Genshin Impact: Stealing Powers

I awake on a beach with a mouthful of sand. While it's not exactly where I expected to end up after a week long bender, I've woken up in worse places, so it isn't very worrying.

Waves lap softly behind me, washing over my feet and dragging sand back into the sea-ocean. It's a sight for sore eyes, to be sure, azure water, scalding sun on a sky bare of clouds, it's all very pretty. Sadly I have no time to take in the sights as a club slams against the sand with a thud that shakes my brain inside its cage.

My brain is still swimming with dead brain cells murdered at the hand of poor life decisions, and I just narrowly avoid the next couple of strikes like a game of whack a mole, where I am the mole trying to not get its head bashed in.

I decided I've had enough, and in an action that should realistically require more brain power than I have access to, I push myself to my feet. This fails spectacularly and I double over and fall backwards into the water with a grace rarely heard of, much less encountered.

I sit up and stare at my would be killer, a strangely furry ape wearing a mask with horns. It seems to lack basic mental faculties, chanting gibberish and swinging its club around with reckless abandon for itself and basic decency. It seems to wield its weapon as well as a monkey would wield an ak-47.

It doesn't exactly strike me instantly, as it still feels like someone's drilling nails into my skull, but it clicks after a while that what I'm looking at is something I've seen before. Only, in a video game as opposed to on national geographic. At this point, I question whether I'm still on coke or ketamine or whatever I had last night, but another plunge into the pleasantly cool water proves otherwise.

This bloodthirsty animal is no animal at all, but a hillichurl, the weakest mob in Genshin Impact. This proves either of two things: I've gone insane, or I've been inexplicably transported to Teyvat. Both are terrifying notions, but none as terrifying as getting my skull caved in by a club.

I narrowly duck, throwing my sluggish body to the side. The churl steps into the water and, sensing an opportunity, I grab it by the ankle and yank as hard as I can muster. The club slams against my collarbone, but the beast splashes into the shallow waters with a startled scream. My body is slow and weak, so as I try to dunk its head in the water and keep it there, it manages to elbow me in the ribs. My chest flares with pain, but I don't release my grip, instead, I throw my whole weight forward and atop the churl, keeping its head firmly below the water line.

It doesn't give up easily, and it flails and kicks and screams. Bubbles rage to the surface of the water, but it cannot reach me. I feel the now damp fur on its head between my fingers, the sand beneath my feet.

In a sudden movement, the churl stops panicking and moves its hands under its body, then it pushes up. My breath catches as I'm thrown away from the back of the beast, losing my chance.

Heart racing, lungs tightening, I freeze for a few crucial moments while its back is still turned from me. I recognize now that this thing will kill me. I can't run, my legs won't let me, and I can't fight without a weapon.

Then I notice the brown club laying just where the water meets the shore, the churl probably dropped it in its desperate flailing.

I haste to grab it, and just as my hand clutches the rough handle of the weapon, my ribs flare again with pain. I don't see what hit me, but I am thrown a good few paces up the beach, picking up coarse sand like a lint roller as I ragdoll up the beach.

I try to stand again, to regain some sort of position, but my body betrays me in my hour of need, and I stumble back to the sand where I once woke. The churl is walking towards me, and though I can't see beyond its mask, I can tell it is not pleased.

In a fleeting moment of vain anger and hopeless ambition, I muster all the strength left in my body. I clench my teeth, molars grinding against each other, and prop myself up on the club.

It sees this as a provocation. The churl seethes, and rushes towards me. The one thing I focus on in this last stand is the way its feet kick up the sand, creating small pockets of dust. Then, without so much as looking to where I'm aiming, I shift my balance and take the swing.

I feel the reverberation of skull cracking in my arm going all the way to my shoulder as the hilichurl's own club slams against its head with a meaty thud. It staggers and falls down to its knees in the sand. Now it is quiet. But it is not dead.

I bring the club over my head and swing. Then again. And again. And again until my arms burn and the hilichurls head is nothing but a pulp.

I too drop to my knees as my grip around the club loosens. I heave for air, the reality of what I've done and how close I've come to dying slowly catching up.

I spit on its corpse and stand up, though my vision still swims with stars.

Like steam, a white, ghastly aura rises from the beast's corpse. It is ethereal, as though made from foggy moonlight, and it flows like a gentle river. I watch, mesmerized by the sight.

A few feet above the body, the aura converges and congeals into a single point, the threads of magic wrapping around themselves and shrinking until all that is left is a tiny milky marble suspended in mid air.

I approach the marble, ribs screaming with every step I take. The thing is tiny, smaller than the nail on my pinky, but it exudes a feeling of immense power. I pinch it between my fingers, watching the gentle waves of the sea through the marble. I have no clue what to do with it.

Well, I'm no stranger to ingesting mysterious substances, so down the hatch it goes. I place the marble on my tongue and swallow. It goes down smoothly, thankfully.

For a while, I feel nothing, and I fear I've just ingested glass. But then, a few seconds later, a striking sensation of warmth wraps around my whole body, then coils around my broken ribs. The searing pain I felt not a few seconds ago shrinks, dulling until nothing is left.

I feel the skin on my chest, prodding at my once broken ribs only to find intact and rigid bones.

It is only now that I notice my stark nakedness, as my hand doesn't pass through a shirt, just merely touches skin. Just one thing after another, really.

I sigh and slip off the churl's singular piece of clothing and use it to cover my privates, conserving what dignity I have left.

The warmth hasn't completely left my body, though most of it was used to heal my wounds, some remained. It slowly escapes my skin like boiling sweat. Not wanting to let go, I focus on the feeling of warmth and try guiding it mentally.

The aura obeys my commands, though not without considerable mental effort on my part. I gather the substance from every extremity of my body and make it converge just below my navel, where I make it form a circle resembling the marble. It isn't easy, like I'm trying to move viscous syrup through a pinhole, but eventually I forge myself something resembling a core. Cultivators would be proud.

It's small, barely visible in my mind's eye, but it's there, and the aura now diffuses at a much slower rate than before.

It takes a while for the absurdity of it all to sink in, but by that point, I don't even have the mental capacity to be shocked anymore. My body is still sore, tired, thirsty, and most importantly, hungry.

The sun is still scalding, and the waves are still crashing. I look away from the sea, and spot a forest beyond windswept cliffs.

I was never meant to be in the wild, to be a survivalist. But now I have to survive. It goes against my whole purpose, if I'm being honest. Humans aren't born with a purpose, but I have forged one for myself, and this isn't it. There's no opportunity for reckless hedonism. Just sea and forest and cliffs and hills and it's all so beautiful that I might cry.

But I don't cry. My systems shut down and I crash against the sand once more.