Raiden Ei closed her diary copy.
Her gaze fell on Su Xuan, who was currently delivering a devastating blow to Raiden Makoto's pride.
Ei suddenly felt a bit regretful.
If I'd known this pretty boy likes daughters so much, I never should've created the Puppet…
If I'd created a daughter back then, maybe the fake sky's fate system wouldn't have taken interest in her.
Then she wouldn't have walked the path of "Thunder Cannon".
…Sigh…
Ei's lips pursed in a tiny pout.
In her mind, this was all Su Xuan's thinking problem.
He could easily have children of his own with them,
yet he didn't want that at all—
instead, he liked going around trying to steal someone else's kids.
She really couldn't understand how his brain worked.
Well… with Ei's brain, it was impossible for her to grasp that the drunk's intent isn't in the wine.
But after seriously studying his diary before, Ei knew very clearly what Sumeru's biggest problems were right now:
The Abyss-induced Eleazar disease, and the Withering.
And to truly cure Eleazar and the Withering, and make sure the Abyssal pollution never came back—
They absolutely had to resolve the matter of the Great Lord Rukkhadevata,
who'd been eroded by the Abyss.
The problem was, Rukkhadevata had died five hundred years ago.
But since Su Xuan wanted to take Little Lucky Grass King Nahida as his daughter,
he would never allow the current Nahida to be twisted into that later "first Dendro Archon" version of herself.
Rukkhadevata's existence would not be erased from Irminsul.
When Ei pieced that all together, she came to a clear conclusion:
Su Xuan was going to bring back the deceased Great Lord Rukkhadevata,
cleanse every trace of Abyssal taint from her,
and completely cure Sumeru's Eleazar and Withering.
A sharp cry snapped Ei out of her thoughts.
At that moment, Raiden Makoto's body suddenly arched up,
using her last strength to unleash a "Love-Harder-Than-Gold Sevenfold Lock."
She wrapped herself around Su Xuan like an octopus,
struggling to squeeze him with her soft limbs.
Unfortunately, her strength was spent.
Her pale arms, which had just locked around him, quickly went limp and slid down.
"If the Little Lucky Grass King agrees to recognize you as her father, are you going to revive the Great Lord Rukkhadevata?"
Ei sneaked a glance at Makoto, whose body was curled into a rather M-shaped pose,
and asked Su Xuan quietly.
"Hm?"
Su Xuan looked at her in surprise, then reached over to ruffle her hair with a smile.
"So Ei can guess what I'm thinking now, huh."
Ei's expression stayed calm,
but inside, she was secretly overjoyed at the praise.
And then, as if she'd suddenly remembered to be unhappy, she muttered,
"Don't treat me like a child the way Makoto does."
"It's just… I once went to Liyue with Makoto for the Seven Archons' Banquet, and I saw Rukkhadevata there."
"From the impression I still have of her, she should be the type you definitely wouldn't pass up… just like Makoto."
"So why do you still have to make a 'condition' with the Little Lucky Grass King?"
Her eager, serious look left Su Xuan a bit dumbfounded.
Good grief.
So this woman had reached the point where she spent her days analyzing him instead of anything else?
To be fair… she wasn't wrong.
No matter whether Nahida agreed or not,
Su Xuan was never going to pass on Rukkhadevata.
Silver-white, pure like a spirit, elegant and perfectly shaped—
There was no reason to let that go.
And when it came to the world's future,
Su Xuan had his own plans as well.
Right now, the ones governing each nation across Teyvat were nearly all connected through him as the center.
In the future, this world would belong to them.
But if someday Su Xuan gained the means and strength to freely travel between worlds,
he would certainly bring outsiders here.
And if those other-world visitors arrived to find everyone else flying spaceships,
while some nations in Teyvat were still using horse-drawn carriages—
or not even those—
His girls would be humiliated.
And as the man backing them, Su Xuan would lose face too.
So: as the original God of Wisdom, with unmatched comprehension,
Rukkhadevata would be crucial to his plans.
"The Great Lord Rukkhadevata isn't like others. The Little Lucky Grass King is practically her daughter."
"If I want to forge a bond with Rukkhadevata…"
"I can't get around my relationship with Nahida."
"So… you get it, right?"
Su Xuan brushed Ei's question off with a smile.
Seeing that she still wanted to ask more,
he quickly changed the subject.
"Anyway, there's nothing left in Inazuma that needs my attention."
"Once Makoto's had a proper rest, we'll all head back to the Jade Chamber."
"You should go tell Miko and the others to pick out their rooms in there."
"And while you're at it, they'll need to start talking with Ningguang and Jean about three-nation joint development."
At that, Ei let go of her curiosity about Su Xuan's connection to Rukkhadevata and Nahida.
She nodded obediently.
But then she suddenly froze.
"Where are Kitsune Saiguu and Chiyo?"
"Don't they need to… pay their respects?"
"Pay their respects?"
Su Xuan blinked.
Then flicked her lightly on the forehead.
"That phrase is way too formal."
"Besides, all of you are going to be living in the Jade Chamber from now on."
"You'll be seeing each other every day. Anytime works."
"Someday when I'm in a good mood, I'll just launch a surprise attack."
"You might turn a corner in the Jade Chamber and find Saiguu, or Miko, slumped in some random hallway."
A faint purple light flashed through Ei's eyes.
Hearing him say that life in the Jade Chamber would involve random ambushes from time to time—
For some reason, her heart gave a weird little thump.
"Will it be the kind where we have to accept 'punishment for losing'?"
Her gaze burned.
Su Xuan: "…"
Bad news.
This one was definitely broken.
He quickly patted her to shoo away those wild ideas.
"Don't just stand here daydreaming."
"Go tell Miko and the rest to head up and pick out their rooms."
"And make sure they sit down with Ningguang and Jean about cross-nation cooperation."
Hearing him mention "go tell Miko" a second time,
Ei didn't dare linger.
She nodded hard and turned to leave.
Once Ei was gone,
Su Xuan pulled out his diary.
[Now that Thunder Cannon and Dottore are both dead ahead of schedule…]
[The Sumeru Akademiya's god-making project has been terminated by force.]
[Nothing too big will be happening in Sumeru anymore.]
[This time when I go over, aside from kidnapping my daughter…]
[I'll also be heading into King Deshret's tombs to loot the leftover technology he left behind.]
King Deshret's technology?
The girls all perked up.
Come to think of it, if not for Su Xuan's constant reveals,
they never would've realized their world actually contained this much high-end tech that defied common sense.
And Sumeru, as the so-called nation of wisdom,
aside from the Akasha Terminals powered by a Gnosis,
didn't seem to have any particularly standout inventions.
Its level of technological development didn't look much better than the other nations.
Who knew all of Sumeru's real tech had been locked away in a desert tomb?
Nahida stared, stunned.
She hadn't expected Su Xuan to be interested in Sumeru's technology—
or that all of it would come from the desert's King Deshret.
[Sumeru is different from the other regions.]
[During the Archon War…]
[In Mondstadt, the Tower King and the North Wind battled fiercely.]
[In Liyue, gods walked everywhere; mountains shook and the land split, and the people suffered.]
[In Inazuma, the Thunder Bird and the twin sisters of lightning fought to the death, and even the outlander serpent was forced to join the war.]
[And yet the Sumeru region, where multiple gods coexisted, was the most peaceful of all.]
[The moonlit feasts belonged to the mistress of blossoms and moonlight—]
[The God of Flowers, Nabu Malikata.]
[Authority belonged to the king of the sands—]
[King Deshret, Akhmar.]
[Life belonged to the master of trees and grass—]
[The Great Lord Rukkhadevata.]
[The three gods swore an oath to be bound forever, leading the people of Sumeru toward the future.]
[Together, they founded a peaceful and prosperous nation—Gurabad.]
[As for why Nahida's birthday festival is called the "Sabzeruz Festival"…]
[That, too, is something passed down from those days.]
[On Rukkhadevata's birthday, King Deshret would play music for her, and the God of Flowers would dance for her.]
[Everything was once so harmonious.]
[Until one starry night—]
[The God of Flowers told King Deshret of the secrets of the heavens, and the reason her race was exiled—and everything changed.]
All the girls: "!?"
"The God of Flowers told King Deshret the secrets of the false sky?"
"And why her people were banished?"
The only race cast down from Celestia…
had to be the seelies, who once planned rebellion side by side with that universe-traversing troublemaker.
So the God of Flowers was from the seelie race?
Well, that explained it.
The underlying logic of "seelie = loves humanity" had just triggered again.
[Once King Deshret learned that the masters of the sky had cast down nails of punishment to crush mortal nations that threatened their rule…]
[He resolved to rebel against "Heavenly Principles".]
Dehya: "?"
Candace: "?"
[Personally, I think King Deshret was being used by the God of Flowers.]
[She told him all this, and then warned him—]
[Not to follow the one who commands the four shadows in the sky. Not to gaze upon the heavens or the Abyss. For that path leads only to annihilation.]
[If she knew all that would lead to destruction, why tell him in the first place?]
[She knew perfectly well that with King Deshret's ambition, after hearing all this, there's no way he'd heed her warnings.]
[Especially when she also mentioned a force that could overturn the world—the Abyss.]
[It's like she went out of her way to inform him that the power of the Abyss could overthrow Celestia's rule.]
The girls all nodded.
It made sense.
And they could understand the God of Flowers' original intention too.
After all, the "seelie who love" had that fundamental need carved into their bones.
She'd probably inherited her ancestors' will,
hoping humanity could one day break the chains of the sky.
[After learning everything, King Deshret made his decision.]
[He would unite the wisdom and dreams of all mortals, and free them from the gods above.]
[He rejected the gift of a divine throne and chose to carve out his own path.]
[Above the gravestones of the gods, mankind would become the god of gods.]
[Among the shattered ruins of lies, mankind would become the king of kings.]
[The God of Flowers knew as well—only after godly delusions are shattered will humanity truly break free from divine will.]
[She took from herself a light that could resist the Abyss, and entrusted it to Rukkhadevata.]
[Then, at the cost of her own life, she opened a gate of forbidden Abyssal knowledge for King Deshret.]
[Leaving behind only a single prophecy before dissolving into nothing.]
["If hope still exists in this world, it must lie in the mortal race."]
[Unfortunately, strong as he was, King Deshret was nowhere near the level of the primordial dragon, Nibelung.]
[Just bearing the pain of that forbidden knowledge was nearly enough to shatter his mind.]
[And it still allowed Abyssal knowledge to spill across the land.]
[Luckily, with Rukkhadevata's help, the spread of that forbidden knowledge was finally contained.]
[But honestly, mortals are mortals.]
[All that talk about "one day mortals will be the god of gods and king of kings"…]
[Is nothing but a god's wishful thinking about her beloved people.]
[Humanity's base flaws will always exist.]
[Even under the false sky's fate system, those flaws can't be erased.]
[Take Sumeru's Akademiya, for example.]
Nahida: "?"
[In five hundred years, not a single Grand Sage came forward to argue for releasing the Little Lucky Grass King.]
[It reminds me of something I once heard.]
["You think you're clever? You think you're wise?"]
["So what? Without backing, being smart is useless."]
["Which gang are you from?"]
[Is the Akademiya really full of "wise" people?]
[Their god-making plan was built entirely on Rukkhadevata's leftover Akasha system.]
[Even the theory of extracting power from people's dreams wasn't theirs.]
[That, too, came from Rukkhadevata.]
[Back when she drew on the people's dream-power to help Sumeru resist the Abyss.]
[In five hundred years, the Akademiya has barely done a single proper thing.]
[They keep shouting that Sumeru is the nation of wisdom, preaching that knowledge is the most important thing in life.]
[They even sneer: what can the Little Lucky Grass King do?]
[Yet in the five centuries where they held absolute power…]
[They hardly did anything that actually mattered.]
[Sumeru is still this backward. Compared to Fontaine, Sumeru looks like a tribe of savages.]
"Eh!?"
The little green god practically bugged her eyes out.
Yes, the god-making plan had cut her deeply—
being ignored by the Akademiya made her feel wronged and powerless.
But to call Sumeru under the Akademiya's rule "savages"… wasn't that a bit much?
"Lord Su Xuan… no, Father… isn't that a little too harsh?"
Nahida scratched her head in embarrassment.
But she also thought,
if her father looked down on the Akademiya this much,
he must have his reasons.
So she hurriedly flipped to the next page—
And instantly sucked in a sharp breath.
[Aside from Natlan, where the ancient dragon empire lies…]
[No other land in the world can even compare to Sumeru's.]
[Never mind the giant ruin guards from Khaenri'ah buried in the mountains…]
[Just look at the knowledge King Deshret left behind at the cost of his life.]
[And yet the geniuses in the Akademiya never even tried to study it together.]
[What did King Deshret leave?]
[Optical cloaking, laser lattice arrays, energy shields like plasma barriers, anti-gravity lifts, and more.]
[Just from the modular mechanisms in Deshret's mausoleums alone…]
[I get the feeling that if he hadn't been forced to sacrifice himself, he might have actually built transforming mecha.]
[Too bad that the tech he refined with his life—tech that no longer carries any Abyssal corruption—]
[The Akademiya hasn't even grasped a fraction of it.]
[The desert folk at least know that the weapons and tools he left behind are extraordinary.]
[They use them because they're stronger than ordinary arms—even better than Vision-wielders in a fight.]
[And what has the Akademiya done?]
[They're sitting on a mountain of gold and don't even realize it. You call that "wisdom"? That's just being idiots.]
"Oof…"
Nahida's small face flushed scarlet.
Optical cloaking, laser arrays, plasma-style shields, anti-gravity lifts—
all those unfamiliar terms made her want to crawl into a hole.
The worst part was: all of it was already fully digested by King Deshret,
fully researched and safe from any Abyssal contamination.
Yet the self-proclaimed "supreme scholars" of the Akademiya
had never done any meaningful research on this ready-made treasure trove.
Their "nation of wisdom" showed almost no wisdom at all.
Nahida sulked for a long moment,
then finally let out a tiny sigh.
"Father's criticisms… are solid."
"Guarding such resources and not knowing how to use them… really is foolish…"
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