During the fight, 2 units of spiritual energy were used for the Plant Growth and another 4 units were used by the Energy Shield.
The Wood Control spell used the remaining 16 units of spiritual energy. So he still had 78 units left and could fight another golem or two.
He had used 9.33 seconds to approach the golem. Then 1 second was used to activate the Plant Growth and Wood Control spell.
After that, he waited for 2 seconds to activate the energy shield spell. He had mastered this spell completely, so it didn't take a long time for him to activate it.
The last 1 second after that was the time it took him to crash into the golem and bind it completely with his vines. This all comes to a total of 13.33.
This reminded him of what his second teacher in the Dyson family training facility had said about not needed up to 30 seconds to defeat an enemy. Now that he has achieved it, he agrees with her that 30 seconds is too much time to defeat an enemy.
It took him 10 minutes to recover completely. During that time, he thought long and hard about his fight and tried to come up with things he could have done better.
Then he decided to fight the golem a fourth time. He decided to try other strategies to see if he could get better and shorten his completion time.
So he said, "Retry."
His fourth battle with the golem started after 20 seconds. Then it ended in 20 seconds.
He thought about the fight and chose to retry it. This time, he ended the fight in 16 seconds.
He tried again for the sixth time. He learned his lessons and improved. So the fight ended after 11 seconds.
He tried for the seventh time, but there was no progress. The fight still ended after 11 seconds.
He said to himself as he rested after the seventh fight, "It seems like I've reached my limit."
The problem he tried to solve the fourth time was the long time it took him to reach the golem. After all, the 9.33 seconds he spends before reaching his target is the largest proportion of his completion time.
He thought that if he could shorten those 9.33 seconds, he would defeat the golem in a shorter time. He decided to solve this problem by using the swift body spell first.
His plan worked partially. The swift body spell increased his 180 meters per second speed by 90 meters per second. With a speed of 270 meters per second, he was able to get to the golem faster.
The golem had a speed of 60 meters per second. This meant that the two of them had a combined speed of 330 meters per second, so they were able to cover the distance to f 2,000 meters and reach each other in 6 seconds. That is an improvement of 3.3 seconds.
Unfortunately, he couldn't control his speed. So he wasn't able to react fast enough, which caused him to have a completion time of 20 seconds in the fourth fight with the golem.
He did better in the fifth fight. But he still couldn't take full advantage of his speed because he couldn't time the release of the Plant Growth and Wood Control spell properly.
Fortunately, he worked out the kinks of the strategy in the subsequent two fights. He was able to consistently reach the golem in 6 seconds and use the remaining time to defeat it.
While this is 3 seconds faster than his completion time of seconds during the third fight, it cost more energy to achieve it.
The extra swift body spell cost him an extra 10 spiritual energy. But he thinks that the extra energy cost was worth it.
After trying and failing to improve his completion time, he came to the conclusion that he might have acquired the best strategy he could use with the resources he had at hand. So he decided to move on to level 2.
This time, after he was done resting, he said, "Advance."
His environment didn't change. But two different golems and a countdown appeared before him.
FIGHTING EXCELLENCE TEST.
Cultivation Rank: Second Mortal Coil.
Cultivation Level (Body Refining): Second Transformation.
Cultivation Level (Energy Refining): Second Transformation.
Test Level: 2
Goal: Defeat the opponent as fast as possible.
Countdown: 0 minutes and 19 seconds.
The first golem was the previous one he fought seven times. It had a sword, a shield, and a bow. So he didn't spend much time examining. His attention was mostly on the second golem.
The second had the same physical form as the previous one. It had a silver metallic body etched with runes.
This golem also had a shield in one hand and a bow on its back. But that's where similarities end.
The other arm of the golem was empty. This was the arm that should be holding a sword. But there was no sword in sight. It only had a red glove.
When Arthur saw this red glove, he groaned and complained. "Is this a bit too much?"
A gloved hand means the golem can cast spells. According to the guide, golems don't have much variety in terms of spells. They can only cast two elemental spells at most.
It is normal for a spellcasting golem to appear in the second level of the test. But it is a bit out of the ordinary when that golem can cast one of the elemental spells that the wood element is weak to.
He can tell that the golem can cast fire element spells. He guessed that immediately he saw that the color of its glove was red. The guild had made what the red color signifies clear to him.
So not only will he have to fight two golems at once. He has to fight one that uses fire spells. It is why he complained.