Time passed quickly.
In the blink of an eye, five or six days had gone by since the new mods were activated.
The Sabzeruz Festival was already just around the corner.
Over these past few days, whether in Teyvat or in the Minecraft world, things had been fairly calm, with no major upheavals.
No major events, just a steady stream of minor ones.
Of course, most of them were good news.
On the Sumeru side, thanks to Alhaitham and the others working day and night without rest, the majority of issues had already been resolved.
The Akademiya had more or less stabilized for the time being.
Naturally, the aftermath of Azar's downfall wasn't something that could be fully cleaned up so easily.
But overall, the situation was relatively stable.
At the very least, the people of Sumeru had temporarily returned to their normal lives. Under Alhaitham's arrangements, the festive atmosphere of the Sabzeruz Festival had been growing stronger by the day.
It was clear that the people of Sumeru were genuinely happy to celebrate Nahida's birthday and welcome the festival.
The first batch of elite scholars from the Akademiya had also arrived in Liyue and joined Albedo's research team.
At first, some of them were dissatisfied, after all, their own experiments had been halted and they were forcibly sent here.
But the moment they saw the research objectives, each of them immediately entered a state of total immersion.
Every day, they were either researching, or on the way to research.
For now, the results were still modest, with Albedo remaining the core of the research effort.
However, according to Albedo, these scholars could at least help with auxiliary tasks. Once they became more familiar with things, simpler work could be handed off to them entirely.
Albedo's workload had been significantly reduced as a result.
Of course, for Ryen and the others, this was ultimately a minor detail, hardly worth dwelling on.
The truly important matters lay with the mods themselves.
First came the furniture mod, which turned out to be astonishingly simple.
The required materials were all things that already existed in the Minecraft world. At most, there were just new crafting recipes, nothing like the nested complexity of the Slash Blade mod.
Crafting furniture was straightforward, like one plus one equaling two.
Just follow the recipe, and it was done.
As for cost,
None.
Yet another familiar case of zero-cost production.
Ryen had already fully rolled out these furnishings across all of his villas.
That included the manor villa, the cloud-top villa, the hillside villa, the underwater villa…
Adhering to a philosophy of "letting flowers bloom everywhere," Ryen made sure every one of his homes was fully furnished.
Once equipped with modern furniture, these villas began to resemble the homes from Ryen's original world even more.
Clean. Neat. Modern.
After experiencing firsthand the sheer convenience these furnishings brought to daily life, everyone eagerly rushed to craft full sets of furniture for themselves.
Their homes in the Minecraft world, and their residences back in Teyvat, were all filled to the brim.
Even Hu Tao packed the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor full of furniture.
Self-proclaimed as the "Number One Chef Under Heaven," Hu Tao even made several range hoods for herself.
Along with multiple microwaves and ovens…
A few days ago, she used an oven to make a dish called Ghostly March.
Ryen could only say that it was the closest he had ever come to tasting the essence of death itself.
Rumor had it that, inspired by the furniture mod, Hu Tao was also planning to launch new paper-burning products, paper-crafted furniture.
Hopefully, she'd burn some instruction manuals along with them.
Furniture, after all, wasn't dangerous, nor did it hold any secrets worth hiding.
This was the kind of thing that should be promoted openly.
So Ningguang and the others wasted no time. After personally experiencing the convenience of modern furniture, Ningguang quietly discussed it with Jean and the others.
They reached an agreement immediately and announced the opening of Furniture Cities.
Liyue and Mondstadt went smoothly.
As nations, they were already firmly under Ningguang's and Jean's control.
Even in Mondstadt, despite Jean only being the Acting Grand Master, she had done so much for the city that life there was steadily improving.
If Jean so much as raised her voice, the people of Mondstadt would probably carry her straight into the Knights of Favonius headquarters and crown her Grand Master on the spot.
With Mondstadt firmly in her grasp, opening a furniture city was effortless.
Inazuma and Snezhnaya, however, were more problematic.
Inazuma had only just stabilized and wasn't suited for large-scale initiatives. Furniture sales could only be introduced on a limited scale.
As for Snezhnaya…
The same old problems.
Just thinking about it was enough to make the Cryo Archon grind her teeth.
In any case, whether furniture cities or furniture shops,
The furniture mod was now fully open.
As for pricing, Ningguang and the others agreed to set reasonable prices based on a furniture's importance.
For example, items like refrigerators and air conditioners, things every household needed, couldn't be priced too high.
They were set so that an ordinary Liyue laborer could afford one with about a third of a month's wages.
These were essential household items. Pricing them too high would make no sense.
On the other hand, items like coffee machines, pianos, humidifiers,
Things that weren't necessary for daily life, or were purely for enjoyment or decoration,
Those could be priced high.
The scythe was aimed squarely at Liyue's wealthy elites. Even if it wasn't a brutal cut, skimming some profit was still profit.
Naturally, no one felt like they were being exploited when buying such luxury furniture.
Teyvat's technological development was strange to begin with, many things that should exist didn't, and many things that shouldn't did.
Furniture, however, was something genuinely novel to the people of Teyvat.
As for resellers flipping furniture for profit,
That had nothing to do with Ningguang and the others.
If people wanted to resell, that was their business.
In any case, the finances of the four nations had grown remarkably strong during this period.
The widespread production of furniture significantly improved the daily lives of ordinary citizens.
Happiness levels soared.
This was especially important for Inazuma.
The furniture mod primarily impacted everyday civilian life.
For Ryen and the others, it was more of a lifestyle enhancement, making daily life more enjoyable.
The truly critical mods had always been Slash Blade and Thaumcraft.
Over these few days, everyone had naturally begun crafting Slash Blades as well.
Even though only five or six days had passed, progress was remarkably fast.
After all, Ryen was personally guiding them, and Liyue's master blacksmiths had already joined in.
After days and nights of studying Ryen's notes, the blacksmiths had thoroughly mastered the finer details of Slash Blade forging.
A thousand kills sounded like a daunting requirement, but that depended on how you farmed them.
Everyone had a mob grinder.
The Nether and the Twilight Forest were overflowing with monsters. Finding enemies was never a problem.
While farming kills, they could also gather materials like Proud Souls.
So in practice, it was only intimidating on paper. Once familiar with the process, forging a Slash Blade was fast and efficient.
Of course, top-tier blades like Shinen were another matter.
No one had managed to forge one yet.
Everyone's choices in Slash Blades varied widely.
People like Ningguang and Lisa, who didn't particularly enjoy swordsmanship, only cared about having one, it didn't even have to be especially strong.
A single Yamato was more than enough.
Zhongli, however, forged the famed blade Kongō-Rōtai, with an extremely high reforging count.
In his hands, the blade truly came alive, easily reaching maximum evaluation ratings.
Even Zhongli admitted that wielding it nearly doubled his combat effectiveness.
Not because its raw damage was overwhelming,
In Teyvat terms, Kongō-Rōtai could at best kill a god's retainer in one strike, or seriously injure a god.
But its active skill was Dimensional Slash, an utterly absurd spatial ability.
Zhongli himself couldn't withstand a single Dimensional Slash, let alone anyone else.
He was now constantly thinking about finding Celestia to "test the blade."
A few days ago, he even dragged Ryen and Venti to the Dark Sea, where he cleaved a god with a single Dimensional Slash.
Tartaglia and the others followed similar paths, though unlike Zhongli, they didn't stick to a single blade.
Tartaglia and Diluc each carried four different Slash Blades, varying by category.
As for Ei,
She devoted herself wholeheartedly to forging Rengoku Blade: Shinen.
Her Cursed Blade: Samehada had already evolved into its Blood Blade form.
But according to Ryen's estimate, forging Shinen would take at least another month.
Even so, Ei thoroughly enjoyed the process.
Upgrading her blade seemed to rekindle a long-lost passion.
She was brimming with energy every day.
As for Ryen's once-exclusive Yamato, it had now practically become commonplace.
After all, the orbital dragon-slaying cannon was still stationed in the End, with people regularly farming the Ender Dragon.
Broken Yamato blades were collected along the way.
While not mass-produced, Yamato was now being produced in batches.
The most outrageous case, however, was Scaramouche.
No one knew what possessed him, but he threw himself entirely into sword forging.
As if possessed by the spirit of the Raiden Gokaden.
For five straight days, he didn't sleep, repeatedly forging Slash Blades.
He owned the most Slash Blades out of everyone,
Nearly twenty.
And they were all high-quality blades with impressive reforging levels.
More than once, Ryen wondered whether Scaramouche might eventually evolve into some kind of three-sword-style swordsman.
Still, Ryen strongly supported Scaramouche's enthusiasm.
After all, the more Slash Blades Scaramouche forged, the easier Ryen's own tasks became.
Thinking about it that way, Ryen found Scaramouche increasingly pleasing to look at.
Everyone could tell how much Scaramouche loved Slash Blades.
But for him, Slash Blades weren't the end goal.
He still wanted a staff.
Unfortunately, staves weren't something that could be handed out casually.
Ever since the Thaumcraft mod opened, everyone valued staves more than ever.
Each one had to be carefully stored.
After all, staves weren't easy to craft in the short term.
Scaramouche had completely let go of his obsession with Gnoses.
Instead, his fixation had evolved into this world itself.
In his own words,
He already had Slash Blades. If he could just get a few staves as well, his life would be complete.
As for elemental power and Gnoses…
Whoever wanted them could have them.
After being utterly bullied by Lumine's Lich Barrier, Scaramouche had completely lost faith in Gnoses and elemental power.
Even in his dreams, he still saw Lumine smiling as she tanked all his attacks with her staff, completely unscathed.
Then pulling out an RPG and blasting him several times in return.
Those memories had become his nightmares.
Until he obtained a staff of his own, Scaramouche would continue to be haunted by them.
Of course, aside from nightmares and endless blade forging, Scaramouche hadn't been idle these past few days.
For example,
He finally acknowledged his aunt.