MAZE - The Endless Quest

Hera was drawing her eighth map. This time she got the whole landmass, the rivers, and towns. All that was left was to do was the forest. Thankfully, this map only had a small forest near the edge, but before she could even put down the first tree, the teacher changed the image on the board.

"All right, next one." Mr. Greyson was looking at his tablet. Every ten minutes on the dot, he would change the map that was showing without even looking to the students.

When the ninth map showed up, the whole class groaned. It was an ocean map, and in the middle of it, there was a vast archipelago with dozens of small islands.

The instructor had alternated between large-scale maps and regional ones. According to him, it was to help us develop the skill faster. But he never said what the skill was or what it would do. Hera had guessed this was the map skill he mentioned the day before, and so did most of the class.

Five minutes passed, and Hera was still struggling with the islands when Bonnie raised her hand.

"Mr. Greyson? I just learned a skill,"

The teacher looked up from his tablet for the first time since this activity had started.

"Really? What's its name?"

"It's just called Mapping, is it right?" Bonnie asked, looking a bit troubled.

"Aye, the system has a bad naming sense. Ye can keep drawing to practice or just rest until the rest of the class got the skill."

With that, he went back to his tablet, and Bonnie gave a satisfied smile.

Hera looked back to her map and kept drawing, managing to finish the first set of islands when something clicked.

"Mr. Greyson, if we keep practicing, will the skill improve?"

The teacher gave a soft smile.

"Ye got a good brain lassie. Aye, even if a skill doesn't have a rank, it can have a better performance if ye practice it and even an evolution. When all of ye get the skill, Ah'll show how ye can check what might be improved."

The whole class got excited about that. Having a map skill could help a lot when exploring the MAZE, and Hera thought about the possibilities. Maybe there was even a way to make the map show where the monsters were, or where dungeons and hidden mysteries would be. The games she played when she was little were taking over her thoughts a bit, but her mind was still racing with ideas.

About half an hour later, a couple more students had unlocked the mapping skill. Including Leonidas. Who had his tablet in front of him, showing a different map.

"Leo, what are you doing?" Pamella leaned over to see his work.

"Well. I finished this one is just a bit over five minutes ago, instead of waiting for the next one I got a random map from somewhere in the world and I'm doing that one too," he said without stopping his hand.

"Well, excuse me, Mr. Overachiever, I can barely do this one in ten minutes," The teacher changed the map on the board once again, and Pamella grunted, "See I still had to make the woods."

"I was really close, maybe I can still finish this one," Hera said to herself, doing her best to remember what the map looked like. When she finished the drawing, a notification showed up in front of her.

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Skill Acquired: Mapping

Mapping:

Allows you to create a map of a place you have been before.

The more you know about the place, the more accurate the map will be.

Requirements: Drawing space, knowledge of the area.

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"Hey, I got the skill, too," Hera said with a smile.

"Oh no, I'm not gonna be left behind." Pamella focused on her drawing with all her might.

Hera wanted to keep drawing, to strengthen her skill even more. But her mind still wandered to the possibilities. Little by little, the other students got their skill, and by the time they had reached the 20th map, there was only one person left to get the skill, the same girl who asked about the pencils.

Hera got a bit worried if she was having trouble because of Mr. Greyson's response to her question. But there wasn't much she could do about that.

"Mr. Greyson, how can we check what can be improved?" Bonnie asked. Being the first who got the skill, she was the most anxious one to discover how to make the skill even stronger.

"Not yet, Bonnie, only when all of ye get the skill" That remark made most of the class stare at the girl in the back. Her face seemed a bit desperate.

Hera noticed the group of 4 who got late whispering something and then laughing. Just like the girls did to her during Highschool. Most of the time, Hera would do what everyone did, ignore other people's problems, but seeing that girl she couldn't help herself. She got up from her seat and kneeled in front of her.

"Hi, I'm Hera, sorry I don't know your name,"

The girl sniffed and rubbed her eyes.

"Hi, I'm Alex,"

For the first time, Hera really looked at the girl. She had silky brown hair covering a bit of her face going all the way to her shoulder. A Strong and angular jaw, and thick eyebrows. A small pointy nose and thin lips. Looking closely, it was hard to tell if the face was feminine or masculine.

"Are you ok?"

Alex nodded, "I'm fine," but her hands were still shaking.

Hera held the girl's hand, "Someone very strong told me that it's okay to say if you are not ok, you can tell me. It's gonna be just between us."

Alex took a deep breath and whispered: "I don't want to hold anyone back."

Her eyes never left the map she was drawing.

"Why do you think you would hold anyone back?" Hera looked at the map. It seemed a great one, although the color was off. Alex seemed to have swapped colors in the middle of a line, so it suddenly went from black to green.

The girl looked at the group that was laughing and whispered in an even softer voice, "I can't see colors."

Hera looked at the map once again. It made sense. The three pencils had a similar shade. It also explained the question she asked earlier. Alex would need to know which color was which in order to draw. She looked at the girl who was still struggling and started to think.

After a few moments, Hera considered what they were doing. The class wasn't about making a good map, but about unlocking a skill. Maybe Alex didn't need to be using the colors.

Hera took the green and black pencils that were on the table.

"Ok, forget about those two. You need to make a map you can understand with only one color."

Alex looked at the woman in front of her. She got in late on the first day and seemed so shy and meek, but it was the second day, and the second time she went out of her way to help someone else in the class.

"But.. how? Everything would look the same," she didn't know what to do, and if she started to make the trees with more details, she would never finish a map in time.

"Don't think about the color or the shape. You can see darker and lighter colors, right? Use that. The water would be lighter or darker?"

Alex took a few seconds to answer.

"Lighter, the woods would be the darker one," Hera smiled.

"Great, now the mid-tone one would be the land. You need to understand the map. I think that's the whole point."

Alex smiled back and drew using the blue pencil. Everything was blue, just in different shades, but it was enough to understand. Seeing the girl so focused, Hera walked back to her desk. Leonidas gave her an approving nod while Pamella gave a big thumbs up.

Five more maps passed when Alex yelled excitedly, jumping up in the chair, "I got the skill!"

"Way to go, Alex!" Pamella yelled back and started clapping. Most of the recruits joined in, which made Alex's cheeks get red while she quickly sat down.

"All right then, let me tell ye how can ye see what can be improved in the skill. First, open yer status and tap the skill, then try to pull down the window where the skill is."

The class seemed a bit doubtful. Most people had tried similar things when they were little, but you couldn't touch the windows that came from the system. Even when tapping something, your finger would just go through it.

"C'mon, hurry it up, we don't have all day" Mr. Greyson seemed to be annoyed by the lack of faith his students showed.

Hera opened the skill and tried to drag the window down. To her surprise, it expanded and showed extra information.

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Mapping:

Allows you to create a map of a place you have been before.

The more you know about the place, the more accurate the map will be.

Requirements: Drawing space, knowledge of the area.

To improve the skill, it must create or enhance existing maps.

The tools used in the process may affect the result.

Current status - Improving the precision of the map.

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While Hera was reading the description, she noticed Leonidas grab his tablet and draw even more maps as fast as possible, with a soft smile on his face.

On the other side, Bonnie was drawing a map very carefully. She was taking a considerable amount of time in each part of her drawing.

"Well, it's close to midday, ye should be getting hungry. Let's stay here for one more hour, and we will have a lunch break. At 1 P.M. we meet in the training room ye all were yesterday,"

The class nodded, but after a few minutes, most of them had slowed down on the drawings. Leonidas, Bonnie, and Alex were the only ones that seemed to be still drawing as fast as they could.

Hera looked at the maps she had made, "Mr. Greyson, are we allowed to keep these drawings?"

"Aye, but since they are all real maps of rooms in the MAZE, ye can find them in the guild database after the test."

Hera smiled and picked up one of the MAZE maps.

She looked at it, thinking about what could be in each place. Where could she find a nice view or something that seemed interesting? Some maps had a valley or a river that would spiral with another before reaching the sea. Those areas could be amazing, and Hera wanted to see them. She was distracted thinking about the fantastic places she wanted to go but was brought back when Leonidas said, "Wow."

Hera looked at him as she came out of a trance, "What happened?"

"My skill.. it changed its name. Now it's called Atlas," he was staring at a blank space, but Hera assumed it was at the skill window.

"Really? Mine changed to Cartography," Bonnie said on the other side.

The teacher heard both comments and stepped in.

"Aye, some skills can change and evolve. How ye use them will decide what the skill will turn to. Atlas is a version that gives ye more general knowledge of the place. But all pretty basic, it's great to plan yer travels. Cartography is the best skill for a really detailed map. With it, ye can even draw the placement of the moss in a rock on the path. What it says on the skill window after ye expanded it tells ye what the path you skill is taking."

Hera opened her status once again and went for the mapping skill. If she was right, it could be something close to cartography in the future.

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Mapping:

Allows you to create a map of a place you have been before.

The more you know about the place, the more accurate the map will be.

Requirements: Drawing space, knowledge of the area

To improve the skill it must create or enhance existing maps

The tools used in the process may affect the result.

Current status - Localizing points of interest.

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Hera got excited. The system really did what it could to help you with what you wanted. They still had around half an hour before lunch, so she kept looking for interesting places. But before she saw any changes in the skill, Pamella touched her arm.

"Hey, It's noon, let's eat, I'm starving,"

Hera sighed and got up. Sadly, her skill still was mapping. But she hoped that would change soon.