Draco was beginning to notice a pattern to these tests. The first one had tested Ego and this one tested Observation. It might seem random, but it should actually be directly tied to the Refinement God's situation and likely to their Inheritance.
When Draco thought back to him entering this Unique Quest, the first thing he had encountered had been a test of his combat strength. The Refinement God had for some reason only burdened the outsider with it, although it was an optional one.
What was the purpose of this? Draco had ascertained that it was very likely that the Refinement God had been unable to fight much less kill a rat, having dedicated all their life to Tradeskills.
During the War of the Gods, the Refinement God must have been the target of a particular deific faction, the same one Eva suspected had funded/supplied Sigurd with the means to slaughter all the Dragons.
The timing had been just too good back then since things had been completely chaotic. It would have been extremely easy for a hidden faction to put many things in place that would greatly topple the world and allow them to establish themselves in the aftermath.
The duo had only reached these separate but joint conclusions recently, mostly after the God's Envoy, Kilobar, had told them about the pantheons and the general political structure of the Divine World.
Those few lines had revealed so much information, especially information that bound two pieces of abstract data that had originally been hard to connect. There was also the time Draco had used his upgraded Eyes of Caelo to peer into the past where he had seen Sigurd training in the Ancestral City of Dragons.
These little tidbits had allowed him to figure out the skeletal structure of the story. However, they would need a bit more before they could unveil the rest.
However, in reference to the Refinement God, they must have been killed and almost plundered of all their wealth and Inheritance. Luckily, the Refinement God had prepared this treasury ahead of time.
BUT WAIT!
This was where Draco encountered the first flaw in his theory. How would the Refinement God have known ahead of that time to prepare this Treasury? The faction that had orchestrated their death was likely tied to the one that had eradicated the Dragons.
If even the Dragons had been unable to see their demise coming, how could it be different for one measly Semi-Origin God who had more than likely holed themselves up their entire lives, not caring about anything apart from honing their skill?
This was answered when Draco had been whisked to the realm of the Origins Gods the first time, and he was addressed by the Origin God of Alchemy, Kopernico.
At that time, Kopernico's words had been: ["Currently, partaking in Little Norma's test, huh? I guess someone must sooner or later acquire that heritage. Not only that, but possessing such talent for combat and Tradeskills combined… such bloodlines… what a monster. Remember boy, I do this because of your bright future, your talent, and for you to succeed in inheriting Little Norma's path. Do not fail me."]
Putting aside the Refinement God being called Norma, Kopernico had known that they had designed a legacy test and that Draco was partaking in it. He also said that someone must sooner or later acquire it, as well as stating that the only reason he helped Draco was to help him acquire the Refinement God's heritage.
This told him three things. Firstly, the Origin God(s) was aware that the Refinement God had set up an inheritance test. One should know, the outside world only thought that this location held all the rewards, but had no idea about there being tests. This Draco knew thanks to Vishad.
Secondly, whatever Tradeskill the Refinement God was trying to carry to the Origin Rank was important to the Origin God(s). It could be that having another Origin God would strengthen their forces and relieve their collective burden, but Kopernico had never focused on that specifically.
Thirdly and most importantly, the Origin God(s) fully supported the Refinement God and wished for someone to take up their mantle and continue. As such, two whole Origin Gods had 'wasted' their time giving him a bit of Origin energy solely as an incentive.
From these three facts, and the fact that the Refinement God had been affectionately called Little Norma, Draco had deduced that the ones who warned them about the incoming danger were the Origin Gods themselves!
Damn! If this was true, then the matter of the old era was a much bigger cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k than Draco had thought. For even Origin Gods to have been unable to just directly punch downwards and smash all troublemakers to death, forcing them to use roundabout means to warn the people they cared about...
So the Refinement God must have placed a combat test at the start of this Unique Quest to make sure that their prospective inheritor would have sufficient combat talent, such that they would not be so helpless when confronted with other combat-capable enemies.
But this, as stated before, had merely been optional. It hadn't been a life and death requirement, after all the most important bit was still to make sure that the prospective inheritor would actually be compatible with the inheritance itself.
And there had been a waiting period for an apparently random amount of months for the outsider to come into this small world, allowing them to learn the Tradeskill methods from the old era. This would allow them to merge whatever they had learned outside with some tidbits of the legacy the Refinement God had left behind for their descendants.
Looking back and taking everything into consideration… this must have been another type of test!
After all, this entire small world was managed by the Refinement God's Spirit. It was likely that nothing got past its eyes, so it would definitely have seen Draco's obscene growth in such a short period of time, as well as his act of enlightening the people of the treasury.
Or rather… could it be that the reason the competition had been held so late into the timeline was because the Refinement God had wanted to give him 'bonus' time for his act of kindness?
If that was so… it would make a lot of sense actually. One good deed deserved another, by helping its descendants without conditions, it too allowed him to hone his Tradeskills extra sharply.
As stated before, Draco had managed to reach Grandmaster Rank in Blacksmithing and Alchemy and he had raised Magical Engineering as well as Scrivener to Expert Rank in just around 6-8 months. This was unheard of anywhere in the world and he only had been able achieve it thanks to the resources in this treasury, that much Draco knew in his heart.
His original projections had seen him reaching Grandmaster Rank in Blacksmithing or Alchemy after 2-3 years at best. This was because, on the outside, he would never have had the freedom to dedicate his time to Tradeskills.
There were far too many things for him to do and to accomplish, such that he could only practice Tradeskills when he was actually using them for a purpose, not solely for the sake of leveling them up.
Draco raised his head to gaze at the Refinement God's spirit that was staring at the candidates as they tried to mentally describe the palace to it. For Draco, it was as if time had slowed down as he had thought about everything up until this point.
Well, it wasn't exaggerated nothings. His Pinnacle Intelligence1 passive skill had kicked in, along with his Dark Angel Inheritance. The two had combined to boost his mental faculties with so much processing power that it had allowed him to extrapolate and rationalize so quickly that time had 'slowed' down to the point that merely seconds had passed since the spirit's explaining their test.
Draco circled round his conclusions and questions, coming back to what brought it all up, the style and structure of the official competition's tests.
Why Ego? Why not Honesty, Creativity or Focus? All of them could easily have been judged in that same test with a twist of words, and to be honest, they appeared much more important to a crafter than Ego.
Asking a creator to not even have a bit of ego was truly hard, especially someone who was successful with what they had made. It was natural to feel pride in your work. If not, then why did I waste my precious time making it? So that I could slap it on my fridge door and forget it existed?
Draco understood that the underlying reason was simply due to his assumption earlier. The Refinement God needed an inheritor that was free of Ego, that could look at something unfinished and see it as imperfect.
Only then would they be able to fix it to the best of their ability, bringing out the best possible form of it.
So, going by Kopernico's revelations and some extrapolated data, here's the conclusion Draco reached: Whatever Inheritance the Refinement God wanted to give out, most likely the Tradeskill path they had developed, and that the Origin Gods were looking forward to, was incomplete!
Damn!
Once Draco thought this, his mind whirred even faster as he connected many more dots. The Refinement God had not reached Origin Rank yet, surely because they were still carving out their own path, and likely had reached the point of conclusion.
The secret faction in the dark must not have wanted to see that happen, so they had killed the Refinement God before they could ascend. The Origin Gods didn't want this, but couldn't prevent the Refinement God's death, so they had opted to create an elaborate test in their stead to find a person who could.
What did the competition test? Was it skill? Rank? No, as the Refinement God's spirit had said itself, it wanted talent! It didn't matter whether the fellow was Amateur Rank or God Rank, whatever Inheritance the Refinement God had thought up required absurd Tradeskill talent, talent on the Level of Norma the Refinement God themselves to complete.
Otherwise, it would forever remain unfinished in the hands of a chosen successor if they didn't have talent up to that par.
The second test, Observation! Why was observation necessary? Sure, it would be good if a Tradeskill crafter had that, but things like Insight, Deduction, and Knowledgeability could have been tested here with a twist of words, and like the first test, they seemed much better choices.
It was in the understanding Draco had reached, that prompted him to see the pattern. Observation for a Tradeskill crafter was only needed in high-quality if the crafter in question was picking up a semi-completed work and needed to develop upon it.
Like a writer working on a sequel or an architect finishing a started blueprint. If they didn't have the mental faculty and skill to see every single detail of the source material, whatever they added to finish it would be rubbish.
It would either detract from the source material or even ruin it altogether! Even the slightest deviation could lead the path astray by miles! Whoever was going to take up the Inheritance had to be able to look at whatever Norma the Refinement God had pioneered and grasp every detail in the same way the Refinement God had.
For Ego, be humble enough that you accept the work is below par and do everything you can to bring it to completion. Observation, notice the truth and quintessence of the source material, so that you can even replicate it at will.
Likely, the next test would then be… Creativity!
Creativity, to have the imagination to add the rest of the missing sections to complete the source material, backed by knowledge and talent of course. This would be the final test, and the final cut-off point.
Draco wasn't guessing, Vishad and co had told them the processes, but as stated before, they had no clue about the true purposes of these tests. Draco himself had been clueless until he heard the exact wording by the Refinement God's spirit.
He didn't hear the wording for the third test, but he heard what the content was about… and if everything he had assumed till now was correct, it was likely that the third and final test would be about Creativity, coming full circle!
Once Draco reached this understanding, his Pinnacle Intelligence switched off and so too did his Dark Angel Inheritance. Time, which had seemed to have stopped, suddenly resumed and nothing had really changed since then.
Well, there was one thing that did. The calm Refinement God's spirit that had been waiting for the candidates to begin envisioning the palace so as to sift through them was hit with Draco's rapid thoughts all of a sudden.
After flickering questionably for a moment as it parsed his thoughts, it eventually froze and if it had an expression, it would definitely display the extremity of disbelief and shock as it turned to face Draco who displayed a c.o.c.ky smile. ｢Pinnacle Intelligence – Passive Skill
Effect: Possess a thinking and reasoning capacity 2 times your current limit.｣