Staring at the griffon with his magic vision always active, he awaited the griffon that was ready to pounce on him. Its claws high in the air, crackling with lightning, Lucas kneeled before lifting his shield. Letting the ground take some of the impact, Lucas used his elbow to send a wave of Blue Fire forward.
The flames weren't that powerful, knowing that the Terrabear was able to easily deal with them, but it certainly suprised the griffon. Taken off guard by the sudden attack, it tried to lift its claws from Lucas's shield. In that slight moment, Lucas stood up and took a step forward to push his flat spear into the hide of the griffon.
Pressing the flat surface into its hide as hard as he could, it lit up with a dark red aura. The griffon suddenly stepped back as it focussed on the area Lucas's staff had touched. He had poured his own willpower and aura into its body with the only directive to cause as much chaos as possible.
The griffon would need a moment to calm the magic down, but not like Lucas would ever be so gracious to grant it the time. In that split second, he took another step forward and shook his shield slightly. The shield sprung open to reveal a beacon of concentrated light that burned the eyes of the griffon.
Being blinded, it jumped back to gain some distance as Lucas closed his shield again. He knew that most of his tricks would be easily dealt with, luckily, he was dealing with a simpleminded beast. He smiled as he saw the griffon act as he predicted.
As the beast retreated, Lucas pondered as he thought of something. Gathering his energy near his staff, he conjured a Dark Beam through his personal rune, the energy required was immense to maintain.
The beam was small, but extremely potent as it hit the griffon straight in the chest. Since it was gathering Light magic near where Lucas had infected him, it redirected it all to defend against the power of a copy of its own trump card. The Dark Beam being infused with his own aura, it caused it to be a lot more chaotic and powerful, making the griffon give up even more energy to defend against it.
Lucas couldn't keep up his spell, shutting it off after a few seconds. Still, the results were remarquable. The griffon wasted a lot of energy while also still suffering from his initial attack.
It wasn't blind anymore, and was making sure his aura wouldn't spread any further within its body. But most of all, it was raging, the humans that entered this place always took it down with extremely powerful spells and grand strategies and tactics. Yet here a human was copying its own spell to take it down.
A shameful copycat, the worst thing of all, from the griffon's standpoint, it was losing against him. It felt a hatred it hadn't felt for a long time. The core deep within the griffon started to release a ton of energy as it all gathered near the beak.
Lucas, who was somewhat recovering from overusing his own rune, knew exactly what was coming. He had been preparing his own arsenal of spells since his first encounter with this kind of beast. Readying his shield, he waited for the perfect timing.
A genuine Dark Beam shot from the Griffon's beak, the air seemed to warp around the beam as it obliterated anything in its path. Seeing such power, Lucas was jealous. All his efforts only resulted in a makeshift copy, the real thing was a lot more interesting. Without wasting any more time, he opend his shield once more to shoot of the exact opposite. A Light Beam, so to speak.
Inspired by the fake sun in the capitel, Lucas had prepared some things to deal with monsters like this one. The Light Beam, when it came to offensive tactics, was pretty useless, only handy to blind an opponent or surprise them.
Its real power lied in defense. The beams shot against each other, resulting in a pure equilibrium. Both the Light and Dark couldn't move further, the only difference was that Lucas had to waste a lot less energy to produce his beam. The longer they stood there, the better for him.
He had plenty of time to prepare some countermeasures. His shield was specifically designed to serve as a countermeasure for this attack. Being an extra thick shield, there were a few hollow tubes in the center capable of handling his mana. By building up the mana in the artificial pathways, he was able to unleash something not too dissimilar from the Dark Beam.
At a certain piont, Lucas saw the Dark Beam retract, making him close his shield once more. Standing up, he stared at the Griffon who had the look of madness in its eyes. Whether that was by his own aura or just because of the current circumstances, he couldn't tell.
Either way, the current state of the griffon said enough. When he found one in the underworld, it only fired the beam of once and was exhausted. Now this griffon had shot of multiple ones and was still standing strong.
It held the power of multiple normal griffons, but even so, there was a limit to how much energy one could have. While the griffon fought against both the alligator and the snake, Lucas stole as much energy he could from the snake and made sure to be fully prepared. By now, it must've exhausted most of its energy.
Not giving the beast any breaks, Lucas ran towards the griffon with his shield at the ready. The griffon wanted to fly and fight in the air, but the damage to its wings was too much, it had to finish this fight on the ground.
Its core was mostly empty, the remainder was used to keep the madness at bay. Still, before awakening to magic, it was still a formidable opponent. Its physical strength wasn't to be underestimated. Its claws were strong enough to shred the hide of a Terrabear, it wouldn't fall so easily.
As Lucas ran towards the beast, he poured some mana into his shield before throwing it towards it. They were charging at each other, dodging it now would be difficult, and if it did so, Lucas would have a clear opening.
On the other hand, the mana in the shield made the griffon think it was an attack. Raising its claws, it wanted to smack the shield back to Lucas. Instead of dealing with the issue itself, returning it back to its sender was the best option.
But right as the claw hit the shield, it bursted open into multiple shards. They weren't sharp enough to pierce the claw, but the darkness that was contained within the shield surely was potent enough.
The griffon had fast enough reflexes to recognize the potential danger and summoned a part of its remaining energy to conjure enough Light to shield against the attack.
Placing its focus on defending against the shards, the griffon had lost track of Lucas, an opportunity Lucas didn't shy away from. Getting so close he pushed his staff against the griffon's chest again and made certain that the amount of aura he poured into its body was enough to turn it insane.
Having succeeded in his goal, Lucas jumped back to create some room.
"There we go, now you don't have usable any mana left, do you? Or do you want to succumb to the madness like the other animals?", Lucas stood strong as he dispelled his staff. It wasn't his first version of the trick weapon, but there were still plenty of improvements possible.
The griffon stood completely still as it tried to fend off the thoughts forcibly entering its mind. The images of its countless deaths were playing all over each other, the horrible laughs and screams of the animals were etched in its mind. The few times humans came here, they were tortured, experimented on, played with, all for reasons it never understood.
As the images started to take control of its mind, Lucas stood there, silently. He was observing the griffon to better understand his own powers. The beasts went mad, but the alligator got out of its rage quite quickly.
And now that it doesn't have any mana, how would the rune further spread itself? It needed energy to spread and mana was the perfect meal. Now that almost all the mana had been drained, would his rune still take effect? Or would it die out like a tiny spark in the wind?
He was curious, and now that his victory was secured, he felt no hesitation to gain as much information as he could. The beast's eyes started to tint red as its muscles tensed up, trying to keep its anger under control.
Lucas activated his magic vision to see what exactly was happening. Besides the fact that magic was chaotically flowing everywhere due to the battle, he was able to somewhat focus on the griffon's body.
There was no magical response left. Its feathers were durable and had a hint of mana, but it was static, infused within the feathers. Confused, Lucas tried to speculate how his rune was still active. Without any mana to go off on, it was able to bring the griffon to a state of madness.
After a few more seconds it was clear the griffon had lost control over its emotions and body. Thrashing around, the griffon tore the ground apart as it approached Lucas. Seeing that the griffon had nothing left to provide, Lucas lifted his hand.
A Dark Beam shot out of it landing straight on the head of the griffon. Without any kind of mana protection, the head was shot clean off. Without a head, the griffon ran for a bit longer before collapsing on the ground right in front of Lucas.
Lucas felt a sting in his heart, losing all these precious materials would be such a waste. Heaving a sigh of relief, Lucas closed his eyes to enjoy a breeze.
[Slain Beasts: 5/5]
[Congratulations! You have passed the Combat test!]
Waiting for a few more seconds, the stiff voice appeared once more.
[Congratulations! You have completely passed the second trial!]
[Wisdom: 3/3]
[Combat: 1/1]
[Congratulations! You may choose one of the following rewards!]
[Completion of trial: Tier 2 Body Strengthening]
[Wizard detected: Upgraded Mental Sphere]
[Wizard detected: 2 Grimoires of Spells]
[Special reward: Special Tier 2 Body Strengthening]
'Hmm, that was a less enthusiastic announcement, last time we were congratulated that we were the first. Now, just nothing? Or since there wasn't an impossible question a lot of people achieved full scores?'
'Don't know, don't care, just get the special reward and get out of here. I think I can upgrade our Dark Beam with all the recorded memories we got.'
'That would be useful, but I think learning how to fly is more important.'
'Tch, fine, I'll work on that first.'
"I choose the special reward."
As Lucas said that the environment changed back to the endless white room that appeared in the beginning. Almost hurting his eyes from the constant light, a more emotional voice appeared.
[Playing hidden recording: Congratulations, it seems you have chosen The Special Tier 2 Body Strengthening reward. While the upgrade might not be that strong, please remember that a body can only be upgraded so much before it needs to evolve. I've tried my best to give you close to the strongest possible tools to defeat your enemies. If you want even greater strength, you'll have to prove yourself in the final trial. Now get out there and bring them to an end!]
Lucas had hoped that by listening to these recordings he would understand what this all was about. Yet now he had even more questions than answers.
'If someone made all these trials, they are so powerful that they need to be like Rank 5 or 6 or something. What would be the point of making all of this? If he needed an army, then shouldn't the people in the world above be a lot more suited? And with all the beasts locked in here, he could simply unleash them.'
'Perhaps the trials had better rewards but due to time lost it all.'
'That would seem strange, although I guess if the beasts that live here die each time someone enters. There's a limited amount of people that are able to enter and perhaps the rewards are set up in a first come, first served kind of way?'
'What if all this shit is just a big experiment?'
'What kind of results would you even get with this?'
'How the hell should I know, our only clue is the final trial.'
'Yes, we'll do that one as well, then we should be plenty strong to deal with the assassins.'
'Yeah, no way we're gonna have the time for that buddy. We'll have like, a week or so before Augustinus launches his next attack.'
'Hmm, that might be accurate. Augustinus doesn't fight himself, he always uses his underlings, so sending them out doesn't matter that much to him. Tch, how unfortunate.'
Once again, after choosing his reward, the Light in the room started to change from the rays of light to something with mass.
The substance of Light started to surround him before bathing him in it. It invaded his body once more transforming the cells once more into something different. Stuck in this place, the only thing he could do was wait until the Light was finished with its job.
After an unknown amount of time did he feel control over his body again. Balling his hand into a fist he felt the raw power that came from it. His strength had gained another significant boost.
[Attributes of the Special Tier 2]
[1. Strength increased further by 200%]
[2. Damage from spells further reduced by 15%]
[3. Defense increased further by 150%]
The rewards were less than last time, but considering what the message said and the fact that it took his current strength as the base, he received a massive boost. If his strength started out as 1, then the first trial brought it up to 5, now it reached 10.
Lucas felt great, returning to the temple, he stood up before stretching his newly acquired body.
"This feels great.", he said as he smiled.
'I thought talking to yourself out loud was a strange thing to do?'
'If it's just once in a while, it's not a problem, you do it all the time.'
'Yeah, yeah, wanna make up a few more rules to validate yourself?'
'Shut it.'
Lucas moved out of the temple to visit Thurin. He had made the basis for a plan to end this entire internal conflict. The only thing he was missing was insurance, the rewards from the trial gave him exactly that. Now there was no need to wait any longer.