D.I.O

“Such… such a clear hand imprint… you wouldn’t by any chance be a practitioner of the Potala Palace school of martial arts study, would you?”

Clear!

While the middle-aged man was still speaking, Merlin vanished and returned to the main testing room. He then realized that some text messages had previously popped up.

/Your hand skill has gone up one rank!/

/You have acquired the title, ‘Vajra Hand!’/

/You have acquired the special skill, ‘Piercing!’/

“Oho, it went up. What exactly are the requirements for skill rankings to increase? Will it go up if I just use the skill successfully?”

As he mumbled, Merlin checked the title effects. The title increased his muscular strength, stamina, and spiritual power.

“Not bad, but… it’s definitely not as good as what was given for being a Divine Swimmer.”

Divine Swimmer. It was a Master title that he’d gained after leveling his swimming skill to the A rank. Compared to that title, anything else was a lesser achievement. While rank one and rank A were only separated by one step, the difference in effects between those two ranks was vast.

Merlin sat on the floor. Although he wanted to progress to the next test immediately, nearly all of his internal energy had been used up while fighting the tiger and Blood Zombie, so he needed some time to recover. This had happened often, as Merlin had a low internal energy capacity.

“Ah, this damn ability stat restriction. This is really getting on my nerves.”

Merlin had already reached 100 points in spiritual power, so his internal energy would no longer increase. While 100 points might not sound small, Merlin was using 20 points for his magic power and 20 points to maintain his first planetary Golden Core. This left him with 60 points, which was 30 years of internal energy.

“I feel like I’m going to hit another barrier shortly after reaching Level 3. What can I do?”

This was Merlin’s constant concern. However, the answer was simple: level up and gain more spiritual power. Unsatisfied with the restrictions? Level up.

“Anyway, this Bush Poison… it doesn’t seem too good. Well, what can I expect from a zombie?”

Actually, the zombie wasn’t entirely useless. It possessed a dantian, and the Bush Poison wasn’t a useless item. The Bush Poison was extremely poisonous and was hard to detoxify.

“Ah, I shouldn’t waste time like this. I guess I can take the non-combat-related tests.”

Merlin started taking the non-combat tests. Yet, they weren’t as easy as he expected.

/Out./

“Oh, man.”

/Out./

“Damn it.”

The [Weaponry Production] test challenged him to extract iron from iron ore and transform that iron into a short sword. Obviously, with no knowledge of blacksmithing or anything related to this field, Merlin found the test difficult. He didn’t lack talent or ability; he just lacked knowledge.

In [Clothing Production], Merlin was given a large piece of fabric to make into a set of clothes. In the end, all Merlin did was ruin a bunch of material in his attempts to create clothing.

For the [Medicine Production] test, a wide variety of ingredients were laid out in front of Merlin. He was tasked with creating a simple pain relief medication. Yet, clearly, Merlin didn’t know anything about medicine, so he failed terribly. However, he did succeed in another test.

/Clear!/

/Your Enchant skill has risen to rank 6!/

“Phew. I barely passed one test.”

In order to retake one of the exams, Merlin had to cancel the entire Level 3 testing and re-attempt it. As such, Merlin gave up on the idea of trying to pass all the available tests. Merlin was glad that he had passed the first couple of tests since he would have been forced out of the testing if he had failed on his first attempt. Just as Mari had told him before, the level tests would become much more difficult the higher his level was.

/Clear!/

[Adventure] was relatively easier, and [Gathering] required that he find and gather crystallized stones in a valley riverbed. Using Scanning Vision allowed him to view the entire riverbed as if he was looking into his hand, and his developed swimming ability made him faster than any fish. With these two skills, Merlin was able to complete the test effortlessly. His reward for the latter test was the crystallized stones he had gathered from the riverbed.

/Clear!/

[Stealing] had him enter a house and steal a jeweled necklace. This wasn’t too much of a challenge. While Merlin didn’t have much experience stealing things, he could use Aura Vision and Scanning Vision to constantly see where the guards were. Furthermore, he could easily jump two to three meters up into the air, so the guards didn’t present any problems for Merlin. The reward for completing this test was four copper. He wasn’t allowed to keep the necklace.

“Alright. Next is [Transportation].”

Without any hesitation, Merlin walked into the next test door. In stark contrast to all the other testing areas, Merlin found himself indoors.

“Oh, have you come from the union?”

“Union?”

“You’re not from the union?”

“Oh, you’re correct; I’m from the union. What item do I need to transport?”

Merlin followed along with the general flow of the test. It was a good thing he did because if he hadn’t, he would have immediately failed the test.

“The most pressing item is the safe, but you can’t do that by yourself. Since that’s the case….”

“No, wait. It’s fine. Where’s the safe? Where does it need to be transported?”

“The safe isn’t something you can transport by yourself. Even five or six people would find it difficult to-”

“Ah, that must be it.”

After saying this, Merlin went over to the safe and lifted it. It was extraordinarily heavy. Since a safe was traditionally meant to protect whatever was inside of it, the weight of the safe was understandable. Even if a safe was hard to open, what use would it have if it were light and could be carried away at will?

“Where do I need to go?”

“Uh? Uhm? Uh…”

“I would really like to know where I’m supposed to transport this thing.”

Hearing Merlin’s eager voice, the man frowned.

“I-isn’t it heavy?”

“Of course, it’s heavy, but I’m strong, so it’s fine.”

Merlin’s muscular strength was at 200 points. He was able to output ten times the muscular strength of an average adult male. Hence, lifting something that needed five or six people wasn’t difficult.

“I-it’s not far. That house over there.”

“Okay.”

Following the man’s directions, Merlin moved the safe to another house. The door to the house was closed, so Merlin called upon his spirit, Younghwi, to open the front door. Despite the safe’s immense weight, Merlin didn’t face any issues lugging it around.

/Clear!/

“Next is [Information Gathering].”

Merlin walked through the test door, and he found himself inside an extensive library.

“What is this place?”

Confused, Merlin opened the mission information window.

“The time limit is set to only ten minutes? But there are so many books in here….”

With an exasperated expression, Merlin approached the library catalog to sift through the catalog cards. The language written on the cards wasn’t something he had ever seen before, but for whatever reason, he didn’t have any difficulty reading the foreign language.

“Wyvern!”

The first title that caught his eye was [Monster Encyclopedia]. Merlin found the book and started flipping through the pages to find the Wyvern. Once he landed on a certain page, the letters written started to float up and shine.

/Wyvern. Alkaid Kingdom Tier 3 information. A Level 11 monster. The Wyvern makes its home to the east of the Alkaid Kingdom and looks similar to a prehistoric flying mammal. The first sighting of a Wyvern was…/

“Is this some sort of data copying function?”

A [Monster Information] window popped up in front of Merlin, and it started sucking in the information regarding the Wyvern. It even absorbed information that didn’t seem to be present in the encyclopedia.

“A wyvern is a Level 11 monster.”

Merlin mumbled as he scanned and searched for other monsters. A Level 10 Manticore, A Level 13 Kraken, a Level 15 Drake, and…

“A Phoenix?”

It was the monster that the Alkaid Kingdom used as the symbol of its kingdom, considering it to be the realm’s guardian monster. Yet, that wasn’t what surprised Merlin. What surprised Merlin was the Phoenix’s level.

The Phoenix was a Level 27 monster.

“Wow, it’s an ultra-high level monster, no? How formidable is something at Level 27?”

Merlin couldn’t fathom how powerful a being or monster at such a high level would be. And, as he was having this thought…

/Out./

“Shit! Time out!”

‘Damn it. I was too late. I shouldn’t have wasted time thinking about such stupid things!’ This was how Merlin felt. However, he shouldn’t have been so hard on himself; he hadn’t even found half of the monsters he was required to find.

“Hmm, I’m failing more tests than I initially expected. There are some that I have no idea how to pass, so I don’t think I’ll improve and pass those tests anytime soon. I guess I need to give up on my dream of being an all-around Master.”

A little crestfallen at this reality, Merlin inspected his status. He had fully recovered his internal energy.

“Let’s feed Younghwi first.”

Like a boss, Merlin fed 20 points, or ten years of internal energy, to Younghwi. It was a third of his total internal energy, but Merlin planned to rest a bit longer, so he wasn’t too bothered by this.

“Next is the general life category of tests.”

First up was [Farming]. In this test, Merlin was required to gather apples in an apple orchard, and he dutifully carried out this task. Yet, for some unknown reason, he failed the test. After [Farming] was [Cooking]. Merlin looked at the unexpected meal that he was tasked to prepare.

“Wait, the previous version of this test was to fry an egg. Is the next natural step really to cook jujube hen stew?”

Merlin felt that the difference between the level tests was too vast. However, as he complained, Merlin started prepping the chicken. Despite living alone for a long time and cooking often, he had only made jujube hen stew once, so he was unfamiliar with the recipe.

Bumble. Plop. Bumble.

“Ugh… was this the next step… I’m not too skilled at making Korean food….”

Merlin racked his brain, attempting to remember the recipe, and as he did this, he started putting the ingredients into a pot. Luckily, the meal slowly came together. After some time passed, the jujube hen stew’s aromatic and delicious aroma wafted in the kitchen. And then…

/Clear!/

“Oh, good! I see my cooking skills haven’t gone anywhere.”

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Merlin appraised the ginseng chicken soup.

“Ugh, it barely made 8th Tier. I only just passed.”

While Merlin had felt nervous during the cooking test, he was rather confident in his culinary abilities, so the unexpected low score of his jujube hen stew came as somewhat of a shock.

“Hmm, I guess I haven’t cooked in a while. There was a time when over 10,000 people would copy a picture of my food whenever I uploaded it on the cooking blogs….”

As he tried to convince himself that everything was fine, Merlin put the jujube hen stew into his inventory. It was true that jujube hen stew wasn’t the type of food that could be stored and eaten later, but his inventory always maintained food’s freshness, no matter how long it was kept inside. Merlin felt that his inventory was a fantastic food storage system. He could pull out an entire meal whenever he desired.

“Next up is [Medical Surgery]…”

Merlin walked through the test door without any hesitation. Whether it be due to his luck or misfortune, Merlin knew what his task was without even reading the test description.

“Ugh… it hurts so much… ugh….”

“Oh, no. Is there a doctor here?”

Five to six people were surrounding a young man who was lying on the ground, grabbing his midsection. Merlin was no different from the clueless and anxious crowd that had gathered. Immediately, Merlin knew that the young man was the test subject. However…

“What? You expect me to do something about this?”

Merlin knew nothing about medicine, physiology, or medical studies. Although he knew how to patch up wounds and use minor spells to heal himself, that was the extent of his medical expertise. There was nothing he could do in this situation.

/Out./

Once the young man’s eyes rolled back in his head, Merlin received the failed test message.

“Damn! These tests are difficult.”

Merlin realized that, other than combat tests, the other test areas required considerable study and training in their respective fields.