The lake still steamed when Klee's grin caught the light. Water vapor rose in slow veils, carrying the metallic tang of singed algae. Klee stood ankle-deep among the reeds, cheeks flushed, eyes wide as if the world had just proven a new kind of miracle.
"Big brother, that was huge!" she squealed, hugging another painted bomb to her chest. "Klee's bombs never go that big."
Kael watched her with a calm that made his features look like a borrowed mask. He had measured the resonance moments before; he had felt the destructive Path energy settle into the device like a second skin. The bomb had behaved as a containment vessel, not a blade. The difference had been everything.
"It's not the bomb," he said. "It's the way you use it and the way you let something else carry the rest of the force."
Klee frowned in the adorable way children do when grammar gets in the way of wonder. "Big brother put some magic in it? You have a Vision?"
"No Vision," Kael answered, dry and precise. "Just a tool the system handed me. Think of it as… tuning. You give the bomb a purpose and it obeys better."
Her eyes lit with boundless curiosity. "Teach Klee! Klee wants big booms for fishing and for shows!"
He kept the lesson minimal. Power that large needed practice, constraints, and humility. He warned her that certain items could not survive the resonance and that improvisation could become fatal. Then he let her try again under supervision. Each time she threw one, Kael threaded the I Also Want to Help skill into the fuse with a careful mental motion. The bombs grew from fishing charges to small columns of controlled fury that sent fish flying into nets and sent the lake into roiling tantrums.
"Again! Again!" Klee hopped, the bells on her pack jangling like impatient applause.
He obliged until the shoreline ran white with foam and the nearby reeds bent under repeated shock waves. The sequence was almost scientific. Bomb, imbue, toss, observe. Each detonation spoke a language of metal, pressure, and water. Kael catalogued every ripple, every displaced fish, every change in current. The destructive Path branch did not simply add devastation; it amplified stress until the material did what it was meant to do and then let go. Swords fractured under it. Bombs accepted and released it like pressure valves.
That revealed a new set of rules. Weapon forms that embraced transience—bombs, charges, flares—were more compatible with the Path's appetite. Solid blades and heavy alloys buckled when the resonance reached beyond their structural tolerance. The consequence was obvious and useful.
Klee, for her part, reacted the way a child does when given a new toy and a mentor who approved. She pressed a greasy, fish-scented hand into his sleeve and declared that from now on they would run "The Great Fish Boom Project." She imagined rows of fried fish and fireworks and fame. Kael smiled a little under his dry surface. Fame was never his goal. Options were. This, however, bought both food and influence.
They cooked on the shore. Flames licked cleanly beneath skewered fish. The smoke smelled of salt and spice and something more primitive, like victory flavoured into meat. Klee's frying was excellent: crisp skin, soft flesh, the kind of comfort that made Kael relax just enough to notice small things—patterns of smoke, the way birds avoided the boiling water, the odd hush that followed a particularly loud burst.
Then the real consequence began. One detonation altered more than the water. The shockwaves rolled out, carrying through the trees and across the ridgelines. Far up on the cliff path above Mondstadt, Eula was walking a route below Starsnatch Cliffs. The blue-haired knight moved with graceful purpose, her eyes set on distant horizons, the wind playing at her mantle.
The first boom hit like an accusation. Eula stopped, hand against the pommel of her claymore. Her face, normally composed as carved ice, shifted into a frown. She turned, listening to the rhythm of explosions that echoed through valleys and against rock faces. Each boom was a punctuation that did not belong to the forest. She narrowed her gaze and set off in the direction of the sound.
Back at the lake, Klee kept bouncing with childish urgency, oblivious to the wider ripples. "Klee wants to try the big one," she said, eyes bright as a bonfire. "Make it even bigger, Mister Kael. Make it the biggest boom ever!"
Kael's answer was a measured one: the temptation was tactical. Bigger explosions meant more influence and more earned fear. Bigger explosions meant risk to innocent things and to his carefully built cover. He could turn a lake into a crater and call it a demonstration of power. Or he could learn the boundaries and keep his hands clean of ruin.
He decided on a middle line. He would let Klee detonate a slightly larger charge while he controlled the containment. He threaded the Path resonance into the bomb and taught her to aim for the wave of pressure, not the center. The resulting blast threw water as high as a man, a cathedral of spray that showered them in cool mist. It was spectacular, and precisely because it was controlled, the nearest reeds bent but did not burn and no trees fell.
Klee squealed and danced. "We did it! We did a big boom and did not break everything!"
Kael allowed himself a rare soft observation. Children could be the most dangerous allies because they infected grown plans with chaotic joy. He would take that joy and fashion it into utility.
A second set of ripples followed. Townsfolk closer to Mondstadt raised palms to eyes and looked out for smoke. Merchants at the gate whispered and pointed. The Knights received reports of strange detonations near Whispering Woods and the eastern wetlands. Eula, arriving at a high vantage point, watched the lake steam and frowned deeper. She recognized patterns—combat, artifice, and an unfamiliar signature in the vibrations. Her wariness flared into action.
Kael sensed the politics changing like a weather front. The system pulsed in his mind with the clinical log he had come to expect.
[Skill use recorded. Observer presence increased. Potential civic inquiry flagged. Recommendation: Deploy discretion.]
The recommendation was obvious. His quiet days of side jobs and lampgrass harvesting were now salted with public spectacle. Each boom that fed Klee's joy also fed a rumor mill. Kael had no wish to be harried by the Knights or tested by clerks with agendas. He preferred merchants and patrons who paid well and asked less.
"Time to move," he said. "Pack up. We leave before anyone important asks questions."
Klee pouted briefly but complied, her bombs neatly stowed and her pockets heavier with fish. She waved a sticky hand, promises rattling from her lips like an engine.
They left the lake behind steaming and slightly rearranged, the shoreline ridged with small craters. The birds slowly returned, cautious but curious. The woods resumed their low murmurs.
Up on the cliff, Eula had already dispatched a scout to check the source. She would follow leads with a knight's methodical persistence. Questions would be asked. Names would be repeated. Kael's choices had advantages, but they also drew a map with a clear path toward his door.
He pocketed that truth and the system's note. Control, he reminded himself, was not the same as concealment. He would keep his options and adjust his exposure. Klee would get her booms and Stardust Lake would keep its name for another season.
As they walked, bells chimed and fried fish smell still clung to their clothes. Klee chattered about bigger plans. Kael listened, catalogued, and, for a moment, allowed himself a small, almost private amusement.
"Beginner's luck," he said, voice dry. "Or, perhaps, very lucrative curiosity."
The lake steamed on.