Maybe My Soulmate! (GL)

Ruan Xue bounced off it twice before giving up with a huff of frustration.

”It only lets Core Formation and above through unassisted,” Su Yubing explained, crouching down slightly beside her. ”Hold onto my sleeve. I can carry you through inside my own qi boundary if you stay close enough.”

Once everyone was safely across, the island opened up into a series of natural caverns that had clearly been reshaped by human hands centuries ago, smooth stone corridors lit by strange luminescent moss that gave everything a faint blue green glow. At the heart of the first chamber stood four stone statues arranged around a circular dais, each one representing a different element, and a plaque carved into the floor in old script that Su Yubing translated slowly, something about needing to offer the correct balance of spiritual energy to each statue in turn in order to proceed any deeper into the mountain.

Ruan Xue, eager to prove herself useful for once instead of just watching everyone else do the hard work, immediately volunteered to try feeding qi into the fire statue first, only to yelp and jump back when the whole statue flared bright orange in response to her water attribute cultivation base clashing badly against it. Chen Hao caught her before she could stumble into the dais itself, shaking his head fondly at his junior sister’s enthusiasm outpacing her caution once again.

”Wrong statue for your affinity,” he said. ”You go to the water one, obviously, the fire one is clearly not meant for you.”

”I knew that,” Ruan Xue muttered, cheeks pink with embarrassment, moving quickly to the correct statue instead of arguing further.

Mo Yuxin handled the earth statue with her own qi easily enough, and Su Yubing’s ice affinity, close enough to the water element in most classification systems, let her assist with both the water and a portion of the wind trial as well, the four statues eventually lighting up in sequence with a low resonant hum that shook loose dust from the ceiling and slid the far wall open into a deeper passage none of them could have found on their own.

Beyond the elemental chamber, the passage led to a wide circular room guarded by a single massive stone golem, easily twice the height of a grown man, its surface carved with the same crashing wave motifs found throughout the ruins. The moment the group stepped inside, the golem’s eyes flickered with dim blue light and it lumbered forward, fists the size of boulders swinging with surprising speed for something built of solid rock.

”I have got this one,” Mo Yuxin said, already stepping forward with an easy roll of her shoulders, the same casual tone she might use offering to carry someone’s bags. ”Everyone stay back, this should not take long.”

It did not take long. The golem’s first swing met empty air as Mo Yuxin simply was not where it expected her to be anymore, and her sword found the faint glowing crack running down the center of its chest, the exact spot Su Yubing had already pointed out as the probable core after a few seconds of careful observation. A single clean strike split the golem down the middle, and the whole construct crumbled into an unremarkable pile of ordinary looking rubble, the blue light in its carved eyes fading out completely.

”That was almost too easy,” Chen Hao said, sounding faintly amazed despite having watched Mo Yuxin fight before.

”Most old guardian constructs are all bark and very little actual bite,” Mo Yuxin said, sheathing her sword. ”The real danger in these places usually is not the guardians. It is greedy people getting careless once they smell treasure nearby.”

.........

The passage beyond the fallen golem led down a long spiraling staircase carved directly into the rock, deep enough that the air grew noticeably cooler and thick with something that felt distinctly like old, compressed spiritual energy, the kind that only built up over centuries in a place nobody had disturbed in all that time. At the bottom, the staircase opened into a massive circular vault, its walls lined with shelves carved directly into stone, most of them holding jars of spirit stones, bundles of medicinal herbs long since gone dry but still faintly fragrant with preserved qi, and scrolls sealed carefully in protective wax.

In the exact center of the vault sat a raised stone pedestal, and on it rested three things. A slim curved blade with a hilt wrapped in faded blue silk, humming faintly with dormant power. A thick leather bound manual, its cover embossed with a symbol that looked like crashing waves frozen mid motion, the title Boundless Tide Art visible in faded gold script beneath the image. And, cradled in a nest of soft white sand, a single large egg, its shell a deep swirling blue that looked almost alive under the cavern’s dim light, faint warmth radiating off it despite however many years it must have sat there completely untouched by anyone.

A thin, brittle journal sat tucked beside the pedestal as well, and Su Yubing carefully picked it up, skimming the faded handwriting inside while the others examined the rest of the vault. ”This belonged to someone called Sea Sovereign Ao Jing,” she said after a moment. ”According to this, she sealed this vault herself, intending to leave it for, and I am reading this directly, whoever proves worthy enough to earn it honestly rather than steal it. She writes that she raised this egg for decades herself before her own cultivation reached its natural end, and hoped whoever found it next would care for it the same way.”

”That is a spirit beast egg,” Chen Hao said, awe clear in his voice. ”A live one too, somehow, after all this time trapped down here.”

Su Yubing approached the pedestal slowly, reaching out with a careful hand, and the egg seemed to respond to her presence, a faint pulse of warmth rippling across its surface like it recognized her ice affinity qi as something safe and familiar.

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.TO BE CONTINUED.