Phew~ that scared me to death.
Good thing I’m quick on my feet, otherwise I probably would’ve been tossed right out.
Piers let out a long sigh of relief and sat down on the stool.
It’s almost midnight—time to check in and claim the egg.
Sure, the reward sounds pretty mediocre, but something’s better than nothing, right?
Maybe it’ll be a Ghost Knight or something.
Just then, the clock’s hands reached midnight, and the check-in button he’d waited a hundred days for finally lit up.
[Check In] Piers pressed the button.
A flash of white light, and a thumb-sized quail egg appeared in his hand.
What the heck?
At least give me a bigger one.
What am I supposed to do with something this tiny?
Whatever, whatever—better than nothing.
With my many years of godly gacha luck, let’s pull a gold on a single draw!
Piers cracked the quail egg against the table, and the next second, a wisp of white smoke drifted out of it.
Tch, white quality, huh.
Just dog food.
Although the System’s check-in had never explicitly stated what rarity tier the items would carry, based on Piers’s years of online gaming experience, white probably wasn’t anything good—so the instant he saw white, his heart reflexively sank halfway.
Still, it was the very first thing he’d ever pulled, so Piers was at least a little curious about it.
He didn’t just chuck it into the trash on the spot.
“This is…
where am I…
am I still alive?” The white smoke slowly took the shape of a human figure: broad white sleeves, the tender face of a young girl, and a head of long gray hair.
The robe was very large, and beneath it stretched a pair of snow-white legs—she stood there barefoot.
In the darkness, Piers stared at the figure formed from the white smoke, his pupils blowing wide, his breath stopping altogether.
“Guizhong…” You know me?
Hearing Piers’s voice, the figure looked over curiously.
“Eh?
You know me?” Holy crap, what the heck did I just open—a dead person…
do Archons even count as dead people?
“The God of Dust, Haagentus, who died in the Liyue Archon War.
My name is Piers.” Piers blurted it out on reflex.
“Ohh~ I see.” Guizhong was suddenly struck by a flash of inspiration.
“So this must be the Netherworld from the old folk legends.
Could it be that you’re the lord of the underworld?
What an adorable little brother.” As she spoke, she even reached out and gave Piers’s cheek a pinch.
“Stop, stop, stop—this isn’t any Netherworld.
I can’t really explain it clearly either, but you’re still in Teyvat right now, just several thousand years later.
You’re only in spirit form, so ordinary people can’t see you.” This Guizhong, with no sense of restraint whatsoever, was petting Piers like a cat.
It took only a few seconds for Guizhong to accept this reality.
Special abilities and the like had been quite common in her era—why, Rex Lapis could even summon meteorites from beyond the heavens.
Summoning souls and such—some adeptal arts could actually pull it off too, only with rather heavy limitations.
“So, where exactly is this place right now?” “Snezhnaya.” “So, you summoned me out—is there something you need?
Go ahead and say it.
For such an adorable little brother, I’d be more than happy to help.” She covered her mouth with one hand and giggled softly, the hand hidden away by her broad sleeve, while her other hand reached up to land a head-pat on Piers.
Though she was only a spirit, Guizhong was an Archon after all.
With a single glance she could tell Piers’s true age was only eighteen—not some old monster who’d lived thousands of years behind a baby face.
Especially since Piers really was good-looking.
An adorable little brother like this was the most fun of all—just get a little close and he’d blush and turn shy.
“Listen, Sister Guizhong, I’m eighteen, you know.
Going by looks, you’re even a bit younger than me—could you please stop patting my head all the time?” Come to think of it, since Guizhong had never had an in-game model, Piers had always assumed she had a normal girl’s figure.
But now that he saw her, she actually had something like Fu Xuan’s build—wasn’t this basically half a l0l!?!
“You said it yourself—that’s just appearance.
At my age, I’m your elder.
What’s wrong with a little head-pat?” Guizhong planted both sleeve-covered hands on her hips, doing her best to strike the pose of an elder.
Only her clothes really were a bit too big, giving off the vibe of a child sneaking into an adult’s outfit—she couldn’t manage to look serious at all.
“Fine, fine, I can’t out-argue you.” Piers caved in the end.
After all, he was just an ordinary person—he didn’t even have a Vision, utterly incapable of resisting an Archon.
Speaking of ordinary people…
“Oh, I just remembered there really is something I wanted to ask your help with.” “What is it?” “Can you teach me adeptal arts?” Within the Fatui, you needed at least some real strength, otherwise one day you might die out on a mission and no one would even know.
He didn’t have a Vision, but going by the timeline, during the Archon War era none of the adepti or Archons had Visions either.
Adeptal power didn’t belong to elemental power but to the power of the Light Realm, so it could be trained even without a Vision.
“Adeptal arts, huh, hmmmm.
It’s doable, sure, but learning adeptal arts takes aptitude—not just anyone can master them.” Guizhong’s reply was well within Piers’s expectations.
He forced out a faint, wry smile.
“I’ve still got to try, don’t I?
I don’t even have a Vision—learning some adeptal arts would at least give me a bit more ability to protect myself.” “Alright.
You fished me back out, so by sentiment and reason alike, I really ought to repay the favor.” With that, Guizhong raised her hand, drawing it out from her sleeve, then pressed a single index finger to the spot between Piers’s brows.
A few seconds later, she withdrew her hand.
“There.
I’ve temporarily passed on to you the essentials of some basic adeptal art cultivation.
Go ahead and give it a try.” At this moment Piers really did feel something extra inside his mind.
Without the slightest hesitation, he hurriedly closed his eyes and began searching.
Cultivating to immortality and all that—for Piers, who’d read so many novels in his past life, was no ordinary aspiration; it was the sort of thing any normal teenage boy would dream about.
Like sitting through an assembly out on the sports field, imagining demons from beyond the realm invading and then swooping in to save the day in the most ridiculously cool fashion.
He never managed to fulfill that wish in his lifetime—and then he came to this world.
“Feel anything yet?” Seeing that Piers had shown no reaction for a good long while, Guizhong leaned in curiously and spoke up.
But Piers, as if he hadn’t heard her at all, gave no answer.
“Eh?
Could he have entered meditative absorption?
Is his talent really that good?
Back in the day, even little Ganyu took half a day to get it.” Guizhong was startled for a moment, then started to feel a little bored—after all that, she’d finally found someone to keep her company and chat with.
At this moment, Piers was sensing the foundations of the adeptal arts Guizhong had just transmitted to him.
The concepts within seemed quite similar to some of the novels he’d read in his past life—absorbing the natural energy between heaven and earth, opening up the meridians of the body.
Piers learned fast—or rather, he grasped the essentials in one go.
On the path of cultivation, one’s mind had to flow clear and unobstructed.
All you could say was that reading novels all day really wasn’t such a bad thing after all; at the very least, it gave him a bit of experience when it came to studying after transmigrating.