58: Card making results

As conscientious members of the assessment team, they thoroughly observed and paid attention to every trial participant present.

Naturally, everyone was familiar with Shi Li, who also scored full marks in the first item.

"His card-making operation is also fluid, and if I remember correctly, he also got full marks on the theoretical exam, right?"

Shi Li's performance so far was satisfactory.

But, it was only satisfactory up to this point.

"However, with a Gold 4 rank alone, it will probably be difficult to achieve outstanding results in the third Monster Training Ground trial."

"Even excluding Ouyang Huan, there are more than 10 people in this group who have reached the Platinum rank."

"That's right, so if he wants to get a good final ranking, he probably has no hope."

As expected, these words immediately drew comments from the other instructors.

They had reviewed the data of every trial participant, and Shi Li had one unique aspect that was hard to overlook.

Of course, this "uniqueness" did not represent an advantage.

It was "card resonance not yet achieved."

He was the only one among all trial participants.

"But what if?"

At this moment, Instructor Liu posed a hypothetical: "What if Shi Li's final score can rank within the qualified quota?"

"How is that possible? Can a Gold 4 defeat a Three-Star Demon?"

"Instructor Liu, you are the person in charge of the base; you should know that the surrounding demons are not easy to deal with.

They are products of survival of the fittest, absolutely incomparable to an ordinary Monster Training Ground.

Even a Platinum rank might not be able to easily handle a Three-Star Demon among them."

"I admit that Shi Li possesses the Characteristic Unique Character Card, which is indeed excellent.

But among these more than one hundred people, he is not the only one with the Characteristic Unique Character Card, and all the others are Platinum rank."

"Compared to them, Shi Li indeed has no competitiveness."

The crowd was not targeting Shi Li; they were merely stating facts.

Regarding this point, it was so true that even Instructor Liu had no way to refute it from this angle.

...

On the examination field.

Shi Li did not delay and directly opened the circuit structure of the [Useless Snail].

After scrutinizing it for about 5 minutes, he began to open the structure of the material cards one by one, searching for a suitable circuit.

Soon, he found his desired target.

For Shi Li, who had several experiences in making entries and had manually performed a one-star to two-star upgrade, this exam question was not difficult at all.

After 20 minutes of manual crafting, he successfully created the entry.

[Defense - Passive]: When Useless Snail is revealed, gain 10 Shield.

10 Shield was already the numerical limit for a one-star entry.

This was a common survival-type passive entry for the steadfast type.

Due to the special nature of the Balance System type, it could be adapted.

Speaking of adaptation, Shi Li believed that the Jumping Guardian, as a steadfast card, should also be able to create similar entries.

It should be known that if it had Shield with its mechanism, its strength would definitely increase significantly.

After all, with a mere 50 HP, even with Defense, there was a high probability of being focused down and instantly killed.

But if it was 50 HP + Shield, then Defense would be valuable.

Even if only 5/50 HP remained after being focused down, that would still be equivalent to lasting one more turn.

However, it was mentioned in books that some Character Cards might be incompatible with certain entries of their own type due to mechanism issues.

Perhaps, even for Shield-type entries, the crafting difficulty for Jumping Guardian would definitely be greater than for other steadfast cards.

There might even be a situation where specific entries are incompatible with specific card structures, leading to an inability to craft them.

"Report."

Having completed the crafting, Shi Li submitted his exam under the astonished gazes of everyone else in the examination room.

However, after walking out of the examination room and looking at the large screen above, he realized that he wasn't even the first person to submit.

There were three people ahead of him; he was only fourth.

Completion time 26:13, only 97 points.

Ouyang Huan ranked first, with a completion time of 21:05 and 100 points.

However, this score was already enough to satisfy Shi Li.

Because the card crafting practical score accounted for 30%, which meant that including the written test score, he was currently at least in the top 4.

...

"This Shi Li, even his card-making skills are excellent among his peers."

Seeing Shi Li leave the examination room early, an instructor in the monitoring room sighed.

He was originally a good prospect, but why did he lack Talent in card resonance?

"Material consumption."

But at this moment, Instructor Liu frowned and quietly spoke a sentence.

"What?"

Some were puzzled, and some didn't hear clearly.

"Among the four students who completed the star upgrade, Shi Li used the fewest material cards."

Instructor Liu revealed a detail that no one had noticed.

Hearing her say that, everyone clicked on the replay to check.

"This... did he know the questions in advance and practice?"

An instructor said it himself, then knew it was impossible.

After all, for fairness, the exam questions were completely sealed.

But Shi Li's practical operation process was indeed perfect, almost textbook-level operation.

"I immediately compared it, and even Ouyang Huan, who was first, used one more material card than him and extracted one more circuit segment."

"Not only Ouyang Huan, the second and third place used even more material cards."

"In other words, Shi Li discovered the optimal path for this exam question in just a few minutes of thought?"

"Skilled in technique, fast, accurate, and economical, this little guy... seems very perceptive in card crafting."

Because from his background information, Shi Li was clearly not a young master from a prominent family with abundant material resources for practice.

Therefore, to achieve such a level of card crafting, there was only one answer.

That was, he might possess outstanding Talent in card crafting.

After realizing this, everyone fell silent.

Card crafting relies on accumulation, and also greatly depends on an individual's on-the-spot feeling.

The latter is usually referred to as card sense or card crafting Talent.

Don't look at Shi Li only saving one material card when upgrading from no-star to one-star; every instructor present could easily do that much.

But one must consider the pressure environment of the examination room the other party was in, as well as his current experience and accumulation.

If they were to face the same test at his age, to put it nicely, they might not be able to do it; to put it bluntly, they definitely could not do it.

Achieving this level in a no-star to one-star upgrade was indeed not a shocking feat.

But this also represented that Shi Li might possess potential that others did not.

To hypothesize on a larger scale, what if in the future, he also saved one material card for three-star to four-star, or four-star to five-star upgrades?

"How about... we still look at his final total score first."

Someone's attitude softened.

And this time, no one refuted; everyone had an uncharacteristic understanding.