Chapter 198: You should go see the Great Merciful Tree King

(Don't scold, first stack some armor, I know the updates these two days have been few, still counting as debt, yesterday was my mom's birthday, today is Mother's Day again, everything got piled onto this weekend, I really have no time, waa waa.)

Hope City's construction speed is very fast.

There is technical assistance from the Academy, financial support from Sumeru merchants, manpower support from desert tribes, daily sweeps by mercenary squads, internal supervision by discipline officers, and overall planning by the Dendro Archon.

Up to now.

The outer city walls have initially taken shape, and the anti-sand forest outside has stood in rows thanks to Duo Li's strong support, protecting the outer farmland from wind and sand erosion.

This is a necessary protective measure in the desert.

With A Ru Cun's experience in anti-sand and anti-soil erosion, Hope City's side has been unusually smooth from design and construction to groundbreaking.

The farmland outside the city was carved out by the original tribespeople who came to Hope City.

When Luo De brought the Mondstadt envoy team of the Lady and Diluc to the outskirts of Hope City.

Unlike the yellow sand and death they had seen along the way, the sight made several people involuntarily stop and gaze far off at the lush green iron wall formed by the anti-sand forest.

Although they had seen similar sights when they were in A Ru Cun.

But A Ru Cun's scale, compared to Hope City, is simply too small; it nowhere near matches the shock of directly facing Hope City.

Among those present.

Perhaps only Venti could watch calmly.

After all, he truly witnessed the rise of Mondstadt with his own eyes, and has watched Mondstadt's prosperity for over two thousand years.

Seeing such a great city resembling Mondstadt at its founding, his feeling was simply to compose a hymn of praise.

Likewise, it is a city risen from the plains, full of hope and vigor for the future, just like humanity.

All of this made Venti feel strangely familiar even in unfamiliar surroundings.

He hadn't seen such a fervent scene in a long time, so he involuntarily left the group, squatted by the farmland, and chatted intermittently with the tribespeople working in the fields.

Oh, these tribespeople can no longer be called tribespeople.

Hope City's first census has been completed.

The speed was fast.

Anyway, there aren't many people inside the city.

These tribespeople's identity information was first recorded into the Void, and in the identity address column it was noted as residents of Sumeru Hope City, no longer distinguishing desert from rainforest.

"Everyone is Sumeru; why divide so clearly?"

This is what the Academy's household registration investigators said when recording identity information.

Luo De specifically instructed this.

No matter what the registrants think, you must say it out; even if one knows this is to win hearts, it's enough to keep listeners from continuing to hold a grudge against Nadixa.

Speaking of which.

As for the Void, Nadixa originally wanted to shut it down.

Now the forbidden knowledge on the World Tree has been erased, so the Void no longer needs to bear the function of clearing forbidden knowledge.

Moreover, long-term use of the Void causes some people to become overly dependent and lose their ability to think.

Therefore, in Nadixa's view.

Now the Void has reached the point where it can bid farewell to the Sumeru people.

However, Luo De holds a different opinion on this idea.

The Void indeed causes people to lose their ability to think.

But not everyone will lose their ability to think.

Furthermore, having the Void indeed makes life much more convenient; shutting it down directly would actually cause losses far greater than continuing to operate.

Luo De's suggestion on this.

Moreover, he opened up search permissions for the Void.

Knowledge, after all.

Letting people learn is what's proper; continuing to block knowledge as before, creating information cocoons, will truly make the populace blindly trust the Void.

In Luo De's view, true geniuses will not have their horizons limited by the Void.

Wanting to let the Nation of Wisdom flourish once more.

Opening the Void, selecting talents not blinded by it, is the best approach.

After Nadixa gave it careful thought.

She ultimately adopted Luo De's suggestion and began distributing Void terminals to the desert regions; anyone who has left identity information in the Void, a Sumeru person, can receive a Void terminal.

After carrying out this operation.

Luo De's Void terminal, which originally had intermittent signal in the desert, can now be used smoothly.

At this moment he was using the Void terminal to tell Nadixa that he had brought the Mondstadt and Snezhnaya envoy team and arrived.

"Let's go, Nadixa is waiting for us at the Purification Palace."

After contacting Nadixa, Luo De waved at the Lady and Diluc and them.

Within the Hope City branch of the Academy, a palace of the Dendro Archon has also been constructed.

Although Nadixa thinks this is a waste of labor and money, she usually stays in Sumeru City and doesn't need such a luxurious palace built for herself.

Nevertheless, the Academy's scholars all disagree.

They unanimously state that the Dendro Archon suffered five hundred years of imprisonment; even if it was done by past Great Sages, these are still the Academy's dereliction of duty and must be properly compensated to the Dendro Archon.

Left with no choice.

Nadixa, to avoid wasting their limited funds and materials, used her divine power to encircle the Verdant Source and the sapling nursery of the Great Merciful Tree King, building herself a wooden palace.

Just as when she was in the Academy.

This Purification Palace also has not received Nadixa's permission; outsiders may not enter it at will.

Little Auspicious Grass King

Still in the delirious phase, Azar heard Nadixa's name, his eyes briefly regained some clarity, but after his lips moved a few times, he once again returned to that unconscious state, only muttering 'What have we done?'.

Hmph—

God-defiler—!

Don't be fooled by the lady's current madness, but in her attitude toward Azar the God-defiler, she and Luo De are surprisingly in agreement.

Luo De doesn't think much of this attitude, but Diluc and the others' gazes toward her are not so friendly.

Our own god must not be desecrated, but someone else's god can be freely attacked, right?

The atmosphere on both sides became tense again just because of these three simple words.

Fortunately Venti didn't come along, and he even took Klee, who fully understands the adult world, away with him; otherwise the atmosphere might have become even more tense.

Speaking of which.

Luo De is also quite strange.

He is very curious about what kind of mental journey the lady went through to have her personality twisted to the point of being completely different from five hundred years ago, from a gentle and tranquil singer to now this arrogant, rude madman.

Indeed.

Her tragic plight, dominated by hatred and anger after losing everything, is certainly worthy of others' sympathy.

But Luo De still can't quite understand.

After receiving the Cryo God's blessing and being reborn, why does Rosalind deal a heavy blow to Mondstadt?

Dealing harshly with other countries is just par for the course, merely a task of the Fatui.

Only against Mondstadt does she deal a heavy blow.

Why is that?

Could it be that after burning herself out, she has gone mad to the point of forgetting why Lustan died back then?

She is clearly still thinking of Lustan.

On the way to Hope City, Luo De saw more than once that she would occasionally fiddle with an antique-looking timepiece in secret.

That was a love token Lustan gave her.

Five hundred years have passed, and she still keeps it well.

This shows she has not forgotten Lustan at all.

Why exactly does the lady end up destroying the path of reconciliation between the Knights of Favonius and Tevarin, prolonging the dragon disaster, and, knowing her time is limited and that she cannot leave the Knights of Favonius open to diplomatic blame when seizing the Gnosis, choose to punch and kick Venti, besides wasting words to humiliate him, this whole series of unnecessary actions?

"Purify the source of the world's distortion: the short‑sighted, foolish gods, and the filthy, pitch‑black abyss."

Luo De can now only explain this matter using the Cryo God's ideal.

That is precisely why.

His vigilance toward the lady has increased greatly compared to before.

One who only deals deadly blows to Mondstadt and one who bears undifferentiated hostility toward all six gods are not the same concept.

At least for now.

The lady is preparing and already interfering in Sumeru's internal affairs, with the target very likely being Nadixa.

So no matter what.

Luo De will not let the lady succeed; at the very least, he must make her dare not reach into Sumeru again, and incidentally let Snezhnaya know Sumeru's stance.

Here we don't like outsiders interfering.

"You want the Gnosis? We can give it to you, but if you come again to do extra things, we'll chop off the claw you stretch in."

Compared to the outer city.

Hope City's internal construction is in full swing.

The roads are basically paved, only the final step of surfacing remains; residential areas have also built houses of various sizes, and the construction team formed by instructors from the Academy and tribespeople are all busy inside and out; even if unfamiliar outsiders come by, they don't divert their attention at all.

"Alchemical materials."

"As the saying goes, laypeople watch the excitement, while experts look for the doorway."

Albedo, whose alchemical skill is nearly at the peak of Teyvat, immediately recognized that many of the construction materials here were made using alchemy.

Compared to going to see the Dendro Archon, he is obviously more interested in these applications of alchemy.

Before coming.

He had already received Jean's notice.

This time he represents the Knights of Favonius on a visit to Snezhnaya, purely for the two nations' alchemical exchange.

Now seeing Hope City's construction everywhere bearing traces of alchemy, he couldn't help but slow his steps a little, his attention drawn even more.

"Mr. Albedo, if you're interested, you can stay here for now; after we finish meeting Nadixa, we'll come find you."

Luo De spoke to Albedo very politely.

Then we'll go see Nadixa.

The point is to facilitate technical and commercial cooperation between Mondstadt and Sumeru; according to the rules of the envoy delegation, only having the chief and deputy envoys present is enough, and it's fine if others don't show up.

Speaking of which.

Luo De glanced at the lady.

"Oh?"

"Mr. Luo De, are you planning to drive me away too?"

The lady saw through Luo De's thought, raised her chin, and with a fake smile said, 'I think your Hope City still needs quite a bit of assistance; I must discuss this matter together with the Dendro Archon.'

"Don't defame people here."

"I never said I'd drive you away."

Luo De returned a similar smile, then patted Tighnari on the shoulder, seeing his complexion improve, and only then led them together toward the center of Hope City, namely the branch of the Academy.

Tinari's physique is still not up to par.

Even if Luo De provided Ice Elemental Power throughout to cool him down.

He was still overheated to the point of nearly losing strength.

If it weren't for Luo De's Ice Elemental Power being somewhat stronger than that of other Vision holders, he probably couldn't have made it to Hope City.

But this already made Tinari quite satisfied.

After all, given his constitution, being able to persevere this far is truly not easy.

What's more,

After seeing the Dendro Archon later, he might be able to rid himself of the regret of not being able to enter the desert.

Thinking of this,

Tinari's steps quickened a bit; it seemed he wished he could rush to Nadixa right away.

The closer one gets to the Academy's branch,

the buildings along the way become more and more perfected.

Conversely,

but the steps of Lady and Diluc actually slowed down instead.

Even though they had never participated in city-building work, they could still see how this new city built in the desert was unique.

"Is what they're laying on the ground an energy transmission line?"

When she saw the workers laying stone slabs etched with special patterns as pavement material, the Lady could no longer hold back and asked.

The pavement of Hope City is quite strange.

It has many layers, the paving surface is also strange, with many chaotic patterns, yet they can be linked together by some peculiar regularity.

If Lisa were here, she would surely be able to tell that these special pavements use mechanism runes.

Unfortunately.

This time she didn't come along but stayed at Jieleshe, ostensibly to visit her teacher and also do some academic exchange.

Although they knew she was slacking off, Diluc and the others said nothing and just set out as originally planned.

Only lacking such a well-informed strategist.

Diluc and Kaeya really didn't recognize these never-before-seen runes, but the Lady, who had once been a top student at the Academy, could see the difference in these pavements.

"That's right."

There's nothing hard to admit; Luo De nodded and said, "The latest achievement of the Miao Lun School uses specific mechanism towers and transmission lines to deliver elemental energy to ordinary households, allowing every family to escape a life limited to fire and candles."

He said.

Luo De pointed to a special building not far away.

This is the latest research achievement of Faelu Shan, using the mechanism replica from A Ru Cun to create an energy obelisk.

Upon seeing it, Diluc and Kaeya couldn't help but stare at each other.

Both of them had the same thought at that moment.

Sumeru's technology.

It seems far beyond what they imagined.

Next.

As they walked and stopped, Luo De introduced them to many special buildings and new structures they had never seen before.

Among them, the public restroom gave them the greatest shock.

To protect urban sanitation, the sage of the Miao Lun School personally oversaw the design of an extremely complex drainage system for Hope City.

Although designing a drainage system in the desert looks rather funny.

However, when the plan was released, no one objected, and the construction supervisor Ka Wei meticulously built this massive drainage system according to the blueprints.

Just like that.

Only after two hours did Luo De and the others arrive before the gate of the Palace of Purification where Nadixa resides.

However, Luo De did not go in; he merely had the Lady, Diluc, and Kaeya go together to find Nadixa.

Meanwhile, he first had Tinari rest in a cool place, while he himself picked up Azar and headed straight for the Great Merciful Tree King's garden.

"It's time to see the Great Merciful Tree King."

This was the words Luo De gave to Azar, and also the sentence that made Azar's whole body shudder and his eyes completely regain clarity.

(End of chapter)