BaoBao's Origin 2 The Love Of A Phoenix

"Luna? ...Luna? Are you okay?"

Luna kept her eyes closed and her face was slightly pale. The pain of dying had been intense this time round and she felt that it was truly quite a horrifying way to die. She'd rather bleed out like she did in her original world and in the previous world.

"...Luna?" BaoBao was slightly worried.

/I'm fine. Just... give me a while./

BaoBao kept quiet and let Luna rest. He knew how weary she must be feeling since she still talked to him telepathically.

Luna drifted off to sleep.

Around 2 hours later, she woke up to find herself in darkness. She was momentarily confused until she remembered that she had died.

BaoBao appeared by her side the moment he knew that she was awake. "Luna? Feeling better?"

Luna nodded. "How did this world go?"

"You avoided forging a friendship with Violet and the others where the original soul was completely dependent on them. You avoided being the one to associate Leah with Violet. The last part is really interesting."

Luna cocked her head, waiting for BaoBao to explain.

"Besides how the entire battle and confrontation in the forest went differently, which was thanks to you, in the original story, when the original soul died, Violet got gravely injured from trying to rush to you. Her injury would give the boys a power boost due to their anger and that would spur them on to win the battle. However this time...!"

Luna noticed the way BaoBao sounded really excited as if he was suppressing a scream. /Did he regress back to a fanboy? What happened?/

BaoBao heard her thoughts and that instantly cooled him down again. He coughed, apologised, then continued explaining. "You threw her back, saved her from injury and the story changed a little from there although the ending was the same. It was only Ethan who went ballistic and he attacked in ways that was far more overpowering than how he did in the original story."

BaoBao looked at how Luna widened her eyes. Just as he thought that she was touched, he heard her thoughts. "Did it affect the rest of the story then? Will there be any issues?"

BaoBao did not know whether to laugh or cry at her nonchalance about having the second male lead go totally out of character for her. "It's fine... Violet and Stephan were shocked not by his show of power but by how much he grieved for you. It captured Violet's attention for awhile, but Stephan easily gained her attention back, especially when Ethan essentially dropped out of the competition for her hand. Nothing changed in the story expect some minor insignificant details."

Luna sighed in relief. "I'm curious about something. Was everything orchestrated by the second female lead? And her involvement in the story was much higher than what I was exposed to, right?"

BaoBao nodded. "She did a lot of things to trouble both Stephan's and Violet's family. Instigated a lot of bullies and fanned the fire of hatred against Violet. She did everything so meticulously that she really was not found out till this last ambush."

"On hindsight, this explains why the 'amazing' female lead was unable to gain much support. Normally there'd be at least some if there was no one acting against her." Luna thought about it.

"True..." BaoBao recalled at this point that his wrong prediction and smugness at the moment before anything was concluded caused everything to go wrong when it could have been prevented. 

Luna noticed his silence. She saw how he was floating unusually low and hanging his head. Without the need to ask, she could guess the cause of it. "Just don't repeat it again." 

BaoBao's eyes widened and he teared up a little. He nodded firmly to show his promise to her. He rubbed his eyes with his stubby arm then continued to talk energetically again. He knew that Luna did not fancy dallying. "About grades... It doesn't seem like you did anything wrong this time but..." BaoBao started to look a little puzzled.

"The grade's still not very good, right?"

"Not exactly. Your performance did get a grading of A. But... after all that you have accomplished, I was expecting an S grade. Apparently, the reason for your grade is that you still barely passed each mission by a hair's breadth..." BaoBao secretly complained to himself. [The administrators are such stingy cheats. Humph!]

"Oh well, what matters is if there was a reassessment. How pleased was this world's consciousness?"

"It's an S grade again!" BaoBao excitedly cheered for Luna. "The original soul was more than pleased and its satisfaction provided some energy for the world. The world decided to overlook the second male lead's OOC since it did not affect the plot too badly."

Luna nodded then asked BaoBao about the next world.

BaoBao sulked. "Can't you at least show a little reaction?"

Luna blinked innocently. "...Woohoo, good job to us. We did it...!" However, she said it in such a flat tone that it made BaoBao's skin crawl.

"Okay, okay, forget it. Just... Never mind."

Luna waited for BaoBao to send her to the next world, however he continued talking.

"Before I send you to the next world, there is a new function that the administrators opened up for us!" BaoBao said cheerfully.

"Already? Looks like they're very generous when it comes to rewarding and encouraging good results." Luna commented.

[You don't understand Luna, you're getting the short end of the stick here... Normally hosts would have all these functions available to them from the start~]

BaoBao wailed to himself.

Luna raised an eyebrow upon seeing BaoBao's aggrieved look. /What's he thinking about this time?/

When BaoBao did not say anything in response, she realised that it was another one of those moments when he did not seem to know her thoughts. So she voiced her suspicion. "BaoBao, it is possible to disconnect our thoughts, isn't it?"

BaoBao froze. Luna was asking it casually but BaoBao took it as a threat. 

Before he bound with her spirit, he learnt from other systems' experiences that this was the most useless function systems had. There was not one host to date that has used this function yet. "Ye- Yes... I didn't think that you would mind it. Do you want to keep it disconnected after all?" BaoBao replied timidly.

Luna shook her head. "No need. It's quite convenient for you to immediately know anything I need."

BaoBao looked at her with astonishment.

Luna cocked her head when she saw his expression. "Am I wrong?"

BaoBao thought back to his crucial mistake of becoming smug and disconnecting their thoughts in the midst of the battle. "No, no. It really is useful... It's just... you're an outlier." BaoBao replied in a breathless voice. 

He felt pretty good that he had not gotten Luna's character wrong. He was right at the start about her not minding it. His worry that stemmed from data about the history of all hosts was needless in the end. 

"So what's the new function?" Luna prompted BaoBao.  

"Ah! The library resource has been made available for us!" 

"A library?"

"Yes! There are two kinds of books in the library. The world books and the books of knowledge. The world books are chosen at random and is the next world you'd be entering. The book allows you to read the entire story before sending you in whenever you're ready. The books for knowledge are in case you need to brush up a certain kind of knowledge first before entering the world."

While Luna pondered over its use, BaoBao was secretly lamenting to himself. Although he sounded cheerful, he was not entirely happy because the most important and useful thing for Luna was still not made available. [Giving the world book to someone like Luna who has the perception talent... How useful can that be?!]

As BaoBao was absorbed into his thoughts, he did not notice Luna nodding as she thought about the uses the world book could have for her. 

"BaoBao, let's pick a world now then."

BaoBao input the request to be assigned a world and a dark red book with gold trimmings soon appeared in front of Luna.

"A book?"

"What did you think?" BaoBao cocked his head.

"I had thought you only called it a library to refer to it as some collection of knowledge. Just a term for the ease of reference."

"It actually is."

"Why don't you send all the information into my brain like you usually do?"

"That's different. Those are the memories of the original soul which is triggered by intensely stimulating various parts of the brain. That's why you get an intense headache together with the information."

"You can't input new information into the brain?"

"No."

"So... you can do all these..." Luna gestured to all of herself and all around her then continued "But you can't do something like inserting information into brains?"

"To be precise, we can create false information in the brain but that is tedious and takes time. It's a whole different matter as compared to the creation of all these." BaoBao copied her earlier gestures. He proceeded on to explain the finer details to Luna since she seemed interested to know. 

Luna felt like she could only barely grasp onto everything that BaoBao was sharing with her. There were a lot of technical jargon and knowledge that she was not familiar with. However, she did understand one thing. "So... The way we, hosts, are made are just different from you systems. So you cannot share information with us like you do with each other. Although it's possible to input memories and new information into our souls, it's akin to learning it ourselves?" Luna concluded. 

BaoBao nodded.

"Are you sure you're allowed to share all these with me? Sounds like valuable knowledge." Luna asked. She was worried that BaoBao who looked so young would make a careless mistake and end up harming himself.

"Yes I can. The administrators doesn't mind systems sharing information about us because you wouldn't be able to do anything with that knowledge anyway."

"...Sounds displeasing but it's true. To make those theories work, the methods has to be possible and only entities like you have the abilities to make it possible." Luna thought about it seriously.

"Still, from what I know, you're the first who bothered to ask. No one really bothered about the details after taking us as god-like figures." BaoBao shrugged.

"Probably a force of habit. I'm used to knowing things." Luna shrugged a little as well.

"Besides, having it come in the form of a book, doesn't it look and feel nice and authentic?" BaoBao asked with a smile.

Luna touched the velvety cover of the book floating in front of her. "I admit, it does have a nice feel to it." 

She looked at the gold stitching on the cover of the book. /The love of a phoenix... Interesting title./

She opened it up and read the book.

The humans of this world were shapeshifters. They could change into various different kinds of animals, including mystical beings. Over the years, people segregated themselves and lived in places that matched what they changed into. People who changed into creatures, that could live on land and in water, lived in coastal villages. People who changed into forest creatures lived in forested areas. People who changed into animals that can survive harsh territories lived around the mountains or the desert. The people who were born as mystical beings were uncommon. They could choose to leave the villages and live in solitary which was made possible by their strength.

The story centers around a girl named FengJiao who was born as a golden phoenix shapeshifter. She will find love with MengYao who was born as a dark phoenix shapeshifter. Feng Jiao lived in a village at the borders of a forest that ends at the foot of a mountain. She was friendly, strong, and righteous. All the people in the village loved her and worships her family for producing a strong protector for the village. It was common for the strong to bully the weak but Feng Jiao did not tolerate such things.

She got injured fighting a basilisk shapeshifter that lived in the mountains. As that was the basilisk home ground and it has been preying on weaker ones for a long time, FengJiao lost due to the lack of experience. She was found hiding in a corner cave of a mountain by LongFei, a dragon shapeshifter, when he was flying around. He was drawn by her beauty and eventually fell in love with her kindness. The village took them as a celestial pairing but Feng Jiao never showed any interest in him. She did not fancy his rude and high-handed way of speaking and handling matters.

She would meet MengYao on the day he attacks her village. He easily overpowered her as he grew up fighting. She only managed to defend the village thanks to LongFei's help. MengYao was severely injured this time and was saved by FengJiao who took pity on a fellow phoenix. MengYao's cold and dark personality clashed a lot with FengJiao's personality but she never stopped forgiving him because she felt sad for him, especially when Feng Jiao found out his reason for hating the weaker folk.

When he was born, the people in his village grew jealous and afraid of his power. They did not want to be ruled by a strong individual and wished to continue living freely. It was common for those born as mystical beings to act almighty. So they schemed against his family and caused their death, leaving him as the sole survivor by luck. A young nine-tailed fox shapeshifter, FenFang, was playing in the forest and came across the young him. Once he recovered, he went to exact revenge on the village and burnt it down with his black flames. He did the same for FenFang when he found out that she suffered the same fate as him. This made FenFang fall in love with him. He entered a collaborative relationship with FenFang to destroy the weak but FenFang viewed the relationship between them as something more.

FengJiao helped him interact with her village to let him experience kindness from villagers for the first time. Her actions eventually touched him and made him fall in love with her. FenFang has been receiving news about the development of the relationship between the lead couple from her most loyal but weak follower by making use of her unassuming white rabbit form. Using the intel gathered, FenFang would send her stronger followers to trouble the village which would inadvertently be troubling for FengJiao. However, they would always be defeated by FengJiao or LongFei. Eventually, when FenFang told her most loyal follower to poison FengJiao, she was found out by MengYao. At this point, MengYao was finally dedicated to protecting FengJiao and her village so he killed the both of them in the most painful way possible.

/The only side characters that appeared in this book are FenFang's lackeys. I wonder which would I be...?/

"Hopefully someone who doesn't suffer a very painful fate..." BaoBao sincerely replied to her musing. He would prefer not to watch her suffer while he remained completely helpless by her side.

Luna glanced at BaoBao's solemn expression then looked back at the book with a soft smile. "I hope so too but no matter what I get, I shall take it in my stride. I'll be relying on your assistance from time to time again, BaoBao."

BaoBao's eyes sparkled as he perked back up. "Ready anytime! Is there anything you want to read up on first?"

"Unless there are books on the history of this world, I don't think there is anything much to read up on first."

"Unfortunately, there is really none. Ready to go then?"

Luna nodded. 

BaoBao gave her a friendly reminder about the pain before she got knocked out cold.