Zodiac Labyrinth

As it started to work, I got to work on the rest of the Scarab Teeth, and I also extracted the Great Scarab Horn. Sure enough, I was able to cut out a core from the swarm leader, one of the 5th stage no less. After that, I turned my attention to the rear of the chamber, where there was a small dais. Atop it was a small plinth, on which was placed a tiny box. Inside that, was what I recognized as a miniature "jade slip". The lesson covering those had taken place last year—basically, cultivators could encode information on them which could then be imparted to others by touch. The Comprehension stat affected how well a cultivator's mind could handle this process—without enough Comprehension, one would not be able to properly assimilate more complex transfers, and the information would be reduced to confusing visions or rejected entirely.

The information offered here was not complex, though—it was map data for the portion of the Outworlder Labyrinth I was currently in. I could recall it easily, but to make things easier on myself I called up the System Atlas screen and manually filled in the portions I now knew. The data I'd gotten was unusual. The information mapped out a wedge-shaped portion of the Labyrinth, and the left, right, and far sides of the wedge were fully enclosed. Only at what I assumed was toward the center did a passage continue toward an area not currently mapped.

With no other leads, I started that way. With no magical beasts prowling the outer areas, the whole place gave off an extremely desolate feeling. At first, I thought it was rather nice for solitude, much like many places in the wild in VRMMOs I'd played. But in those, there were things like wildlife sounds and ambient effects. Here, there wasn't even wind…just deafening silence. Once I'd been in it for more than an hour at a time, it was unnerving.

The one normal thing left here, apparently, was a day/night cycle. I couldn't actually see a sun or moon of course, or stars rather, since there wasn't a moon over the Mortal Heaven in the first place. But by the time I drew near to the point in the maze that led to places unknown, things were getting dimmer in a way that my brain accepted as how things act during sunset.

Almost the moment I reached the end of the mapped portion, I emerged into what somewhere else would have been called a vast plain. Instead, I suppose it could be considered a vast open area in a gigantic temple. The overall area seemed to be shaped as a circle. Distantly, and at regular intervals, I could see more broad passages like the one I'd come here from. Straight ahead was a tall, plain tower, though not nearly as tall as the labyrinth walls.

I didn't see any entry point as I got close to the tower. At first, I thought there might not be a conventional way to enter, but I finally did find an entrance—it turned out that the entrance was just positioned exactly opposite from the passage I'd come from. Immediately inside the tower, in a room about the size of the one I'd entered, I immediately spotted not just Jue Zhu, but another person in the uniform of an instructor's aide.

"See?" Jue Zhu spoke up, but to them and not me, "I told you my friends would come here soon. I bet it won't even be 3 more days before the others get here."

"I didn't really mean I doubted you," they said, "I just said I don't know. This is the first time this level of the Outworlder Labyrinth has been used, so there's a lot I don't know, so I'm not going to assume things."

"Eh?" I said, going closer and giving Jue Zhu a grin and thumbs up before continuing, "what do you mean, this level?"

"This is actually the uppermost level of the Outworlder Labyrinth," they began, "graduating students are put in levels from low to high based on their performance and cultivation base. Each level has a different environment theme, too. Forest, canyon, cave network, then the second highest layer is sort of a special one that combines all of them in certain ways. This layer is special, since only students who defeated the Metal Ant Queen can enter it. It's themed after the Zodiac Temples—at least, what the parts look like that people can see without taking the trials. You guys are the very first to challenge the hardest that the Outworlder Labyrinth has to offer.

They only told me so much about it, either. Of course, it's part of my job here to tell you what I do know."

I nodded at him to continue. "So, the exit formation is at the top of this tower. It will stay inactive up until 2 weeks before the end of summer. After that, you're free to leave at any time. Although, the magical beasts with the highest cultivation bases in the maze are between you guys and the roof, so you should seek out weaker ones to fight in the maze—I'm sure you don't really need telling on that.

As for the last piece of the Jade Ox Medallion, they only told me two things. First, that it's hidden someone in the maze, and not in this tower. Second, the mural in the back of this room will get you started looking."

The mural he pointed out was prominently displayed at the center of the rear of the room, with a passage having stairs leading up placed quite a ways to the left of it. Rather than pictures, it was a wall covered in characters that looked runic and mysterious, but they weren't in any alphabet of any such language I knew of, and I'd devoted quite a lot of my independent study opportunities to such things, though I hadn't quite picked one to learn in-depth.

Suddenly, my eyes were drawn to a portion of the mural near the middle. The characters were still gibberish, at least in terms of simply reading them, but from a few of them, I got a strong impression that indicated a certain point in the section of maze that I'd gotten map data on, like the imagine of a glowing dot at a dead end positioned at the far left side and just short of a long corridor that spanned the entire outer edge of the wedge. Quickly, I added a mark to the corresponding place in the System Atlas.