Honkai Star Rail: My Path Changes Every Day! — Chapter 201

Chapter 201: A Kitty of My Level Has the Right to Hiss at Anyone

[Path: Erudition → Finality]

Everything in the universe truly suffered by comparison.

While Yunli proudly considered herself a radical reformist regarding the philosophical definition of a sword, she remained a stubborn, dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist when it came to the actual art of forging.

She could tolerate the idea of forging being reduced to a sterile, industrial assembly line. She could even accept a master swordsman picking up a random wooden branch by the roadside and whittling it down into a peerless blade.

But this? This so-called ‘forging’ process was far too slipshod to stomach. It wasn’t that the young swordmaster refused to acknowledge the final product as a weapon. Rather, she utterly refused to accept it as a product of genuine craftsmanship.

“But… but…” Yunli stammered, her eyes wide with absolute disbelief as she pointed a trembling finger at the offending object. “Forging… at the very least, you should actually forge it! With a hammer! And fire!”

“Cyber-forging using code is still forging,” Rekka replied instantly, not missing a single beat. His expression remained entirely deadpan.

Yunli fell silent. A heavy, existential dread washed over her.

This is bad.

Suddenly, she felt like an obsolete conservative elder yelling at the clouds. The worst part was that she genuinely couldn’t prove Rekka’s creation wasn’t a sword. She had practically broken her own rules by testing it out herself, only to find that the blade functioned flawlessly as a highly advanced Ingenium.

The fiery young girl instantly wilted, her shoulders slumping until she resembled a miserable puppy left out in a torrential downpour.

Fortunately, the youth of the Xianzhou possessed boundless resilience. They wouldn’t just collapse into a puddle of despair after a single ideological setback.

Take Yanqing, for instance. That kid possessed a truly phenomenal mindset. He somehow found himself thrown into high-level, life-or-death matches every single time he stepped outside, constantly getting spun around like a helpless toy top by legendary experts. Yet, the crucial detail was that he somehow still managed to gain martial enlightenment after every single dizzying defeat. Honestly, being a punching bag of that caliber required a special kind of fortitude.

Swallowing her pride, Yunli humbly bowed her head and asked Rekka for guidance. After suffering so many bizarre, reality-breaking setbacks since arriving on the Luofu, the usually brash young girl had been thoroughly humbled into behaving herself.

“Take this back and read it,” Rekka said, casually tossing a massive, brick-like tome onto the table. “Look through this material first. Once you digest it, you can decide if you actually want to learn my methods.”

Yunli stared blankly at the impossibly thick book, her brain stalling for a solid moment before she slowly nodded.

Fine. If that was how the universe worked now, she would just have to adapt and learn. Whether she could actually comprehend the arcane cyber-nonsense written inside was another matter entirely. For now, she would just try to get a basic handle on the concepts.

“Grandpa,” Yunli called out as she trudged back into her temporary Luofu residence, clutching the heavy tome to her chest. She offered a tired greeting to Huaiyan.

“Oh? Why did you bring a book back today?” Huaiyan asked, his calloused fingers slowly stroking his thick white beard in mild amusement.

“Grandpa, you won’t believe it…” Yunli’s eyes suddenly sparked with renewed energy. “I actually found the person who made that bizarre Ingenium flying sword!”

She quickly launched into a detailed, highly animated recounting of her chaotic encounter with Rekka.

“Is that so? Let Grandpa see what kind of deep manual he gave you,” Huaiyan chuckled, reaching out to take the massive book from his granddaughter’s hands.

He flipped it open, expecting complex weapon schematics. Instead, the entire ‘book’ was merely an index—a sprawling, exhaustive bibliography filled with thousands of titles of other books that needed to be consulted before the actual learning could begin.

Huaiyan’s eyes snapped wide open, his bushy eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline. If Yunli could actually force herself to sit still long enough to finish reading all these referenced materials, she wouldn’t just be a swordmaster—she could instantly qualify as a tenured professor at the University of Veritas.

“Yunli, do you happen to know this craftsman’s name?” the old general asked, his tone shifting into something far more intrigued.

“I think he’s called Rekka,” she replied, tilting her head. “He said that if I manage to finish all this reading and still want to learn his cyber-forging, I should go find him in Aurum Alley.”

“Oh? And what exactly does this Rekka look like?”

Yunli pulled out her jade abacus and projected a quick holographic photo of the chaotic Trailblazer.

Huaiyan studied the image carefully, nodding slowly. “Hmm. Grandpa understands.”

“Also, Grandpa, look. This is the sword… the one he supposedly forged.” She presented the weapon with a deeply conflicted grimace.

Huaiyan stared at it. The entire object radiated an overwhelmingly cheap, plastic aura. It looked less like a legendary blade and more like a mass-produced toy bought from a discount vending machine.

However, a mere few minutes of physical inspection later, the old Zhuming general’s opinion underwent a drastic, world-shattering reversal.

“This… this is genuinely good stuff,” Huaiyan muttered, his seasoned eyes gleaming with professional awe.

The structural genius of the ‘toy’ was staggering. It perfectly allowed a seasoned expert to go all out when sparring with a complete novice, completely eliminating the risk of the novice being accidentally bisected. The internal kinetic dampeners meant a student could safely memorize an expert’s lethal sword moves, building pure muscle memory for defensive actions without the fear of death. It was, quite frankly, a superb, revolutionary swordsmanship teaching device.

Even a legendary artisan like Huaiyan had to marvel at the sheer excellence of the internal force-redirection circuitry.

It was just a shame that the built-in sound effects were a bit… abstract.

Every time he swung it, the blade loudly broadcasted a cheerful, electronic jingle: “Cosmic Superman! Do-do-da-di-di-do-do-da!”

The old man sighed, lowering the singing plastic sword. He definitely needed to pay this Rekka a personal visit. Beyond the sheer curiosity of meeting such a bizarre craftsman, Huaiyan harbored a deeper motive: he wanted to ask if Rekka knew anything about the man once known as Yingxing.

“Jing Yuan, I have something important to ask you regarding a certain individual named Rekka,” Huaiyan announced, having made a special trip to the Seat of Divine Foresight. He had scoured Aurum Alley to no avail; the man was completely off the grid.

“Why do you suddenly ask about him, Elder Yan?” Jing Yuan’s usually relaxed expression instantly stiffened. The Luofu General leaned forward, a bead of cold sweat forming on his brow. “Has he… caused some sort of trouble?”

Jing Yuan’s mind raced through a dozen apocalyptic scenarios. What had happened? Did Rekka steal Huaiyan’s signature bamboo hat? Did he try to forcefully install a Space Anchor directly onto the old man’s head? Or, in a display of ultimate disrespect, could Rekka have mistaken Elder Yan for a roadside chair and simply sat on him? With Rekka, the absurd was always the most likely reality.

“No, that’s not it at all,” Huaiyan replied, blinking at the younger general’s visible panic. “But hearing you react like that… could it be that this young man is prone to causing trouble?”

Jing Yuan exhaled a long, heavy breath. Oh, he didn’t cause trouble. Thank the Reignbow Arbiter.

Whenever that chaotic anomaly wasn’t actively tearing the fabric of reality apart for a joke, Rekka actually looked like a remarkably kind and gentle young man.

“This person is extremely capable,” Jing Yuan explained, rubbing his temples to soothe an incoming headache. “It’s just… because he is too capable, absolutely everything he does fiercely defies common sense.”

The underlying truth of the Luofu was simple: Rekka might make your blood pressure spike to lethal levels on a daily basis, but when the chips were down, he would absolutely never let you down.

Huaiyan nodded thoughtfully, stroking his beard once more. “Highly capable, yet everything he does defies common sense… Fascinating. Then I absolutely must meet him.”

Jing Yuan hesitated, warring with his own protective instincts over the Luofu’s structural integrity, before finally sighing in defeat. “Elder Yan, he is a Trailblazer. If you truly wish to seek him out, your best bet would be to look for him aboard the Astral Express.”

Huaiyan offered a polite nod of thanks and departed the Seat of Divine Foresight.

As he strolled down the sunlit avenues of the Luofu, his eyes caught a familiar sight: a small black cat sitting leisurely by the roadside.

The feline locked eyes with the old general and let out a sharp, demanding meow.

“Rekka… hmm,” Huaiyan murmured to himself, entirely ignoring the animal. He needed to find that craftsman.

The black-furred, golden-eyed cat meowed at Huaiyan again, louder this time.

Huaiyan finally paused, turning his full attention to the creature. He realized he had seen this exact same cat prowling around Aurum Alley earlier. It possessed striking golden eyes, pure midnight fur, and an incredibly glossy coat that practically shimmered in the sunlight. A beast this well-groomed surely belonged to a wealthy owner.

The old man slowly approached the feline, crouching down until he was eye-level with the creature. Huaiyan gently reached a weathered hand out. Surprisingly, the black cat didn’t flinch or dodge, simply allowing the legendary general to pat its head a couple of times.

“Quite friendly, aren’t you?” Huaiyan chuckled.

Satisfied, Huaiyan stood up to leave, but the black cat immediately stepped forward, blocking his path with a distinct air of reluctance.

“Go on now, shoo. I have important business to attend to,” Huaiyan said, waving his hand dismissively at the animal.

Rekka:…

Today, Rekka completely lacked the biological capacity for human speech. Thanks to his daily Path shift, he was currently serving as an active incarnation of Terminus, the Aeon of Finality. By all the laws of the cosmos, today he was a supreme kitty with the divine right to hiss at absolutely anyone he pleased.

However, Rekka prided himself on being a polite, well-mannered cat. He wouldn’t just go around hissing at random elderly pedestrians like some feral alley dweller. He was currently operating under strict feline diplomacy. The Slow-Hiss-hattan Project was in full effect.

Huaiyan walked a few steps forward. The black cat silently trotted right behind him. When the old man stopped to check his surroundings, the black cat stopped in perfect synchronization, plopping down by his boots. Its dark tail swept across the stone pavement in a slow, rhythmic motion.

“You certainly are a persistent little shadow,” Huaiyan noted, shaking his head with a fond smile. “Fine. There’s no harm in letting you tag along.”

Watching the creature’s stubborn loyalty inexplicably reminded Huaiyan of Hanguang—Yunli’s late father and one of Huaiyan’s most brilliant, headstrong disciples. The elderly were always so prone to being moved by the simplest of surroundings, finding ghosts of the past in the mundane present.

However, his nostalgic mood soured when he finally tracked down the Astral Express crew. Every single member gave him the exact same apologetic answer: they hadn’t seen Rekka all day, they had absolutely no clue where he wandered off to, and he wasn’t replying to any of his messages.

“Could it be that he caught wind of my arrival and is intentionally avoiding me?” Huaiyan muttered to himself, genuinely puzzled by the evasion.

Down by his boots, the black cat let out a long, exasperated meow.

Huaiyan glanced down and laughed aloud. “Haha! What’s the matter? Could it be that you are actually the elusive Rekka?”

The old man shook his head at his own ridiculous joke, smiling as he turned and walked away.

Rekka felt a deep sense of helplessness wash over his tiny, furry body. Turning into a powerless kitty for twenty-four hours was such a massive, humiliating nerf to his usual overpowered lifestyle.

He let out a meaningless, high-pitched cry of frustration, then stood up on all fours and vigorously shook out his glossy black fur.

A short distance away, Huaiyan stopped in front of a quiet, open-air tea stall. The old general ordered a fresh pot of Longjing tea and settled into a creaky bamboo chair by the roadside, sipping the hot brew slowly. His posture was relaxed, making him look like he was merely resting his tired bones, yet his sharp eyes scanned the crowds as if patiently waiting for an ambush.

A shadow detached from the nearby rooftops. The black cat gracefully dropped down from the high eaves, landing completely silently right at Huaiyan’s feet.

“Oh? You followed me all the way here?” Huaiyan looked down over the rim of his teacup, a warm smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “You really are a persistent little beast, aren’t you?”

Rekka simply sat on his haunches, tilting his head back to stare directly into the old man’s eyes.

Huaiyan raised his porcelain teacup, taking another slow, measured sip as he let his gaze drift over the bustling, crowded streets of the Luofu in the distance.

Then, without warning, the old general lowered his head, his sharp eyes locking onto the golden gaze of the feline.

“Tell me, little shadow,” Huaiyan whispered, his tone suddenly devoid of all grandfatherly warmth. “Do you happen to know where Rekka is?”

[Inorin’s Note: “Hajimi” and “Haomao” are Chinese internet slang terms for cats. “Hajimi” originates from a Japanese meme (Hachimitsu) that CN netizens adopted as a cute term for kittens, while “Haomao” literally translates to “good cat” or “polite cat”. The “Slow-Hiss-hattan Project” is a pun on the Manhattan Project, referencing Rekka’s internal debate on whether to drop the ‘nuclear option’ of hissing at an old man.]