Mei squinted her eyes, blinded by the sudden light.

She reached out to rub her eyes, then realised her helmet was in the way. Oh. That was quite annoying. Her arm began to itch a little for no apparent reason. Great.

"Hey! Who are you?" a familiar voice spoke into her mind.

She turned around and saw a wooden puppet had fallen to the ground in surprise, pointing at her.

"Oh, it's just you, Su Qing."

"Su Qing? How do you know my name?" the puppet stood back up, staring at her warily.

Oh right. Didn't the elder spirits say the armour would interfere with soulsense?

"Oh, I'm Mei Xiu! The elder spirits gave me and the other disciples armour that hides souls? Wait, let me try something..."

She let a wisp of her qi out, into the puppet.

"That doesn't feel like her qi..." Su Qing muttered.

Hm? Did the armour also remove traces of the person's qi?

Thinking of something else, Su Qing used their soul contract and found the strange person was indeed Mei.

"You really are her!" he said in surprise. "This is so weird..."

He circled her several times, staring intently. Spirits identified others by soul, for such a complete change in aura was tantamount to a young girl suddenly turning into an emaciated old man, from a human perspective. Su Qing found it really hard to get used to.

Mei nodded before grabbing her head and tugging hard on it, rocking back and forth.

"Eh? What are you doing?" Su Qing was shocked.

"I'm... trying... to remove the helmet!" Mei said.

"Oh."

Mei struggled for a whole minute, before giving up. If not for her endurance from body cultivation, she would have been lying on the ground and panting.

"I changed my mind..." she said sheepishly, looking away.

Su Qing: ...

His master was so silly at times.

"Ah!"

Suddenly he remembered how panicked he had been earlier. Mei appeared so suddenly and in such a strange form, he didn't get excited until now!

"Mei Mei! I was lost! And then Myriad Realms got angry at me and said I couldn't teleport! I was scared!"

Suddenly, Su Qing embraced Mei, incoherently recounting all that had happened.

Mei squirmed for a bit. As it turned out, getting hugged by a wooden puppet was very uncomfortable. It was a good thing she had the armour on, or she might have been a little crushed.

...

"Hahaha, seriously? I didn't know that array could even get mad!" Mei laughed.

After hearing of how Su Qing had been barreling through the canyon river, she almost wished she had been there to witness it.

"Yeah! It's not mature!"

"Oh yeah. If you ever feel like heading off to have fun, next time you should tell me first."

"I thought the elder spirits wouldn't agree, hehe..." Su Qing scratched his head.

It was indeed a bit strange they didn't seem to have noticed. Especially with how adept Tu Teng was at sensing souls. Could it be that they just couldn't be bothered to stop him? How irresponsible...

Mei found it a little strange how she had been sent here after activating the token. Back there, she activated it without thinking of where she wanted to go. With the choice left to it, it seemed Myriad Realm decided to just reunite them?

She thought back to the depths below, where the monster was rampaging and felt a tinge of guilt. Did her friends teleport out as well? Mei only thought of teleporting because after the incident with the bandit, she realised in retrospect she could have just used the token.

She shook off those thoughts. With how she could just teleport to Su Qing, the elder spirits could also teleport directly to them if they were in danger. It wasn't like she could have done anything anyway.

"Mei Xiu? What's wrong?" Su Qing suddenly asked.

Mei coughed.

"It's nothing!"

The rumbling halted. Dust no longer fell from the ceiling.

Several pillars of rock stretched to the top of the caverns, holding it in place; the gouge carved by the beam mended as well. The mass of grey tendrils laid limp on the ground.

The disciples had been sent back to Stone Ridge town.

Shi Xin held a jar with a writhing mass of grey light within, before stashing it away.

"We got it. Send the plague spirit to the sect and let the elders handle it," he said to the sect token before him.

With a flash, the tendrils and the jar vanished, sent to the sect for containment. A bang, followed by the rush of wind could be heard as air filled where the monster was just seconds ago.

"Quite fortunate you were here to notice it. Were this to be left unattended, the outcome would not be pleasant." Myriad Realms said. "That said, I do feel a little sorry for it, as a fellow spirit. The sect is not unkind to spirits, but it is most restricting. A far cry from a life of freedom outside."

"Bah. It sat in this gloomy place for a few hundred years. Doesn't seem like much of an explorer to me." Shi Xin said.

"Sect's huge anyway. It'll take hundreds of years to explore the whole darn place."

"Time passes in the blink of an eye." Myriad Realms said. "Now, if you excuse me, I must return to my duties.

...

A cloud of dust stirred as an army of mushrooms rushed to the great drain in unison.

They stared at the massive pillars, stunned. The mushrooms stood in formation, pointing their weapons toward them.

"Oh? This is quite the attitude towards the ones who saved your village." Shi Xin said.

"You there! What happened here?" Mace yelled at the elder spirits.

"When we came here, there was a mass of grey tentacles rampaging. We fought it to a stalemate for a while, but it escaped down the drains." Tu Teng said. "Perhaps we should be asking why you have build accommodations for such a creature?"

"It's just a drain to prevent flooding! How would we know something like that was living below?" one of the mushrooms stuttered.

...

The spirits and mushrooms discussed for the next hour. Finally, the mushrooms left, thanking them profusely.

"If it really was to prevent flooding, they would most definitely have inspected the drain frequently." Tu Teng said. "Along with the Sense Halting formation, most certainly to hide the plague spirit's tremendous soul... it's almost certain this has been planned by the ant queen."

"Those pesky humans think they're at the top of the world and can get away with suppressing the other races. And look what comes out of it?" Shi Xin spat. "Another revolt. Big surprise."

Tu Teng stared at the bodies of several ants beside it and sighed. They did not survive the fall from above. Had there really not been a better way to resolve this?