Walking north from Mount Damavand, the two saw the desert gradually give way to a stony wasteland, which in turn became a barren expanse covered in low shrubs.
After they had walked for most of the day, Lin En's waterskin was completely empty. He tipped it up, but not a single drop came out.
"I'm actually out of water."
He had barely had anything to drink all day.
Ronava still had a little less than half of hers left, and she passed it to him.
"There's water not far ahead. Drink some of mine first."
Lin En narrowed his eyes and looked ahead. Sure enough, a swath of green spread across the end of the wasteland, standing out against the gray-yellow stony ground, but it was still a long way off.
"I think I can make it!"
Lin En raised a hand to cheer himself on.
Ronava unscrewed the cap of her waterskin and shoved it straight into Lin En's mouth.
"It'll take another half day to get there. You'll be a dried corpse by then."
"Mmph..."
Lin En blushed. Unable to speak with the waterskin in his mouth, he had no choice but to take it and drink a couple of mouthfuls. The water was sweet.
"You didn't have to shove it straight into my mouth. I almost choked to death."
"I was afraid you wouldn't drink. It would be too much trouble if you died."
Ronava took back the waterskin and spoke calmly. Lin En noticed that the tips of her ears had turned a little red, so he teased her.
"Do you know that's an indirect kiss?"
"It's not like we haven't kissed before."
That left Lin En speechless. Come to think of it, wasn't that true? But the redness at the tips of her ears had spread to her face.
Seeing him looking at her, Ronava turned her head away.
"Let's go!"
As they drew closer, they discovered it was a sea of flowers. Vast stretches of nameless wildflowers blanketed the entire valley. Pink, white, and purple blossoms crowded together like a gigantic floral carpet.
A shallow stream ran through the center of the flowers. Spring water bubbled up from underground and gathered into a thin silver thread that wound through the blossoms. They had reached Vourukasha Oasis.
Lin En's throat was already parched. The instant he saw the water, he perked up and took off running.
He crouched by the stream and scooped a handful of water into his mouth. It was cool, with a faint sweetness and an indescribable floral fragrance. He drank two more handfuls before remembering to turn back and call to Ronava.
"There's water! It's sweet too!"
Ronava walked over slowly, crouched beside the stream, and scooped up a little water in her palm. She took a small sip, her movements much more genteel than Lin En's.
Lin En sat panting among the flowers beside the stream, the sweetness of the water still lingering in his mouth. Suddenly, a voice he hadn't heard in a long time rang out in his mind.
"Ding-host has not triggered a system quest for an extended period. Issuing a new quest."
Lin En froze. The system? He had almost forgotten he had the thing.
The last time it had appeared seemed to have been in Liyue. It had been silent ever since, and he had thought it was broken.
"Quest: prepare a feast for Ronava. Quest rewards: one cultivation manual, one wisp of the Authority of Death."
Lin En took a couple of seconds to process that. A feast? The Authority of Death?
He instinctively glanced at Ronava. She was crouching by the stream, filling his waterskin, her silver hair spilling across the flowers.
"What is it?"
Ronava noticed his gaze.
"Nothing. Are you hungry?"
"I'm all right."
"Hehe, Chef Lin makes his grand entrance! Watch me make you a feast."
Lin En stood up and began wandering around the sea of flowers.
For a feast, he needed ingredients first. He remembered there were some mushrooms around Vourukasha Oasis; there seemed to have been similar species in the game.
He followed the stream upstream for a while and, sure enough, found clusters of grayish-white mushrooms among the damp moss and rotting wood. They had rounded caps and a faint glow at their bases.
He crouched and studied them for a long time, unsure whether they were edible. He walked a few steps farther and suddenly heard faint grunting.
Deep among the flowers, several round little creatures were lying on the ground, gnawing on grass roots.
They were about half an arm's length long, with a layer of green moss and a few mushrooms growing on their grayish-brown skin. From a distance, they looked like little moving rocks. They hadn't noticed Lin En approaching at all.
Lin En stared at them for several seconds. These things... are pigs, right? Though they had moss and mushrooms growing on them, those snouts and ears were unmistakably a pig's.
He remembered reading in a Sumeru scholar's notes that Vourukasha Oasis did seem to have this kind of pig. Their meat was tender and made for excellent fare.
Lin En quietly circled behind one of the little pigs. He reached down and scooped it up whole. It struggled a couple of times in his arms, then, finding it couldn't get free, gave up and went back to chewing the grass roots in its mouth.
"It's so dumb. How has it not gone extinct?"
Lin En was a little surprised. He hadn't expected to catch the pig so easily.
He carried the little pig back to the water and held it up in front of Ronava. It grunted in his arms and kicked its four short legs in the air.
"We've been walking so long that we must be hungry. How about I make you some grilled pork chops?"
Ronava looked up at the dusty gray ball covered in green moss in his arms. Her golden eyes were silent for a moment.
"Mm."
Lin En put the pig down. It didn't run, just lay at Ronava's feet and went on gnawing grass roots.
Lin En dug a short knife out of his bundle and cleaned and prepared the pig by the stream. He then found some dry firewood and herbs in the nearby shrubs and set up a simple grill beside the water.
Ronava sat nearby and watched. The setting sun dyed the sea of flowers gold and pink, and the stream shimmered in the light.
She leafed through the ancient text, but her gaze drifted from time to time to Lin En's back as he worked.
He used the short knife to cut the pork into thick chops, rubbed them with herbs and salt, and set them over the fire to grill slowly. Fat dripped onto the coals with a sizzle, and the aroma spread, mingling with the scent of flowers.
"You can do this too?"
Ronava asked.
"Back when I was on Earth, I'd occasionally cook meat on weekends."
Lin En turned the chops over and sprinkled on a pinch of seasoning.
"But I used an oven back then. It didn't smell as good as meat grilled over an open fire."
She watched the firelight play across his face, watched him deftly turn the chops with his short knife, and watched him place the first cooked piece on a clean leaf and hold it out to her. She was a little dazed.
"Try it."
Ronava came back to her senses, took the leaf, and had a bite.
The outside was crisp, the inside tender. The fresh taste of the herbs mingled with the rich aroma of the pork, and it was salted just right.
"How is it?"
Ronava chewed a couple of times and nodded.
"Delicious."
Lin En breathed a sigh of relief and cut himself a piece to try. It really was good, even more fragrant than the grilled meat from a roadside stall in Liyue.
The system's voice rang out in his mind again.
"Quest complete. Rewards have been issued."
The red bracelet on his wrist suddenly grew slightly hot, and a familiar presence surged into his body.
It was a wisp of the Authority of Death. He now had three wisps, which should amount to about ten percent of the complete Authority of Death. Before, he apparently couldn't use it because he hadn't reached ten percent, but now he could use it to strengthen his attacks.
With his current strength and these authorities, he should be able to help Ronava hold off a Harbinger, unless it was someone like The Jester, who had a cheat.
At the same time, the formulas and meridian diagrams for a cultivation technique unfolded in his mind, as though someone had opened a book inside his head.
"One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones? It can return seventy-five percent of an enemy's attack, but using it once consumes all my stamina, and I have to prepare ten minutes in advance."
Lin En had thought he'd obtained a god-tier cultivation technique, but now it seemed it could only be used to save his life.
"What is it?"
Ronava noticed his expression.
"Nothing."
Lin En looked up and smiled.
"I just think this bracelet looks nice."