Setting up the forging array in the arena was actually more complicated than during normal times. This had nothing to do with the actual difficulty of setting up a tier 5 array... after all, although such an array was complicated and time consuming to set up in normal circumstances, there was no possibility of failure.

The main problem was that it had to be set up within the combat arena. Although the initial puppet couldn’t cause much harm, to make the precise alignments and properly set up an array whilst dealing with a battle puppet whaling on you was anything but pleasant.

I managed.

It only took a period of time to setting up the forging array and then I began fighting against the battle puppets in my normal manner.

This was the easiest part.

All I needed to do was focus on fighting until it reached the point that I couldn’t go any further.

Clearing wave after wave of battle puppets.

Twenty, thirty, forty… In a short time, I’d killed almost a hundred puppets and their strength combined with coordination began causing significant problems.

This indicated it was time to begin the next phase.

Without hesitation, I began utilize my petrifying gaze to deal with the remaining puppets. Taking advantage of their respawning mechanism and my petrifaction ability to turn this four-on-one brawl into a one-on-one duel. My petrifying gaze can deal with approximately one hundred and fifty, and I could personally deal with approximately fifty puppets in a one-on-one duel.

If the forging array can deal with remaining hundred battle puppets, there’s a strong possibility I’ll beat this room.

I’m working under the assumption there is exactly one hundred waves of battle puppets. With four puppets each wave and one hundred waves, there would be a total of four hundred battle puppets to fight before passing the room (not accounting for the couple waves with less than four puppets).

Obviously, I cannot be completely confident of this is the number of waves requiring to be defeated, but it was the next major milestone. Usually trials will end after specific major miles stones, such as three waves, five waves, ten waves, or a hundred waves of battle puppets.

As time went onward, the battle puppets were becoming more difficult to defeat. I had defeated a large number in this continuous combat and began dealing with the petrified puppets whilst remained confident about winning this time.

Having dealt with approximately three hundred battle puppets, before the petrification effect could become completely useless, I decided to utilize the tier 5 fire forging array.

Activating the safety formation on the metal and the forging array at the same time, I lift the safety metal up and crouched down behind it near the edge of the arena.

Upon the array’s activation, a large crackling of burning and a massive hiss could be heard from the air. Various waves of heat continuously emanating from the array on the far side of the arena increased the room temperature.

Despite the safety measures, the fire and heat of the array could easily be felt. Sweat began to drip down my skin, but I firmly stayed behind the safety metal which had begun to heat up to an uncomfortably warm temperature with the addition of heat.

In a short time, the room had been heated to an uncomfortable temperature.

It should be noted that I would barely notice a temperature difference whilst putting my hand in most fires. To reach a level that I feel uncomfortable, the ambient room temperature must’ve reached several thousand degrees Celsius.

That is to say, a normal person on Earth would’ve been killed simply from the air temperature alone without even touching the fire. The forging formation's flame was simply terrifying as the fire of the forging array itself must be considerably hotter than the surrounding air.

Indeed worthy of being used as a trump card. This is definitely an array that I wouldn’t want to be caught or trapped within.

While time had dulled my memory of the heat, I’m glad that I didn’t dare to create the array without corresponding safety measures. The world tree had provided ample protection last time and I could easily escape the forging array’s area, but I had no such luxury this time around.

I could only stick within the arena’s bounds to prevent-

Suddenly, the forging array deactivated.

The room became eerily silent as the fire’s crackling noise died down.

What happened?

Looking over the metal safety plate, I saw that the fire had gone out and only an empty arena remained. Observing the situation, I realized that all the mana in the surroundings had been completely sucked up by the forging array and turning into heat.

Clearly, this hadn't been part of my plan.

It took several second for puppets to respawn under normal circumstances, there was no way that one hundred had been killed in that limited time.

As I expected, moments later, the battle puppets began trying to reform.

Not good… the tier 5 forging array had used up the surrounding mana in approximately ten short seconds and without sufficient mana in the surroundings, the array had obviously collapsed.

While the array was terrifyingly powerful, it also had terrifying consumption. I had never noticed the problem as my previous tests of the array had been in Gromrit’s garden, the amount of mana in that place was more than sufficient for sustained usage.

…But the total mana in this place was a mere fraction of the garden and there wasn’t enough to go around.

Obviously, the ten seconds that the array had been sustained was nowhere near enough to the array to kill the remaining one hundred battle puppets. The forging array had killed twelve or sixteen at most.

Before I could complain, I noticed that something had caused problems with the battle puppet’s reformation process.

The reformed puppets were significant weaker than before.

I pulled out God-hunter while walking over to the battle puppets and slash them to death. They didn’t manage to react in time and were easily destroyed.

…new puppets quickly appeared in their place, but they suffered the same weakness.

While they could reform, whether it was the lack of mana or severe heat, something had weakened them significantly.

I was more inclined to believe the facility was running on low on mana.

Under normal circumstances, I’d imagine that this power source have more than enough mana to sustain the creation of these puppets… however, this place had just been hit with a nuclear-level attack and successfully defended against it.

With the environmental mana in the area completely gone, reforming the battle puppet must be reliant on a back-up mana source. Obviously, defending an entire mountain against a nuclear-level attack would take a considerable amount of mana and that backup source must be running low on mana.

Regardless of the cause of the battle puppet’s weakness, I’d accidentally managed to cheat in a better way than I thought.

The battle puppets kept respawning, but their strength and agility was only decreasing over time.

After killing waves of battle puppets, they completely stopped reforming and the door to continue onward unlocked with a loud clang and opened slowly.  

Seeing the door open at last, a wave of excitement and relief poured over my body.

Finally succeeded!

While I hadn’t exactly considered the problems with the forging array beforehand, the result of using it was completely satisfactory.

I would even say that it worked better than expected!

Moving toward the door with a cautious expression, I stuck the metal safety plate used to block the heat between the door and wall to keep it locked open. I didn’t want to take any chances of getting locked in once I entered the second room.

Caution was the name of the game in Hell Difficulty, especially in a dangerous place like this. I didn’t want to get trapped in this ghost place. If I got trapped in this inheritance, I’d probably end up dead.

After all, I’d only managed to succeed in beating the first room through cheating. Beating all three rooms was simply impossible for me, I would have to return empty handed if that was a requirement to get a prize.

The door led to a small room.

Inside there was a tree with five golden fruits, a small pond beside it. The small pond had two koi fish that swam in a yin-yang formation.

Beyond was another door that was locked tight.

It appeared this was the second room… and although those golden fruits looked extremely delicious, it seemed to be a room without prizes.

My expectations and excitement disappeared seeing the shape of the second room.

Unless I was expected to bully koi fish, I didn’t even understand how to continue onward to the third room. There didn’t seem to be anything to fight.

Looking at the golden fruits and pond koi, I analyze them.

{Fruit of Evolution – A fruit known to speed up the process of evolution. Try eating it, maybe it won’t kill you?}

{Yin Koi – A harmless female koi fish with a large amount of Yin energy.}

{Yang Koi – A harmless male koi fish with a large amount of Yang energy.}

The yin-yang koi caught my attention.

Yin and yang were an energies in Chinese mythology that was believed to exist in many different forms. I could vaguely understand based on my own knowledge of the energies in mythology.

Yin symbolizes water, females, and gentleness to a certain extent in Chinese mythology. Although it wasn’t merely limited to that, in general anything associated with females and kindness was considered to contain yin energy.

Yang symbolizes fire, males, and fierceness to an extent and was considered to be contained by anything associated with fierceness and male.

Beyond specific mythology texts, there are also the effects of the energies in various books and novels. Specifically, the energies are show to have various effects including, but not limited to, turning males into females (and vise versa), improving cultivation speed, and increasing libido.

*Cough*

Ignoring that awkward effect of increasing sex drive, the other effects themselves are also relatively random in stories. In some cases, yin-yang energies can dramatically improve the strength of objects holding them and improve people’s understanding of the laws of nature…. In others stories, consuming them can have extremely awkward effects.

With effects as wide and versatile as those, it’s basically a large gamble as to what would happen if I tried to cook the koi up to eat them as treasures.

The best possible situation would be if it was similar to some cultivation novels and had an effect of increasing cultivation speed and understanding of the laws of nature.

The worst effect would be directly exploding into a pile of blood.

After all, yang and yin energy is sometimes considered to be extremely dangerous to consume directly in stories. Yin energy can freeze someone with a single touch and yang energy could burn them to death with a sliver of its power.

I don’t remember specifics or whether the two energies including in the novel’s planning. They definitely weren’t included in the story specifically, though.

This leads to a slight problem, I had no idea how Chinese mythology would correlate to this universe’s reality.

Regardless, in most universes, anything that contained pure yin-or-yang energy was considered a treasure.

It’s fair to say these koi might even directly be considered my prize.

Sadly, the risk of consuming them was a bit high.

While I felt relatively confident that my physique could handle the danger of exploding, at least my instincts telling me this room was completely safe… but I still didn’t dare to eat them.

There’s a possibility eating the yin koi would permanently turn me into a girl and the yang koi would increase my sex drive.

While I can technically turn into a girl in the illusionary realm, that’s only acceptable because it’s an illusionary realm and extremely temporary. The risk of turning into a girl permanently is too large to risk consuming the koi.

In comparison, the risk of eating the yang koi is more acceptable. The worst side-effect yang energy can have, besides a fiery grave, is enhanced sex drive.

…However, even that small side-effect was slightly too strong in my mind. In many stories, pure yang energy can basically be considered a strong aphrodisiac. So you can probably understand my hesitation to purposefully consume it.

In comparison to the yin-yang koi, the Fruit of Evolution was more interesting as it promoted evolution.

Although analyze’s description of the Fruit of Evolution was slightly menacing with the warning about dying, in my opinion, danger is a basic operation if you want to quickly gain strength.  

Additionally, since I entered this room, my mouth has been salivating at the thought of eating the golden fruits and my instincts hadn't informed me of any danger from consuming it.

In fact, if anything, I could barely holding myself back from grabbing one and shoving it down my throat. My instincts have been screaming in desire to eating the Fruit of Evolution.