Lisa's natural and matter-of-fact reply made Ryen freeze for a moment.
Then he shook his head and said helplessly:
"You really have a good attitude…"
Lisa shrugged and chuckled softly:
"If you had gone through hundreds of failed experiments like I have,
you'd be used to it too."
"Even though building the Orbital Dragon-Slaying Cannon is incredibly difficult,
at the very least, we know we can succeed in the end, right?"
"That's the point of experimentation—finding a single moment of success through countless failures,
and then turning that moment of chance into a guaranteed outcome."
"Trust me…"
Lisa gently placed her hand on Ryen's shoulder, her expression soft and calm:
"When we finally succeed in completing the Orbital Dragon-Slaying Cannon,
the sense of achievement will far surpass anything beautiful in this world."
Ryen raised an eyebrow and lowered his voice:
"So... that's the reason that Doctor ended up such a lunatic?"
"Maybe."
Lisa smiled. She didn't fully understand the Sumeru exile either.
Back then, he had been a genius.
But geniuses often came with their own brand of obsession.
Some geniuses could restrain their fixations and maintain their humanity.
Others... became nothing more than obsessed madmen.
The Doctor was both the most brilliant and most obsessive genius the Akademiya ever had.
Now, he had completely become a deranged lunatic, with no bottom line left.
"Let's get ready. Same rules as before. This time we're using a massive number of TNT blocks.
If it fails, it could be dangerous."
Originally, Ryen was going to suggest placing a bucket of water to protect themselves.
But unfortunately, at this point—even a bucket of water wouldn't help.
If this thing exploded…
Everything would be gone.
"Tch… I really don't want to use the Totem of Undying here."
Ryen muttered, shaking his head.
Seeing that everyone had already gripped their totems tightly, he simply nocked an arrow—
and activated the Orbital Dragon-Slaying Cannon.
The next moment, the redstone circuits beneath everyone's feet began to light up in sequence.
TNT blocks from all directions were drawn toward the central convergence point.
Everyone held their breath, staring at the unfolding events.
The redstone sequence activated smoothly.
The timer calculations were accurate.
TNT merged perfectly.
The beacon's pillar of light surged upward…
Under everyone's watchful eyes, the arrow standing firmly at the center was about to take on
a blast of unprecedented force.
At that very moment, Zhongli and Xiao, both veterans of countless battles,
felt an overwhelming sense of danger rise in their hearts.
But strangely, the danger didn't seem to be aimed at them—
It was targeting the ground!
Did it work?
In a flash, a towering beam of light rose to the heavens, followed by a thunderous explosion.
The arrow shot forward—
its speed so extreme that even Venti, the fastest among them, couldn't react in time.
It was as if the arrow had pierced through space itself,
slamming down with unimaginable force.
"...Did it actually work?"
Ryen was a little stunned.
Cloud Retainer immediately transformed into a crane.
"I'll go check where the arrow landed!"
Before her words even faded, Cloud Retainer dived down swiftly, while the others reined in their excitement for the moment.
So far, everything had gone smoothly—at the very least, the arrow had successfully launched.
This was already better than the previous twenty-something failed attempts.
As long as it was confirmed to be stuck in the center of the End Pool, everything would go according to plan.
"Check whether the redstone circuitry is still functioning, especially down below.
Make sure it wasn't destroyed by the TNT."
"I honestly don't remember how we even built the lower section anymore."
Ryen took a deep breath and glanced at the others, visibly more relaxed now.
Lisa smiled as she pulled out her notebook.
"So... now you see the benefits of keeping detailed experiment logs, don't you?"
Ryen raised an eyebrow with a faint smile.
"Your meticulous attitude is really... likable."
"Is that a confession? You can be more direct next time—
I'd say yes~" Lisa grinned as she handed over the notebook.
Ryen didn't respond, simply opened the notebook and flipped through a page.
Then, just as quickly, he closed it.
It wasn't that Lisa's handwriting was messy.
Nor was her logging disorganized.
On the contrary—her handwriting was elegant, and her notes were full of diagrams and annotations.
It wasn't just an experiment record—it might as well have been a perfectly drawn construction blueprint.
But…
Ryen couldn't read the Teyvat script!
Basic communication-level writing he had managed to pick up, thanks to Keqing and Ganyu's patient teaching.
But this level of complexity? It was like reading blind.
Come to think of it, it was strange—
Lumine was also a foreigner to this world.
Yet she seemed to have known how to read the Teyvat language from the very beginning.
Meanwhile, he, Ryen, couldn't pick it up no matter how hard he tried.
Could it be... when the world was handing out "free knowledge," it skipped over him?
Truth be told, Ryen's guess wasn't wrong.
Lumine was a descender.
Upon entering Teyvat, the world automatically imbued her with some basic knowledge, including written language.
Though not all-encompassing, it made learning vastly easier.
Even Paimon, as her guide, did a fairly decent job in helping her learn to read.
But Ryen...
Strictly speaking, he wasn't even a descender.
He was an anomaly the world couldn't perceive.
As someone who owned a world of his own, Ryen's existence was above Teyvat's rules.
How could the world teach someone it couldn't even register?
Not to mention, he had a system—
Teyvat couldn't leave its mark on him,
so it also couldn't affect his cognition or perception.
Not long after, Cloud Retainer returned, transformed back into human form, her face glowing with excitement.
"It worked! The arrow hit the End Pool! Dead center!"
"We did it! We finally did it!!"
~~----------------------
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