Find a way to open the path forward in Genshin Impact: Aqueous Tidemarks quest guide

Genshin Impact has a quest known as Aqueous Tidemarks, which has an objective known as "Find a way to open the path forward." This step happens after players talk to Virgil, and some dialogue about the forum occurs. Much like some other objectives in this quest, the quest navigation marker shows a generic yellow circle around a fairly wide area.

Hence, some Genshin Impact players won't know what to do. This puzzle involves Ousia and Pneuma blocks, a feature introduced with the debut of Fontaine. If you're unfamiliar with it, you basically need to use Ousia to attack something with Pneuma and vice versa. The following guide will show some pictures to clarify this step.

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Genshin Impact Aqueous Tidemarks quest guide: How to find a way to open the path forward

This is where you need to go (Image via HoYoverse)

Thankfully, Genshin Impact players don't need to go underwater to complete the "Find a way to open the path forward" part of Aqueous Tidemarks. Just go to the spot marked in the above screenshot. For reference, it's southwest of where Virgil was from the previous step of this quest.

You can either quickly swim to get here or go around the circular corridor. You will eventually arrive at a sealed mechanism which is key to completing the "find a way to open the path forward" objective.

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Ousia and Pneuma puzzle solution

Pick this Ousia Block up (Image via HoYoverse)

This puzzle is pretty simple: Pick up an Ousia Block and Normal Attack the torch emanating Pneuma. Afterward, pick up the Pneuma Block and then trigger the same reaction with the Ousia torch. It doesn't matter which order you activate them, although this guide will start with the Ousia Block to Pneuma Torch first.

This is the Pneuma torch being activated with a Normal Attack (Image via HoYoverse)

Performing a Normal Attack on an interactive object will trigger the Arkhe reaction. The above screenshot shows an example of a Genshin Impact player using an Ousia Block on the Pneuma torch. Up next is a few screenshots showing the opposite happening where a Pneuma Block attacks an Ousia torch.

This is the Pneuma Block (Image via HoYoverse)

Pick up the yellow orb shown here and make your way to the purple torch near the water. Do a Normal Attack on it to see a brief cutscene where the red seal disappears.

The puzzle is almost complete (Image via HoYoverse)

Both the Pneuma and Ousia torches should emit a blue-greenish aura now. The only step left is to interact with the newly unlocked mechanism, as shown in the following picture.

You're almost done (Image via HoYoverse)

Aqueous Tidemarks' "Find a way to open the path forward" objective will be complete after you interact with the mechanism shown above to open a gate underwater. Virgil will speak for a while, so just read his dialogue or skip through it. The next step of Aqueous Tidemarks is to "Proceed deeper," which should be easy for the reader to do on their own without a guide.

After finishing "Find a way to open the path forward," you should be about halfway done with Aqueous Tidemarks in Genshin Impact.