After realizing he needed to make a new artifact set for old characters, Rios immediately had an idea.
[New Artifact Set One]
[2-Piece: +80 Elemental Mastery]
[4-Piece: When dealing Elemental DMG, increase the current on-field character's Elemental Mastery by xx% of the wearer's Elemental Mastery (xx points). When the wearer is under Nightsoul's Blessing, additionally increase xx points of Elemental Mastery]
Rios studied Mavuika's mechanics and found that she didn't lack damage buffs, attack, or monster defense shred—what she needed was resistance shred and Elemental Mastery.
Resistance shred could be left to Xilonen, but Elemental Mastery wasn't easy to increase.
Thus, Rios specially made a signature artifact set for Citlali, which boosts the front-line character's EM based on her own EM, and provides even more when under Nightsoul's Blessing.
What, Citlali is a character from version 5.1, not an old character?
Come on, for Rios and Mavuika who are from version 5.2, Citlali from the previous version is an old character.
Even being born a few seconds earlier makes one the big brother, let alone Citlali entering the banner twenty-something days ahead of Rios and the others.
Besides, this set isn't unusable on truly old characters anyway.
If given to Teacher Albedo, he might become a powerful character who can add 200 EM to the front-line—what a powerhouse.
Citlali adds EM, Xilonen shreds resistance and buffs damage, Rios adds attack—swap in any attack DPS and they'll soar.
Oh, except for a certain physical character.
After designing Citlali's signature artifact set, Rios began designing his own signature artifact set.
[New Artifact Set Two]
[2-Piece: Healing Bonus +15%]
[4-Piece: When the equipper heals characters in the party, it will record the healing amount (including overflow value). For every 10,000 cumulative healing, increase the equipper's Crit Rate by xx% and Crit DMG by xx%. The effect is removed when the equipper triggers x instances of Elemental Skill DMG or one Charged Attack DMG. The above effect can still trigger when the character is off-field.]
As the Pyro Archon, Rios has already saved the Pyro characters, and now he's going to save the healer characters too.
Look, after healing others, you can also boost your own Crit Rate and Crit DMG—what a huge uplift for healers.
As long as you get good substats, Kokomi's Crit Rate might even turn positive.
Of course, this thing is still primarily for Rios himself to use.
He wants to let the world know that he, as a frail healer, can also deal nuke-level damage.
After finishing the design for the new artifact sets, Rios didn't design any more.
Just as he was thinking whether to look at the night sky and space out for a bit, a woman came to his side.
"Your Excellency, the Pyro Archon, am I disturbing you?" the woman said.
"I'm no longer the Pyro Archon," Rios turned to look at the woman. "Chasca, did you come over for something?"
The visitor was none other than Chasca.
Earlier at the banquet, he had seen her bickering with her sister, but now she had left the banquet to find Rios.
"Your Excellency, the Pyro Archon, I came to thank you," Chasca said with a smile. "If you hadn't given Chuychu the Vision, she might have been in danger during the previous battle with the Abyss monsters."
"Then you should thank the Vision," Rios laughed. "I remember back then, it was the Vision that spontaneously burst into flames to protect Chuychu. If you want to thank someone, go thank the Vision."
"Uh..." Chasca paused, somewhat unable to keep up with his train of thought.
She could vaguely sense that Rios was joking, but she had no idea how to respond.
"I'm kidding," Rios continued. "Since the battle with the Abyss monsters is over, there are some things you need to know."
"Your Excellency, the Pyro Archon, what do you want to say?" Chasca asked curiously.
"It's about Mavuika's plan."
Then, Rios told her everything: that Mavuika is the previous Pyro Archon and needs to awaken Natlan's six heroes.
After realizing that she was one of the six heroes who needed to awaken but hadn't succeeded, Chasca felt ashamed: "If I had awakened earlier, our battle with the Abyss monsters wouldn't have been so difficult."
"These things can't be forced, just like with Visions—if you want one too badly, you won't get it."
"That's why Mavuika and I didn't tell you about the ancient names before."
"Mm... Your Excellency, the Pyro Archon, that makes sense." Chasca nodded lightly, but her expression remained grave, clearly still dwelling on her failure to awaken.
"Besides, our casualties against the Abyss weren't that severe," Rios comforted. "The current statistics show no deaths, just many injured who can recover after some rest."
"I think you don't need to take it to heart."
Hearing Rios say this, Chasca's expression softened a bit: "Thank you for the comfort, Your Excellency, the Pyro Archon."
"I'm going back to drink."
Not long after Chasca left, another woman walked over.
"Mavuika, how come you're here?"
Seeing Mavuika, who had been chugging alcohol at the gathering earlier, also come out, Rios said with a light chuckle: "Don't tell me the banquet's alcohol has all been drunk up?"
"Not at all. Although someone hid in a wine barrel to take a bath, it only affected one barrel—still enough for us to drink." Mavuika laughed. "I came this time mainly to talk about the Pilgrimage of the Return of the Sacred Flame."
"You're the Pyro Archon; you can do whatever you want without discussing it with me, right?" Rios said.
"That won't do." Mavuika placed one hand on her hip, smiling. "According to Natlan's traditions, the Pyro Archon must go through the selection of the Pilgrimage of the Return of the Sacred Flame, prove themselves to be the strongest of the era, and only then gain everyone's recognition."
"Although you've verbally handed the position of Pyro Archon to me, I hope to win the position of Pyro Archon in a proper and upright way through tradition," Mavuika said.
"A traditionalist, huh..." Rios remarked.
"So, before the next Pilgrimage of the Return of the Sacred Flame, the position of Pyro Archon is still yours," Mavuika said with a smile.
"Does that mean I'll need to find an excuse then?"
"Indeed." Mavuika paused, then narrowed her eyes with a grin. "I hope Your Excellency, the Pyro Archon, can give everyone a satisfactory answer."
"Don't say something like 'the Pyro Archon's job is too tiring, so I don't want to do it'—no one in all of Natlan would believe that."