It takes more than five extra minutes for the Apex Elites team to finish up this trial. According to Natalie, there's a more battle-equipped healer on their main squad. He is their tank with an extreme strength skill, but also has a similar healing ability that must have healed the mechanic in the same way Nat did to get a time like that. However, their bit of lag time behind us must have been the need to allocate more hunters to defending the village from rogue monsters. One team must have been sent to clear both dungeons individually while the other stayed behind in the valley to fend off the dozens, if not hundreds, of monsters attacking. I keep this bit of information to myself as it takes another fifteen minutes for any other teams to finish this round. Once the timer runs out, there are even four total teams that don't finish and miss out on the basic completion points. Even after the long rest we're allotted, I can tell that the stamina of my teammates is not going to last forever. Ember and I may be able to play these games for hours or even days on end without having to rest. At the rate that I see the other three restoring their MP and even HP after a simple round , I realize soon I'll be doing some of these rounds solo with Ember. This becomes more and more clear as the rounds go on. Trial three begins, and we're put in a large open icy cave environment. Hundreds of level 500-550 ice golems attack us, and a few dozen between level 600-650 in total spawn once all of the lower mobs are defeated. There is no boss room or clear exit to this large icy lair; there is only a prompt reading [Defeat All of the Enemies[⅙]] in the sky. There are multiple waves, and the next waves only begin once the previous are cleared entirely. We take about forty minutes to clear all six waves, and once the trial is complete, we come in fourth place. As she says this, I realize Ember and I have been outputting hundreds of thousands of MP over the last few trials like it's nothing. I remember back to one of the exam questions about how much rest time a hunter needs after exerting 0.1% of their mana control, and if this were my true control that I'm showing her, right about now would be when I'd start feeling the effects of using up so much mana. However, I shrug it off. "We've been through worse. Don't worry about us." Once the door opens and we walk through, the three of us are stranded on a desert island. The sky is covered in clouds and there is fog that hovers over the sea in all directions, limiting our vision to a few dozen meters ahead at most. Text pops up in the sky next to a timer. [Memorize the pattern of safe stones to make it all the way to the final island. You have 55 minutes to make 100 steps. You must travel from step to step in order to complete this trial! Go back to the start as many times as you wish, but if you step on a danger stone, you have failed to complete this trial.] As soon as we read this, massive rocks float up in the ocean in rows of three. Two of the rocks are red while one is green on every step. "Is this some kind of joke...?" I whisper out loud. I jump another ten meters off to the middle rock on the second set, and once Ember and Marcie follow, the second set of three grey rocks turn green. I don't remember what the third set looked like at all, and neither do either of my teammates. "Well, it said we can restart as many times as we want, right?" We all fly back to the starting island, and once our feet hit the sand again, the rocks reset. One hundred sets of three massive boulders trail off into the ocean. Two are red on each one, and one is green. I stare off into the sea thinking about how exactly we'll remember this pattern in such a short period of time. A few minutes have already passed, and every second we wait will only add up to make this problem harder. It is possible if we concentrate hard, and split it up by taking 33-34 each, flying over the entire puzzle and memorizing as much as we can that could work, but there must be another way... Marcie proposes exactly what I was thinking, and Ember agrees that it's possible, but there must be an easier and faster way to complete this challenge. The corner of my lips curl upward as I shove my hand into my fake item box and pull out a bright blue recording crystal. "Emrie, you're right. I think we have a much more efficient option right here." I imbue mana into the gem, then float up in the air with lightning crackling beneath my feet while the recording crystal records a lifelike image of whatever I point it at. I turn back to the two still standing on the island. "Stay here. I'll be right back." With the crystal pointed down at the rocks, I lightning step high above every one of them until I make it back to the final island we're supposed to reach. Considering we haven't stepped on the first rock yet, the green and red patterns showing which rock is safe to jump on are still visible on all of them. There's no need to memorize the pattern anymore now that I have a perfect picture of the answers in front of me. Once I get back, I set the recording to play, and we hop from rock to rock with confidence, turning every one of them green, making it across the entire maze in less than 10 minutes. Once we all step foot on the final island and all of the rocks are glowing green, the simulation around us disappears, and the silver door appears with a message above it. [Congratulations! [00:44:52] Remaining! Trial 8 Complete! 1 Point awarded to all applicants! 1 MVP point awarded to Ray Anderson. You've come in 1st place, 1 additional point awarded to all applicants present! Please rest until your next Trial begins.] I can't help but wave an excited fist at the door. "Take that, Apex Region! One step closer, we just need to do that a few more times!" "You really want to win this thing now? I thought top 12 was all we were aiming for." I shrug and walk through. "It can't hurt to win in this event. Thanks to that written exam we're still pretty far behind, I say we get a little more serious." "It's time we start using our ranked up buffs. No more conserving energy."