A story about elves?

A loud splash echoed through this serene underground cave, as two bodies were suddenly thrown out of a lake. Two young men groaned for a while, before one quickly sat up and survived his surroundings. He ignored his bruised and injured body, as strong fighting spirit could be seen in his eyes.

Bai Jingshen was glad to have finally escaped their dangerous situation. After landing in this seemingly empty cave he still didn't let down his guard. He quickly analyzed his environment before ignoring the pain in his body and standing up. The young man concentrated while slowly taking a few steps forward towards the lake they just came from. He dearly missed his weapon while he examined the lake for any danger he could find.

After a few minutes he slightly relaxed his overworked mind, as his sense didn't alert him of anything. He just had to assume they were safe for now. Bai Jingshen took a few more steps towards the water. He carefully scoped a handful of this beautiful, clear lake water, before bringing it to his lips and taking a small sip.

Bai Jingshen felt delighted as a comfortable flow spread through his whole body. He could seemingly feel his injuries heal and his body regaining power. Without any more delay, he took as much water as he could carry into his hands, before bringing it over to his friend. Sam was weakly lying on the ground, not able to muster any strength to stand up. He watched with half open eyes as Bai Jingshen came over towards him.

As soon as the brawny young man felt this life spending water running down his throat, he let out a load groan. He suddenly realized that not feeling his body might have been a blissful state, as all his muscles suddenly started to terrible hurt. He felt his body healing but was in so much pain that he had to hold back the tears threatening to escape his eyes.

Bai Jingshen felt sympathy as his friend's body twitched, but there wasn't any other way. They could already count themselves lucky, that they found something to heal themselves. For the next few minutes Bai Jingshen supplied water for both of them, before Sam could finally stand and walked over towards the water by himself.

After their thrilling escape just now, both men needed some time, so they decided to lay down on the lake's shore. Bai Jingshen thoroughly enjoyed the water's warm massage. Even the fact that this situation reminded him about the Gentle Water Inn couldn't dampen his mood right now.

Bai Jingshen began to let his eyes roam around the underground cave, amazed at finding another beautiful scenery. The lake quietly made up the biggest part of this cave, which roughly had the height of two people. Beautiful lotus flowers adorned the lake's surface. Those flowers gave of a slightly depressed mood as their leaves drooped down. Speaking about leaves, Bai Jingshen looked down on his body and realized that his body was only barely covered anymore. He sighed as he only had his knife left after losing his sword earlier.

The experienced fighter put the thought about his dysfunctional clothes at the back of his mind for now, thinking about his bigger problems. After all he didn't know where they were and how to get out of here. He did see a door earlier, but who knows where it would lead. Bai Jingshen decided to relax for about an hour more, before tackling his problems with a refreshed mind.

For a long time the underground cave fell silent again as the two young men sank into their own thoughts. After a while Bai Jingshen finally got up again and told Sam he would take a look around. The former emperor thus turned around and walked a few steps before arriving in front of a stone door. Looking it up and down, he couldn't make anything out of the weird symbols which covered the door. Bai Jingshen didn't want to be hasty, so he grabbed a pebble from the ground, before throwing it at the door.

Sam suddenly jumped up, as he realized a low light began to shine behind him. He turned around and saw Bai Jingshen standing with his hands raised in a defending posture before walls covered in shining pictures.

The former emperor had a serious look on his face, but slowly lowered his hand as nothing more happened. Just now as the pebble touched this door, the whole wall suddenly began to shine. He realized that it was covered in pictures, with lines of symbols, probably text, under each one of them. Bai Jingshen took a quick look, before he went to the leftmost picture followed by Sam.

He was intrigued as Bai Jingshen saw weirdly small humans with pointy ears sitting around what he assumed to be a tree. He only assumed, because this thing was hard to recognize as it actually covered the whole cave's roof. Bai Jingshen slowly walked along the wall while taking in the story told by those pictures, committing the texts to memory at the same time. Those small humans seemed to live close to nature and loved water. However, a weird plague seemed to spread, even affecting the massive tree and killing off nature around them. Suddenly the tone of those pictures changed, as they depicted a war among the small humans.

Some of those humans seemed to have turned dark and began hunting others. However, this war seemingly came to a standstill, depicted by the big tree being half dark and half light. Bai Jingshen couldn't figure out how long this standstill latest, but one day a hero was born among the light humans. He seemed to master the usage of Qi and after blessing their water, he enabled the light humans to push the dark one's back. However, he also seemed to show compassion as he managed to unite the light and dark humans, becoming a supreme ruler and taking his people to explore other places.

Bai Jingshen was amazed by this story and quickly asked Sam if he had heard about this. Since the former empower never read about this weird species, they shouldn't originate from the Great Cultivation World. Sam looked at him in confusion before he gave a hesitant answer.

From Sam's knowledge this race resembled something he knew as elves, but this shouldn't be possible as this was a fictional race only created by some author called Marquis Jarr of House Tolkam. Bai Jingshen also couldn't really wrap his head around it, but he just decided to name this species elves for now.

After looking at all these pictures, there wasn't much left to do for the two men. Bai Jingshen tightly gipped his knife, which was the only weapon the both of them still had, before telling Sam to bundle up some lotus leaves and carry as much water as possible with them. After finishing these preparations, Bai Jingshen entered a more serious state again and carefully opened the bright stone door.

The door opened surprisingly easy as the young men curiously observed what lay behind it. Sadly, they didn't see anything as they stared into a long, dark hallway. Suddenly a crystal inlaid in the wall began to dimly shine. Then another, and another, until the whole hallway shone in a comfortable, blue light. However, this once beautiful scenery was now giving Bai Jingshen the creeps, as the hallway was completely covered in dried-up vines and roots. Even some resemblance of flowers could still be seen, but all of them were completely dead by now.

Bai Jingshen and Sam suppressed their uneasiness as they made their first steps into the hallway. As nothing happened, they slowly continued on, permanently accompanied by the early sound of dead plants breaking under their feet. They simply followed the hallway until it made an abrupt turn. Right after the went past this turn, they jumped in surprise as a door suddenly shut behind them with a loud bang.

The young men tried to look around, but they once again found themselves in darkness. All of a sudden, a massive crystal a few meters above their head began to illuminate their surroundings. Without seeing anyone, a tired sounding voice could be heard echoing all around them. It sounded like the earth itself was quaking, deep and profound. Bai Jingshen felt like this voice was invoking laws just by speaking, hinting at an unbelievably powerful being. But he noticed a problem. Once again, he was not able to understand this language.

Bai Jingshen thought quickly, before he signaled Sam to follow his lead. The former emperor cupped his fists at the air, before calmly speaking:

"Excuse my rudeness senior, but we do not speak your language."

Bai Jingshen would lie if he said he wasn't nervous at this moment, but he just had to hope they were too insignificant for this senior to attack them.