Hunger dragged Lin Feng out of sleep.
The moment he woke, it felt like every cell in his body was urging him to eat—right now. At that instant, even if Celestia itself descended in front of him, it would not have stopped him from hunting for food.
Or at least, that was how it was supposed to go.
On reflex, he tossed a probe at Xiaobai beside him—and saw this:
[Individual Data: Mustelid – Novice Treasure‑Hoarding Weasel – Xiaobai]
Mood: Satisfied
Affection: 100 (It is completely full.)
"…"
A strange panic doused his hunger in an instant. Lin Feng's first reaction was to rush outside and check the damage.
Please don't let the entire rainforest be gone. If that happens, I'll owe an apology to everyone in Teyvat.
The morning air in the rainforest carried a sharp chill. Heavy moisture hung in the air as mist; droplets sliding off leaves landed on his shoulders with soft little slaps.
Seeing the world outside perfectly intact, he exhaled in relief and ducked back into the tree hollow where he had spent the night.
"So you're saying you found a lot of tasty stuff really, really far away… and you even brought some back for me?"
He interrogated Xiaobai as he wolfed down the Dendrobrium peaches and raspberries he had collected, while the weasel dutifully stood upright by the tree with its tiny paws lifted.
The multicolored, gem‑like flakes in his hand struck a chord in his memory.
Elemental shards. The crystallized, pure elemental energy used for ascension in the game.
Even a seasoned adventurer who met the guild's standards only received a tiny fragment as a daily reward—that alone said plenty about how valuable these things were.
"Found them in a place really, really deep down? With lots of people around, all crackling with Electro and carrying hammers… but none of them noticed you?"
This time, Lin Feng was well and truly numb.
In a heartbeat, he understood exactly what had happened—and felt more despair than before.
Just arrived in a Sumeru rainforest, and my weasel has already swept a Fatui secret stockpile clean. What do I do? Very urgent, waiting online.
His emotional maturity had regressed along with his apparent age since coming here, but faced with Xiaobai's backpack stuffed full of "gifts," he could not bring himself to say a single harsh word.
After all, the little thing had remembered his order not to chew up the rainforest and had still thought to bring him something after filling its own belly.
"…"
He fell quiet for a moment.
In the game, you only got a tiny stash from a Treasure‑Hoarding Weasel by beating it up; now that same kind of stash had been brought to him as a casual present. The realization stirred something deep inside him.
Going from overworked corporate drone back to a teenage boy had changed more than his face. The heart that had forgotten how to love under the weight of endless overtime seemed to be waking up again.
At first, when he had just crossed over, all he wanted was a place to live quietly and stay alive.
Now, his goal had changed.
He wanted to give Xiaobai a life without worry, to take it across Teyvat to taste every delicacy, to admire all the rare views, to leave footprints that belonged to the two of them in this world.
He just needed to make it out of the rainforest first.
He did not accept the gifts outright. Instead, he told Xiaobai to treat the shards as its personal emergency rations and bury them somewhere safe.
The good news was that this kind of high‑element‑density material seemed to be what Xiaobai truly needed. A very small amount was enough to fill it up, and as long as it did not use its power, its hunger returned much more slowly.
Sorting through the loot in its pack, Lin Feng pulled out one Pyro‑aligned Agate chunk, more than twenty elemental shards of various colors, over a dozen elemental fragments, and more than six hundred Mora.
Watching Xiaobai casually carve a deep tunnel into the cliff wall with a single swipe, he felt absolutely no concern about the security of these stolen goods.
Once that nerve‑wracking morning settled down, another question nudged at him—the origin of the pile of Sunsettias at his side.
Before going to sleep yesterday, he had picked Dendrobrium peaches and raspberries along the way, but when he woke, several orange Sunsettias had joined the heap.
He had assumed it was Xiaobai's doing and not thought much of it. After their earlier talk, it was clear Xiaobai had not gone foraging here. With a faint suspicion forming, he tucked the doubt away for later and set off again.
He tilted his head back.
Despite the busy start to the day, the cool morning breeze and the gentle, non‑blinding sunlight still marked the time as early morning.
As he walked, he could feel just how much the trait upgrade had done for him. From Dexterity 1 to Dexterity 2, his speed moving through the forest had increased by at least twenty percent compared to yesterday.
The detailed description read:
Dexterity 2: Your reactions are sharper. Your control over your body has improved slightly.
On paper, that "slightly" did not sound like much. In practice, the effect was anything but small.
He could tell his raw physical stats had not gone up, but his muscle coordination and reaction speed had both jumped noticeably.
That only made him look forward to future growth even more.
The downside was that every other trait now displayed "conditions not met." Clearly, his underfed, half‑grown body could not support further enhancement yet. He needed a stronger physique first.
If Dexterity at level 2 already felt this good, what would level 6 Elemental Affinity do? The thought made him itch with curiosity.
Unfortunately, while he could sense elemental energy and slip into something like the game's Elemental Sight, he still could not stir any element to answer his call.
Do I need to go touch a Statue of The Seven like the Traveler did?
Without Paimon there to hold his hand at the start, he had his doubts.
Shoving the mess of thoughts to the back of his mind, Lin Feng continued threading his way through the rainforest.
By midday, the rain had thickened enough that each drop stung where it struck exposed skin.
He and Xiaobai huddled beneath a jutting slab of rock, sheltering from the downpour.
He unwrapped the bundle of wild fruit he had tied up with his jacket, pushing half toward Xiaobai and keeping half for his own lunch and dinner.
It was nowhere near enough to fill him, but it was better than nothing.
A sudden rustle sounded from outside.
He looked up in time to see a green land‑walking fungus beast stride past, a small cluster of matching mushroom creatures following at its heels.
The last little mushroom in the line clearly spotted him but did not charge like it would have in the game. It paused, stared curiously for a moment, then trotted on after the group.
A touch of fatigue tugged at his limbs as he watched the rain. He used the lull to rethink his next move.
According to Lanromo, the humans it had seen should be somewhere nearby. Lin Feng decided to slow his pace and let Xiaobai scout the area around him.
He was worried that if he blundered into their line of sight first, they would open fire on him.
It was not himself he was concerned about. It was them.
If Xiaobai lost control of its strength, there was a very real chance the entire opposing party would get wiped out—and then his dream of leaving the forest would drift further and further away.
He had, at one point, considered simply sending Xiaobai out on its own to locate the nearest human base.
But the now‑well‑fed weasel seemed unwilling to stray too far from him, and, frankly, given its level of intelligence, he could not shake the feeling it might just lead him straight to a Fatui stronghold.