Chapter 12: Already Finished?
Seeing the strange, half-asleep boy walk in, the young man with the scholarly appearance couldn’t help but frown even more deeply as he muttered to himself.
"There’s always someone like him who comes here just to waste time.
Just look at him, he doesn’t even seem to care about the test.
He’ll probably get kicked out of the room before it’s even over."
Even the girl with the pink hair, who had previously ignored Zhu Rong, couldn’t help but shake her head at the sight.
She didn’t care much about the other person, but seeing his attitude, she too couldn’t help but form a bad impression of him.
Unaware of what the others were thinking, Zhu Rong calmly entered the testing room.
The room itself wasn’t anything too luxurious, just a little bigger than the waiting room, with a table in the center where a sheet of paper had been placed, alongside a writing brush and a container of black ink.
Sitting in front of the table was an elderly looking man, comfortably seated in his chair, watching him.
That man was Chen Shuwei, a Rune Engraver of Expert rank from the Master Pavilion.
He had been tasked with overseeing this week’s evening examination.
Since he spent most of his day buried in rune research, he had chosen to take the evening shift.
As an Expert-ranked Engraver, it was his duty to preside over these exams at least once every six months, and so he couldn’t avoid it.
Unlike his colleagues, who hurried through their shifts as quickly as possible so they could return to their studies, he had waited until the very last moment, and this week, it was finally his turn.
Looking at the newcomer, Chen Shuwei couldn’t help but pull a strange face when he saw the half asleep boy.
"I am candidate number 17, Zhu Rong. Nice to meet you," Zhu Rong said, giving him the appropriate greeting.
Hearing him, Chen Shuwei simply nodded and said nothing more, gesturing for him to approach the table.
"As soon as you’re ready, we can begin. You’ll have 10 minutes to answer as many questions as you can.
Within that time, you can move on to the next level’s test as soon as you finish the previous one.
Remember, you’ll need to at least pass the Level 1 test to qualify as a Basic stage Apprentice," he explained, giving a quick rundown of the rules and how the exam worked.
Zhu Rong nodded slightly to show he understood and flipped over the sheet on the table.
’Alright, let’s get this over with quickly.’
He had less than two hours before curfew, and he still had to engrave the rune onto the mold and return it to the forge.
He had come straight here hoping to use one of their workshops to engrave the mold, but in order to do that, you either paid a small fee or,
if you were a Pavilion member, you could use one for a limited time each day.
Since the first option wasn’t available, he had opted for the second.
Without wasting any more time, he began skimming through the questions.
Meanwhile, Chen Shuwei, seeing that the boy had started, simply closed his eyes and silently waited for him to respond.
The Level 1 test consisted of five questions in total.
The candidate needed to read and answer each question in no more than two minutes.
1. What are the five fundamental attributes that a rune can enhance?
2. How many minimum segments must an elemental rune have to be considered stable?
...
5. What is the most suitable engraving material for Grade 1 runes?
Zhu Rong read through the five questions and couldn’t help but shake his head as he picked up the brush and began to write.
’Seriously... First forging hammers, and now this. How low have I fallen?’ he thought.
Never in the past would he have imagined that he’d end up going back to the basics like this.
Normally, participants who came just to test themselves and see if they were ready would take their time, quickly scanning all the questions first, answering the ones they knew, and then working through the tougher ones, finishing within the ten-minute limit.
Meanwhile, those with more confidence, who came aiming to clear a higher difficulty level, would answer as quickly as possible and move on to the next test once the examiner had finished checking.
Zhu Rong was neither of those.
At first, he’d thought of answering all the questions from all three difficulty levels to get a head start on the next rank and earn himself more time in the workshop,
but after seeing these questions, he threw those thoughts out the window and began answering them one after the other without pausing.
He would read a question, and the answer would already be in his head.
What was supposed to be two minutes per question ended up taking him five seconds each.
Chen Shuwei, who hadn’t even closed his eyes for a full minute and was just wondering how long the boy would take, was forced to open them again when he felt someone approach.
...Huh?
The person who stepped up was none other than the boy himself, who placed the paper down on the small table beside his teacup and waited in silence.
’He’s done already?’
Perplexed, Chen Shuwei checked the incense stick he had lit at the start,
it hadn’t even burned down by a tenth yet, meaning not even a full minute had passed since the test began.
In disbelief, he picked up the paper to see whether the boy had given up or just answered randomly but to his surprise, it was neither.
He quickly read the answers to each question, then put the paper back on the table,
his expression both confused and intrigued.
"...They’re all correct."