John was having a great time. Immediately after he had asked Daniel to tell Miranda what was going on he had been transferred to his trial. He had appeared in a cave not unlike what he, Steve and Daniel had appeared in during the gremlin trial. He quickly used his earth sense skill to get an understanding of the area around him. All around him he could feel the pathways of crisscrossing tunnels. The tunnels extended farther than his senses could pierce, and with their twisting nature it was hard to distinguish one tunnel from another.

Trial Quest: stop the adventures from claiming the labyrinth’s treasure. Native creatures in the labyrinths will not attack you and will listen to any orders that you give them.

Time remaining: 29 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 55 seconds

The first adventuring party will arrive in 23 hours, 59 minutes and 55 seconds. Prepare your defenses.

More adventures will begin arriving every six hours in groups of 1 through 5

It was an interesting task. Daniel had told them that the trial is based on how they had used their class; John had just not expected this. Of course logically he knew that he had used his class for far less time than either Steve or Daniel, and most of his experience up to this point was making traps and building defenses in the gremlin dungeon trial. Now he didn't mind making more traps for this trail, he had found the work enjoyable, he was just concerned what kind of specializations he would get based on this trial. From what he currently understood of his class from talking with Steve and Daniel He was a support type earth mage focused on building massive structures.

Well, he hadn't been able to make any of said structures yet since the rituals required massive amounts of mana he was hopeful that he should soon be able to attempt his first building soon. With the combination of the feats he chose and his increasing level he should soon be able to attempt his first ritual. He had not chosen his feats when he had first been given the option and soon after gaining access to the system all of the heroes had been chosen and he had gained access to the wiki. With his daughter's help he had made his starting choices and he now understood how lucky some of those choices had been with how little information he had about his class when he first gained it. He decided to look over his feats again, maybe he would be able to finally use one of them in this trial.

Ritual Caster (Passive): You have learned the ways of efficiently casting rituals without the need for expensive reagents. If you have the blueprint or innate knowledge of a ritual you will not need to physically draw out the ritual circles. Common materials like stone required for a ritual will be drawn from the surrounding area if available, all other components will still be required. The mana cost for rituals is also reduced by 50%

Earth Siphon (Passive/Active): While in contact with the ground you will have your mana constantly recharged at a moderate rate. Once per day you may increase this passive recharge rate several fold for 10 minutes. Once this effect has been triggered your passive recharge will be disabled for 24 hours

He had been hesitant to pick the ‘Ritual Caster’ feat when his daughter had suggested it: at the time they still didn't know the full extent of what his class might be able to do in the future, but now he was glad he had it. Many of the rituals he had gained from his class required truly massive amounts of stone, and with the feat he would not need to gather them himself as long as there was stone in the area of where he was casting the ritual. That's not even mentioning the reduced mana cost of any ritual he cast. His hope was that with the combination of his reduced mana cost for rituals and his once per day increase to his mana regen he would be able to fuel any ritual he cast with just the regeneration rate of his mana, and as he leveled up and gained more mana regen and capacity casting such spells would come easier with time.

The concern was what would happen the first time. What if the mana regeneration wasn't enough and he ran out of mana during the ritual? What would happen to him or the ritual? There were just too many unknowns and that was what kept him from attempting anything too soon.

He dismissed the nagging voice in the back of his head and turned back to the task before him and his worries about what this trial might mean for him in the future. With the competition of this trial he might gain a specialization that was based more on making traps than building structures. He had been told that how you used your class would decide what kind of trial and specialization you may receive and most of his time using his class had been in the gremlin dungeon building traps and this trial seemed to really be pushing him to continue to make more traps. However the more that he thought about getting better at making traps the more he liked the idea. If he would soon be making cities with the help of his class would it not be a good idea to be able to defend his creations. He already had his earth constructs which could fight and activate any traps he made; the constructs could also man walls and any siege weapons they needed. The more that John thought about the possibility of a specialization based on making traps the more he liked the idea.

But before he got too excited and started making new traps he decided to take a better look at his new items now that he was no longer on a timer.

Item Name: Mana Control Puzzle Cube

Item Type: Utility

Quality: Good

Rarity: Scarce

Features: by utilizing fine mana control a user can direct a string of their mana through the twisting maze of the cube. When solved the cube will rearrange its structure making the next maze harder.

Appearance: a multi-colored cube with an ever shifting maze inside

Item Name: Boots of the Geomancer

Item Type: Boots

Quality: Good

Rarity: Scarce

Features: for each different type of stone, dirt or mud these boots have walked on increases the mana efficiency of any earth spells cast by .01%. Caps at 20% (Current bonus 1.01%)

Appearance: Muddy brown boots that appear worn and old that are covered in many types of mud.

Skill Gem: Blueprint

Quality: Good

Rarity: Rare

Features: Learn the skill Blueprint

Skill Gem: Spatial Awareness

Quality: Superb

Rarity: Rare

Features: Learn the skill Spatial Awareness

The skills were interesting. He was tempted to learn Blueprint right away. He hoped that it was a skill that would allow him to make a blueprint of a building or traps that he had constructed, but he was in no hurry to take any chances on unknown skills. He would wait until he was out of this place to ask Daniel about them.

Now that he was done reviewing his items it was time to get to work. He had less than 24 hours to get this labyrinth prepared for the adventures. His first step would be to find where they would be entering from and where the treasure he needed to defend was located.

Without any hesitation he started to walk through the tunnels of the labyrinth. As he walked he was pulsing his ‘Earth Sense’ skill to get a feel of the surrounding tunnels with the skill he had a mental map of his surroundings and didn't need any light.

It wasn't ten minutes later that one of his pulses found his first monster. It wasn't moving, which was good since it allowed him to get to the creature without the need to chase it down. Now that he had a monster it was time for the first part of his master plan.

The prompt had said that any monsters would listen to his commands so when he got near he decided to just speak to the monster and see what happened, but first he cast ‘Identify’ on the creature.

Tier 5: Goliath Boulder Rat

Level 49

Highest Attribute: Strength

John learned a very important thing with that identity. Any adventures strong enough to challenge this labyrinth would be too powerful for him to face. Before he had been considering helping his monster fight the intruders on the front lines those thoughts had quickly fled his mind. This seemed like a very clear sign from the system that this would not be a trial he would be able to defeat with just his strength alone.

At this moment though those thoughts were only inklings at the back of his mind. The thing that was currently taking up most of his thought was that he really would be able to control these monsters otherwise he would be a dead man. Steeling himself he spoke. “Boulder Rat led me to the entrance of the labyrinth.” Slowly. Ever so slowly the Boulder Rat which seemed to have been sleeping raised its head and looked at John. after a second it rose to its feet and plodded its way directly towards John. as it approached he could smell its vile breath. The beast got within arm reach of John and although he could not see it he could hear it and feel its breath stream out of the beast. John closed his eyes and felt the monster walk right by him. Continuing to plod down the tunnel seemingly ignoring him.

When it was about to round the corner it turned around to look at him, and while he could not see the monster his senses clearly told him that it was looking at him. After a minute of neither it nore John moving he realized that it was waiting for him to follow. That realization was like a breath of fresh air for John and his whole body which had been incredibly tense and relaxed. Jogging he caught up to the beast and together they navigated through the labyrinth.

~~~~~~

It took them several hours to reach the entrance, part of which was John's own fault. Every time he found a new monster wandering the labyrinth he would redirect them and he would give the monsters orders. He told all of them to go find other inhabitants of the labyrinth and bring them to the treasure room. Which would be his next stop after he found the entrance. He would need to take stock of his forces to be able to properly plan his defense.

John knew that they were finally close to the entrance when he was able to make out his surroundings. The light was nice and he realized that only using his ‘Earth Sense’ to navigate had been more mentally taxing than he had realized.

When he finally reached the source of the light he was unable to actually leave the labyrinth. It was as if there was an invisible wall that was keeping him inside which John guessed he understood though he didn't like it.

John refocused his mind. He had gotten a fairly decent mental map of the labyrinth as he had followed the giant rat which he could unfortunately now see because of the light. It had the beady black eyes that all rats seemed to have. Its skin seemed to be all different shades of gray and its mouth seemed to be dripping some type of liquid that sizzled when it hit the ground. John shuddered at the sight and could only think about what that stuff could have done to his body if it had attacked him.

Focusing on his map he realized that his greatest strength in defending this labyrinth would be to make it even more of a labyrinth. With his earth magic he would be able to move the stone to make more tunnels, more dead ends and more ways to make any adventure lost. He would also need to come up with a way to keep the adventures from mapping the labyrinth as they went along. After seeing the rat John had thought he would be unable to help in the defense at all, but now he thought he had a way that he could.

With his magic he could confuse any adventure even more by closing up passages behind them and even facilitating ambushes by opening up walls and letting his monsters attack them. However assuming the adventures were a similar level as his monsters they would have tier 5 maybe even tier 6 classes so some of them might also have earth magic and be able to sense what he was doing. Or they might just tunnel though the walls. John didn't know, but he would do his best.

“Lead me to the treasure.” he told the rat, and it began to slowly trundle off again.

This time on the walk back through the labyrinth he was not so idle as he had been the first time. He slowly began to use his ‘Earth manipulation to change the tunnels around him as he slowly followed the rat. In some places he made the tunnel so small that adventurers would be forced to walk one by one and in some places even crawl. He also added artificial tripping hazard by adding stalactites and stalagmites and made the ground uneven. In most places he lowered the ceiling to just above head level which would make it impossible to swing any weapons downward without hitting the ceiling. Some of these changes may need to be revised in the future. So far he had only seen a handful of his monsters, so he was uncertain if any of these changes would affect his monster as well.

After much walking and altering the tunnels as he walked he finally reached a massive cave. Inside he could feel hundreds of monsters. Much more than he had been expecting he had to guess that the vast sprawling tunnels of the labyrinth had made him assume there were less monsters than there actually were.

He stood above a room filled with monsters and while he could not see them he could roughly sense every single one of them. After a moment to take it all in, John continued forward. It was time to see what he was supposed to protect in this labyrinth.

He continued to follow the Boulder Rat down into the expansive cave. As he followed behind the rat the other monsters in the cave moved out of the way letting John and the massive rat pass without any problems, but that was to be expected based on the system notification that he had received.

After another thirty minutes of walking they reached the other end of the cavern, and there he sensed something weird. He couldn't make heads or tails of what he was sensing so for the first time he decided to take his illumination stone from his pack. After speaking the activation word the stone quickly flared to life. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the sudden light but when they did the sight before him was majestic.

Before him in a large pile were tens of thousands of gold coins. This was what had confused his senses. His earth sense allowed him to ‘look’ through stone and minerals, but since the coins were not truly connected and only touching it had made his vision of the pile of coins hazy. However while that was interesting what truly grabbed his attention was the monster that laid atop the pile of gold.

It was a massive beast almost the same size as the pile that it laid atop. It was scaled and John first thought that it was a dragon, but on a second closer look he was proven wrong. The beast had no wings to speak of. He decided that his best bet would be to use his ‘Identify’ skill on it.

Tier 6: Drake

Level: ??

While it was not a dragon it was close enough. A drake was a monster he had heard of before and even fought in some of his table to games. They were essentially wingless dragons, and while they could not fly they made up for it in other ways. However that was in a fictional game and not his new reality, so he truly had no idea how strong this Drake was. John decided that his best course of action would be to talk to the drake. He assumed based on how it was perched on the pile of coins that it was the boss of the labyrinth.

Even though the monsters would not attack him, John decided that it would still be a good idea to flatter the drake if it did end up being intelligent. John swept into a low bow and began to speak to Drake. “Oh, great and powerful Drake of the labyrinth I have come to help you protect your domain from intruders that will soon come and try to seize your riches for themselves.”

John came out of his Bow and saw the Drake slowly begin to raise his head and look in his direction. “The intruders have come before, and none have succeeded. This time will be no different from the last.” The Drake’s voice was a deep rumble that seemed to originate from deep inside its chest.

“While that may be true I am afraid this time will be different. The system has given me a quest to defend this place for the next thirty days and the first group of adventurers shall invade in less than fifteen hours from now with more arriving every six hours after the first. They will not stop until they have gotten what they have come for or the time has elapsed.”

“So you say, but once you are gone they will come again. Maybe not for months or years, but they will always return to claim what is not theirs. That is the curse of the adventure. To always strive for more extreme challenges to test themselves, and to gain even more power until eventually they take on an opponent too strong for them to handle and die. All the wealth they have stolen or plundered having become worthless.”

“While that may be true I have been given a task and I intend to complete it. You would be forced to defend your home whether I was here or not so will you help me or not in defending this place?” John’s voice was passionate as he spoke to the drake and after he had said his peace he waited for its response.

“I never had any intention not to defend my home. I was just stating that this will not be the last trial that I will face. Once you are gone I will once again be fighting against these invaders alone.”

“Well maybe I can help you even after I am gone. I am an earth mage of sorts, I could seal off the entrances to the labyrinth or help you make defenses or the like.”

You would not be allowed to seal the entrances to the labyrinth; it is against the rules to do such a thing.”

“Wait, is it the system that made that rule? Are you trapped here or something?”

“No and in a way yes, the rule in which I speak is the very magic that made this place. This is a type of dungeon in which adventures can come to fight monsters to gain power and find riches. The very magic that fills these walls would restrict anyone from digging through them or sealing off any entrances. The magic of the labyrinth would prevent any such actions. As for me I am in a way trapped here. Long ago I agreed to become this labyrinth's guardian for a specific length of time, so until that time has elapsed I will remain here.

“Wait, you said adventurers aren't allowed to dig through the walls with magic, is that right?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“I am able to dig through them though. I was making changes to all of the tunnels I was walking through on the way here to give adventures a more difficult time.”

“Well now this is an interesting development you have been given more authority over the labyrinth that I thought you would be. To be able to make changes to the layout of the labyrinth will be a powerful boon. Many of the tunnels of this place have been mapped by adventures over the decades. If you rearrange the tunnels now all of their maps will become useless.”

“Well then it seems I know where we need to start with the defense then.”

“That appears to be the case.”

John smiled at the drake. This seemed like a very interesting challenge and he was looking forward to what these adventures would bring to the table in the upcoming month.