After we arrived over Mingyun Village I remembered the depressing background of the village and how its only occupant was literally a ghost and a large number of monsters so I just had us fly over it despite Lumine and Paimon wanting to see if we could have somewhere to rest for a while.
But finally, we arrived at the Statue of the Seven I wanted to head as we quickly flew deeper into Liyue and ignoring the people below exclaiming at seeing a couple of people flying on a small platform held up by a green ball we arrived at the Morax/Rex Lapis statue not too far from Wangshu Inn.
"Wow, Morax looks pretty different from Venti's statue," Paimon said as she flew around the statue inspecting it.
"Yes, it makes sense Rex Lapis's statue is frankly more imposing than Barbatos's as the Geo Archon's initial form was that of a dragon, and even as he held the most contested area in the world battling a great many gods, he had the strength and pride befitting a dragon," I said making Paimon and Lumine nod at my speech.
"So, who is stronger, Venti or Morax in their primes?" Lumine asked as we approached the statue.
I hummed in thought for a moment before I shrugged and wryly spoke. "Honestly I don't think there could be a real winner between Rex Lapis and Venti as Venti is far weaker than the Geo Archon and the latter can't capture or kill Venti if he chooses to escape. Also, if we are in Liyue make sure to call the Geo Archon by the name Rex Lapis, only foreigners call the Geo Archon Morax."
"Come on Lumine, Jake, touch the statue to see if you can get Geo powers!" Paimon exclaimed throwing her hands in the air in excitement in expectation.
"Together?" I asked looking at Lumine and she nodded smiling as she linked her hands with my own so we could lay our hands on the statue together.
Just like when we touched the Anemo Archon Statue of the Seven, the statue's inlaid crystal lit up and I felt a foreign power filling my body. But this time I could easily tell the difference from my powers residing within my body as controlling the carefree winds and shaping them felt anathema to the heavy Geo energy within me.
Even as we stepped back from the statue, I couldn't help but notice something about Lumine as her ornaments had changed from their usual Anemo green to Geo gold. "Uhh Lumine your stuff got a makeover," I spoke as I hurriedly checked myself to see if I got blinged out in gold.
Maybe it was the fact that I wasn't wearing the magical gems she was, but thankfully nothing about my appearance changed which I was thankful for as my Schnee semblance and bloodline had already changed my appearance enough.
Stepping away from the Statue of the Seven a good way I stomped on the ground while pulling at the Geo energy within myself and a pillar of crystals pushed me up into the air as I drew my saber and mockingly waved it at Lumine. "Mwahaha I have the high ground Lumine!"
Lumine being a poor uncultured heathen unfortunately didn't get my reference and only shook her head, but Paimon's blithely spoken words made my crystal pillar crumble to the ground as I lost all motivation to live. "Why do you need a pillar when you can fly Jake?"
I could only stuff a piece of food into Paimon's mouth to stop her questioning but once Paimon was busy eating her Linner I looked over to Lumine. "Go ahead and try to use your Geo magic Lumine."
Lumine for a moment looked at me with a sort of measuring look of decision-making that I knew she was likely thinking of trolling or otherwise using her Geo abilities on me, so I quickly jumped backward and brought up a crystal-studded stone wall before with a mighty crash, the pointy part a diamond shaped crystal dart smashed through my wall but not aimed at me.
"Throwing sharp meteors will probably hurt Dvalin." Lumine blandly said as she made another smaller diamond-shaped meteor float above her hand and with another wave the small dart flew at a great speed transforming into a large boulder-sized dart that smashed through a nearby boulder with impunity.
"So, are we going back to Mondstadt now?" Paimon asked as she flew back over seeing as we were done stoning one another.
I hummed in thought before seeing it was already pretty late in the afternoon and frankly, I didn't want to fly over the Dragonspine Mountains at night both because we wouldn't be able to see but also because it would be even colder.
"There is a famous inn not too far from here that is well renowned for its Liyue Cuisine. I vote we go there for fresh dinner and get some rest before we attempt to make our return trip, plus we have a few days before we are needed back in Mondstadt anyway."
Lumine was alright with getting a place to sleep rather than trying to rush through the frigid mountains surrounding the fastest way back to Mondstadt and Paimon obviously was hooked on the idea of trying out some new food, so we quickly made our way to the direction of the Wangshu Inn.
After we flew over a few hills the terrain flattened out and we reached a marshy area and in the far distance an odd small mountain had a massive tree growing atop it with a large building built around the tree with a number of well-placed lights attached to it giving it an interesting atmosphere.
"Oooh it's so pretty Lumine!" Paimon cried out as she held onto Lumine while we were flying over and remembering the actual landing pad at the top of the Inn for the local Adeptus I had my Anemo Elemental fly around the Wangshu Inn until I saw the large open area in the back of the Inn.
As we went to land apparently our flybys to find the optimal place to land had already attracted the attention of the Inns owner as she stood in front of the entrance to the Inn.
"Greetings guests." The blonde-haired woman bowed lightly before she straightened up and spoke respectfully. "With such an interesting entrance, for your own service I have to ask if you both are an Adeptus and whether you will need any special services?"
A customer flying in on an Elemental, even for her who regularly dealt with Liyue's wander Adepti was probably something new, so I gently shook my head knowing she was one of the most connected people within this country. "We are simply travelers and will be gone by morning. Please bring us a good selection of Liyue-style dishes as we are new to your land and culture." I spoke.
The woman smiled seeing as we weren't going to be overbearing and nodded. "Very well and how large will your budget for your feast be?"
I decided to splurge a bit seeing as we had looted plenty of stuff from the Dragonspine Mountain and frankly other than using hotels and our food, we literally had no other expenses really as those magic crystals kept our weapons in tip-top shape.
Coming from Earth to this world I could now see why some people would choose to live in a camper or even a boat as not having to pay property taxes, rent, or home insurance opened up our wallets for a lot more disposable income.
"Lumine how about we splurge a bit and do a hundred thousand Mora so we can try a bit of everything," I asked as I did some mental conversions and realized that such a price would be about the equivalent of about five hundred dollars back on Earth and honestly at a super expensive restaurant that wasn't that bad. That could literally just be the price of the wine...
Lumine however was a bit of a hoarder and thus hated to allow her riches to escape her 'hoard' but either way she nodded, and we split the bill, and each gave fifty thousand to the owner of the inn after we settled the additional cost of a room.
"Alright guests, my name is Verr Goldet and I am the owner of the Wangshu Inn and would suggest either retiring to your room or using the elevator to go to the foot of the mountain to our little market to speak with the other guests while we prepare your dishes."
"Let's go look at the market maybe we can find some uber-powerful magical artifact that will allow us to ascend to the heavens," I said jokingly as we followed the directions given by Verr to the weird wooden elevator.
"Jake, do you really believe such stuff can be found so randomly?" Paimon taunted and for a moment I thought of it and honesty the answer was yes as in no other place in Teyvat did so many gods die or be sealed away as did happen in Liyue, which is why the Treasure Hoarders were most active in Liyue.
I pointed down at the market as we descended down with the elevator as the market shone brightly in the night's encroachment by many small hanging lights. "If anyone finds a cheat item it would probably be me or Lumine," I said chuckling at the thought of us coming across some weird item from a completely different world that would give a system or something equally overpowered that would ruin this world.
Honestly with my ability to get the elemental powers from all the lands and my Schnee semblance I was fairly content with my powers and let's be honest more than half of systems have nonsense quests or threaten to kill or neuter you for cursing at the system.
"I wouldn't mind a cooler sword though," I muttered as great as my sword was, I realized fairly quickly that it was simply very high-quality steel, and only my Aura and the magic crystals I had been putting into it had kept it from breaking from my very brutal fighting style of using powerful chops or stabbing when the sword wasn't really meant to be used for stabbing at all.