Chapter 415: Eight Limbs.
If they run out of internal energy to use the energy shield, then they will resort to expending life energy to reinforce their flesh with life force so as to resist the heat.
This is a last resort because reinforcing the flesh with life force will only reduce the damage by a small amount if at all.
It is more likely that hardening the skin and flesh won’t eliminate the damage caused by fire. It also won’t eliminate the pain of being burned alive.
Besides, they need the life energy to enhance their physical power so that they can withstand the pressure and move. If they also used their life energy to defend themselves against the heat, they would quickly run out of it and be unable to continue.
Not only can using internal energy to protect themselves make them conserve energy, but they will also gain an advantage of energy recovery because they can recover their internal energy with mana from the environment while they use their shield. The recovery rate will be slow, but it will be better than nothing.
Using an energy shield or life force to protect themselves are the only two options that people at the second mortal coil have. But those at the third mortal coil have the help of their foundation.
This is one of the reasons why people at the third mortal coil are not normally allowed to participate in this trial. It is because the foundation that has been established can grant some people undue advantages in this trial, like fire resistance.
In some cases, the foundation can even make the body stronger. An increase to the outright strength of the body is unlikely, but an increase to durability and toughness is pretty common.
All in all, this causes those at the third mortal coil to have certain advantages even though their outright power output might not be different from those at the peak of the second mortal coil.
While Arthur was still at ease, everyone else was having a hard time. It is not that they haven’t been having a hard time right from the start of the trial. But things got worse in the second section.
The speed at which most people ascended the mountain slowed down as soon as they reached the second section. This allowed the people that had been left behind in the first section to catch up.
Thor was able to catch up to Leroy and Princess in the second section. They were still ahead of him, but the distance between them had reduced instead of widening. And by the looks of things, it was possible for him to overtake them.
When this happened, Arthur had reached the third section. His section is the yellow section. The pressure and heat doubled in this section. But there was also the appearance of wind.
The wind was blowing down the mountain, so it was blowing against the face of everyone climbing the mountain. This time, the faster someone is, the more pressure they will have to face from the wind, so Arthur slowed down.
He had the option to slow down and continue, but many people didn’t have that option. Once the pressure doubled and the energy expenditure doubled and the wind struck, many people were directly knocked back to the second section.
The wind in the third section was like a wall. Even if the wall were stationary, it would take effort to overcome its resistance.
But the wall was moving. So it was no wonder why more than 90% of everyone that made it to the third section was knocked back.
The main increase to the difficulty in the third section was the elimination of rest.
People could rest for as long as they wanted in the first section. And while it wasn’t advised to rest in the second section because of the heat wave and the expenditure of energy that it causes, people could still rest to regain their physical strength.
But people couldn’t stand still and rest in the third section. They had to constantly fight the wind just to remain standing. So standing still in the third section causes stress that is equal to the stress of moving in the second section.
Some people were able to overcome the resistance of the wind. However, they had to use enhancements to make that possible.
The enhancement methods that they used included spells like the body lightness spell, which reduces the impact of weight on speed. Many disciples of the Blood Skull sect also used their armaments to gain extra power.
Leroy used an armament constructed with the carcass of a crocodile. The armament was scaled, and the scales were blue in color.
There was also lightning jumping along the scales of the crocodile. All of these hinted at the identity of the armament as being a divine lightning armament.
Princess used an armament created with the corpse of a white bird, while Thor used an armament created from the corpse of an octopus.
All of their armaments doubled their power, but Thor’s armament granted him an advantage in the form of extra limbs.
Thor had a total of eight limbs. The eight limbs lifted him and helped him climb the mountain instead of straining himself. This let him catch up completely with Leroy and Princess.
He stood beside them and said, "What do you think of my strength now?"
Princess was highly competitive and didn’t want to admit defeat, so she tried to speed up. Unfortunately, she couldn’t fly on the mountain, so the bulk of the advantage granted by her armament couldn’t be displayed.
The three of them began competing with each other. But for many people, they had to stop at the boundary between the second and third sections of the mountain.
Of the people who had to stop, none of them were from the Blood Skull sect. Everyone in the Blood Skull sect was able to cross to the third section of the mountain and even try for the fourth section. This was because of the boost from their armament.