Evening had come around and it came with a dilemma for Faust. He paced the pier up and down, his thoughts spinning.

‘I can’t sleep in a bed with her… on the other hand we’re betrothed… and I would like to… but…’ his head started to hurt before, with a final grunt, he sat down on the pier, letting his legs dangle half a meter above the water.

He looked down into the water and had to smile softly.

‘That can’t be me, right? No wonder Leona is in the hots for me.’ He traced his jawline, looked at his shoulders, and chuckled lightly.

He leaned back onto his arms and looked up into the sky. It had taken on a soft, scarlet tone and the clouds painted a beautiful scenery, dancing in the evening light.

He took a deep breath and sighed contently. Even within this mission and political chaos, he found the time to relax and enjoy the simple things in life.

‘Looming war, cultivation, criminal organizations… who gives a damn if they can look at a sunset this beautiful.’ He smiled softly. Soon the moment had passed and he had made a decision.

‘Can’t let my beloved freeze alone in bed at night can I?’ he snickered to himself.

‘Not like I feel cold anymore.’ He scratched his head and suddenly thought of something.

‘Might as well take a short dip in the water, maybe even meditate.’ He removed his shirt and pants, looking around if anyone was watching him. He could see Leona on the balcony, and she waved at him. Up where she was, the last sun rays basked the balcony in orange.

He felt a little warm inside and smiled like a fool.

‘Women truly are the greatest weakness of man.’ He chuckled as he glid into the water. It wasn’t particularly cold, it was late spring after all with summer looking around the corner.

When his body entered the water he felt a tingling sensation and his entire body relaxed. He felt his heart beat faster and he gasped.

‘This feeling… it feels like breathing freely for the first time in my life.’ He laughed ecstatically and started swimming. Faster than ever before, without any effort did he glide through the dark water.

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‘I should be able to see…’ he dove down into the water and opened his eyes.

What he saw would have made him speechless, if he hadn’t been underwater already.

‘I can see! Not blurry, not dark, but clear as on land!’ his eyes went round as he turned around himself, only to see, that the canal that led to their residence was 3 meters deep and fully made of stone, all the way to the bottom.

‘How the hell did they even build this city? Did they build a dam?’ he marveled as he dove down to the bottom. It was smooth stone, slightly overgrown with different plants.

‘I don’t feel pressure on my ears at all.’ He looked up at the smooth surface, several meters above him. A weird sense of belonging settled in. He felt like he could just look up at the surface forever without it ever getting boring.

In his sight, small particles were swimming in the water.

‘It’s so clear… I feel no pressure and no urge to breathe… it was as if my body was made for this.’ He started diving out of the canal at a fast pace and soon reached the ledge where it connected to the harbor. What he saw there, shocked him.

A large, expansive world opened up before him. Like a city beneath the city. Not with actual buildings though, but a large reef. Caves, big rocks, crevices, and much more.

‘This should go down straight for about 30 meters…’ he gasped as he looked down the ledge before him. He could barely make out the sandy ground. The blue around him was beautiful.

Wherever he looked he could see smaller and medium-sized schools of fish and the occasional animal he had never seen before. Silvery fish, blue fish with yellow stripes, orange fish, black fish, and so much more.

‘I never knew this many fish existed… and these colors… beautiful.’ He caught himself smiling as he looked around. The harbor was a big half-circle with a diameter of about 100 meters. Beyond that, it got even deeper and Faust could not see any structures past the ledge. Only big, infinite blue.

‘Wow… I guess my sight is still limited.’ He scratched his head.

‘This is intimidating and so exciting at the same time. I have only ever seen our silvery and green fish in our lakes… but this diversity… is breathtaking, and that is without considering the beauty of the structures of these colorful… plants?’ he softly swam over the ledge and hovered in front of a yellow coral the size of a grownup that stuck to the wall.

‘I don’t sink.’ He realized and looked downwards. 30 meters of emptiness until the ground.

‘I am flying!’ he laughed, even though he very much knew he was swimming. The feeling of weightlessness and how relaxed and at home his body felt made him ecstatic. Yet soon he couldn’t bear to be swimming freely 30 meters above the ground and fled back to the safety of the canal.

‘Holy shit. This is crazy. I never knew it looked this way underwater!’ then he calmed himself down a bit.

‘This is all new and I do not know anything about it. I need to be extremely careful.’ He sighed and sat down on the ledge, his focus turning inward.

‘I need to digest all these new things and the fact that I… that I… can dive freely.’ He smiled and shortly before he could start meditating a thought rocked his mind.

‘LEONA! She saw me dive, she must be so worried! I must be gone for at least 10 minutes!’ he thought and hurriedly made his way back down the canal.