[Dear host, I seem to recall you promising to respect my wishes and not use my body without permission. Or am I remembering wrong?]
Nahida's voice suddenly drifted up hauntingly from the depths of Ji Feng's mind.
Ji Feng jolted.
[Ah, well, um, I got carried away and suddenly forgot... wait! Why can you talk inside my head?!]
He abruptly snapped to his senses and realized something was wrong.
He had specifically checked the state of Nahida's soul within the Genshin Impact Martial Soul. It had clearly said she was asleep! How could she still talk to him?!
He instantly read through Nahida's memories.
The next second, an adorably indignant expression appeared on the exquisite little face of the Nahida outside. Spreading his arms, he deftly wriggled free of Ah Yin's embrace.
Then he folded his arms and floated in midair, looking down at Sangonomiya Kokomi, whose face was full of anxiety and who wished she could turn into thin air on the spot. He squeezed the words out one by one through gritted teeth. "Could my most trusted, most loyal strategist kindly explain herself?!"
This method of using a clone to evade the Martial Soul's control had actually been little Kokomi's suggestion!
Sneaky, scheming little Kokomi! You ornamental fish-you've actually started swaying with whichever way the wind blows, have you?!
Unfortunately, Nahida's puffed-up pose, hands planted on his little waist, carried no intimidation whatsoever. Instead, he looked soft and adorable, putting on a brave front.
Little Kokomi's eyes shifted. Far from panicking, she leisurely raised her sleeve to cover half her lovely face. Tears glistened in her beautiful eyes as she said pitifully, "Does my lord really think I would betray him?!"
"I've devoted myself wholeheartedly to you, my lord. Why would you question me like this without even finding out what happened?!" Her voice grew increasingly aggrieved and forceful, until she was questioning Ji Feng instead.
"B-but in Nahida's memories, you really did..." Ji Feng, in Nahida's form, instantly lost his bluster. In those memories, he had clearly seen Kokomi advising Nahida. And in fact, Nahida had now used that technique to begin breaking free of the Genshin Impact Martial Soul's restraints.
Was there more to it?
Seeing little Kokomi so righteous, her eyes brimming with tears as though she had suffered some enormous injustice, he no longer dared to be certain.
"Tell me first! Do you trust me or not?! If you don't, anything I say will be wasted breath!" Little Kokomi pressed him aggressively.
Nahida hurriedly threw himself into little Kokomi's arms, wrapped his arms around her neck, and coaxed, "Of course I trust little Kokomi!"
"Hmph!" Only then did Kokomi's mood improve a little. Gently waving her folding fan, she said, "Nahida splitting her soul offers you three advantages. First, as a god, Nahida is bound to be proud and unwilling to bow to another. If she were reduced to a complete puppet, she would most likely choose to fight until the fish dies and the net tears. Leaving her a thread of hope now makes it possible to negotiate with her."
"Second, since Nahida exists as a soul-form clone, she is inevitably subject to the control of her original body, which my lord possesses. You can use this to have Nahida serve you. Although a soul form cannot fight, she can still use her wisdom to make things easier for you. And it won't interfere with your borrowing the power of her original body, either. You can have her work twenty-four hours a day."
"Third, even if I said nothing, Nahida would probably devise this method herself with her wisdom. Rather than let her hide in the shadows and act on her own, we might as well lay everything out in the open and earn a favor from her in the process."
After finishing, Sangonomiya Kokomi shot him a displeased glance. "Now, my lord, do you understand the pains I've taken for you?"
Ji Feng thought it over. That really did seem to be the case!
[...My lord! Kokomi is so cunning and treacherous! She's no good! You can't outplay her! Why not return her to the Genshin Impact Martial Soul and only transform into her when you need to borrow her wisdom? Let me assist you! I'm innocent and kind, without all those schemes. I'm the ideal choice for a strategist! I can promise, on my standing as a god, that my loyalty will never waver!]
Nahida was furious. She felt at least half of what Kokomi had said about scheming against her was true, and immediately seized the chance to fan the flames.
[I haven't even questioned you yet! You're making me feel really unsafe! Today you can break free of the Genshin Impact Martial Soul. Tomorrow, are you going to possess my body?!]
Nahida wasn't exactly a good person either. Without Kokomi, Ji Feng didn't think he could outplay her. Not even a day had passed, and she had already cracked the Genshin Impact Martial Soul!
Ji Feng was utterly baffled! Why was his cheat so incompetent? Who on earth had designed it? Never mind the lack of absolute loyalty-even the characters it summoned could crack it!
He seriously suspected that if he let Nahida study it for a few more days, he could start considering how to serve as her assistant!
[Possessing you is impossible!]
Nahida's urge to teach kicked in, and she began explaining.
[We're essentially your clones. How could a clone possess its original body?! Use my brain and think it through! This state is actually very dangerous for me, because right now, you're effectively my true original body.]
[If you're still worried, you can place restrictions on this clone of mine. An original body's control over its clone is absolute. In a sense, I'm even less capable of betraying you now than I was in my previous Martial Soul clone state!]
Afraid Ji Feng might get stuck on the idea and dispose of her outright, she made her tone increasingly soft and sweet, taking the initiative to teach him how to use the original body to impose restrictions on her current state.
Ji Feng: ...
[No! I'll figure it out myself! Right now, I'm Nahida too! Hmph, watch me use your wisdom to deal with you!]
Outside, the expression on Nahida's little face kept shifting. Sometimes he frowned, sometimes he pursed his lips, and sometimes his eyes went blank as though his mind had wandered beyond the heavens. His expressions changed endlessly.
With a beckoning motion of his little hand, the larger Nahida summoned a tiny, faintly illusory soul-form Nahida into his palm.
The little Nahida continued instructing him. "Yes, exactly! As the original body, you can place restrictions on me. Just set one that makes it absolutely impossible for me to hurt you, and another that prevents me from even thinking about harming you. Now you can relax, right?"
The larger Nahida-Ji Feng-wore a twisted, disgruntled expression on his exquisite, soft little face. Pouting, he designed the restrictions without saying a word.
In the end, he had only managed to come up with the method Nahida had supplied. Nahida had even perfected the entire process, leaving it ready for him to use.
He had actually wanted to create a restriction that would raise her affection to the maximum, but because Nahida herself disliked that sort of thing, she had no such methods whatsoever!
"All right, all right! Stop looking so aggrieved! I've already let you control me completely!" Worried that Ji Feng would hold a grudge over this, Nahida's tiny soul form reached out a delicate finger and lightly tapped his forehead.
"I'll share my research results with you, okay?"
"What results?" The larger Nahida stood with his arms crossed, his adorable little face, with its soft baby fat, drawn taut. His eyes were full of skepticism, and there wasn't a trace of anticipation in his voice.
"A cracked version of Genshin Impact! I researched it in my clone state, so even with my original body's memories, you wouldn't know about it."
"Huh?! What?! Wait! What did you say?!"
This time, Ji Feng was genuinely shocked! What incompetent fool had made this Genshin Impact Martial Soul?! Nahida had whipped up a cracked version in less than a day?!
"You're joking, right?! How could you possibly crack the Genshin Impact Martial Soul?! You're part of it yourself!"
At most, the soul clone counted as a way of bypassing the Genshin Impact Martial Soul. But Nahida clearly meant that she had modified the Genshin Impact Martial Soul itself.
"Why would that be impossible? Whoever designed this Martial Soul used crude methods to begin with. Naturally, I could find the flaws and crack it."
"How could the Genshin Impact Martial Soul have been designed by someone?" Ji Feng retorted.
He usually only joked about that. In his heart, he naturally considered this his personal cheat. What did design have to do with it? People didn't agonize over where their Hextech gift packs came from when choosing them, either.
"If someone didn't make it, how could such a strange yet powerful Martial Soul exist?" A faint, disdainful smile curled Nahida's lips as she raised her eyes and countered.
Before you continue