Genshin Impact: Watch me turn the tables and kill my servants at the start!

Yakoda: Boss, it seems like you've analyzed nothing!

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When Fanes flew out of the seal rift riding on the little black dog's back, he was completely stunned.

To be precise, Fanes was lifted up by Xiao Hei's head and thrown onto its back. Then, the young dragon flapped its pitifully short little wings and flew up a distance of more than ten feet, finally bouncing him off the edge of the crack and onto the ground.

Fanes lay on the ground next to the cave entrance, panting for a while before sitting up. He rubbed his tailbone, which had been shaken apart, and looked up at the young dragon next to him, who was squatting on the ground panting with its wings tucked in.

Little Black was so tired that its tongue was sticking out, its round little belly was bulging, and its amber round eyes were filled with "Master, with your weight, can you climb up by yourself next time?"

Fanes patted its little head: "Goodness, its carrying capacity is so strong? It can even carry a living person like me up here."

Yakoda stood three steps away, her cat-ear hat askew and her goggles dangling around her neck.

With his arms crossed, his starry eyes now turned into two round O-shapes as he looked Xiao Hei, who was squatting on the ground panting, up and down. His expression changed from "This is the same dragon from before" to "Impossible," and then from "Impossible" to "It really does seem to be the same dragon from before."

Yakoda opened her mouth, her voice filled with a bewildered disbelief, as if her worldview had been shattered: "What the hell... Is this the same demonic dragon from before? How did it turn into this?"

When Xiao Hei heard someone watching him, he raised his head and growled at Yakoda, sweeping his tail on the ground. He looked completely harmless, showing no resemblance to the enormous creature that had been emitting black smoke earlier.

The doctor walked over from the side, the hem of his white lab coat gently brushing the ground. He stood in front of Fanes, looked down at the young dragon, and his voice beneath the bird-beak mask carried a hint of...satisfaction? It didn't quite seem like it; it was more like a faint sense of smug satisfaction, like "the experiment results were exactly as I expected."

"Looks like you've had a good haul," the professor said.

Fanes got up from the ground, dusted off his pants, and lifted Little Black by the scruff of its neck to examine it—the young dragon kicked its four short legs in mid-air, let out a whimper, and then drooped down again.

Fanes put it back on the ground and looked up at the doctor: "Doctor, has it regained its senses? Won't it suddenly turn into that big, fire-breathing monster again?"

The doctor tilted his head, seemingly trying to come up with a way that a six-year-old could understand.

"Strictly speaking, it's not about regaining its sanity. The power of your Eye of God suppressed the abyssal corruption and primal demonic nature that had accumulated within it over the years, causing its energy system to revert to its initial state. Simply put, it has only returned to its juvenile form. It has been given a second chance to grow. As for what it will grow into in the future... that depends on how you raise it."

Fanes looked down at the little black dragon scratching at the floor with its claws and remained silent for two seconds. Then he squatted down and stroked the smooth, fine scales on the young dragon's head, silently doing some mental calculations—he had lost the Seven-Colored Eye of God and gained a pet that, at present, seemed to be of little use except for being cute and carrying people on short trips.

"I feel like I've been ripped off..."

The doctor stood beside him, his tone carrying a subtle "you don't understand how much of a bargain you've gotten" quality: "Not bad, at least you got a pet in return. That Eye of God will only be a burden to you sooner or later."

Fanes suddenly looked up: "What? The Eye of the Demon has become a burden!"

Fanes paused mid-sentence. He recalled the entire process of obtaining the Eye of God—it fell from nowhere and hit him on the head, requiring neither desire nor reason, and its outer shell shimmered with the light of the seven elements. This thing looked abnormal no matter how you looked at it.

Not to mention the indescribable feeling he got when he used it to manipulate elemental forces, as if something was being drawn out of his body, even though he hadn't paid much attention to it before.

Moreover, the Eye of God seems to have the ability to anchor destiny.

"...It seems so." Fanes honestly admitted.

Just then, the door to the inner side of the laboratory was suddenly pushed open. Another doctor walked out—the same white lab coat, the same bird-beak mask, the same gait and posture, but Fanes felt that the aura emanating from this new doctor was several levels lower than that of the previous one.

He walked out the door and glanced at the people present. His gaze first fell on the little black dog squatting on the ground, paused for a few seconds, and then suddenly turned to the doctor next to him.

The new PhD student's voice was a few octaves lower than the previous one's, "What...what have you done? Where are my test subjects?"

The PhD student, hands in his white lab coat pockets, spoke casually, as if discussing the nice weather: "Consider it a gift for the new colleague. Don't be so formal."

The new doctor stood there silently for several seconds. The sound of breathing under the bird-beak mask was clearly audible, and Fanes could even feel the faint tension in the air, as if someone was enduring something.

He stared at the doctor for a long time, then said nothing, simply turned and pushed open the lab door, walking inside. The door slammed shut behind him, sending dust flying from the walls.

The doctor withdrew his gaze and turned to Fanes. Although the eyes hidden behind the bird-beak mask were invisible, Fanes could sense a solemnity that was completely different from before, as if he were seriously making his final arrangements.

The doctor lowered his voice by half an octave, his tone still gentle but without the teasing: "Stay away from this slice in the future, it will do you good."

He paused, seemingly choosing his words carefully, "And... stay away from us. That applies to all slices. Remember that."

After saying that, he turned and left, his white coat disappearing quickly into the shadows deep in the corridor. The footsteps grew fainter and fainter until finally no sound could be heard at all.

Only Fanes, Yakoda, and Little Black, who was squatting on the ground licking his paws, remained at the laboratory entrance.

Yakoda stared at the direction where the doctor had disappeared for a long time, then turned to look at Fanes, her starry eyes filled with a puzzled look, as if asking, "What kind of riddle is this?"

"Boss... what is this guy talking about in a cryptic way? What does 'stay away from us' mean? If he wants to stay away from them, why did he help you get... get this little black thing out of there?"

Fanes squatted on the ground, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the smooth scales on the top of the little black head, his mind replaying the doctor's words over and over again.

After a silence that lasted about the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, Fanes slowly spoke: "Hiss... Let me analyze this."

He stood up, put his hands behind his back, and paced back and forth a couple of times. His posture looked quite respectable, but what he said started to veer more and more absurdly.

"First, his saying 'stay away from us' indicates that at least two other segments pose a threat to him. Second, the serious tone he used when saying this suggests he wasn't joking; he was genuinely concerned. Third, his helping me subdue Xiao Hei indicates he harbors no ill will towards me personally, but is wary of the other segments. Considering these three points..."

Fanes stopped and turned around to look at Yakoda with a serious expression: "The conclusion is—the doctor's slices don't get along. The doctor who was willing to give me the little black one earlier, and the doctor who came to do the experiment later, may be secretly competing with each other. He told me to stay away from them because he was afraid I would get involved in their internal struggles."

Yakoda tilted her head and thought for a moment, then blinked her starry eyes: "Boss, what you said seems to make a lot of sense... but I think, is it possible that what he meant just now was only the literal meaning—'None of us are normal, you should stay away for your own safety'?"

Fanes opened his mouth, only to find that his "internal competition theory" seemed far too complicated in the face of the name Akoda.

Silently closing his mouth, Fanes squatted down, picked up Little Black, and placed it on his arm. The young dragon's warm body pressed against his forearm, letting out a satisfied purr.

Fanes carried Xiao Hei out of the lab. "You win. All that analysis is no substitute for a single, clear statement."

Yakoda walked out beside him, her cat-ear hat swaying in the afternoon light, still adding insult to injury: "Boss, stop analyzing in the future. Your analyses always go in complicated directions. Last time when you analyzed why Ningguang took out a loan, you even analyzed that 'she might be going to unite with the Seven Stars to fight the Fatui,' but it turned out she just wanted to build a dock and make money."

Fanes pushed open the iron gate of the laboratory. The warm afternoon sun of the Whispering Forest shone down, and dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves danced on the two people and the dragon.

Fanes glanced at the starry-eyed girl beside him and sighed, "Alright, alright, I won't analyze it anymore. Let's go back for dinner. Little Black is probably hungry after shrinking, we need to get it something to eat."