Though the process was rather convoluted, the results were—probably—worth it.
At the very least, the moment the System rewards dropped into his inventory, Li Mu knew his theory was completely sound. By perfectly replicating the life trajectories and events of the main cast from fifty thousand years in the future, he could successfully exploit this braindead System's verification process.
His path forward was now crystal clear.
In this doomed world predestined to be erased by Finality, he would construct a grand stage based on the future timeline. He would hunt down the parallel equivalents of the iconic characters and imprint them with their corresponding future personas.
Finally, he would throw these actors onto the stage and force them to act out the scripts he'd written for them.
As the director orchestrating this cosmic play, all he had to do was hit the "Check-In" shutter at the climax of every act, wringing every last drop of reward out of the rigid System.
He would stockpile enough trump cards before Finality descended to ensure that the Herrscher of Finality bought a one-way ticket to hell.
The exact timeline of the Previous Era was notoriously vague in the main story, lacking a specific date for Finality's descent. However, based on the lore, Li Mu could deduce that he had at least ten to twenty years before the world-ending apocalypse.
For him, that was more than enough time. In fact, it was practically a luxury.
After all, in the original story, Kiana went from walking out of Nagazora City to seizing the authority of Finality and ascending to become the God of Earth in just five years.
Her starting point: Walk out of Siberia and look for Dad.
Her ending point: Become the God of Earth and reign supreme over eternity.
"Ten years of prep time versus a five-year speedrun," Li Mu muttered, a confident smirk on his face. "The advantage is entirely mine!"
Pulling his attention away from his newly acquired loot, Li Mu glanced at the System Mission panel. One major mission was still grayed out.
[Amidst the perilous, Honkai-infested ruins of Nagazora City, braving Anti-Entropy's artillery fire and the roars of Honkai Beasts, Kiana and Raiden Mei embark on a grand escape.]
[Along the way, they unexpectedly cross paths with Bronya, an Anti-Entropy operative piloting a massive mech. The destinies of the Main Trio intersect here.]
[Ultimately, the three successfully escape Nagazora City, greeted by the Hyperion descending from the heavens...]
[Mission: Check-in at the Main Trio's Escape from Nagazora. Reward: S-Rank Stigmata Selector Box x1, Crystals x3000, Unlock the Divine Key Pavilion.]
[Mission Status: Error. Key individuals not detected.]
Li Mu skimmed over it. This mission required the full Main Trio and the entirety of Nagazora City as a stage. He didn't meet the prerequisites yet, so he shifted his gaze to the sub-mission below it.
[Mission: Witness the heiress of MEI Corp, Raiden Mei, enroll in Chiba Academy. Reward: A-Rank Stigmata Selector Box x1, Crystals x300.]
[Mission Status: Key individual 'Raiden Mei' not detected.]
You had to learn to walk before you could run. This mission was vastly more manageable, and he already had a solid plan. Dr. MEI had recently run into some severe family trouble, which gave him the perfect opening to intervene...
But before that, he needed to settle the acting fees for his latest stunt.
[Crystal Balance: 300]
"That'll do for now."
Li Mu opened the System Shop and scrolled through the categories until he found the "Paid Knowledge" section.
[Project Stigma Genetic Engineering (5th Revised Edition)]
[Price: 30,000 Crystals]
Naturally, Li Mu couldn't afford the whole thing. But the System had a surprisingly flexible feature: knowledge could be bought in fractions. It was incredibly literal—however much money you paid, that was the exact percentage of knowledge you received.
Though Li Mu was deeply curious about the mathematical formula the System used to quantify abstract scientific data, he couldn't deny how convenient it was.
He spent 100 Crystals to purchase exactly 1/300th of the Project Stigma database.
The moment he clicked buy, a new encrypted file appeared on his personal terminal.
He immediately forwarded it to a certain green-haired woman. This was the agreed-upon payment for the Gene-Reconstruction Serum he'd used on Kevin.
Not long after the file was sent, his terminal buzzed with a reply.
[Where is the rest of it?]
[Don't try to fool me. I can tell this is only a fragment. You definitely have the complete data.]
Reading the message, Li Mu raised an eyebrow. His fingers flew across the holographic keyboard, firing back a reply.
[That costs extra, Doctor.]
[You didn't honestly think a single vial of gender-bending juice was worth the entirety of the Stigmata Genetic Engineering database, did you?]
A heavy silence lingered on the other end of the screen for a long time.
[...]
[Name your price. Just name your price. I'll do whatever it takes.]
Even through the screen, Li Mu could practically feel her rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth desperation for knowledge. Unfortunately, he couldn't let Mobius complete Project Stigma right now, or the entirety of humanity would explode.
More importantly... he was broke.
[Doctor, we will have plenty of opportunities to collaborate in the future.]
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet.
Inside the First Research Institute, a subsidiary of the Fire-MOTH.
To the uninformed masses, this facility was the absolute pinnacle of life sciences, a holy grail that countless scholars flocked to. But to those in the know, it was a terrifying demon's lair.
This polarizing reputation was entirely due to the director of the institute.
—The most brilliant, dazzling biologist of the current era: Professor Mobius.
Some viewed her as a monster; others revered her as the pioneer of human evolution. But regardless of which side you were on, no one could deny that Mobius possessed a god-like talent for biology.
At this exact moment, however, that esteemed grand scholar was clutching her terminal, shrieking in pure, unadulterated agony.
"There's a special place in hell for cliffhanger authors!!!"
Contrary to the wild rumors painting her as a fanged, clawed mutant, Dr. Mobius was actually a breathtakingly beautiful woman.
Her long, wavy green hair cascaded down to her waist. Even her baggy white lab coat couldn't entirely conceal her stunning, hourglass figure. Her perpetual confinement within the laboratory had left her skin pale and completely devoid of color, lending her an aura of sickly, dangerous beauty.
Without a doubt, she was gorgeous.
—Assuming, of course, you ignored the fact that her face was currently contorted into a mask of pure, seething rage as she violently ground her teeth together.
It was hard to blame her for losing her mind. As a purebred scientist, the pursuit of knowledge was her core driving force. Whenever a lingering question in her mind was answered, the dopamine rush was ten—no, a hundred times better than an orgasm!
Conversely, when a profound truth was dangled right in front of her face, only to be yanked away at the last second... it drove her completely insane. It made everything taste like cardboard.
The mysterious contact who had reached out to her recently possessed knowledge that had completely blown her mind.
Project Stigma Genetic Engineering. The theories within perfectly aligned with her own radical hypotheses. In fact, if the other party hadn't proposed the concept first, she would have suspected them of breaking into her brain and stealing the idea.
Regardless, the fragmented data had blasted open a new realm of possibilities, showing her a radiant, glowing path forward. If she could just follow that path to its end, she might actually achieve her ultimate goal.
After completing her end of the bargain, she eagerly dove into the data to expand her inspiration. But right as she reached the most critical, mind-shattering revelation... the document ended!
"Burn in hell, you cliffhanger trash!" Mobius screamed, clawing at her own hair.
"Doctor, please don't upset yourself."
A woman with silver hair, also wearing a lab coat, walked over to Mobius. She was holding a steaming cup of instant noodles. Handing it to Mobius, she smiled with maternal fondness. "What's done is done. Let's just eat for now."
Mobius took the cup in one hand and listlessly stirred the noodles with a plastic fork. Her face instantly fell.
"...Why is it pickled cabbage flavor again?"
Hearing the complaint, Blanca took a bite of her own noodles. "Doctor, we're lucky to be eating at all. We completely blew through this month's research budget. I had to buy these out of my own pocket."
"Oh, Blanca, what would I ever do without you? If you weren't here, I don't know how this lab would even function," Mobius said, genuinely touched. But a second later, she sighed, her profound misery returning to her pale face.
Balancing her noodle cup in one hand, Blanca gave Mobius a thumbs up. "I b'lieve in you, Doc..." she mumbled around a mouthful of noodles. Swallowing, she added, "I believe that with your genius, you'll definitely achieve your goals, even without anyone else's help."
"But it's just so frustrating!" Mobius whined, viciously stabbing her noodles. "With this puzzle unresolved in my head, I can't even eat!"
A terrifying, sinister grin slowly crawled across Mobius's face. "If only I could track that guy down... Once I get my hands on him, I have a hundred different ways to make him spill every single secret in his brain. A hundred!"
Slurp. Blanca sucked up another mouthful of noodles.
"Doctor, I know the outside world has some... misconceptions about us, but we aren't actually supervillains. Let's not entertain such dangerous thoughts."
"Besides, the guy completely covered his digital tracks with anti-tracking software. We aren't professional intelligence agents; there's no way we'll ever catch him."
Blanca had hoped logic would talk Mobius out of her murderous ideation. Instead, upon hearing her words, Mobius's eyes lit up like floodlights.
She slammed her noodle cup down onto the desk and slammed a fist into her palm. "That's it! I can just hire professional intelligence agents to dig him up!"
Oh no. She's fully committed.
Having worked with Mobius long enough to completely understand her erratic personality, Blanca knew that look. Mobius was about to do something highly illegal.
"Doctor... you aren't planning on begging the Fire-MOTH higher-ups, are you? I know their intelligence network spans the globe, but making a deal with them is practically making a deal with the devil..."
Mobius looked at Blanca as if she were a remarkably naive child.
"Oh, if I asked, the MOTHs would definitely help me. But if the data for Project Stigma fell into the hands of those corporate vultures, wouldn't they just hold it over my head?"
"Knowing how incredibly corrupt those old bastards are, they would undoubtedly extort me with absurd demands. I'd be reduced to begging them for scraps of my own project!"
Blanca nodded in agreement. "Exactly. So, Doctor, we really shouldn't—"
"Have you heard of the Poison Chrysalis?" Mobius interrupted.
"Doctor, you mean... the infamous underground assassin syndicate?"
Mobius nodded.
Blanca turned pale. "Doctor, please! That's taking it way too far! I know he left you on a cliffhanger, but you don't need to hire a hitman to assassinate him!"
Seeing Blanca's absolute panic, Mobius rolled her eyes. "What are you talking about? I just want the knowledge in his head. I don't want his actual head."
"While Poison Chrysalis is famous for their assassinations, you really think a syndicate that size can survive solely on murder contracts? When they aren't busy killing people, they take on side gigs. They track down lost pets, collect debts, and investigate cheating spouses."
"Their informants are everywhere. I'm sure they can help me find this guy."
Realizing Mobius wasn't actually plotting a murder, Blanca let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. But then, a much more pressing issue dawned on her.
"But Doctor... how are we supposed to pay the Chrysalis's commission fee? We're broke."
Hearing this, Mobius proudly puffed out her chest, a sly smile gracing her lips.
"The research funds for the next quarter are about to be disbursed. When conducting cutting-edge experiments... it's perfectly normal to incur some 'equipment damage' and 'material loss,' wouldn't you say?"
"Doctor, embezzling our own research funds to pay mercenaries is a federal crime."
"Blanca, I can feel it in my bones. If we find this guy, our research will advance by leaps and bounds. In the grand scheme of things, spending this money is funding our research! It's an absolute bargain!"
What Mobius didn't know was that her supposedly covert "embezzlement" was painfully obvious to the sly old foxes in the administration.
In a heavily secured boardroom, several high-ranking MOTH executives were passing around a financial report.
After reviewing the document, one of them frowned. "Dr. Mobius is clearly embezzling funds. Should we report her to the higher-ups?"
The moment he spoke, the other executives slowly turned to look at him as if he were completely brain-dead.
"Why the hell would we report her?"
"If Dr. Mobius doesn't embezzle... how are we supposed to embezzle?"
"We don't have Mobius's genius or her untouchable status. If we don't skim off the top of her skimming, how are we ever going to get rich?"
After a brief, unspoken agreement, the executives decided to completely turn a blind eye to Mobius's crime. Instead, with practiced efficiency, they simply added an extra zero to the amount she had requested to "cover material loss," quietly pocketing the massive difference.
"She takes ten percent, we take ninety," one executive chuckled.
"Exactly! And with that ten percent, she still has to thank us for the privilege!"