"Big Sis, it's been a few days since I saw you."
"I've been a little busy."
"What have you been working on?"
"Telecommunications engineering."
"?"
Nahida tilted her head.
"What's that?"
"I tried modifying the Akasha Terminal so it's no longer limited to use within Sumeru. Now, it can be used anywhere in Teyvat."
"Really?"
Nahida's curiosity was piqued.
"How did you do that?"
Xia Ci replied casually, "Had a little fight with Azhdaha, got him to agree to dream-weaving, and used that as the foundation to map the connection to reality."
Though Xia Ci described the process in extremely vague and abstract terms, Nahida understood immediately.
After all, as incarnations of Irminsul, the two Dendro Archons shared similar authorities.
Nahida was impressed. "You beat Azhdaha?"
"A mere dragon."
"I heard he went mad?"
"Mhm. I cured him afterward."
"Big Sis, you're amazing!"
"Right? I'll be heading to Mondstadt in a few days. I'll put in a request at the Adventurers' Guild to send you one of the modified Akasha Terminals, along with some [Essence] I've been saving for you."
"[Essence]?"
"It's a good thing."
"Oh."
"If you run into any trouble you can't handle, come find me."
"Okay!"
Xia Ci chatted a bit longer with Nahida before logging off.
She opened her eyes and looked at Xia Zhi in front of her, smiling as she handed the phone back.
"Here you go, Cousin."
"All done?"
"All done."
Xia Zhi took the phone.
Whether it was intentional or not, Xia Ci's fingers lightly brushed against his palm as she handed it over.
A subtle and slightly teasing gesture.
Xia Zhi asked, "Anything else?"
"Nope."
"How much divine energy did it cost to communicate cross-border with Nahida?"
"Quite a bit."
Xia Zhi thought for a moment and pulled out two small vials.
"Then let me give you another bottle of Essence. Send one to your sister too."
"Love you!"
Watching Xia Ci leave from a god's-eye view, Xia Zhi held the phone, feeling a bit surprised.
He'd expected his cousin to ask about the two "friends" from the previous night.
After all, in this world of Teyvat, the ones who understood him best were Xia Ci and Furina (or rather, Focalors). They knew his past.
Compared to them, Shenhe understood a different side of him.
Logically speaking, Xia Ci should be familiar with everyone he knew here.
But those two from last night weren't among them.
With her intelligence, she'd likely already realized it had to do with his authority over time. She just hadn't yet figured out who they were specifically.
She understood that if he hadn't told her, there must be a reason. So she tactfully chose to keep her curiosity to herself.
Xia Zhi closed the door and returned to his room.
He sat on the bed, opened his inventory, and took out two sparkling diamond treasure chests.
These were the loot drops he'd gotten from Focalors 500 years ago and from Furina last night.
Time for the familiar thrill of opening loot boxes.
He glanced at his Luck stat on the system panel. Thanks to Furina's full-attribute sharing, it had increased again.
It was probably now comparable to Ganyu's Luck stat.
Xia Zhi opened the [Shop], bought a bottle of [Luck Potion], and drank it.
A temporary buff appeared on the panel: [Luck +100%, Duration: 60:00].
"Let's get something good."
He picked up one of the diamond treasure chests and opened it.
A small, exquisitely crafted round pendant appeared before him.
[Exquisite Pendant]
Quality: Diamond
Type: Special Equipment
Trait: Protection, Misfortune Avoidance, Exquisite
Effects: Increases effectiveness of protection-type skills by 100%; immune to all negative effects of tier 3 or below; reduces set item requirements by 1 (set items must not exceed this item's quality).
Hidden Effect: If the full set is equipped, the set effect is enhanced by 50%.
Recyclable: 10,000 Points
Xia Zhi held the pendant between his fingers, inspecting it.
The material was unusual—smooth and warm to the touch, not matching anything he recognized from his [Rex Lapis Mastery].
Its effect was also quite unique, relating to set items.
Among all diamond items, set pieces were already rare, but if fully assembled, they granted powerful bonuses.
Xia Zhi already had several complete sets:
The cooking set [Longevity], the writing set [Spirit Ink], the potion set [Charming Voice], and the soul-banner set [Guidance].
With this pendant, all of them would now get a 50% boost to their set effects—extremely useful.
The 100% boost to protection skills was also valuable. Many of his light-based spells involved shielding, and he'd learned various defensive Geo skills from Zhongli—this pendant would enhance them all.
As for the immunity to tier 3 debuffs, it wasn't particularly useful to someone like him, a Tier 5 Light God. Any debuff he suffered could be dispelled instantly.
All in all, it was a highly versatile item, and the more set items he acquired, the more value it would provide.
If he eventually got his hands on a diamond-quality set, this pendant's "set requirement -1" effect would significantly ease the activation conditions.
Xia Zhi equipped the pendant and picked up the second chest.
Opening it, an ancient-looking scroll appeared.
[Deduction Scroll]
Quality: Diamond
Type: Single-Use Consumable
Trait: Fusion, Deduction, Targeted
Effect: Select up to five skills (must not exceed this item's quality) to deduce a brand new skill.
Hidden Effect: If selected skills have similar effects, a targeted deduction can occur.
Recyclable: 10,000 Points
A consumable?
Xia Zhi blinked in surprise.
Because consumables could only be used once, their effects were typically stronger than regular items—sometimes even transcending quality.
This one could deduce an entirely new skill... and if the selected skills were similar, it would perform a targeted deduction.
Xia Zhi glanced through his skill list and fell into thought.
The best use of this scroll would be to select five skills with similar traits.
He had a massive pool of skills to choose from, meaning plenty of viable options.
He could pick five Light skills and get a Light-based result.
If all five were support-type, the new skill would almost certainly be a Light support skill.
Likewise, selecting five curse-based Dark skills would produce a Dark curse skill.
Hydro, Geo, Dendro...
Even the Tier 5 or lower assassin skills he'd acquired through [Assassin's Blade]...
All of these were viable.
But if he had to pick the absolute best option—only one came to mind.
The skill that had accompanied him from the very start.
He scrolled through his skill list and found the three passive meditation techniques:
[Third Meditation Technique], [Second Meditation Technique], and [First Meditation Technique].
If he selected three growth-oriented passives, the result would likely be another growth-oriented passive.
Xia Zhi looked at the three skills, thought for a moment, then tore open the scroll.
The scroll dissolved into a beam of white light, enveloping him.
At the same time, the system spoke in his mind:
"[Deduction Scroll] used. Please select up to five skills."
"[Third Meditation Technique], [Second Meditation Technique], [First Meditation Technique]."
"You may select two more. Proceed?"
"No."
"Deduction in progress..."
"Deduction complete."
"New skill acquired: [Primal Meditation Technique]."
The white glow faded from Xia Zhi's body.
He looked at the new skill on his panel:
[Primal Meditation Technique]: Passive. Increases maximum Mana by 3 points per second; increases maximum Spirit Points by 2 points per minute; increases maximum Divine Power by 1 point per hour.
The skill description was still simple, but the effect was overwhelming.
First, the Mana increase rate was directly three times that of the [First Meditation Technique].
The second effect, increasing the maximum Spirit Points, directly solved the problem Xia Zhi had been facing: the limited number of times he could craft items.
As for the third effect—increasing Divine Power—it seemed the slowest at first glance, but was actually the most powerful of them all.
When Xia Zhi first became a Light Element God, he had only just unlocked the Divine Power attribute, and at the time, it had a hard cap of 100 points.
Just 1 additional point of Divine Power was enough to cause a qualitative change in the effect of a basic skill.
Every time Xia Zhi engraved Divine Speech, he had to consume this Divine Power.
But its recovery rate was abysmally slow. And since he had no access to Faith Power in this world, the only way he could recover Divine Power was through [Essence of Sun and Moon].
It was a bit like the early days when he had just arrived in this world and didn't have enough Mana to go around.
As his strength grew, his Divine Power cap gradually increased.
Even so, his total Divine Power still hadn't broken through the thousand mark.
Now, with this new [Primal Meditation Technique], he could increase his Divine Power cap by 1 point every hour—24 points per day, nearly 100 points in just five days.
Not to mention, he still had the [Scholar's Ring].
Now evolved into a platinum-tier item, the [Scholar's Ring] increased the effects of all his non-damaging skills by 50% when equipped.
Xia Zhi was extremely satisfied with this newly deduced skill.
Just as expected of the [Deduction Scroll]—a diamond-tier consumable through and through.
He had originally been worried that he wouldn't have enough Divine Power to revive his cousin, a literal deity. But with this new skill, and given a bit more time, he should be able to start attempting it.
After finishing with the treasure chest, Xia Zhi glanced at the system panel. His [Luck Potion] still had thirty minutes left, and he had enough points to evolve another one or two platinum-tier items.
He opened the [Evolution] interface.
Xia Zhi placed the [Universal Syringe] into the slot.
He chose to evolve it.
The first attempt failed. The second succeeded.
A new syringe appeared on the screen.
Compared to before, its color had deepened slightly, and the needle looked noticeably sharper.
[Universal Syringe]
Quality: Diamond
Type: Auxiliary Item
Traits: Extraction, Injection, Healing
Effect: This item can extract any substance and inject any substance.
Hidden Effect: Healing skill effects +100%
Recyclable: 10,000 points
Xia Zhi examined the effects. Compared to before, it had gained a new [Healing] trait, and the hidden effect for healing skill boosts had gone from +50% to +100%.
The description text, oddly enough, hadn't changed at all.
Xia Zhi took out the syringe and applied it to his own dull gray eyes.
The needle pierced in without causing even the slightest injury.
Xia Zhi didn't feel any pain either.
Because it was a conceptual insertion.
"Extraction failed. Target substance exceeds quality threshold."
As expected. Even after evolving to diamond-tier, the [Universal Syringe] still couldn't extract the supreme divinity eroding his eyes.
Back when the syringe was only platinum-tier, it could already extract diamond-tier substances like Forbidden Knowledge and Authority of the Hydro Archon, which meant it could handle materials one tier above.
To extract a supreme-quality divinity, it would have to evolve again—into prismatic-tier.
Xia Zhi looked back at the [Evolution] interface and placed the [Universal Syringe] into the slot once more.
"Do you want to evolve [Universal Syringe]? This item is currently diamond-tier. Success rate: 1%. Cost: 10,000 points."
...Wait, what?
The success rate for evolving a diamond-tier item was only 1%?
Xia Zhi fell silent for a moment, then withdrew the syringe.
It seemed that the higher the tier, the greater the gulf between them.
No wonder the prismatic-tier and supreme-tier items in the [Shop] were priced tens of millions of times higher than diamond-tier ones.
I'm still so poor...
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