Walking with the Divine: Prologue

"Have you ever thought: if there were no gods, what would our lives be like?" In a rational yet humorous telling, peel back with the author the fog called "divinity."

When we leap free of the fences of gods and churches and first look toward the northern continent of Teyvat, we can clearly see that after the Anemo Archon Barbatos gradually withdrew from Mondstadt, the city's people still kept to ways of decades past. Observing Mondstadt's residents from above, we soon find their free and easy nature owes much to the city's long years of fair winds and rain, with food and clothing free of care. A loose environment lets them brew surplus grain into drink, and ample drink makes their temper freer still—yet Barbatos never taught them, hand in hand, to brew and make merry.

But I do not mean readers to think we need no gods. On the contrary, take a simple example: without Barbatos's divine power guiding warm monsoons to Mondstadt's borders, would the city still have grain enough to brew? The answer is no. Mondstadt lies inland; without Barbatos's strength, their grain would not even cover daily need. Open the histories and you find that earlier still, the land where Mondstadt stands was covered in ice and snow—never mind wine; even ordinary life was desperately hard. All of that improved by the Anemo Archon's power.

This is a lengthy preface, but I hope that when readers open this shallow book they hold one view: it is truly the gods' power that shapes the environment we live in—and on that foundation we must also clearly know that what truly shapes our thought, logic, culture, philosophy, and taste is not the god in himself, but the objective world around us. As this book's title says, the people of Teyvat always walk with divinity—yet only walk alongside it.