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Mondstadt was a city of hundreds of thousands, a real metropolis where word of mouth traveled faster than the wind itself. When the new book finally hit the shelves, the sheer volume of people eager to get their hands on a copy was staggering. Even if only half of the population decided to buy a copy, that resulted in a sales figure that would make any merchant in Teyvat weep with envy. It didn't take long for savvy businessmen to recognize the massive opportunity sitting right in front of them.
These traders weren't just buying single copies; they were purchasing thousands at a time, planning to export them to Liyue, Inazuma, and beyond. They saw a chance to earn a significant profit by selling the Wind Knight's works in foreign markets where such stories were rare and highly sought after. In the world of business, opportunities are reserved for the courageous, and while the bold were making a fortune, the timid could only watch from the sidelines.
Unintentionally, these traveling merchants were helping Ye Ruo expand his influence far beyond the borders of the City of Freedom. By the time he was ready to open branches in other nations, a solid foundation of fans would already be waiting for him. The initial sales explosion was so massive that the bookstore staff was quickly overwhelmed. Diluc even reached out to ask if Ye Ruo needed extra manpower from Dawn Winery to help manage the crowds.
However, Ye Ruo's own network was already formidable. With his prestige as the Wind Knight, a single recruitment notice was all it took to draw in a flood of applicants. The high benefits and generous Mora salary he offered made the positions some of the most coveted jobs in the city. He also made sure to hire residents he had known and trusted for years, ensuring that his new branches were in good hands from the very start.
To be honest, Ye Ruo was surprised by the reaction. The launch of this book was much more dynamic and explosive than his previous two volumes. It seemed that nothing could capture the hearts of the people quite like the myths and legends of their own homeland. Of course, the success of his previous works had built a loyal fan base that was now eager for anything he produced.
He thought back to the famous authors from his previous life who could release a mediocre book and still see record-breaking sales simply because of their established reputation.
This was the true benefit of having a dedicated following. With all these factors working in his favor, Old Mond: Pupils of the King became the talk of every tavern, street corner, and marketplace in the city. Ye Ruo watched with a satisfied smile as his legendary reputation points continued to rise at an unprecedented rate. He was closing in on the threshold to unlock the blue-tier items in his system, and he was eager to see what lay beyond the common materials and plants he had been receiving so far.
The residents who bought the novel didn't waste any time. They began reading right there in the streets, leaning against walls or sitting on benches. The content was simply too attractive to put down. Even at the Adventurers' Guild, a strange phenomenon occurred. Dozens of adventurers actually stopped accepting new commissions and postponed their expeditions just so they could stand in line and read the first few chapters.
This led to a massive backlog of unfinished tasks at the guild, leaving Katheryne in a state of utter helplessness. She watched the long lines at the bookstore with a look of despair, wondering how her usually reliable adventurers could be so easily distracted. She wished for an adventurer who would work day and night without rest, a perfect tool to clear the guild's board. While she wasn't technically human, she still felt the sting of inefficiency as her members prioritized fiction over duty.
After finishing her daily training, a sweaty and exhausted Irene sat down by a stone wall and immediately opened her new book. She was far from the only one; all around her, people were doing the same, their eyes fixed on the pages as the ancient history of their city began to unfold. In the distant past, three thousand years ago, the War of the Demon Gods broke out across the entire continent.
Countless deities wielded their divine power and authority in an earth-shattering struggle for supremacy. The mountains and rivers were broken, and the sun and moon grew dark under the shadow of war. This was a barren and ancient time, a legendary era where the land of wind looked nothing like the green and vibrant kingdom it was today.
The sky back then was filled with ice, snow, and a biting, severe cold. Howling winds swept across a land covered in frozen soil where almost nothing could grow. It was an environment that was fundamentally hostile to human life. In the endless blizzard, people suffered from hunger and misery, and many died every day with eyes full of pain and numbness. Only cold corpses were left behind, quickly covered by the drifting snow. It was an era of constant struggle, a time defined by an endless, wild chill.
Reading these descriptions, many of the modern citizens of Mondstadt let out heavy sighs. Compared to the life they knew now, that ancient world was almost unimaginable. Today, the weather was mild, the warm monsoons blew across fertile fields, and green life was everywhere. People built windmills, brewed fine wine, and lived in peace.
While every child in the city knew the stories of how the Anemo Archon had blown away the ice and split the mountains to free the people, Ye Ruo's writing made the cruelty of that era feel visceral. They could almost feel the biting wind and see the desperate migrants huddled together in the storm, knowing that if they stopped moving, they would be buried forever.
The story continued, detailing the two most powerful entities in the region: Decarabian, the Demon God of Storms, and Andrius, the King of the North Wind. In their competition to become the sole victor of the war, they entered a long and bitter confrontation. This was the era of the Old Mond Frost Kings, a time that belonged to the King of the Gale and the Great Wolf of the North.
During this period, Decarabian established his royal city, a place designed to be a sanctuary from the bitter cold. This was the first iteration of Old Mond. Because the humans wandering the ice fields couldn't bear the freezing temperatures any longer, most were forced to enter the city and accept the demon god's rule as the price of survival. The god designed a city of concentric rings, with a massive, stalwart tower at the very center.
That tower served as the palace of the Gale King. He stood atop his high perch, looking down upon his subjects and accepting their worship. Even when the people bowed down, the god failed to realize they did so because his winds were too strong for them to even stand upright. In his eyes, he only saw a people who loved and revered him.
This fundamental misunderstanding led him to become a tyrant who made his people miserable without ever realizing the pain he caused. This was the origin of his name: the Lonely King of the Tower. He was a king who simply did not understand the hearts of the people he ruled.
The prose was so vivid that it felt like the readers were standing right there in the shadow of that ancient, suffocating tower. They read about how the city was a cage of wind, a place where safety came at the cost of freedom. The contrast between the Gale King's intentions and the reality of his subjects' lives struck a chord with the residents of modern Mondstadt, who valued their liberty above all else.
They found themselves rooting for the nameless boy mentioned in the introduction, eager to see how he would challenge the god who thought he was a savior. As the sun began to set over the city, the only sound to be heard was the turning of thousands of pages, as a new generation of Mondstadters rediscovered the dark and icy roots of their heritage. Ye Ruo, watching from his balcony, knew that this was just the beginning of the legend. The true storm was yet to come.
The weight of the history described in the book seemed to hang over the city, making the current peace feel even more precious. Travelers who had just arrived in the city were confused by the sudden silence, only to find everyone from the youngest child to the oldest elder buried in a book. The Wind and Bird Bookstore had become the beating heart of the city, and Ye Ruo was the one pumping the lifeblood of stories through its veins.
He felt a surge of pride as he realized that he wasn't just selling books; he was shaping the cultural identity of his second home. He looked at the manuscript for the next volume, knowing that the arrival of the tiny wind spirit would change the tone of the story forever. The tragedy and triumph of the rebellion were waiting to be told, and the people of Mondstadt were more than ready to listen.
The legend of the wind was no longer just a song in the tavern; it was a living, breathing part of their lives, and the Wind Knight was the one who had brought it back to them. He closed his eyes, listening to the rustle of paper in the breeze, feeling the connection between the past and the present. The age of the Frost Kings had returned, but this time, it was through the power of words.
The publication of the first volume was a resounding success, and as the popularity points hit a new record, Ye Ruo prepared to give the city the rest of the story. The legendary history of Mondstadt was finally being written, one page at a time.