A little late, was my celebrating my birthday.
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Floating Island of Schiksal, Memorial Arena No. 3.
Luo Lin surveyed her surroundings. The entire room was incredibly spacious, appearing as large as half a football field—this wasn't even the largest. There were two larger Memorial Arena sites adjacent to it, but they weren't necessary for the B-rank Valkyrie promotion exam.
"Luo Lin, Logistics and Intelligence Department, C-rank Valkyrie... Applying for the B-rank Valkyrie promotion exam," she stated.
The examiner, arms crossed, stood in the control room with one-way glass, asking, "How did you fare on the theoretical exam, young lady?"
"Ah, I can assure you that I passed," Luo Lin confidently replied.
With the guidance of the ace teacher of St. Freya Academy, Himeko Murata, passing the theoretical exam was nearly guaranteed.
"Very confident!" The examiner said as she opened the computer terminal to check the candidate's previous scores. The striking deep blue scores indicated that Luo Lin's theoretical results were excellent.
Very good, she was beginning to appreciate this confident girl in front of her.
"Next, please proceed to the adjacent station—select the weapons and equipment you are familiar with and prepare to face the challenge."
Rows of premium equipment icons were displayed in front of Luo Lin, including various high-tech individual equipment, such as handguns made of imitation Soulium, anti-Honkai beast rifles, machine guns that seemed to be dismantled from helicopters, and various special grenades...
Luo Lin's eyes widened as she reached out and quickly selected a pile of items beside her.
The supervising examiner's eyes widened—Luo Lin now had a bunch of grenades around her waist, four or five flashbangs slung diagonally, a short sword made of imitation Soulium hanging on her back, and she was holding a pair of Alloy Dominator pistols in her hands, making her look bulkier than before.
She didn't look like someone who came to take the promotion exam for the Intelligence Department, but rather gave off the feeling of a frontline Valkyrie.
The examiner's mouth twitched, but she still followed the regulations and shouted, "Are you ready? The exam begins!"
In the next moment, a slight buzzing sound echoed in Luo Lin's ears.
With the support of prehistoric technology, a chaotic urban area appeared in front of the Valkyrie.
The streets were littered with randomly parked vehicles, with a few of them crashed into each other, flames engulfing the wreckage, and the pungent smell of black smoke rising and disappearing into the shadows of tall buildings.
Luo Lin cautiously observed her surroundings, she could even feel the high concentration of Honkai energy in the air, wondering how this device simulated such a feeling.
Clearly, this was the exam scenario. Perhaps a Honkai outbreak had occurred here not long ago, and Luo Lin was the Valkyrie sent to handle the incident.
Not far away, dozens of wandering zombies turned their heads in unison, staring at Luo Lin.
"Wow wow wow, quite imposing!"
Luo Lin had naturally entered a combat state, she raised her guns and shot, easily detonating the heads of several zombies, then kicked one zombie's body, and coldly finished it off with a gunshot to the head.
Next, it could not even be called a chase. Luo Lin's speed in dealing with the zombies was much faster than their speed in rushing towards her, to the point where she had to actively charge forward, bypassing various obstacles on the road, and quickly killing the enemies.
Not even a minute passed, and there were no more active zombies in Luo Lin's field of vision.
Several dozen Seraph-class Honkai beasts descended from the sky, but were hit head-on by Luo Lin's flashbangs, causing them to stagger and lose accuracy.
Then, Luo Lin used the smoke and cover of the buildings to deal with the rushing-type Honkai beasts, quickly shattering their wings with bullets. The heavily damaged rushing-type Honkai beasts couldn't maintain their high speed and thus lost their threat, easily handled by Luo Lin.
The examiner watched Luo Lin's swift and decisive actions, her hand tapping on the control terminal. Under her operation, two giant Chariot-class Honkai beasts crashed into buildings, bringing rubble and shockwaves towards Luo Lin!
Luo Lin observed for a moment, found the route the chariot-class Honkai beasts were charging, threw grenades, and accurately detonated one chariot-class Honkai beast's head, halting its movements.
She dodged the remaining chariot-class Honkai beast's attack, continued to target one opponent, and soon shattered the injured chariot-class Honkai beast's core with bullets, making the remaining chariot-class Honkai beast no longer a threat to her.
Luo Lin used two more grenades to quickly deal with the charging opponents.
"Impressive!"
Luo Lin's precise marksmanship and excellent physical fitness impressed the examiner. In fact, Luo Lin had already passed the B-rank Valkyrie exam at this point, but the examiner wanted to see how far this Valkyrie in front of her could go.
The examiner leaned down and shouted into the microphone, "Luo Lin, next is considered an extra. If you can't handle it, just let me know..."
"I'm fine!"
A Templar-class Honkai beast with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other tore through the smoke, appearing on the battlefield. Along with it were two not very threatening, but difficult to deal with, archer zombies.
The examiner watched Luo Lin's back, guessing what she was thinking. Perhaps this situation was too difficult for an intelligence department Valkyrie?
"Oh oh, when was the last time I saw so few ordinary enemies?"
These two archer zombies didn't perform triple dashes to retreat, nor did they create dangerous fire rings on the ground; there wasn't a Herrscher of the Void behind the temple-class Honkai beast, nor was there a need to quickly break through the frontline to interrupt the opponent's ultimate...
Not to mention the enemies didn't have any peculiar attributes stacked in to their existences, where two shots wouldn't even break the skin of the archer zombies labeled with "Unbreakable," and the Templar-class Honkai beast with the "Quantum" attribute blinked next to her...
They didn't even have the most basic HP bar connection.
Thanks to the courage brought to Luo Lin by the Infinity Abyss, she only felt gratitude in her heart now.
She deftly dodged the archer zombies' five consecutive shots, then fired her pistols in rapid succession, while using thrown objects to slow down the temple-class Honkai beast's movements. With a storm-like assault from the girl, the two archer zombies couldn't last even half a minute before dissipating into purple Honkai energy fragments in the air.
All that was left was to deal with the temple-class Honkai beast.
Luo Lin put away one pistol, drew the imitation Soulium short sword hanging on her back, and stared at the white shield that almost filled her field of vision—the temple-class Honkai beast had shielded itself well, and ordinary attacks wouldn't do much damage to its shield.
If Himeko were here, she could directly break the opponent's defense with the Sunfire Greatsword;
Schiksal's fine weapons combined with Himeko's skilled techniques would allow her to adapt to various environments.
But what about Luo Lin?
The girl stepped forward, and the Honkai beast squarely faced Luo Lin, exactly what she wanted. The next moment, a grenade exploded beside the temple-class Honkai beast, slightly disturbing its defensive posture—
[Edge of Taixuan - Sword Style - Rock Breaker]!
A layer of Honkai energy condensed on the short sword in Luo Lin's hand, then heavily struck the Honkai beast's shield, prying open its defense like a siege spike. Like a lover, the girl approached closely, slipping into the Honkai beast's embrace, and ruthlessly stuffed a string of explosives into it.
The next moment, Luo Lin swiftly stepped on the Honkai beast's body, quickly leaving the explosion range.
The examiner's mouth gaped in astonishment—this series of dazzling high-difficulty actions was completed in a matter of seconds, and the Templar-class Honkai beast finally turned into a splendid fireworks display, disappearing without a trace.
"...Excellent performance, Valkyrie Luo Lin, successful promotion exam!"
Several days later, at the Schiksal branch in Belarus, Luo Lin stepped off the transport plane with her luggage.
Ragnar Lothbrok had been waiting here early, he spread his arms and hugged Luo Lin.
"Wow, fast action, huh? Did you just take the promotion exam as soon as you got back?"
"Isn't it because Captain Ragnar is so charismatic!"
Ragnar chuckled, patting Luo Lin's shoulder. "Come on, let me introduce you to your comrades!"
"Welcome to the Valkyrie Assault Team!"
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Voting on Patréon now for the Next two fics. Will last up before June.