Lassim stood before the podium, the stone fragment held tightly in his hand. With a deep breath, he placed the fragment into the slot.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, the rune lines connecting the podium to the door began to light up, glowing brilliantly as they surged toward the creases on the door. They reached about halfway before slowing down and then retreating, the light dimming until it vanished entirely.
The podium spat out the fragment, its rune lines now completely dead, devoid of the residual energy left over from the last activation.
"Oh, I guess it needs to be charged first like a power source," Realizing what needed to be done, Lassim channeled his water mana into the stone, watching as the runes glowed once more.
He covered nearly all of the runes on the fragment except the last one with water mana, ensuring it wouldn’t teleport him away.
Satisfied, he shoved the fragment back into the slot.
This time, the cave itself shook. The rune lines along the floor lit up rapidly, surging toward the door. The glowing lines reached the creases, and the massive doors began to tremble.
Dust and bits of coral broke off as the doors slowly parted, revealing a solid wall of bubbling water.
Lassim’s space progenitor marks buzzed strongly and he felt like he could spot the threads of the space fabric holding open the wall of water, similar to the time he’d been in the presence of the abyssal portal.
He recognized it for what it was: an entrance to another realm.
Without hesitation and excited for the adventure, Lassim stepped forward and jumped into the wall of water.
A quick, slightly disorienting teleportation followed, and Lassim found himself deep underwater with no land or air anywhere nearby.
Thinking quickly, he activated his water-breathing skill, thankful for Marissa’s teachings from months ago. He drew a deep, calming breath of water, feeling it flow through his lungs as naturally as air then using the water mana as a filter for the air allowing him to breathe.
Suddenly, a disembodied, androgynous voice resonated through the water, crystal clear. "Welcome to the Water Goddess’ God’s Trial. Your performance will be evaluated for each trial you complete, and an appropriate reward will be given. The Labyrinth of the Tides has begun. Good luck."
The voice faded, and Lassim found himself alone in the depths. He looked around, seeing nothing but water in every direction.
Then, faint trails of light began to appear, guiding him forward. He followed them, swimming forward, and soon the environment shifted.
The waters solidified into thick walls, forming a vast, flowing labyrinth. The walls shifted and reformed every few minutes, creating a maze.
He also noticed that only outside of the maze where he currently stood could he see the distinctive top of the maze’s pathways, but at the entrance there was a clear roof and floor also made of thick water walls. Once he entered, he would only be able to go forward.
Lassim cautiously stepped into the entryway, ready to summon his halberd at any moment.
The labyrinth’s constantly shifting walls made navigation difficult, and he found himself frequently doubling back as pathways closed off behind him.
The first challenge he faced came in the form of a school of aggressive water elementals nearly fully invisible in the narrow pathways.
They surged towards him, only detectable by his slight innate sense of the flows of water and his spirit sense. Their forms twisting and undulating in the water.
Mari helped control the flow of water around Lassim to dodge their attacks while he swung his halberd, [Slash]ing through the water to fend them off.
He used [Tempest Steps] to maneuver quickly, which caused an unexpected reaction while he evaded the elementals’ strikes. The lightning charge he released countered and stunned the elementals briefly allowing him to reply with a powerful [Thrust].
His halberd’s pointed end atop the polearm stabbed through the elementals, overloading their forms with lightning and causing them to dissipate into harmless water droplets.
"[Thanks Mari! That really saved me. Remind me to practice more underwater techniques if we’re doing ANYTHING related to water. Relying on just you for moving around quickly feels wrong, but I’m glad to have your support.]" Lassim said internally.
"[No worries child. I can show you later how to control the currents more deftly,]" She replied.
As he ventured deeper into the depths of the labyrinth, he stumbled upon his first unique looking dead end.
What was different was there was an intricate rune flowing in the very center of the wall of water, glowing faintly with intense mana energy.
Lassim approached the rune, studying it curiously. He couldn’t understand their purpose or meaning but felt an inexplicable connection to it for some reason.
Over the next week, Lassim encountered more and more of these runes at various dead ends throughout the labyrinth.
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Each time, he took a moment to look at them, but their meaning remained elusive. There was no guide or connection he could make, so he just continued and moved on after seeing what differences there were from the previous ones he saw.
His journey through the maze continued to be suspect with frequent sea beasts and other dangers lurking within the watery walls.
He battled fierce razor-finned fish that were shaped like arrows let loose from a bow, and giant pink slime-like creature with long and thin paralyzing tendrils.
Each encounter gave him a chance to practice more underwater battle movement, but the beasts themselves were only similar to him in power level, peak Spirit Transformation. That left them being considerably weaker than his actual power level.
The thought crossed his mind after the umpteeth battle with peak Spirit Transformation beasts was that they were all tailored to match his actual cultivation level for some reason. It was much too coincidental to keep having the exact same level beast every time just roaming around. He didn’t mind it though since they were easy opponents for the time being.
Unsure of how many days had passed, and after an annoying battle with a particularly tenacious sea serpent, Lassim followed the longest pathway he’d traveled along yet to end upon a grand doorway. One that was oddly similar to the one he opened to enter the trial grounds in the first place.
It was definitely the exit of the Labyrinth. He approached it to try and pull on it, hoping that it might budge, but just like the trial entrance doorway, there were rune lines that sealed tight the creases of the doorway.
Looking up, in the center of its doors, there was a hole for a gigantic object, shaped roughly in the silhouette of a wave, carved into the coral covered door.
"[Wait a second… Am I crazy or do those rune lines seem oddly familiar?…There! That one in particular! We just saw it,]" Realization dawned on Lassim as he pointed out a squiggly ’S’ shaped watery rune along the line around the wave shaped hole.
The runes scattered across the labyrinth that he’d encountered were definitely connected to this keyhole somehow.
"[So, do you think we have to go back and memorize each rune? That’s the feeling that I’m getting. Unless, Mari, do you think you saw them enough to recreate them yourself?] He asked.
Mari replied, "[My apologies. We did not look at them long enough, especially after we stopped taking our time with them when we were looking for the exit. I’ll admit, I mostly stopped taking notice of them after we saw the 25th one.]"
"[That’s okay! Let’s head back and see if we can memorize them.]" With a swift kick of his legs he swam back the way he came down the long passage.
However, unknowingly to Lassim, touching the door activated a secret to the labyrinth. A new hidden danger. The Labyrinth of Tides’ namesake and difficulty was activated.
After spending probably an hour or so getting back to the last rune he spotted, Lassim crossed his legs and sat floating in the water as he studied the rune in a quiet dead end.
Without warning, a powerful current surged through the passage. Like the force of a giant whale, the current slammed the unprepared and distracted Lassim against the watery wall next to the rune.
The force was overwhelming, pressing his face and body against the surprisingly hard surface.
The weight of the water pressing upon him made him struggle to filter the mana in his lungs to keep breathing. The pressure squeezing his entire chest tightly.
That was the least of his problems as the initial slam against the water wall sent a sharp pain, from his now shattered nose, through his body and up into his eyes.
He squeezed his eye’s shut, reeling from the intense pain shooting through his face.
His head also suddenly grew dizzy as his brain rattled against his skull with his face pressed against the wall.