It's the generic asspulls of "I just need to overpower said magic thing with magic strength" and we know that by plot, he'll win because the plot requires him to have more magical strength than the adversary. But there's no way to conceptualize what that means. And there's also no illusion of consequence/accomplishment here because he's being tested on something that's basically a stat check in a video game.
It's lazy writing. Then again, we knew that because of the genre it was in, but sometimes it can be enjoyable if the rest of the series is done well/fun. But when you dwell on the part of your story that is generic, bad, and not fleshed out, this chapter is the result.