Chapter 154: Mirror Image

The white dragon, who had been listening intently, paused in surprise. The first two trials had featured clear themes—wisdom and perseverance—but this third stage offered no hints whatsoever.

The difficulty of the third stage was self-evident. The white dragon cautiously surveyed his surroundings.

Suddenly, as if in an earthquake, a giant pillar of ice slowly rose from the floor, coming to a halt dead center in the arena.

The white dragon braced his four limbs against the ground to steady himself. Once the tremors ceased, the entire space held nothing but him and the giant ice pillar. The pillar's diameter was massive, though it wasn't particularly tall—standing at exactly the same height as Amos.

Amos examined the ice pillar closely. Its surface was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the White Dragon Lord's image. Illuminated by the eerie blue flames burning in the braziers at the feet of the divine statues, his reflection in the ice looked sinister and terrifying.

Since this pillar was the only thing to appear after the trial began, the key to clearing the stage had to lie with it.

The white dragon walked toward the ice, stopping twenty meters away. He circled the pillar, observing it carefully, but after a full revolution, the White Dragon Lord hadn't discovered a single thing out of the ordinary save for his own physical reflection.

The White Dragon Lord stepped closer, looking at the ice mirror in confusion. Inside the glass, the white dragon's reflection stared back at him with that exact same bewilderment.

What is going on?

The trial had started, but aside from a single pillar of ice, there was absolutely nothing.

Amos casually reached out a front claw. The white dragon inside the ice pillar did the same. He pressed his front claw against the surface, and the two dragon claws met.

!!!

The instant his claws touched the pillar, Amos's heart leaped in shock. What he felt wasn't cold, hard ice, but the smooth texture of dragon scales.

There is something wrong with this reflection!

Reacting instantly, Amos raised his claw and swiped at the ice. The mirror image did exactly the same, raising its own claw in the exact same arc. The two dragon claws slammed together.

The moment the strike landed, the ice pillar shattered into a swirling cloud of powdery snow. Yet, the mirror image did not vanish.

Amid the fluttering ice crystals stood a white dragon identical to Amos, its extended claw pressed against his own. The two white dragons shared the same pose, just perfectly reversed.

The White Dragon Lord glared at "himself," his expression grave. He opened his massive maw, baring sharp dragon teeth, and lunged forward to bite his opponent.

At such close range, magic would be far less effective than a primal bite with sharp teeth. Amos opted for close-quarters combat.

But to Amos's absolute shock, his mirror image adopted the exact same strategy, lunging forward with open jaws. The two massive dragon heads collided snout-to-snout.

In the heat of a life-or-death struggle, Amos had no time to dwell on the details. Fighting through the sour sting in his battered nose, he whipped his tail around in a full arc to smash into the mirror image. The mirror image adopted the exact same strategy, and their two dragon tails crashed together.

Crash!

Ignoring the numbness from the heavy impact, the white dragon realized something was very wrong. The mirror image's attacks were identical to his own, merely reversed left-to-right. It was just like fighting his own reflection.

To verify his theory, the white dragon kept his eyes locked on the mirror image, keeping his guard up against a sudden strike as he began to back away.

Sure enough, the mirror image retreated as well.

The White Dragon Lord pulled back until there was a hundred-meter distance between them, staring at the mirror image with a grave expression.

While retreating, the white dragon had observed it closely and discovered that every movement was perfectly synchronized; even the length of their strides was exactly the same.

Damn it!

How am I supposed to fight this?!

It was like fighting his own reflection. No matter what happened, any blow the white dragon landed on the mirror image meant the mirror image would simultaneously strike the White Dragon Lord.

It was an endless loop!

The White Dragon Lord suddenly caught sight of the mirror image wearing the exact same grave expression, and his blood immediately boiled with frustration.

But the white dragon suppressed his anger and began to calmly think of a countermeasure. Since a stage like this had been set up, there had to be a way to clear it, otherwise the trial was meaningless.

The White Dragon Lord began to test the mirror image's abilities to see if it truly matched him in every way. Amos blinked, and the mirror image blinked. Amos lifted a foot, and the mirror image mirrored the action.

After a short while, thoroughly convinced that the mirror image was perfectly synchronized with him, Amos asked a question.

"Who are you?"

As the white dragon spoke, the mirror image also opened its mouth, but no sound came out. Yet just by looking at the shape of its mouth, Amos was certain it had mouthed the exact same words.

After saying a few more meaningless phrases, Amos concluded that while the mirror image could mimic his movements, it couldn't produce any sound.

Since that was the case, a smile tugged at the corners of the white dragon's mouth.

However, seeing that same smile curving on the mirror image's face instantly ruined Amos's good mood.

Having an identical copy mimicking his every move was a feeling that made a dragon incredibly unhappy.

The white dragon raised a single digit. Icy blue energy gathered at the White Dragon Lord's fingertip, instantly forming an ice arrow that shot straight ahead.

Beginner magic—Ice Arrow.

The white dragon could conjure such low-level magic effortlessly, without needing a single incantation. It also packed relatively little power, making it the perfect tool to test whether the mirror image could cast spells.

Sure enough, the mirror image also raised a digit and fired an Ice Arrow. The two Ice Arrows collided in midair, sending ice shavings flying in all directions.

The result of the test was not entirely satisfying for the dragon, but it was to be expected. The creator of the stage wouldn't have left such an obvious loophole.

Undeterred, Amos rapidly chanted a magical incantation.

Two seconds later, astonishing cold energy exploded outward from the White Dragon Lord, rapidly expanding to cover a two-hundred-meter radius around him in an instant.

Amos's Frost Domain!

Amid the pervasive white cold energy, Amos felt a headache coming on, because an identical domain of frost had appeared around the mirror image.

The two circular domains overlapped, engulfing both white dragons. Though the cold energy couldn't cause any adverse effects on Amos, the White Dragon Lord still felt incredibly frustrated.

The mirror image didn't even need an incantation to cast the same magic as the white dragon. This left the white dragon completely out of options, because the only possible results of a battle with it were mutual injury or mutual destruction.

This was simply an unsolvable puzzle!

The White Dragon Lord racked his brains in bitter thought. Since it was a stage, there had to be an absolute method to clear it. He just hadn't discovered it yet.

After pondering for a while, Amos still couldn't come up with any effective solution. He looked up, and upon seeing the mirror image wearing the exact same distressed face, the fury in the white dragon's heart surged straight to his head.

He really wanted to kill this guy who was mimicking him!

Wait. The white dragon suddenly realized something, feeling he had discovered the crux of the problem: why did he absolutely have to kill it?

Up until now, Amos had subconsciously treated the mirror image as an enemy, feeling that defeating it was the necessary condition to clear the trial.

The White Dragon Lord realized he had fallen into a mental trap. While the mirror image was definitely the key to clearing the stage, he didn't necessarily have to defeat it.

Because the mirror image's behavior was based on the White Dragon Lord's actions, the result of fighting would only be mutual destruction.

So the white dragon switched to a different line of thought: ceasing his attacks.

With this shift in perspective, the White Dragon Lord felt the path ahead open up. If he didn't take the initiative to attack the mirror image, the mirror image wouldn't attack him either.

But if that were the case, just standing around wasting time wasn't a solution either.

Amos realized he had missed some important information.

Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles!

Since he and the mirror image could coexist peacefully, they could come to understand one another.

Since the mirror image couldn't speak, they would have to make close contact so he could better understand it.

The White Dragon Lord calmly walked toward the mirror image. The mirror image did exactly the same, and the two dragons walked toward each other in peace.

Finally, the two dragons stood face to face.

Without any battle or conflict, the two dragons exchanged a smile.

The White Dragon Lord slowly raised a dragon claw and reached out toward the mirror image.

As their two dragon claws gently touched, Amos closed his eyes and extended his spiritual energy into the mirror image. Amos felt his consciousness drift through a stretch of profound darkness before an incredibly complex and profound three-dimensional magic array appeared before his eyes.

Tiny, icy-blue runes formed eight rune bands that constantly orbited a central sphere of light. As they spun, individual runes emitted a brilliant glow.

Beautiful and mysterious, it was a feast for the eyes that made one helplessly captivated by it.

Amos was deeply drawn to the complex magic array before him. He had never seen such a complex magic array. Thus far, all the magic arrays Amos had encountered were strictly two-dimensional, like drawings on a flat piece of paper.

Yet the magic array right in front of him was three-dimensional. The increased technical difficulty required for it went without saying.

After a good while, Amos snapped back to his senses and carefully observed the magic array. He discovered that at the very center of the magic array, within that icy-blue sphere of light, a Golden Key flickered in and out of sight.

Testing the waters, Amos slowly reached his dragon claw forward, but the instant his claw tip brushed the icy-blue magic array, he immediately pulled it back.

Cold!

Bone-chilling cold!

It was an extreme low temperature that could inflict frostbite even on a white dragon, a creature whose frost resistance was at an absurd level.

Nursing his nearly frozen digit, Amos stared wide-eyed at the magic array before him. While filled with disbelief, his heart soared with wild ecstasy.

It wasn't that the White Dragon Lord was a masochist, but that the White Dragon Lord had seen a direction forward.

From the time he was a Very Young Dragon all the way until the White Dragon Lord received the blessing of the Winter Legion's leader, the power of the white dragon's Dragon Breath had steadily grown alongside him, which meant the temperature of the Dragon Breath kept dropping.

But after gaining the blessing of winter, the white dragon's Dragon Breath had experienced a massive surge in power before hitting a bottleneck in its growth. No matter what method the white dragon tried, he couldn't lower the temperature of his Dragon Breath by another degree.

In this dog-eat-dog world where the strong preyed upon the weak, failing to advance meant falling backward. As a result, the white dragon had shifted his research focus, turning to the study of Soul Magic.

And now, the White Dragon Lord once again saw hope for the power of his Dragon Breath to advance.

"Gold Finger, Scan! Record this magic array and find a way to decipher it."

After the magic array was Scanned and recorded by the Gold Finger, the White Dragon Lord issued the command to begin analyzing the magic array's structure. As the Gold Finger went to work, the White Dragon Lord also began to think for himself, deciphering the magic array.

The analysis progress was unusually slow. Moreover, Amos discovered that the intensity of the energy contained within the magic array was steadily decreasing.

If this continued, the magic array's energy would sooner or later fully dissipate, and it would collapse on its own.

Amos instantly understood. In truth, the moment he saw the magic array, the trial had already been passed. The three-dimensional magic array enclosing the key—stripped of any disguises and displayed directly before him—was an extra benefit left to the challenger by the stage's creator. As for how much the challenger could gain from it, that depended entirely on their own abilities.

Twenty-nine days passed, and just before its energy fully dissipated, Amos finally completed his analysis of the magic array, reaping immense benefits from it.

Moreover, after an entire month of energy dissipation, the magic array's power had drastically plummeted, to the point that it could no longer pose any threat to the White Dragon Lord.

The white dragon thrust his dragon claw directly into the interior of the magic array and pinched the sphere of light. The rune bands rotating around the sphere immediately dissolved.

The moment Amos extracted the key, the long-absent stage clearance sound rang out once again.

"Congratulations, you have cleared the Winter Trial. Clearance rating: Rank S."

The voice still echoed in his ears, but Amos found that he had already appeared on the circular platform in the unknown plane. Furthermore, an icy-blue Portal had appeared in front of one of the four goddess statues.

The White Dragon Lord opened his palm and looked at the Golden Key resting quietly within it.

The Golden Key proved that none of this had been a dream.

The White Dragon Lord stowed the key away and walked firmly toward the Portal.

Before leaving, Amos looked up to admire the goddess's peerless beauty, then looked around at the other three goddess statues. He had a premonition that there would come a day when he would return here again.

Without looking back, the white dragon stepped into the Portal.

After passing through the Portal, the White Dragon Lord discovered he had arrived in a Gallery Vault. The white dragon was completely stunned by the extravagance inside the vault.

The vault's floor was paved with precious, top-grade Ice Crystal Stones. While Ice Crystal Stone was merely a mid-level magic material, top-grade Ice Crystal Stones were extremely hard to come by and incredibly valuable. Even just the Ice Crystal Stones covering this floor far exceeded the white dragon's entire net worth.

And that was just the floor of the vault. When he saw the treasures held in the tight, grid-like compartments on the cabinets lining both sides of the Gallery Vault, the White Dragon Lord's jaw dropped in sheer astonishment.

The White Dragon Lord leaned closer to the compartments and looked at the explanation plaques mounted beneath them. These were all precious treasures from myriad planes.

With the White Dragon Lord's financial power, he might be able to obtain a portion of them. But to stack tens of thousands of treasures side-by-side and sort them into compartments just like this vault was absolutely impossible.

The White Dragon Lord saw that beneath each display cabinet was a bronze keyhole. He looked down at the Golden Key in his hand and felt that the Golden Key and the bronze keyholes did not match.

Furthermore, while the treasures in these cabinets were precious, they didn't seem to match the difficulty of the trial the White Dragon Lord had just experienced.

The White Dragon Lord looked down the deep, shadowy Gallery Vault, then took large strides deeper inside.