Regarding the fact that my best friend is a magical girl

Sure enough, her wallpaper was my photo.

It was a blurry sleeping face in the darkness of night.

"...Sigh, I knew it."

It wasn't particularly unexpected.

I started thinking about this possibility when she hid her phone.

"Ye Zi, do you mind?"

If I had to say, I would still mind.

It's a little embarrassing to have my own photo used as my desktop wallpaper, but that's about it. If she talked to me nicely, I wouldn't ask her to delete it.

After all, it's not an ugly photo.

"You idiot, don't do that again."

"Um, can I keep that photo?"

"You can keep it if you want, and that one was too dark, you can take another one now."

"No need, I'll take this one."

Seruno squinted and revealed her usual goofy smile.

"Because this photo has a different meaning for me."

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Enemies and Friends Share the Same Origin

(White cotyledon)

"Oh, here I am! My boyfriend~"

The organizers' temporary office area was also set up in this stadium, and Sirius was waiting for my arrival in the reception room.

Serino was downstairs rehearsing and practicing with the band, and Aunt Yuehan naturally accompanied her.

However, I am not alone. Golden, who has turned into a human, is with me. She has always been like this, and she is more attached to me than Seruno.

However, even after transforming, she is still a young girl with a decent figure, and she lacks common sense as a human being, making her prone to doing things that challenge the limits of male rationality, including but not limited to...

While walking, it suddenly lay down and started crawling;

Use your head, the tip of your nose to nudge any part of your body;

I like to lick.

Moreover, this behavior was a habit she developed when she was a dog, and it didn't bother her at the time, but it became rather awkward when it was extended from a dog to a beautiful young woman.

I rubbed Golden's face (her hair was a bit rough on my hands) and asked, "Is there something you need from me?"

"Actually, it's Xiao Yinwei who's looking for you."

Sirius said so.

Yin Weicai, wearing glasses, peeked out from another room.

Judging from this, she must be working there... It was the same in Hawaii; she really is working wherever she goes.

"Ye Zi, you've come at the perfect time."

"How come you're wearing glasses all of a few days now?"

"My contact lens fell out, so I can only wear this for now."

Adjusting her nose bridge, Yin Wei said, "Take these two packets of potions. Barbara specially made them for you and called me to pick them up early this morning."

She took out two packets of magic potions from behind her back.

They still come in the same unbranded, jelly-like packaging, one pack is blue and the other is green.

"What effect?"

"The blue potion can reduce your compatibility with the star crystal, which in theory can suppress the mutations that are happening to you. However, the side effects are not hard to imagine. Your strength as a magical girl will weaken, and you should feel it very clearly."

That's acceptable.

Compared to becoming weaker, physical mutations are more frightening.

Sirius shrugged and added, "Oh? This is poison for magical girls, forcibly reducing their adaptability. Some magical girls might even lose the ability to transform... Only a freak like you with a synchronization rate that's off the charts would treat this as medicine."

He put the blue potion in his pocket.

"What about this one?"

There's one packet of green potion left; this one really looks poisonous.

"That's a booster, a byproduct of Barbara's research on 'crystal adaptability,' and it happens to be an antidote for blue potions... If you feel powerless in battle, you should drink this."

Antidote.

But that sounds like it would worsen my situation.

What are the side effects?

When asked about this crucial information, Yin Wei shrugged irresponsibly.

"We don't know yet. Neither potion has been tested, but if you experience any adverse effects after using it, the 'Adaptability Promoter' will be put into mass production and become a brand new product of Barbara's Workshop."

A magical potion that can enhance a magical girl's strength in a short time—such an easy way to become stronger sounds like it might have some terrible side effects.

That ancient tree magical girl has a deep obsession with making money.

As a lab rat, am I not given any material reward?

"Yes, please thank Miss Barbara for me... Is that all I wanted to say?"

That's all I wanted to say.

Yin Wei looked at Sirius.

The latter was resting his chin on his hand, his expression unusually serious.

"Milono, the research results on that oil monster are in, regarding the hypothesis you proposed to me before..."

I previously speculated that the pseudo-factor and the star crystal are actually the same thing.

"Has anything been found out?"

"Let's talk about how this simulated factor is different from the previous ones."

Sirius raised her hand, and intricate rays of light wove a three-dimensional projection in her palm, creating a strong sense of science fiction.

There are three pseudo-factors in total, each different from the last.

"First, there's the first type, which is the most numerous. These are the pseudo-factors of ordinary weirdos... Although they look like ordinary mineral stones with irregular bumps, they have been strictly encrypted. So at the time, we couldn't analyze these pseudo-factors and once considered them worthless."

"Back then... can the meaning be interpreted now?"

Sirius did not answer my question, but instead brought up the projection of the second pseudo-factor.

It was a prism with a gray iron texture, more refined than typical simulated elements, exuding a cold, industrial feel...

I know this.

This is the infiltration weapon ui-31, also known as the flow simulation factor.

This thing was always embedded in his chest, where his armor was also stored; it was the source of his power.

"The flow simulant is very advanced and special; it carries a variety of functions, the most important of which is..."

The projected prism-shaped pseudo-factor absorbed the ordinary ore-shaped pseudo-factor next to it.

"...It's a decoder. It can analyze other pseudo-factors. Those pseudo-factors that we can't understand can be absorbed into its own power... The flow's ability hasn't reached its limit yet. If we feed it all the pseudo-factors we've collected so far, what will it become?"

"I think it's better not to do that."

"I know, he's a dog who came to rely on me, I won't use him for any dangerous experiments."

Sirius waved his hand and said that.

I'm not worried about Liu's safety. I'm just afraid that his power is too strong to control him. Although we've gotten along fairly well during this time, he's still a weirdo at heart. We can't forget that. Who knows if there's some dangerous backdoor left in his body on the other side?

"Now, let's look at the last pseudo-factor."

A golden cross.

"This is a pseudo-factor extracted from the body of the oil monster captured alive in Spica."

"This is a product of Aldebaran."

"Well, from the perspective of product iteration, theoretically this is the most advanced pseudo-factor, and its appearance is more high-end than the previous two. But surprisingly... the encryption of this pseudo-factor is very imperfect, full of loopholes, and it is a 'defective product' that our existing technology can also explore."

Aldebaran doesn't seem like a careless person. If she were, she wouldn't have been able to become the head of the weirdo development department.

I can roughly guess the reason for this.

"When I was setting up and installing the pseudo-factor on the oil monster, I kicked Aldebaran, which caused her 'data cable' to be forcibly pulled out of the oil monster's body... Because of this hot-swapping, the pseudo-factor malfunctioned unexpectedly."

Sirius replied, "Yes, Spica thinks so too. If that's the case, then your kick was very significant."

"So, what did you notice through that vulnerability?"

When I asked that, Sirius's expression became complicated again.

She sighed deeply, and after a long while, she said, "Just as you guessed before, the pseudo-factor is the star crystal of 'the other side,' which, after being input into the 'phenomenal concepts' of this world, serves as a pass for activities here... This is the conclusion reached by the research department."

The people he had been fighting against all along were actually his own kind.

Sirius, the largest star crystal on Earth, was truly devastated upon hearing the news.

The Star Crystal is the manifestation of protective power and the embodiment of the will of the stars.

If the pseudo-factor is the Star Crystal, then "the other side" is using the power of "protection" for "aggression".

What exactly do they want to do?

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Halley Turned Bad

(Albinocotyledon)

Leaving behind the golden ship favored by Sirius, I left the reception room and drank the blue potion in one gulp.