Honkai: Star Rail – Banner Character, Delivering Knives to the Player [40]

It’s worth mentioning—Lao Xiong’s Lingzhou was already at max [Eidolon].

His gacha luck far surpassed Ah Xian’s, to the extent that viewers joked he'd win the lottery if he bought a ticket.

Two ten-pulls on the Beginner’s Banner netted him three copies of Lingzhou.

Then, another three came from Seele’s rate-up banner, plus the one from the main story reward. Just like that, max [Eidolon] achieved.

Mind you, Lingzhou wasn’t even a rate-up character.

"Lingzhou's sixth [Eidolon] reflects DOTs—just watch me wipe the floor with this chest boss."

"If I lose this fight, I’ll sneak into my sister’s room on stream and wear her clothes, including underwear!"

[??]
[Well, now I’m suddenly interested.]
[Got any qipao? No reason, I just wanna see the slit skirt and hairy legs combo…]
[Just imagining that is getting me dangerously excited.]
[Unhinged chat as always, but seeing Lao Xiong crossdress is worth it.]
[This is the first time I’m praying Lingzhou doesn't save the day.]

Lao Xiong scanned the barrage nonchalantly.

"Dream on, chat. A streamer who dares to raise a flag is always confident—I've never once been proven wrong."

He triggered Lingzhou’s [Technique].

"Hey—you! Come at me!"

With the taunting voice line ringing out, Seele immediately lunged forward, scythe aimed at the chest-guarding enemy.

The battle started, and the Automaton Direwolf once again targeted Asta immediately.

But this time, Lingzhou’s ultimate was ready for emergency backup.

"Whew! Good thing I filled up Lingzhou’s ult gauge earlier, otherwise Asta would've gone straight to the floor again."

"What was MiHoYo thinking, tossing such tough chest monsters onto the overworld map?"

"Whatever, let's take the chance to study Lingzhou’s ultimate buff."

Lao Xiong opened the battle info panel, selecting the enemy’s status.

[Dream Mirage]
[Cannot be dispelled]
When applying action-delay or control debuffs to allied targets, the debuff is nullified and reflected back to the enemy, ignoring resistance (can trigger once).

When applying DOT debuffs, they’re reflected back without consuming the above trigger limit.

[Bleed] — 2 turns remaining

Deals Physical damage each turn.

"As expected, it reflected the DOT, but why does Asta still have Bleed? Something feels off."

[I tested this already. Lingzhou’s sixth Eidolon reflects DOTs but doesn't grant immunity.]

Realization dawned on Lao Xiong.

"Oh, makes sense. The description was actually very precise this time."

Lingzhou’s ultimate clearly stated immunity only applied to action-delay and control effects. The DOT reflection added by his sixth [Eidolon] didn’t mention immunity.

"Now that I think about it, no DOT immunity actually makes sense."

"After all, reflecting DOT doesn’t consume [Dream Mirage’s] trigger limit."

"If he could both reflect and nullify DOTs, any enemy reliant on DOT would be utterly meaningless against him."

"Plus, I heard a beta tester mention there's a future character whose damage scales from getting hit."

"I think he was called Blade."

"Blade can stack his buff from DOTs too. If Lingzhou at max [Eidolon] granted immunity to DOTs, he’d actually be incompatible with Blade."

"Limited CC immunity alone is already powerful enough. Permanent immunity to DOT damage would just be absurd."

"As long as the designer wasn’t drunk, they’d never create such an overpowered survival character, especially a four-star."

Moreover, Lao Xiong already found Lingzhou absurdly strong.

Even ignoring his other skills, the [Dream Mirage] status from his ultimate felt broken.

Why? Simply because it had no turn-limit.

In other words—

As long as the single-use trigger remained unactivated, [Dream Mirage] would remain on enemies indefinitely.

He shuddered to think how DOT-focused enemies without hard CC would cope against a maxed Lingzhou.

They simply couldn't.

Trash mob or boss, all would have to kneel and call Lingzhou “Daddy.”

Throughout the fight, though Lao Xiong’s character health bars occasionally dropped dangerously, no one else died.

"Seems even someone as OP as Lingzhou has minor drawbacks early on."

"His [Traces] for applying attack debuffs aren’t unlocked yet, so it’s harder to trigger his follow-up attacks against single enemies."

"But overall, this barely counts as a flaw. His [Skill’s] fixed healing amount is extremely newbie-friendly."

"I never noticed before this intense fight—his [Skill’s] heal isn’t tied to his level."

"It heals three basic hits, plus two extra hits from [Eidolons], for a total of 500 HP healed for the whole team."

"This healing might be average later, but right now it’s god-tier. Just look at my team’s health bars."

Chat glanced at the screen and widened their eyes in shock.

Lao Xiong’s highest HP character had only 467 HP total.

As long as they were alive, Lingzhou’s [Skill] fully healed them in a single move.

At this stage, no healer came close—not even Bailu, the standard banner five-star.

Even Natasha, who required 90 energy to activate her ultimate, needed at least two or three turns to fire it off in the early game. And even then, she healed less than half of Lingzhou’s Skill.

Meanwhile, Lingzhou consistently restored 500 HP to the entire party every [Skill] activation, an overwhelming difference early-game.

Besides his [Skill], Lingzhou had his [Ultimate], too.

Its healing wasn’t fixed across levels, starting at only 234 at level 1. But his relevant [Eidolon] boosted it instantly to level 3, healing 468—still enough to fully restore Lao Xiong’s party in an emergency.

[Lingzhou supremacy! Only his Ultimate actually needs leveling.]
[The ultimate low-investment healer—cheap, practical, and powerful.]
[Even his passive’s 10% resistance reduction is fixed at all levels. He’s so resource-efficient I could cry.]

Early-game resource scarcity was notorious in Mihoyo titles. Usually, you could only afford to properly level your main DPS character. The other three slots survived on scraps.

Yet, as difficulty rose later, survivability became crucial. At that point, even defensive supports demanded heavy investment in levels, skills, and equipment.

But Lingzhou was different.

Only upgrading his [Ultimate] meaningfully boosted his healing. All other upgrades merely boosted damage output.

In resource-strapped periods, it wasn't worthwhile to expect damage from your support anyway. You could leave Lingzhou minimally leveled and invest your savings where it counted more.

And surviving wasn’t difficult at all with him—Lingzhou naturally had high base HP and Defense, scaling easily off HP and Defense Relics.

How economical could one character be?

"Time to fly!"

Lingzhou conjured a swirling gale, sending the enemy flying to finish the battle in style.

[Lingzhou’s Skill animation feels strangely familiar, like I’ve seen it on TV.]
[TV?]
[You know, KOF’s boss Goenitz is nicknamed "TV."]
[Now that you mention it, Lingzhou’s Skill does look a bit like Goenitz’s “お別れです” move, or the misheard version, "我看了电视" (I watched TV).]
[Lots of wind-type characters use this move, like that wind mage foreman from another gacha.]

"Stop comparing his moves to TV or whatever—I told you already, if I set a flag, it never backfires!"

Lao Xiong’s face filled with smugness.

"Lingzhou, my hero!"

---

This is a fan translation of 崩铁：卡池角色，给玩家发刀 by 三十度幻. All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!