MAZE - The Endless Quest

Hera was already in her seat. The trio arrived five minutes before seven. A few other students were already in class, including Mark, who was behind a girl in the front seat.

Everyone was talking, Hera felt like she was in High school again, but this time without the bad memories.

The second Mr. Greyson walked through the door, the whole class went quiet.

"Good, ye are here already. Aside from a few stragglers, all seem to be here."

As if they were waiting for their cue, two men and two women walked through the door, just before the clock hit 7.

"Ok, ye all are here then. Ah guess no one gave up after the first day," The teacher looked at Mike, who recoiled with the stare.

"I planned to make ye lot run a few laps before coming back here to hear me talk. But someone told me that Ah should talk first, and then tire ye in the training room. Since there was a chance some of ye would end up sleeping after the training, and if that happens, ye are going to be the dummy Ah hit."

The whole class got quiet after that remark. Mr. Greyson had punched a silver dummy and got almost 200 points. A hit like that in one of the students would send them to the hospital, and that is if they are lucky.

"Relax kids, Ah won't be fighting ye at full strength. But don't expect me to be playing around."

The students were not as relieved as the teacher expected, but they seemed to be a bit less scared of the idea. Little did they know that a match against him was a part of Mr. Greyson's lesson plan for the next week.

"All right now, to start the class. Can any of ye tell me what skills are?"

A blond girl with twin tails, dark skin, and long sparkly nails raised her hand.

"Skills are special abilities that the system gives us. They can vary from physical like a strength or resistance boost to magical like being able to shoot fire or lightning from your hands."

Mr. Greyson nodded, "Ye are half right, lassi. I mean..." He stopped to look at his tablet.

"Ye are half right, Bonnie. But it isn't the system that gives the skill. It just helps us use it. We need to learn it on or own."

Most of the students nodded. It seemed right the system never gave anything, not really, even if some people say they have been blessed by the system it was always their own accomplishments.

Saying that the system gave or took something was the same as finding excuses for why that happened. Hera agreed with that, even if she had spent years blaming the system for not letting her be an explorer.

"But Mr. Greyson..." Bonnie had a confused expression of her face, " if the system doesn't give any skills, how do we learn magic? I mean, even civilians that level-up can't cast any spells. It doesn't matter how hard they try to learn it."

Hera stopped for a second. The girl was right. Magic was not used by anyone that wasn't an explorer. Even high-level civilians had no access to it.

"Aye, that's because we can only learn magic inside the MAZE. The air there is different than out here. It's full of energy. Inside, ye can start to learn how that energy behaves, and little by little change that into what ye want."

"So, mages take a long time to learn how to use spells?"

Hera was wondering how much time it took for Helena to be able to use magic.

"Yes and no, if ye choose a role that deals with magic ye will manage to use spells quicker than ye expect. There is sort of an explanation for that, but it's a subject for another class. The MAZE and the system are still full of wonder and mysteries, so it's better if we don't change the topic at hand for now. That way, none of ye get confused."

The teacher walked to the board and started to write. He made two columns and put a type in each of them.

"We have two types of skills, the ones ye can learn, and the ones ye can teach. A skill ye can learn is any skill ye can train and practice until you manage to unlock it on your own. A skill ye can teach is any that requires a specific thing that ye can show other people so they can learn too."

"Let's try an example," Mr. Greyson wrote Punch in the learn column, "Ye can punch enough to learn that skill, but if someone teaches ye a fighting style ye might get a boxing skill."

He finished his sentence by placing boxing in the teaching column.

"Now, can anyone give me another example?"

Pamella raised her hand, and the teacher nodded so she could give her an answer.

"Sooo... a skill you can learn would be Dancing, but doing the waltz or salsa or samba would be a skill you can teach?"

"That's a weird one, but aye those would be right."

"Mr. Greyson, what about magic? Is there any type of magic we can learn? Or any that you can teach us?"

Bonnie asked. Hera noticed her expression. The face of someone who desperately wants something. For some reason, she got a bit worried, but it was probably just her bad memories trying to come back.

"Aye, there is. Both magic ye can learn and magic ye can teach, but what they actually are, I can't tell ye. Ah'm a fighter, not a mage. Don't worry. Ye will be able to talk to a dam good wizard during this training."

Hera instantly thought about Helena, but she doubted it would be her. She didn't seem to be interested in teaching a bunch of recruits.

Looking at the board, Hera noticed that there wasn't a mention of skills that you were born with, like her redistribution. She raised her hand and waited for Mr. Greyson to notice it.

"Sir, what about the skills you are born with? I heard people calling them Innate skills."

The teacher nodded.

"Aye, some skills you have since birth. Even if ye can't see them right away, the system is stingy with information. It only tells ye what ye are able to use, never what ye can one day use. Some explorers only discover those skills when they are very old or very strong."

As much as it bothered her, she knew about how the system behaved. If she had known before about her skill, she would have had hope. But it doesn't work like that.

"Do we have any other types of skills?" Leonidas was writing everything Mr. Greyson was saying on his tablet. He even made a copy of the drawing on the board.

"Aye, aside from innate skills, there are also quest skills, and something called legacy skills. Quest skills ye can get after completing a specific mission inside the MAZE. They mostly work like a skill ye can teach, but the teacher is the system and not someone else."

Mr. Greyson sat in his desk and let out a deep sigh before continuing.

"Legacy skills are a tricky bunch. These skills can be passed from one explorer to another. But doing some makes ye lose the skill. If an explorer dies with a skill like that, the legacy either goes to the monster that killed it or to the room where it died. The system turns a dungeon or an area into a trial for that skill. Those places are more dangerous than most monsters ye will find in the MAZE. And if it's a monster who inherited the skill just run, those things can rip ye apart like cotton candy. I say this, so ye know what ye are getting into if ye find a place like that. Explorers stronger than me have tried to get these legacies and died in the process. They are not to be taken lightly."

The way Mr. Grayson spoke made the whole class take a moment to absorb what he had just said. A skill that changes even the MAZE should be powerful and, at the same time, would easily kill who tried to recover it.

"Okay, that's just weird. Why are we calling them skills, you can learn and skills you can teach? If you can learn something, you can tell everyone how to get that skill too. The naming sense is just weird, especially since there are skills that have a simpler category. I mean, you say Innate or legacy, and you know what to expect. Shouldn't we change to basic and advanced skills? Or complex or anything that isn't so... odd to explain?"

The whole class looked a Mark who had just started to ramble, the tension that had just settled in everyone was lifted. Mr. Greyson walked to his side.

"Laddie, if ye think the names we use since Ah was a wee baby are a problem. THEN COME UP WITH BETTER ONES."

The teacher started speaking calmly but suddenly put his face as close as it could to Mark's and yelled the last sentence.

"Sorry!" Mak yelped, jumping back into his chair.

His reaction was probably the same as anyone else would have when a seasoned fighter would yell so at them while being so close to their face.

The whole exchange took less than five seconds, and by the sixth, the entire class was laughing. Mark's face got red instantly, and he seemed to try to burrow in his chair.

"Don't worry, Mark. Any of us would have the same reaction," Pamella said, trying to comfort him.

"I wouldn't say the same. Honestly, I think I would pee a little," Leonidas followed the comment.

Pamella, Hera, and Bonnie, the only girls who listened to that, replied with an "Ewwwww" in sync.

"What, the dude could beat us with his pinky. I wouldn't be able to control that," Leonidas seemed to enjoy teasing them.

"No, no more talking for you, you are in a time out until we leave class," Pamella interrupted whatever he was going to say next.

"Sorry, but I agree, that was too much," Hera said while laughing.

Mr. Greyson looked at the class. That was the type of people he liked. Who could understand a serious situation but would start to joke around the second it was over. Taking this teacher job might not have been the worst thing he did.

With a loud clap, he settled his students.

"Alright, now. Ah'm teaching you the first skill ye will ever learn."

He walked to his desk and picked a few notepads, giving one to each recruit, along with three pencils, one black, one blue, and one green. Then using his tablet, he pressed a few buttons, and a map was displayed on the board.

"Crap, hang on," he quickly erased what was on the board, making it clear for the map.

"Ok, now what Ah want you to do, is to look at this map and copy it in the notebook. Use the three colors to make it more precise."

A girl in the back raised her hand, "We should use each color for what?"

Mr. Greyson sighed. Maybe this was the worst thing he could do.

"Blue is for water. Green is for forest and black for everything else. You don't need to have a 20 in intelligence to figure that out, lassie."

Hera twisted her nose a bit. Sure, it was obvious, but not for everyone. One thing would be being rude to a student that disrupts the class, but that one just seemed uncalled.

"Now, start drawing, make it precise and not pretty in 10 minutes, I'm changing the map. We will be doing that for the next few hours, so try to keep up."

Apparently, she didn't have time to worry about the teacher's behavior. She had a long day ahead.