Cosmic Seed

Kairo puttered about his villa, preparing for his journey, and paused before Genie's bedroom door at the far corner. His hand hesitated on the brass handle.

"I miss you so much." Sincere words spilled from his mouth.

He closed his eyes to hold back his tears. Treasured memories of having Genie in his life flooded to his mind, stirring a determination to bring him back.

He boldly entered Genie's room and relished the man's lingering energy, which felt like an embrace. And paced around the man's functional room of a made bed beneath a large bay window with the curtains drawn, a writing desk and chair, and one book shelf wall stacked with tomes and scrolls.

He ran his finger over the book spines and multiple copy volumes of the Chronicles of Sol: pulled out one of the volumes and flipped it open to a page, reading some annotations and a history about his home world.

"Eorðe (Earth) - a name derived from ancient civilizations..." He read aloud and was surprised at how much of the Sol System was noted in the book.

Some facts were outdated or missing, no doubt knowledge before the 20th century. But the core information was intact, which romanticized the Sol System. The author must've been homesick. He could understand why Genie held a fascination toward his planet.

He returned the book and examined the nearby desk. Open letters were strewn about the surface, with a quill-pen laying on one. He picked up the unfinished letter and saw it was a note-to-self and diagrams of a magic array in a hexagon shaped pattern.

"Kairo should be able to use this teleportation array with his level of magic. Once he reaches Level-40, it should upgrade to a powerful version. I'll give this to him then."

He peered at the diagram, committing it to memory and was drawn into his spiritual sea unexpectedly.

The teleportation array became a new star system in his sky, but it faded into the background.

The familiar spiritual sea voice spoke to him. He decided to call the woman's voice the Holy Mother of the Sea.

Quest: Master the Cosmic Seed to return to Earth.

Cosmic Seed: available.

Rezenens Mage level increase: +1

Magic level increase: +10

Bonus reward: Genie Teleportation Array. Master the Cosmic Seed with five returns or fewer.

Cosmic Power Boost: ??? MP increase

Quest failure: Star Jump expired. Weystone jump point closure. Lux Death Cycle activated.

"Master in five returns or fewer?" Kairo's heart raced with the desire to get the bonus reward.

His sea transformed into a puzzle of connecting the dots, which were stars spread out across a backdrop of silver-white solid ground.

"Connect the dots to form the correct image. Master the image with less than 10 line returns to gain the bonus."

The star spread on the ground shrunk to a version he could easily keep track of midair. He realized this version was where he made his play.

"Wait! I saw this as an app game. How did it go?" He mused as he rubbed his chin. As he recalled, the app game's rules was to connect the dots with lines. And the dots could only be used once. "Perhaps it's the same."

He sat down in meditation and pondered on the star puzzle for some time before he committed to a play.

Kairo carefully drew the line connections to the mini puzzle map with his finger. He cursed when he got one of the lines wrong, and had to do a return command to start over.

"Crap, that was one. Focus!"

He calmly corrected his play, and kept going until he eventually formed an image of the Greek creature Centaurus.

"I did it!" He excitedly leapt into the air and smugly waited for his reward.

Time passed and nothing was announced. He wondered if it was still cooking. If so, he hoped it wasn't on a slow cooker setting.

Suddenly the sea beneath his feet rumbled and quaked to upset his balance. He yelped when he fell into the sea's depths. During his fall, he saw snapshot moments of his time on Lux. They flowed in a backward time motion to when he was sucked into the vortex from Earth.

He landed on solid ground of white and green.

The sky above him changed drastically to accommodate numerous galaxies, stars and planets.

Among them was a full cosmic map for the Sol System and its neighbors in the Milky Way.

"Hell!" He yelped again when the cosmic maps flowed into his grimoire.

It broke off his neck to hover midair before him. Magic made it spin madly until it was a silver-blue blur.

When the spinning stopped, he saw his Holy Ama Cross had been upgraded.

The texture was blue-silver meteorite; the central woman no longer humble behind a veil, but glorified as an angel with outspread wings and arms welcoming her children home. The cross's ends were stars.

It flew back to this chest to be his pendant necklace again. The Holy Mother of the Sea gave the final verdict.

Quest: Master the Cosmic Seed to return to Earth. Passed.

Cosmic Seed: Grimoire upgrade to Cosmic Seed. Enabled.

Rezenens Mage level increase: Level 4

Magic level increase: +10

Bonus reward: Genie Teleportation Array. Unlocked.

Cosmic Power Boost: 1000 MP.

Quest failure: Averted.

Kairo was soon dumped out of his spiritual sea, facing the array diagram. The Cosmic Seed rekindled his desires for Earth, stirring raw emotion to see his home and father.

He imagined the Star Jump orb. It materialized before him, sparking with its hints of being his ticket home.

Sharp pains stirred a throbbing headache. Persistent snippets of his Earthbound room, workplace and neighborhood broke through his memory seals, making him recall everything.

Holy Ama Cross glowed with an ethereal-blue and a warm-sleek feeling new to him. The Cosmic Seed's power sucked him into a vivid memory of his walk to his convenience store job.