The participants stared at him with a nervous expression.
This was a very vast topic and information about it was mostly kept under the wraps. They had no idea if the question would be based on general knowledge or not but everything still depended on the grading of the difficulty of the question.
"What tool was presented to earth by the Slarkovs to show that they were a peaceful race?" Gustav asked and walked back to his seat.
Chatter! Chatter! Chatter!
The hall became noisy again after Gustav asked his question.
This was truly something that wasn't known to the general public because history books relating to the Slarkovs descent were extremely scarce. It was almost like information about that was being covered up.
The screen started calculating the difficulty.
In a few seconds, it displayed the difficulty which happened to be a high school level difficulty.
Chatter! Chatter! Chatter!
The hall became noisier. At first, the students believed it would be above high school level but now that it had been displayed that it wasn't, the participants would have no choice but to answer.
Small whispers could be heard on the stage as teammates discussed among themselves how they would answer.
Even after two minutes had passed, not a single participant stood up to answer.
'It's just as I thought, he is well versed in science than other topics...' Gustav stared at Atrihea city's high school participants with a look of contemplation.
He had studied the three students representing them earlier.
Holland, Ezekiel, and Vivy. The three were versed in different aspects that complemented one another but Holland was the only person Gustav felt was more knowledgeable in the aspect he was versed in which was science.
If he were to come up with a scientific question he was sure that Holland had an 80% chance of answering. Since Holland was the only person he was wary of he decided to bring up a subject that wasn't related to science.
The girl in their group, Vivy was the only one who was really knowledgeable when it came to history but Gustav doubted that even she knew the answer to this.
Beep!
Finally, a school tapped on the button.
A female student from Black rock school came forward to answer.
"The item wasn't mentioned in the historical records, how are we supposed to know it?" She said with a squeezed-up face.
Everyone thought she came up to answer, no one expected that she actually came up to complain about the question.
"The tool was very well mentioned," Gustav replied to her bluntly.
"Do you even know the answer to the question you asked?" She pointed at Gustav with a dark look.
"We will find out when you all fail to answer," Gustav replied with an unbothered look.
"Aurora Gantz, that stage isn't for arguments, it's for questions and answers... If you know nothing about the answer to the question please take your seat or you will get disqualified!" A loud voice came from the other stage.
It was the vice principal of Atrihea city high school. He had to give her a warning since she was using the stage for the wrong purpose.
Aurora walked back to her seat with a look of embarrassment.
Now everyone went back to waiting for another student to walk up the stage and answer.
Ten seconds went by in silence.
Another thirty seconds went by again and yet no one stood up to answer.
After a minute went by the female student from Atrihea city high school tapped the answer display panel and stood up.
She walked to the middle of the stage and started speaking.
"According to the history of the Slarkovs descent, the humans thought they were hostile and acted unreasonably by sending out artilleries in an act to protect themselves from doom... The historical records also connote that an item was given to the earth as a gift to show that they were a peaceful race but this item wasn't mentioned," She paused for a bit before continuing.
"From our observation of Earth's history down the line, the earth seemed to be protected by something relating to a prediction machine... The reason for this thought is because of the time a meteor shower was said to rain on the earth, the places that were affected had been evacuated of human life beforehand," She said with a look of certainty.
"I believe the item is a technological doom prediction device..." She concluded with this.
Chatter! Chatter! Chatter!
Voices conversing could be heard from the crowd.
They talked about the possibility of Vivy's answer being correct while waiting for the result.
Even the audience themselves were not very knowledgeable when it came to history so they couldn't tell if the answer was correct.
Beep!
The screen finally displayed the status of her answer after a few seconds.
To everyone's surprise, she was wrong.
'Here I was thinking she could actually answer correctly with the way she started... What a disappointment,' Gustav said internally.
The chatters from the crowd increased again.
-"Since even Vivy got it wrong, I doubt any of the students can get it correctly,"
-"I doubt that this Gustav who asked the question can answer it,"
The crowd, especially Atrihea city high school students had already seen Vivy as a goddess of history due to the way she had been answering questions related to them previously. Now that she failed to answer, they believed that no one else could.
The participants that had similar answers to Vivy's answer remained in position with a dumbfounded look.
They couldn't think of anything else that would be the right answer to this question.
Beep!
Another beep resounded in the hall.
This signified that the timer for answering the question had finished counting down.
Now the person who posed the question would have to answer it since the other participants failed to do so.
Gustav knowing he was up walked to the stage.
"I asked that what tool was presented to humanity by the Slarkovs... It's a very simple question," Gustav started speaking.
"In the past when the Slarkovs descended, there was chaos but the Slarkovs gave two things to humanity to prove that they weren't a hostile race, instead they were peaceful," Gustav paused for a bit before continuing.
"One is well known to everyone while the other is hidden..."
"Intelligence!" Gustav stated with a profound look.
Chatter! Chatter! Chatter!
-"How could intelligence be the answer?"
-"Is he messing around right now or he doesn't know the answer?"
-"Is he referring to intelligence as the tool received?"
The crowd refused to believe that Gustav was right.
Gustav didn't mind their words and kept speaking.