ALL NOVEL Chapter 386: The Trials of Merit and The Trial of Luck
The competition has two parts: the Trials of Merit and the Trial of Luck.
The Trials of Merit has three sections. The first is called "Separate the Wheat from the Chaff," also known as the trial of will. As the name suggests, this part is about weeding out weak-minded people. The exact method of this trial varies each time, but the focus is solely on testing willpower, not strength, intelligence, luck, or anything else.
In the past, the tests have included simple pain tolerance, where contestants are placed in an illusionary world and tortured until they quit. Those who last the longest pass, while those who surrender fail. Contestants can quit at any time, and no matter how severe the torture is in the illusionary world, they won’t be harmed in the real world.
Other tests in this section may include placing contestants in an illusionary world and asking them to remain motionless. Those who stay still the longest win. Everyone's physical condition is equal in the illusionary world, so those with stronger physical fitness don’t have an advantage.
Another example of the first section involved asking contestants to pull their own hair out, one by one, until none remained. This is not unlike torture, except that the torturer is the contestant themselves.
Overall, very few people have even a slight chance of passing the first section; 99.9% of people lack what it takes to withstand it.
The second section of the Trials of Merit is called "Only the Sharpest Knives Stay in the Drawer," also known as the Trial of Intelligence. As the name implies, it’s about weeding out those with lower intelligence. The supernatural masters and referees seal the contestants' memories, placing them in tricky situations within illusionary worlds. Contestants must use their wits to solve their situation. All contestants undergo the same test but separately, so they cannot interfere with each other. As with the previous section, contestants all have the same physical fitness, as this section is about intelligence, not physical prowess; the tests of this section are designed to be about wits and not luck.
Previous tests have included placing contestants on a mountain to see who can survive the longest or placing them in a prison to see who can break out. Although this trial tests intelligence, it’s not about scholarly intelligence but survival intelligence—who can survive the longest in an unfamiliar environment. Of course, even in survival scenarios, those with higher intelligence still have an advantage. Since everyone’s memory is sealed, the determining factor is how quickly one can learn and adapt to their surroundings. In this regard, the smarter someone is, the better they perform.
The third section is called "Sharp Mind, Strong Resolve," also known as the trial of excellence. This section differs from the previous two, where contestants couldn’t interfere with each other and were tested in isolated illusionary worlds. In this section, they must fight each other.
To keep the contest fair, everyone has the same genderless body and cannot speak. Their memories are mostly sealed, and they don’t have access to their knowledge. They know who they are but cannot recall useful information they’ve read or seen, and their muscle memory is also sealed.
The contests vary, from wrestling matches to one-on-one sword fights. Those who pass this third section can finally enter the main competition.
The second part, the Trial of Luck, is much simpler. The queen picks numbers, and if a contestant’s number is selected, they enter the main competition directly. Intelligence, willpower, and other factors don’t matter; you can enter as long as the queen calls your number. How the queen selects these numbers is unknown, and no one dares to ask. Even though it’s named the Trial of Luck, no one truly knows if it’s based on luck. Regardless, being chosen by the queen is unbelievably lucky, so for the contestants, it doesn’t matter whether they were chosen randomly or if the queen liked them.
A contestant can only participate in one of the two main parts. Those participating in the Trials of Merit cannot participate in the Trial of Luck, and vice versa.
The first section of the Trials of Merit, "Separate the Wheat from the Chaff," cuts the number of contestants from trillions down to one million. The second section, "Only the Sharpest Knives Stay in the Drawer," also known as the Trial of Intelligence, allows only those who manage to pass to move on. Even if only one person passes, so be it; they won’t admit anyone who fails. On the other hand, even if one million people pass the test, they won’t try to cut down the numbers.
The third section, "Sharp Mind, Strong Resolve," continues until only 18,000 contestants remain. The difficulty of this section depends on how difficult the second section, the Trial of Intelligence, or "Only the Sharpest Knives Stay in the Drawer," was. If the intelligence trial was hard and only 20,000 passed, this third trial only needs to cut down the numbers by 2,000 people. But if it was easy and 100,000 passed the trial of intelligence, "Sharp Mind, Strong Resolve" would have to eliminate over 80% of the contestants; the upper limit of the third trial, the trial of excellence, is 18,000.
If fewer than 18,001 contestants pass the Trial of Intelligence, all who pass will directly reach the main contest without needing to compete in "Sharp Mind, Strong Resolve." For example, if only 10,000 pass the Trial of Intelligence, the remaining participants will be allocated to the Trial of Luck. In a normal situation, only 2,000 of the 20,000 are picked from the Trial of Luck participants, but that number is a minimum. There have been times when so few passed the Trial of Intelligence that most of the contestants were picked from the Trial of Luck. Also, the queen is unpredictable; if she chooses, she can pick as many people as she wants, but she usually doesn't; after all, these rules are her own; she usually won't break the rules she set herself.
Many people choose the Trial of Luck over the Trial of Merit. In recent years, only about 30% of participants choose the Trials of Merit. After all, everyone knows how hard it is to pass even the first Trial of Will. Trillions of people participate, and only one million with the strongest will can pass. They know they have a 0% chance of passing. At least, if they participate in the Trial of Luck, they have a non-zero chance.
The main competition has no rules; the queen decides everything, and she follows no pattern or rhythm. In the last competition, for example, she held a perseverance contest among the male participants, and the one who lasted the longest was given a blue card without further tests.
It's said that he lasted for over a day, which is unbelievable; even the queen was extremely impressed.
The number of total winners is not fixed. As long as they please the queen, they win. Those who fail to please her lose. As such, everyone studies the queen’s personality for months or years, trying to learn how to talk and behave. Thousands of books have been written about her, her habits, and analyses of previous main contests. The queen is not bound by any rules, so no one can ever be sure how the main contest will go.
...
Elara looked around curiously, very impressed and surprised by the arena.
All big cities have competition arenas. Her hometown was small and didn’t have one, so she had to travel by bus for a few hours to get there. Even though she had been to this city before, she had never seen the inside of the competition arena. Honestly, it was unbelievable; the inside was much larger than the outside.
“It’s magical,” she concluded.
She had decided to join the Trials of Merit. She didn’t believe in luck; she only believed in herself. Her self-confidence was strong; she already considered herself a winner who would enter the main competition. That’s why she had studied the queen for the last few years. After reaching the main contest, she has to please the queen, which is the hardest part.
“Enter the illusion spaces one by one,” one of the supernatural masters said, his voice somehow reaching everyone in the massive arena.
Soon, everyone entered. Even though it looked too small to accommodate such a large number of people, it was magical; over 200,000 participants entered the illusion spaces without any issues.
After entering, the scene in front of Elara’s eyes changed. A voice explained, “See that path? The longer you go down it, the higher your chances of passing. It goes on forever; there is no end to it, but the further you go, the more pain you will feel.”
Elara nodded. The first trial was about pain, as expected.
Without wasting time, she took the first step. Immediately, she felt a wave of pain hitting her all over her body, as if she had just been hit by a car.
And that was just the first step.