The more they oppose, the more it shows that I am doing the right thing-Chapter 337 - 228 Merlin: This has nothing to do with me!_2

The saints could never have imagined that the second question on the exam was an essay question; they were only given one multiple-choice question, like it was some kind of charity!

They feared that if they were given too many, they might guess one or two correctly by sheer luck.

This unprecedented design of exam questions was truly without rival, both before and since. His Excellency Merlin, truly deserving of the title God of Law, created questions that were nothing short of divine.

The second question was from the Alchemical Church, which generally tested knowledge of Alchemical Array composition, the principles of Alchemical Circuits, and alchemy theory. They looked at the second question,

[The God of Alchemy smelts all things. Please describe the steps to extract black silk from crude oil using alchemical methods.]

Divine.

All the saints’ faces turned as black as if they had been scorched. They stared at the question for a long while. Although they recognized every single word, when put together, these words became an unfathomable enigma.

What could possibly be the connection between crude oil and black silk?

In this world, there were so-called stockings, but their fabric was made from demon beasts like velvet worms and were expensive alchemical garments, usually worn only by nobility. But never had they heard of black silk being alchemically extracted from petroleum.

How could that dark, smelly pile of liquid ever be turned into soft and smooth stockings!

As they glanced at the witches’ black silk stockings, how could such a heavenly relic be connected to that unrefined crude oil!

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They absolutely couldn’t comprehend the question, couldn’t understand the brilliant intention of His Excellency Merlin. His Excellency Merlin’s revolutionary thinking was indeed beyond the ken of ordinary folks. They had barely grasped the peak of Holy Light, only to be defeated by black silk stockings.

Merlin, that bastard, does he ever research anything that would actually be meaningful and valuable to society?

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All the saints cursed in their hearts, but there were some geniuses who, as if sharing the same spirit, began to write their answers on their papers.

These answer-givers were the Chaotic Cultists, sure of themselves, feeling an eerie familiarity and comfort with this exam. Even though they were in the courtyard of the Radiant Holy See, the questions were chaotic and inscrutable, reminding them of home—it was truly nostalgic.

Although not knowing the answers, they had plenty of experience dealing with such abstract questions,

The Chaotic Elevator confidently wrote down the steps he hypothesized for extracting stockings from crude oil:

The alchemical steps to obtain stockings from crude oil:

Step 1: Announce on the newspapers that I have discovered petroleum.

Step 2: The Church Nation dispatches troops.

Step 3: Exchange petroleum for black silk stockings.

Three steps, each logically convincing, the Chaotic Ladder wrote the answer, then glanced at An Su smugly, thinking he was truly the genius of legends—the position of Chaotic Saint was rightfully his.

Priest Paxi beside him was sweating profusely. Although these answers seemed far-fetched, they had some level of plausibility on a certain plane. But this style of answering was still quite magical and probably not the correct solution.

It wasn’t that the second step, the Church Nation dispatching troops, was magical; that was all too real. The fantasy was in the third step: the Church Nation typically just took what they wanted and claimed it possessed massively destructive taboo magic. How could they possibly trade for black silk?

Surviving with a life intact was lucky enough.

Priest Paxi felt that the chaos level of this exam had reached an all-time high, with all sorts of wild magicians showing off their tricks; and yet, An Su was sincerely and diligently sticking to the rules. Since the beginning of the exam, he hadn’t made a single suspicious move.

Paxi glanced at An Su’s answer for the second question, "Atmospheric distillation, catalytic cracking... obtaining high molecular weight polymers, a byproduct of petroleum, to produce polyester and cotton blend...."

Although the long line of alchemical steps looked like alchemy, it seemed more like something from another world. However, it looked like the correct answer and theoretically plausible.

A different path from that of regular alchemists.

He was astonished at An Su’s breadth of knowledge; that even in Alchemy, he was profoundly skilled.

To be fair, given the same question, Paxi could only have approached it from the aspect of magical material conversion alchemy, but that would involve designing a highly complex Magic Circuit, not cost-effective.

He wasn’t primarily an alchemist. Had the question been given to his little junior sister, the well-known alchemy prodigy Priestess Ai Xueli, perhaps she could’ve come up with a better solution.

But ever since the last exam, a deep shadow had been cast in Ai Xueli’s heart by An Su.

She had sworn off ever being an invigilator again,

Leaving Paxi to take the fall.

As he thought about this, he couldn’t help but sigh with confusion, unable to comprehend why His Excellency Merlin would set such abstract and outrageous questions. Paxi kept guessing at the profound intentions of His Excellency Merlin, but in the end, he couldn’t comprehend them.

Was it possible that His Excellency Merlin intended to weed out all the mediocrities, leaving only the most elite geniuses?

Or was the rumor true, that the position of Merlin’s successor would be decided by this grand exam, and that’s why Merlin himself, had crafted this set of problems?

After a while, Paxi came to a conclusion:

To pose such questions, Merlin simply wanted the examinees to die!

"To pose such questions is to wish for my own death!"

In the third layer of the cathedral, Merlin, his face streaked with black lines, slammed a stack of opened exam papers in front of the assembled Priests.