Draco and the other candidates seemed unbothered, as if they had expected this much. Clearly, the mayors of the various villages had informed their candidates of the various procedures of the competition before it had officially begun, but nothing of the activity itself.
Apparently, what occurred next was not exactly visible to the onlookers. Draco stood ramrod still as it got to his turn and his body and soul were searched by this spirit of the Refinement God.
Of course, upon inspecting him, it reeled back in utter shock, for the exact same reasons the Origin Gods had blessed him. Such a powerful yet chaotic bloodline and his special existence allowing him to come back to life endlessly unless his spirit got destroyed…
What the f.u.c.k was happening out there nowadays??? Shouldn't the state of the main plane be worse than the old era?
The spirit decided to stay silent about its worries as it continued. It had sensed no malevolence or skullduggery in Draco. In fact, it was even able to realize that this outsider was guided here through his own achievements from an early stage.
(Author's Note: I.e., the NPC Refinement God sensed that Draco was brought here through a quest that was rewarded to him, not by luck or by intention.)
After going through the minds and souls of all the candidates the spirit relaxed and spoke again. "As none of you are found wanting, the competition shall begin without further delay. Close your eyes and envision an item you yourself have created. Its Rank is irrelevant and so is its quality."
The candidates closed their eyes and began picturing whatever items they had brought into this world through crafting or designing. As for Draco, his eyes flashed as he quickly understood what was happening here.
Vishad - and likely the other mayors to their candidates - had told him of this test, but not the meaning behind it. They knew the tests that would occur since the Refinement God held everything right here and no rule had ever prevented the supervising mayors to record what they had witnessed to their future successors, even though they had no idea how it was graded or what each test was supposed to evaluate.
The only thing they knew was what the Refinement God directly told them, that this competition only sought talent, not skill or experience.
Draco had been the Guildmaster of a Divine-tier guild in the previous timeline. When Hellscape had been recruiting players, he had been the one to design the tests for the combat players and the Tradeskill players himself, unlike this timeline where he had left this task to Eva.
Then again, when he was leading Hellscape, he and Eva had been mortal enemies… so there was that.
Anyway! Draco understood what this test was evaluating: Ego!
A lot of theories and suggestions had come to the minds of the preceding mayors which they had noted down. Could this be testing creativity? Honesty? Attention to detail or focus?
To Umbra's Guildmaster it was as clear as day. This was a test of ego, to gauge the arrogance of the competitors. The wording was very specific towards the end: 'Its Rank is irrelevant and so is its quality.'
That last statement was what clarified exactly what this was all about. Envision an item, regardless of its Rank or quality. Would you put forth a Common, Uncommon or even a Trash-tier item? Or would you put forth your pride and joy, the one item you've made that had surpassed all that came before and perhaps even those that came after?
Most people would read that last phrase as the Refinement God reassuring them, but that was not the case! This was a competition, where the best talent would emerge victorious. Even if the spirit phrased it like that, no one present was going to envision a Common Rank item they made.
Creators and crafters were one of the most egotistic people in the world. Whether writer, artist, artisan, mason, cook, brewer, etc, every single one of these people subconsciously believed that whatever they created was a masterpiece that deserved world acclaim and reverence.
They believed only they could truly judge the value of their creation, and many did not like dissenting opinions to that matter. It was simply a part of the trade. (Editor's Note: Now we have it black on white, that our dear author has a God complex!)
However, the creators who had received world-acclaimed titles for their art, sculpts or musical pieces usually had one underlying factor. They had cast away that innate belief that their work was a masterpiece and had viewed it for what it was, innately flawed and imperfect.
Then, they had worked on their project over and over, removing any issues within before releasing it to the public. Naturally, such works would instantly become the favorites of many in the world.
Alas, this only applied to the crafter in question's first popular work. Usually after that, their ego would come back in full force and their quality would begin to decline because they would be unable to return to that ego-free mentality.
The Refinement God could be said to be the Primogenitor of all Tradeskills, or at least, that was what they were trying to achieve before they fell, most likely. To inherit such a legacy, how could the successor be allowed to have their head up their ass?
Draco pondered over this and noticed that the spirit was looking at him quietly. While it may currently be almost intangible and ethereal, he could still feel it looking at him and prodding through his thoughts via his Dark Angel Inheritance.
It would be easy to lock it out, as his psychic abilities were not a joke, but that would probably just disqualify him. Besides, there was no harm in the Refinement God taking an interest in him over the rest.
Most importantly, the spirit's reaction revealed that Draco's deduction had been right, hence its intrigue. However, the downside to this was that since he was aware of the true meaning of the test, and the spirit was aware of that now, he could no longer cheap his way out by intentionally envisioning something simple to look humble.
Draco felt the spirit reel in shock from his rapid thoughts and deductions. It tried to close its own mind off from him, but it was impossible. If it wanted to continue reading Draco's mind, he too would be able to glean into the spirit's emotions and some surface thoughts.
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It was like constructing a bridge over a river. Yeah, you who built the bridge on the west side of the river would be able to cross over it, but the same was true for the fellow on the east side who had been watching you build it.
The only way to prevent that would be to break the bridge, which the spirit of the Refinement God could not do since it needed to parse through Draco's mind for this test.
Quite the conundrum.
A test of ego, where he couldn't deliberately act humble, and trying to be smart using reverse psychology to act arrogant would also backfire... How was he supposed to pass that then?
Draco merely shrugged as he finished that thought. He decided to imagine whatever he wanted. Whether or not he passed was up to the criteria of the Refinement God in the first place, so why should he stress himself needlessly over it? No matter how he tried to outsmart the spirit, with their minds connected like this, it would be an endless rabbit hole.
As such, Draco envisioned the Advanced Spatial Creation Device he had made. When the Refinement God latched on to it, it was shocked beyond measure. This was an item that was inconceivable in creation for this era, but had also been impossible in the old one!
If this wasn't a test of ego, but one of skill or ingenuity, Draco would have scored 100%! Even the Refinement God's spirit found itself lost in the marvel of such a unique and abstract creation that defied the very laws of nature.
However, its entrancement was interrupted by Draco's snicker. A mental version of himself manifested beside the floating Advanced Spatial Creation Device and waved at the device. Immediately, the construct dissembled and an Aether Crystal flew out of it and entered his hand.
"Hehehe, you think it was hard to make this? Take a look!"
He threw the Aether Crystal over to the manifestation of the Refinement God's spirit in his mind, which grabbed the item and inspected it. Once it did, its face full or marvel froze as it trembled with emotions Draco identified quickly as indignation and disbelief.
Draco turned and showed the Refinement God his back as he spoke deeply. "It took me only 30 seconds to envision this after learning a basic design from another crafter. Sigh, if only half of my talent could be shared among these lads, wouldn't they become Origin Gods by tomorrow?"
The Refinement God's spirit that was an intangible/whitish color instantly became black from anger. In this first test, there should only be two grades. It was either 'humble' or 'egotistic'.
Humble netted a tentative pass while Egotistic counted as an automatic fail. As for Draco, the spirit could not allot him into either category because he didn't fully satisfy the criteria of either given his actions and words.
Instead… he acquired his own unique grading that the Refinement God's spirit could not find itself able to change. Draco's grade in the first test was neither humble nor egotistic… but 'utterly shameless'!
The spirit, unable to bear him anymore, fled his mind and checked on the other contestants. It graded them one by one. Due to the increased number of contestants, there were far more passes with the 'humble' grade than before.
Usually, only about 10-15 would get this grade, but this time a whopping 50 would pass to the next round. This was most likely because the mayors had forced some fellows to attend, and such people were not the type who liked to stand out.
They just loved to craft for crafting's sakes, so they had envisioned their first items and reminisced about how great it felt to make their first work. Such meaningful constructs won the spirit's favor in this test, unbeknownst to anyone.
The Refinement God's spirit suddenly shuddered as if a cold breeze had passed over its n.a.k.e.d back, and turned to see the face of Draco turn towards its general location with a smile plastered on his face.
Cough, well make it that one person was aware of the purpose of this test…
The spirit then spoke to the crowd again. "Now, focus on the palace you see in the distance. Mentally describe how it appears to have been constructed to you. Feel free to highlight anything special you find about it."
Draco's lips twitched. Once again, he quickly grasped the purpose of this test. Just as before, the hint was placed in the final sentence, for all those astute enough to glean.
It wasn't that Draco's IQ was higher than anyone else, it was just that the denizens here had been limited by their seclusion in this small world for hundreds of thousands of years.
None had the experience in gathering and testing people en masse like Draco, who had done so in a variety of ways to sift through chaff. In fact, most players who had been to college or written exams extensively would be able to glean the hidden meanings rather quickly.
Exams were annoying, but they made the modern a.d.u.l.t more intuitive about the true constraints of tests compared to these medieval fellows who had never been forced to write intensive tests and had instead rather honed their combat skills.
In this test, describing the palace was meaningless, no matter how accurate you were. As the spirit said in the last sentence, they were free to point out anything particularly special about it.
In other words, this was actually a test of observation!
A creator or a crafter needed to be far more observant than any other type of person. One needed to look at something within their field or work, and no matter how abstruse it was, they needed to be able to glean the core of the matter.
For example, an architect who was given blueprints drawn up by his predecessor who had been fired, had quit on his own, or had perhaps died. This replacement would need to assess the blueprint drawn by his predecessor and identify all its strengths and weaknesses quickly, in order to develop upon it successfully.
Another example would be the writer of a script. If he was given the task to make a sequel to a very popular prequel, he would have to scrutinize the style of the tales that came before and figure out how to develop upon them, so that the sequel would be lauded as an even better tale, not something that conflicted or detracted from the original.