The number of attempts to complete the trial increased and time continued to pass by. While I continued to learn about the first room’s trial and it’s contents, I never saw an end point. The puppets were simply endless. My maximum attempt only succeeded in killing three hundred puppets.

Whenever their strength grew above my own, my progress in the trial came to a complete halt unless I utilized my petrifying gaze and unnoticed ability.

Over the past few days, I tried everything through various attempts. In some cases, I attempt to complete the trial through cheating. Even going as far as attempting to open the door before fighting the puppets.

Sadly, those attempts failed as my regular fights with the puppets did.

Fortunately, I did manage to figure out a method to cheat.

When I petrify battle puppets, the petrified puppets wouldn’t respawn until killed. So long as I keep three puppets petrified, I’m always fighting against a single puppet.

The sad part of that is… even alone the puppets were too fast, agile and smart to defeat consistently.

The battle puppets learn quickly. As I began to use that strategy to single out a particular puppet, they quickly learned to smash their companions petrified forms to let their petrified companions respawn.

Thus, while fighting, I have to be careful of the remaining puppet’s attacks and tricks whilst preventing it from destroying his petrified companions.

Winning in this situation wasn’t a matter of combat experience. I had more than enough combat experience than I cared to admit, despite my terrible performance. Whether it was from the illusionary realm or training I’ve undergone with Rin, I have had plenty of experience in combat… although my talent for combat was relatively low.

No. This was simply a matter of physical strength and agility.

My physical strength and agility was too pathetic to beat them in a fair fight.

In fact, I wanted to complain.                                                                          

I didn’t think I wasn’t actually that weak in terms of strength or agility.

Even without doing any exercises, my strength had basically tripled over the years with the dragon Gromrit and I could fight head on with most monsters in Hell Difficulty’s second and third zone even before getting capture by the massive dragon. (I partially suspected the increase in physical strength was related with the high mana concentration environment.)

I had my own doubts entirely because my physical abilities weren’t supposed to be that weak.

Was it possible for anyone to beat this trial? Maybe, it is…

Rin might be able to make up for the difference with pure combat experience and talent… Based on my understanding, Duke might also be able to complete the challenge through pure physical strength.

Those thoughts flashed through my head, before I shook them out.

Forget it, don’t compare myself with those monsters.

I should only worry about myself.

While I had basically reached the limit of what I was capable of, my methods of cheating hadn’t been entirely exhausted.

If I set up the tier 5 forging array used when I tried to escape Gromrit’s garden, I vaguely felt that it should be able to kill at least a hundred more puppets. I hadn’t wanted to utilize it before as it felt too much like cheating to rely on it a powerful forging array in a fight.

At this point, though, I just wanted to clear the first room and be done with it.

Of course, after last time… I honestly didn’t want to be anywhere near the fire the forging array released when it went off. The world tree had served to block most of the heat and damage last time, but… I might die immediately after utilizing it in a fighting arena that was only thirty-forty meters in width without a powerful shield.

Judging by the last time, my own physique is nowhere near resistant to the fire that the forging array released. Even if it didn’t end up with my death, it would be extremely painful to be within arena combat zone whilst it was triggered.

That was obviously problematic if I attempted to utilize it in order to clear this combat trial. In order to utilize the forging array properly, I need to create fire resistant materials and create a temporary safe area within the arena.

Obviously, that is easily prepared with materials and a couple of the fire resistance safety arrays meant to be utilize with the forging array were mentioned in the book… but it would take time to create.

Maybe, a lot of time.

I didn’t have the materials on hand and hadn’t exactly experimented with creating the safety methods.

Partly, the reason why I had attempted to do this through proper methods. Otherwise I would’ve already used the array to cheat my way through the trial far earlier.

I vaguely remember seeing mithril and iron in that massive valley that I walked along on the way here. I’d have to find a way to mine it out of the ground, but a couple pounds of the each should be good enough to meet the minimum for one of the safety arrays.

Nodding to myself, I decided to temporarily head out.

Mt Tai’s trial and heritage could wait until I collected the necessary materials.

Leaving from the mountain was relatively easy. The icy blast caused a significant amount of damage to most areas, but behind the mountain was a small zone that was safe to walk and without the vicious acid that lined the ice elsewhere.

A short week was spent searching for, then figuring out how to harvest the necessary materials for the fire resistance array. Followed by another period of time spent forging in the virtual hub to learning how to properly utilize the materials for fire resistance.

While the book mentions all the necessary steps, it unfortunately skipped most low-level explanations and shorthand vocabulary terms. Simply put, the book was designed for people at a higher level of array mastery than myself.

In the same manner as a masters-level thesis wouldn’t explain why 2x2 and 2+2 are both equal to 4, the book tended to skip over a lot of basic knowledge. That meant experimenting over and over until I managed to randomly figure out the correct method to make several components of safety arrays.

I learned to forcefully create the array through experience in the forging chamber without understanding how or why any of the components worked. Obviously that meant it was impossible for me to adapt to minor variations in the environments or make changes to the safety array.

The upside to such an approach was that it was possible to learn and create the safety array in the shortest amount of time. The secondary components and reasons behind why it works could be understood later.

At the moment, I was simply focused on making a feasible and working array.

Of course, this forceful approach had downsides.

Learning to forcefully creating an array far beyond your current level would obviously waste a lot of precious material. However when you have a virtual space to practice and unlimited material in that space, this downside is basically nonexistent.

I returned to Mt Tai shortly after making and enhancing metal in a feasible blocking plate. It was approximately a meter tall and would be place in front of me whilst the forging array went off to protect from the various fire damage that is to be expected.

Of course, kneeling or crouching down would be required to ensue it covers my entire body. Technically speaking, the metal is supposed to be used as a furnace and surround the fire forging array to prevent disasters such as the flame running amok. However, there wasn’t much I could do. I wanted to utilize the flame in actual combat. Restraining it by placing it with a furnace would be absolutely pointless.

What? Do you expect me to create a furnace and wait for my enemies to jump inside it? Don’t joke around. The battle puppets aren’t that stupid and neither is anyone else. It’s impossible for me to rest assured that nothing would go wrong if I tired to rely on that approach.

Anyway, requiring that your enemies be stupid for your plan to work only means your plan destined to fail.

Ironically, I had to utilize another far weaker forging array to create this sheet of safety metal. At that time, I thought it might’ve been better to try utilizing this weaker forging array to attack the puppets, but quickly dismissed the thought. The puppets would adapt eventually. It’s better to try fighting them with the strongest one available.

With every material finished, the only thing that I needed to worry about was creating the actual fire forging array and fighting until we reached the point that I would utilize it. While I wanted to test the limited of the forging array, I felt it was better to rely on my other abilities until I reached my personal limit, then rely on the fire forging array to go the rest of the distance and complete the trial.

I could only pray that the forging array would allow me to complete the rest of the trial, otherwise I would be completely stuck as for what to do. This is my most powerful trump card for dealing with enemies, if it failed then I’ll have well and truly lost.