《On a Blank Canvas》Chapter 10: The Four Trials
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A month had passed since i had started working, always getting off work in the afternoon and heading straight to the library to scan books.
I spend eight hours minimum per day to scan the books in the library, which lets me scan around 300 to 400 books per day which may seem like i would have read all the books in the library by now.
I had asked the librarian how many books the library had and the how many pages an average book had in this library. The reply i got was that there were more than thirty thousand books in this library as it had over ten floors.
I didn't even know there were multiple floors to this library as i thought it was an office that was above it and not more of the library, and i had only been scanning books on the first floor.
She had also said that the average book in this library had 450 pages meaning around 45 seconds to scan the book.
It was actually quite a relief that there so much more books as i had worried that i would run out of them far too soon.
I've not only been scanning books as after a few days of work, i had scanned a lot of health books and exercise books that explained the best way to keep in shape and efficiency exercise, as well as which spells were useful in improving the efficiency of exercise.
I had gotten a gym membership, exercising two hours a day with absolute discipline, though at first, it was tiring and boring. Spells and Magic had helped to make it easier though, and the knowledge from the books were helpful in telling me what to focus on to get fit.
Without spells helping me such as one called Human Machine, which made your brain and body think only about doing a repetitive task and nothing else, i would have given up very early on.
I had also gotten myself a rented apartment like in my old world and was able to get quite a decent one with low rent due to my Silver status.
I had been experimenting with my canvas a lot during this month as well by using the knowledge from the books and just some ideas i had. Most of them were really bad and not very useful, but some of my ideas had improved my canvas and myself immensely.
I had a problem of needing to remember to take a video or an image of something i wanted to remember, and i thought, why can't i just make myself remember everything?
This had prompted me to create a live video like streamers or the news did, permanently recording everything.
Everything didn't only mean recording only vision and sound, but everything from pain to taste, to emotions and even how to felt to cast a spell and control Vaes.
This was purely an accident as i had imagined the live video not just to record what i saw and heard, but just stated that i wanted it to "record everything".
I had only discovered this when i wanted to test that i was able to do everything in the live video as i could in a normal one, which was pause, zoom in, increase volume and rewind.
Obviously, you couldn't look into the future.
While i was testing rewinding to see if everything was there, i had stopped at a time when i was eating my lunch at GaiaBurger after my shift had ended as i wanted to have another one.
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When i had played the scene of me eating the burger, the moment my self in the memory had taken a bite, i had literally tasted the exact same burger as i had then, even feeling the texture in my mouth.
I didn't feel much from my tactile senses as there weren't as sensitive as taste buds.
After that, i had tested my memories multiple times and recorded all the things my live video was able to record.
I can now proudly say that i have perfect recall, as before i had to recall the information that was recorded in my canvas and was unable to for anything that i didn't deem as important information as i had not inserted it into my canvas.
Since i now had a live video of every second of my life, i was able to use the live video as my own vision and made it have functions like a robot did, with like an overlay that scanned for targets or the status of the system functionalities.
Well not exactly like that but my "vision" was now able to accurately measure anything within it and even "predict" the outcome of moving object using my knowledge of physics and mathematics.
Like i was able to know close to the exact distant something was away from me, or how fast something was going by comparing the distance it had traveled in a span of time.
I was even able to predict which way a coin landed with 70% accuracy, the other 30% percent was mostly due to the other variables i was able to calculate, like wind strength.
You could say i was able to create a scenario with different variables and the like and choose the best outcome, but it was quite bad, due to my awful comprehension of the relationship of the relevant things needed to create a real-life scenario.
I need to explain that despite scanning thousands of books by now, my understanding and comprehension of them are on average from 50% to 90%, I've mentioned this before but memorizing something over and over again won't make me understand it, and the series on the relationship of everything in the world was very hard to understand fully.
The most i could understand in a certain book in the series was 60% of it, the lowest being 5% which was related to complicated theories.
That was also the reason why i had also been reading fiction books as they would expose me to different ways of thinking from different kinds of authors, and their unique ideas that were shown in their writing.
Those fiction books would allow me to see the world slightly differently that i would have seen it previously. I knew it was true as i had experienced this after reading lots and lots of novels in my old world.
Imagine me become wise just by reading thousands of fiction books written by thousands of uniquely different people who viewed the world in slightly different light from others.
I had also tried scanning the internet, and that was an utter and total failure. The way my wrist device worked was by projecting a holographic interactive screen which also came with a holographic keyboard.
The problem wasn't that i was unable to scan the holographic screen as i was able to do it quite easily, the problem was that my scan only recorded the information on the screen which i knew was only a display.
If i wanted to learn stuff on the internet, I'd have to do my old method of reading, which was flipping through pages, on in this case scrolling through the information.
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I had also been doing research on Noraxia Academy on the internet and their website, their website didn't explain much on what their "Entrance Examination" entailed.
There were only two days a year in which you could take their "Entrance Examination", on the first day of both the 2nd and 8th month.
Today was the 13th day of the 7th month which left me with only 15 days to prepare.
Before even researching on the Academy, I already knew the entrance exam wouldn't just be some written tests or even just testing magic ability, and doing some research outside of their website i was right.
Sources online stated that there were four trials to overcome in the examination in order to enroll in Noraxia Academy.
The Culling
Escape the Maze
Survival of the fittest
Battle Royale
The examination was not based on points but purely based on whether you had passed or failed a trial, failing a trial would disqualify you from continuing the examination.
There were around 2000-6000 students in Noraxia Academy depending on the year, I'll later explain why the range was so big.
Close to 100 thousand people would participate in the Examination twice every year, 40% of them being from Farrina city and the rest from all over the world.
Farrina city had a population of 10 million people, and although the number of people participating was a huge amount, i was sure that around a million people in Farrina city alone would try to be enrolled in Noraxia Academy if the chances of death in the first trial wasn't so high.
The first trial, "The Culling" had a death rate of 75% and a failure rate of 95% including all deaths.
Before i explain what trial entailed, let me explain the location of the Academy, Noraxia Academy was not located inside of Farrina City but actually around 150 Km away from it.
Between them was the wilderness filled with forests, plains, and hills. And in the wilderness was exactly as you thought, powerful beasts that had grown by absorbing Vaes which were actually considered as wild animals in this world.
Even though these powerful beasts were considered as wild animals, even the weakest wild beasts could kill dozens of the average people in this world. As humans came to rely on technology and automation, and thus had easier lives.
And while it is true that people are much more talented in magic than generations ago, their drive to improve their magic through training, study and battle had dwindled due to magic having turned into something anyone could do.
Long ago people who could use magic were not in the majority, anyone who was given the chance to study and train in magic had cherished their chance and thanked the gods for giving them this opportunity, every single mage back then being an extremely hard and diligent worker.
Whereas the animals in the wild had grown stronger and stronger every generation due to the rule of the jungle where only the strong survived, unlike in the human world where even the weakest of people could live.
While it was true that humans were at the top of the food chain, it was actually due to our powerful weaponry, intelligence and the small percentage of powerful and talented mages that protected the rest of the population.
the disparity of power in this world was exactly like in a lot of novels i had read in my previous world...
Going back on topic, the reason i had explained all of this was due to the fact that "The Culling" trial made all examinees travel from the City to the Academy within 24 hours.
the rules were that any form of transportation, technology, weaponry or tools were banned and you were only allowed to bring yourself, and your clothes. The rules didn't even allow you to bring food along or even the simplest of watches that functioned using gears.
Anyone who was unable to reach the Academy within 24 hours was disqualified, obviously including those who had died. It was confirmed that even if you were disqualified, as long as you reached the Academy, they would send you back to the city safely with no charges.
This first trial was obviously to "cull" the majority of the participants, and the additional high chance of death deterring even more to participate, it seemed like this not always the first trial, as long ago it seemed like the first trial of the Academy had no chance of death and too many people participated every year.
This forced the Academy to create a new trial that deterred many from even thinking of participating in it.
The next three trials were all in virtual reality and thus there was zero chance of death.
The second trial was "Escape the Maze" and it entailed the examinees being trapped in a giant maze that had multiple floors, puzzles, and obstacles that could only be passed using a specific set of spells, a specific attribute and a large assortment of things pertaining to magic.
There were even enemies that had a very specific weakness in order to defeat them, and some obstacles even needed you to have a high Vaes control or perception.
This trial tested you versatility with magic, and teamwork as most people would form groups with each person having a specific specialty or strength.
The maze was different every Examination thus no one was able to study and prepare for it.
The third trial was "Survival of the fittest" which dumped each examinee in a randomized location with thousands of powerful monsters all around, and their goal was to survive.
The location was different every Exam and was exactly the same for each person as they were all on the same map. Some previous locations included the moon, an abandoned city, an alien forest, and even the sky, where you could walk on clouds while you fought cloud monsters.
When i say on the same map, i mean individually as this trial tested your ability to survive in the wild with only magic, as well as your ability to fight with magic.
Many people had thought that this trial was very similar to the first one, which it actually was, but was hundreds of times harder.
The fourth trial, "Battle Royale" was the most difficult and easiest trial amongst the four, depending on the year.
This was because "Battle Royale" involved all of the examinees being dumped onto a battlefield and fighting each other, and it wasn't only the remaining examinees that would fight, it would also include all of the previously disqualified examinees.
This was because in the rules of the battle royale when a disqualified examinee dealt the final blow to a qualifying examinee and killed them, they would instantly become a qualifying examinee and have a chance to enroll again.
This was also one of the reasons those who failed the first trial would still choose to go towards the Academy even if they were closer to the city. There were also some who would purposely fail the first trial in order to skip to the last one. The Academy had countered this by making the qualifying examinees 300% stronger than they were in real life during the trial.
Though this had made the last trial extremely difficult for the disqualified examinees, it had been able to filter out the extremely talented people in the group, mostly those who had failed at the second or third trial.
Any qualifying examinee that dies in the trial would be immediately disqualified and would be unable to rejoin the battle royale, this was the same for disqualified examinees that had been killed.
Only if they survived until the end though, as other people could still kill them and become a new qualifying examinee.
if a qualifying examinee killed any examinee, they would get a number of Rax points that was the invented currency inside of Noraxia Academy which was able to buy you all sorts of weapons, consumables, lessons for special classes, rare spell books and a lot of other amazing stuff.
Everyone who would successfully enroll would get 500 Rax points minimum as a starting capital.
This information was revealed by multiple students enrolled in Noraxia and it wasn't considered top secret.
I had imagined a simple table that explained to me how killing others in the battle royale worked and how much points you received.
Disqualified Examinee: DE
Qualifying Examinee: QE
DE -kill-> QE : DE becomes QE , 1000 Rax points
DE -kill-> DE : 4 Rax point per person gained upon becoming a QE
QE -kill-> DE : 3 Rax points per person
QE -kill-> QE : 100 Rax points per person
Each year, people with different abilities and differing levels of strength would appear, causing the results of the battle royal to be very different every Examination since there were two a year.
During one year, the results of the battle royale left only 50 qualifying examinees, another year had around 400 disqualified examinees turn into qualifying ones during the battle, and 300 of them had survived till the end and had successfully enrolled.
While the majority of this information was from students and examinees, a big chunk of it was just from people talking and discussing it online, as the Examination was actually broadcasted all over the world like it was the world cup or the Olympics.
The first trial would be broadcasted live using magi-tech drones, while the second and fourth trials could be easily captured using computers as it was in real time and in virtual reality.
The third trial actually needed to be recorded as the trial took a maximum of seven days per examinee in virtual reality, but only took one day in real life as time was sped up during the trial using time attribute magic.
Of course what was showed on tv wouldn't be the full seven days, but clips of popular examinees during their best moments, intense battles, and also clips of popular female examinees when they were sleeping, along with a second or two of the other examinees.
I was pumped upon finding out all of this information, my expectations for the entrance examination of a school in another world was enormously exceeded.
These next two weeks would be used for me to train my body and fighting abilities.
I was determined not only to enroll at the Academy but also be one of the top examinees during all of the trials.
Let the training commence!!
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