Guild Wars

Chapter 1223: Prowess Test

Hah.

There have been so many chapters wasted detailing the process and results of the Strength, Endurance, Intent and Techniques.

Do you think it was for fun? Those chapters involved so many numbers ffs!

It was because the testing system wanted to extract the details of each candidate thoroughly, from their body power to their combat abilities and comprehension, all for this prowess test!

One could say that the prowess test was the actual test under the Test of Body exam!

In order to make sure they could fully dig out your prowess, they gathered details about all your abilities and then tabulated them before creating foes here for you to vanquish. So for the others who had foolishly done their best, a foe of equal strength basically meant a foe with strength equivalent to the maximum output you released in all previous rounds.

It was a widely known fact that it was impossible for a human to always release the same amount of force with each punch, even if their stamina remained constant. The same applied here, your maximum output on all previous tests was not your normal output, so it was obvious that everyone would struggle.

However, Draco had never unleashed his full potential. At first, he only exerted minimal effort, then drifted into a fatherly reverie for much of the remaining time, snapping out of it only when a test managed to catch his attention.

Yet, it was during those moments of clarity that the tests managed to evoke any real sensation. To put it in perspective, the mild irritation of a mosquito bite had barely escalated to the gentle pressure of a fingertip. In numerical terms, it was as if the intensity had only just crept from a fraction of a point to a solid one.

So naturally, when an equal foe was spawned for him, not only was it a piece of cake, but it was killed like a common monster in the Main Plane. Of course, it you were to unleash that very same monster on the Main Plane, it would cause a calamity that only the core members of Umbra could stop, akin to a top level World Boss.

The test was therefore barely worth mentioning, but thanks to it Draco was now on the cusp of verifying something. Alas, he would only know for sure after the next segment.

After dealing with the equal foe with no limitations, it was time for the next segment which involved battling an enemy with limitations on both sides. Once again a mannequin appeared that randomly shifted forms and finally morphed into a mermonster that was akin to a fishman with slightly more humanoid features.

This being wielded a cragged spear and had pristine blue scales on its body. Its eyes shone with confidence, intelligence and malice, aiming to crush any foe presented before it with its superior strength and intellect.

Draco assessed it and found that it was around the peak of Rank 5, which was - on paper - slightly stronger than him in terms of base display.

Both sides received their limitations. The mermonster had to fight on land, which halved its actual combat strength by half since it did not possess aquagenesis but aquakinesis, meaning that it needed water to be present to cast half of its skills.

Meanwhile, Draco's limitation was that he could not use any melee combat abilities. No swords or fists, only ranged weapons or magic. This left him amused as he felt that things were still not tense enough.

So the moment the fight began, he first released a thin cannon of wind that blasted the mermonster back and then created a lake-sized flow of water that surrounded their battlefield, all with Subjective Magic.

Then, he released his control of the water, allowing it to exist freely without his influence.

"There, now your limitation is removed. I would probably do well with a few more, so I wont use any energy above worldly to power my spells and I will keep to only using basic spells. There, that should be fine." Draco said with a sunny smile.

The mermonster's eyes became red, because it could tell that it was being looked down upon heavily by his foe, like a deity looking down at a random red ant in the garbage dumps searching for sugar cubes.

It was akin to seeing the woman of your dreams being given the essential vitamin from your rival and instead of feeling ashamed, he does the helicopter and mocks you for being unable to replicate his majesty.

Experience the journey at m-vl-em-py-r

At that point, the grudge would be irreconcilable, a matter of life and death!

The mermonster panted with hatred and then willfully charged forward, closing the distance between itself and Draco before striking out, the water around the area converging to form a giant spear that reinforced its attack.

As for the fact that it was using the 'handicap' that Draco gave it, it could not afford to care. It knew of Draco's strength due to the feeling of extreme danger he gave it, and it also knew that it had to do everything to kill him.

This was primarily because of the burning anger in its heart. If it did not subdue him, torture him day and night for 10 years then eat him alive day by day for another 10 years before defecating his remains into a container holding his wretched soul, it would not be able to sleep at night again!

However, the dream was pleasant but reality was cruel.

Draco could not actively engage in melee nor could he passively engage in it, but that still didn't mean he couldn't do close combat. He simply avoid the strike smoothly, like the mermonster had always meant to strike alongside him, before making a finger gun.

Draco closed one eye and aimed, shooting playfully as he cried: "Pew!"

However, the result was that the monster was blasted in the chest with a tiny orb of lightning which was one of the basic spells of the advanced lightning element. Draco intended to test his damage output with Subjective Magic under his current limitations, but things didn't go as planned.

"AIIIEEEEEEE!!"

A terrifying screech of pain sounded form the mermonster as its entire body was electrocuted so baldy that it skipped turning into a charred corpse and directly became ashes, vaporized by the intense energy of the weak attack.

"Uh…" Draco muttered stupidly, completely dumbfounded.

For the first time in a very long while, he opened the combat log and checked through it. After looking through, he slapped his forehead with a look of chagrin and understanding, almost wanting to slap himself.

"I forgot to turn off the Semi-Eternal class passives…"

255 points in Intelligence was already super high among players, NPCs and monsters for one at Rank 5, but when it was boosted to 510,000 points, even the weakest fireball spell could vaporize a planet on its own.

And as the mermonster disappeared, Draco took back his outstretched finger gun and blew on the muzzle while thinking that indeed, his hunch was correct.

Within this test space, he could display a huge amount of his stats; actual power!

In fact, he should have realized it from the beginning. The AI had dropped a very blatant message that it was reallocating significant resources for this test and what could warrant significant resources here?

Do you think any of these clowns here could make the AI break a sweat in calculations when species like Dragons exist? Even Draco's almighty children with broken abilities did not dare to be arrogant under the AI.

So the only one who could force the AI to allocate would be himself, with his troublesome Semi-Eternal class.

And the reason the AI would have to reallocate had something to do with the War Maniac Pavilion, its testing ground and its rules, which seemed to require the AI to make sure that there were no limitations on candidates, even at the cost of other subroutines of the AI's collective digital world declining.

Draco's eyes narrowed seriously. So far in his entire two lifetimes, he only knew of two entities that could 'force'; the AI to do anything. One was its creator and the other was Caelo.

Both were beings of a power that even the current Draco knew he could not match until he, Eva and Shuangtian fully completed Lucifer's plan and ascended to the same level of power as Caelo and Caela.

So whatever was behind the War Maniac Pavilion should have the same power... this would only be possible if it was a faction outside of the game...

A lot of questions, but the answers could only be found when he completed the test. As such, he waited for the second hour long segment to end, and noticed that once again, nearly no one passed.

This made him even more certain that the War Maniac Pavilion was an outside faction because its operations would be unsustainable with such high requirements if it existed within Boundless' Western Fantasy.

To test in all the previous round and then use those results to perform a final brutal test with a realistically less than 0.1% pass rate…

Only if one knew beforehand the trick of this exam and withheld power when testing previously would they have a chance here. But since they had some way to prevent the information from leaking, it was almost foolproof.

The ones who passed were either very lucky or could break through their own limit of power to achieve victory, in which case they could be further trained into powerful warriors.

Aside that, those who would normally pass would be those who were like Draco, suppressing their abilities but still 'trying their best', in which case the War Maniac Pavilion had scored with recruiting a colossal titan of a talent.

They were taking an extreme road of seeking quality, even more stringent than Umbra!

The final segment began, and a new mannequin spawned again that underwent a round of shifting before settling on the form of a…Dragon?

Draco was amused as he watched a yellowish-purple colored Dragon appear before him, lazily glancing over with a hint of disdain in its eyes. As Draco scanned it, he saw that it was the equivalent of early Rank 6, which did count as a significantly stronger foe.

Draco was then informed of his handicap, which was that the Dragon could not fly but had to remain ground based. The Dragon seemed to receive this notification and the disdain in its eyes thickened, because any being that needed a handicap to even fight it was definitely hot trash.

Draco saw its look and titled his head with a strange smile. As the Dragon rose up to its feet boredly to get rid of this pest, Draco simply released a wisp of his Serpent God branch power to envelop the Dragon before him.

The moment the Lightning Dragon felt the aura of Draco, it froze for a split second then bowed its head obsequiously, like a wastrel grandson seeing their majestic grandpa coming over.

Draco simply folded his arms behind his back as he glanced at the Lightning Dragon passively.

"End your own life." Draco decreed calmly before the Lightning Dragon even had a chance to beg.

The proud Dragon paused, this time for a long few seconds, before sighing and lowering its head, the life force from irs body rapidly dissipating. It had terminated its own life functions and died gracefully, laying in place as if it was sleeping.

Its body dematerialized like those that came before, leaving Draco with a clear and empty field. Meanwhile, the others did even worse at this stage because even with a random handicap, they still couldn't defeat opponents so much stronger than them.

The final one hour period elapsed, allowing Draco to see the pale faces of all those who had come to the Test of Body with high spirits previously, majority of them now realizing that they were likely not going to make the cut with that poor performance.

Despite this, they hoped the War Manic Pavilion could be fair to them, because their previous results weren't bad and showed that, at least, if they were nurtured well, they could definitely do better.

However, Draco was sure that it was extreme unlikely that anyone but him would be allowed to pass.