I passed in front of the great door on the way to the other set of four passages. The orb in the center was much brighter now, with the light...or whatever it was, from the lines on the left flowing into it.

I took a deep breath and headed into the passage on the other side of the hub chamber closest to me. The room beyond the door at the end was quite unlike anything I’d found on the other side of the Sanctuary. It barely widened from the passage before it. By the door I entered by, there was a long, unwieldy looking hammer. At the end of the room, the wall looked to be made of an extremely sturdy and magical material.

How different this made it from the normal Sanctuary walls, I didn’t know.

[Trial of Strength]

[The activation switch is behind a series of five walls, each more difficult to break than the last.]

[Even the weakest wall will be virtually impossible for you to break without using the hammer provided.]

[Pull the switch to pass the trial. Time limit: 10 minutes. Your time will start when you touch the hammer.]

I tried to Identify the hammer. To my slight surprise, the information revealed was genuinely specific:

[A sledgehammer made of an extremely rare and magical material that becomes heavier and more dense with the stronger the person who holds it. When a certain advanced enchantment is imbued into a tool crafted with this material, the force of one’s strikes is amplified 100-fold.]

It took quite a lot of effort for me to even lift it. I wasted 30 seconds of the timer before I even managed a half-hearted swing at the first wall—after which the hammer flew out of my hands, having demolished it without my hardly feeling it hit the wall, and I hadn’t expected a follow-through. The second wall I definitely felt though, and I kept hold of the hammer through the follow-through.

The next wall held up against my clumsy swing. With a few practice attempts, and a tremendous effort, I finally managed to swing the thing properly which caused it to fly out of my hands again. The fourth wall only cracked with my next swing. The cracks widened with a second swing, and the wall finally crumbled on the third.

Beyond, the wall at the end of the hall looked the same as the normal walls of the Sanctuary. Helpfully, there was a painted arrow on the floor pointing to the hall’s end as if to say that yes, I needed to bash the wall at the end of the hall rather than anywhere else.

I gave it my best swing yet, but it only resulted in a small crack. After a second swing, it expanded, but a third didn’t seem to make good progress. I swung at different spots, cracking the wall in different places. I’d been at this for a while, and it was getting harder and harder to keep up swinging the hammer. Finally, though, I made a sizeable hole in the wall, which I expanded with one more swing, inspired by actually seeing the switch beyond.

I climbed through the hole and pulled the switch.

[Trial of Power: PASS]

[Clear Time: 9:12]

This time, the Sanctuary teleported me back to the main chamber again. “Huh...maybe that was to prevent people from taking the hammer out of that room? Anyway, if I understand this right, as long as I survive the last three trials, the door will still open. But like I said before, I might as well give it my best anyway. Besides, none of the trials after it were even close to as bad as the Trial of Pain, so far...”

The next trial was called the Trial of Cunning, and it was basically a stealth section—I had to make my way through a maze while avoiding being caught by the lenses of some kind of hovering drone things. Occasionally, a section of wall would open and I had to move quick to not get caught by the lens behind it.

There were one or two close calls, but I passed that trial as well. I had to give props to the place for having such a wide variety of challenges.

That variety didn’t stop with the 7th challenge, either. I found myself in a fairly small room. Along its left side, there were seven alcoves in the wall where I could see a different colored flame burning in each. At the center of the room were 7 braziers arranged in a hexagon shape.

[Trial of Reason]

[The seven flames represent the seven elements. Light the 7 torches using the clues. You will only have 1 chance.]

[Clue #1: No opposing element pairs may stand adjacent.]

[Clue #2: Light shines down on Wind from above.]

[Clue #3: Beneath the Earth, only Darkness is right.]

[Clue #4: Fire can only burn when higher than Water.]

“Heh, I love these kind of puzzles...except, half the time I end up looking up the answer instead of bothering to actually solve them. Well, that’s not an option here.”

The notification listing the clues sportingly refrained from disappearing.

Well for starters, it’s obvious what goes in the center. Beneath each alcove containing a flame, there was a label that, after a moment’s glance the Tower translated which indicated what flame represented which element. On the wall opposite, there was another alcove that held seven torches. I took the first one and lit it with the purple flame, representing Space—the only element that didn’t have an opposite. Then, I lit the central brazier with it. As soon as this was accomplished, the torch crumbled.

It was then that I finally saw clearly that on the floor by the braziers was a hexagonal, colored mural depicting a scene of earth, sky, and stars. The earth portion encompassed two of the torches, sky and clouds surrounded the next three up, and stars the two after that. I take it this is how I orient the “low” and “high” parts of the clues. So with the second clue...Wind can’t be on the bottom, but if Light is higher than it can’t be the top either. So it must be one of the middle level ones, and Light one of the top ones, but which one?

The only indication I had of which side a flame was on was that “darkness is right.” It seemed a little flimsy, but since none of the other clues mentioned right or left at ALL, I figured it was safe to call that significant.

I thought over the clues for several more minutes, and I was happy to find that it wasn’t that difficult to find a sure answer. I grabbed the remaining six torches and got to work. First, I put the white flame, representing Light, in the upper-left slot. Then I put the ordinary looking flame, (for Fire, obviously) in the upper slot next to it. Below that one, I lit the brazier with the brown flame representing Earth. Brown as the color for a flame seemed a little suspicious to me, making me think that this little puzzle was made possible at least in part by some sort of illusion effect. That was neither here nor there, though.

Below that flame, on the bottom-right slot, I lit the brazier with the black flame. On the bottom-left brazier next to it, I lit the blue flame for Water. Then the green flame for Wind went on the last remaining slot on the middle left.

[Trial of Reason: PASS]

The door at the opposite end of the chamber opened, revealing another switch. I pulled it and walked back to the hub chamber once again, feeling quite pleased with myself.

Now there was only one trial left. I cleared my head, making sure not to enter the final passage with an overconfident attitude or distracted by thoughts of anticipation of imminent success.