Chronicles of the True Wizard

Waking up the next day, Felix stowed his bed and found the table still empty so he pulled a meal out of his inventory and scarfed it down before heading out for the day.

Felix spent the entire day exploring paths. He encountered 3 more rooms with similar puzzles inside, 2 with the lights out puzzle and one with a pipe puzzle. He turned tiles with channels carved in them until a liquid flowed through the channels and filled all of the holes at once. None of the rooms he encountered were remotely as hard as the memory test he got his favorite boots from, and the rewards paled in comparison.

From the three puzzle rooms, the best thing he found was a water canteen. The other two contained a maul and a great sword and neither of them were magical.

He made it all the way back to the rest room where he repeated his simple workout routine then filled his stomach and inventory. Felix washed up in the fountain and filled his canteen then pulled out his bed. He slept for an unknown period of time and was awoken by a System message.

Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the General Skill: [Memory Palace (Special) Using the mental map of a location you are familiar with you can memorize a plethora of abstract information. This skill allows you to construct a Memory Palace from scratch, using this mental map to store information directly. Visiting this Memory Palace you can retrieve any of the information stored within. This skill can be upgraded. The capacity of your memory palace is dependent on your intelligence, the size of your palace and the general capacity of the user. You may reconstruct your palace at any time by first destroying your current palace. Any memories left behind upon destruction will be lost.]

General Skill: Memory Palace

This skill is incompatible with your class and profession.

Do you accept the [Special] skill Memory Palace as a General Skill?

Yes

No

Hell yes I do.

Felix patiently waited a whole minute, anticipating something to happen.

Guess I have to construct something then. I could go with my childhood house, but that doesn’t seem very efficient and the skill doesn’t say the new palace has to be familiar. I could also go with a computer file system, but that’s essentially just a dictionary to look up a location, it would save me the walking time, but its my head, why would I have to walk around. Also I don’t want to turn into a robot.

A computer file system is interesting though, I could go with a similar concept. A building with a directory to look up the exact location then simply go there to retrieve it, sounds familiar. Maybe I could even get a librarian.

With a plan in mind Felix retrieved his bed and laid down closing his eyes. He thought back to his university library but decided against using that. Instead he went with something a little more fantastical and awe inspiring. He pictured a building with a large reading space in the middle that held tables to sit at. On each of the sides and at the back lay shelves of books on this floor and on the five balconies above that.

The reading space in the middle was completely open with high ceilings. Looking up from the middle, he would see multiple railings stacked on top of each-other. Felix spent quite a bit of time customizing the pillars holding the balconies to be just right. He made the ceiling a large skylight that cast light from a sunny blue sky above throughout the library. He made ornate railings on the balconies and geometric patterns in the tile floor.

After half an hour of tweaking Felix was satisfied but unsure of what to do next, luckily the skill prompted him.

General Skill: Memory Palace

Would you like to construct this palace?

You may modify small things within the palace once it is created. Large changes may damage the memories stored within if not handled carefully.

Yes

No

Felix was about to accept but stopped himself to add something he had forgotten. A large desk right at the front for a librarian and a directory. Finally done, Felix accepted. Immediately Felix felt slightly dizzy as the library suddenly solidified. It morphed from a thought to a reality, or at least it felt real to him. After just a few short moments it was done.

Felix found himself standing inside the exact library he had visualized, except it looked and felt like he was actually there. He reached over and ran his fingers over the lacquered wood grain of the desk. Walking over to the large open space in the middle he approached the biggest table which sat right in the middle of the library. The table dwarfed the study desks around it and looked like a table that might be found in a war room.

On the table Felix found a large paper map depicted the paths he had already walked in the dungeon. On it he found all 5 puzzle rooms he had already explored as well as the rest room he was currently in. It even had a small triangle for Felix’s position, which he hoped moved and wasn’t stuck there considering this was memory paper and all that.

Well that is incredibly convenient.

Felix stood up and opened his eyes, and decided to try something on a whim.

Map.

Instead of The System map, in front of him appeared a screen depicting a paper map just like the one on the table in his Library.

Huh, I cannot lie, this might be the coolest thing I have ever done. Although I still haven’t cast a spell yet so that might change. Actually, did I do this or did The System? Maybe it was me with assistance from The System? That seems most likely if things like stats are only a representation of the real world. Didn’t really feel like I did much more than mentally architect the place.

The excitement of his new skill kept Felix up for almost an hour before he managed to fall asleep.

The next morning, day? Felix had no idea what time it was so, when he woke up, Felix pulled out a meal from his inventory as the table remained empty. He scarfed it down then drank from the fountain. He made sure his new canteen was filled before setting out for the day.

Felix decided to try venturing out much further now that he had a functioning map thanks to his new skill. He walked, almost faster than he could run thanks to his boots, down the branch of the dungeon he had last explored.

It felt odd not manually recording the forks he took but he pulled up his map and willed it into the corner of his vision and it seemed to be keeping track automatically. Once Felix had ventured out twice the distance he allowed himself to before, he started to encounter more puzzle rooms.

He managed to find another dagger before he found the second best reward yet. In a chest, Felix found a small map of a chunk of the dungeon around the room. As soon as he picked it up his map copied it down and filled in that area.

He continued on heading to only the rooms on the revealed part of the map and found more small maps, and another dagger.

It’s like the system thinks I am going to sacrifice someone, what the hell am I supposed to do with all these daggers? I am a caster System, remember?

With the map chunks appearing in chests now, the exploration of the dungeon went much faster. Felix managed to avoid thousands of dead ends. Other than maps he managed to find 4 daggers, 2 canteens and a hat with no enchantments whatsoever.

Felix managed to fill out nine times as much of his map by the end of the day compared to when he started this venture before he headed back to the rest room. Felix decided to just get his run in now and ran all the way back to the rest room. He repeated the rest of his simple workout routine and filled his stomach then inventory from the left overs of the ever reappearing feast. Finally he bathed himself in the fountain, but before he could sleep Felix decided he had had enough.

Time to cover my junk.

Felix thought about using the rest of his bed sheet but decided against it.

That would look way too similar to a diaper.

Instead, he pulled out the fox corpse and laid it out on the now empty table. He pulled out one of his seven daggers and skinned it to the best of his ability, which wasn’t much. After plenty of fiddling and a few cuts that would hopefully heal overnight, Felix managed to produce a mostly intact fox pelt.

He washed it in the fountain and left it to dry overnight as he retrieved his bed and slept.

Felix woke up and used some strips of bed sheet to tie the Fox pelt around his waist.

I am undecided on whether this is actually any better than before. I guess if I encounter any actual people it would be.

Felix pulled out a meal from his inventory, filled his canteens and left for the day. Today he decided he would travel down a single path for about 7 or 8 hours before heading back. That should have him travel about twice his current radius. Accounting for dead ends along the way and the perfect route on the way back that should take at most 12 hours.

He also decided he would run for as long as he could today then walk until he could run again. He might as well get in some more training, even if it wasn’t doing anything, figuring that out now could save a lot of time later.

He ran through the area he had already discovered before having to walk again. Over about 3 hours since passing through the area he had already mapped, Felix encountered 3 rooms with simple puzzles rewarding another dagger, a canteen and another hat before he reached a room unlike the others.

He turned a corner and at the end of the corridor he saw a room that was easily four times the size of any of the others, which had been fairly consistent in size. In the center of the room lay a large altar. The rest of the room appeared to be empty, even the tiles on the floor seemed mundane. Approaching the altar Felix found it blank. He carefully reached out and touched it.

Puzzle Dungeon C

You have demonstrated sufficient skill to be tested. Would you like to take the test?

Warning: Should you fail, you will need to begin demonstrating your skill from scratch before being offered another test.

Minimum Reward: Dungeon Map

Yes

No

I am assuming this is going to be similar to the tests in the rooms then. Might as well, not like I’ll get any better at memory and lights out tests. Yes.

The surface of the altar shifted under Felix’s touch to reveal a set of symbols Felix didn’t recognize. The wall Felix was facing, past the altar, shifted as well until it was covered in the symbols.

Felix quickly closed his eyes and entered his memory palace. He immediately ran to the table in the middle to search for a pen and paper. As soon as he got there though, he noticed a piece of paper next to the map, on it lay what appeared to be all the symbols from the wall.

Oh System, thank you for blessing me with this skill.

Felix opened his eyes and found the wall in front of him blank. He decided to try and make this easy for himself and tried to remember the paper from the library with his eyes open. Focusing for a moment, he managed to have the paper appear in his vision in front of him. Willing it to the side he began tapping the symbols in order. For every symbol he tapped, the corresponding symbol appeared on the wall, as if he were typing them out.

After filling the entire wall with the contents of the sheet, Felix looked up and found them all glowing.

Hopefully that means they were all right? My palace is based on memory and memory isn’t perfect.

Felix dismissed the sequence of symbols from his vision as he heard a the low rumble of a chest appearing. Walking around the altar Felix opened the chest to find a stack of large papers.

I knew the maze was big, but this is kind of ridiculous, no?

Felix pulled out the pages and looked at them one by one before stowing them in his inventory. Each page depicted a different section of the dungeon labeled with a coordinate on the back of the page. The puzzle rooms on each of the sheets glowed different colors.

Comparing this to his current map, the room he was currently in glowed purple and the one he got his boots from glowed blue. The rest of the rooms he had explored glowed green. There were also rooms further in the dungeon that glowed red. The entrance and rest room glowed white as well as another area a few hours from the purple test room.

Felix’s memory map copied down the entire map including the colors and shaded in the areas he had already explored.

The other white glow has to be the exit. Now that I know where it is though and I have a complete map I can hit all the other rooms and collect the loot.

Looking at his map he saw somewhere in the neighborhood of over a thousand green rooms and not a single other blue room.

Or maybe not. I’ll just check out the red rooms then head out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .