“I highly suspect that my name isn't actually Terrarian, it's Bennett! What is this luck!?” Feng returns to his spawn point, disappointed at how his treasure hunt has turned out to be grocery picking.

 

Two dozen chests, and only vegetables. No weapons, no artifacts, no accessories, nothing.

 

Feng is still not willing to fish, even if his fellow reincarnater (the utility pole) has taken care of his first slime for him. 

 

With the slime condensate, Feng proceeds to crafting. It's fairly interesting how crafting is done: when Feng walks near a crafting bench, available recipes will just appear in his mind. He can choose to DIY, like sticking the condensate, which works just like gel, onto a stick to make a torch. Or, he can just do it all out of his mind and the item will just appear in his inventory. 

 

It's the sort of “interesting” that lasts for like 3 minutes and then never sparks up any more excitement ever again.

 

A crafting bench, some torches, a furnace, a campfire, and with that he's out of torches. 

 

Feng didn’t keep track of his materials, and now he can’t even build a proper NPC housing. In Terraria, when the player constructs a house that satisfies a specific set of conditions, an NPC will eventually spawn and claim the real estate as their own. NPCs are usually very helpful during the gameplay. For instance, the Guide (caution: flammable) is a walking crafting recipe wiki with an amazing 10% accuracy rate archery skill. 

 

Unfortunately, for a building to attract an NPC, it needs to be enclosed, has a door, a chair, a table, and a light source. Feng just used up all his torches to craft a furnace and a campfire. Somehow, neither of them qualifies as a light source.

 

Worse thing is, Feng has just decided that he'd start mining. Treasure chests here are emptier than his head during finals, so maybe the earth will have better offerings. Without torches, however, Feng isn’t willing to venture down into natural caves. Who knows where a boulder may be hiding? Therefore, his plan is to just dig into the nearest mountain and dig straight forward, but first, he needs a weapon. 

 

Since he can’t find one, he’ll craft one instead. With only wood, the only options for weapons Feng has is either a bow or a sword. Considering that Feng is allergic to pain, he isn’t too fond of melee when he has to engage in combat in real life. Despite how Feng recognizes everything in this world from the video games that he has played, this reincarnation isn’t a game. This feels too real to be a game. 

 

“Distance you from your enemy, or they’ll distance your head from you.” - Lao Zi, Art of War. (Maybe). 

 

And so Feng begins to craft wooden bows. Not just one, multiple. 

 

In Terraria, items like weapons can have what's known as a modifier. Those are like the quality of the item. For example, Feng has a Legendary Solar Flare Pickaxe, Solar Flare is the name of the pickaxe, and “Legendary” is the modifier. It's, in fact, the best modifier for melee weapons and tools. It's just for some unknown reason, the pickaxe couldn't seem to damage anything. 

 

The modifier is the reason why Feng is crafting multiple wooden bows. Every time he makes a new bow, it has a chance to get a random modifier. 

 

Feng crafts a wooden bow and checks its modifier. If it doesn't have one, or if it gets a bad one, he'll cast the craft aside and immediately make a new one. 

 

“Okay, let's see, nothing, nothing, nothing, shoddy, (belch), nothing, fast, rapid, nothing, weak…”

 

Craft, read, throw, craft read, throw, repeat. He goes on for a while. Luckily he anticipated this happening and got extra wood ahead of time. 

 

RIP the nearby forest, Feng promises that he planted as many acorns as trees he has chopped.

 

Finally, Feng gets a wooden bow with a Demonic modifier.

 

“YES!”

 

Unfortunately, the repeated motion has caused Feng to also throw the good bow into that pile of all other bows out of muscle memory. 

 

“NO!”

 

The Demonic modifier isn't necessarily the best for a bow, but Feng is willing to settle for that. While he could go and get more wood, he is more in a hurry to power up. 

 

By the way, remember how he isn't able to delete any items? He is now knee-deep in trash bows that have flooded his little house. 

 

After what felt like hunting for a hay in a needle stack, Feng retrieved his Demonic Wooden bow. It isn't literally a demon bow per se, but it's definitely better than the rest. Feng can tell that for sure. 

 

When he inspects the items in his inventory, he isn't actually able to see any statistics or numbers quantifying the abilities of the item, unlike in the game. Feng sees the name with a short description of the item; besides the bow, he sees a number for how much ammunition he has left, and that's about it. No attack power, no crit chance, no nothing. So how can he tell that the Demonic wooden bow was better? 

 

Well, besides the fact that he knows how Terraria works, Feng can physically feel the quality differences in the bows he has made. Those with no modifiers feel pretty average. His Demonic bow is by far the most well-crafted one of the bunch. The body of the bow is well-balanced and strong, and the finishing is smooth. The grip feels ergonomic, and the bowstring is tough. 

 

Those with bad modifiers like weak, on the other hand, had literal cracks and splinters on them. Feng even got one just from crafting one of those bows with a Terrible modifier.

 

A splinter.

 

In his hand 

 

Under a fingernail.

 

That he can not pick out. 

 

Ignoring the un-ignorable, Feng stores his bow away and crab-walks his way out of his house and that pile of bows. Feng brings his entire life worth with him, those being his pickaxe, hamaxe, a shellphone, a blueprint, a portal gun, a plunger Mk2, 9 carrots, and 7 cabbages, plus some Mora, and is ready to head out toward the nearest mountain. 

 

Looking back at the cluster of bows in his house, Feng figures that he would clean it up a bit. At least so that he can actually walk around in his own house. He reaches for the pile and bear-hugs a bundle. As luck would have it, he once again contacts that same wooden bow with the terrible modifier. And therefore:

 

Another splinter.

 

On the same hand 

 

Under the same fingernail.

 

That pushed the previous one deeper in. 

 

“I’ll just…build another house, F- it.”

 

Reflecting back on all that he has encountered so far, Feng can not help but think that he must be the most unfortunate reincarnator. He looks up into the endless sky and gazes at the islands in the distant air. Feng vaguely remembers there being a sky island in Genshin, though he never looked too deep into it. 

 

Interestingly, it’s still daytime after all those exploration and crafting. 

 

“Looks like this world of Teyvat isn’t like the game where day and night cycle in like 20 minutes. I should have quite a good amount of time left to use before it gets dark.”

 

Feng leaves the house and sees a small fire slime. Feng takes out his bow, crafts like 300-ish arrows on the spot, and takes aim. 31 shots later, the slime explodes into a pile of fire upon death, incinerating the nearby grass, and the other half of the arrows that are in the ground after missing the target. 

 

It’d appear that staying away from the slime was the right choice. Feng approaches and collects the slime condensate and Mora. Feng is a lot more careful about how he spends the new torches this time. 

 

A single torch is placed in his house, and the other 2 are kept in his inventory.

 

“Alright, and with that, the NPC house is complete. In the next 3 seconds to 8 hours, a stranger should quantum tunnel into my house and start living there rent-free. Um, alright?” Feng isn't sure how or what to feel about that. 

 

He returns to the base of the mountain and melts away the rocks with his pickaxe. Each strike takes out a blocky chunk of stone that transforms into a tiny icon and enters his inventory. The cuts of those blocks are clean and easy to make with his pickaxe, and Feng soon enters into the mountain with near zero resistance. 

 

He holds out his torch in his other hand and is mostly he's just digging straight ahead. If he reaches the other end, he'd simply move some distance over the initial tunnel, and dig a new one backward. And if he's feeling bored, he'd just turn on the spot and start digging in a new random direction.

 

Feng is strip mining. He's done it too many times in games by now that he can do it mindlessly and tirelessly. 

 

-----

 

In the world of Teyvat, there exists a mysterious location that few know of its presence. The Celestia is a floating island where most of the gods of this world reside. Mortals on the ground who performs great deeds have the opportunity to ascend to this sacred land. 

 

Nearly 700 years ago, a spirit emerged from within a storm. The storm was a common occurrence in that piece of uninhabitable ground. The spirit that gained consciousness soon revamped her birthplace. She controlled the cloud and wind, governed the rain and snow, and soon, that piece of storm-plagued land became vibrant. 

 

The wandering humans of the time sought after the spirit's care and protection, and she welcomed them with open arms. Soon, a gathering formed. From that, it became a village, then from a village, it developed into a city. 

 

It was then the spirit got a name of her own: Corcell, the Cloud Archon. 

 

It was also at this point when the Celestia sent out a divine message that would erupt a worldwide war in Teyvat. 

 

Teyvat was to be split into seven regions, and seven chosen Archons (gods) shall each govern one. From that moment on until the final seats were settled, Teyvat entered the chaos known formally as the Archon War. 

 

Basically, every Archon in Teyvat is fighting each other for 1 of those 7 ultimate positions of being employed by the Heavenly Principle.

 

Or for, you know, staying alive. 

 

Corcell was one of the more passive Archons. Since her birthplace was long affected by unforgiving storms, not even other Archons felt it worthwhile to claim the territory. Ever since Corcell woke up, she naturally inherited a large piece of land. 

 

Due to its transformation, however, this land has changed for the better, and therefore also became the target of other Archons seeking to expand their territory. Corcell once surrounded her city with lightning storms as defense, but then she quickly realized that she had also caged her citizens. 

 

Seeing such, Corcell used her elemental power, turning the underground water beneath their home into clouds. The cloud ascends into the sky, carrying with it the land, her City, and her citizens. 

 

That day, Cloud City was born. 

 

A city of clouds floats to where the wind blows, and as a result, the city has been free from the conflict of war for hundreds of years. Corcell would rarely engage in combat; whenever there was a disaster, she would summon the power of wind and clouds to move her city out of the way. 

 

It worked, until it didn't.

 

Until one day the City arrived in the presence of the impending doom. 

 

------

 

While the treasure chests in the wild house only produce, the mountain that Feng has dug into yielded special surprises. At first, Feng only expected tin, copper, or if lucky, iron, but the sudden full-body incineration upon a single step informed Feng that he has stumbled upon something truly amazing. Feng takes out a torch and confirms his finding.

 

Embedded within this mountain are meteorite ore and a special kind of ore that he has never seen before. His pickaxe can mine it, but once mined, the ore just pops into a puff of sparkling lights and disappears into nothing. 

 

Feng feels like he has seen this kind of light effect before, but he can't remember where. 

 

Either way, finding meteorite ore is a good upgrade for him. It's a powerful ore for early game, and it can be used for special craftings that other ores can not produce. 

 

It took less than one second for Feng to decide that he wants a space gun. The space gun is a magic weapon that converts the user's mana into laser beams. 

 

After mining, Feng has enough meteorite ore now to craft a full set of meteorite armor. In Terrarian, when equipping a specific set of armor, a set bonus is gained. Think of it as the armor's special ability.

 

For the meteorite set, it reduces the mana cost of space guns to 0. Basically, this means that if he wears a full set of meteorite armor, his space gun will have unlimited ammo. 

 

For his stage of progression, it's quite the economic choice. The space has decent enough damage, can light up his surroundings when fired, and unlike other guns and bows, Feng does not need to gather additional resources to craft ammunition. 

 

That said, in order to craft anything with the meteorite bar, Feng will need an anvil first. It's quite strange how he has mined the space ore, yet hasn't stumbled upon any iron or lead. 

 

“Perhaps I can find an anvil at a blacksmith's workshop? Come to think of it, I should probably see if I can find any other people around here.” Feng thinks to himself as he exits the cave he dug. 

 

It's currently noon, and the sun is scorching hot. A piece of cloud floats in the air, but not covering the sun. This makes the shadow of something that has suddenly appeared over Feng’s head very apparent. Feng looks up, afraid that it may be boulders that have rolled off the mountaintop, but by then, that something has already landed on his face. 

 

In an instant, his face is engulfed. Before the suffocation sets in, Feng catches a quick puff of refreshing scents, like a relaxing afternoon walk in a jasmine garden right after a drizzle. The softness continues to expand, enveloping his eyes as well, plunging Feng back into darkness. 

 

Slimes again. This time there are two of them.

 

For a moment Feng is completely mesmerized, not even noticing that he has been pushed onto the ground by the sheer weight of what has fallen. 

 

The slimes now press down even harder.

 

“Wait! No! HOLD UP!”

 

Feng suddenly jumps back up, and what comes to his sight shocks him to the point of ignoring that large bump at the back of his head from the fall. 

 

In front of Feng is the most beautiful woman that he has seen in his life. The alluring figure is sitting up after being shoved by Feng when he jumped up, allowing Feng to capture her look in its entirety with a single gaze. 

 

Her hair is dark and short, stopping right before the tip reaches her exposed shoulder covered in jade-like smooth skin. Her eyes, guarded by a row of long and elegant lashes, resemble the most stunning sapphire, shining and delicate. Currently, she has one of her eyes closed, as she holds her palm over an area of her head that was impacted by her fall. Feng can actually see a tiny drop of tear just barely exiting from the corner of her eye. 

The girl dons a set of white attire. The style looks ancient but still displays a hint of modern fashion. The cloak on her back resembles a lab coat, yet the long tails of the cloak are closer to that of a tuxedo. The tail splits into three, and the length reaches the back of her knees. The material of the cloak became gradually more translucent moving from top to bottom. By the tip, Feng notices swirling patterns that the clouds in the sky appear on the cloak, barely disclosing the silhouette of her legs below. 

 

Underneath the cloak, she is wearing what appears to be a white qipao dress. Cloudy patterns split the dress into two distinct sections, one is covered by a gentle wavy pattern like the flow of a river, while the other half has various shapes of snowflakes embroidered on the clothing. Depending on the viewing angle, the dress appears different as the various patterns are revealed or disappear. 

 

The qipao dress is fairly close to her skin, displaying her near-perfect hourglass figure. Even though the dress covers plenty, Feng can feel his mind turning in hyper-speed upon laying his eyes on those three teardrop-shaped openings. Two on the sides each exposing her shoulders, one in the center. 

 

From her dress down there isn't clothing covering the legs. What's supposed to have been spotless skin is currently a canvas filled with bruises and cuts instead. The wounds travel down, ending in a slightly swollen, twisted ankle that was half covered by a pair of snow-white high-heel boots. The boots each have a pair of puffy little wings at the very top of their heels. Sometimes they would even flap a bit, as if they were alive. 

 

The sight of injury finally snaps Feng out of the mesmerization. He quickly shakes his head once and realizes something: did this girl just fall from the sky? 

 

“Hey! Are you…” Feng tries to ask if she was alright, but before he could compose his sentence, the girl before him seems to have also snapped out of her fall. 

 

Before Feng can react, he feels an unstoppable force dragging him by the arm and yanks him back into the cave again. 

 

“Wa-!?”

 

Feng screams out of instinct, but the girl quickly covers his mouth and puts a finger over her lips to gesture that he ought to be quiet. 

 

Not the wisest of moves; it's dark AF and Feng can't see shite. 

 

He takes out his torch again, but the beautiful face only momentarily flashes in front of his eye, showing a panicked expression, before the torch is put out. 

 

Feng has no idea how, but the air suddenly feels a lot more dampened.

 

“Don't! He'll see you!” a small but worried voice hushes. But despite the supposed seriousness of the situation, Feng can't help but think that her voice sounds just as cute as she looks. 

 

A single footstep from outside the cave once again snaps Feng’s attention back. He looks toward the cave’s entrance and sees a dark, robed silhouette.

 

“Someone is chasing after her?” Feng thinks to himself. 

 

The figure approaches the cave but does not enter. The silhouette’s head shifts left and right, inspecting the surroundings. 

 

“Corcell, enough with the hide and seek. Just tell me where the Shimmer is, and I may consider making your demise painless.” the figure outside announces into the cave.

 

He sounds very punchable. 

 

“Corcell? Her name?” Feng thinks as he looks at the woman at his side.

 

Still dark AF and can't see shite. 

 

A single word caught Feng’s attention: Shimmer. Shimmer is a special type of liquid from Terraria. It was a relatively recent addition to the game, and it has some interesting properties. However, Feng isn't too concerned about that for the moment.

 

“Aw, dear Chatelaine, you know there's no escape at this point. Your power has been diminishing since we first met. You can sense it, can't you? The dwindling lives of your citizens.” The figure speaks, his voice going from punchable to cold, and punchable. 

 

Feng hears a few muffled clicking sounds beside him. It was probably Corcell clenching her teeth. 

 

“I…I'm sorry.” she says in a low and saddened voice. Corcell isn't happy about the fact that a stranger has been affected by her battle. 

 

“Yeah, no, lady, I don't want this touchy-feely stuff. I want answers. Who the heck are you, who the heck is that, what are you two doing? What's going on? Why did you drag me into the cave again?” Feng lets out his questions in succession. Needless to say, Feng is beyond confused at this point. 

 

Corcell pauses for a second and finally collects herself. It's true that from the young man's perspective, this all happened way too suddenly. 

 

“My name is Corcell,” she begins. “I am the Cloud Archon and Chatelaine of Cloud City. Around 4 hours ago, my city encountered a great disaster. That person out there is a Lunatic Cultist. The Lunar Cult attacked my City when its defense failed. The leading Cultist chased me from the sky to here.” Corcell is stuttering, partly because she isn't sure if everything she has to say can be understood by the young man beside him, and partly also because she herself can't fully understand everything that has happened. 

 

The Cloud City was floating around as always, but the moment it approached Mt. Tianheng, a strong and sudden wave of erosion began to corrupt her mind. 

 

Corcell felt as if existence that doesn't belong to this world has forcefully entered her field of consciousness, corrupting everything that she knows and remembers. 

 

It was around the same time that numerous citizens of her city had fallen into insanity. Chaos ensued and spread like wildfire. 

 

Not long ago, Corcell has just obtained a brand new machinery for her city's defense from the Dust Archon Guizhong: a ballista named in its inventor's honor. Sadly, with the guards losing their sanity all at once, not even a single machinery could have been activated when the cultists arrived. 

 

“Lunatic Cultist?” Feng raises an eyebrow. That is one of the end-game boss of Terraria. “So I guess she dragged me into this cave to save me?”

 

“And, 4 hours ago?” Feng mutters to himself. That means the battle over her city happened around the time when he first arrived in this world. “How far is Mt. Tianheng from here?”

 

Corcell gives Feng a strange look, not that he can see it though, and replies: “Mt. Tianheng? We're inside it right now!”

 

“So we're in Liyue? Huh.” Feng lets out a curious tone. He isn't too familiar with the map of Genshin, and the world around him all looks way too realistic to be a game rendered even by the best gaming PC. Naturally, he didn't recognize where he has been all this time. 

 

More importantly, he's currently in the past, a time before all the events of Genshin's gameplay. 

 

Outside, the robed figure takes out an amulet from his breast pocket. It has a symbol of the moon engraved on it. As the figure holds the amulet and chants, it emits a faint, greenish glow. 

 

“Oh the great Lord of the Moon, Grant me sight beyond vision!”

 

When he reopens his eyes, the pupils are glowing a ghostly green. The cultist inspects the cave once more and sees a trace amount of Anemo element left at the entrance. It was left there when Corcell carried Feng and flew into the cave.  Based on that trial, the cultist can track down his prey. 

 

“I was here 4 hours ago though. But I felt nothing.” Feng tells the Cloud Archon. 

 

Corcell has been wondering about that as well. “Are you also an Archon?”

 

“What’s an Archon?”

 

“Wha? Basically god?” Corcell didn't expect a question like that. 

 

“Then no, I'm a human.” Feng isn't lying. 4 hours ago he was in his room playing video games. Although he does have a Block System now, he also nearly died to a slime with an inventory full of end-game gears. If he can be considered an Archon, people would probably stop believing in them altogether. 

 

“A human? But-” Corcell continues to ask, but the approaching footsteps alarm her to ready her stance. She is still recovering from the erosion and her battle wounds, plus losing massive amounts of citizens have dwindled her power greatly, Corecell isn’t exactly confident that she can come out of this cave alive. But even in death, she wishes no harm to be done to those who are innocent. 

 

“What’s your name? Human.”

 

“Feng.”

 

“Feng, sounds like a Liyue name. Listen, I can hold him off. Run away as fast as you can.”

 

Feng gazes towards the entrance, a shadow has merged into the darkness of the cave, save from a pair of ominous green eyes that are still visible. Knowing that’s a lunatic cultist, Feng can almost be certain that he’s an enemy, and definitely one he can not face off alone. Additionally, Feng can't be sure if the cultist saw him when he got dragged into the cave. If he was seen, then there's no running away from an end-game boss like that with his current gear.

 

Therefore, Feng instead announces: “To the person outside this cave, stop right there!”

 

The cultist halts; he did indeed see Crocell dragging someone else into the cave, and is slightly curious. 

 

“Who are you?”

 

“I’m just passing by.” Feng answers. “I’m just here to mine. Would it be possible for the two of you to leave me alone?” He knows he sounds crazy, but what if?

 

The cultist scuffs, but he gradually feels more and more uneasy. His master has recently appeared on the other side of this mountain. Creatures from all around have all been driven to insanity, save from the most powerful Archon Morax. For this man to be in this place and still be sane enough to converse with him, something isn’t right. 

 

The cultist chants to his amulet again, and his eyes glow even brighter. He can now faintly see the outlines of two individuals down the tunnel. One has a swirl of elemental energy within her, three kinds to be exact. There’s no mistaking, being able to control three types of elements at the same time, the Cloud Archon Corcell is likely the only one in this world. 

 

The figure besides Corcell is a lot more uncanny to the cultist. Although not a trace of elemental power is detected on him, the cultist sees an unusual type of energy within him. He has witnessed it before: from the Adpti of Liyue. 

 

“A half Adeptus?” the cultist wonders. 

 

Even if Feng doesn’t appear threatening at all to the cultist, based on the lack of elemental power, the cultist is careful. The Adepti of Liyue may be more than meets the eye. Thinking such, he chants once again to the amulet for the third time.

 

“Oh the great Lord of the Moon, lend me thy presence upon this world!”

 

The cultist emits an invisible aura that quickly fills up all the irregularly dug tunnels across the entire base of Mt. Tianheng. 

 

As soon as the aura reaches Corcell, the same feeling of erosion befalls her once again. Though much less intense than last time, with her weakened state, this aura still is crushing her mentally. She falls to the floor, and the noise that made notifies Feng.

 

He turns around and bends down, carefully trying to search for her in the darkness while asking if she’s okay. 

 

The cultist near the entrance sees that both figures have lowered to the ground as soon as he emitted his cosmic-horrific aura, and determines that the guy next to the Cloud Archon is indeed nothing to fear. As a result, his confidence in an easy victory is restored. The cultist quickens his paste; he wants absolutely no time for Corcell to recover even the slightest. 

 

Feng feels a shiver down his spine, and as if guided by instinct, he opens his map. A translucent layout of the cave that he has dug appears in front of him. On the maze-like map, he sees a cartoonish icon of himself at the center, and another hooded icon with a face full of tentacles rapidly approaching his location. 

 

At first, Feng was confused, but he quickly realizes what this map icon means. That cultist is either an NPC, another player, or a Boss. Feng holds out his shellphone, but realizes that teleporting home will probably do him no good. His house isn’t far from the mountain, and if that cultist can chase Corcell from the sky to the ground, he can chase him to about 100 meters away from this cave. 

 

Seeing such, Feng lets out a sigh. Out of every time he played Terraria, he has never faced the Lunatic Cultist with a new character on day one. Feng turns grabs Corcell by her wrist and starts running. 

 

The cultist fastens his chase but is soon slowed by the convoluted inner layout of this cave. 

 

After turning a few corners, Feng prays to god, which he has never believed in unless it’s right before the finals, that the cultist can’t see them behind all those walls. He takes out his Solar Flare Pickaxe and digs straight down. When he and Corcells are underground, Feng places a stone bock above their head, sealing off the entrance that he has just made. 

 

Feng takes out his torch and finally sees that beautiful face again. She is slightly surprised by what had just happened, but he has not the time to keep admiring her appearance. 

 

“Alright, listen,” Feng speaks. “That guy wants us both dead, let’s team up!”