He changed Tiwat

Yesterday, the thieves from the treasure-hunting gang mentioned in their confessions that the Fools were acquiring items from various ruins in the snowy mountains. He deduced at the time that the Fools were looking for items related to the remnants of the Demon God, and that the Corrupted Sword was one of the items the Fools were looking to acquire.

When Vakin led his men in, he shouted "Take back the Demon Sword!", which means he was undoubtedly looking for the Corruption Sword. The question is, why did he come here to "take back" the Corruption Sword?

Vakin narrowed his eyes, completely ignoring the question from the person who had been carrying a speaker and playing background music the whole time.

His gaze passed over Yura and landed on Abedo in the distance.

Just then, the background music for "Wings of Starlight" stopped.

Abedo opened his tightly closed eyes.

He now fully understood why his master had sent him to Mondstadt.

—Because this is also part of alchemy.

The third step in crafting the Philosopher's Stone is "Bubedi".

"'Red Achievement'... The meaning of alchemy is the refinement of emotions."

The Great Ritual Secret Canon records:

[Divide the soil with fire, refine the essence from the rough, and proceed with caution.]

Separate thou ye earth from ye fire, ye subtile from the gross sweetly wth great indoustry.

Therefore, the Master said, "Joyfully separate the dust from the raging fire, and refine the exquisite from the coarse."

[Ascending from the earth to the heavens, and descending from the heavens, gaining the abilities of both above and below.]

It ascends from ye earth to ye heaven again it desends to ye earth and receives ye force of things superior and inferior.

Therefore, Master said, "Since the universe originates from one thing, the thought of one thing can give rise to all things."

He has acquired the power of Dulin, the power from the universe.

So what's the next step?

This is the power of all forces, capable of destroying the hard and uprooting the strong.

Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtile thing and penetrates every solid thing.

This is how the world was created.

So the world was created.

Miracles can be achieved through this.

From this are and do come admirable adaptations where of ye process is here in this.

“'Gold,' the final stage of alchemy. Things that were worthless finally found their meaning and were transformed into gold. I, too, found the meaning of my birth into this world.”

The final step in the process of creating the Philosopher's Stone is cinrinitas (corrosion).

The Philosopher's Stone is a living object.

—Abedo is the living "Philosopher's Stone".

He raised his hand and drew his longsword.

Dulin's heart had stopped beating and he had fallen into a permanent silence.

The power and excitement that once resided within his heart have now been fully inherited by his brother.

"My crimson hue seems to originate from you."

His hand gently stroked the crimson gold petals on the sword hilt, as if caressing his brother's face.

He lost a loved one, but that loved one taught him the most important thing.

He learned about loneliness, solitude, sadness, and even how to cry.

Tears fell.

It is said that every human being comes into this world crying.

Abelardo did not cry when he was born.

So now, the tears on his face are to make up for the regrets of his birth.

Artificial humans are imperfect creations... but it is precisely because of their imperfections that they continue to evolve towards perfection.

Chapter 128 A Comprehensive Overview of a Thousand Winds and Myriad Clouds

The bard, having finished his performance, lay sprawled out on the dragon's back.

Even Tvalin, who had been performing the "closing song" for a long time, couldn't help but pant for breath.

Although it wasn't a battle just now, transmitting the power of "words of power" over such a long distance, even for a long time, is more arduous than a real battle.

Fortunately, the result was satisfactory.

The third step in crafting the Philosopher's Stone—"Red Achievement"—has been completed.

Wendy patted Tvalin on the back as a sign of appreciation.

"We've done everything we needed to do, let's go back."

Sensing that the dragon's might in the snow-capped mountains had vanished, Dvalin turned its massive body back towards Mondstadt as instructed, though a question still lingered in its mind: "Barbatos, can't you explain this properly?"

This drunkard, who spends his days wandering aimlessly, suddenly summoned it to Mount Mondstadt with a solemn expression. Dvalin thought it was the resurrection of the dragon Durin and was already prepared for a great battle.

However, the reality was that a god and a dragon hid in the sky above the snow-capped mountain for a long time, waiting for signs of Dulin's revival. Then Barbatos sang, Dvalin accompanied, and Dulin's presence disappeared...

What on earth is going on?

If Dvalin had ever watched an anime called "Macross Frontier," he would definitely have complained to Wendy, "Are you cosplaying Saotome? Someone, Dorin and I are your wings."

The bard, who was lying down, raised his hand to shield his eyes.

Without the clouds to block the light, the sunlight high in the sky was exceptionally dazzling—even though Wendy knew that this "sun" was not the real sun, it was just like the real sun and could burn the retinas of anyone who looked directly at it.

Wendy smiled.

“Then let me tell you a story, a story about the sun from a time before Barbatos and Dvarin existed in this world… nearly six thousand years ago.”

"If you're trying to get away with making up a story..."

Dvalin swayed its back, and the bard, who was comfortably lying on its back, almost rolled off.

Wendy quickly rolled over and grabbed the thorns on the dragon's back, her voice full of grievance: "Dvalin, aren't we trusted friends?"

Dvalin scoffed: "You mean a close friend who treats his friends like a carriage?"

Dvarin had long harbored resentment towards Wendy's "didi-didi-dragon" behavior.

"Oh dear, it was my fault for not telling you beforehand. Look, I'm here to tell you the truth now."

While comforting Dvalin, Wendy pulled out a long scroll with a blue cover from her bosom.

This is an artifact held by Barbatos, the god of wind, symbolizing the cloud atlas of the wind dragon and his chief god of wind.

It meticulously records the wind and clouds in the sky, containing the power of the vast sky and the long wind, and is called "The Scroll of the Sky", also known as "A Comprehensive View of a Thousand Winds and Ten Thousand Clouds".

To be more precise, this was the authority left to Barbatos by the "Thousand Winds of Time".

The Sky Scroll presents a record of the clouds and winds throughout Teyvat in the form of poems and illustrations. It contains 100,000 verses, each verse representing a wisp of cloud or a wisp of wind, and each verse has a different name.

Cloud maps give shape to the wind, and hymns shape its unique character. The long poem composed of wind and clouds is the "heroic epic".

To paraphrase Talesin, the bard who served as a "cheerleader" in the Stratified Abyss exploration team—"Old-school bard epics, based on a genealogy of heroes, add muscle and skin to the solid framework of history. They use long narrative poems to sing the praises of history and awaken people's awareness of it."

A crucial part of the ancient history of the continent of Teyvat is hidden in this epic.

In the legendary ancient times, the wind god, wielding the Sky Scroll, summoned the four winds, dispelling the ice and snow, banishing the ferocious beasts, and bringing down rain and dew, thus Mondstadt was created.

The winds, which are invisible, are like close friends and family to Barbatos.

Whoever masters this scroll will grasp the true names and immense power of a thousand winds and ten thousand clouds.

"The story I'm about to tell begins in ancient times, when the gods still walked on the earth."

Barbatos used the opening lines most familiar to bards, and well, anyway, the Liyue storyteller waved his paper fan and began, "Last time we talked about Liyue at that time..."

However, this time his epic was neither played with a harp nor sung. Instead, he directly connected the epic recorded in the book with Dvalin through the power of the wind—it was as if Dvalin was wearing headphones and listening to a song.

"Legend has it that in the days when the Rock King was young, the sun was a high chariot that traveled across the earth."

When the three sisters of the night sky perished in the disaster, the chariot of Yang also fell into the deep valley.

"The heavens move and all things appear; mountains and seas take on new forms."

A star rises from the barren land, shining as brightly as the sun.

"Isn't this the story of the neighboring country of Liyue? It's about the Goddess of March and the Abyss of the Rocks, isn't it?" Dvalin asked Venti in his mind.

Although Dvalin is a newly born wind elemental dragon king, only a little over two thousand years old, and doesn't know much about things from nearly six thousand years ago, it does know a little about the history of the Laminar Abyss—after all, it inherited some of the memories of the previous dragon king, and its neighbor, the Rota Dragon King, seemed to be quite familiar with the previous wind dragon king.

“Yes, yes, that’s right.” Wendy chuckled as she responded to Dvalin in her mind. “The sun once fell into the Abyss of Rocks, and the mineral deposits in the Abyss now come from the remains of that Sun Chariot… Hey, why didn’t it fall into Mondstadt? Wouldn’t Mondstadt then be the richest country in Teyvat?”

“Get to the point, Barbatos,” Tvalin interrupted Wendy’s banter with annoyance.

"Don't rush me, I was just about to say that." Wendy patted Dvalin on the back helplessly and continued, "Think about it, if the sun is a carriage, where would the driver go after the carriage falls off?"

"Huh? Could it be the Rock King?" Dvalin exclaimed in shock.

“Of course not.” Wendy shook her head immediately. “I already said that the Sun Chariot crashed when the Rock King was young. He was already the Rock King then, so why would he be a coachman? The coachman was someone else… His name was Amon. In the ancient catastrophe, the coachman who drove the Sun Chariot lost his memory in the impact of the crash and was stranded in a foreign land…”

Wendy turned the pages and read aloud:

"People say that during the reign of King Ahmar, he collected many spirits and demons from the earth and made thousands of them into magic bottles."

People say that the world was once filled with spirits, which the powerful yet bewildered Ahmar extracted from the silvery night winds and shifting sands of the desert, from the unpredictable swirling patterns of the ocean, and from the babbling of the rainforest springs, and then stored in a bottle of dark silver—like an invincible conqueror, like a curious child.

Ahmar once commanded the spirits with bridle and yoke, and from their lamentations learned the past of the bleak moon and the chariot-driving morning star. He then built the magnificent amphitheater city of Ai-Khanoum—the 'City of the Moon Maiden'—to commemorate them. This city is said to be the city of spirits, a paradise bestowed by Ahmar upon the remnants of the moon. In gratitude, the spirits forged the enormous gates of Ahmar's tomb.

Chapter 129 The Cinnabar Spindle

"Ah... he's the man with the red crown I saw more than two thousand years ago, on the birthday celebration of the gods of Mount Sumeru..."

Wendy mentioned Akhmal, which reminded Tvalin of a trip he had taken long ago.

In present-day Sumeru, this day would be called "Flower Goddess's Birthday," which is the birthday of Sumeru's Little Auspicious Grass King.

But in its earliest form, the word meant "the birthday celebration of the goddess of flowers".

More than two thousand years ago, the tree king of Mount Sumeru was about to celebrate her birthday, so her friends held a banquet to celebrate.

At the banquet, several deities got drunk, and one of them, in high spirits, began to play an instrument. So the Tree King sang, and the Flower Goddess danced.

As the goddess of flowers danced, countless beautiful patissani flowers bloomed on the grass she trod... Bright purple-red flowers formed a magnificent stage, and the gods all said, "Ah, if only time could stand still at this moment."

Thus, this day was passed down and became the birthday celebration of the Great Tree King.

Five hundred years ago, the Tree King died in the "Dark Calamity," and the current Sumeru is inherited by the youngest and most newly born god, the Little Auspicious Grass King Naxida. So this day was changed to the birthday celebration of the Grass God.

—As for the god who, two thousand years ago, wandered around seven kingdoms to freeload wine and got drunk playing the harp at someone's birthday banquet… that is Barbatos, the one telling the story.

Tvalin still remembers that Ahmar radiated a sun-like glow wherever he went.

"The mighty yet bewildered Amun only remembered his own name and a faint affection for the Moon Sisters. This god of the sun, who had lost his memory, became the Red King who reigned over the Sumeru Desert. Later generations honored him with the name 'Al-Ahmar,' meaning 'the Red Man.'"

Wendy continued reading the epic:

Ahmar, the king of warriors, gardeners, and sages, also controls the howling winds of the desert, the sand dunes gilded silver by the moonlight, and the thousand and one spirits that hide in dreams and the cries of owls.

People say that Ahmar is a child lost from the sky. Therefore, even though he is the king of the four corners of the earth, deeply worshipped by countless people of the three major tribes, and venerated by elusive spirits, whenever he looks up at the sky and recalls the ninefold paradise above and the merciless punishment he suffered thousands of years ago, Ahmar still cannot help but lower his noble head and let out an unsolvable sigh.

The inhabitants of Huangsha carved the royal seal based on the tenacious beetle, to commemorate the ever-changing sun and the endless flow of time.

Legend has it that when the King of the Desert was still alive, his people dared not look directly into the sun's brilliance, and thus covered their eyes.

In the era of the King of Yellow Sands, power as golden as the blazing sun shone upon the land.

"Children lost from the sky," "radiance like the sun"... these records undoubtedly indicate that Ahmar possesses the authority of the sun, and everything points to the charioteer of the sun, a god named Amun.

“But…” Dvalin asked again, “Even if Ahmar is the charioteer of the Sun Chariot, what does that have to do with Dulin? Ahmar died more than a thousand years ago, didn’t he?”

Wendy's smile was incredibly profound at that moment.

"Ah, this is the most important... hidden thing."

He closed the book, "The Sky Scroll".

What follows is not recorded in the "Sky Scroll".

"Later, Ahmar peeked into the forbidden and died as a result. His most loyal priest, Hermanubis, the 'First Sage' of Sumeru, who formulated the 'Six Root Sins' and was known as the 'Sage of Sages', wrote an alchemical sutra—the 'Great Ritual Codex'. All of Ahmar's knowledge was hidden in it, and Rhinedoth, the creator of the dragon Durin, later obtained this book."

"This book has now been passed down to her disciple. At the same time, a sword called 'Cinnabar Spindle' was also passed down to her disciple."