With the area of the protection shortening, loads of gra.s.s were left outside which was immediately covered by the cold, freezing snow.

Allen was finis.h.i.+ng on concocting his last pill. Although some of his pills that he concocted would generally take longer to finish, the speed of concoction within the protection of the tower sped up the process.

A few of the pills that had to take a few days to finish mixing and coagulate only took minutes within the periphery of the tower!

-poof-

The furnace's hatch opened up, revealing four pills that had mixed colors of red and violet which emitted a warm aura.

On the ground were a number of small vertically cylinder vials and two other jars; one of which already had several pills of different colors within them and the other was fully empty. All of containers were found while he was picking up the needed plants and herbs in the boundary.

The glow of the surroundings dimmed. Allen looked at the barrier. It has begun blinking in and out of existence, signifying the energy was nearly out.

"EEEK!!" The monster screeched again from the depths of the cold darkness beyond the barrier.

Allen consumed one of the red-violet pills. They were special medicines for protection against the Magic Frostbite.

After which, he placed the other pills in the empty jar, strapped the vials and the other jars on his belt.

Doing one last check before leaving, the ripped garment on his elbow caused by an icicle was already fixed and the wound has healed using the healing pills he made.

Looking back at the boundary, only tens of meters remained protected; he could clearly see the snowy wasteland extending towards his location at a noticeable pace.

He took one last look on the top of the tower. Only a small portion of power was left.

Allen grabbed one of the vials, opened it, swallowed a drop and rubbed it on his clothes.

"A few drops." Allen shook the short cylindrical container. He then sealed and strapped it back on his belt.

In a few moments; he slowly became invisible and finally disappeared along with the glow of the tower.

At the same time, the ground abruptly trembled. A darker shadow covered the tower that kept stretching until the monster landed and crushed the structure with its humongous body.

However, it didn't stop there and further jumped on its destroyed remains.

It opened up its mouth full of sharp teeth and inhaled deeply to screech again.

Suddenly, the sound of breaking gla.s.s could be heard. Before the beast could even react, a cloud of green smoke appeared in front of it and the monster inhaled the whole cloud.

The monster paused and its eyes widened, and started to cough heavily. At the same time it was coughing, one out of the ten giant petals making up its mane withered and fell down, along with one of the ten eyes on that petal.

When it stopped coughing, the monster furiously gazed towards its surroundings, trying to find whoever did that. It sent out its senses to search for the culprit, but to no avail, there wasn't a single trace of it to be found.

-whoosh-

Another vial was thrown towards the monster and it exploded into green smoke again some distance away in front of it. The beast clearly spotted it and determined the source of trajectory.

It originated to the direction behind the cloud of green smoke from its perspective!

The beast then covered its front by bending its petals down then furiously hopped forward.

-whoosh-

But another vial was thrown the air towards the cloud of green smoke. The forefront tip of the beast's head was already inside the said cloud and it hit the incoming vial.

The container shattered and the liquid from it dripped everywhere, but an unforeseen situation occurred; as a drop of liquid made contact with the cloud, it instantly ignited it and a powerful explosion ensued.

Unfortunately for the monster, most of its body was still within the cloud when the explosion consumed it; because of it, it wasn't able to focus on the trajectory of its landing and it touched down a few meters away from its supposed to be landing spot.

The ground quaked once again as the monster landed unsuccessfully. Its large body kept rolling a few distance away flattening the snow on its path.

A monstrous wail echoed out.

Three of the giant creature's petals started burning and fell down to the ground!

At the same moment, the invisibility of Allen wore off and he dashed away at once!

The beast opened up the remaining petals and its eyes spotted Allen's figure running away. All of his eyes instantly turned red and aimed its sights towards him.

Allen perceived that his whole body became colder, then ice started to form on his feet and on his hands once again.

It was Magic Frostbite!

'The duration of the Magic Frostbite medicine isn't this short.' He thought to himself.

He swallowed another pill that could counter the Magic Frostbite, but there wasn't even a speck of change that occurred!

Noticing nothing happened, Allen retrieved another vial from his belt, opened it, and threw it on the ground to where he was about to arrive to. The liquid flowed out and dripped through the snow.

As he crossed the spot where the vial landed, a thick wall of gra.s.s grew out upwardly and covered the monster's line of sight on Allen.

Two of the beast's petals then withered and fell to the ground, prompting it to close its eyes and halted from what it was doing.

'My guess is right, there are a lot of dead plants buried underneath here.' The vial he recently thrown contained a quick nouris.h.i.+ng potion that could make normal plants grow a lot faster in a miniscule timeframe. He had modified it so it wouldn't freeze immediately, and plants would grow a lot crazier and even faster.

Allen sat down on the cold snow with his back supported by the thick tall gra.s.s. He clenched his hands to check if he could still feel them.

He successfully opened and closed them several times, meaning that he was still in control. But the ice was already nearing his elbow like it was some sort of a skin sickness. If the ice reached the said joint, he won't be able to use his hands properly; specially for throwing more vials and retrieving pills.

He also exerted his control over his legs and slightly lifted them up, even so, most of the part below his knee caps were nearly numb; and if the corruption of the Magic Frostbite reached his knee caps, there would be a large chance he'd be crippled and won't be able to run away.

Furthermore, the corruption showed no signs of dispersion, either from his knees nor from his wrists.

He took out another pill and ate it. Afterwards, his sight penetrated the heavy snowfall and spotted a grove of dead trees.

"If I can't find permanent cover, I'll freeze to death if that monster made the same attack again." Allen muttered. He stood up and took a peek on the monster from the edge of the wall of gra.s.s.

The beast's eyes were still closed. It was still recovering from its recent suicidal-like attack against Allen.

Meanwhile, due to the effect of extreme cold and snowfall, the wall of gra.s.s that Allen built began freezing at a fast rate. Once the ice penetrated deeply into the gra.s.s, it would begin destroying it from the inside and break it down into bits of ice.

Not wasting any time, he sprinted towards the growth of dead trees. On the way, he ate a pill which replenished his stamina to keep himself on the move.

One would be fully exhausted when they depleted themselves of their internal energy, but because his internal energy was sealed its interconnection with stamina was severed. Hence, he was now using stamina.

It's one of the reasons why in spite of the fact that the output of attacks committed by an internal energy pract.i.tioner was more powerful than a mana user due to the first energy matching the body, the latter still had an advantage over the former because of that certain disadvantage.

Allen was about more or less a quarter of a hundred steps away from the growth when the monster opened its eyes once again, making him stop on his tracks.

The eyes already went back to their bluish color. The beast then looked around it in search for Allen; the latter, meanwhile, after noticing the creature still hasn't been able to spot him yet, he continued his steps albeit much lighter and slower this time.

-fwoosh-

But in an instant, his left foot unexpectedly sank into the deep snow, creating a slight noise; nevertheless, that slight noise was enough for the monster to hear it!

The monster gazed towards the noise and saw him. The monster then screeched furiously; six of its ten petals were destroyed by a tinier being! It felt its dignity was blown away by a being tinier than it!

Allen ditched his left boot and continued running.

Once again, the monster's eyes changed colors, now it was dark-bluish.

A dangerous aura permeated from the eyes as they locked towards Allen!

Then everything towards the direction where the monster was looking at turned into ice starting from its current position and moving towards Allen in a very fast pace.

Everything on the way, from the ground and the falling snowflakes turned into ice. The rotting tall gra.s.s was completely turned into ice then shattered into pieces with the falling iced snowflakes.

The ice then reached the location where the boot was left behind and it also turned into ice, on its wake were the fast-falling frozen snowflakes, making it look like a hailstorm was closing in!

In a split second, as the ice was about to reach Allen, he reached a dead tree in the growth and escaped the sight of the monster!

The side of the trees that were facing the beast turned into ice, but didn't completely shatter due to their thickness even though iced snowflakes were raining down at them.

Another painful wail sounded and two of the monster's petals detached from the main body and dropped to the ground.

Allen panted, closed his eyes and leaned his already stiffed body. He was fully exhausted from his breakneck run crossing the snowy field.

He opened up his eyes again then saw that the monster only had two petals left on its body from the reflection of one of the frozen dead trees.

"Two more petals and that creature is dead." Allen murmured. Based on his knowledge about plants, a Blizzard Crown Lotus would lose its medicinal effect if its petals were all plucked away from its main body.

Earlier, he determined the Blizzard Crown Lotus monster would likely die if it all of its petals were to be separated from its body. The spine was a good candidate to attack as it was likely its weak spot, but because he found out the petals were more vulnerable, he went for them instead.

Swallowing another stamina replenis.h.i.+ng pill, Allen was slightly revitalized and quietly thought of a way on how to detach the remaining two petals.

A few moments later, he stood up from his position. Retrieving the invisibility potion, he unplugged the cork, drank a drop, and also spilled the remaining few drops on his clothes.

Meanwhile, the monster already recovered from its last attack and angrily charged right at the growth of trees.

Due to its immense size, it easily reached the growth and shattered all the partly frozen trees with its weight and icicle attacks.

Without showing mercy, it obliterated the growth as if the trees were only measly sticks on its eyes. However, Allen was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly, two vials simultaneously came out of nowhere on of the sides of the beast. When the two vials crashed onto each other, it created the same explosion as earlier.

The monster uncontrollably stumbled sideways. Although it was still devoid of any wounds, one of its sides was now burnt black due to two continuous explosions.

Still and all, the invisibility wore off and Allen was exposed. Due to the potion being used twice in a short duration, the second intake reduced its effectiveness to a bare minimum.

The monster turned towards Allen and hatefully glared at him; nevertheless, it still didn't act and only angrily stared at the human.

"Use more of your suicidal spells." Allen taunted. But the beast only kept staring back at him as if there's a staring contest.

Tranquility appeared amidst the strong snowstorm, neither side seemed to surrender. A human wearing an eyepatch, his clothes covered in snow; a beast with only two of its ten eyes remaining stared at each other without making any wave.

"Do you concede?" Allen broke the quiet peace with a question. In his observation, the monster seemed to have its own mind.

After a long time of gazing, the monster closed its eyes and bowed its head down towards him.

***

Literally in a blink of his eyes, Allen returned back to his former location in the chamber full of books. His robe was still in perfect condition along with his sleeve and left boot.

Meanwhile, in the other rooms, the other contestants that tried to answer the black book also got out from the illusion less than a second later in the chamber's time.

In the illusion, almost an hour has crossed for Allen, but in fact, only half an hour pa.s.sed on the outside world.

Majority of the contestants that entered the illusion failed to kill or tame the monster.

Even so, among the few people along with Allen that successfully beat it were Dorothy, Gavin, and other ones who knew how to survive in harsh conditions.

Some of the people who failed to defeat the creature attempted to go on to the next page but wasn't able to do so. The contents of the succeeding pages faded away due to their failure.

In spite of experiencing great hards.h.i.+p; Allen, Gavin, Dorothy and other people who overcame the challenge chose to continue answering the black book.