Feeling cold hard stone underneath him Eric awoke, as weak as he had ever been. His hunger was still there, as was all the damage he had accumulated during his journey through the desert. Whatever energy was allowing him to move was squeezed out of the single loaf of bread he had eaten.

  The energy itself had been taken to power whatever was happening with the bloodline, and it repaired the process that converted ambient mana into his own. And now, that very mana was powering his weak breathing and even his thoughts.

  I need something, anything, Eric thought, battling the urge to fall into a deep slumber. The ring… Storage… maybe.

  Gathering whatever mana he could, hoping with all his might that the System didn’t block its usage on this floor, he channeled it to his storage ring. There was no way that he could give intricate commands, so instead, he just ordered everything out.

  As if it were a bag of chips popping open, weapons, books, flasks, more weapons and finally a vial full of black substance, all flew in various directions. Thankfully, the flasks and single vial were made of harder stuff than simple glass and were unscathed. However, Eric wasn’t as lucky when it came to the weapons.

  Popping out and hitting the walls, some ultimately injured him. The wounds varied from a simple cut, all the way to spears standing still as their heads were stuck deep in his legs or back.

  But even pain was a luxury that he could no longer afford. Looking weakly at the flasks and vial, he analyzed their very appearance, trying to judge if one of them would be beneficial to him.

  Vial… black… maybe poison… unknown. Red… health? Green… poison or… health. Red, green… both… health… can’t.

  Feeling his eyelids grow heavier, his eyes slowly darted from one thing to the other.

  What more can red be?

  Mustering all the mana into his arm, Eric reached for the flask with the red liquid and after removing the cap, which was simpler than he thought it would be, he began to drink the red liquid greedily. At least as greedily as he could given how injured and tired he was.

  Even a single gulp was hard without the assistance of mana, but Eric had already thought of that. Once the liquid was in his mouth, he moved the mana to his throat, his hand letting go of the flask, and swallowed as hard as he could.

  One second, two seconds, than his heart made a single powerful beat, and a sense of relief spread throughout his body. But just as easily as the feeling came, it left.

  No, it didn’t dissipate, not entirely, Eric told himself, noticing the changes.

  It wasn’t just relief that spread throughout his body, but also energy that seeped into his muscles. But since all his muscles were weak, most of the energy disappeared into nothingness, but that was all that he needed to once more lift the flask. With another gulp, the energy and relief that was suffusing into his body increased.

  It still wasn’t enough; the energy was fleeting. Even as he drank the liquid, he could already feel the effects leaving him. So, with the little energy he had gained, he turned himself a bit and reached for the green flask.

  Without finishing the first red liquid, he took a couple gulps of the green flask, before his weak throat and stomach couldn’t take anymore.

  Feeling the green liquid travel downward, he felt a regenerative effect taking place wherever the liquid traveled. But then something that he hadn’t expected to happen happened. As soon as the two liquids collided, an odd synergistic effect began to occur. Wherever the red liquid touched, energy seeped in, then the green liquid restored some of the damage, allowing for more energy to enter, and thus began a cycle.

  But the cycle demanded more than what little he had ingested up until this point. With the strength that he had already recovered, he began to drink more of both liquids, the damage to his throat and stomach, quickly being repaired, allowing him to do so.

  Then something else happened, his body had recovered enough for his bloodline assimilation to regain normal functionality and the speed of his recovery increased by several orders of magnitude.

  Bloodline assimilation increased!

  ????????????????: 98%

  Bloodline assimilation increased!

  ????????????????: 99%

  Slowly but surely, he felt his body recover back to what it once was. The green liquid recovering the damage and the red liquid filling him with the necessary energy to function normally. The thirst had more or less been quenched, but the hunger remained.

  Not everything can have such a convenient solution, Eric thought, rising to his feet.

  “So close,” he muttered, looking at the bloodline assimilation. “Oh well, I’ll know in due time.” Then he began to store all his weapons in his storage ring, but stopped at the flasks, instead deciding to test the bracelet he had recently acquired.

  As soon as his mana connected with the bracelet, he got back something akin to a question, but it was more of a feeling. If translated to actual words, the feeling meant something like “close/one or apart/move?”

  “It will probably still be mine, but the closer the better, right?”

  When he sent his answer to the bracelet, nothing changed for a few seconds, then it began to sink. With a blink, Eric had the tattoo of a bracelet on his right wrist. Sending mana like he would with his storage ring, it answered in the same fashion. So, he sent the flasks inside, feeling that there was still a lot of free space, considerably more than what he had in his ring.

  Feeling inside his pockets, he took out the bone-white skull ring. “Still don’t know what this is, so better keep it safe.” He paused, quickly glancing at his wrist. “No, the bracelet didn’t have something ominous like skull. It’s not the same.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  With that, he turned around to see that stone surrounded him from all sides. Strangely enough, there was a dim light that emanated from the very walls, so even though he was in an enclosed room with no obvious source of light, he could still clearly see within the small area.

  Turning to face the wall directly in front of him, Eric’s gaze was drawn to the System windows, though there was something different about them. They appeared to be anchored on to the wall, and not like they always were, were they hovered in front of him, following his eyesight.

  His thoughts began to race, considering the possibilities, no matter how small. Thinking that it might mean something, he shifted his gaze, while trying to drag the windows along and to his disappointment, they followed, dismissing any idea that might be forming in his head.

  Congratulations on completing the eighth floor of the Tower of Revelation.

  You have entered the ninth floor: Trial of the Mind.

  New quest!

  Quest: Endless halls.

  Objective: Complete the Labyrinth.

  Rewards: Access to next floor, +9 Reward points.

  Physical capabilities will be suppressed.

  System windows will be disabled.

  Your body will be suppressed by way of seals.

  You who has reached a new level in your cultivation, discover the strength of your mind.

  As soon as he finished reading the System messages, he felt a light burning sensation radiate throughout all of his body. Then came a small blue and purple glow that irradiated from various points in his body. Quickly looking at his arms, he saw detailed and intricate magic circles appear all over him.

  “We meet again,” Eric said, looking at the magical seals that engulfed him.

  Within seconds, the glow began to die down, only leaving behind faint markings on his skin, like the seals had done once before. And again, as the light faded, he felt all his strength vanish. He was once again weaker than he should be, but unlike before, he now had mana reinforcement.

  Looking back at the System window, Eric let out a heavy sigh and pressed both hands against his face. “I hate puzzles!” he exclaimed to the air. His voice echoed back to him, bouncing off the cold stone.

  As soon as his words ended, the stone wall before him that only moments ago seemed to have the System windows engraved, began to shake lightly. The sound of stone grinding against stone filled the small room. It wasn’t just that the sound was far louder than Eric would’ve imagined, it was also how it made the small room reverberate.

  Not long after, the stone wall was lifted and revealed another wall to be behind it. Taking cautious steps, he walked up to the edge of the room, directly under where the stone wall had lifted to, revealing grooves on the floor and walls. He slowly peeked his head out, only to see that the room opened up to a tunnel made completely out of stone.

  It was wide, between four and five meters. The floor was nothing but stone bricks, there wasn’t anything strange about them, at least not at first glance, not like the road that was on the Frontier. No, this very much looked, felt and even sounded like normal stone bricks. Nothing about them stood out—no runes, no carvings—just an endless sea of gray, as if the tunnel had been waiting, untouched for millennia, but it could just as easily have only been a couple of days.

  Turning to the wall directly in front of him, Eric also failed to notice anything out of the ordinary. It was a simple stone wall with images engraved upon its surface. Neither the floor, nor the wall appeared to be particularly old, yet the engraved images appeared to be spent, becoming mostly indecipherable. The only image that could be concretely made out, was that of a single wing somewhere in the middle.

  “What was that Greek tale?” he asked himself, taking a pause as other questions popped into his head. “Was it Greek? Maybe Roman? Which one had Zeus sleeping with anything with a pulse?” He paused for longer, struggling to remember anything. “It’s so obvious, I’m going to feel stupid when I remember it.”

  Not being able to gleam anything more from the worn-out image, he began walking toward the right, letting his mana flow through his channels. The warmth that the mana provided served as a welcome distraction, alleviating some of the stress he had accumulated on the previous floor.

  As he walked, he realized that his mana flowed much more freely. By the end of the previous floor it felt like a struggle to even feel mana, that’s how weak he had been only moments ago.

  “I wonder what the clear requirement was for the previous floor. Eating all the food and drinking all the water? It can’t be, the name of the trial wouldn’t fit,” he muttered to himself, clenching his fists and flexing his leg muscles, letting the mana flow freely like a stream. It was almost like a light heat massage.

  Eric could feel that many things within him had changed, if he had to make a guess, he would bet his life on at least some of the change having occurred on his Star Map.

  “And it has to be related to all the changes that my body has gone through. I haven’t really had a chance to examine anything about what I have experienced. And, to be fair, the System has let me. I guess I could have paused at some point, I could even do it now.” Sucking his teeth in, he came to a decision. “Fuck it. I’ll figure it out later,” he said as he reached the end of the tunnel. He now had to decide whether to go right or left. “This decision could possibly fuck up my entire run.”

  Examining the walls, he looked for any clue that could help him make a decision, but once more, the wall offered nothing but regular stone and the occasional faded image. Looking at the ground also revealed nothing. So, he closed his eyes and spun around. With his new senses, no matter how fast he spun, he was aware of where he was facing even before he opened his eyes.

  “Left it is,” he said as he began his walk before even opening his eyes.

  His journey was full of such moments. The worst part of it all was that there really was no hint about where to go or whether he was walking the right path. Even Mental Focus refused to work on the labyrinth, cutting off any excitement he might have had when he remembered that he could use it once more.

  The only easy decision he came across was when he came across an incredibly dark passage that reminded him of the first time he fought the giant spider boss. The decision was obvious when he saw it. “Fuck no.”

  At some point, he came across the end of a tunnel with a large image that went from floor to ceiling and was as wide as the tunnel that led to it. Once more, the image was spent and revealed nothing other than what appeared to be the sun high in the sky, but nothing more was distinguishable. Maybe Mental Focus can find something, he thought to himself.

  Just as he gave the command to Mental Focus, he felt the skill latch onto something that was beyond the image. It was completely unclear what it had grasped, and he couldn’t even distinguish if it was the image itself or even if it was a tangible object to begin with.

  As soon as his skill grasped it, his mana plummeted to the ground and an incredible feeling of hollowness began to invade him. It felt like an extreme version of the emptiness he felt whenever his mana bottomed out, but that wasn’t all, as it was accompanied by a headache that was so intense that another of his skills leveled up.

  He felt the familiar tug of the System.

  “Aaaghh!!” Eric exclaimed in pain as he clutched his head with all the strength he could muster.

  He felt an unfulfilled sensation in his muscles and as he instinctively tried to pour out more strength, the magic circles began to light up dimly, stopping any more strength from being exerted.

  With a heavy and audible breathing, he forced himself to calm as he winced in pain. But he couldn’t relax as he began to hear rapid footsteps approaching from behind. He tried to rapidly turn but every one of his movements, no matter how small, made him feel like his brain was being violently shaken within his skull.

  With whatever little sense of reason he still possessed, he could make out that whatever was approaching was wearing some hard shoes as there was a distinctive heavy clack to each of the approaching footsteps.

  When Eric finally managed to peak a glance behind him, he finally got an answer to the question he had when he first saw the wing on the engraved image.

  The Labyrinth! The wings! Wax! his mind screamed as it arrived at the most important part. The Minotaur…