Mona asked curiously: "A divination? Disciple, are you going to use one of your requests right now?"
"No. This is payment for your living expenses."
Ji An wasn't going to agree to that so easily.
"Hmph. Fine, I'll help you once for free."
Mona raised her hand, and an azure water surface appeared in the air before her: "What do you want me to divine, disciple? I should say upfront that because your fate is so unusual, I can't guarantee I'll get a clear result."
Ji An described the wind barrier enclosing Stormterror's Lair and asked if she could divine a way through it.
"Hmm. That question I can get an answer on."
Mona observed the starry sky reflected in the water and spoke: "The stars tell me that the person who can guide you is, at this very moment, perhaps in the square in front of the Favonius Cathedral."
Ji An gave her a look: "Perhaps? Either they're there or they aren't. Why so vague?"
Lately, Mona's divinations, while not exactly wrong, hadn't been especially reliable either.
Better to address that directly.
"It's not my fault."
Mona said helplessly: "It seems that every divination lately has run into very unusual people who disrupt the starry sky. You are one. The Traveler and Paimon are others. And even the person who might guide you appears to be the same."
She gave him a nudge: "Anyway, disciple, go and look right now. If you wait too long, they might be gone."
---
Mondstadt City. The square in front of the Favonius Cathedral.
Although this was Ji An's first time visiting this part of Mondstadt since his arrival, he had already glimpsed the magnificent cathedral and the grand statue of the Anemo Archon from other parts of the city.
Who could the person Mona mentioned be?
He was turning the question over as he walked into the square.
Then he heard it. The melodious sound of a harp, drifting toward him through the air.
He followed it.
He didn't have to search long. Beneath the statue of the Anemo Archon, a handsome youth dressed in green was playing music. A small crowd had gathered to listen, and among them he spotted two familiar faces.
Ji An walked over: "Lumine, Paimon, what are you doing here?"
Lumine had been listening intently. At the sound of his voice she turned, and a flicker of surprise crossed her face. She waved him over:
"Ji An, come here!"
The way she beckoned someone reminded him of calling over a small dog.
Ji An was at a loss for words. Lumine, do you actually think I'm your pet?
"Oh, Ji An's here!"
Paimon noticed him too: "This green guy is about to tell a story! Come listen!"
"A story? Is he some kind of bard?"
Ji An walked over to stand beside Lumine and looked at the handsome youth with the harp.
Paimon: "Shh! Listen quietly."
The youth plucked the strings and began slowly:
"The tale I shall tell begins in the ancient age."
"When the gods still walked the earth, the dragon of the sky descended, curious about all things in the world. The wind-singer played their strings, and the Skyward Lyre answered every question."
...
"The singer and the dragon faded into legend, and then the age of darkness descended."
...
"At that time, the lion's fangs decayed, the eagle's banner flew no more. Another evil dragon drew near Mondstadt. The dragon of the sky answered the call, and in the storm, it fought the evil dragon to the death, battling fiercely."
...
"The dragon of the sky swallowed the evil dragon's venomous blood and fell into a deep slumber. Years later, none recognized the awoken one. Fury and sorrow, life and venomous blood, all turned to tears falling from the dragon's eyes..."
...
"But the Skyward Lyre could no longer speak."
The youth plucked the harp strings one final time, and the tale of the singer and the dragon came to its end.
The listeners around him remained caught in the lingering spell of it. Only after a long while did they begin to disperse.
Lumine tugged at Ji An's sleeve and walked forward with Paimon.
The handsome youth looked at them with a puzzled expression: "Ah, you are..."
Then recognition seemed to hit him: "Oh! You're the ones who drove Dvalin away that time."
Paimon tilted her head: "Dvalin? Who's that?"
Lumine reminded her: "Stormterror's real name. Remember what Lisa told us?"
Paimon: "Hmm... oh! Right, I remember. But don't most people call it Stormterror?"
She looked at the young bard curiously: "Why do you call it by that name? Do you know it well?"
The youth smiled and put his hands on his hips: "Guess."
Ji An, who had been quiet until now, spoke up from behind: "The mysterious person who helped us when we were dealing with Stormterror up in the sky that day was you, wasn't it?"
"Uh."
The handsome youth startled and instinctively said: "What mysterious person? I have absolutely no idea what you're... huh?"
His gaze landed on Ji An and stopped there.
The smile fell from his face and was replaced by an expression Ji An couldn't quite read. He murmured quietly: "This person..."
"That mysterious person? Oh, now that you mention it, Ji An, their voices really are quite similar."
Lumine looked at the youth: "Was it you who helped us that day? May I ask who you are?"
"Oh."
Hearing her voice, the youth seemed to come back to himself.
He glanced once more at Ji An, then looked at Lumine and Paimon with a smile: "I'm a bard. Venti."
He sidestepped their question smoothly and continued: "To be more precise, I am the three-time consecutive winner of the Most Beloved Bard of Mondstadt."
Paimon: "Consecutive winner? Paimon has never heard of any other bards!"
Venti laughed: "That's simply because you haven't been around long enough."
"That's not the point!"
Paimon came back to herself, her little face going serious: "Don't change the subject! You're connected to both Stormterror incidents. Who are you really?"
Venti put a hand to his chin and tilted his head: "Hmm?"
Paimon fumed: "Don't suddenly pretend to have amnesia!"
She looked at Lumine: "Traveler, show him that thing."
Lumine nodded, extended her hand, and a translucent crystal emitting cyan-blue light slowly rose and floated in the air between them.
Venti's eyes went wide: "Oh! This is..."
Paimon: "Huh? The crystal has been purified? When did that happen?"
Lumine shook her head: "I'm not sure. The last time I looked at it, it was still full of impurities."
Venti stared at the crystal for a long moment, then sighed and said slowly:
"That is a tear shed by Stormterror in its agony."
---
Ji An had been listening quietly to their exchange without interjecting.
Until Venti mentioned that he also had a teardrop crystal and asked Lumine if she could purify it.
When Venti produced it, dark red and full of impurities, Ji An's gaze sharpened.
That feeling.
He had wondered ever since the confrontation with Stormterror why the dark, heavy aura radiating from its horn had seemed so familiar.
Standing this close to the teardrop crystal now, he understood. That aura was very similar to the corrupting force he encountered when extracting ley line power. The more he extracted, the faster that corruption accumulated, and even with the protection of the Arcane Art he had to be careful not to let it touch him.
What happened next genuinely surprised him.
The red crystal, overflowing with that corrupted aura, was purified in Lumine's hands.
Just like that.
What kind of power is that?
He supposed she was the protagonist, after all.
Hm.
Lumine could purify corrupted aura. He needed to absorb ley line power but was constantly contending with the corruption inside it.
A bold idea suddenly occurred to him.
When he was raising his power in the future, could Lumine act as a kind of support? Purify the corruption as it built up, like recharging him...
---
"You actually did it."
After a brief moment of astonishment, Venti's expression opened into a look of genuine admiration:
"Someone like you is destined to be sung about in the songs of bards."
He spread his hands: "But I'm afraid I don't have time right now to compose something new for you. Dvalin has fallen into a very strange state. It seems some ill-intentioned people have tampered with it, and I'm worried that if things continue like this, they'll reach a point of no return."
Lumine glanced at Ji An: "Is there anything Ji An and I can do to help?"
Hold on.
Since when did you assume I'd be involved?
Ji An sighed internally.
Though Lumine wasn't wrong. He was going to be pulled into this one way or another.
And if nothing unexpected happened, the person Mona's divination had pointed him toward was most likely this green-clad figure standing in front of him.
For some reason, Venti gave Ji An an odd look before turning back to Lumine and saying: "Purifying the teardrop crystal is already a tremendous help. I'm very grateful. But for now, I have my own plan."
Paimon: "A plan? What kind of plan?"
Venti: "Ehe~"
Paimon looked at Lumine, exasperated: "Ugh, he's doing it again."
Lumine thought for a moment: "You're a bard, you must know a great deal about the Anemo Archon Barbatos."
"Anemo Archon Barbatos?"
Venti was momentarily caught off guard, then smiled: "That fellow has already disappeared from Mondstadt."
Paimon: "Disappeared?"
Venti nodded: "The Geo Archon of neighboring Liyue and the Electro Archon of Inazuma are still present in their lands. But the people of Mondstadt haven't seen their god in a very long time."
"Why are you asking about the Anemo Archon? Is it because of Dvalin?"
Lumine nodded: "Mm. Someone told me about the dragon's past."
Venti's eyes brightened with interest: "And what do people think of Stormterror now?"
Lumine told him what she had heard.
"Is that so. The Mondstadt scholar named Lisa sees it that way."
Venti pinched his chin: "She's not wrong. When conflict reaches this point, force has naturally been met with force on both sides. But its original hatred wasn't because people stopped worshipping the Four Winds."
"Even now, its attacks on Mondstadt don't come from natural hatred. They're a product of corrosion."
Paimon's eyes went wide: "Cor... corrosion?"
Venti nodded: "It's the dark blood flowing into its heart that torments it, preventing it from resting even in slumber, and..."
A shadow crossed his expression, and he said quietly: "That group called the Abyss Order has set their sights on it. They're trying to make it fall completely into darkness."
Lumine and Paimon exchanged a look: "The Abyss Order?"
"A mysterious organization of non-human beings. I don't know their origins, only that they harbor deep malice toward humanity."
Venti seemed disinclined to say more. He gave that brief introduction and shifted the subject:
"Oh, right. Weren't you asking how you could help?"
Lumine blinked: "But you said you didn't need help."
"I changed my mind."
Venti: "Ehe~"
Lumine glanced at Ji An, then back at Venti: "So what do you need us to do?"
"Help me retrieve a harp called the Skyward Lyre from the Favonius Cathedral."
Venti turned toward the magnificent cathedral rising behind him: "It's Mondstadt's treasure, the harp once played by the Anemo Archon Barbatos. With the Skyward Lyre, I can reach into the nightmare Dvalin has fallen into and call out its true nature."
In the end, Lumine agreed.
Venti arranged to meet them that night to assess the situation inside the Favonius Cathedral.
---
"Ji An, aren't you coming?"
Lumine and Paimon were about to leave when they noticed he hadn't moved.
"Hmm. Lumine, Paimon, you go on ahead. I have something to attend to."
"...Alright."
Lumine glanced briefly at Venti, who had also remained in place, and her eyes flickered.
She said nothing in the end, and left with Paimon.
After they had gone some distance:
Paimon drifted closer to Lumine:
"Traveler..."
Seeing Paimon's hesitant expression, Lumine said: "Whatever it is, just say it."
Paimon: "Ehehe. Paimon is just a little curious. Why does Traveler act so differently around Ji An?"
"He's a good person, and nice to look at, obviously. But Traveler, you don't really seem like the type to take a special interest in someone just because of that."
Having held back for some time, Paimon finally said what she'd been thinking.
Lumine stopped walking.
Paimon tilted her head: "Traveler?"
"Who knows."
The golden-haired girl was quiet for a moment, then said in a clear, unhurried voice.
And then she kept walking.
"Waaah, Traveler, wait for Paimon!"
Paimon hurried to keep up.
---
Beneath the statue of the Anemo Archon.
Ji An watched Lumine and Paimon disappear into the crowd, then turned to look at Venti.
He had been about to ask indirectly about Stormterror's Lair.
But he found the handsome young bard watching him with a complicated expression that was neither warm nor hostile.
Feeling the weight of that gaze, Ji An scratched the back of his head: "Venti, is something wrong?"
"..."
Venti stared at his face for a long time before speaking at last: "That child... have you ever felt even a shred of sorrow for him?"
Ji An was caught off guard: "What?"
"...Never mind."
Venti shook his head and let his usual easy smile return to his face, as though the person who had spoken just now had been someone else entirely.
He turned to leave with a wave: "Don't forget, you have to come help tonight!"
Ji An: ???
What was that about?
Why did every person he meet lately say half of what they were thinking and leave the rest hanging?
Riddlers, the lot of them.
"I forgot to ask about Stormterror's Lair. Whatever, I'll ask tonight."
Ji An shook his head.
After Venti left, he stood beneath the statue for a while.
Perhaps because of the statue, the wind here felt especially gentle, as if it was carrying something from very far away.
He reached into his pocket and touched the silver hourglass.
It occurred to him that the system's special geographic scan had been off cooldown for several days now.
This thought arrived with a sense of timing that felt almost deliberate.
Without hesitating further, he said under his breath:
"System, activate the special geographic scan."
[Ding. Special geographic scan activated.]
Just like before, a radar-like image appeared in his mind, rotated a few times, and marked a red point.
Unlike before, the entire process took less than a second.
[Ding. Special geographic location identified: Mondstadt, the Palm of the Anemo Archon Statue.]
[Note: This location's yield is estimated to last seven days. Please proceed within the time limit.]
The palm of the Anemo Archon statue.
That's right here.
Ji An looked up slowly at the enormous palm of the statue looming tens of meters above him and went still for a moment.
Do I have to climb it?
He glanced nervously at the Mondstadt citizens moving through the square around him.
No one was looking his way right now. But the moment he started climbing a sacred statue in a public square, he was going to attract a crowd. The Knights of Favonius might even get involved.
He thought it over.
"Forget it. Given what happened during the Stormterror incident, I'm something of a recognized contributor to Mondstadt. Climbing the Anemo Archon statue isn't too unreasonable by that standard."
He muttered to himself: "And from what Venti told Lumine just now, the Anemo Archon Barbatos has already disappeared from Mondstadt anyway. It's not as if he's going to step out and object."
No time like the present.
Relying on his agile body, he scaled his way up to the statue's shoulder without much trouble.
He quickly realized he had worried for nothing. The Mondstadt citizens weren't offended in the slightest. If anything, they seemed entertained, and a few even applauded.
Ji An broke into a light sweat. The City of Freedom indeed.
Had people climbed this statue before? Was this somehow a known form of entertainment here?
Carefully, he walked from the shoulder along the stone arm and out onto the palm.
The moment his foot touched it, the system spoke.
[Arrived at the special location corresponding to the simulated item. Loading data.]
[Data for Boreas's Pup Rostein's Hourglass acquired.]
[Specialty fragment obtained: Light and Shadow of the West Wind.]
[Host, do you wish to enter River of Time mode and begin the simulation now?]
Ji An nodded: "Begin immediately."
-------
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