After the stunt that Ayaka pulled earlier, the group went to the Weary Inn to enjoy the meals that were prepared on-the-house. During this, Noelle yet again became a sampler of the local cuisine like she did back in Sumeru, and while everyone agreed the food is delicious, Noelle stood up and went to the inn's kitchen.

Half an hour later, she came back with a trayful of serving, each of the new delicacy she learned from the kitchen's cookbook in a matter of minutes. She served Kachina a bowl grainfruit chips, Mualani a platter of fried shrimp beanballs, and Kinich a bowl of blazed meat stew.

"Please enjoy, you three." Noelle bowed.

The three of them then tried their first bite of their respective dishes, and silence filled the inn.

"What's wrong? Was it so bad that there are no comments?" Ayaka scoffed.

"It's... It's heavenly!" Mualani exclaimed, before she continued to wolf down her dish.

"These chips are much more tastier and crispier than the usuals!" Kachina commented.

"..." Kinich stayed silent, but he ate his stew in a hurried manner. As a result he finished his dish first, before turning to look at Noelle.

"Is there something the matter, Master Kinich?"

"You. What did you put in the stew?"

"I merely cooked it in a less intense flame, whilst also stirring the stew slowly in the pot, so the spice and taste blend in well enough."

"Like I thought... She pulled another expert chef stunt in a foreign nation within minutes of learning the recipes..." Ayaka scowled.

"It happened before too?" Furina asked.

"Well, she beat Jut, a friend of mine, in cooking Tahchin which caused him to go on an entire week of no-showing in the Grand Bazaar, managed to win against Liyue's best cook Xiangling by a small margin, and... pff" Nilou replied, before holding in her laughter.

"What? What's so funny?" Furina asked again.

"She also beat Miss Ayaka in brewing tea!"

Nilou explodes in laughter, causing everyone present to turn their attention to her while Ayaka angrily ascended the stairs to take a rest in one of the reserved rooms.

"Was she always like that?" Mualani asked Keqing.

"Ask the maid." Keqing replied sternly.

"You have no idea, Miss Mualani. She's actually a pretty good person when you get to know her."

"I doubt that." Lynette, Kinich and Keqing all commented in unison.

After an eventful dinner, the group rested for the night after a long day of traversing an entire desert to reach Natlan, and slightly more traversing the terrain to reach the stadium.

However, Noelle stayed up, and helped cleaning up the Weary Inn's tables and kitchen. As she finished cleaning the last of the dinner plates, she turned around to see Kachina standing, wanting to speak with her.

"Miss Kachina. Is there something you want?"

"B...Big sis, please teach me how to fight better!"

The next day, during the tournament the group watched to see the Pyro Archon Mavuika, who is revealed to be the red haired woman from the other day, declaring the start of the event. Paimon noted that she looks intimidating despite Kachina explaining to the group that she is both kind and welcoming.

"You do know not to judge books by it's cover, right?" Keqing asked Paimon.

"W-well when you mention that, it kinda shows."

"She does seem pretty imposing." Aether said, raising a hand to his chin.

At one point, Mavuika turned her glance to Aether and the girls, her attention glued to them for a brief moment before she looked back at the tournament's contestants that enter the arena's field.

The first match is a team match where each team has to grab flames from several fire towers scattered in the steppes which both Kachina and Mualani effortlessly finished and won as they returned to the stadium grounds first.

It was during the next phase where it is a one on one duel between contestants, with Kachina managing to defeat a couple of strong contestants on her own before having to fight Mualani in the finals.

At one point Kachina fell off her turbo twirly as Mualani crashes into it head on using her shark shaped surfboard, and as Kachina somersaulted to land on her feet, she sees Mualani attempting to use a corkscrew attack to finish the match.

"Here it comes!"

In a split second, Kachina stepped to the side, and hopped in the air before using her entire weight to step on the surfboard.

"Counter!"

"Whoa!?" Mualani is then thrown off balance from the surfboard.

"Now!" With one swipe with the shaft of her spear, Kachina bluntly hits her in the head, but because of the momentum, it dealt a good amount of damage, causing Mualani to drop to the ground, immobile.

As the dust settles, Kachina is declared the winner, as Mualani stood back up, rubbing her head softly to dull the pain.

After her victory, Kachina is lined up in the middle of the arena alongside a few other winners. One is a pale skinned woman wearing a hat and what looks to be a rather skimpy huntress attire. She was referred to as Chasca of the Flower-Feather Clan. The other is a petite dark skinned girl with light colored hair, her body size being roughly the same as Kachina's. This petite girl is Iansan of the Collective of Plenty tribe. The other two winners are both from Kinich and Mualani's tribes respectively, but they have no special qualities in them for the girls in Aether's group to be impressed.

After the award ceremony to end the Pilgrimage tournament, Noelle is nowhere to be found causing Aether to look around for her.

"Mualani, did you see Noelle?"

"The one in the maid outfit mixed with armor? I saw her with the Archon earlier."

"With the Pyro Archon?  You know why?"

"I just saw the two of them in passing earlier. It's sad, because I want to invite you and your group to my tribe to have some fun, her included."

"Fun!?" Ayaka heard that, and tried to charge at Mualani, but she was held back by Nilou and Furina.

"C-calm down, Come-Mie-Saw-Toe!"

"It's not THAT kinda fun! Stop imagining!" Nilou said, with a mischievous look on her face.

Mualani took the group to the settlement where the People of The Springs tribe resided. A coastal settlement with stilt houses and hot springs, the entire settlement looked more like a resort than a village.

After getting used to the artificial springs (in their own swimwear that they brought from their dressers in the Serenitea pot), the girls awaited for Aether to return as they wanted to share the natural springs with him.

At one point, the girls except for Ayaka had enough and left the natural springs early, leaving Aether with Mualani, Paimon and Ayaka behind.

"Oooph... So, what do you think? Can you feel the warmth relax every muscle in your body?" Mualani asked, as she took a seat next to Aether in the spring water.

"It is relaxing, Mualani. The steam is warm too--"

However the temperature then drops to zero as Ayaka froze the waters beneath her heals, and walked straight towards Aether, giving him a cryptic smile as she sat down on the water next to him, leaving a freezing Mualani behind, and Paimon struggling to get off the frozen spot.

"It seems like now we have this part of the springs for ourselves, right, Aether?"

"Y...Yeah..."

It took a few villagers to thaw the frozen Mualani out of her icy prison, and by extension, freeing Paimon from her frozen spot. After being satisfied enough, Ayaka left the springs, and walked to her room at the local inn. Only to realize that the rest of the girls, sans Noelle, are there first, playing Genius Invocation TCG. Each girl also wore different outfits than what they usually wore.

Furina is wearing a chest covering and a pair of pants that are also worn by the other female People of The Springs tribals. Keqing wears a purple qipao with gold linings that exposed a lot of her skin, particularly due to it's low skirt. Nilou wears her Simulanka fairy outfit, and Lynette wears a sleeveless version of her magic show uniform.

"Up for a game?"

"As we wait for Aether? Sure."

The girls waited for Aether as they played, and when Aether did come in to take a rest, they all sprawled across the floor bed. This resulted in Aether quickly having a dream of being thrown into the fires at the stadium by the girls, with Mavuika declaring that it is a sacrifice to save Natlan.

However what really woke up Aether, Paimon and the girls are sounds of chaotic battle outside the inn. They walked out, to see riftwolves and oddly colored saurians attacking the settlement. Mualani explained that it was a siege by the Abyss, and that she and the tribals, not only here at the People of The Springs, but also the others, have to face these sieges often.

"What a nuisance. Come on, girls, they picked a fight with the wrong maidens." Keqing ordered, as she cracked her knuckles.

"If only Noelle is here. Then we'll probably finish this in a flash!" Nilou commented.

"Forget about that airhead, and focus on what we're facing now!" Ayaka said, as she readied her tachi.

"Nn." Lynette nodded in agreement.

"We need to hold our own, I guess. Everyone, split up! We'll take care of each spot by ourselves!" Furina suggested.

Soon after parts of the settlement saw flashes of elemental lights. Rifthounds frozen into ice sculptures before being destroyed into pieces, abyssal saurian mimics either getting eaten from the inside by Nilou's hydro, sliced in half by Furina's pneuma blade, or turned into minced ribbons by Lynette's quickness. Most of the work is done by Keqing, however, who transformed into her arch-transcended form and soared into the sky, before striking down the abyss pylons and those who spawned right from those pylons, turning them into ashes.

"Wow, Madam Keqing can turn into that!?" Mualani asked.

"The girls have transcended beyond what a vision holder can achieve, and this is the arch-transcended version of that."

"So they became like the Pyro Archon then, they were normal humans, but now archon levels of strong!"

"Just wait until you see Noelle's form."

"You're telling me she's the strongest of the bunch? She doesn't look much--"

"Then explain why are there bounty posters around the village?"

"Oh those? The symbols depicting her doesn't even resemble her that much, so we didn't really mind."

As of the aftermath, only a few tribals were injured thanks to the girls' assistance. However, Atea, one of the village's seniors whom Mualani respected deeply is missing, and was last seen at a previously abandoned natural spring which Aether spent time renovating with Mualani a few hours ago.

The group ran there to find out that Atea dealt with the threat pretty much by herself, but got badly wounded. And there are abyssal corrosion evident within her wounds. As it turns out she was once attacked and can no longer step foot into hot water.

Aether tries to save her by siphoning out the abyssal energy from within her body, the same way he purified a drop of Dvalin's corrupted tear back in Mondstadt. He managed to expel the mark of the abyss from Atea, but later on the group finds out that Atea really can't be totally saved. She gave Mualani a talisman, and told Mualani to give it to Mavuika if she had time.

And so a of couple days later, the group finally had time to visit Mavuika after helping the People of The Springs recover from the abyssal siege. However before they can have an audience with Mavuika, they need to perform an ode of resurrection to ensure the return of the team who came out on top on the pilgrimage tournament days ago.

However, Kachina was missing. This is the first time that something like this happened, and everyone, save for two bullies panicked, even mocking Mualani for calling Kachina a hero of Natlan. But then what really ticked the group off...

"And that Outlander that somehow got brought along with the team? An outlander can never be a hero in Natlan."

"Say again!?" Aether shouted.

"Eh?"

The bully meets a powerful punch to the skull by Aether.

"Say it again. Insult Noelle again."

"She is no hero! So what? She'll probably die in the Night Kingdom--"

Another punch, now the bully's eye is blackened.

"What's she to you, stranger!?"

"Noelle... Noelle's one of the reasons why I kept going on this journey!"

"Aether, that's enough!" Furina shouted, trying to pull Aether away, but Ayaka beat her to the punch, and pulled Aether away from the bully.

Aether then turned to look at Mavuika, sadness still evident in his eyes, alongside panic. Mavuika gave him a concerned look, as she felt that a meeting with him is indeed inevitable at this rate.