The platform mechanism rumbled. Hikari reached the next level.
Same stick figure but two more vertical wavy carvings for a total of four.
"Same thing but hotter?"
She continued her meditation.
She opened her eyes.
Another room is clear.
She rubs her toes with her finger. It was dry.
"Looking good. I'm not sweating too much yet."
The platform rises.
Six squiggles. Hikari meditated through it.
Eight squiggles. Ten squiggles.
"It's starting to get hot in here."
Hikari's foot made a squishing sound.
The sweat print quickly evaporated from the heat.
"This won't do."
Hikari channeled her mana, coating herself with a barrier to block out the heat. She felt a slight chill brush against her hair.
"Oh! The freezing mana from the mana vein."
She focused in. Remembering the way her mana flows while she meditated before the mana vein.
A barrier of frost coated her as the platform raised her into the next room.
Twelve squiggles. A skeleton greeted her.
"Looks like this is where people start to fail the trial."
With her frost barrier, the twelve squiggles room felt like only the first room.
Hikari began absorbing the mana in the room.
"This is the trick. Embrace the heat and control it."
She appeared in the next room. Fourteen squiggles.
Skeletons littered around the platform.
"Looks like the previous room can still be beaten with sheer endurance alone."
Sixteen squiggles. The room was more intense, but there were no skeletons.
"Once you get the technique, there's no chance of dying to just the heat."
Eighteen squiggles. Twenty squiggles.
The room's mana dissipated. Hikari opened her eyes. Her foot was dry.
The temperature in the room roughly the same as outside in the cold winds of the wyvern peaks.
A mechanism at the end of the room rumbled.
A compartment opened, revealing a glowing crystal inscribed with rows upon rows of runes.
"My reward?"
Hikari walked up to the crystal. As her hands neared it, its mana surged into her. Her mind was flooded with images of runes.
"Arghh… my head."
The crystal powered down. The compartment closes.
Hikari felt a ringing in her head as the rush of information settled into her brain.
Two pairs of torches lit up. One leading to a doorway into a spiraling staircase that leads down the tower.
The other revealed another circular platform.
Hikari sat down and began her meditation.
The mana she absorbed in the room coursing through her body.
The runes she absorbed, she replayed them in her head over and over again.
She opened her eyes.
Raising her palm, she released a wave of golden flame. Illuminating the chamber.
"Here goes nothing."
She sat down on the circular platform.
The mechanism rumbled.
It brought her to the next room.
A stick man with semi circles on both arms, two vertical squiggles and two horizontal squiggles.
The ground lit up, warming Hikari's bottoms.
Hikari stood up, balancing herself on one leg, pasting the sole of her other foot onto the thigh.
"This is the way to beat this kind of trial. Better get used to the pose."
The ground heats up.
It's harder to channel a frost shield between her foot and the ground. She would have to vent the heat as it moved up her body. Standing on one leg halves the heat flow.
Four sets of squiggles. Six sets of squiggles.
Hikari breezed through the low intensity levels, focusing on absorbing as much mana as she could.
Twelve sets. The skeletons started emerging.
Hikari switches legs as she was getting stiff.
Her soles were red from the heat as she lifted them.
The piles of skeletons appeared on every level. The cloth wrappings Sheela wrapped around her foot caught fire and burnt.
She was starting to feel the searing heat on her soles.
"Sand resists flames"
Hikari pulled all of the sand in the room, coalescing them onto her soles.
The layer of insulation greatly reduces the flow of heat.
Hikari pushed freezing mana downwards, adding another layer of insulation.
The last room dims as the mana dissipates.
The compartment at the end of the room opened, revealing a second crystal.
Hikari absorbed it and meditated.
The information settled into her brain.
She opened her eyes. Her stomach growled.
"Last stretch and then a feast awaits me."
She released a wave of golden flames. It was exactly the same as before.
"What was the second crystal supposed to do?"
Hikari looked around the room. More stick man carvings on the walls.
"Seriously, who drew these?"
There were stick men in various poses. The only consistent thing was a crayon carving of a fire symbol between every stick man.
"Looks like some kind of dance."
Hikari released a wave of flame, then she moved her body following the stick man.
For a brief moment, the flame moved sideways before petering out.
"Ohhh… so that's what it is. Neat. I can change the direction of the flames."
Instead of a flame wave, Hikari channeled a hovering fireball. She began walking around the room, bringing the fireball along with her.
She practiced. Hurling ball after ball of fire against the wall.
Her stomach growled.
"Right, I better wrap this up quickly."
The mechanism rumbles.
Up she goes.
A stick man and two flame symbols.
Two stone wyvern heads statues appeared at the end of the room, hurling fireballs at her at a steady pace.
She deflected them again and again for several dozen reps, until it was clock work.
"How do I end this? Do I smash the wyvern heads?"
A stick man carving on the wall opposite a wyvern head carving. Two fire symbols in between them, positioned diagonally opposite each other.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
She continued deflecting the fire balls in random directions.
"I'm stuck, maybe I should just smash the ground."
Out of sheer luck, a fire ball struck one of the wyvern statues. She sensed a spell activated inside the wyvern statue. A moment later, the fire balls stop.
"Oh"
After three tries, she hit the wyvern statue with a fire ball.
Six flame symbols. Ten flame symbols.
The rooms started expanding, more and more wyvern statues.
Hikari positioned herself off the center platform. The statues constantly fire in a straight line which allows her to find a blind spot.
Sixteen flame symbols. Twenty four flame symbols.
Thirty two flame symbols. Several skeletons.
The room was flooded with a brief flurry of fireballs.
After a brief but intense scuffle, the last wyvern statue fell silent.
Hikari was starting to feel sweaty.
Her salamander suit was able to absorb her sweat.
But her foot felt sweaty and sticky. Juggling so many fireballs does make her move a lot.
The platform rumbled, raising her upwards.