selia put on her backpack, slung the sniper rifle over her shoulder, and turned on the detector in her hand.
“The path on the left leads to a camp in a deep pool, and the one on the right is a village looted by the Syracusans…”
“Is this, ‘Not More Than Four’ and ‘Moss Hand’?”
Selia frowned and thought for a moment, saying somewhat uncertainly.
“Yes, it seems you are very familiar with Integrated Strategies.”
The system silently put away the reference table in its hand and complimented her with a guilty conscience.
“But which way should I go?” Selia recalled the enemy composition of the two stages.
“It seems the number of enemies in both stages isn’t small.
By the way, System, for these combat nodes, what is my victory condition?”
“Considering that this is real combat, the enhancement system has simplified the battles to a certain extent.”
“As long as the Host eliminates all enemies in the stronghold, that’s it.
There are no requirements like HP.”
“As for HP and shields in collectibles and rewards, they will be directly equivalently reflected on the Host’s squad members.”
“That’s perfect.
No need to worry about the Shield Guard only having a block count of three.” Selia was full of confidence and set the detector’s navigation directly towards the Moss Hand.
“The Shield Guard and I are definitely going to slaughter them!”
Following the detector’s guidance, Selia left the camp and walked along the road for about five or six minutes.
The detector showed she had arrived near the village.
“Actually, I really want to complain about something.” Looking at the village emitting black smoke from the fire, Selia’s mouth twitched.
“With this much snow, I’m struggling to walk.
Why would the Syracusans come here?”
“Good question.
Unfortunately, these enemies can’t speak; otherwise, I’d really like to hear it.”
The system complained about the level designer alongside her.
“Uh, so, if I keep going forward, I’ll be in the stage area.
Now, how do I activate the Foldartal?”
“Host, you just need to stack the corresponding ‘Layout’ and ‘Root Cause’ Foldartals together.”
“Alright.” Selia put the stone slab representing “Affection” back into the backpack and then opened the packaging of the other two stone slabs.
A red stone slab engraved with a fortress [Silence] and a tricolor stone slab printed with mountains [Arrival].
Selia took a deep breath and pressed [Arrival] onto [Silence].
“Commencing Declaration.”
“Triggered the Tribe of Kovadya Synergy.”
“Crossing mountains and rivers, it has finally arrived; destiny cannot be avoided.
Pointing at the wood to ask the way, there is no echo; the mountain rock stands on its own.”
The two Foldartals burst into dazzling light, making Selia squint.
When the light completely dissipated, a warrior holding a giant shield flickering with a menacing blue light and clad in heavy black armor stood silently in front of Selia.