Man, I'm reading the solution to the puzzle and looking at the map I made and this is not an easy solution to solve for the following reasons:
1. everytime you open a gate, you are timed. If you do not reach the gate in time it closes.
2. you are in constant battle with tough foes. Even if you flee, they will still bombard you with hits and magik ranging from 600-2000hp loss at times and tons of status effects like sleep, sap, disable, stop, disease, etc. thus you will need time to heal which will lose you a lot of time.
3. it's so easy to take a wrong turn when time is against you, so 1 wrong turn and you're back to square 1.
Ok, i'm ready to take it on. Wish me luck!!