Surprisingly, after announcing the name of the trial Valyr would be undertaking, the monotonous voice continued with its explanation of what the Trial of Four Elements was.
Though this caught the young man slightly off guard for a bit, Valyr was still able to follow through with what the voice had to say regarding the trial's mechanics.
From what he could infer through the voice's explanation, the fourth trial was similar to the third trial in the fact that it focused on the essence of combat.
However, rather than focus on the most basic styles of combat like in the third trial, the fourth trial instead focused on the most basic elements magic could take aside from pure mana.
With that, these elements were called the four foundational elements.
'Fire, earth, water, and wind…'
Hearing these four elements mentioned by the voice, the young man instantly had a blank expression on his face.
Why?
That was because he had upgraded almost every skill related to these four elements to the peak of Uncommon grade.
Realizing this, the young man scratched the back of his head as he decided to listen to what the voice had to say.
Deciding to ignore the possibility of easily completing the fourth trial for the meantime, Valyr listened to the voice explain what seemed to be the third trial's instructions, but with a few key differences.
For one, weapons would not be given to him since they would do nothing to improve his comprehension of the four elements. Instead, he would obtain a few skill books that would allow him to interact with the four elements themselves.
From there, he would more or less do the same thing he did in the third trial, which was to increase his understanding of all of these skills to the peak of Common grade.
Thinking that he would have to go through such a grueling yet monotonous task once more, a bitter smile appeared on his face.
'Not only that, but instead of relying on my stamina, the fourth trial would rely on mana,' thought the young man as he inwardly let out a sigh.
With the inheritance having a mana density level that was around a hundredth of the density in the outside world, it would take a long time for him to recover his mana even after taking his passive skills and mana potions into consideration.
Fortunately, the voice mentioned near the end of its explanation that there would be a spot during the trial that would allow him to recover the entirety of his mana reserves in mere instants.
Though, that small element in the trial itself made Valyr question his understanding of the inheritance.
Not wanting to worsen his mental state before the fourth trial even began, the young man decided to close his eyes and calm his thoughts as he waited for the trial to start.
Rumble…
Though, not long after he had entered what looked to be a meditative state, the ground around him began to rumble, prompting him to open his eyes.
Moving away from where the rumble originated, Valyr watched as a similar setup to the third trial gradually began to jut out of the ground.
Seeing the stacks of skill books placed on the pedestals surrounding the training dummy, a wry smile appeared on the young man's face.
After all, even though he decided to ignore the thought earlier, that still did not diminish the possibility of how the skill books would ultimately be useless since his current comprehension would render the trial completed.
However, such thoughts swiftly disappeared once he heard the voice's statements after announcing the start of the fourth trial.
'Through the information obtained from the Gates of Enlightenment, the Gates of Awakening surmises that the trial taker's comprehension of the four elements appears to be lacking.'
'Even though all of the trial taker's skills related to the four elements appear to have already reached the peak of Uncommon grade, the Gates of Awakening shall seal them for the meantime.'
'With this, the Gates of Awakening hopes that the trial taker uses this chance to polish and refine their understanding of the four foundational elements once more.'
"Well… shit."
Feeling the smile on his face turn crooked yet again, Valyr took in a few deep breaths to compose himself before proceeding to one of the four pedestals.
Comprehending all of the skill books on the pedestal he had chosen within a couple minutes, he then proceeded to stand in front of the dummy, coalescing some of the mana in his body towards both of his hands.
"Note to self."
With a single thought, the mana surrounding his hands turned a fiery red, crackling as the heat emanating from them gradually increased.
"During the remaining trials…"
Then, with [Hunter's Tracking Eyes] enabled, he threw it at the dummy's weak spots without hesitation, swiftly inundating his mind with information related to the element he had chosen.
Bang! Bang!
"Expect the unexpected."
…
Though Valyr felt like the fourth trial was a comparatively worse trial to finish before the third trial, that was only due to the fact that he would have to stop every once in a while to replenish his mana.
Other than that, he thought that the fourth trial was quite simple.
His reason?
His adept control over mana.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
During the third trial, Valyr had to think about how to string his attacks with the weapon where he would be able to hit as many weak spots in the shortest amount of time.
On the other hand, with how magic was more or less free-form in nature, the young man did not hesitate to strike all of the weak spots he could with magic, greatly inundating his mind with all of the information he needed to comprehend the elements.
At the cost of great mana expenditure, Valyr progressed through his comprehension of the four elements at breakneck pace.
What took him over half a day to achieve for one weapon during the third trial, Valyr only took around a third to half of the time to do the same thing for all of the skills on one pedestal.
With that, by the time Valyr felt the lack of sleep creeping up onto his senses once more, he had successfully comprehended the final element of the trial to the peak of Common grade.
'Congratulations, trial taker.'
'You have cleared the Trial of Four Elements.'
