The dragonstone trial of each world utilised some unique methods which stopped any dragons from gaming the system. Every single trial taker knew this, but many still tried, even if it was a fruitless endeavour.

The third world made use of an ancient palace of a dead civilisation as their trial grounds. Not for architectural reasons, or the arrays carved here in advance, but because the entire palace actually existed as the Mind palace of a supreme tier individual! The palace contained numerous effects which always remained active so long as the palace continued on.

As for how the dragons here stopped youngsters from gaming the system, the floors and trials Icy undertook actually formed under a random process. Every single time a new dragon entered, the array already filled up its memory with a newly formed selection of monsters and traps.

Furthermore, all the rooms utilised the exact same style to avoid situational advantages which depended on luck in one's battlefield over actual skill.

The third world took a rather unique stance by using these randomly laid out floors of a palace. Furthermore, the rate at which dangers increased meant that a requirement to offset this growing difficulty came up. Icy finally decided on what options helped most as the ruined hydra head collapsed to the ground.

Massive boils and blisters all over its body already burst and sprayed blood all over. Cuts, bruises, and burnts covered every inch of its giant body at least double the length of himself! Tiny holes bored through its body at hundreds of spots, the extremely agile snake actually dodged his soul armament as well!

But such small wounds rapidly built up in the course of minutes, Icy also struck it repeatedly with soul and psychic spells until the doors finally opened. Just at the bottom of mithril tier, obviously, it retained some power related to its original body, but most of those things were completely lost. He killed it with ease and stood in place, patient as he recovered.

The illusory body faded as usual with the pathway up to the next floor now available once more. Icy stood for a few more seconds as that empty voice echoed in the tiled room.

“For victory over the Floor Lord, an allocation is offered. There are three options: Obtain a layout of all further floors upon entry, prepare an array in 5 minutes which may be used once per room, and a weak sense to find useful or secretive trial items,” the voice finished its turn but offered no clarification about them all.

Fortunately, they described themselves rather well. The first was functionally useless, the map meant nothing with exceptions to a couple specific cases. The third one aided those who spent time and effort on investigations to discern the locations of these places, but the rewards for such a thing almost always made up for it. That middle one though…

Honestly, five minutes was more than enough time to cobble together an array for mithril tiers. And if built with a bit of care he might be capable of resisting weak master tiers. While just a few rooms of difference, he very much doubted that Kalmiktar made great progress into the fourth floor.

Icy made his decision after some thought of what possible arrays to create in such short times, several ideas cemented in his mind as the dragon stated, “I’d like to prepare an array.”

Weakly, he sensed that something teleported him away from the room. A moment later that teleportation completed, and he appeared in a black box made of unidentifiable stone. And surprisingly, his eyes actually failed to see through the stone, even with Origin Force to enhance it the penetration barely passed through… Wait, he focused on the sides for another second to realise the fault.

This box of unknown stone was over ten metres thick! No reason he failed…

“Please create the desired array purely using mana, the palace will test it and directly reproduce its effect,” the palace’s array spoke once more with an interesting bit of information. Reproduction of an array meant that a dragon couldn’t merge it with innate abilities to create a stronger overall effect.

For example, if Icy created an array which merged Origin Force into the Effect portion. A rather debilitating addition, but he never considered this method anyway. The spirit lacked the energy to go on for so long.

And so, with an idea in mind, and no longer limited by materials, Icy sketched three arrays in a vertical stack. This was an idea he came up with months ago, and utilised a fair bit of Draconic knowledge to build it… Ignoring how he leveraged some content from that Great sage’s palace too.

A fairly universal mithril tier array which could be layered with all manner of things!

It didn’t allow opposing arrays to merge together, or those with different intentions, not to mention arrays of drastically different sizes… And various pathways easily burnt out if you added more than four layers.

Okay, so not a universal array to build off.

But this one at least provided a great generic effect which effortlessly built off into any specific direction. Icy chose two arrays which explicitly sealed the physical body and magical energies of anything hit by its effects. Naturally, without Origin Force or great languages, it was barely a flickering candle compared to the masterpiece which sealed a Blossoming wizard, but he found the array satisfactory.

The five minute time limit ended and he received a confirmation of the array in the form of a simple marking glued to his neck. Written in Draconic, it read, “Array.” Its completion teleported Icy back into the empty, tiled room with a staircase at its back, the third floor awaited him.

But, as stated, a bunch of mithril tiers really couldn’t threaten him much! Those who used their bodies fell easily with soul or psychic spells. Those with strong spells or magical defences died quickly under the effect of his pocket watch or orb, while each use drained a bit of power he reserved almost everything for the final fight of this floor.

Another 54 rooms dropped dead without too much struggle.

Honestly, the fact the palace cast his array without any mana cost saved him dearly. Some of those fights would’ve actually required a huge amount of mana, Origin Force, and soul power without its sealing effects.

“A dragonified manticore, they even shrunk it down so it could fly in these small rooms. That tail isn’t an issue, might hurt a bit, although…” Icy stopped his analysis through the open doors to this final room. Eyes locked with the manticore, he realised that it wasn’t needlessly aggressive like the hydra’s head or minotaur, it watched him carefully too. His voice piped up once more in those few seconds, “Not even a master tier and I’ve got to use it?”

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Rather noticeably, a second glowing mark sat right beside the ‘Array’ marking on his neck, this one simply wrote, “Sword.”

As the previous floor stated, he could find secrets from here on, and luckily managed to come across a rusted sword by breaking a completely random tile in a room. Honestly, even with his sight enhanced, this secret just did not appear. And the tile wouldn’t break if a wide-area spell was cast. Only breaking if a direct attack hit that specific tile, fortunately, his orb smashed into that patch of tiles after it penetrated an enemy. And no, he didn’t randomly jab the soul armament into random places on the whole floor in search for more secrets. Some actual methods for this existed, but the whole process revolved around using your head and observation instead of brute forcing through magic.

Differences in tile layout, subtle geometrical puzzles which pointed you towards the place, even vague distortions in space and mana densities hiding a code. Just three of the methods he noticed, but failed to even start on the puzzles.

At times like this, he really wished Mala came along, but the secrets purposely existed to help dragons with lower direct firepower but better alternate methods.

“I only have three minutes, not like I’m solving any of them after an hour.” Icy sighed and walked through the slightly open double doors, eyes focused on the manticore and staircase behind it.

While the palace only gave three minutes to enter a new room after one is cleared, it also only gave five minutes to clear any chosen room. Failure meant the end of a trial attempt, so what he really asked himself was something else too.

Could he kill a peak mithril tier, on his own, in less than five minutes?

Maybe. As he entered, another word revealed itself on the other side of his neck, this one read, “Shield.” The only other out-of-place tile he happened across in over 50 rooms, and the only other secret obtained by him.

As soon as the doors closed behind him, completely prepared for battle, the manticore moved. A frantic speed as its body of a lion exploded like a cheetah, like a supersonic bolt it charged towards him with teeth, claws, and tail ready to strike regardless of how he evaded. This opponent not only knew how to fight, but did so better than him!

Honestly, Icy knew very little about melee combat as a beast, a fault entirely placed on his spell-focused combat in the end.

The pocket watch came out and activated instantly, already wound up to 10 seconds as a precaution, and Icy jumped around the manticore without hesitation. His top speed exploded out and leapt around it, an orb pulled out and charged up for an attack. However, he was forced to replace it with a silver layer over his head as the previously slowed tail jabbed out.

As though accelerated as well, it easily kept up with his speed and smashed into his head. The silver armour cracked and a small hole poked through as venom was injected into Icy’s body.

Ice cream in contact with the venom blackened and turned to a rotten mush instantly, and he panickedly forced out every last drop. It occurred to him that the dragons were hardly so stupid to give anything here a normal type of poison or venom, he suffered due to a single mistake but survived thanks to his Undying Body. The chunk of his missing head recovered nearly straight away, fortunately, it mostly destroyed his face and not his brain.

“Are they all going to have this shit? Array!” Icy shouted in his accelerated state and felt a buzz on his neck, the marking activated as a burst of blue light exploded outwards from him. As the final seconds of the situation ended, he pulled out the orb once more and charged it up with a directed smack towards the manticore’s tail barb.

Obviously, now weakened and against the orb it shattered like burnt bone against a rock.

A few more zips sent the orb through its body but the tail still moved at an ungodly speed to block anything fatal. Even when weakened, tough crimson dragon scales up and down its body made it difficult to penetrate all the way through in one motion.

Since physical damage clearly wouldn’t work, he changed the plan to magical. His Mind palace descended in the final second of acceleration and Icy cast the Adept true spell, Attrian’s Mental Collapse, a spell named after its human creator. Converted to Draconic, it came to 209 words, or 102 when condensed, and in truth one rarely saw named spells at this level.

Most wizards with enough pride refused to name these ‘ordinary’ spells after themselves. They reserved their names for anything with great languages, but that digressed too far.

The manticore’s mind mimicked an Intermediate palace just like Icy’s, but lacked any evolutions to enhance it. Now suppressed further by his array, its responses and movements weakened even further, easily within range for him to stay way outside the tail’s range and dodge the manticore as his spell completed.

Attrian’s Mental Collapse easily activated, drawing a sizable 30% of his MP for the single spell, but he watched enjoyably as the manticore stood dazed from the wave of psychic power which flooded its palace. In that daze, Icy jammed the orb into its eye and crushed its brain, but such damage triggered a reflex as something forced the resting orb outwards. Then its tail blocked any further strikes… what a strange creature the palace created.

No matter, Icy took the extreme weakness in stride and began another spell. Acceleration began anew, 15 more seconds of it, something he needed to kill the manticore in the next strike.

Seconds passed, and Icy very quickly passed 100 words, but continued even as the acceleration ended with 120 said aloud… Still, he continued. The manticore woke up from its daze, the flood of psychic powers focused on maximising their efficiency over raw damage, even if it already cracked and broke quite a few bricks of its palace.

With the spirit and palace to help dodge for just a few more seconds, Icy ended the spell at 158 words.

Kansunaed of Psychic Decimation, a spell created by a now-extinct spirit race who existed as corporeal souls. Exactly 300 words long, and one of the only three Master true spells Icy knew…

Condensed mana rushed out of his palace’s basement alongside hundreds of flickering dots of light from its attic. An insane number of souls as well as condensed mana which no mithril tier ought to be capable of creating, all of it released to feed the spell which already devoured everything in his body for mana reactions.

Origin Force released from the sack beside his heart and the spirit detached for mere milliseconds as it infused the mass with his spell.

“Shield!” Icy shouted out with a frown, the claws and jaws just inches away came to a stop. A wall of bright, blue light completely blocked what may have been fatal and ended his chance at the trial.

The shield moved upwards slightly and blocked a smash attack as the manticore’s tail swung down, its final action as the spell finally completed.

Icy saw hundreds of javelins formed entirely of psychic elements, but hardly finished there as a net of further energy connected the javelin shafts together. As they flew towards the manticore’s mental space, they forcibly tore into its Mind palace and impaled inaccurately. Some penetrated buildings, but a majority simply coated the entire land which these were placed upon, tightening the net at the same time.

It too saw all this, unable to attack or retreat as the net now suppressed its Mind within the palace, the buildings did nothing to protect it from this… And then it died. The manticore was unable to see how, but Icy with glowing eyes given a clear sight. The massive net which encapsulated its palace reached a critical point in the spell. The final step as its creator called it.

The whole thing exploded.

Torrents and shockwaves of psychic elements tore through bricks, metal, wood, and the natural stone of the mental space generated by this array. The manticore dissipated as the illusion ended, and Icy completed the third floor.

He had to use the shield, an unfortunate loss, with a bulging requirement that whatever he obtained here saved his ass once he climbed those stairs.

“For victory over the Floor Lord, an allocation is offered. There are three options: A reduction in opponents’ power (10%), may exit a room through any door once every two won battles, summon 4 orbs of primary elements (~220 word spell) every room,” the voice stated each option clearly, with added detail to make the choice easier as well, but Icy already knew something very much truthful about them.

They all really sucked.

And in verifiable annoyance, he scornfully said, “I might actually lose the stone because of this crap?” Three rewards were suitable for the second floor, not the third. Obviously, the ability to exit rooms couldn’t matter less… But why did the only two ‘good’ options have such weak effects!