"Increase the temperature inside the furnace as much as possible while using as little Fire Mana as possible," Shang read.
'Interesting. This is a trial that tests someone's mastery over the Fire Affinity. Hotter fire is more destructive, and by using as little Fire Mana as possible, this trial is testing the quality of someone's Concepts and mastery over fire.'
'The level four Concept of Fire is Explosion, which can probably produce extremely hot flames. Even the level three Concept Incineration can create powerful flames, but for a Cloud that found this place, this is probably the bare minimum.'
'However, this is also just the first trial. I would expect it to be easy.'
'I guess it needs the level three Concept of Fire, Incineration to complete it. I guess a Cloud that knows a lot about temperatures would have comprehended that Concept.'
'Sadly, I don't have that Concept.'
Shang walked over to the glass furnace and flew to its top.
Then, he extended his right hand.
A moment later, the space below his hand seemed to distort with some invisible waves.
After some time, the air in the entire furnace seemed to warp and wave in a strange manner. It was almost like the world inside the furnace was about to break down.
Ding!
At that moment, the door leading out of the room opened as the barrier vanished.
Shang had fulfilled the requirements.
He might not have the Concept of Incineration, but he had the Concept of Addition.
Light had two aspects, which were mass and brightness.
Fire also had two aspects, which were heat and brightness.
Shang had converted all the brightness in the fire into heat, which was why the fire he had just dropped in the furnace had been nearly invisible to the eye.
Naturally, this kind of fire was far hotter than normal fire since all of its power was focused on heat.
And that had been enough for Shang to get past the first trial.
Shang landed in front of the exit and walked through it.
Some seconds later, Shang opened the door to the second trial.
This time, there was a blue cube in the middle of the room.
Shang looked to the side at an emblem and read the instructions.
"The cube can only hold a limited amount of Ice Mana. Make it as cold as possible," he read.
'So, the opposite of the first trial.'
'The level three Concept of Ice is Blizzard, which doesn't seem to decrease the temperature by a lot more than just the level two Concept, Freeze.'
'Of course, the level four Concept of Ice, Zero, would decrease the temperature drastically again.'
'Do they expect an Early Ancestral Mage to know the Concept of Zero to advance?'
'I don't think so. Otherwise, the difficulty rating wouldn't just be a two. Sure, they could expect that from Peak Ancestral Mage Clouds, but not from Early Ancestral Mage Clouds.'
'I guess it probably needs the level three Concept of Ice, Blizzard.'
'I also don't have that.'
Shang walked over to the cube and put his hand on it.
A second later, the cube began to shine in a blue light.
Ding!
The door opened, and the barrier broke.
Shang got through that trial again.
Just like fire and light, ice and darkness also had two properties each, which could be manipulated with the Concept of Subtraction.
Darkness had absorption and void, void meaning the absence of light in this case.
Ice had cold and void.
Shang had simply pushed his Ice Mana to the extreme of coldness, which had been enough.
Fire pushed to the extreme of heat transformed into invisible flames.
Ice pushed to the extreme of coldness transformed into something that resembled azure sand.
What about the other two?
Well, that was where the connection between the Affinities came into play.
Pushing fire to the extreme of brightness would produce the same thing as what pushing light to the extreme of brightness produced.
Very bright light.
This was where these two Affinities were connected.
The same thing was true for ice that was pushed to the extreme of void.
It would just become a very dark space.
Darkness that was pushed to the extreme of absorption did just what it said. It absorbed and destroyed stuff.
From beginning to end, one could envision a line of connections.
Fire heat to fire brightness to light brightness to light mass to darkness absorption to darkness void to ice void to ice coldness to fire heat and so on.
The makers of this trial probably envisioned the contestant to use the pure Concepts of Fire and Ice to get through the trials, but the Concepts of Subtraction and Addition worked just as well.
Of course, everything involving the Clouds was special, and the Bolts that had designed the trials probably also expected the Clouds to get through the trials in ways they hadn't foreseen.
Because of that, only the results of the trials were important, not how the Clouds got them.
Shang left the blue cube behind and exited the second trial.
After some seconds, he reached the third trial, and as soon as he saw it, he realized that this would be very different from the last two.
CRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
SSSSSSSHHH!
The space in front of Shang was consumed by a sea of terrifyingly hot flames one instant before being flooded with extremely cold air.
The temperatures were changing several times per second, and the extremes of temperatures were no joke.
They could definitely kill an Early Ancestral Mage.
On top of that, there was something else that was different.
Shang couldn't feel the end of the room with his Spirit Sense, which probably meant that the inside of the room had been enlarged with Space Mana.
Shang also saw the instructions hanging on the wall.
"In front of you are 500,000 kilometers of alternating heat and cold. The use of Mana Step and similar Spells has been suppressed under the Magic Circle."
"Get to the other side of the room without dying."
'I see,' Shang thought. 'The first two trials were the extremes of each side, and the third trial now tests everything in between.'
'If someone has a certain mastery over fire and ice, they could definitely survive this place for a while, but the real challenge would be to survive everything while traveling 500,000 kilometers.'
'Some Clouds might run out of Mana before they reach the end, and there's also no place to rest and refill their Mana during the journey.'
Shang wordlessly walked over and put his hand into the storm of ice and fire.
After a couple of seconds, Shang pulled his hand out again and looked at it.
Some cracked skin.
A bit of blood.
Some burns.
Shang put his hand back into the storm and waited.
30 seconds later, he pulled it out again.
It looked quite ravaged, but he only needed to use a bit of life energy to recover it.
After that, Shang shot into the storm of ice and fire.
His body broke in a couple of places and burned in others.
However, Shang just kept using his life energy.
Shang only needed to heal his body once every 30 seconds, and the accumulated damage was also only on the surface.
He was regenerating more life energy than he was using.
This meant that he could stay in this place indefinitely.
He didn't even use his fire and ice abilities to control his temperature.
He just flew through it.
Sure, the sensation on his skin was a bit annoying, but it wasn't too bad.
About five minutes later, Shang came out of the other side of the trial.
And just like that, Shang completed all three challenges of the trial.
