Mia saw a flash of light, turning her vision white. But even when that light disappeared, it didn't change the fact all she saw was white. The entire room was blinding and seemed to have no end in sight.
Within, were countless floating blocks, distinguishable by some strange yellow glowing glyphs across them and a slight shadow. The blocks consisted of many tiny parts, similar to a Rubix cube, but with more varying sizes and shapes resembling things such as window frames, miniature staircases, and poles.
Though some of them were on the ground, the majority of them were floating in the air. Their glyphs would flash for a moment before the piece would suddenly rotate or move in some way.
Though magical, they moved awfully mechanically.
While Mia was stunned by this sudden change in scenery, a voice called to her from a distance.
"Mia! You're here!"
It was a young voice, but it wasn't the one that Mia was familiar with. When she turned to look, her eyes had widened considerably.
"A-Anna?"
The girl across from her resembled Anna greatly, instead of the chibi girl with tiny wings, this was more of a young girl with fairly small, but adorable wings. There was a bright smile on her face as she waved enthusiastically.
"Yeah, that's me! I'm so glad that you came to play with me."
Mia pointed at her weakly while an awkward smile formed on her face.
"You look a little different from what I remember."
Anna let out a giggle as she energetically flew around her.
"I look a little different because I'm allowed to show more of my power in the outskirts game instead of a shabby one you found in the middle of nowhere! But more importantly, don't you want to hear the rules of my game?"
Mia scratched the side of her head. She decided that the particulars of her appearance didn't really matter that much and nodded.
"Alright, what are we doing?"
Anna clapped a few times while bobbing up and down in the air.
"You win if you can solve all of the puzzles in this room! Don't worry about losing, as you have all the time you need!"
Mia gingerly scratched the side of her head with a finger.
"Ah, what happens if I can't figure out one of the puzzles?"
Anna tilted her head to the side.
"What do you mean? You will just solve them all eventually! If you don't solve them, then you'll just have to stay a little longer until you do solve it."
Mia blinked a few times, slowly processing what exactly that meant. It did sound like Anna had no plans of anything harmful. However, it appeared that there was no way for her to leave unless she finished the puzzles.
By the puzzles, she could only assume that they were the floating blocks with shining glyphs.
"So how am I supposed to solve them?"
Anna simply put a finger to her lips.
"Not telling~ I can't just give away that, or it would ruin the puzzle!"
Mia's eyelid twitched. Just a casual look around the room would show that there were at least a hundred different pieces that could be moved around. Even if the majority of them were red herrings, that didn't change the fact it would be incredibly difficult to solve.
"But I don't even know what the goal of the puzzle is. It's a little hard to solve something when how you arrive at the solution is just up in the air."
Anna giggled mischievously, narrowing her eyes slightly as she tilted her head to the side.
"Hehe, just try it first!"
Mia was astounded for a little while but decided that she might as well try something. Though, it was incredibly hard to know where to start, given that hardly any information was given.
Eventually, she just decided to walk to what seemed to be the center of a glyph on the ground and pressed her hand against it. In a moment, the glowing yellow glyph she touched shifted to a strong blue which quickly spread out to the rest of the glyph.
Her mind was suddenly filled with an incredible amount of information. It was the kind that she couldn't describe with words, yet at the same time, they were things she understood.
It was akin to a sensation that was difficult to describe due to a lack of vocabulary.
She felt a weird sensation, but could now intuitively sense that things were out of place. However, knowing that something was wrong was completely different from knowing the solution.
Currently, she could only sense things within the glyph she was touching and was currently highlighted. Yet, she could tell that she would need answers from other glyphs if she actually wanted to solve this puzzle.
Still, there were a few things she was fairly confident were the right moves.
After ten or so minutes, she was able to solve a few simple arrangements, aligning the pieces that the glyphs were connected to in certain ways. At this point, she couldn't help but feel that the process and feel were awfully similar to puzzle games she had played.
The main difference was that she was essentially solving a puzzle that was distilled to its logical extreme. Where other puzzles had an answer that required one to make a connection between intuitive things, such as opening a door with a key or putting out a fire with water, this one assumed that you already understood that.
Then it added a layer on top of that.
Naturally, this made it much harder than a traditional puzzle. However, that didn't mean it was impossible.
It was essentially hard but fair.
Mia connected all the dots she could with certainty, which in the end didn't even amount to 20% of what she needed to move, and that was assuming the other moves would be as easy to find as the rest.
She ended up moving to another nearby glyph and pressed her hand against the center. Once more, another set of information flooded her brain. Her process with this one was as similar as the last, though a few tiny clues had helped her get ever so slightly further.
After getting stuck, she moved on and repeated this process over and over again.
Anna watched on happily, flapping her wings rather quickly. Though she remained silent so as to not disturb her.
Mia ended up getting sucked into the puzzles, finding it quite satisfying to figure everything out slowly but surely. After half an hour had passed, she had already gone to all of the major glyphs and deduced the simpler parts of the puzzles, finding the solution to be similar enough to make future ones faster. However, she had gotten stuck at a breakpoint.
She realized that the nature of what she had gotten stuck on was similar to most of the puzzles. This likely meant that it wasn't something to be figured out by solving other things, but rather something that was solvable by itself.
After figuring that out, she sat down and thought about it for a while, occasionally glancing at the different glyphs, trying to reverse engineer a solution. She mentally tossed aside all the loose ends she got in the back of her mind before attempting to solve the problem.
Mia herself wasn't usually aware of advanced mathematical concepts, though she could do basic arithmetic like addition without much trouble. However, the information that was injected into her brain had essentially taught her those concepts.
The glyphs were able to transmit the intention very clearly, which would likely be a dedicated teacher's wet dream. But at the end of the day, Mia would actually have to understand them regardless of how clearly it was communicated.
And somehow, she picked up on the basics practically immediately. While Mia didn't exactly understand the nuances as of now, she worked them out in her head, attempting to piece things together by doing examples in her head in their extremes.
Even after clarifying some of the nuances, she still couldn't think of any clear solution.
However, gradually some things were coming together, even if the solution was blurry. Almost like there were countless strings that she could pull on, slowly getting close enough to tie together.
Then, with a bit of strange thinking, she was able to come to a conclusion.
Like an addict, she rushed to rapidly complete the puzzles, with two hands on different glyphs at the same time, moving and turning the pieces rapidly. There were still things she didn't understand, but miraculously as she was putting to motion her own solution, she quickly figured out the other ones as well.
In a matter of minutes, she finished the majority of the puzzle.