"Welcome to The Trial of Ice.
May the fiery and unforebearing be damned in eternal ice."
When those runes disappeared, Kayn found himself inside a room made of ice, with a single door in front of him.
The cold that the ice permeated was so intense that Kayn began to feel frostbite on the tips of his limbs.
Not wanting to freeze, Kayn opened up his mouth and shot a weak fireball to the ground, attempting to increase the temperature of the room a little.
But the fire did nothing as the cold kept assaulting his body from head to toe.
Kayn's mind began to panic, and he threw even more powerful fireballs to try and at least manage the temperature a little.
But no matter what he did, the coldness of the room didn't relent as it kept assaulting him, rendering his fireballs useless as Kayn already felt his feet numb from being frozen.
The more he tried to warm himself with his fire, the fiercer the cold became, as the cold had traveled up from his feet to his abdomen.
It seemed like Kayn was just put into the ice room to freeze to death. He couldn't even try to move towards the door as his feet were already frozen solid.
"Is this it? Will I just die frozen in this room?"
Kayn then remembered all the demons outside the temple, and that one demon that was just thrown away from the inside.
"I won't really die, will I? I will just be thrown out of the temple if I fail the trial…"
But as Kayn thought of that, he then realized that he was currently inside a trial. There's no way a trial would just want to kill the trial taker without any clear reasons.
Kayn then calmed himself down, thinking of the words that he saw before he found himself frozen in this room made of ice.
"Welcome to The Trial of Ice.
May the fiery and unforebearing be damned in eternal ice."
'What do those words mean?' Kayn thought to himself as he forced himself to be calm enough to assess his situation despite his frozen lower body.
As Kayn calmly analyzed the words, he realized that the cold assaulting his body began to stop.
His frozen body began unfreezing on its own as well as his mind went calm and didn't panic to try and get out of the situation.
"Is that it? May the fiery and unforebearing be damned while the cold and patient be saved?"
Feeling his body returning to normal and his body not feeling assaulted by the cold once more after he was completely calm made him think that it must be the correct answer.
With his body returning to normal, Kayn braced himself as he opened the door in front of him and walked in.
Kayn's vision abruptly changed once more as he found himself standing in what was to be a maze made of ice.
There was snow on the ground, and tall walls of ice surrounded him from all sides.
There were no clues or anything explaining to him what he should do in the maze, so Kayn just walked through the maze.
As Kayn explored the maze, he finally found his first opponent.
The creature looked just like an ordinary demon, the only difference was that it was completely made out of ice.
The demon saw him and quickly charged towards him.
Kayn began thinking of the worst scenario, such as the demon made of ice was actually much stronger than it looked, and it could kill him in just a few attacks.
As his mind began to panic, Kayn felt the ice start to assault his body once more, reminding him of the fact that he needed to remain calm at all times lest he wanted to freeze.
Kayn calmed himself down, freeing himself from the assault of the cold, and analyzed the demon of ice running towards him.
Just in case the ice demon was actually stronger than it looked, Kayn cast the self-strengthening spell before deciding to probe the demon.
Kayn shot a single fireball towards the walking ice sculpture and prepared himself to run away if the demon turned out to be much stronger than he was.
But his fear never came as the fireball continued flying and hit the ice demon squarely on its chest.
The fireball exploded, and the ice demon crumbled into pieces just from a single fireball.
It turned out to be even weaker than an ordinary demon.
But Kayn didn't just start examining the ice remains closely, instead, he stayed a distance away and inspected the demon from afar.
And his choice turned out to be the correct one, as just a few seconds later, the broken parts of the ice sculpture moved on their own as they rebuilt themselves.
Without long, the demon made of ice was whole once more, and it started running towards Kayn for the second time.
Seeing this, Kayn shot another fireball and destroyed the ice demon once again, but just like before, the demon made of ice regenerated on its own.
It came back to life as if nothing had happened to it.
Kayn then tried destroying it with his claws, then trying to destroy the creature bit by bit, shooting more fireballs at the creature when it was already crumbled to make sure that there weren't any visible parts left, but they were all useless.
No matter what Kayn did, the ice sculpture just kept coming back to life.
"So it's useless trying to destroy this thing…"
Kayn then destroyed the sculpture once more when it came back to life, but he didn't stay this time. Kayn walked away and explored other parts of the labyrinth.
"Assuming the trial didn't want me to just blindly fight those ice sculptures, then there must be something inside this maze."
Kayn then looked around him, seeing the walls made of ice that were more than twice his height.
'Wait… Can I do that…?'
Kayn then recast his self-strengthening spell as the last one had already expired and flapped his wings.
Kayn soon found himself flying above the walls of the maze, overlooking the maze from above.
"Did the creator not think of this? Even those retro game developers on Earth had already thought of ways to prevent cheaters from doing this…"
With a triumphant smile on his face, Kayn flew above the maze, his eyes scanning the maze below, trying to find the exit and finish the trial with ease using his cheat-like wings.
At least, that's what he planned to do.