Not pushing herself to the point of coughing up blood meant that, during her research on the Teleportation Gate, she wouldn’t completely exhaust her mental strength and fall into a coma. Yet, upon waking from that coma, the very first thing Luo Shuangyue did was continue her research.
Honestly, the way Luo Shuangyue worked made her seem even more like a Magical Girl of the Magic Department than the actual Magical Girls themselves—she was the perfect picture of selfless sainthood.
If everyone didn’t know her organization was Eternal Night, and that she was paid by Eternal Night, someone might really mistake Luo Shuangyue as the Magic Department’s carefully nurtured successor.
Hand in hand, they walked into the Teleportation Gate.
Luo Shuangyue found that the distance between Mother Star and the moon had been compressed to about five meters—just a few steps to cross from one side of the gate to the other.
“It’s still not quite compressed enough,” she muttered under her breath.
Right then, Xia Mo lightly tapped her on the head.
“We agreed that these next few days you’re going to rest properly—no thinking about anything else.” “I can’t help it.”
In just a few short exchanges, the two had already walked out of that bizarre and colorful passage and returned to Mother Star.
The other entrance to the Teleportation Gate was fixed in the outskirts of the Magic Department, where a huge array of things had been gathered.
Various small machines were systematically sending vast amounts of materials through the gate.
“It looks like those crates are filled with the Royal-class Monster’s Core and Remains?” Luo Shuangyue watched as several giant crates, just like them, emerged from the exit of the Teleportation Gate, and she muttered to herself in curiosity.
The materials used for these crates were quite different from ordinary ones—Luo Shuangyue could sense the power of a Magical Girl from them.
That made it easy to guess what was inside these crates.
The Lunar Base now lacked almost everything except for magic beast materials.
Every time they launched an expedition, the Magical Girls could extract plenty of valuable loot from the monsters they defeated.
But since the number and size of these spoils were often enormous, most of the time the girls could only retrieve the Royal-class Monster’s Core, leaving the Remains to evaporate on their own.
When a large amount of Remains accumulated in one place, it could easily turn that area into an Incubation Bed for monsters—but the Magical Girls simply didn’t have the extra energy to deal with all that miasma.
With so many Universe Monsters attacking already, they barely had the magic power left to purify those Incubation Beds.
“It’s better to just let those places incubate monsters and take them out as they appear. That’s what the seniors said.” Xia Mo shrugged, imitating the tone of their squad leaders.
When monsters are born, they absorb the miasma from the Incubation Bed to strengthen themselves. In a way, this actually purifies the contaminated area, doesn’t it?
On Mother Star, Magical Girls couldn’t just leave things alone like that—if you ignored them, those things could endanger civilians at any moment.
But out in space, things were different. If a monster hatched, it hatched; if it didn’t become a Royal-Class Magic Beast, it was basically useless.
Besides, monsters born from the Remains of other monsters could, at best, only reach the same level as the monster they came from—it was impossible to get a Royal-Class Magic Beast that way.
“The number of Transhumans at Headquarters is getting higher and higher too…” Luo Shuangyue swept her gaze over the scene, spotting many girls in uniform.
They were using superhuman strength, entirely beyond that of normal humans, to carry all sorts of things—each of them like a superhero.
With these humanoid machines helping out, everything here was fast and orderly.
But whenever she thought that these beautiful girls had all once been rigorously trained warriors, Luo Shuangyue couldn’t help but want to complain.
She used to think she was the only pitiable soul in this world who needed to adapt to a new identity, but now she suddenly realized her uniqueness had vanished into the crowd.
When you’re the only one with a girl’s body but a boy’s heart, it’s disorienting and confusing.
But when everyone around you is like that, Luo Shuangyue felt she wasn’t so conflicted after all.
“They’re all people just like you.” Xia Mo shot Luo Shuangyue a meaningful look.
She’d heard a bit of gossip these days and understood what was going on with the Transhumans working so hard before them.
Ahem, setting everything else aside, Monice’s Transformation Surgery was extremely successful—not just in terms of safety, but also in appearance.
Look at the Transhumans from before—they were all vicious, monstrous, not even looking human. One glance, and you’d know they were the villains.
But the Transhumans Monice produced now—each one was a gorgeous girl, barely any different from the Magical Girls before transformation.
Just in terms of publicity, Monice’s skills were maxed out.
It could even be promoted as a kind of cosmetic surgery.
“Ahem, you know, I actually feel kind of creeped out now.” Hugging her arms, Luo Shuangyue shrank back and muttered.
“Pfft, shouldn’t you be happy? Now you’ve got lots and lots of people who can talk about the same things as you.” Xia Mo stifled a laugh, then took Luo Shuangyue’s hand, leaning in to whisper, “I heard there’s a Psychological Counseling Exchange Meeting tomorrow, just for Transhumans—do you want to sneak in and take a look?”
Luo Shuangyue was stunned for a moment, then showed a look of disbelief.
Why does Xia Mo know about this?
And besides, the two of them are Magical Girls—wouldn’t it be weird for them to join such an event?
“Don’t look at me, the seniors at Headquarters gave me the entire list of activities for these three days—they told me to pick some interesting ones and take you to have fun.” Xia Mo shrugged.
The seniors at Headquarters really doted on Luo Shuangyue, treating her like a beloved daughter.
“Besides, there will be Magical Girls with psychological counseling expertise at the exchange meeting, and there aren’t any strict requirements for joining. As long as you want to, you can go.”
Xia Mo thought Luo Shuangyue might actually like this exchange meeting.
Where else could she find people with the same experience as her?
…Well, maybe that’s not quite true. Rumor had it that the Magic Department was considering making Transformation Surgery widely available.
Soon, people with shared topics with Luo Shuangyue would be everywhere.
“But I’m still a little worried—what’s the real difference between Transhumans and ordinary people? Will making this technology widespread really be problem-free?”
Thwap!
A karate chop landed lightly on Luo Shuangyue’s head, snapping her out of her thoughts.
“No thinking about that! For the next few days, you’re only allowed to think about happy things. If you can’t do that, then just think about me. Got it?” Xia Mo glared at Luo Shuangyue, commanding her sternly.
“I can’t even let my thoughts wander a little…” Luo Shuangyue wanted to cry.
She really hadn’t thought that far ahead—her muttering was just a bit of idle speculation.
If everyone turned into a Transhuman, wouldn’t Mother Star turn into an all-girls nation?
Could Transhumans have normal offspring? Could those offspring become Magical Girls?
Those were important questions to consider!
“Just think about it, Xia Mo—right now, all of Monice’s Transhumans are girls. And from the look of things, her technology is only going to get more and more refined in that direction. So if things go on, won’t there eventually only be girls left in the world?”
Luo Shuangyue flung her arms wide in an exaggerated gesture.
A world of nothing but girls!
“So what?” Xia Mo was confused. Was that even a problem?
In truth, ever since Demons and Magical Girls had appeared, the world’s gender ratio had been shifting.
From the initial roughly equal birth rate, now it was about two girls to every boy.
This world was already slowly shifting toward being a nation of women.
“Magic favors girls. If you want to survive in this world, there aren’t many choices.” Spreading her hands, Xia Mo said helplessly.
Magical Girls could only be born among girls, and now, the greatest power humanity had was the Magical Girls.
So, having more girls was better than more boys—after all, boys couldn’t become Magical Girls, but girls could.
As for the question of future generations, that wasn’t really a problem—there still wasn’t a huge gender imbalance.
If things really did become problematic, the Magic Department would probably have developed a solution by then.
“Believe in the power of magic!”
“Would anyone actually research that kind of magic?” Luo Shuangyue sounded skeptical.
“There definitely will be. Maybe it’s already being secretly experimented on, who knows?” “No way that’s possible…”
Achoo!
Cecilia suddenly sneezed.
“Did you do that on purpose?” Before Cecilia could finish sneezing, Monice quickly raised her documents to block the incoming spray.
With a dark look, she questioned her.
How could a Full Bloom-Class Magical Girl sneeze for no reason? Cecilia was definitely doing it on purpose to mess with her!
Besides, the question she’d been called over to answer was ridiculous—what did it mean to ask whether Transhumans still counted as humans, or whether they had normal human biological functions?
“Someone must be talking bad about me behind my back.” Cecilia took a tissue from nearby, calmly wiping the corner of her mouth.
“Lately, I’m really not that popular.”
No matter how the Transhuman slots were allocated, someone was always going to be unhappy.
And those with simple minds would curse her, the Vice Minister in charge.
Her job was like that—tons of responsibilities, but few benefits.
No wonder everyone else had pushed it around until, in the end, they’d played rock-paper-scissors and she’d lost, stuck with the burden.
“So the questions you’re asking me…”
“They’re exactly what they sound like. I want to know if Transhumans still count as humans. Do they belong to the same species as ordinary humans?” Cecilia folded her hands, propping her chin on the back of her hand, with not a hint of jest in her eyes.
She was asking very seriously.
“Even if you ask me, I can’t give you an answer. All I can say is that the previous generation of Transhumans were more like Demons, and the ones now are more like weakened versions of Magical Girls.” Monice shrugged—she’d just developed this technology herself.
How could she possibly answer such a question?
In her opinion, as long as a Transhuman recognized herself as human and wasn’t mentally affected by magic, that was the perfect result.
She hadn’t thought much about other issues.
Transhumans were warriors—meant for the battlefield against Demons—not housewives at home.
“Magical Girls are humans. They can have children.”
“You want to know if Transhumans can have children with humans?” Monice finally understood Cecilia’s meaning, though she still couldn’t get the point of asking.
With such grave enemies at the gates, shouldn’t they be thinking about how to crush the invaders, not about these unrelated things?
“Can’t you be a little more serious?”
“This is a very serious issue!” Cecilia slapped the table.
“According to the Magic Department’s calculations, the world will soon face a gender imbalance. What are we supposed to do then?”
If Transhumans didn’t have those biological functions, then all this modification was just draining humanity’s potential for the future.
To put it bluntly, humanity was already walking a tightrope—the birth rate was dropping year by year.
“If you ask me, I really don’t know. I can only say that, in theory, today’s Transhumans possess all human capabilities. They’re artificially made, weakened Magical Girls—not artificial Demons like before.”
Monice shot back sharply. In the end, all this talk was meaningless—if you wanted an answer, you’d have to do experiments.
“Find some willing Transhumans and let them try. At most, we’ll have an answer in a few months.”
“But that’s just a drop in the bucket. Actually, I have another secret plan that might change things.”
Finally, as her Kingdom of Yan map ended, Cecilia revealed her true reason for visiting Monice.
She wanted Monice, who was very experienced in the field of Transhumans, to join a secret research project the Magic Department was working on.
Monice was not just a Full Bloom-Class Magical Girl—she was also a genius Magical Girl with profound technical expertise in human physiology.
With her on board, the research would surely progress rapidly.
“Oh?” A glint of curiosity flashed in Monice’s eyes as she crossed her legs, her whole demeanor showing she was ready to listen.
What was this mysterious, important secret plan Cecilia spoke of?
“We’re trying to create a kind of magic—a magic that would allow Magical Girl and Magical Girl to create a Love Crystal together.” Cecilia’s cheeks flushed slightly, clearly feeling a bit embarrassed by what she was saying.
“You actually have time to research that?” Monice was stunned.
Did the Magic Department have so many resources with nowhere to spend them that they’d invest in something so pointless?
“This is crucial for humanity’s future—far more important than your Transhuman project!”
Cecilia’s gaze was deep; this time, she truly believed her own research was more important than Monice’s…
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