Whoosh!
At the very moment the monotonous voice had finished announcing his completion of the second trial, the parts making up the workshop Valyr had been working at for the entire trial began to recede into the ground once more.
Watching even the material cache and the blueprint shelves recede into the ground along with the tools and equipment, a hint of fear appeared in the young man's eyes as he looked at the four items he had forged.
'Would the trial grab those as well?' thought the young man to himself.
Then again, it made quite a lot of sense, considering how he had basically used the materials and equipment from the Gates of Awakening to forge the four items in the first place.
However, rather than be absorbed by the barren ground as well, bubbles of mana began to envelop the items Valyr had forged as they slowly made their way to where he stood.
Seeing this, a slight smile crept up the young man's lips as he helped the bubbles move closer to him with his own mana.
By the time the bubbles arrived to where he was, all traces of the workshop he had previously worked at had thoroughly disappeared.
If anything, the only remnants that he had forged something within the trial grounds were none other than the four items that had been carried over to him.
"I guess this is a bonus perk of the second trial that the Gates of Awakening wants me to keep," said Valyr as he looked at the four items he had forged once more.
Then, without giving it a second thought, he chucked all four into his spatial bracelet before deciding to sit down and get some rest.
Whoosh!
Taking out a bunch of health, mana, and stamina potions from his spatial bracelet, Valyr downed all of them one by one without hesitation, feeling all of the fatigue from forging four items in a row gradually fade away.
"Though it feels easier to complete since it's my forte, it still doesn't change the fact that forging an item is quite an exhausting process," murmured the young man as he laid down on the ground.
With the monotonous voice going silent after having retrieved all of the things that had been brought out for the second trial, Valyr knew that he had been given time once more to unwind from the stress of the trial he had just gone through.
However, since the monotonous voice could talk about the third trial to him at any moment, the young man could only halfheartedly relax at moment, reducing the need for his body to move as much as he could for as long as possible.
'Hmm…'
Of course, even though he made sure his body did not move that much, the same could not be said for his mind.
'Now that I think about it… would I only receive rewards from the Gates of Awakening after I complete the third trial?'
As multiple thoughts lingered in the young man's mind, this thought eventually surfaced and took most of the man's attention, prompting him to look back at his experience whilst he was taking the Gates of Enlightenment's trial.
Similar to Hal, due to his superb combat prowess, the Gates of Enlightenment had given the minimum number of trials to complete.
To make up for that, the Gates of Enlightenment divided the trial into four phases that he must complete, with each phase giving him quite the hefty reward.
With that, he found it slightly peculiar that the Gates of Awakening, where its trial scheme involved having to go through nine trials in total, had not given him a single reward of the sort yet.
'Unless the items are considered a reward for completing the second trial, then I might only obtain rewards from the Gates of Awakening once I get past the first bottleneck,' thought the young man to himself, faintly chuckling soon after.
'Of course, since it's the Gates of Awakening, it's only a given that the rewards I'll get from doing so are more than worth the effort.'
Closing his eyes for a bit after the thought, the young man eventually sat up after what felt like a few minutes.
Taking out a health and mana potion from his spatial bracelet to top off both of his reserves, it was only did the young man feel a trace of sleepiness stemming from his insides.
Taking notice of this, Valyr grabbed one of the vials of rousing Faulus had concocted for them from his spatial bracelet before downing it in one gulp.
Feeling the sleepiness he felt earlier disappear in less than an instant, the young man looked at the vial for a bit.
'Huh. That's weird.'
'With all things considered, it's been far over a day since I've last gotten a wink of sleep. Yet only now did I feel the slight urge to get a bit of shuteye.'
Scratching the back of his head as he pondered over the possible reasons why that was the case, Valyr eventually pushed the thought to the side as he decided to take a look at the party chat to see if the others had finally responded.
Thankfully, the other four had indeed sent a message this time around, with Hal and Loreina telling Valyr that they had passed through the fifth trial just recently and were now attempting the sixth.
As for Vera, she said that she was still in the midst of tackling the first trial. However, she also told him that it wouldn't be long till she would clear it.
Unsurprisingly, Faulus said more or less the same thing Vera did, but with his rate of progress being considerably slower than hers.
Letting out a faint chuckle at Faulus' response, Valyr went ahead and informed the others that he was now taking the trials of the Gates of Awakening as well, giving the four a progress update before closing the party chat.
It was also around this time that the monotonous voice echoed throughout the trial grounds yet again, causing a faint smirk to appear on Valyr's face as he listened to what the voice had to say.
'Through the first trial, you have shown that your prowess in combat exceeds known bounds.'
'Through the second, you've shown that your mastery in forging goes beyond expectations.'
'Though the third trial's objective returns you, the trial taker, back to the world of combat, the third trial shall focus on a part of combat that is considered to be one of the most important to understand.'
'That would be… the essence of combat hidden within the various styles.'
'With that said, your third trial is the Trial of Four Forms.'
