Albedo weighed the near-weightless bracer in his hand and ran a simple alchemical analysis.
Before long, his brows knit together.
"I've never seen a material like this. It doesn't resemble any known metal or ore—and I can't even break it down any further."
He propped his chin on his hand. "And the moment it leaves you, it's like it gets dragged under Teyvat's rules and turns… completely ordinary."
Teyvat did have rules. Most of the time you couldn't feel them, but they undeniably existed.
Like the seed he'd once gotten from the sea of stars—no matter what he tried, it simply refused to bloom.
That was what it looked like when something hadn't adapted to Teyvat's laws.
It was only later, after he imitated Aether's "life patterns" and added a few ideas of his own, that the seed finally flowered.
Jiang Bai's weapon was probably running into the same problem.
"Can you show me how you use it?" Albedo asked, handing the bracer back.
"No problem."
Jiang Bai took it—and the bracer seemed to come alive, flowing in his hand and reshaping into a golden longsword.
He passed the blade to Albedo. This time, it didn't lapse into that dull, aged state. Whatever it looked like in Jiang Bai's hand, it stayed the same once it changed hands.
Feeling elemental power circulating within the blade, Albedo understood at once.
"If I'm not mistaken, it's your elemental power that keeps it active," he said. "With your power inside it, Teyvat's laws recognize it as 'one of ours,' so it avoids being rejected."
"That's probably it." Jiang Bai nodded. "The problem is, the elemental power I feed into it leaks out over time. If I want to keep it like this, I have to keep topping it up."
In short, how strong Baiyuan could be depended entirely on how much elemental power he poured into it. If it only held a faint trace, it might not even manage to kill a chicken.
But if he refined a huge amount—compressing it again and again before forcing it in—then, like that fight in the Golden House against Signora and Childe, it could decide the battle in a single strike.
And if he fused truly terrifying quantities of elemental power into it, its destructive force wouldn't be any less than a missile.
Then again, if he could already command that much elemental power, a casual gesture could topple mountains and churn seas. Whether a single blow matched a missile's power would be beside the point.
"Elements flow," Albedo said. "Dissipation is normal. Like the tables and chairs we form with Geo—if you don't maintain them, they fade quickly."
Once Albedo's research interest was lit, he started pulling out various items and experimenting right there in the camp.
This wasn't something he'd finish quickly. After telling Klee to play nearby and not run off, Jiang Bai decided to take the chance to check out Dadaupa Gorge.
They were still some distance away, so Jiang Bai found a nearby Teleport Waypoint and warped closer.
Dadaupa Gorge was a massive valley.
From the hillside, he could see scattered clusters of hilichurl structures below—primitive in style.
Besides crude shelters meant to block wind and rain, there were watchtowers, spike barricades, wooden palisades—and wooden frames set up all over the place, painted with oil pigments and decorated with beast horns.
If he didn't know hilichurls lived here, Jiang Bai might've mistaken the inhabitants for a tribe of primitive humans.
From this angle, hilichurls were clearly a species with enormous potential.
Aesthetically, Jiang Bai even thought those rough wooden frames looked pretty good.
He slipped quietly into the valley, avoiding the patrolling hilichurls.
Dadaupa Gorge had three hilichurl tribes, each occupying a different section.
The northern tribe was the Meaty tribe. In their territory sat an enormous pot.
It was so big Jiang Bai figured it could stew three of him at once.
Heat rose steadily from several Flaming Flowers beneath it.
To keep companions—or animals—from messing with the flames, the whole space under the pot had been sealed off with planks and stones.
A few hilichurls clustered around the rim, waiting for the food to finish.
Jiang Bai had assumed it was a stone pot. But when he crept closer, he realized it was iron.
He couldn't help but click his tongue. Did this mean hilichurls had already mastered iron smelting?
Or had they gotten the pot some other way?
He didn't disturb them, circling away to another area.
He spotted a designated livestock pen—simple wooden fencing enclosing a few young wild boars.
Besides the boars, the fruit trees had also been marked off and tended carefully.
He even saw a specially built arena, meant for sparring and burning off excess energy.
Jiang Bai didn't linger. After making a quick circuit, he headed south into the Sleepy tribe's territory.
The Sleepy tribe lived up to its name. Aside from a few hilichurls on patrol, most were asleep.
Under tree shade, sprawled on grass, draped over rocks, curled up inside huts—everywhere he looked, there were sleeping bodies.
Yet their territory was the largest. To accommodate all that sleeping, they'd built countless wind-and-rain shelters—several times more than the Meaty tribe. Their population was also the biggest.
Last came the Eclipse tribe, in the east.
Just as Ella had said, they were the fiercest and most combative of the three.
The Meaty and Sleepy tribes' patrols were lax—Jiang Bai could slip past them without being noticed. The Eclipse tribe was different.
Every patrolling hilichurl was sharp-eyed, weapons never leaving their hands.
Their size wasn't much different from the other tribes, but the Eclipse hilichurls were packed with solid muscle—fighters at a glance.
Before Jiang Bai even entered the camp, he spotted the massive altar at its center.
It sat at the highest point, hung with enormous antlers. Beneath the antlers, cloth was spread out, painted with the Eclipse in mineral pigments.
A hilichurl shaman stood atop the altar, staff raised, muttering and chanting as it performed an odd ritual dance.
This camp had fewer hilichurls, but their spirit was the strongest. Jiang Bai even saw plenty of them drilling with their weapons.
Unfortunately, aside from the Eclipse cloth on the altar, he found no other clues.
But after coming all this way, leaving empty-handed would be a waste. Jiang Bai's gaze shifted—then settled on that painted cloth.
He crept up to a rocky outcrop above the altar, using Geo to raise a few stones and block his silhouette.
Then he hooked a finger toward the tied cloth.
A sudden gale swept in.
The rope binding the cloth was sliced clean through, and the billowing fabric shot straight up into the sky.