Lorcan looked at the projection of the planet: “You got to be kidding me.”
Torran grinned: “I’m really sorry, but this is the best place to get one or more limited titles in the whole Million Gates Territory.”
Baldy scratched his bald head: “It looks like a sponge that’s inside a magic mirror labyrinth. A smashed mirror labyrinth. Inside of a giant cocktail shaker.”
“It’s just about in the middle of the Million Gates. Several black holes have collapsed inside the territory and somehow resurfaced here as this unique anomaly. Then the system claimed it and turned it into a unique tournament. The Endless Labyrinth of Fractured Space. We will use a special shielded vessel to fire you into the maelstrom. If… I mean as soon as you find your way out, you will get a limited title. If you manage to find and acquire one of the hidden spatial treasures, you will get an even better title. The more treasures you find, the better the title. You will lose them as you leave, so don’t dream about keeping them. The Labyrinth is a collapsed closed point in time, so only about one hour will have passed for every year you spend inside.”
“Years? How long does it usually take to find your way out?”
“With a branch of a Dao of space and low affinity to space, they take an average of ten years to escape.”
“Ten years.” He pondered this prospect. “Alone in this hellscape.”
Baldy patted his shoulder: “At least you can take your pet with you.”
"What is the record for escaping the planet?"
Torran infused energy in his data crystal before he answered: “Two years, three months and six days. The record holder found no treasure before he left, but it’s said he got a quite good title for setting a new record. Could be worthwhile.”
“I could go for a new record…”
“The record holder had had two branches of Daos of Space. And he was D-grade.”
“Wait… is this trial even suitable for F-grade?”
“I don’t think any ever tried. But there probably has never been someone with such a high affinity. You know how rare any affinity to time or space is with humans. The monsters inside the labyrinth are said to be between F and E-grade, with some D-grade boss monsters, which are purely optional and can be avoided with care. Usually.”
“What is the survival rate?”
“About 75% für E-grade and 96% for D-grade. There are no statistics for F-grade.”
“We probably should have talked about this before arriving here.”
Torran grinned: “I admit to avoiding the subject. It’s the best fitting trial for someone specializing in time and space Daos I could find. I found three reports about trial takers with medium affinity to the Dao of time. Which is rare and exceptional for humans as you might remember. Each reported to have been granted a Dao vision of time in addition to the usual rewards.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Okay. I’m sold. You have filled my ring and Cosmic bag with equipment, Nexus Crystals, pills, rations and water?”
“Enough to survive for twenty years.”
“I don’t intend to stay that long.”
“Neither did any of the others.” Lorcan couldn’t tell if he joked or not.
* * *
Time and space shattered and whirled around Lorcan as he sped down at the maelstrom inside the array shielded capsule. It resembled a bullet fired by the gun-like space station in orbit, where he had paid a handsome sum for this privilege. He wished he couldn’t sense his surroundings this good. There was only a flimsy wall between this reality and the void. A wall that consisted out of a puzzle of shattered 5dimensional shards of spacetime. Like a puzzle cube, but in 16 dimensions, 100sided and with equations instead of colors. Equations that had to be solved in order to determine the correct side.
He resisted the urge to close his inner eyes and instead studied the puzzle. It was mesmerizing and without any order he could understand. Soon his capsule entered a area of giant tunnels the got smaller and smaller. From where he could have entered with a Cosmic vessel, to a with he could just enter with his capsule. After a day of travel, the capsule came to a stop when the tunnel became to narrow. Several talismans burned out to stop him from being ground to paste by the sudden deceleration. The arrays exploded and the capsule fell apart around him. With a desperate jump, he entered the labyrinth. Instead of standing on the floor, he kept racing through the middle of it with high speed. Turning left and right, up and down in a seemingly random way at multiple crossings. It took hours, until he decided that yes, that seemed to be the usual condition inside the trial. That would need some time to get used to. Especially when sleeping.
Now, what would happen If he released Vokari from his spatial space. Would he be ripped away, never to be seen again? But could he let him imprisoned for years? No. He wouldn’t like that.
He took his hexasquirrel friend out and held him tightly in his arms. The companion beast looked around confused. Then it… grinned? It looked happy. Tail wagging. He slowly lessened his grip. Vokari broke free and jumped away… only to start orbiting Lorcan like a happy little moon.
“Now, who’s a good beast? You are.” He petted it when it came near, then let him fly loose once more. “Any idea where to go?”
The beast looked around and made a gesture with all six legs. “Is that a no? It feels like a no.”
He shrugged. That was a better start than expected. At least he wasn’t alone. He took out a navigation array, but it crumbled to dust almost immediately. The same happened to the peak quality mapping array he’d bought on the off chance it would be of any use. It wasn’t.
He tried to enter a meditative state. It was hard while racing through a labyrinth. Very hard. He took hours to get used to the constant movement, but eventually, his mind cleared. He infused the Dao of Spatial Sensation into his [Inquisitive Spatial Perception Eye] skill. The he’d used [Mental Overclocking] to speed up his nerves. Effective and subjectively slowing down everything around him. This gave him enough time to analyze the tunnels he sped through. They were quite complex. Ridiculously complex. He could not make heads or tails of their spacing or positioning. He soon found out, he wasn’t moving in a three-dimensional space, but through a non-Euclidean fifth or sixth dimensional framework. He let his mind wander, exploring the space around him. Feeling the dimensions warping through each other. He imagined someone less used to spatial phenomena would be violently sick for quite some time. Something not mentioned in the reports. Some directions had a certain similar flair or flavor or smell. It was hard to describe. He started to follow one of those sensory flavors. Right, right, left, five times right again, up, down…
Hours went by, then days. Until the flavor started to get stronger. A few hours later the tunnel blew him into a giant empty area. The inside of a ball the size of a star-system. At the center was not a life-giving sun, but an area of dark nothingness, he felt rather than saw. It was not hard to guess that this had to be one of the black holes that had formed this labyrinth with their combined spacetime bending gravity. And as he had been told, it wasn’t empty.