No one knew how much time had passed before the wet sensation woke Neo.
“Haa…”
After waking up, Neo instinctively covered his forehead and climbed up from the beach.
“The ship… sank? Where am I?”
Once the headache eased a little, Neo vaguely recalled the dull days he had spent at sea, as well as the sudden shipwreck at the end.
‘I thought I was going to die at sea…’
“Luckily, I kept Rules of Survival in the Snow active the whole time, so I didn’t have to worry about suffocating and dying in the sea…”
Neo patted his chest and let out a sigh of relief.
Since there had been nothing to do on the ship, he had continued training and raising his skill levels.
Then, Neo began observing the place where he had woken up.
It was a beach, and it looked somewhat familiar.
“Looks like I drifted a long way in the sea…”
“Hmm, all my luggage is gone. All that’s left is a thermos…”
Near the beach, the only thing that had drifted here with Neo was a thermos with a wing pattern on its surface.
The place called Snezhnaya was frighteningly cold, and Neo had noticed that quite a few people were accustomed to carrying strong liquor with them and relying on alcohol to keep warm.
Neo didn’t like drinking, though, so he had gotten himself a thermos, filled it with tea, and carried it around, using tea to keep warm.
After picking up the thermos and wiping the sand off its surface, Neo had no choice but to stuff it into his pocket.
This made one part of his pocket bulge out, which wasn’t very attractive.
But after the merchant ship left Snezhnaya’s waters, when the temperature was no longer as cold, he had already changed into ordinary clothes.
His military coat had sunk to the bottom of the sea along with his luggage, so there was no way to put the thermos into the inner pocket of his military coat.
“This place… Huh? Why does it look more and more familiar?”
After confirming that there was nothing else on the beach that had drifted ashore with him, Neo continued looking around.
As a transmigrator, the more he looked, the more familiar this place seemed, as though he had been here before.
“♪~”
Just as Neo was about to figure it out by instinct, a gust of wind suddenly blew past, carrying with it the beautiful sound of a harp.
Hearing that familiar tune, Neo felt like his DNA had been stirred, and an answer instantly popped into his mind.
“This is… the beginner spawn point? The beach where the story begins?”
That familiar tune instantly connected the dots in Neo’s mind, reminding him where this familiar scene was.
He had originally planned to return directly to Liyue Harbor, but after encountering a shipwreck, he had actually drifted here.
He had no idea how he had drifted such a huge circle.
“Wait… why is there music coming from the wind? Is Venti nearby?”
After recognizing the location of this beach, Neo was somewhat puzzled by the source of the music and could only raise his head and look around.
But the sound of the harp was carried along by the wind, so Neo couldn’t determine its direction from the sound, because that only told him which way the wind was coming from.
Soon, though, Neo no longer needed to determine the direction, because he saw an elegant cyan-blue dragon flapping its wings as it flew across the sky.
The cyan-blue dragon seemed to be following the sound of the harp as well, but it was much more accurate than Neo, flying straight toward the cliff high above.
‘What a beautiful dragon.
Isn’t this Dvalin?’
‘The cliffs near this beach…
Could that be Starsnatch Cliff?’
‘Wait?
Does that mean the main story has already progressed to the part where the Lyre of Himmel calls Dvalin?’
Seeing the cyan-blue dragon fly toward the high cliff, combined with the harp music spreading through the wind, Neo immediately figured out the current point in the main storyline.
“So soon… I originally wanted to go back to Liyue first before coming to Mondstadt…”
“But… how am I supposed to get up there?”
Neo looked up toward Starsnatch Cliff and couldn’t help scratching his head.
Although this beach was directly beneath Starsnatch Cliff, to get up there, he could only leave from here, pass through Starfell Lake, Whispering Woods, outside Mondstadt City, and Windrise, and then make his way up to Starsnatch Cliff from that side.
“No, no. If I take such a huge detour, the Lyre of Himmel will be gone already!”
“I should’ve taken the hit for the Lyre of Himmel!”
Knowing how the story would develop, Neo became as anxious as an ant on a hot pan and quickly came to the edge of the cliff.
Then he started climbing up with his bare hands.
A few seconds later, he slid back down the smooth cliff.
“No! Lyre of Himmel, don’t die!”
Realizing that he had no talent for rock climbing, Neo could only look up at the sky and cry out in grief.
He could see Dvalin hovering in front of Starsnatch Cliff, but for the moment, he had no way to get up there and help.
“…”
“If I use Repel the Weak against the ground, could I push the entire planet away and basically make myself fly?”
After a while, Neo came up with a brilliant idea and looked down at the beach beneath his feet.
“Repel the Weak!”
He acted as soon as he thought of it.
Neo raised his hand and flicked it toward the ground beneath his feet.
A dark shockwave was instantly sent out and landed on the ground.
A shallow pit appeared in the beach, but nothing happened.
“Looks like this planet isn’t weaker than me.”
Seeing that nothing had happened, Neo nodded his head confidently.
“…”
“Then I can only use Cryo to build a path…”
“Snow and ice, heed my will!”
After confirming that Repel the Weak couldn’t make him take flight, Neo had no choice but to use a physical method to climb upward.
He directly created an ice wall beneath his feet.
The skills provided by the system all had an internal cooldown that wasn’t displayed, unless they were skills that could already be used infinitely in the game.
So Neo had no way to continuously use ice walls to raise himself higher.
But he also had a Vision.
Using the Cryo power of his Vision, he continued creating ice pillars on top of the ice wall, using them to raise himself little by little.
“Bar… Venti, please be careful.”
“Haha… You actually didn’t just figure out that identity now, did you, Jean?”
By the time Neo was still a short distance from the top of Starsnatch Cliff, he could already faintly hear voices coming from above.
‘Ice…
Snow and ice, heed my will…
The cooldown isn’t over…’
‘Vision…
It feels like my body has been drained…’
After another while, Neo finally managed to climb onto Starsnatch Cliff and lay on the grass, breathing heavily.
Once his breathing had calmed down a little, he finally looked around at the situation.
‘Where are they?’
‘Did I come up late already?!’
After sitting up, Neo discovered that Starsnatch Cliff was already completely empty.
He immediately covered his head in bewilderment.
He had climbed up from the beginner beach below as quickly as he could, yet they had already left so quickly!
“But at least I know the progress of the main story now. Next, they should be going to Stormterror’s Lair to find Dvalin, right…”
“No, I have to go join the fun!”
After discovering that everyone had already left, Neo got up from the grass helplessly.
After muttering to himself, he made this decision.
As a transmigrator from eighteen years ago, Neo had never considered specifically leaving Snezhnaya to participate in the main storyline before.
He had thought that developing himself in Snezhnaya was pretty good too.
Besides, when the Traveler eventually makes it to Snezhnaya, maybe he would even have a chance to take a beating and present them with a treasure chest he had treasured for many years, filled with more than a thousand Primogems, and shock the hell out of them.
But after figuring out what the system did, he began deliberately wanting to participate in the main storyline.
Under these circumstances, his interest in each part of the main story gradually increased.
It had reached the point where even if he couldn’t get any rewards, he at least wanted to join in the fun.