Chapter 56: Cosmic Seed

Kairo entered his villa to prepare for his journey. He stood before a proper door he had never opened on the ground floor. It was the way to Genie's room. His hand hesitated on the handle.

"Am I really doing this?" He sighed and closed his eyes. Treasured memories of having Genie in his life flooded to the surface. His heart raced with longing and determination to bring his lover home.

He boldly opened the door and was hit with Genie's energy, closing his eyes to relish the feeling of it flowing through him. Then opened them to a simple and functional room of a made bed beneath a large bay window with the curtains drawn, a writing desk and chair, and one wall entirely stacked with books on shelves.

He went to examine the books, running his finger over the spines and saw 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 Some of the facts were outdated or missing, like it was written from someone before the 20th century. But the core knowledge was largely intact.

The text seemed to romanticize the Sol System, almost like whoever wrote it was missing home. He could understand why Genie held a fascination toward his planet.

He returned the book and examined the desk. There were opened letters 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: Enabled and ready.

Resonant 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 connect 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 clear it and start over.

"Crap, that was one. Focus!"

He frowned as 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 felt himself falling into the sea's depths again. As he fell, he saw snapshot moments of his time on Lux being rewound to the moment he was sucked into the vortex from Earth.

He landed on solid ground of white and green. The sky above him shifted and 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 blur.

When the spinning and sensations stopped, he saw his Holy Mother Cross had been upgraded. The texture was blue-silver meteorite, with the central woman figure no longer humble in a shroud, 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. Quest completed - passed.

Cosmic Seed: Mastered

Resonant Mage level increase: Level 3 increased to Level 4

Magic level increase: +10

Bonus reward: Genie Teleportation Array. Unlocked

Cosmic Power Boost: 1000 MP increase

Quest failure: Averted.

Kairo was soon dumped out of his Spiritual Sea. He stared lovingly at the array Genie had drawn for him.

"I'll bring you home."