But regardless of their feelings and opinions, they couldn't do anything regarding the trial. Only the champions could truly make things happen. It were probably the only times when such pinnacle experts felt anxious and powerless. They entrusted everything to others. It wasn't something one could get used to, especially for those who only did so once in a century.

The trial would continue regardless of their thoughts.

...

In a different cavern, a man that had been sitting frowned. He was the one who planted a puppet in the cavern next to his own, hoping to take down a rival while at it. These kinds of puppets were rare treasures that cost a lot to manufacture and were supposed to have the ability to take down anyone under the 10th stage easily. Seems like the publicity was a lie. He sensed it activated and deactivate in mere moments through his connection with it. He snickered as he looked at the ninety-nine other puppets left surrounding him in the cavern. He had yet to activate them. He needed to send his own energy to power them at the beginning and that required quite a bit.

At most, he could load a dozen at once. He was planning to have them fight in his stead during the next step of the filtering of the trial. He only sent one out in order to test their value against other champions. He was disappointed to say the least but expected that much. Fortunately, there was a qualitative change if there was enough quantity. He would continuously meditate and activate more of the puppets as he had them fight in his stead here.

It was a pain not to have been capable of bringing more than that hundred but, truth is, it would have become detrimental. It did take time to activate and consumed spiritual energy. A dozen would leave him with only half his total quantity of energy. If not for the fact he would be able to rest and meditate here, he wouldn't have dared bring so many. He would have rather picked bigger and stronger ones that he could only activate one of. Well, he did. But he would keep them for later, there was no need to use a sledgehammer to break eggs.

...

Many contestants were having similar thoughts while preparing their own things, getting ready for the next part of the trial. And after a few minutes, it happened. The entrances to the caverns began to close with doors seemingly coming down from inside the rocks. It eventually ended up completely sealing every cavern.

Jin observed everything intently.

As the door finished its descent, the flames burning on the chandeliers burned fiercer. The fires seemed to be dancing and the sound of drums was heard along with a powerful deep and booming voice: "Champions! The trial of endurance begins!"

The sound of drums didn't stop but the voice was no longer heard, only its echo. At the same time, some kind of hatch in the ceiling opened up and something dropped down from it. It was humanoid in shape but had no features. It was brown and looked like a stringless wooden puppet. As it fell, it hit the ground heavily. There was silence and then, it began to move. At an incredibly fast speed at that. It jumped from the ground and pounced at Jin.

Jin didn't even bother to dodge, he planned to face it head down, to check its power. He tipped his spear forward, coating it in spiritual energy and as it approached, he stabbed forward. The puppet got pierced through the stomach, stopping its momentum. It was impaled. Yet, it didn't stay still. Instead, it grabbed onto the spear with one hand and prepared a fist with the second, aiming at Jin.

Jin didn't have the time to think and reacted instinctively. He let go of the spear and retreated a few steps, letting the fist move through nothing but the air. The puppet stood tall even though it had a spear inside its stomach. It didn't even bother to take it out as it readied itself for one more round.

Jin was stronger with a spear but he wasn't a weakling without. And it wasn't like this was his only spear either. A second later, he dipped his spiritual energy into a ring and out of it came a flow of liquid fire. Grabbed inside the spiritual energy, he molded it to form a spear and held it in his hands. Round two began in the very same way, with the puppet rushing at Jin.

He threw the spear towards the head and completely smashed through it, sending wooden burning splinters all over the place. The puppet didn't stop yet however and moved forward, trying to hit Jin. He dodged while frowning. Stomach and head weren't enough...Then, what? From there, he began to test things. He needed to quickly grasp the best way to take down those puppets. As the voice said, this was a battle of endurance against the other 31 champions. Finding the right way to kill them efficiently would be the best outcome. Since this was the first and, apparently, it wasn't too strong, it was the opportune time for this.

He deflected or dodged as he counter-attacked. Soon he found out that only through completely destructing them could he finish them. Either he entirely burst through them and turned them to splinters or he cut their limbs. There weren't many other ways... Fire did seem to work well against them too though. But he did not have that much liquid fire to waste on mere puppets. What if he ended up having to face someone who required him to use fire later on? It was better to use techniques to break the puppet limbs. A few seconds after he finished the first one, a second one dropped down.

He didn't think he was the last one to end his so he began to wonder how it actually worked.