The Canis Minor Path

Kairo awoke in his spiritual sea. Rather than clear blue skies and still water, the skies were sparking lightning and the water was golden.

Letter columns rose out of the golden sea to form text before him. One section of gibberish was translated for his understanding. He read it aloud.

Quest: Complete the Blind Fox path. Reach the end without getting caught.

Time limit: 12 hours (Earth)/12 turns (Lux)

Reward: Access to the Canis Minor Star Jump 

Rezenens Mage Level Increase: +1

Skill Reward: Speed increase +30 second, 500 meters spurts (30 sec cooldown)

Bonus: ??? Clear the quest under 10 hrs

Failure penalty: limited vision and decreased speed until next path quest.

"Woah, woah, woah! Did I just get transported into a LitRPG novel?"

Things were getting crazy.

He yelped and wobbled about as his sea swayed to throw him off balance. He fell into the depths, sinking deep until he landed on hard ground. When he got a bearing of his senses, he saw the start of a maze with stone walls that rose so high the tops were barely visible. It stretched for miles on all ends.

"Great." He heaved a sigh.

His eyes widened when he saw his mage attire and Zeus forming around him.

A clock appeared before him, counting down his remaining twelve hours. His competitive streak kicked in: lips twitched with a smirk.

"So be it." He reaffirmed his grip on Zeus and ran into the maze.

It attacked him straight out of the gate with darts shooting out of walls and spikes of ice attempting to stab him, or offset his balance.

He turned, ducked and evade-rolled to avoid them. Some of the spikes scraped his legs; darts pricked his limbs. Fortunately, his mage cloak and magic barriers laced into his clothing blocked serious damage.

The first part of the maze run was him dodging and deflecting blows. He suspected this was a warm-up to his training.

He checked the moving clock before him and noted that he had been running for thirty minus. Already he was feeling the strain on his legs.

"Gonna be a long twelve hours."

So far his use for Zeus was blocking and deflecting range attacks. He skidded to a halt before a long strip of stone corridor, which was eerily quiet: and soon saw why.

Two skeleton warriors appeared to block his way forward. They flexed their strength with a show of magic bursts and firm hold on their long axes and swords.

"Avoid the warriors to reach the end." A woman's voice rebounded around his ears.

"Wait. I can't fight them? That's mean!" He complained as he hooked Zeus to his back, changed his stance to lean forward and pooled all his magic into his legs for a quick dash.

The warriors confidently rushed for him with swings and slashes to strike him down.

Kairo ducked and dashed around their attacks, using their bodies and the walls as springboards to do somersaults and leaps past them.

He kept running along the paths he felt were forward. But he made wrong turns. Whenever he turned to backtrack, he had to repeat the warrior evasion process.

"Right. I'll place a mark on my tracks." He grabbed Zeus and used the weapon to strike the wall, leaving a mark of where he had been.

He managed to reach the mid-point of the maze, but there was still a lot of ground to cover.

"Six hours left." He panted, feeling anxious about the countdown clock's time reduction.

He slipped pills into his mouth and kept going. As he neared a pivotal point of the maze, three quarters to the end, he stepped into a circular clearing that began rotating with slow grinding noises.

It rotated him around five path openings: one was void of danger, but he saw marks he had made in the far distance, the second path had three guards ready to attack, but the direction was unclear, the third and fourth were similar to the second.

"But the fifth." He groaned when saw more than ten warriors blocking the way, which was a straight shot to the final maze area.

"Go the long way or directly to the finish line." He checked the remaining time, then bellowed with frustration and decided to go with his gut.

"Let's do this ZEUS!" He bravely shouted as he grabbed his scythe and laced it with his magic.

Zeus swelled with intense waves of magic, stirring a mighty whirlwind around Kairo. He was lifted off the ground as he leapt toward the opening of the straight path.

Kairo used Zeus's air momentum to bounce off the warriors' heads and somersault over their weapon swings, springboarding off the walls to evade attacks and landing behind them to continue his sprints for the start of the final section.

He saw four hours remaining on the clock.

"I can do this!" He felt confident until he ran around a corner and saw the final part of the maze was riddled with snakevines, mothervines and new plant monsters with rose thorn vines.

His heart raced when he saw the end up was a steep and straight climb upstairs. A model of the planet Earth hovered at the landing among a constellation map setting. This was his final destination.

"Home. LET'S GO!" Never did he feel more determined to reach the end of a maze.

He laced his remaining magic into Zeus: hooked it on his back to empower his sprints from behind like he was a rocket-man.

Giving everything he had in him, he ducked, dived and danced around whipping and lashing plant monsters with fierce determination.

"Nothing is gonna stop me from reaching home!"

His body was sticky and overheating with sweat making his grips slippery and steps wobbly. Feeling beyond exhausted was an understatement, but he wasn't going to quit. He had to reach the end.

"I have to get home!"

A wall of plant vines rose to barricade the stairway entrance.

His eyes narrowed and darted about for a solution. He called upon the space manipulation spell in his mind to freeze the air and form ice, the ice gathered to form steps he could climb with space to leap over the plants' squirming tips. He landed on a step and kept moving before they could drag him back down.

"3 hours." He huffed for breath, feeling his vision blurring. But the way was so close: something of fifty steps.

When reached those last steps, pressure pushed him to the ground. His eyes widened with fear when a gust of wind magic blew him back a few steps. He was able to brace the next blow when he grabbed Zeus and stuck it to the ground.

But the blast carried a powder that had made him near-blind: only the twinkling lights of the galaxy map and glowing blob that was Earth gave him guidance. Damn if he was going to fail the quest when the prize was a chance to return to home.

Once again, he used Zeus as a crutch as he forced every ounce of his energy and strength to climb the last steps. Holding fast to his weapon against the magic blasts.

His heart nearly stopped when he lost his footing and slipped backward, stopping his fall with his hold on Zeus.

He fell on all fours: the weight and his exhaustion pushing him down. But he struggled back to his feet and kept going.

There was no thinking at this point. Move forward. Don't fall back. Hold on. Follow the lights.

Finally, he reached the top and stood before a mechanical replica of Earth in motion. The countdown clock appeared before him and stopped at 9:59:22 before disappearing.

Kairo's vision cleared. A wave of soothing and comfortable magic flowed through him to heal his aches and pains.

"Complete the Blind Fox path. Reach the end without getting caught. Successfully completed." The woman's voice confirmed around him.

Access to the Canis Minor Star Jump. Awarded.

Rezenens Mage Level Increased by +1.

Speed increase by +30 second, 500 meters spurts (30 sec cooldown) Skill awarded.

Clearing Bonus: Timebound Magic-Stasis (Time Lag) skill fully unlocked.

A sparkly gold orb landed into his hand. "I guess this is the Star Jump artifact. But what does it do?"

He saw an impression where tiny two orbs should fit.

"The Star Jump allows a Rezenens Mage to jump to the designated star system and worlds previously visited by the mage, which are within that system's reach."

"Seriously?!" He looked at the little treasure with hope, making his heart beat fast.

"Yes. The Star Jump will activate when combined with the Star Crystal and Cosmic Seed," the woman's voice answered his question.

"Guess it's missing these keys, no matter."

For now, he had immediate issues to deal with. He stowed away his prizes and looked about for an exit.