Magus: A Supernatural LitRPG Saga (Apocosmos Book 2) by Dimitrios Gkirgkiris (ebook offline reader txt) 📗

but they all required a thousand times the mana they needed normally. The fact that the multiplier was exactly one thousand made me realize that this place had probably been created for the sole purpose of testing us.

This was a realm, or perhaps a part of a realm, that had been crafted to trial specific abilities. The quest had indicated that it had something to do with mental abilities, so some limits to prevent us from "cheating" made sense.

"Okay, then I guess we were lucky that I dropped from the sky and saw what I did of the layout of the labyrinth," I said.

Rory immediately snapped his head toward me.

"I mean, apart from the pipe accident," I added.

He nodded, apparently now satisfied. "You got the flower, lad?"

"Yes," I said, checking it was in my inventory nevertheless. "Is everyone feeling okay?"

Looking at my companions, they were anything but okay. We were all wet, our skin was burning since we'd just left a plane with the raging snowstorm, and our bodies were exhausted beyond imagination. As much as I wanted to be vigilant in this new place, my body would barely obey my commands.

"Should we rest?" I asked, though I already knew the right answer.

"Not here," Leo replied. "We don't know the layout of the place and we have no idea what other creatures might be lurking here."

"Elf's right," Rory agreed and puffed out another purple cloud of smoke. "Let's get moving. If we find a suitable place to rest, we'll take a break there."

"Before we leave..." Louie stopped us in our tracks. "Does everyone have potions of healing?"

"The dog's right. We can't use our healing spells in here," Leo echoed.

We each checked our inventories and once we made sure we each had enough healing potions, we started moving in the general direction of the opening I had seen. As soon as we reached the first intersection inside, it became clear to us that we were going to need some kind of system to navigate our way through the maze.

"We need to create some kind of code to understand where we're going without getting lost," Louie said.

"Should we draw arrows pointing back here?" I suggested, something I remembered seeing on a TV series.

"The arrows will be useful if we need to retreat, but there's nowhere to retreat to," Louie continued. "We're trying to reach a place in there."

"What do ye suggest, boy?" Rory asked.

"One of you needs to make a map. I'd do it myself, but I can't use my telekinesis spell so you'll have to do it for me. It doesn't need to be an exact one. We're more interested in general directions. Left, right, up, down."

"Like a top-down game," I said.

"Sure," Louie agreed awkwardly. "Let's say like the old Zelda games."

"I'm losing ye, lads," Rory said casually, having gotten used to our obscure--for him--references.

"Anyway, someone will make the map and someone else needs to name each intersection. This one here for example," he said, nudging the fine gravel-covered path with his nose, "is intersection A."

"Got it," I said and used my sword to etch a large "A" on the ground. "What else?"

"Then we number each path leaving from this intersection. So, here it will be one, two, and three."

I walked over to each of the paths leading away from us and etched their numbers on the floor. It might have been more visible on the walls of the labyrinth, but there was no sign of any structure apart from the very thick hedges. They were so cleanly cut that the paths really looked like corridors, but they were soft on the touch. And yet when I tried to cut through them with my sword, I couldn't penetrate the hedge at all, not even to sever a single leaf.

"It was worth a try," I said. "What about the path we came from?"

"That would be path zero," Louie replied.

"Makes sense," Leo replied, using his sword to form the number on the ground. "I'll start making the map."

"No, ye'll mess it up," Rory bellowed and produced a thick notebook from his inventory. "If ye want a proper map made for a maze, ye better leave it to someone who's spent his life underground."

"Right," Leo said, and stepped forward. "Shall we then?"

"Just a moment," Rory said, as he scribbled something down. "Okay, move yer arses. Path number one."

"Alex," Louie whispered, once we'd started down the first path. "I can't cast spells, so please be careful."

"I will," I said and patted his back. "And you can't levitate so stay close, okay?"

Louie barked softly and we continued. The corridor was quite bright under the dusk sky--perhaps not all of its corners were perfectly visible, but it was definitely easily traversable. The smell of flowers was carried by the soft breeze that sometimes visited us, and the temperature was high enough for each of us to take off most of our clothing. Louie's coat was getting drier by the minute, and what seemed like a warm summer night did wonders in keeping us going long after our bodies began to tell us we should rest.

"End of the line," Rory said and marked something down in his leather-bound notepad.

A high hedge stood in front of us, identical to the ones that formed the corridors. No matter how much I searched using my flashlight, there was no sign of any difference to the other hedges or of any way through. It was just a dead-end.

"Alright, back it up," Rory ordered. "Next up, A2."

We returned to the place where we'd started and after making sure everything was as we had left it, we took on the second pathway. It was exactly the same as the one before, though this one was longer. We were walking for a few minutes, taking right and left turns, Rory furiously taking notes even though there was no real need for it as Louie pointed out to him.

The dwarf, however, disregarded our comments and seemed like he was having fun with this new project. No