To The Snowy Mountains

I walked along the hallways of the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, greeting the passing knights as I always did. 

Knowing that I had a meeting with everyone, I woke up early in the morning, immediately making my way to the headquarters. 

As I was about to arrive at Jean's office, a familiar voice stopped me in my tracks. "Oh, it's our famed Honorary Knight. What a surprise seeing you here so early."

I turned around and was greeted by the cavalry captain himself, Kaeya. I approached him with a slight smile and greeted him. "Well, I do have a meeting with your Acting Grand Master; otherwise, I doubt I would've woken up so early."

"Ah, yes, I heard about it. Well, someone has to stay at the headquarters to make sure everything is in order, so I won't be able to participate in your plan." Kaeya didn't seem too vexed about it; in fact, it seemed like he was happy about it.

"You sure? You can always leave the headquarters to Lisa."

Kaeya chuckled and said, "Lisa spends most of her time in the library, idling the day away."

"It's a shame, then. It would've been nice to have you on the team."

"Already missing me? Well, I did think we made a good team back at the temple," Kaeya said, a wide smirk on his face.

"Sure, buddy." I waved off his teasing and said, "I have a meeting to attend to, so if you'll excuse me..."

Kaeya stopped me in my tracks and said, "Before you go. I have a proposition for you. If you have free time afterwards, meet me at the training grounds, and I'll tell you about it."

"Sure."

After exchanging goodbyes, I turned around and resumed my walk to Jean's office. Once I arrived, I knocked on the door a few times. Behind the door, Jean told me to come in.

Diluc was already there, sitting on a chair by the window, looking out. Jean was sitting at her desk skimming through some documents, and Venti was fiddling with some antiques on a shelf. Everyone was doing their own thing, waiting for the discussion to start.

"Where's Lumine?" I asked.

"She should be coming by shortly," Jean answered, fiddling with documents on her desk.

Nodding to her response, I sat next to Diluc. We conversed while waiting for Lumine about drinks, anecdotes, and the like.

Half an hour or so passed, and Lumine finally arrived at the office. Weirdly enough, Paimon wasn't with her.

"Where's Paimon?" I asked, curious about her absence.

"She's still sleeping, I think."

'Well, can't really blame her. I would've done the same..."

"Now that we're all here, I think it's prudent to begin discussing our plans as soon as possible." Diluc stood up from his chair, his expression now serious.

Jean set the documents aside and said, "Yes. Venti already provided me with some information regarding this topic, I'll let him explain." 

"Well, it's not necessary to bore you guys with the details, so all I'll say is that if we want to confront Dvalin and try to purify his corruption, we'll have to head to Stormterror's Lair," Venti explained.

"Of course, Lumine will be instrumental in the plan," Jean added. "She has the capacity to purify the corrupted tear crystals, therefore, I'm confident she can help in the purification process."

Ah, I remember that. I wasn't personally there to witness it, but in the game, the Traveler did have that ability.

"And what will be our roles?" I asked.

"We'll provide support in whichever way we can," Jean responded.

"If it comes to it, we'll have to slay Stormterror, I hope you are aware of it." Diluc didn't seem to be receptive to that possibility.

In contrast, Jean seemed quite conflicted but still said, "Yes, I've already come to terms with it. If it's necessary, I won't hesitate."

Diluc gave an approving nod and said, "Great. We still have to prepare for this, so I'd say that a week from now it's a good time to confront Stormterror."

"I, for one, agree! I also need some time to prepare... and rest," Venti said.

"I'm not against it," Lumine added.

"Me neither," I said.

Jean nodded and stood up from her desk. "We'll meet here a week from now, then."

After a bit more discussion about what we'd do once we arrived at Stormterror's Lair, we all went our own ways. Kaeya had told me to meet him at the training grounds if I had free time, so I did just that.

Outside of the headquarters, there was a mildly crowded training ground. Multiple knights, and what seemed like recruits as well, trained fervently.

Kaeya was in the middle of the grounds, supervising the training of the knights. He spotted me, waved at me, and said, "You're here."

"Well, you told me to come."

"Of course, and I never doubted you would. Now, could you wait for me for a moment? I am quite busy with these recruits." Kaeya said this before shouting some instructions to the training knights.

"Can I rough up some training dummies in the meantime?" I asked.

"Go ahead."

With permission to do so, I used some training dummies to practice my movements. Well, as much as I could, anyway. The dummies were not fragile, but they would still break if I used cursed energy on them.

As I passed the time punching away at the dummies, a thought crossed my mind, I spread cursed energy throughout my hand, expanding it outwards.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. Extending my hand toward the training dummy, I felt my fingers graze it.

'Hmm, it still doesn't work...'

I'd thought that with my better understanding and manipulation of cursed energy, I'd be able to at least use Infinity.

This issue goes beyond the fact that I'm a rookie. I thought that I couldn't use it just because I was bad with cursed energy, and because of my Six Eyes restriction, but the technique should be engraved in my body.

'I'll have to ask Gojo about it. Hopefully, he can help me out...'

My train of thought was interrupted by Kaeya, as he asked, "You having fun?" 

"I could use something else to punch, but yeah." Looking behind Kaeya, I could see that the groups of knights were resting, apparently having finished their training for the day. 

I returned my gaze to Kaeya and asked, "So, what did you want to ask me?"

"Well, as you can see, there's a small batch of recruits that came in recently. They're a decent bunch, but we have to whip them into shape. We'll be heading to Dragonspine tomorrow morning for a few days for some basic survival training," he explained.

A grin appeared on his face, and he said, "So, I want you to come with us."

"Why?"

"New soldiers need the morale of having a respected and remarkable figure in their ranks, especially when we'll be in the harsh and cold mountains of Dragonspine," he said.

"Aren't you the Cavalry Captain? Wouldn't you be enough?" I was trying to weasel my way out of this situation. I didn't really want to go to that place.

"I'm already well known, at this point I'm almost like a friend to them. But you, on the other hand, are the talk of the town, the new hotshot of the Knights of Favonius, the outlander Honorary Knight that's helping Mondstadt with its crisis." Kaeya's grin grew wider as he went on, almost sarcastically listing out my 'titles'. "Having someone like that in the team will surely motivate them," he added.

"Look, I'd love to, but I was going to stay here in Mondstadt doing commissions with a friend before we had to confront Stormterror, so..." I said.

Kaeya chuckled and said, "Well, we can always compensate you for your efforts."

"Uh, how much?" I've always loved money, but I don't know if it's worth surviving in the cold for it.

"Double what you'd get for a week of commissions."

"Double?!" I blurted out.

Kaeya, seemingly amused by my reaction, waited silently for my response.

Total pay for the commissions is dependent on the kind and difficulty of its class, but If it's double...

I thought for a while before saying, "Make it triple."

"Deal," Kaeya said, almost without hesitation. He extended his hand and I shook it, a wide smile on my face. "Meet me here tomorrow morning and we'll head to Dragonspine."

'Sorry, Bennett...'

After exchanging goodbyes, we went our separate ways

_______________________________________________________________

I expected that after a good night's sleep, I would open my eyes to the sun peeking through my window, but instead, I found myself in what I always assumed to be my, or rather Gojo's, Innate Domain.

I slowly stood up, stretching, and said, "I've woken up here a few days in a row already."

Gojo was sitting, a smile appeared on his face once he saw me. "Well, once you're aware of it, it's easier to come here. Kinda like a lucid dream," he said.

"Hm, that's fine; I wanted to ask you something."

"You always have something to ask." Gojo chuckled, now standing up.

I shrugged, and after collecting my thoughts, I said, "Alright, so the thing is, I just can't seem to use the Limitless. I was wondering if you knew something about it."

Gojo crossed his arms, putting his hand on his chin. After humming as a signal of deep thought, he said, "There are two possibilities." Lifting up two fingers, he continued, "The first one is that the Limitless is being tampered with, just like your Six Eyes."

Gojo paused for a bit before continuing. "The Six Eyes are not a cursed technique. They don't require activation; they're always on, no matter what, so if something, a higher power, wanted to restrict it, they'd need to limit its usage."

I paid close attention to what he was saying. I had a small inkling of what he would explain, but I listened nonetheless.

"If the same thing is happening to your Limitless, then we wouldn't be able to really do anything about it until we found the source of the issue. But I'm pretty sure that's not what's happening."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because then, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do this." Gojo lifted his index finger, a small blue orb forming on its tip.

"So you can use it... Then why can't I?"

Dissipating the blue orb, Gojo said, "That brings me to the other possibility. What's being restricted isn't the usage of your cursed technique, but rather the knowledge of how to use it."

"Wouldn't you be affected by it as well? I mean, I'm not sure how all this merged soul thing works, but it makes sense, right?"

"Cursed techniques are engraved in the prefrontal cortex area of the brain. If that's the part that's being restricted, then I'm safe. Long-term memories and information are stored in other parts of the brain, and as such, I already remember how to use the Limitless thanks to my past experiences. You've never used it before, so you wouldn't know," Gojo explained.

"Now I see..." I sighed deeply and said, "What a shame. It seems like I'll have to manage without the Limitless."

Gojo chuckled, wagging his finger. "No need to fret, my dear student! I'll help you out."

"How?"

"The Limitless is an inherited technique. A benefit of that is having a user manual laid out by your predecessors. I've already been instructed on the Limitless' usage, and because I retain those memories, I can teach you." Gojo grinned, waiting for my reaction.

I couldn't hold my excitement and my lips contorted into a big smile.

"Let's do it then."

_______________________________________________________________

It was a cloudy day and the air was chillier than usual, almost an omen for how I'd go to the cold mountains of Dragonspine.

I slowly walked on the streets of Mondstadt, breathing in the morning air. I always liked cloudy days and today was no exception.

I arrived at the training grounds, outside of the Knights of Favonius headquarters. A group of a dozen or so knights were moving around big bags of leather, preparing for the upcoming hike to Dragonspine.

Kaeya noticed me and clapped his hands once. "Your attention, please," he said. All knights stopped moving around and formed evenly in front of Kaeya.

"This is one of the famed Honorary Knights, Dani." After Kaeya introduced me, some knights looked at me with a look of wonder, and others whispered to their friends. It almost felt like a gossipy classroom. They all looked quite young, so their behaviour wasn't something unexpected.

Still, it felt nice. 'Maybe I'm more influential than I thought...'

"As I informed you earlier, he'll be accompanying us in this survival training. Don't hesitate to ask him any questions you may have." Kaeya glanced at me, smirking all the while. Turning his gaze back on the group of knights, he ended with, "We'll be departing in half an hour."

Suddenly, the knights surrounded me and started throwing questions at me.

"Sir, just how did you get so strong?"

"Please don't call me, sir... And I'm not that strong."

"I heard that you cleared a dozen hilichurl camps in one day, how did you do it?!"

"It's not that impressive. Besides, I had help from a friend."

"Mr. Dani, where are you from?"

"Drop the 'mister'. And I'm from a faraway land, that's all I'll say."

As I was being bombarded with questions, Kaeya looked at me with a grin from the sidelines. I shot him an annoyed look and continued answering questions to the best of my abilities.

At least it seemed like I did have a positive influence on their morale.

After half an hour passed, Kaeya gathered all the knights, and we started our hike to Dragonspine.