Chapter 21

  Labyrinth!

  The last Trial had given Elijah a lot to think about. He had overcome his fear of the dark. He had seen his mother and grandmother again… sort of.

  At the very least, that monster had reminded him what he was fighting for. He was ashamed to admit it, but he had begun to forget what their faces looked like.

  He had unlocked a repressed memory and now knew that some immortal monster had planted a seed within his mind in an attempt to get him to free them. It must have somehow known he would be brought here, to the Trials adjacent to the world of Terra Torus.

  Could it see the future? Did it somehow bring him here, even though it was trapped? Would it be able to send him back to Earth if he freed it?

  Actually, it was probably best not to dwell on such things; already he was getting a headache from remembering, and there was a secret part of him that wanted to have the same power as the vile creature. The strength, the power over blood, the ability to control minds.

  Best not to think about it. He had successfully managed to suppress the memories before; why not again?

  Elijah needed a distraction. Thankfully, he was not short of those.

  The Trial of Evolution 1: Minotaur

  You have reached Lv 25 as a Minotaur! Welcome to The Trial of Evolution: escape the Labyrinth to prove your right to undergo the first Evolution. A better performance in this trial will lead to a more powerful Evolution with stronger monster Skills and Traits.

  A new world constructed itself brick by brick around the teen, literally in this case. Elijah was in a tunnel of some sort. The walls were made of large, light grey bricks that felt magical.

  Perfectly smooth, spherical stones, the size of his head, glowed a ghostly blue and hung from the walls in wrought iron housings; placed every few feet, they illuminated the corridor. Behind him, there was a blank wall; he could only go forward.

  So forward he went. He heard something tear and looked down to see what had become of his clothes. His hose were torn, he was missing a shoe, and blood stained his yellow tunic and the large green dress-like garment beneath.

  The teen had a moment of panic and reached up to his head. He sighed in relief. Thank god he hadn’t lost his Captain’s hat in his adventures; it was stylish. It also gave him a feeling of confidence, but he didn’t know why.

  Mana Manipulation told him there was mana infused within it, like the king’s sword and amulet, but he couldn’t identify what sort or what it did. The moats moved in a far more complex way than water or darkness, and he had no idea what they did.

  He had an Identify Skill, but it only worked on monsters, not on objects.

  There was nothing he could do about the clothes. He had another set, but they were the fancy blue ones, and he wanted to keep them for a special occasion or for when he had no other choice. The shoe, on the other hand…

  Elijah stored away his one remaining red, soleless shoe in his Inventory, then replaced it with the rugged pair of sandals.

  He stood up straight and took a couple of steps. The footwear was surprisingly comfortable; perfect for exploring a labyrinth.

  This was not a labyrinth! The System window had described it as such, but it simply wasn’t.

  After the third dead end, Elijah was sure: this was a maze. The difference being: a maze has a number of different routes, but a labyrinth only one. The teen had learnt as much when overhearing an argument between the farmer that grew the maize maze and a local drunk.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  This was a maze and, as such, was confusing. All the corridors looked the same, made of the same bricks and with lights spaced evenly. Elijah was forced to use a trick he had learnt from that same argument.

  He kept his hand touching the wall to his left and just followed it. This way, he was sure to escape eventually.

  He trudged on. In and out of dead ends. Exploring empty tunnels. There was nothing here, and his mind was beginning to wander.

  The young man didn’t even notice when he turned a corner and entered a corridor that was not empty. He only realised something was wrong when he walked headfirst into a wall.

  Looking up, he saw it was not a wall. A giant bull’s head with twisted horns and glowing red eyes looked down at him, anger pouring out as smoke from his nostrils.

  Elijah was not slow to react. Over the past few weeks, he had honed his reaction speed, and it was further bolstered by his improved Attributes. Even so, when he threw himself backwards with all of his Strength, he was unable to evade the Minotaur’s attacks completely.

  A thin line of red was torn across Elijah's chest. Thankfully, he was just able to unequip his clothes in time; they weren’t further damaged.

  The creature had moved too quickly for him to see. The beast’s axe crashed into the ground, splintering the stones. The teen had tried attacking the magically reinforced rocks but hadn’t been able to leave so much as a scratch on them.

  Elijah decided to use the trick he learnt in the last Trial. Creating a blade out of his own blood, careful not to draw so much that he died again, the sixteen-year-old let fly.

  He grinned as a wound opened on the creature's furry, muscular chest. The Minotaur didn’t so much as flinch, and in less than a second the wound was closed. Elijah felt slightly dizzy from the loss of blood; he was not going to try that again!

  Nor did he need to. Now that he had gained some distance from the monster, it had stopped attacking. The hulking Minotaur simply plodded towards him with a slow and measured pace, its hooves thumping and its scale-covered axe sparking as it dragged along the floor behind the creature.

  Given a moment to breathe, Elijah realised something: for the first time, he didn’t need to fight!

  Just to be sure, he used the water in the air to create a few water blades and even tried one more blood blade. His skin became pale, and he felt weak, but since Beech Berserker had raised his Vitality above ten, he could bounce back in an hour or so.

  Everything he did either bounced off the slow-moving monster or was healed near instantaneously. For the sake of thoroughness, he threw out his one red shoe. As soon as the object came within six feet of the monster, it was turned into confetti. The axe had moved faster than a blink, leaving Elijah speechless. He was fortunate to have only gotten away with a scratch.

  This was definitely not a fight he could take, so he didn’t. Turning around, Elijah jogged in the other direction. This Trial only required him to escape the not-labyrinth; as long as he kept his distance and wasn’t trapped in any of the numerous dead ends, he would be fine.

  Though he knew that he would be okay if he stayed away, the sound of an axe scraping along stone and the heavy hoofsteps of the Minotaur still caused his pace to speed up considerably; that thing was scary strong.

  Nothing lasts forever. After he had outdistanced the sound of slowly encroaching death, Elijah’s Stamina finally bottomed out. He estimated he had been running for about an hour. It was impressive, at least to him; he had never been able to run for so long before he came here.

  The teen had been walking for a while and his little green bar had filled halfway when he finally found a break in the monotony of endless bricks. He turned a corner and found himself looking at a large room that descended the further in it went. It was a concert hall.

  On the stage was an hourglass, twice as tall as he was. Instead of seats, there were hundreds of different instruments placed in concentric rows that formed a half circle about the stage. There was a huge variety: flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, french horns, trumpets, trombones, tubas, violins, violas, cellos, and even a piano.

  There were dozens more that he didn’t recognise in all shapes and colours, but the last, the piano, was what caused Elijah’s foot to step unconsciously over the threshold. It felt like years since he was last able to play.

  The second he placed one toe inside the venue, the lights dimmed, the hourglass spun around, sand began to flow, a door of rock slammed down behind Elijah, and he was trapped inside.

  His heart jumped at the sudden sound. When he got its hammering back under control, he returned his attention to the room. He wanted to rush over to his instrument and start practising, but sand was moving through the hourglass at an alarming rate; it seemed more like a minuteglass.

  Elijah rushed down the steps and onto the stage. There was one other thing illuminated by the spotlights: the conductor's stand. On it there was a piece of paper, but instead of having sheet music written on it, there was a riddle:

  For this test,

  Make a sound fast.

  Find the best,

  And you can pass.

  I am delicate.

  I am golden.

  I am the loudest,

  But easily broken.

  What am I?

  patrons: