"Leave of absence?"
"Diona's taking a leave of absence tomorrow?"
"Diona's taking a leave just to be with this guy tomorrow?"
The moment the words leave of absence came out, the atmosphere inside the tavern shifted. Whispers spread quickly, and soon a whole crowd turned to look in their direction.
"What are you looking at!"
Diona didn't back down one bit. Even though she was still short on tiptoes, her fierce aura and sharp glare made the drinkers shrink back. The effect was great, and she nodded in satisfaction before extending her hands toward Victor Wang. "This is Victor, the one who guided me in hosting the Sobriety Event!"
"Oh! So, this is Victor?!"
"A hero! A hero!"
"We wronged him then. If he's the one behind it, a leave of absence is no problem. Without this hero, we wouldn't be here today!"
"That's right! Even if Diona takes ten days off, it's still acceptable!"
"Ten days?! Ten days is a bit much… I could only accept five…"
"Idiot, without this hero, you wouldn't even get a sip of a custom drink! That's exactly what 'penny wise, pound foolish' means!"
"Exactly, exactly! I apologize for doubting Diona's leave of absence earlier. I hope the hero won't mind, ahahaha!"
"Hmph! As long as you know!" Diona finally sat down with the air of a victor.
Victor Wang felt a little dizzy. "What's going on here?"
"At the opening of the Sobriety Event, I was already upset. This whole event was your idea, but they only chanted my name. Same later on, they kept praising me, never mentioning you. So, I scolded them hard, emphasized that you're the most important one. Looks like it worked—now every drunkard in Mondstadt knows your name~"
"Uh…" Victor Wang chuckled awkwardly. "I really have to thank you."
"You're welcome~"
At the next table, Rosaria slammed her glass down with a loud bang, dampening the noisy tavern. In her cold voice, she said, "Hero? This hero, I must warn you—the minimum legal marriage age in Teyvat is 16. Please be careful in how you deal with Diona."
"Eh?!" Diona's tail went stiff as a rod, her face turning bright red.
"Pfft—"
Victor Wang was glad he wasn't drinking anything, or else he'd have sprayed it everywhere like the other guests. The atmosphere grew even stranger, all those stares burning hotter than before. He immediately widened his eyes and raised his voice: "Don't say things that give people the wrong idea!"
"A man and a woman alone together—what is it, if not a date?"
"It's studying! Studying, I said! You're misleading everyone again, you clearly heard me just fine!"
Rosaria didn't even lift her head, staring at her failed cocktail with her blank expression as she added, "What are you talking about? I don't understand."
"Your custom drink failed, we talked about it, you held a grudge—so you're taking revenge!"
The drinkers' attention shifted immediately. They knew Rosaria's habits well enough that Victor Wang's words sounded plausible.
Rosaria drained her glass in one go. She didn't care about their eyes; passing by Victor Wang, she said with an unreadable tone, "Heh, hero, I'll remember you. Not that I hadn't remembered you already. Goodbye."
Only then did Victor Wang breathe easier. But across from him, Diona's little face was still flushed red, her tail flicking restlessly.
"This nun is really inexplicable."
"Inexplicable?"
"…Don't tell me you actually took her words seriously?"
"No! I just thought… you were asking me out to play."
"It really is studying." Victor Wang glanced at the middle-aged uncles in the tavern and felt a chill.
"But…" Diona looked conflicted, pouting. "My shield was something I mastered when I got my Vision, and I still don't fully understand it. If I try to explain, I might not be able to say much…"
"You mastered it when you got your Vision… That kind of thing does happen. It's fine, just explain as much as you can. If there's extra time, then going out to play wouldn't be so bad either."
Elemental Skills fell into two kinds: those created by oneself, and those granted by the Vision. Elemental Bursts were the same. For self-created ones, the user naturally understood their mechanics—like Lumine's Palm Vortex.
But the granted kind was said to feel as natural as instinct. That also meant even the wielder might struggle to fully grasp the principle. Victor Wang had never truly received a Vision before, so he knew nothing about the granted type.
"Then it's a promise—tomorrow."
"Mm."
Time after leaving Cat's Tail passed in a flash. The next morning, Victor Wang met up with Diona outside Mondstadt.
"Where should we practice? Needs to be somewhere open—how about Whispering Woods?"
Glancing at the two Knights of Favonius on Mondstadt Bridge who were pretending to admire the scenery but clearly spying on him, Victor Wang sighed. "Let's just stay by Cider Lake, otherwise some people won't feel at ease."
"Ah? Who? My dad really does approve of you, you know!"
"…Don't worry about the details. First, I want to test the difference between your shield and mine."
"Oh right, your Vision. I don't even know what element you are yet."
"I have Anemo and Geo."
"Eh, two elements?"
"That's… complicated, so let's skip it. When I shield up, I use Geo."
Spreading his arms, a cylindrical Geo shield formed around him, its earthy-yellow surface imitating Zhongli's Jade Shield, etched with some incomplete runes he had learned from Rune Stones.
"Alright, I'm ready. Come at me."
"Then watch out!"
Diona leapt back, then waved her hand. A giant phantom cat paw swiped forward.
...
"My Geo shield… it's actually weaker than yours?"
Next stop would be Inazuma. Once past the beginner's safety period, facing the Raiden Shogun… a shield this weak would be far from enough.
"Meow! What's that supposed to mean? I'm super strong!" Diona swung her fists in protest.
"Slip of the tongue, slip of the tongue. Tell me your thoughts on shield-casting."
"Mmhm, well, I'll just say it simply then."
Not wanting to disappoint Victor Wang, she summoned all the advice she had begged from others the night before and said nervously:
"An elemental shield isn't the same as basic elemental resistance. A shield manifests elemental power in a special form, letting it block far more damage than normal resistance of the same strength. But still, the rule holds—the more elemental power you put in, the stronger it gets.
"As for that special form, based on… ahem, my personal experience, most shields are spherical or circular. The curve of a sphere has great defensive advantage and costs less elemental power compared to weird shapes. That's why almost nobody uses bizarre-shaped shields."
"True. For beginners, a sphere might be easier than a cylinder too… Anything else?"
"Anything else…? Hm, actually, if you ask me, the only thing that really can't be left out is the will to protect.
"They always say you need an overwhelming desire to obtain a Vision. At least for me, that's true—I got mine because I wanted to save my dad. My shield's the same: whenever I use it, it's always to protect something!"
It took courage, but she finally blurted out her possibly strange heartfelt thought. Flustered, she turned her head, unable to meet his eyes.
But after a long silence, she peeked up—only to see Victor Wang frozen in thought.
"Will… intent… strong desire… Visions truly hold their wielder's strongest wishes. You could say they embody spirit, will. So, an Elemental Skill granted by a Vision being linked to that intent… makes sense."
"Ah, right." Diona nodded blankly.
"But…"
But—wasn't that the Vision hijacking the wielder's spirit, seizing their will?
Narzissenkreuz once said that if you 'accidentally' got a Vision on your path of cultivation, you had stepped onto an irreversible false path. The true path was to sever the Three Corpses and see the world's truth.
Yet, could what the Vision did count as a kind of severing as well? It stripped away the wielder's strongest feelings too—but instead of cutting them off, it separated them.
The power of spirit seemed to matter more and more in this world.
"But?"
"Nothing. I've noted down: the elemental power you put in, the shape, the intent. I'll refine my shield with those in mind."
"Th-that already helped you? Actually… since you're using Geo, maybe you should ask Noelle. She's the same element, and she also casts shields."
"Noelle, huh?" Victor Wang scratched his head. "I might have some bad blood with her…"
"Hah? Noelle's such a good person, how could she possibly clash with anyone? Don't tell me you hate her because of how she's changed? No, no, you don't seem like the kind to ignore right and wrong…"
"Noelle's changed? Hate her? What happened to her?"