The Training Dummy clashed with the crescent sand blade as the Steel Naga slithered low to swipe and thrust from unorthodox angles. With a quick flourish of its sword, it sliced off one of its giant clawed hands but the other forced it a step back.

  Gilgamesh constantly raced around the conflict, adjusting his position with the flow of battle to never let the Training Dummy get a clear lunge at him. It tried to break its way out, but the two golems lashed out recklessly enough to force it back on the defensive as they retook their envelopment.

  A hard blow caused the Training Dummy to misstep, and the Steel Naga lunged at the opening. But the Training Dummy seamlessly slid from its off-balance footing into a favorable stance and struck back.

  And exactly at the same time, the Steel Naga budged just to the side with a veering attack. Its initial lunge was a mere feint against the Training Dummy’s own.

  The Training Dummy moved its sword to counter, and the Steel Naga landed a clean swipe of its tail. This was the true intention all along, hidden behind yet another feint. The strength of the blow was not great, but it was enough to knock the puppet off balance.

  The Training Dummy raised its shield to the soaring crescent blade, but the Shifting Sand dipped low from its high feint and severed through one of its legs. The puppet staggered to a knee and in that moment, it saw Gilgamesh through a small opening.

  It burst forth without hesitation, right into Gilgamesh’s trap. A swipe of the Steel Naga’s waiting hand tripped it to crash along the ground. Immediately, the Training Dummy jolted to raise its shield up from the ground, but a trident made of sand pierced around it, straight through its head and torso. And the match reset.

  [ Master Golem Core has reached level 7. You are rewarded 5 Attribute Points. ]

  With that victory, Gilgamesh had won six of his last ten fights against the Hard Mode Training Dummy. He had become undeniably superior to it. Although he wanted to stay until he could win all ten times in a row, the Trial was nearly over.

  [ Spirit: 97 -> 102 ]

  [ You have achieved a Meaningful Feat. ]

  ‘Powerhouse I: Raise an Attribute to 100.’

  [ You are rewarded 5 Attribute points. ]

  [ Spirit: 102 -> 107 ]

  [ Gilgamesh - Hero (Iron Rank) ]

  Attributes:

  Strength - 2

  Agility - 7

  Vitality - 10

  Perception - 30

  Force - 3

  Spirit - 107

  Control - 45

  Willpower - 20

  Traits:

  Incomplete Stigmata (???), Master Golem Core lvl. 7 (silver), Passive Meditator lvl. 5 (bronze), Golem Peerer lvl. 5 (bronze), Mana Insulation lvl. 8 (bronze), Mana Connector lvl. 8 (bronze),

  Material: Clay (inferior)

  Mana Capacity: 1,070/1,070

  Unalloted Attribute Points: 0

  Gilgamesh glanced at his status. He had raised Willpower to 20 earlier, which allowed him to wield Shifting Sand and two Low Grade golems without mental strain. But aside from that, he had poured every last Attribute Point he acquired into Spirit.

  Gilgamesh did not bask in his achievements. He returned to the Arena at once and entered its dueling grounds.

  His opponent seemed unremarkable in both equipment and demeanor, and when the Puppet Emperor raised its arms, he confirmed as much with a single severing attack from his Shifting Sand.

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  The Puppet Emperor withdrew a wooden gladius and offered it to Gilgamesh, but he rejected it plainly. Another person appeared in front of him immediately, some wretched man drenched in fear who couldn’t even hold his dagger firmly. Gilgamesh severed him in half as well without mercy, and turned to the next fight without even bothering to remember their names.

  [ Gilgamesh vs Shib Vroom ]

  A middle-aged man with a strong build and an expression that welcomed violence greeted him with a sneer. As soon as the fight began, Gilgamesh sent his Shifting Sand and Steel Naga forth, and the man erupted in flames.

  The Steel Naga melted almost immediately, though the Shifting Sand survived and rapidly regenerated its lost metal. But Gilgamesh did not panic. He activated a Sentry Ball to replace his naga and formed his Shifting Sand into a shield.

  Shib’s hair turned to flames and his skin turned a pale red. Fireballs ignited in his hands as he hurled two towards Gilgamesh. They exploded on his sand shield with impressive force but the shield endured.

  Seeing this, Shib launched a strange fireball into the sky, which broke apart and rained down smaller motes of flames all around. Gilgamesh reformed his shield wider to protect him from the heat, and seeing this, the fiery man burst forward with an eruption beneath his feet. A fireball blazed in his hand as he circled around the shield to catch sight of Gilgamesh, only for the Sentry Ball to bash him back.

  That brief instance of contact was enough for part of the rubbery sap body of the Sentry Ball to melt, and Shib took notice. He blasted fire at the half-melted Sentry Ball, but Gilgamesh simply deactivated and stored it from a distance, then threw out another in its place.

  The man grit his teeth for a moment, then circled around Gilgamesh again with bursts of fire as he hurled more fireballs. Each exploded on the Shifting Sand shield one after the other, but the shield held firm.

  Frustration tightened Shib’s face. He pushed two fireballs together and hurled a giant mass of unstable flames. Gilgamesh sacrificed the Sentry Ball to detonate its explosion before it reached the shield, and the fiery man burst through the cover of flames to slip right past the Shifting Sand.

  But what Shib found was mere empty space. Gilgamesh had already moved away on his Snake Tail and by the time the man located him to cast more fire, he had already reset his formation with a new Sentry Ball once again.

  Desperation now seeped into Shib’s expression more fiercely with each passing moment as he unleashed fire and flames. He grasped for another fireball, but its flames dissipated in his hand. The fire that wreathed around his body soon followed with the exhaustion of his mana, and a chakram of brass sand took his head.

  Next was a woman who took one look at his three golems and reluctantly yielded before the fight began. The opponent that followed was a woman as well, similar in age to himself, and the crowd cheered a little louder than before.

  She had dark skin and dark red hair woven back into loose braids. Her clothing was half practical and half frivolous, unremarkable apart from an intricate amulet around her neck. Though more relevant than that was the pale blue light of Foresight glowing within her pupils. She glanced over his golems, but neither her expression nor posture changed.

  [ Zerah Saba vs Gilgamesh ]

  “More likely a spellcaster than a warrior, but I cannot be sure. No indication of what powers she holds or the style she fights in, either...” Gilgamesh assessed. "Her name is first..."

  Gilgamesh had noticed a trend that the Arena would place the fighters' names in order of strength. Whether that was based on the strength of their Abilities or by some other measure, he did not know. But he did not intend to take her lightly either way. Gilgamesh replaced his Sentry Ball and Snake Tail with a Roaming Throne and Wooden Totem for his Balanced Formation, and awaited the start of the fight.

  Gilgamesh sent his sand chakram soaring forth as a test, but it was stopped in place by an invisible force. He strained his golem against it, but it would not budge even an inch. Magic Missile fired out from the Totem to strike at her in response, but it merely crashed against a shield of mana much like the one he had used with his Mana Screen Bracelet. Although hers was clearly more durable.

  Zerah stood casually with her arms crossed and a general air of disinterest, having not even reacted to the attempts. The silent disrespect towards him was obvious, but Gilgamesh felt no malice towards it. His unfaltering eyes only saw a lesser fighter.

  He cast another Magic Missile to the right, and she moved her shield over to effortlessly block it as well. But small cracks spread through the point of impact, and he fired two more bolts of mana in quick succession to each side.

  Zerah conjured another Mana Shield to block them both, but cracks spread deeper through the first and with the next volley, it shattered. She conjured a new shield to replace it, but Gilgamesh simply cast again.

  He waited patiently from a distance as he cast one Magic Missiles at a time to gradually break her shields one after the other. And the Sabaean woman finally started to show some concern.

  She unleashed a blast of raw concussive mana after him, but his Roaming Throne easily sidestepped it with a burst of speed. Gilgamesh's eyes narrowed just slightly from the pain, but that did not slow his methodical assault. As his Wooden Totem neared the usage of double its Capacity, he simply swapped it out for a new one with full mana.

  Zerah cast a Mana Blast at his Magic Missiles with perfect timing to destroy them both, but two more followed in their wake. Pressure now firmly replaced her previous dismissiveness.

  Blue light shone from the jewel within her amulet as wisps of mana flowed from the surrounding air into her. She, too, grew more methodical, timing his Magic Missiles with her Mana Blasts to challenge Gilgamesh to a contest of mana capacity.

  A contest where the outcome became increasingly obvious, to her frustration. Eventually, a Mana Blast failed to form and the last of her shields shattered.

  Zerah frowned as the final bolts of mana curved towards her. “I yield…”

  She vanished with his victory, and what replaced her was a familiar face to the sound of a roaring crowd. It was Urah, the most prevalent of Marduk’s lackeys, and the one who had tormented him the most eagerly.

  Urah could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw Gilgamesh, but that momentary shock soon turned to sadistic anticipation.

  [ Urah vs Gilgamesh ]

  [ Three-Headed Snake ] is watching with anticipation.

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