And we're back for yet another chapter! Before we start with the chapter I have a short announcement.

I have determined that we'll be here for ages if the pacing of this story continues as is. So I'm thinking of speeding things up by brushing off some of the details in the main story quests. This story is meant to be about Aether reacting to the game elements of Genshin Impact, not a novelization of the game. Still, with how close those two concepts are, I might end up crossing that barrier. As usual, feel free to say if it's becoming too story focused.

Well, enough of that. Let the story continue!

Text Guide

Normal Text - Descriptions, Narration, and Character thoughts

"Quoted Text" - Character Dialogue

Bold Text - Emphasis, mostly used within dialogue.

Bold + Italicized - System UI

Italicized - Items names, both inside and outside System UI

"Italicized Quoted Text" - Internal Dialogue

Chapter 5 - Finishing up the first act, because we spent way too much time on this - Part I

The first thing on Aether's mind as soon as he exited the knights of Favonius headquarters was finding a place to crash and rest. Cleansing those temples was important, yes, but he really wanted to secure some lodging before that.

Paimon, however, had other ideas.

"From now on, our adventures are going to get a lot more dangerous. We should prepare first. We could start by going to Mondstadt's blacksmith."

"Good to know, Paimon, but can we find a place to stay for the night first?"

"Hey! We agreed to help them, remember?"

As if agreeing with Paimon, the system immediately gave him a new quest.

Sharpening the Axe Won't Hinder the Work

Talk to Wagner the Blacksmith

"Nevermind, we're going to the blacksmith."

As much as Aether wanted to find a place to stay, the quests took precedence. Anything to get stronger was needed if he wanted to find his twin sister. For all he knew, he'd have to fight level 100 bosses with nothing but a sword.

"To be fair, Paimon has a point. Those temples probably have monsters in them, so you should be sure to prepare. We need proper weapons, healing…"

Jean immediately went into leader mode and started assembling a list of things they needed to prepare. She wasn't the Acting Grandmaster for nothing.

As she was doing this, Aether made his way towards the blacksmith Paimon was talking about, guided by the magic yellow diamond that Aether determined was the quest marker. The system may be confusing and reality-breaking, but at least it made the process of finding his sister more straightforward.

Finally arriving at the blacksmith, who was named Wagner, he triggered the quest.

"Excuse me, I heard you deal with weapons?"

Wagner looked up from his work.

"I do. What do you need? A new weapon? Or crystals to improve your existing ones?"

Aether paused for a moment as he considered his options. He already got weapons from the gacha, so he didn't need new weapons.

"The latter, please."

"Do you have any ore, then?"

But of course. It wasn't as simple as going to the blacksmith and asking him to improve his weapons. Of course there was a multi-step process. Sighing internally, he asked.

"Oh, I don't. Where do I get it?"

"Anywhere, everywhere."

Aether managed to prevent himself from making an annoyed face as he internally wondered why the heck every single tutorial he got so far was so vague.

"You look confused. Listen up, I'll tell you where the nearest deposits are. Bring some back, and I can make the crystals you need."

"Oh, thanks…"

"No need. Now get moving. I have things to do."

And with that, the conversation ended, and the magic marker appeared on his map. Time to get moving then.

"He seemed a bit short-tempered. Is he always like that?"

Amber was the first to respond.

"Yeah, he's like that. But that's just because he's so focused on his work. Idle chit-chat distracts him, so he likes to keep conversations short."

"I see. At least he told me where to get the ore."

"Yes, he's a caring person. He even made the greatsword I use, though it took several tries. I broke all the ones he made for me before that because I was too strong…"

Noelle chipped in with her own story about Wagner.

"I see. In any case, we need 3 Iron Ores, so let's get it."

Aether finally arrived at the place where the Iron Ore deposits are, when he realized that there was a problem.

"How do we mine the ore? It's not like we have pickaxes, unless…"

Aether attempted to hit the ore with his sword, and was met with a health bar that was three-quarters full..

"Oh gosh, don't tell me I have to do this three more times."

"Oh, if it's mining ore, leave it to me!"

Noelle volunteered to help.

"Alright, go ahead."

Aether made the mental order to switch in Noelle, and soon enough, Noelle was on the ground. She grabbed her new club and hit the ore, which was promptly displaced from its position and fell on the ground.

"Well that was fast. I didn't know you could mine ore with a club quickly…the more you know, I guess."

Aether took note of that, while Noelle proceeded to demolish all the iron ore in the area.

"There you go, Aether. I mined up more than 3 Iron Ores just in case."

"Thanks, Noelle. I'm switching back in."

And with that, Aether was back on the ground and making his way back to Wagner, who was still working on whatever he was working on. As Aether arrived, Wagner spoke up.

"What do you want?"

"I'm back with the ore."

"Ah, right. I remember that. Hmm, decent I guess. I can make something out of this, I guess."

Aether was about to ask how the heck he was able to assess the ore if he hadn't even brought it out yet when he was greeted by a new screen.

There was only one option available, which was Enhancement Ore, so he selected that. It took all of 5 seconds before it was ready, and he collected the ore.

"Alright, thanks."

"If you ever find more ore in the future, feel free to come see me. Preferably when I'm not busy."

"I see. Well, I won't disturb you further then. See you."

And with those words, he completed the quest. Hooray.

Now, how to enhance his weapons?

He navigated to the Weapons part of his menu, where he selected his weapons originally, and checked his options. Sure enough, there was an Enhance option.

Now another issue arose. Whose weapon was he enhancing?

"Alright guys. Who needs their weapon to be enhanced?"

"I'd appreciate having a better bow!"

"I'd like my club to be strong so I don't break it…but of course Miss Amber takes precedence,"

"Wouldn't it be more prudent to enhance everyones' weapons equally?"

Jean came in and squashed any potential squabbles within the party with that one sentence.

"Good point. Thanks, Jean."

He enhanced everyones' weapons after that.

"Alright, now to finally hit the temples. Is everyone ready?"

"Just to check, but do we have proper healing?" That was Jean.

"I have some Chicken-Mushroom Skewers and Radish Veggie Soups. We should be fine."

"That's just normal food."

"Well, according to the system, it's healing. 10% of Max HP plus 1,200 HP to the selected character, apparently."

"...what?"

Right, it was described in game terms. Of course Jean wouldn't get it.

"It's healing, okay? I ate an Apple after getting hit in the head by a hilichurl and I became fine!"

He wondered if his party thought he was insane.

"Well, if it is healing according to the system, and we're bound by the system…then it should do."

That saved a lot of trouble. Thanks, Jean.

"Alright. We should learn how to fight as a group first. There should be a hilichurl camp on the way here where we can test that."

Right. He needed to know everyones' abilities.

"Alright, since you know where the camp is, I'll let you take control."

With Jean on the ground, Aether started assessing everyones' roles.

"Can any of you guys heal as part of your abilities? Because we only have so much food."

"Unfortunately, no." Amber sounded disappointed that she couldn't heal.

"I can, but it's only a chance whenever I hit with my shield enabled…" Noelle chipped in with an explanation of her ability.

"You have a shield?" Aether asked. This could be big.

"Yes, but I can only activate it once every 24 seconds, and it only lasts half that…"

"Good enough. You're in charge of taking the big hits then. Is that alright?"

"Anything to help!"

"Alright, just to finish you off, what's your special ability, Noelle?"

"Well, I can imbue Geo onto all my attacks for a short time…"

"Cool, thanks. Amber, what are your abilities?'

"I can throw an explosive Baron Bunny which taunts enemies."

"A what?"

"It's a stuffed bunny doll which blows up after ten seconds."

"Ok…? And your special ability?" Aether was severely confused but pressed on.

"I can fire a rain of pyro arrows in a certain area."

"That'll do. Jean?"

"I can summon a small whirlwind with my free hand to launch enemies. I can also hold that whirlwind for longer to group them up. As for my special ability, I can create a field around me that deals continuous wind damage and heal others at the same time."

"Oh, you can also heal? Nice."

As Jean made her way to the camp, Aether tried to figure out how he should use everyone effectively. With the ability to swap between different characters while fighting, it opened up several possibilities. But taking into account the different abilities of everyone…

"Alright, guys, listen up. Here's the game plan."

"What is it?" Jean asked.

"We start with Noelle, who immediately puts up her shield. Then, we have Amber throw her…Baron Bunny?"

"Yep!"

"Then Jean can group up all the enemies to put them in range of the Baron Bunny while damaging them. Once it blows up, I can come in and finish everyone off. We heal as necessary. Any objections?"

There were no objections.

They finally arrived at the hilichurl camp, where Aether decided to give everyone a pep talk.

"Alright everyone, listen up. We went over the plan, so all I have to say is do our best and don't forget the plan!"

It wasn't the most inspirational speech ever, but it served its purpose. Noelle was slightly nervous, Amber was raring to go, and Jean was calm as usual. So basically, nothing new.

"Let's go. Noelle, you're up."

"Right. I won't let you down."

Noelle switched in and approached the camp. Immediately, the hilichurls were on their feet.

"Yar!"

She immediately summoned her shield, just as an arrow came in, fired from a hilichurl shooter. Fortunately, it merely bounced off.

"That was close! Amber, switch in!" Aether gave the order as Amber went in.

"Go Go Baron Bunny!"

Amber threw an explosive doll on the ground, which immediately attracted the attention of several hilichurls with clubs, who proceeded to attack it.

"Alright Jean, you're up!"

Jean switched in and immediately pulled most of the hilichurls in. The hilichurls could do nothing but struggle as they were sucked in by Jean's whirlwind.

She then released the whirlwind and backed away as Amber's bunny exploded in spectacular fashion, taking most of the hilichurls along with it. Only the shooter from earlier remained.

"Aether, finish this!" This time, Jean was giving the order as Aether switched in and finished off the hilichurl.

"Windblade!"

Aether summoned wind from his palm and demolished the remaining hilichurl, ending the battle.

"Alright, that's a wrap. Good job everyone." Aether said this as he picked up all the drops. What the heck would he do with a Damaged Mask?

"I think we've established that we're ready for the temples. Let's move." Jean said.

And with that, they made their way to the first temple, where Aether was supposed to meet Amber.

"Aether, there you are!"

"Yeah, sorry I took a while. I had to make some preparations."

"It's fine, it's good to be prepared. There's definitely monsters inside. But still…even Stormterror has given up on its own temple…"

"It's its own temple?"

"Yes. I find it hard to believe, but Stormterror was once one of the Four Winds of Mondstadt…"

"Ehhh?" Paimon reappeared to say that.

"Jeez, you surprised me Paimon. I forgot you were there!" Aether said.

"Hey, Paimon's not that forgettable! Paimon's your travel guide and don't you forget it!"

"Yeah, yeah."

Meanwhile, Amber's expression suddenly changed.

"Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Aether was pretty sure he didn't feel anything.

"The wind here…something's off. Let's go in. Be careful though. The dragon's power is present in this area."

And with that, Aether went into the temple. Which was apparently called Temple of the Falcon.

He was going to have to ask everyone for an explanation after all this ended.

Inside "Aether's Mindspace", which was what Amber called the area they were in, Amber, Noelle, and Jean were observing the events that were happening.

"Man, it feels weird to see me from another person's view." Amber commented.

"It feels weird knowing that there's two versions of you, Outrider Amber." Jean replied.

"You aren't wrong…almost makes me wonder if I'm real…"

Amber unknowingly dropped an existential crisis bombshell on the party.

"Uhh, Miss Amber…I don't think I want to think about that right now." Noelle said this while trying to forget what Amber just said.

"Yes, I have to agree with Noelle here. That train of thought could lead us down a very dark path…"

In truth, none of them fully understood what was going on with them. All they knew was that they had normal lives before suddenly being placed in this situation.

But back to the current situation, Aether had just opened up a door using some strange console and was immediately greeted by another screen with some text, which Aether read through quite quickly.

"Amber, you're up. Can you burn the branches ahead? They're combustible, apparently."

"Oh, sure!"

Amber switched in, nocked an arrow, let it catch on fire, and fired at the branches, which were promptly set on fire. After the flames died down, she was greeted by the sight of a chest.

"Ooh, wonder what's in here?' Amber opened it up and found a random assortment of items. Some mora, a couple of sigils, a few pieces of paper, and a handkerchief. Huh.

"That's some pretty decent loot. Better than nothing, I guess. Are there any more combustible objects?" Aether relayed this after seeing the loot she got.

Eyeing the area, she saw a couple of barrels and crates, as well as the path ahead which was blocked by the branches.

"There's some, why'd you ask?"

"Burn it down."

"All of it?" Amber was confused on why Aether wanted to commit arson on some random wooden objects lying around in an abandoned temple.

"All of it."

"Alrighty then." Amber nocked several arrows and proceeded to set every flammable object in the area on fire.

After the fire settled, all Amber found was a carrot. What was that doing here?

"Ooh, a carrot. We wouldn't have found that if we let everything be. Good job."

Amber silently wondered what kind of experiences Aether had to know that burning objects led to loot. Maybe he met some people from Natlan? Those people loved their fire.

Proceeding ahead, she found her path blocked by more branches, which she again set on fire. Why were they here anyway? There was no soil for them to grow!

"By any chance, can Stormterror's powers cause random flora to sprout?" Aether asked.

"Not that I know of, but we don't know a lot about Stormterror's power to begin with, so…"

Jean replied, failing to come up with a fulfilling answer.

In any case, the branches were promptly burned down, clearing the way and activating something called a Door of Resurrection if the system was anything to go by.

Amber was about to advance when she was greeted by even more text from the system, which she read through. While she didn't understand the system, it seemed to sort of guide them and give them tips. How useful.

After reading through everything, the system made her activate Elemental Sight.

"Aether, can you switch in for this? It's asking me to activate something called Elemental Sight…"

"Sure thing."

Aether switched in and somehow activated it. Suddenly, his vision changed, the world became less saturated, and certain objects became green. Probably the flammable objects.

"Alright, the green objects are flammable. Amber, do your thing."

"Right. How'd you activate it anyway?"

"Just imagine yourself doing it."

"Seriously, that's it?"

"Unbelievably, yes."

"I wish I could do that to fly…"

Amber switched back in and set every flammable object in the area on fire, starting with the shield of the Wooden Shield Hilichurl.

"So how do we deal with the hilichurl?"

"I'll do it." Aether said this while switching in.

He then proceeded to jump and plunge from above, taking the unfortunately placed hilichurl by surprise, as it received a sword to the head and was thrown back.

"Huh, it lived."

It did, for about three more seconds, as Aether finished the hilichurl off, opening up a chest and triggering more hilichurls to arrive.

"Oh no, a horn!"

"Outrider Amber, was that you?" Jean asked.

"Oh yeah, that was my voice. But I didn't say anything. It presumably came from the real Amber, but we can't see her for some reason? It happened once already when I was guiding him around the city, and we concluded that we didn't know how it was happening."

"Come to think of it, where are you in the real world? I thought you would accompany Aether in exploring the temple." Jean brought up a question that absolutely no one thought of for some reason.

"Huh, good question…it's not like I skipped work or anything."

"Have you ever skipped work, Outrider Amber?"

"Huh?! Of course not, Acting Grandmaster!" Amber frantically denied what Jean said.

"Then why…?

"Hey guys, I know you want to theorize on all this, and I'm just as curious as you are, but can we leave that for after we're done fighting?"

Aether interrupted the conversation while he was fighting two hilichurls at once. They came after he beat up the first one.

"Oh, sorry Aether!"

"Apologies, Aether."

Two apologies and a couple sword swings later, Teyvat now had two less hilichurls to deal with.

Aether surveyed the area and found a branch wall covering a small stone wall that couldn't be seen from where Amber was earlier. In front of the branches were a couple of red barrels that looked rather conveniently placed. Almost like someone placed them there…

"What are those red barrels?" Aether made this inquiry while having a slight feeling on what the red barrels were.

"Explosive barrels. One hit and they blow up. Why are those here…?" Jean replied and immediately brought up another question that probably would lead to even more questions.

"Alright, Amber, you know the drill."

"Gotcha."

Amber switched in and blew up the barrels, collapsing the stone and revealing yet another chest, which Amber prompt looted.

"Oh, did you get the chest from earlier?" Noelle asked.

"Oh yeah right, the one covered with those weird rune symbols. Lemme get it."

Amber then looted the other chest, then made sure to grab everything dropped from when she set everything on fire earlier.

"Alright, next area. Be prepared." Jean said.

"In that case, Noelle, can you switch in and deploy your shield?" Aether asked.

"Oh, sure. Allow me."

Noelle switched in and deployed the shield, before advancing to yet another room with wooden crates everywhere. There were also more explosive barrels conveniently placed near hilichurls.

"This entire temple is just screaming 'set fire to everything from afar.' Almost like it was made for Amber or something. Amber-"

Aether didn't get to complete his sentence as Amber went full pyromaniac mode and blew up the barrels. She then threw her Baron Bunny and set all the wooden crates on fire, ending the lives of several hilichurls and setting the entire room on fire in general.

"Done. How'd I do?"

"Uhh…very well! You're getting good at this!" While Aether was impressed by how quickly Amber adapted, he was concerned by how she went from 'Why are we setting everything on fire' to 'Let's blow everything up and loot the place!'

"Yes, good job Outrider Amber. Just please make sure to rein it in after this mission is done. The last thing we need is another person with a tendency of blowing things up…" Jean said this while having flashbacks to a particular small knight who liked bombs…hopefully that child didn't get into any trouble again.

"Ah, right. Thanks for the reminder."

After collecting everything from the room, which included loot from yet another chest that was unlocked after blowing up the inhabitants of the room, they moved to a ledge that was suspended above a pretty tall height. As in, they could fall off the ledge and not see the floor. The next area was across a pretty big gap, and to make matters worse, it was much higher up. There was also a certain structure which Paimon immediately recognized.

"It's a Pyro monument! Hitting it with a powerful Pyro attack should trigger something!"

"Gah! Where'd you come from, Paimon?"

Aether, who had since switched back in, nearly fell off the ledge in shock upon hearing Paimon's voice.

"Hey! Paimon literally just said she's not forgettable and you immediately forgot her!"

"My bad, my bad. Doesn't help that you literally disappear during battle."

"If Paimon can't fight, then Paimon surely won't go into a fight! Paimon would just end up getting hurt!"

"Right, right. Anyways, looks like we need Amber again."

"Right here. Switching in."

Amber, who had seen a ton of use in this particular temple, switched in and activated the Pyro monument, which triggered a rush of upward wind.

"A wind current! We can ride this up to the next area!"

With no hesitation or sense of caution whatsoever, Amber jumped and activated her Wind Glider, and was immediately propelled up.

"Woo! Been a while since I rode up a Wind Current!"

"Outrider Amber, I would appreciate it if you took this more seriously." Jean came in and interrupted Amber's fun.

"Oh, sorry, Acting Grandmaster!"

"..."

Awkward silence filled the party as Amber touched down on the next area, where what looked like a rock was being surrounded by teal wind. Which Amber immediately identified.

"Dragon's breath! Is that where the dragon is getting its power?"

"Wouldn't be the first time I've seen it." For whatever reason, dragons getting power from crystals or other external sources was more common among worlds than Aether thought. A dragon from a particularly blocky world came to mind.

"Anyway, let's smash it!"

"Wait-"

Amber immediately shot it to pieces, after which, Amber appeared.

"OH SHOOT!"

Aether immediately panicked. He had been careless.

Amber was out right now, and the actual Amber just appeared.

Several possible scenarios flashed through Aether's head in a split second, ranging from the two Ambers fighting each other to the death to determine who the real one was, to the entirety of Teyvat being destroyed by a disruption of the space time continuum. While the Amber in his team knew of the existence of the real Amber and hadn't broken down in a fit of hysterical madness (surprisingly no one had done that yet, weird) he wasn't sure how the real Amber would handle it.

"Why are you panicki- Oh shoot."

Jean was about to ask what happened when she realized what happened.

"I'm no expert on this, but I don't believe Miss Amber knows the existence of your ability?"

"She doesn't, Noelle. Which is why this is a problem."

Right now, it looked like the two Ambers were just facing each other. No reaction. They were both just kind of standing there.

"Can't you just switch in real quick?" Jean brought up the obvious solution.

Of course! While it wouldn't take away what the real Amber saw, he could probably brush it off as Amber being tired or something.

He tried to switch in and immediately panicked when he realized he couldn't.

"I can't switch in for some reason! We're locked in with Amber on the ground!"

"That's not good…Amber, are you there?" Jean decided to try and contact Amber.

"Yeah…I can hear you. I see the problem. I was able not to freak out thanks to your explanations, but…"

No one knew what would happen. While Aether knew the possibility that something like this would happen when he realized the extent of his ability, he was so distracted by everything that he wasn't able to come up with a countermeasure. Now, they may as well be screwed.

The real Amber spoke.

"Phew, I'm tired."

Wait, no 'Aren't you me?' No shocked face? Not even an actual reaction?

"But at least we helped Jean out."

The real Amber continued like it was totally normal to talk to a second version of herself. She didn't even blink.

"Uh…we're saved?" Aether was ridiculously confused.

"Did she not realize?" Jean was trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

"Wow, Miss Amber is so calm to be able to act like nothing happened!" Noelle was confused, but she had the spirit.

"Why am I not freaking out?" Amber was just confused, full stop, but managed to keep the conversation going.

Amber navigated the entire conversation with no pitfalls whatsoever. Heck, their Amber was even able to reply to the real Amber, and she didn't blink an eye!

After the conversation ended, the real Amber disappeared, and a fancier looking chest popped up, which Amber immediately looted.

Challenge Completed!

Aether switched in out of reflex and tried to assess the situation.

"So…the two Ambers met, and the real Amber acted like nothing was wrong and continued talking like normal?" Aether summed it up to the party pretty succinctly.

"Looks like it. I wonder how…" Jean was pretty confused as well.

"Miss Amber acted very calmly, almost as if nothing was wrong. I wonder how she was able not to freak out. I know I would be pretty confused if I saw another me…" While Noelle didn't know it, she managed to find the answer to the question that was "Why didn't reality itself break under the situation of two of the exact same existence encountering each other?".

"Acted like nothing was wrong…wait a minute."

"What is it, Jean?"

"Did Amber even realize that anything was amiss?"

"That's…huh. Come to think of it, if Amber acted like nothing was wrong…

"...maybe that was because she saw nothing was wrong?" Aether and Jean pieced it together.

"Are you guys saying I'm not observant? I'm an Outrider for goodness sake, I have to be observant!"

"No, it's not you. If I had to guess, it has something to do with the system…it has a way of hiding my ability to make it look normal. It's likely that the system made it so that the real Amber saw you as me."

"Oh…"

"That…actually makes sense."

Both Noelle and Amber understood.

'And it's a damn relief if that's the case. I've seen other cases where the exact same thing happened to other people, and boy were the results not good." Aether shuddered while he remembered some of the stuff that he saw.

Yeah, they were definitely lucky.

"Let's count ourselves lucky and move on, shall we? We have two more temples to explore."

And with that, they exited the temple (by walking into some bluish field which teleported them, must be some kind of magic) and entered back into the outside world.

Winds of the Past

Quest Completed!

Meet Kaeya at the temple.

"Guess we're meeting Kaeya next. Let's go."

As they moved on to the next quest, Aether hoped in his heart that no more mishaps occurred.

Little did he know that he would meet another version of himself sometime in the future.

But that's a story for when he unlocks the co-op feature. For now, he continues with his current quest…

And that's a wrap for this chapter. I originally intended to have Aether hit all three temples in this chapter, but that would have made the chapter much longer and I needed to get this chapter out since it's been a week, so I split it into two parts. The next chapter should wrap up Chapter 1…I just realized how long it's gonna take for me to catch up to the current story. This one's gonna take a while folks! Hope you're strapped in for the ride!

On another note, we're nearing 100 followers! I'm not one to chase numbers but it's a milestone worth noting! Thanks for the support, and I'll try my best to keep up!

(Also, I accidentally replaced Chapter 3 with last chapter's interlude a while back, so to the person who pointed that out, thank you. One mini heart attack later, I replaced it. Sorry about that!)

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and as usual, have a nice day!

-Author