Realizing that to obtain the Golden Fleece, they must overcome the dragon's trial, all the Argonauts felt a deep headache brewing.
For them, this condition was almost an insurmountable barrier.
"It wasn't supposed to be that the trial's challenges couldn't be too unrealistic, right?"
After a long silence, someone finally muttered this.
But soon, another rebutted.
"But nominally, this isn't even part of the trial, it's the condition we get after passing it."
These words left the others speechless.
Yes, the trials offered by the other side weren't unrealistic, but they also weren't promising to hand over the Golden Fleece directly.
Even if you pass the trials, if you can't take the Golden Fleece yourself, you can't blame them, after all, you agreed to the terms yourselves.
Thinking of this, the group's gazes toward Jason carried a hint of blame.
Who told you to agree so readily, without even properly analyzing the conditions?
For a moment, Jason felt a pang of self-reproach.
However, his quick agreement back then had its reasons.
After all, in the initial negotiations, Aeetes had sternly refused him, leading Jason to hold low expectations for the outcome.
He had spent the entire afternoon in anxious uncertainty.
Yet, when Aeetes announced the final terms that evening, he unexpectedly made a massive concession.
The "trial" conditions presented were a tremendous surprise to Jason.
This surge of joy, combined with Jason's desire to showcase his heroic boldness as a leader, had overlapped, leading him to make such a reckless decision, and falling right into the cunning Aeetes' trap.
However, at this moment, the Argo's helmsman, Tiphys, the cleverest among the Argonauts after Alaric and Circe, stepped in with a fair word.
"Though Jason was indeed a bit impulsive back then, this is actually the best deal we could have gotten.
After all, the Golden Fleece is their treasure; they're naturally unwilling to let us take it by force.
But due to the gods' involvement, they can't outright refuse, so of course they'd propose some difficult conditions to stymie us...
Even if Jason had seen through the ploy at the time, with Aeetes openly challenging us, what could we have done?
Now, though we've stepped into their trap, it makes the challenges we face crystal clear.
With the Colchian dragon in play, they won't overly complicate the first two trials for us, from that perspective, this is actually a good thing."
Tiphys truly lived up to his reputation as the ship's wise mind; he saw things clearly.
For "bandits" like them coming to seize a treasure, it would be strange if Aeetes didn't make things difficult.
Whether the difficulty came here or there, now that it was explicit, it was indeed much easier to handle than covert sabotage.
His words made sense.
Thus, the group stopped blaming Jason.
However, no matter how reasonable Tiphys was, he couldn't cover up one fact.
That was, they couldn't defeat the Colchian dragon, not even if they all banded together.
At this very moment, Jason regretted beyond measure letting Heracles leave during the journey.
Perhaps Heracles' departure was due to personal reasons, but the Argonauts had to admit there was some selfishness involved on their part.
For instance, they felt Heracles was too strong, too capable, with him around, he solved all the troubles single-handedly. How could the others shine?
Jason, that guy, probably wished for someone who could handle all his captain's troubles for him, he was the type to push problems onto others.
But the other heroes weren't willing.
Yet now was the time for their regret.
If Heracles were here, the first and second trials would basically be guaranteed, and for the third, with Heracles leading them against the Colchian dragon, they wouldn't even need to defeat it, just hold it off while others snatched the Golden Fleece.
Alas, now Heracles was off searching for Hylas, already thousands of miles away. It was too late for regrets.
Thus, all the heroes fell silent, one by one.
How to pass the trials? The heroes were stuck in a deadlock.
In truth, it wasn't just these heroes trapped in stalemate, the gods of Olympus were as well.
At this moment, on Olympus, the Twelve Olympians gathered in full, seated in the grand hall of the divine court, debating the very same topic as the Argonauts.
Though to avoid detection by the magic gods, they hadn't personally attended, the deities still learned of the troubles facing the Argonauts through the eyes of their divine children.
While Aeetes proposing "trials" was within their expectations, that didn't mean they had full confidence in overcoming them.
In fact, they were quite surprised by the specific trials Aeetes had set.
"Those damned rebels, they're craftier than I thought," Zeus grumbled from his central throne, dissatisfaction evident.
"I figured they'd use some contest or duel as the trial condition, thinking we could kill a few of those cursed mages through combat. Who knew they'd come up with this?"
"In that case, I can't provide them any help," Ares growled irritably.
"What rotten luck, I thought I could slay a few mages to vent my anger. Why can't martial prowess match magic at the same level?"
As the god of war, though Ares couldn't openly buff the Argonauts due to the magic gods, his domain over war could indirectly influence battles and conflicts, yet it had no effect on magical beasts or puppets.
"Actually, this isn't so bad," advised Hephaestus, the forge god with one blinded eye.
"I don't know about fire-breathing plow bulls that can fight heroes, but warriors born from dragon teeth must be magical constructs.
From my perspective, such self-fighting creations are hard to produce in masse, especially with dragon teeth as rare material, even with the Colchian dragon around.
Forcing the Argonauts to deplete some of their hidden strength isn't a bad trade."
Though Hecate had stolen his wife, Hephaestus wasn't a domineering or hot-tempered god.
Perhaps due to the fear instilled by his blinded eye, he felt wary of the magic gods and wasn't optimistic about plans against them.
"Now we can only think that way," Hera consoled as well. "No one expected those mages to have so many tricks up their sleeves.
After all, Greek mages don't have means to control magical beasts or create puppet warriors, I suspect those hiding in Colchis have been holding back...
But it's too late to say that now. The urgent matter is figuring out how to deal with that dragon."
Alas, without direct intervention, no matter how the gods pondered, they couldn't devise a way to suddenly empower the Argonauts enough to confront the dragon.