AN: Thanks for the review! I'll try to continue this when I have free time but don't expect anything regular. Anyways, here's the guide which will be in every chapter for easy reference.

Normal Text - Descriptions, Narration, and Character thoughts

"Quoted Text" - Character Dialogue

Bold Text - Emphasis, mostly used within dialogue.

Bold + Italicized - System UI

(Bold + Italicized) - Items within System UI messages

Italicized - Item names and descriptions

Now on with the story!

Chapter 2: More game mechanics, because why not?

"Are you sure you're ok? Paimon was surprised when you started screaming out of nowhere."

"I'm…better now. Thanks Paimon."

"Paimon thinks that you should probably eat! After all, people get moodier when they're on an empty stomach!"

Aether was about to protest when he saw a tree with that reddish fruit he'd been eating a lot lately. Right on cue, his belly rumbled.

"Alright, guess a snack won't hurt."

"Oh, save some food for Paimon too!"

"Alright, alright."

Aether approached the tree and started scaling it. As soon as his hand reached out for the fruit, however, yet more text appeared on his vision, which he was pretty sure was the "game" user interface. At least, that's what he's going to call it now.

Sunsettia

Was that the name of the fruit? Huh. Well, he could see why. The top was yellow, and it faded to red as it went down, similar to an actual sunset.

Grabbing the sunsettia, his eyes flew to the right as a new window popped up on his user interface, which showed the picture of the Sunsettia, along with a short description.

"Huh, neat."

He grabbed 2 more sunsettias, then dropped back down. Tossing one sunsettia to Paimon (who devoured it in a matter of seconds, Aether wonders how she does that), he started munching on the other. The sweet taste managed to distract him from the chaos that was his mind.

"So, do you mind telling Paimon why you were freaking out earlier?"

Aether shortly pondered if he should tell Paimon about his discovery of a user interface now integrating on his vision, but figured he'd have to tell Paimon sooner or later. May as well do it now. How was he going to explain it, though…?

"If it's a personal secret, it's fine not to tell Paimon."

"No, it's fine, I'm just finding the words to explain what happened. It's sort of complicated."

"Will it make Paimon's head hurt?"

"Well, I guess we'll find out."

Aether sat down on the grass, and got into a comfortable position. This was gonna be a long story.

"So basically, I think I gained some kind of new ability."

"Oooh, really? What is it? Is it powerful?"

"How do I explain it? It fills my vision with a bunch of interactive tools? I have access to a map and an inventory as of now, and I haven't checked what the last tool was. The map lets me see the surrounding area, or at least it should, but it's blank for some reason. Do you recall the strange object I interacted with earlier?"

"Paimon remembers. Your expression looked really confused and for a while your face was blank. Paimon has no idea what you were doing."

"Well, apparently that object is a Teleport Waypoint, and it gives me the ability to automatically teleport to its location. I haven't tried it out, though…"

"Oh! Paimon thinks that will be a very useful ability! If you find any more of those strange objects, you should interact with them! They'll be very useful for getting around!"

"Noted. Anyway, I also have an inventory that lets me keep stuff in an extra-dimensional space. Technically this was one of my old powers but the ability let me visualize it and organize it."

"Ohh, is that how you managed to pull that sword out of nowhere earlier? Paimon was wondering about that…"

"Yep. And…well, I'm still discovering stuff about my ability, so if I look confused and my face goes blank that's probably me figuring things out. The ability also gets in the way of my line of sight sometimes as well, but I'm guessing you can't see it."

"Yeah…Paimon didn't see anything weird in front of your face."

Aether and Paimon sat there in silence. Well, technically paimon was in a sitting position while floating, but it was basically the same thing.

He'll have to set some time later to explore this new ability. Maybe when he isn't busy.

In any case, he had to move. His new quest told him to follow the path, so he got up and started doing exactly that.

They walked in silence. Aether had to admit that he was too busy appreciating the scenery. That beach-like area was pretty nice, but this was also a nice change in scenery, he had to admit. He'd been in many worlds while traveling with his sister, but after a while of world-hopping, all the environments became a blur.

He started to see the tree-lined path ease up. Continuing along the path, he notices that the quest text had changed.

Bird's Eye View

Go to Paimon

Bird's Eye View, huh? Ahead of him was what was probably the edge of a cliff, and Paimon was floating near the edge. As he came closer to the edge, a breathtaking view came into sight.

"Oh wowwww!"

Aether was in agreement with Paimon. He could see the landscape ahead. Cliffs outlined the sides of his view. A small island could be seen, and you couldn't ignore the city that could be seen, even if it was way in the distance.

But he set his sights on the island. There was nothing remarkable about the island itself, but for some reason there was a pillar-like structure with a red beam of light coming out of it.

"Paimon, what's that thing on the island?"

"Oh that? That's a Statue of The Seven."

Paimon proceeded to tell Aether about the Seven Archons, and how their statues were scattered all across the world. The Statue of the Seven on that island was that of the Anemo God. After what happened to him and his sister he found it hard to trust gods, but it takes a god to know another god, so perhaps he could get some information from this one.

"Paimon will take you to Mondstadt, the Anemo God's place. Not only is it the nearest, but there'll definitely be someone who knows your sister there!"

It wasn't a 100% chance that he'll find his sister there, but he may as well. Plus, he was sick of sleeping in the wild. Those boars were not fun to deal with.

"Anyway, Paimon thinks you should touch the Statue of Seven there first. Maybe something similar to what happened earlier with the teleport waypoint will happen."

Or he could be struck down by the Anemo God for daring to touch his Statue, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't happen.

He managed to follow the path down, and was going to follow it when something shiny caught his eye. Approaching it, he reached out and found

Berry

Oooh, more food. He wasn't sure if berries could be eaten raw, though. Either way, he pocketed it into his extra-dimensional inventory.

After a while, he arrived at the edge of the water. Across the water was the island with the Statue of the Seven.

"You can swim, right?"

"Yes, Paimon, I can swim. If anything, you should be careful not to fall in, or I'll have to fish you out again."

"Hey! That was only one time! Paimon won't let it happen again!"

As Aether entered the water and began to swim, he noted the appearance of yet another bar in his vision. It was vertical, slightly curved, yellow, and decreased as he swam.

After seeing what happened to the bar of that blue slime he killed, he decided it was for the best that the bar didn't deplete.

He managed to reach the edge of the island. Stepping out of the water, he noted the fact that his outfit was already drying. Meanwhile, Paimon has successfully avoided becoming one with the water and made it across.

Usually he'd ask Paimon if that was normal, but after the realization that his ability resembled a video game user interface, he decided to just leave it to game logic. He didn't want to break down and scream his lungs out again.

He approached the Statue carefully. Now that he could see it up close, the structure was clearly a statue. It was a hooded figure with wings, holding a sphere, perhaps a wind ball? There was a golden section of the statue, so he touched his hand on it.

A part of the golden area he touched lit up green. Stepping back, he could see the statue briefly be engulfed in wind, before it died down. A bunch of particles coalesced on the sphere the statue was holding, before it burst into a teal-green ball with a strange symbol on it. He watched as the ball slowly made its merry way to him, before colliding with his chest.

Aether didn't have time to register if he was in fact being punished for touching the statue when he felt a strange power well up in him. His vision was suddenly filled with the blank map from earlier, and it was suddenly filled with a map of the terrain. It was nowhere complete, as a significant portion of the map was still void, but it was a start.

Looking at the map, he noted the gray icons, similar to the blue one which he saw when he activated the teleport waypoint. Unactivated teleport waypoints, no doubt. He also noted some grayed out diamonds, not too different from the yellow one he saw on Paimon a while back. A bunch of areas' names were also revealed.

The city was indeed Mondstadt. He was currently at Starfell Lake, though calling it a lake was a bit generous. Looks like the beach area was near Stormbearer Point, though he did not know it was called that if there weren't even any storms while he was there. Looks like if he kept up his path, then made a right, he'll be on his way to the city.

Willing his map to disappear, he noted the text telling him he was Adventure Rank 2, whatever that was. He was more focused on what happened with the statue.

"Oooh, did you feel the elements of this world?"

"I'm not exactly sure what the elements in this world are, exactly."

This was true. Magic was not a new concept to Aether. But he'd noticed that different worlds had different forms of magic. Most of them had elements such as fire and wind, but aside from that, elements across worlds weren't exactly uniform. Most had water, with ice as a subset of water magic. Others had ice as a separate element, and there were even worlds where ice replaced water entirely. Lightning magic could be its own thing in one world, a subset of wind magic in another world, and even a subset of fire in that world with only four elements and something called an avatar. Earth magic was also pretty common, though sometimes it was just called land magic, and holy and unholy magic were commonly more elite magic elements.

"Well, anyway, Paimon thinks that the Anemo God blessed you with Anemo powers!"

Huh. He'd never heard of Anemo before, but it could be another name for a common element. That was also a thing.

"Paimon, what exactly is Anemo?"

"Oh, they're powers of the Wind! That's why Mondstadt is the city of the wind!"

Well that confirmed it.

"It looks like you only had to touch the statue and you gained the power of Anemo! You're lucky! Some people can't use magic no matter how much they want to!"

Ah, so one of those worlds.

Wait, how did he even gain it in the first place…?

Did he get this ridiculous luck because he was a video game character?

Before he could freak out about his possible powers of plot armor and ridiculous OP abilities, Paimon spoke.

"Mondstadt is the city of wind because they worship the God of Anemo there. Paimon thinks this is a sign that the Anemo God is helping you, so you should head there. Plus, there are lots of bards in Mondstadt, so one of them has probably heard of your sister!"

Well that was a lot more reassuring.

He was about to start walking when he noticed new text pop up in his vision.

Concentrate the Anemo energy into your palm to unleash an Elemental Skill!

An orange slime appeared. It had the same "Lvl. 2" text as the blue slime from earlier, but instead of the blue water-like symbol, it was an orange symbol that was probably fire. Maybe a fire slime.

Anyway, the fire slime was attacking him. He did exactly what the text said and concentrated the new energy within him to his palm.

"Windblade!"

And a gust of wind went flying from his palm, sending the offending slime flying and disappearing. Poor slime.

Also, 2 teal particles appeared and flew into him. He didn't know what they were, but they were probably related to his new wind power.

Immediately, 2 more fire slimes appeared.

Concentrate the Anemo energy into your palm longer to charge your Elemental Skill!

Wow. Aether was now sure this was a tutorial so he could learn how to use his powers, but really? Concentrate longer? Couldn't the person coming up with these tutorials be a little bit more specific?

Anyway, the fire slimes were attacking him, so he concentrated on holding the anemo energy into his palm longer.

Several waves of wind burst forth from his hand, slowly damaging the slimes, before he let the energy loose, sending the offending slimes flying and disappearing. More teal-green particles flying into him.

Oh, and it looks like he spread the fire from the slimes as well. The grass around him was burning. He made sure to avoid the fire lest he get burned, even if he did, his clothes would probably be fine. If they couldn't be wet, they probably couldn't get burnt either.

Suddenly, 3 more fire slimes appeared.

Concentrate on the charged Anemo energy within you to unleash your Elemental Burst!

What.

Well, no time to waste. He felt additional anemo energy within him, perhaps from the teal-green particles from earlier.

"With the wind!"

Aether leaped and sent a mini-tornado flying into the slimes' path, lifting them and carrying them into the lake, where they died.

Oh yeah, those weird numbers still appeared when he hit things. They were teal green this time though. Maybe because he used anemo to attack them.

He also saw some numbers in orange, and the word Swirl kept appearing. Strange.

Then, several things happened at once.

First, he received an achievement.

Achievement Completed

Let the Wind Lead

Then he saw that he gained a new item. Teyvat Fried Egg. Sweet Madame. Well, he can't say no to more food.

Lastly, while he was processing this, Paimon began talking.

"Looks like these are the powers you gained! Paimon is so jealous! Why doesn't Paimon get cool fighting powers?"

He didn't have time to answer that, as he was barraged by more tutorials.

Imagine Paimon appearing to call out your menu!

Ok, that's it. What the heck.

Why did imagining Paimon activate the menu of all things? Who made this system anyway? Not that he hated Paimon, but it seemed too random…

He decided to give it a shot, and lo and behold, Paimon did appear. Not only that though. The left hand side of his vision was filled with a menu. And hold up, did time just stop?

Game logic, right. Don't question it, or you'll have another breakdown.

Ignoring this, he examined the menu options.

Party Setup

Wait, what? He knew what a party was, but he didn't think he'd be in one. Oh well, two heads are better than one.

Friends

Uhhh what? Maybe this had something to do with the people he'll meet? Guess he'll also have to check that one out later.

Achievements

Along with a red circle with an exclamation point on it. He did get an achievement, so he'll probably check it out later.

Characters

What? Why was there a Characters tab if there was already a Friends tab? He was so confused.

Character

Wow. Just, wow. Seeing as his head was the icon here, it probably referred to him personally. Cool. Also, it was the same as the one in the upper right of his vision. Probably a shortcut..

Inventory

Huh. Well, at least he knew what this one did.

Quests

Probably had something to do with the text below the map telling him to do stuff. He'll have to check this one. If this was a game, there's a story. Which meant he'll probably be able to find his sister if he followed the story.

He hoped.

Map

Again, he knew what this one was.

Feedback

To who? Could he contact the person who made this system? If so, he had a few words.

"Aether, your face is blank again. What's going on with your ability?"

Aether sighed as he realized he was going to have to explain all of this to Paimon again.

Huh, looks like I'm a lot less busy than I thought.

Well anyway, welcome to Author's area. Hope you liked the new chapter! And also, please don't ask for daily uploads. Please.

We are in the tutorial spam phase of the game. Please bear with me as I try to drag this story onward.

Oh, but the Party system will come into play in the next chapter! Look forward to that at least!

And as always, have a nice day.

-Author