Chapter 60: Making Some Progress

"Are you sure with this information, Rosaria?"

"This man claimed to be the one slayed one of the Great Disaster of Mondstadt while taking to someone but…" Rosaria trailed while hesitate to inform her superior information she had yet to confirm its veracity.

"But what?" Grand Master Varka pressed on for information, not that he doubt Rosaria. But, he can sense her confusion and doubt in the matter.

"I have yet to confirm. But according to my digging for information revolving him and his female companions… Ray is formerly a 'decent' adventurer, raising in fame due to his lazy lifestyle where he only earn enough to rent a room for a week, his food and mostly getting drunk in tavern."

Varka didn't missed Rosaria's remark of the former Ray being 'decent'. He also know about it, a strong but ambitionless adventurer driven to the corner by Fatui and force to fled to other nation.

"His female companions however, not even a trace can be found. As if they never existed before. But I noticed something odd with his swords."

"Explain." Varka nod and give Rosaria the permission to continue, not that he is preventing her.

"His return to Mondstadt, he have three swords. But by the time he left his inn to hunt monster, one of his sword is missing. When he returned with his female companions, only one remain and another is carried by a woman wearing black dress and have a regal air of nobility… perhaps even greater." Rosaria added and continued with the odd feelings she felt when looking at Salter.

Varka's brow furrowed and a frown enter his face."You felt like being stared by an apex predator far greater than the like of Ursa the Drake?"

"Yes." She nodded to her superior's statement.

"I see. Great job, Rosaria. Please continue to observe him and make sure to keep him in line of sight." Varka dismissed Rosaria with a strained sigh mix of tiredness and the accumulating stress from his duty.

"Should I eliminate him?" Rosaria asked with a hardened expression, willing to carry out her this task if it help protect Mondstadt.

"What? No! In fact, we should refrain from antagonizing him if all your statement were true." Varka look at this assassin hiding under the identity of nun as if she is crazy.

"Able to wield greater weapon yet slayed the disaster with only a knife. Surely this mean, he is hiding his strength. His deed also bring benefits to Mondstadt as whole."

"For now, we had yet to determine his purpose being in Mondstadt. The Favonius Knight isn't in a position to afford being weaken even at the slightest with two harbinger now confirmed, operating within Mondstadt region."

Rosaria expression instantly turn into shock upon hearing the news from Grand Master Varka himself.

"What? Two?" She accidentally shouted but quickly shut her mouth, fearing someone else might heard it from outside.

"Yes. Now, please leave if there's nothing else. I still have my duty to attend to." He is chasing Rosaria away although his words didn't sound like it.

Rosaria nodded and quickly leave as told. She still need to return to Church of Favonius and attend the abhorrent choir practice or she will be pestered by the Deconess again.

Thinking about it made her shoulder slumped and her steps become heavier as she consider skipping it but failed because her ploy of using the excuse of spying on Ray had failed because Grand Master Varka didn't give her any official order for her use as excuse.

———

Unaware of what had transpired between the nun and the Grand Master. Ray went along Tanya's plan to trying to infiltrate the market of Mondstadt.

They left Mondstadt city first thing in the morning and went west as soon as he left the city gate, trying to find a remote location in Stormbearer Mountain to acquire a temporary base of operation before obtaining an official one.

As expected, this place is mostly infested by Hilichurls and other aggressive faunas. Humans are hardly visible other than at the bottom of the mountain where Favonius Knight patrols the area to prevent monsters and Hilichurls from attacking the nearby settlement and the road toward the city.

"There we go." I sighed with satisfaction after slapping down a modified ward to turn away perception of people with powers like Vision holders.

The Bounded Field the wards attached to are almost a kilometer wide dome that concealed the location of their base of operation.

After that, I begin using Alteration and Tracing in conjunction with my Divinity of Creation to first terraform the land to hollow out a cylindrical shape a kilometer deep and then reinforce the wall along the hole with a titanium alloy wall to prevent caving in. Then start creating the same Homunculus Factory from the Einzbern family on the bottom floor. After that is indoor farms and industrial complex to produce things to equip the Homunculus and to proceed with Tanya's plan. The remaining 300m of space, I split 100m or equivalent of more than 20 floors for myself and the leftover will turn into a residential area.

I once dreamed of having an underground apocalypse bunker just for fun. But, now that I get to do it myself, I think I went overboard…

Looking at the underground waterfall floor, artificial forest floor, snowy floor… Yeah, definitely went overboard at it.

A sudden nausea hit me and forced me to my knees as blood trickled down my nostril.

"Ray?" Tanya and Salter hurried over to help me but I turned away their hands and wiped off the blood before standing again.

"Don't worry. It's just my body on withdrawal after using too much mana." I replied and remind myself that although my mana regenerate infinitely, there is still an amount I can safely use before negative effects start popping out.

"Anyway, let's take a look at our new base." Ray tried to chase away their worry with excitement of their new residence.

There was no door within it's design and the only way in is through teleportation or portal which I opened and invited the two to enter. After that I gave them a tour all the way to the bottom most floor.

Many 'wow' were exclaimed, but the best one was when I showed the various biomes that have a floor dedicated to it. Although only flora without fauna as the latter would take an even greater portion of his mana to create out of nothing. Ray instead planned to fill it with less harmless animals from outside.

After the tour was done, I left them to their device and went to the Homunculus Factory to input the material he brought, mostly genetic materials and start mass producing Homunculus.

If I were to boost the incubation speed with his mana, the time taken for the perfected Homunculus to mature will reduce from three months to mere weeks. In comparison, previous flawed Homunculus with short lifespan can normally mature in weeks and mere hours if quickened.

"A month… That's acceptable." I mumbles and makes a few more fine tuning before leaving.

———

Although Ray completed a hidden base, he didn't decide to stay there yet. Giving favor to Mondstadt Inn simply because his attention is needed over there than here at the base right now.

Following his lead, Tanya, Charlotte and Salter culled the Hilichurls population within the mountain.

The same event repeats itself again and the Hilichurls become increasingly stronger. Which left Ray felt unsettled.

First a Mitachurl, then melee and bow with elemental abilities of Pyro, Cryo and Electro and elemental wielding spell caster Hilichurls. Then strange floating elemental casters. What next? An even stronger Hilichurl king?

At this point, I am too afraid to ask anymore. Afraid that I tempted my fate and jinxed myself.

By the fifth time, it finally stopped and the enemies started to become challenging for Salter as each Hilichurls actually can tank her Mana Burst slash thrice before dying.

As for Mitachurl they encountered, it would be a proper battle that offered a challenge to Salter.

As for myself, I rather not risk causing another spike in difficulty since Tanya had yet to adapt and familiarize herself to the current difficulty.

After hours of purging the local Hilichurls population and capturing some wild life, all three of us reached a river on the left side of the mountain.

"Haa… I think I need a rest to catch my breath." Tanya huffed and gasped for air before finding a place to take a seat and exhaled with relief.

She arguably contributed less than Salter and Charlotte with hunting Hilichurls. But, none is blaming her since she isn't well known to enjoy physical strenuous activity.

"Sure." I replied and looked over to Charlotte and Salter which nodded understandingly and joined Tanya to take a break. "So, how did all three of you feel after hunting down Hilichurls all morning?" I asked while creating a tray of water for everyone and a small table to place it.

"Exhausting." Tanya deadpanned and grabbed a glass to quench her thirst.

"A great little workout to stretch the body." Salter replied which elicited a dirty look from Tanya who was dying of exhaustion to keep up with the rather extreme 'little workout'.

Charlotte just shrugs as she neither felt tired or felt anything else when killing Hilichurls. She only did so because she was given orders to do it. She is happy simply being useful to Ray, anything else is secondary in her mind.

"Well, from today onwards. This would be your daily activity, especially Tanya." I announced which made Tanya look at me with her eyes wide open and gaping mouth, struggling to form an answer.

"What? Why?" She uttered in denial.

"Well, I figured that this is a good opportunity for you to grow stronger, Tanya. Among the three of you, you are the weakest. Not trying to offend you, Tanya. But, you should be aware that with my travel between universes and goals, we will have plenty of encounters with increasingly stronger opponents. If you don't want to be left out from the travels, you must do something to fix your lack of strength." I said with a harsher and more serious tone than usual.

Salter agreed and nodded to my statement along with Charlotte.

"Indeed, Lady Tanya. Although you have been made immortal by Master, you are still susceptible to injury from the enemies that will hinder the battle if you were to be caught and used as leverage against Master." Salter added with a harsh sounding statement but Tanya was able to discern truth from it. "The environment of this world provides plenty of opponents to test and improve your might which Master suggested we take advantage of to grow your strength."

I appreciate Salter's supporting speech and give her a nod of gratitude before looking back at Tanya who is also looking at me while her mind is thinking about mine and Salter's words.

Despite what I just suggested to Tanya along with convincing Salter, I didn't intend to force her to choose only one option. I still have another option for her incase she is unwilling to for whatever reasons.

"I know, I am lacking power to compete on even ground against the three of you. But why do I need to specifically fight against the monsters that populate this world?" Tanya does look offended by the way I and Salter convince her. As we are convincing a stubborn person when she is plentifully aware she needs to increase her strength and she has been doing so with her time away from any duty.

"Isn't there plenty of ways to get stronger other than fighting monsters?" Tanya was talking about the way mages increase their strength by honing their craft, furthering their understanding of magic to increase their power that she is a part of.

"Yes and no." I replied simply.

She looked at me confusedly for my answer.

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly as I said. Yes, you can grow in power simply by having a deeper understanding of your magic. But, it isn't applicable for the magic system created by the Empire."

Tanya was confused by my statement that I do not blame her. I could use the magic system created by the Empire without regard to its restrictions because of my system. It allows me to ignore such limitations but now my system is gone and the magic fell out of use as I switch to using swords right now.

"The school of magic created by the Empire and even the world itself is nothing short of miracles. You had seen first hand how vastly it differs from magecraft. The magic from your world requires its caster to only understand how the phenomena occur and turn it into a mathematical formula to be input into Operation Orb and it will do the rest of the job. You only understand the start and end without needing to understand how the magic comes into existence, the process. Meanwhile Magecraft requires you to understand the start, the process and the finished goods. This one is like crafting manually by hand. You understand the process of how the magic came into realization."

"To compare both would be like comparing a machine made and handcrafted goods. Handcrafted one you can use different crafting methods etc to get better end results while machine made couldn't."

"That's why trying to get better understanding is pointless if the magic system itself is rigid and not flexible to allow you to add your understanding to augment your magic."

I made myself look like a geek as I excitedly shared my knowledge and understanding with fellow spell caster. I explained the weaknesses of magic from Tanya's world and how inflexible it is unlike magecraft.

"At most, I would suggest keeping your current magic as secondary focus because although it's rigid and inflexible, it has advantages of consistency and less focus demanding than magecraft. Good for times of emergency."

Tanya and the other two patiently listened to me sharing my knowledge and clapped at the end.

"I didn't expect you would learn this much about the difference of magic from different worlds." Tanya couldn't hide her amazement for his deep understanding.

Charlotte simply never doubted Ray is the strongest and smartest despite how he denied it.

Salter is comparing Ray to mages she had met in her life. Although not as good as them, Ray was still a fledgling and barely had decades on his belt while other prominent mages she knew had spent their lifetime or hundreds of years to reach their levels unlike Ray.

"As for your previous question about why you must specifically. To answer that question, it seems that slaying them will grant a small amount of energy that strengthens your body. Although miniscule, with enough numbers, the effect can be significant." I explained as Tanya's overall strength increased about half a percent while Salter and Charlotte gained even lesser perhaps because they were already stronger than Tanya.

"Alright then. I will continue this routine." Tanya agreed after being convinced by me.

"Let's return to Mondstadt city and get our commission for all the monsters you girls hunted." I stood up and dismissed the tray and glasses of water.

After showing all the masks and slimes they collected, the amount we earned actually exceeded a million, its 2.4 million Mora total.

Having literal sacks filled with Mora handed to us were very eye catching to the onlookers.

We take it away into a nearby alley and store them away in a storage ring. But Salter took her cut of the reward and immediately beelined to Good Hunter.

———

A week had passed.

Tanya and Salter continue their usual routine, killing monsters and are no longer confined to Stormbearer Mountain because of the lack of monsters to hunt, and they hunt all the way to Galesong Hill, especially Dadaupa Gorge where three big Hilichurls tribes had settled there.

I mostly spend time tuning the Homunculus at Homunculus Factory and studying my affliction or sleepiness.

It turns out that the Sin of Sloth sort of evolved because of the vessel that previously wielded it.

Unlike Sin of Greed that bestows abilities, Sin of Sloth is the ability itself. Its effect is allowing me to use power beyond my limit but forcing me into sleep or afflicting me with laziness until the debt is fully paid. Besides that, willingly indulging the Sin of Sloth can generate charges that can be used to pay the debt the moment it appears.

A very situational ability that I imagine is very useful when fighting against a strong opponent as a trump card.

That pretty much solved my curiosity.

I wonder what would happen if I left it for even longer and let the vessels properly explore the abilities before I harvest them.

For the remainder of the week, Charlotte and I explore the inner city of Mondstadt.

I went past the business districts to enter the headquarters of Favonius Knight and the Church of Favonius. Of course, not directly and instead I visited through the Astral Plane while searching for that bastard Eroch.

I noticed one odd thing during my exploration. Which being chests. There are treasure chests scattered all around the city after I noticed the first one hidden at the top of Favonius Knight headquarter.

I spent hours searching for more in the Physical Plane and yielded great results as I found a dozen more chests tucked in the hidden corner of the city. The odd thing being, the chest would vanish the next day after I opened them.

As for the rewards, I get weird pinkish and blue gems, Mora, weapons and miscellaneous items that I do not know their uses. The only thing that I could use is Mora, quite a disappointment as I stop hunting for more of them.

———

Standing in front of a shop, at the edge of the Mondstadt, is Ray and Charlotte.

Their plan to open a shop that provides cheap necessities none could provide, had come into fruition.

Factory in his base working around the clock manufacturing goods and Mora from daily hunts provide the funds to acquire a shop to sell.

"It's finally done." Tanya and Ray announced while looking proudly at the result of everyone's hard work.

"What's left next is the opening."

"Covered that. I hired people to hand out leaflets to attract customers." Tanya replied with a thumb's up.

"How about the storekeeper?"

"Hired a cashier and a store clerk." Tanya points at the two workers inside that actually are a couple seeking a job and she hired them on the spot yesterday.

"Enough worrying. I got everything covered." Tanya starts to get annoyed by Ray's worrywart tendency before taking him in for a brief tour.

The shop has two floors where the first floor has stuff ranging from simple matchsticks to bags, clothes, heavy duty boots, emergency rations, basic aid kits, etc. Basically the essentials most people of Mondstadt might need, especially the adventurers which are the shop's main target consumers. The second floor has tools ranging from outdoor and indoor cooking utensils, portable lamps, fishing rods, metal bow, crossbow, etc.

There are thought to add foods, but most foods sold by others already miles better. That led Tanya to focus more on other aspects, mainly the needs of adventurers which is the main contributor to the economy of Mondstadt city according to her survey.

Not to mention, the price is rationally low but still profitable due to most of the manufactured goods costing nothing but Mana which Ray has plenty to spare. Literally a scheme to create money out of thin air.

They will only lose the mora spent on buying the building and nothing more even if this fails.

———

It was late in the evening. The entire day was spent preparing the shop for its grand opening tomorrow. Seeing that everyone excluding Salter, Charlotte and myself is tired. I suggest we make a mini celebration at the famous tavern just a few steps down the street to the right of the shop.

"That's a great idea." Tanya chimed in and coyly latched her tired body on me even when her workers were looking.

It isn't a secret already considering Salter addressed him as Master and Tanya as Lady.

The couple working at Tanya's shop though Tanya and I are a young noble from far away land accompanied by a guardian, Salter, to start anew in Mondstadt city after eloping. After all, both of us look similar which causes them to think us to be brother and sister engaging in a forbidden love, then banished from our 'family'.

"How about the two of you? Everything is on me tonight. So, don't worry about the money." I asked them.

The couple looked at each other, communicating silently through expressions and signals for a few moments before looking at me with nods.

"Great. Let's quickly get our job done and close the shop. Then we can have a small celebration party at Angel's Share." I replied with a smile on my face as Tanya quickly jumped out my hand and eager to get the finishing touches done before closing the shop.

She had been overworked with her daily hunting routine, except for today which she spent setting up the shop for opening. Her tired body had been craving alcoholic drinks just like any overworked, salary worker of Japan would enjoy.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this…" I questioned when I felt a sudden chill out of nowhere.

I ignore the odd premonition and offer myself to assist Tanya and her workers. Salter also joined because of the promise of food.

Half an hour later, our group of six including Charlotte decided to join, entered the tavern and immediately greeted with the happy atmosphere of the tavern with plenty of people packed the first floor, drinking or talking while listening to the bards performing.

We made our order before going to the second floor which was sparsely occupied. Only around 8 people.

We sat around the table near the chandelier of candles while listening to the bards below and waited for a few minutes before our order actually arrived.

We feast and drink one of the finest wines Mondstadt could offer. The festive atmosphere lasted the entire night and everyone was thoroughly satisfied.

Such a mundane activity but undeniably very enjoyable that all worries melt away from my mind. I sort of wish my life would remain unchanging just like this forever.

'Right. There's no need for violence. Let all your worries melt away and enjoy it just like this, forever.' An ethereal voice whispered it's honeyed words into my ears, tempting me with promises.

*Crack*

I heard a sound like glass being shattered into a million pieces before a cold sensation washed over my head, bringing back clarity into my bewitched mind.

"Who!" I snarled like an agitated predator, looking left and right around the second floor but found none that looked remotely suspicious. I even used my ability to forcefully scour their mind but end up with nothing.

Meanwhile, on the first floor. A bard with black hair and two braids that faded to blue at its tip, quickly left the tavern with a visibly strained and ugly expression, breathing erratically and holding back pain as he escaped this place with urgency.

"What's wrong, Ray?" Tanya asked worriedly after seeing a sudden outburst from Ray.

Thankfully the couple had left earlier because they couldn't drink anymore, afraid they wouldn't be at their best for tomorrow's opening.

I scanned my surroundings a bit more before I sat back down and restrained my anger that directed mainly at myself for dropping my guard.

Thankfully, the assailant targeted me instead of anyone else. I have protection towards mind controlling abilities thanks to Third Magic.

"Nothing to worry about." I calmed myself and took a seat.

Tanya however, still worried and didn't buy my words at all. I rarely get angry. But, when I did. I have a good reason to. Added to my sudden outburst, it's safe to say something had happened which I am unwilling to share with her.

She stared at me defiantly, wanting to know what had spooked me that badly. I could only sigh at her persistence.

"I will talk about it later. But, for now. Let's return." I urged everyone to finish up quickly and return to the inn that I had extended the rent duration.

—————