Dashi's words left Aether momentarily paralyzed, entirely unsure of how to react.
Yet those Dead Ley Line Leaves resting upon the table were unmistakable; to this day, he had never heard of any entity dropping such remnants aside from the Abyss Order.
Which meant only one thing.
Dashi and his mining detachments had crossed paths with the Abyss... with Khaenri'ahns, slaughtered them in the field, and collected their remains as scrap?
Yet why on earth would that happen?
Setting aside the strict royal decrees forbidding any hostile action against the Five-Nation Alliance, his people were hardly foolish enough to court pointless disaster.
The sovereign restoration of Khaenri'ah was approaching its fruition, and the peaceful era his surviving people had yearned for across five centuries was practically within their grasp.
Why would any of them provoke a skirmish at such a delicate crossroads?
What could they possibly gain?
A pounding ache flared behind Aether's temples, compounded by the heavy, questioning stares converging upon him from around the council table.
Drawing in a sharp, quiet breath, Aether pitched his voice into a low, stern cadence.
"Recount the origin of these items once more. Every detail."
Dashi looked somewhat bewildered by the sudden tension, but nodded respectfully.
"Yesterday evening, just as our crew exited the mine shafts to transport the quarried ores, four or five Abyss Mages materialized without warning..."
Before the sentence cleared his lips, Aether raised his hand, his expression clouding with sharp displeasure.
"Refrain from repeating that title. Address them as Khaenri'ahns."
Dashi blinked, looking thoroughly taken aback.
"Yet, Prince Aether..."
"There are no exceptions," Aether cut him off with absolute finality, his eyes burning with quiet, unyielding conviction.
"The royal capital of Khaenri'ah has laid its foundations, and our people have reclaimed their mortal forms. Addressing them as Abyss Mages is no longer appropriate."
"Moving forward, you shall address them uniformly as Khaenri'ahns. We are a sovereign nation with a rightful home."
Hearing their prince's declaration, the Khaenri'ahn retainers standing behind him looked upon his back with overwhelming, tearful devotion.
Across five centuries of wandering in the dark, only Aether had consistently stood up for their dignity as sons and daughters of Khaenri'ah.
Though their national restoration was not yet fully complete, did that strip them of their heritage?
Their prince was actively defending the sacred pride of every surviving citizen.
Dashi parted his lips to speak, but sensing the intense emotion radiating from the Khaenri'ahn delegation and catching Ryen's amused, encouraging wink from across the room, he gave an awkward, compliant nod.
"Very well. While our logistical squads were hauling the mineral crates, five Khaenri'ahn mages launched an ambush against our line."
"However, our escort divisions were well staffed, so the assault caused zero disarray."
"Coordinating our fire, our troops rapidly neutralized all five Khaenri'ahn mages. These ley line branches are the spoils left behind in their wake."
"Dozens of soldiers witnessed the engagement firsthand."
Aether sank back against the carved woodwork of his high-backed chair, rubbing his temples in deep, agonizing frustration.
Everything was advancing toward a golden dawn; an unprovoked diplomatic fracture at this critical juncture was the last thing he needed.
Yet why would his people behave with such irrational madness?
Did such an attack make a shred of tactical sense?
Moreover, the discipline governing Khaenri'ahn deployments was exceptionally strict, with the vast majority of their workforce stationed upon the New Continent.
Even the small handful assigned to the Main Continent carried precise municipal portfolios.
Aether remained confident in his absolute command over his nation.
The entire incident felt like an incomprehensible riddle. Yet Dashi had spoken with eyewitness certainty, backed by dozens of veteran testimonies.
He was obligated to provide an accounting to the alliance.
After a long pause, Aether looked up, his tone measured and serious.
"Do you recall their physical descriptions? You need not harbor apprehension; if they initiated unprovoked aggression, the transgression lies entirely with them."
"I shall hold their commanders accountable. The fault does not rest with your men."
Dashi froze, scratching his cheek as a thoroughly conflicted, pained grimace spread across his face.
"Their appearance... they were remarkably fluffy, floating slightly above the dirt, quite short, carrying rather bizarre colorations, and shaped like solid cubes."
Aether went rigid, an ominous realization creeping into the corners of his consciousness.
"Shaped like solid cubes?"
"Indeed!"
Dashi offered an awkward chuckle, lowering his voice in sheepish explanation.
"Prince Aether, the Khaenri'ahns I referred to are merely the new voxel monsters introduced by the Genshin Impact module."
Aether sat frozen.
His composure collapsed in an instant.
He had agonized over this political nightmare for minutes, steeling his heart to interrogate his divisional governors, only to discover that these so-called Khaenri'ahns were nothing more than automated voxel mobs spawned by the new system?
Aether stared at Dashi, his eyes wide with utter, speechless exasperation.
Are you out of your mind?!
An Abyss Mage is an Abyss Mage! Why on earth would you go around branding wild video game mobs as Khaenri'ahns?!
He had genuinely believed rogue retainers had broken rank to incite a border war!
After several seconds of hollow silence, Aether threw his hands up in sheer disbelief.
"If they are merely computer-generated mobs from the module, call them Abyss Mages! Tossing around the name of our nation like that invites disastrous misunderstandings!"
Dashi looked thoroughly wronged, spreading his hands with an aggrieved pout.
"Yet... Prince Aether, were you not the one who passionately demanded that we address them uniformly as Khaenri'ahns?"
Aether cleared his throat violently, waving his hand to dismiss the humiliation.
"A minor semantic detail; let us move past it. To be perfectly clear: moving forward, only the living citizens of our sovereign land shall be addressed as Khaenri'ahns. As for the floating creatures spawned by this realm..."
"Call them Abyss Mages as you please."
Dashi pressed his lips together, swallowing down a mountain of dry remarks.
Lumine, however, harbored zero reservations. Lounging comfortably against Ryen's shoulder, she tossed her golden hair and drawled in a lazy, mocking singsong.
"Demanding everyone change their words one second, only to revoke the order the next. Even the word fickle falls short of capturing your shameless hypocrisy."
Aether shot her a murderous glare, though he wisely refrained from trading barbs.
Ryen sat nearby, casually adjusting the lens of his recording crystal. The hilarious spectacle of Aether's public breakdown had been captured in immaculate, high-definition quality.
Another priceless entry had been added to the archives of module-induced existential dread.
While it fell slightly short of Zhongli's expression upon discovering he had been turned into a farmable world boss, it was brilliant entertainment nonetheless.
It would serve as exceptional leverage to show the Khaenri'ahn court in the years to come.
Laughter rippled across the room before the assembly allowed the topic of mob naming to settle.
Since these creatures were merely synthetic entities spawned by the system, slaughtering them carried zero moral dilemma.
Ningguang picked up one of the Dead Ley Line Leaves, turning the desiccated twig beneath her slender fingers before shaking her head.
"I can glean little from its form, save for the distinct sensation that its energy density far surpasses the standard leaves we harvest back home."
"What is your assessment?"
She turned her gaze toward Albedo and Tighnari, recognizing that botanical and material sciences belonged strictly to their domain.
Albedo tapped the withered branch lightly, channeling a subtle thread of elemental energy through its grain.
After a quiet moment of observation, he offered an analytical nod.
"Without specialized laboratory apparatus, parsing its exact parameters is difficult."
"Yet one truth is immediately apparent: the elemental conductivity of this specimen eclipses standard ley line branches by a staggering margin."
"From the perspective of raw elemental absorption, its efficacy is dozens of times greater than anything recorded in our texts."
"However, the true value of ley line timber lies in its intrinsic resonance with the planetary leylines themselves."
"Lacking measuring equipment and field trials within this foreign realm, I cannot determine its deeper properties."
Albedo paused, handing the twig across the table to Aether.
"The people of Khaenri'ah command centuries of deep scholarship regarding ley line materials. How do your specialists read it?"
Aether gestured toward Endis, who stepped forward and accepted the relic.
Closing his eyes, Endis focused his senses upon the branch, his brow rising in sharp astonishment.
"Your Highness, esteemed leaders, the purity of this branch is a hundred times greater than the relics wielded by common Abyss Mages."
"Beyond establishing resonance with ley line currents, it contains concentrated reservoirs of pristine ley line energy locked directly within its fiber."
"Under normal circumstances, such properties are found only within pristine Ley Line Sprouts."
"Yet even authentic sprouts fall short of the extraordinary density preserved inside this branch."
Tighnari leaned forward, his long ears twitching with intense academic curiosity.
"What of its flow rate, elemental activation threshold, and output stability? How do the metrics align?"
Having veteran Khaenri'ahn scholars present spared them the need for complex diagnostic machines; their ancient civilization understood ley line mechanics better than anyone alive.
Just as Endis was preparing to launch into a technical lecture, Ryen raised a hand.
"Reserve the academic dissertations for your private workshops. What I wish to know is its practical efficacy."
"What tangible benefits does this resource offer to our operational development?"
Ningguang and Keqing nodded in immediate agreement.
They were pragmatists through and through, wholly unconcerned with theoretical milestones that bore no practical fruit.
If an asset held zero functional utility, then no matter how magnificent its scholarly prestige, they had no interest in wasting labor to harvest it.
Ley line materials were undeniably vital across Teyvat, yet manipulating them always carried volatile risks.
Faced with a specimen bearing a hundredfold leap in energy density, they needed to be certain that channeling its power would not trigger catastrophic ley line disruptions.
Endis gathered his thoughts, nodding with absolute certainty.
"Its utility is beyond question. The demand for refined ley line materials is immense, not only within Khaenri'ah, but across every allied court."
"Though its purity has escalated dramatically, its foundational nature remains unchanged; so long as the underlying principles hold, its strategic applications remain absolute."
"Regarding utilization, given the unprecedented concentration of its reserves, our handling protocols must adapt. I envision two primary paths."
"The first path involves continuous, low-yield extraction. Where a single standard branch once yielded one industrial catalyst, this specimen can be divided into dozens of fractions."
"While the individual potency remains conventional under this method, our functional volume of usable ley line material will multiply exponentially."
"The second path involves utilizing advanced apparatus synthesized from the resources of this block world to elevate our industrial technology."
"This would allow us to discharge the entire energetic matrix in a single, concentrated burst, mirroring standard procedures."
"Under that method, the hundredfold purity would unleash its full potency at once, yielding results that defy all existing projections."
"However, for the present, I strongly advise adhering strictly to the first path. Attempting the second without mature engineering and reinforced containment would invite catastrophe."
"Should a specimen of this purity suffer an uncontained rupture..."
"The resulting ley line flood would completely incinerate every elemental leyline within a hundred-meter radius."
"To illustrate the hazard: consider the mutant monstrosities that spawn near Ley Line Outcrops. Those beasts are born precisely from ambient wildlife gorging upon concentrated leaks of ley line energy."
"Extreme caution is mandatory. Ley line materials have always been a double-edged sword, and within the Genshin Impact module, their potency is staggering."
Concluding his analysis, Endis set the branch back upon the table and stepped behind Aether once more.
Aether carried a look of quiet satisfaction, thoroughly pleased by his subordinate's display of mastery.
Ningguang rested her chin upon her fingers, speaking in a firm, decisive tone.
"To put it simply: this resource holds monumental value for our expansion, correct?"
Endis bowed his head. "Undoubtedly, my lady."
"Splendid," Ningguang declared, settling the policy without hesitation.
"Direct our harvesting divisions to stockpile every ley line branch they uncover. As for material processing, execute protocols along the lines of his first proposal."
"Furthermore, regarding the development of reinforced processing apparatus, we place that task into the hands of the Akademiya."
"The materials introduced by this module possess universally elevated parameters; our existing tools must undergo an immediate technological overhaul to keep pace with the era."
Ningguang paused, exchanging a swift, razor-sharp glance with Ryen as shared amusement touched their eyes.
"As for those Abyss Mages, your regiments understand their behavior better than anyone. We entrust their harvesting to your vanguard."
"Whenever our scouts encounter them in the field, show zero hesitation: execute every single one on sight! Harvest as many as you can lay hands upon!"
The council fell silent for half a second before laughter rippled across the room, leaving Aether to nurse his bruised pride in silence.