The examinees inside the hall gradually calmed down and began minding their own business... Some rested to conserve their strength, while others took notes.
They recorded the information they had observed to prepare for the later exams.
But before long, they noticed something was wrong...
They understood why Aldama had sealed them inside this environment...
The venue had originally been quite cool, but suddenly, the indoor temperature began to rise. The pipes overhead seemed to be blasting hot air... rapidly turning the hall into a massive steam room. On top of that, the place had already been packed with people, and the air circulated poorly. In less than ten minutes, many examinees were drenched in sweat from head to toe.
Someone called out the examiner's name, but no one answered.
After a while, some people began taking off their clothes...
Oboro seemed to have fallen asleep...
Shalnark sat cross-legged on the floor, while Phinks remained motionless like a statue, his eyes shut the entire time.
Half an hour later, mist had begun to fill the hall, making it a proper sweat lodge... The examinees who had passed the preliminaries all had some skill, and they stubbornly held on. The content of this test was nothing more than a contest of endurance... Some had flushed faces and struggled to breathe, yet they still endured.
Others had prepared in advance or gotten crafty, such as running to the ventilation openings by the windows... or secretly pulling out hidden water to drink.
But those measures could only relieve the immediate crisis, not solve the root problem.
As several hours passed, everyone thought that once the sky outside darkened and the temperature dropped, things inside the hall would become more bearable.
However, the hot air blasting from the pipes became even fiercer. While resisting