After the dark tunnel, Seph found himself in a vast room that was fairly empty but for a sizable space in the middle, filled with objects.

He opened the box from the last trial to see what was inside.

Inside was a pair of footwear, that were green with tree leaves details on them. They looked kind of sturdy, and he used the eye on them.

Appraising…

Name: Footwear of the Trap Master

Type: Footwear

Quality: Rare

Durability: 100%

Magical Ability: Reduce the damage from traps by 50%.

Increase your speed by 20%.

“Wow, these are nice shoes. I haven't seen any like them before. They look great! This will be the most stylish thing I ever wear, don’t you agree, Sun?”

Sun nodded his head, barking excitedly for his human!

Seph sat on the ground, removed his old shoes, which were quite a mess with many holes in them by now.

He threw each one away and wore his new footwear of the trap master.

Done with the last challenge officially now, he focused on the room he was inside, readied himself mentally for a fight, and started heading to the center area.

Once he was closer, he noticed that there were statues in the middle of the room.

He couldn’t tell where they ended or what was behind them.

They were all looking to the left side, whichever side you looked at them from, upon becoming closer to them.

Made of wax were the statues he noticed; They looked like soldiers, their chest armor made of animal hides.

They all had the same simple helmets made of animal hides that couldn’t possibly protect them from the steels of war, and they were all barefoot.

Quite puzzled about what he should do with these statues, Seph started circling the sizable group of statues to the left.

He passed two sides of what could be a square that they formed on the ground, and nothing different was to be noticed.

Still, all unmoving statues that all looked to the same area, he thought of attacking one to see what was behind it, but opted not to do that.

You never know, maybe all of them will become alive and attack me together, he thought. He didn’t like his chances if that fight were to break out.

Seph continued moving to the right of the opposite side he saw at first, the statues still looking to the left. Somewhere in the middle of that side, he found a statue looking straight at him!

To his surprise, the statue’s face didn’t look human at all.

It had the face of a demon, bulging eyes, thick eyebrows, a big almost animalistic nose, and tusks coming out of his mouth, pointing upward!

This is bad, this is so bad. I really hope I don’t have to fight them. Their faces alone are so scary.

Seph stood in front of it for five seconds and then touched it, but nothing happened.

After molesting the statue for three minutes, he continued circling the square and checked if there was anything else to be seen, but all was the same, only that statue was different.

So Seph went back to it and steeled his resolve. He attacked it with an overbearing palm strike. After doing just that, the statue shattered to pieces and revealed an opening behind it, allowing Seph to enter an enclosed area behind all the statues.

He wondered what would have happened if he attacked the wrong one, and shuddered at the possibilities.

In the enclosed space, which was still pretty big, most of the room was empty.

Except for another big room in the middle, and in its four corners, four gigantic stone statues were in a sitting position.

Each one carried a unique weapon. They had the same demonic face as the statues outside, but each one had better gear carved in stone, better helmets that can protect from the steel of war. Armor that was made of steel with simple decorations on them, by the looks of it, as all the gear was carved into the stone as well, with what looked like a feather on top, and heavy steel footwear.

They had a weapon in one hand, while the other extended forward.

Each statue had the index finger pointed in a different direction.

Seph closed in on one statue, the one carrying a big Mace, and he noticed a key at the end of its extended finger. He didn’t think about it and extended his hand instinctively to take the key.

Once he took the key, the statue stirred. Seph freaked out and jumped back.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

It stood from its sitting position, and attacked with the Mace, an overhead arc attack intended to smash Seph to the ground.

Seph jumped back once more, and after he steeled his resolve that he was now in a fight, he extended his palms and launched a palm strike at the statue’s leg, which was towering over him by over five feet.

The strike chipped some small stones from the statue’s hip, and cracks began appearing.

Enraged, the statue attacked Seph again in a wide arc coming from Seph’s left side, which Seph dodged again. other than being big, the statue was pretty slow, with such an enormous weapon.

Seph launched another attack on the same leg as before. More chipped stones flew out, and deeper cracks appeared. Seph thought it would need one more strike to fall.

The statue jerked his weapon back from where his last strike landed, and Seph wasn’t ready to dodge it, so he attacked the weapon with a palm strike that pushed him back, making him fall, and threw Sun away from his shoulder.

Seph couldn’t pay attention to the screech of Sun, he knew the monkey was safer away from the fight and that’s what mattered, From his position on the ground, standing on a single knee, Seph launched another Palm strike on the same spot, the hip of the statue got smashed completely by this strike but it didn’t fall.

Enraged by the destruction that Seph had caused, the statue attacked with a wide arc from the left side again. Seph rolled backward out of harm’s way, and the statue fell on its right side, which had no leg to support its weight.

Seph got up, moved closer but more carefully to the statue, and looked at it.

“You look really pathetic right now, not the big scary statue anymore, are you?”

The statue was lifting its hand to attack Seph again, but Seph didn’t give it a chance and launched multiple palm strikes to its head, and the statue never launched another attack from its prone position again.

Seph collapsed on the ground, panting. His fighting style was poor at best. All his movements are through sheer power, just power dodging all the time, no finesse.

That’s why after each fight he is panting like this because he was using his life force in the fight, not his energy.

Sun trotted over to Seph, and they both sat there for a few minutes and then Seph talked, “I don’t know what happened! I didn’t think there were going to be fights in this room. Everything looked tame so far.”

Sun moved to stand in front of Seph and pointed at himself!

“I don’t understand. You mean you want to try taking the key this time?”

Sun nodded his head fast with wide eyes, as if he couldn’t believe Seph understood him!

“I don’t mind, just be careful if the statue moves you jump on my shoulder or away from the fight.”

Sun nodded again and held one palm out towards Seph, and pointed at it!

Seph extended his palm and before he could ask what Sun meant, Sun stepped on his palm, putting one hand around Seph’s shoulder, and pointed towards the statue.

“Okay, I don’t know where you are going with this!”

They moved towards the statue, and once there, Seph noticed this one carrying a long spear. Sun extended his palm again toward the statue, and Seph understood him, so he extended the palm, carrying Sun closer.

The statue had its index finger pointing up, and the key held by its ring on the bottom of the finger.

Sun held the key carefully, and moved the ring up through the finger, without touching the finger again, till he got the key out.

Seph was watching wide-eyed, anticipating the statue to stir, but it didn’t!

Sun ran back to the top of Seph’s shoulder and screamed in victory!

“Hell yeah! You did it, buddy! Let’s do the next one!”

They went to the next statue which held a sword and shield, his index finger pointing to the right, and they did the same thing again, then moved to the last statue which held a long Katana, with the index finger pointing to the left and did the same thing again.

Once they had all four keys, Seph moved to the room in the middle and inserted the four keys in its sole door.

Once inside this room, Seph found it was empty!

He moved around inside, went to the walls, tapped on them. Maybe something sounded different. Nothing did.

He stomped the ground with one foot, but nothing felt different, so he just kept walking around the room, and Sun went down and walked in a different direction.

Seph stepped on a pressure plate suddenly once he felt it. He looked around wide-eyed, fearing that he stepped on a trap, but nothing happened.

A minute later Sun stepped on a similar plate, so Seph went back to stand on his and nothing happened.

“Hmm, what could this room be about? It must be a puzzle too… Maybe there are more pressure plates around?”

Not wanting to forget the pressure plates he found already, Seph went outside, and carried the foot of the statue he had destroyed, circling his energy through his hands to carry such weight, and he put it inside the room on top of the pressure plate, he told Sun to stay on his pressure plate, then continued moving around.

Again, he found a third pressure plate, and went outside to carry half the head of the statue, which was much lighter, and put it on the third pressure plate.

Moving around a little more, he finally stepped on the fourth pressure plate, and a door in the ground slid open, revealing a staircase heading down to the next room.

Inside the last room, there were three chests. One was gold with intricate decorations, another was a silver chest that was less decorated, and the third was a wooden plain chest.

Okay, this is a tough choice, if this gold chest is made of gold and I can carry it outside that should be a big prize by itself regardless of what it carries inside, but on the other hand, maybe this is a test to check if I am greedy, and I am supposed to choose the wooden chest! What if I can take all of them?

Looking over at Sun, Seph could swear he saw stars sparkling in the monkey’s eyes while he looked at the gold chest!

“Decisions, decisions. This is tougher than the puzzles and the fight with the huge stone soldier.”

Sun started screaming at Seph and pointing at the gold chest. Seph pointed at the wooden chest instead, and Sun blew a raspberry in derision, showing that he didn’t like that choice.

Seph laughed so hard till he snorted at Sun’s shenanigans and went for the golden chest and opened it. Inside was a pair of earrings!

Seph palmed, he didn’t have his ears pierced for earrings!

The earrings had a pointy hook that was supposed to go into the earlobe, connected to two coiling pieces of gold on top of each other that the earlobe would fit inside, and in the middle of the coils, there was a black pearl.

Seph used the eye on them.

Appraising…

Name: Pearl Earrings Of Defense

Type: Ear accessory

Quality: Uncommon

Magical Ability: Blocks a single attack.

Limit: One use per day.

“Not bad! Blocking an attack must be valuable in these fights! I must not get lazy, though, depending too much on this defensive charge.”

Once Seph took the earrings out, the three chests sank to the ground.

“Nooooo the gold chest!” Seph screamed, while Sun came running while screeching and kept hitting the ground where the chests sank with his fist.

He looked at Seph with big teary eyes, “I am sorry buddy, I couldn’t stop it, but don’t worry about that! We still have all your fruits. Let’s move forward out of this challenge room, though. I desperately need a change of scenery.”