"It is insane how uninformed you are on the god's plans." Malik's voice echoed through Owen's head. Owen ducked to dodge the club minotaur, before jumping back as a bastard sword swung down towards his body. He had to spin mid jump, to keep from being shish kabobbed on the third minotaur's spear.

"I suppose, I can give more context. Since most gods can't live forever, they give out their inheritances classes inside of items, as a way to increase their general power, by more people following their path. Some gods don't have that as a option, since while it is difficult, it is possible to lose the ability to create inheritances. Right now, an entire pantheon of gods is dealing with this problem, which means that they need to forcibly help raise half step deities to godhood. You follow so far?" Malik's voice droned.

Owen was paying less than ten percent of his attention on the droning voice inside his head, as he forced the minotaur to push him towards their mage again. He weaved through each attack, while trying to process Malik's words, but just as he was about to ask a question, a blast of fire launched towards him. Owen quickly moved the mana in the air and imbued it with his own mana to create a shield that blocked the attack.

When Owen hadn't answered Malik continued, sounding just as bored of the topic as before. "The current challenge, that you are a part of, is to prove that your half step deity is the best of the pantheon. Whoever wins, gets their half step deity promoted to godhood first and with it gets an insane increase of power."

Owen tried to pay more attention to Malik's words now, but still managed to find another opening to cut down the mage. He had been pelted more than a dozen times by the mage, before he figured out how to consistently create mana barriers. Owen felt a huge burst of experience flow through him and was positive he had just gained a level. But he didn't let himself dwell on it as he dodged a spear thrust. All of his resources were beginning to run low, but over the course of the fight he had worn down the armor to different extents on all three of the remaining minotaur.

Seeing an end in sight, he forced himself to focus up again, launching himself forward in a counter attack against the club wielding minotaur. He had less than a second, before the other monsters tried to attack him from behind, but in that partial second he managed to slice through one of the minotaur's arms. "Nice job, finally launching a decent counter offensive." Malik's voice said, before he started sounding bored again.

"You only have a month or so before the trial begins and I don't know if they will even let you in, unless you start levelling faster." Malik said, sounding slightly disappointed, but this time Owen wasn't listening at all. The club wielding minotaur roared, sending Owen back several steps, but both of the other minotaur had been close enough that they stumbled as well. Owen dashed forwards and mid swing transformed his sword into its bastard sword form, while imbuing it with as much resonance as possible.

Both heads were sent flying as the bodies toppled to the ground, leaving Owen alone in a one on one fight against the last minotaur. It seemed to freeze, before it turned and began running towards a door way. Owen wouldn't let it run and blasted forwards, his sword swinging in a wide arc towards its neck. Club was swung to intercepted the strike, but Owen's resonance infused weapon easily ignored it. Head was severed from neck and Owen screamed as he collapsed to the ground and began breathing heavily as Malik's voice rang through his head.

The club hadn't been aimed at his sword, but at his arm and Owen winced away tears as his arm hung loosely, connected barely by crushed bone and sinew. The pain grew even fiercer as a hot flash stung his arm. Own looked over again as the pain reached another crescendo, though this time, his arm had been cleanly cut off at the shoulder. Despite howling in pain, he heard malik's voice echoed in his head, but this time Owen wasn't able to ignore it as the words seemed to control his very soul.

"Guide your HP in this pattern, just under this muscle." Malik's voice commanded, as images and impression flowed into Owen's brain. Unable to refuse, Owen began channeling his man in the patterns shown to him. The energy seemed to pass through invisible pathways as Owen felt what was left of his arm begin to grow out into a new one. The whole experience felt muted, as if Owen was watching someone do it. He wasn't even sure how much time passed, as the pattern grew more and more complicated as the process continued.

Eventually, the world began to grow dark as Owen finished the pattern. Owen woke to find himself inside of his core space, looking down on his constellation. He could still remember the feeling of the energy moving through his pathways and tried to jolt himself awake, to check on his arm, but nothing happened. He moved down towards his core space and without anything better to do, he began to circulate the experience he had gained. His core looked almost completely unfamiliar as it had a somewhat white glow to it, rather than the yellow he was used too.

It took him a second to realize that the white glow was several layers of shelled experience. He immediately began absorbing the experience into his core and running it through his pathways. he hesitated for a moment, but remembering the pattern he had moved his HP through, he began forcing the remnants of experience through it as well. The reaction was almost instantaneous as the whole sky of his core space lit up for a moment and another entire section was added to his constellation. It wasn't attached, but it was as if a separate constellation was overlayed on top of his normal constellation.

Owen didn't have a chance to examining it much further as his core space lit up again, but this time, it was his core gradually changing from a yellowish coloration to a deep orange. It had already slowly begun shifting towards a deeper color, but the experience he had gained from the minotaur quartet had pushed him over the hump and well into the orange stage. Owen had already learned a lot about the cores and how they approximately functioned.

As the quality of your soul increased, the color would intensify, slowly moving closer towards white. BY the time you reached a white coloration, the next step would be to condense it, which would slowly turn your core into more of a crystalline object rather than the pure energy Owen currently had. Through turning into a crystalline form, the core would darken into a black color and the goal would be to purify and empower it until it was a white color again, before continuing with he next step.

Owen was several stages away from reaching a white color, but upgrading his core to the orange stage was still a big step. As if his body was waiting for the upgrade, he could immediately feel he was no longer locked inside of his core space. He exited it almost immediately afterwards, only throwing a last glance at the new constellation.

Stolen novel; please report.

Malik was staring down at him with a big grin and held out a hand for Owen to grab. He was practically thrown into the air when he grabbed the hand. And to his relief, his arm was fine, it still was a weird experience to look down and see his sliced off arm lying on the ground, but he quickly dipped down and tore the bracer off, before placing it on his new arm. "That was insanely impressive!" Malik said, holding a thumbs up and grinning. Despite still feeling wary around him, Owen was growing to like Malik, so he grinned back.

"Which part, fighting the minotaur, or growing a new arm?" Owen responded, mostly joking. "Definitely the arm," Malik said, without even a seconds hesitation. "You have some top notch energy control. It only took you an hour on your first try, whereas it took me at least three on my first attempt." Malik looked impressed, but the moment didn't last long before they gestured towards the next room.

"You'll have to do that fight maybe four or five more times, before the room to Daedalus opens up." He said, but Owen raised a hand. "I need a minute or two, I've got notifications and other stuff I want to check out." Owen started, but Malik interrupted him. "Sorry, but I am going to continue, so either you check it as we move, or you'll need to worry about clearing out this gate by yourself." Malik said it in a teasing tone, but Owen immediately felt a sense of dread sweep over the room, before disappearing.

Sighing, Owen gestured for Malik to lead the way, while Owen followed closely after. As they walked through the labyrinth's halls, Owen finally was beginning to feel somewhat better, he still wasn't able to fight at max strength, but he was at 80%. The first several minutes had been in silence, but Owen finally couldn't hold back his curiosity. "How do you know so much about everything that is happening? I've asked my sponsor countless questions and I had even asked a god a couple questions, but I wasn't able to get anywhere close to learning the amount of information you have shared."

Malik seemed lost in thought until the question brought him back. "I guess its mostly memory, but collecting information is easier than most people think." He shrugged. "Okay, but how do you find out information on gods? I thought that they didn't have a presence in the mortal world." Owen asked. Malik just laughed, "No, I guess some of them do and there are some limitations, but there are still many that try to be active in the mortal world."

Owen couldn't help but begin grumbling to himself. He continued asking Malik questions, but it was as if he was being intentionally vague. Which if they shared a secret would make sense, but Owen wasn't sure what Malik thought he knew. He kept subtly referring to things, without fully describing. It was a frustrating experience and Owen gave up after a while and focused on recovery instead. They continued walking through the labyrinth and Owen ended up needing to fight four more rooms of minotaur.

It helped relieve some of the frustration he had been building up and only a couple hours later they managed to make it to a large closed door. "Alright, you killed all of the minotaur, so the gate won't open for me." Malik said gesturing at the door. Owen nodded and moved past him. The door was several times taller than he was, each of the grooves that ran across the surfaces of the door seemed to create an image. Scanning the reliefs, Owen realized that the reliefs were pathways throughout the labyrinth. He was able to trace the path they had taken from each of the minotaur's rooms.

The paths led to four different corners of the labyrinth and a single pathway connected each of the rooms to the center. The center of the labyrinth depicted on the door had two hand imprints and Owen gingerly fit his hands into the grooves. Energy rushed into his body from the door and his blood felt like ice in his veins, as the energy traveled through his body until it reached his core. As soon as it reached its destination, the door made a clicking sound and the ice cold energy disappeared as the door swung open the rest of the way on its own.

Owen felt a shiver run down his spine and Malik sighed from behind him. "The feeling sucks doesn't it. But there is no better way to lock a door, especially in a labyrinth, than tying its key to the souls of more than a dozen creatures." Owen just shook his head and nodded. Malik had been an interesting companion so far, but it was frustrating to feel like you never knew what was going on. It didn't help that Malik was incredibly hard to read, there had been several moments where he had seemed genuine, but then it would all seem so artificial moments later.

Then stepped through the door at the same time and Owen wasn't surprised when it led to a staircase. It took them moments to descend the steps and at the end of the hall stood another door, this time it was already ajar. Even from where they were standing at the foot of the staircase, a sense of danger swept through the doorway and down the hall towards them. Malik kept the warm smile of his face, but Owen couldn't help but shiver again.

As they walked down the hall, an intense pressure seemed to gather on Owen's shoulders and by the time they had entered the room, it felt like he would need to use his boosting skill just to move normally. It was a workshop with trinkets and other gadgets Owen didn't recognize, as he was looking around he felt like his senses were being pricked by something. Straining his ears, he felt like he could hear a faint whisper. Before he was able to stop himself, he pushed all of his focus into hearing what was being whispered, and all at once he felt his senses being overwhelmed as a torrent of whispers flooded his head.

It was all and Owen could feel blood trickling out of his ears as finally the whispers seemed to gather into a single voice that thundered through the room. "WHY FIGHT THROUGH MY LABYRINTH, WASN'T MY LIFE ENOUGH?"

*Defeat the superior grade echo of Daedalus.

Time remaining 16:46:23*

Owen felt the pressure in the room lessen slightly as all of the pieces of metal and other small gadgets in the room gathered together. Slowly the outline of a body began appearing and Owen prepared to attack, with both his boosting skill and mobility flaring at full power. Before the body could finish forming, a second pressure descended, flooding the room with power. Malik moved effortlessly and Owen felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck as he realized the pressure was coming from Malik.

A single swipe of his hand froze the tier ten boss monster and Owen felt the pressure on him disappear. "Alright, this should be a fight that pushes you to your limits now, I've done just enough to make it possible for you to beat the boss." Malik grinned. "We will see if you are even close to ready for the next event, maybe I'll even see you there and have a chance to spare with you!" he added excitedly. Then he was gone and Owen stared in shock as the last several seconds continued replaying in his head.

Owen had felt the energy in the air and it felt like Malik had somehow used his mana and affinities to mess with the boss before it finished forming. Once he was gone, the aura coming off of the boss was severely lessened. It continued trying to form a body and Owen took the chance to quickly scan his notifications that he had been stockpiling since entering the gate.

*You have gained four levels, you have 16 unallocated stat point(s)

You have upgraded you core to the Orange stage, stats per level increased to four

You have gained 4 additional stats points in your Mana stat.

You have upgraded a title, Middle Stage Cultivator has changed into, Upper stage Cultivator. This title grants +15 to mana and a 5% boost to mana*

He only managed to be surprised for a moment, before the room rocked and some of the previous pressure appeared. Owen stared at the boss and couldn't help but feel excited, if there was anything he could say about Malik, it was that he knew the system impossible well. And if he said it was possible for Owen to win, all he had to do was guarantee it. he felt an almost battle mania descend as he stared at the boss as it finished forming.

*Defiant: Superior Grade Echo of Daedalus - Level 260*