"Time to plant the tree!" Yu Jin picked up the Golden Tree Sapling from the ground and jogged to the spot where the Skyfrost Nail had just been.
But he quickly froze.
"What's wrong?" Lisa saw Yu Jin's stiff posture and, curious, hurried to his side.
Then she saw a massive pit.
The Skyfrost Nail was very tall; even without close inspection, everyone could roughly estimate it to be about a hundred meters long.
Lisa had initially thought the lush, icy jungle around the Skyfrost Nail had grown up from the ground.
But now it seemed she was wrong; these ice formations had gradually extended and grown from the large pit, filling the entire chasm before growing upwards.
The enormous pit, created by the melting ice, was several hundred meters in both length and width. Within the deep chasm, countless broken walls and crumbling ruins saw the light of day once more.
They were originally destined to be forever frozen in the solid ice, but now they reappeared before everyone's eyes, silently recounting everything that had happened here.
"Looking at the damage to these structures… it seems they were all destroyed simultaneously in an instant," Albedo walked over as well, observing the state of destruction of the wreckage in the giant pit below, he concluded.
Albedo looked at the deep pit, a rare look of shock in his eyes. This enormous pit was likely created by the massive pillar Yu Jin had just incinerated.
Such terrifying power, truly unheard of.
"Is this… a city down here?" Lumine asked, her voice heavy, as she gazed at the ruins before her.
These dilapidated buildings even looked quite "new"; time had left very shallow marks on the ruins encased in ice.
But what sent a greater chill down Lumine's spine was that she couldn't find a single corpse in such a vast ruin.
Such a large complex of buildings should have housed a considerable population. Yet, Lumine scanned the surroundings and found no bodies, not even of animals, let alone humans.
Given the conditions of the snowy mountains, bodies could sometimes be preserved for longer than some buildings.
But Lumine saw none, as if all life in the city had been erased in an instant.
Compared to the immense power that instantly turned the city into a deep pit, Lumine found the method of silently making life disappear even more terrifying.
"It should be," Yu Jin nodded, hearing Lumine's question. "And this should have happened thousands of years ago."
"Paimon, how are you feeling?" Yu Jin changed the subject, starting to worry about Paimon.
"Huh? Me?" Paimon pointed to herself, then looked at the huge ruins before her, stomping her foot in indignation and saying,
"This is too awful! Such a big city, destroyed in an instant! If I find out who did it, I'll definitely make Lumine teach her a good lesson!"
"Why me?" Lumine looked at Paimon, speechless. Paimon made it sound good, but why was she the one who had to carry it out in the end?
"Hehe, I'm very weak, you know!" Paimon chuckled at Lumine, as if embarrassed.
Then Paimon looked at Yu Jin again, she waved her fist and said, "Yu Jin, don't underestimate me! I'm also working very hard to mature!"
"At least… at least when Lumine is dealing with monsters, I'll be watching from the side!" Paimon concluded, puffing out her chest proudly.
It seemed she thought Yu Jin was worried about her being too young.
"Hahaha, good! Paimon, remember what you said, don't forget it later." Yu Jin laughed out loud at Paimon.
"Of course, I remember everything I say." Paimon started to brag again.
"You ate too much again last night! You clearly said you were going to lose weight!"
"Waaah! Lumine, why do you always expose me?!"
"Hahaha!"
...Accompanied by Lumine and Paimon's playful banter, the originally somber atmosphere dissipated considerably.
"What should we do? Should we continue planting here?" Lisa sighed inwardly, looking at the Golden Tree Sapling Yu Jin was holding.
This tree-planting journey had truly been full of twists and turns.
"Plant it, why wouldn't I plant it? This is an excellent spot; it even saved me the trouble of digging a pit," Yu Jin nodded, looking at the huge chasm and saying.
"Before that, however, some important artifacts still need to be preserved." Yu Jin said, then pointed to a red glow in the ruins.
"Hmm? A Domain entrance? Or an undiscovered Domain?" Lisa followed Yu Jin's gaze and saw a faint red light.
That was the unique glow of a Domain entrance, and it was an unexplored Domain. Domain entrances have a characteristic: once explored, they turn blue; unexplored Domains remain red.
Many Domains are scattered across Teyvat; they form their own small worlds, and no one knows how they appeared.
The architecture within Domains also differs from the current architecture of The Seven Nations of Teyvat, but all Domains, without exception, are connected to petrified ancient trees. And these petrified ancient trees are connected to the ley lines deep underground.
The ley lines record everything that happens within the Domain. With enough Original Resin, one can activate the ancient tree, allowing memories clogged in the ley lines to materialize and gush forth.
As for what comes out, that's purely up to luck. It could be an ancient person's underpants, or it could be an artifact imbued with the will of a predecessor.
If a five-star artifact appears, that would be a huge gain. After all, the entire Mondstadt only has one set of five-star Noblesse Oblige artifacts, and it's a treasure passed down by the Knights of Favonius.
This is also why Teyvat has so many Adventurers; on one hand, Adventure is truly exhilarating, and on the other hand, Teyvat's Domains can be explored repeatedly.
"With this Domain here, not everything here is completely destroyed." Yu Jin put down the Golden Tree Sapling and extended his hand, "But let's move its location first!"
"Boom!" A massive spatial rift suddenly appeared above the Domain. The rift didn't have the brilliant, starlike glow of an Abyss Passage; instead, it only had chaotic, disordered flowing light.
Yu Jin didn't possess the Abyss Order's technique of prying open space with power; he merely tore space apart.
Although the technical content wasn't high, it was certainly effective.
"Off you go!" Yu Jin waved his hand, and the huge Domain entrance rose from the ground and flew into the myriad flowing lights.
"Alright, now we can plant the tree!" Seeing the area cleared, Yu Jin grabbed the Golden Tree Sapling's crown and yanked it out of its pot.
Soil fell from the Golden Tree Sapling's roots, revealing its transparent, golden, amber-like rootlets.
"Swoosh~" As soon as the Golden Tree Sapling left the soil, the entire tree shrank. Its crown almost shriveled into a jade sphere.
"Alright, stop pretending. Don't I know you? You, who live longer than humans even in soil, what are you faking here?" Yu Jin looked at the Golden Tree Sapling's pitiful appearance and gave it a big slap.
He didn't know about others, but he was very familiar with the Golden Tree. Go ask the Golden Tree guards in The Lands Between, which Golden Tree hadn't been messed with by him?
Yu Jin leaped into the bottom of the deep pit and began digging. Brown soil flew, and under Yu Jin's true "iron hand," a medium-sized tree pit appeared before him.
Yu Jin placed the Golden Tree Sapling in his hand into the tree pit and said earnestly, "Xiao Huang, you must perform well. Don't be like your mother, eating meat every day, eat more trash… oh no, forbidden knowledge."
"forbidden knowledge is super delicious, I'm telling you."
Yu Jin nervously patted his chest, almost letting something slip. Then, amidst the Golden Tree Sapling's struggles, he buried it with soil.
After being planted, the Golden Tree Sapling's leaves immediately drooped. It couldn't actively leave the soil yet; once in the ground, it was much like an ordinary tree, at most able to move slightly.
Watching the Golden Tree Sapling's dejected appearance, Yu Jin grinned, then shouted to Lanssangx in the distance behind him:
"Lanssangx! Come over here! Let me show you my hand!"
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