Chapter 255: Life 73, Age 48, Martial Grandmaster Peak
Near the end of the year, the clan held its second annual competition to select new elders. This time, however, the atmosphere surrounding the event wasn’t nearly as lively as it had been the first time. This was because the positions up for grabs were for the workshops.
The reason for this muted enthusiasm wasn’t because there was a lack of interested participants. Nearly everyone in the clan was skilled in at least one profession, and the workshops were considered an important hub of activity on the mountain. There were more than a few ambitious youths who were looking to use this competition to make a name for themselves.
Instead, the lack of enthusiasm was because the method Mo had settled on for choosing the new Master of the Workshops wouldn’t be nearly as exciting to watch as the tournament for Arena Master had been.
Mo had decided that the most important ability for an elder of the workshops to possess was the ability to properly analyze the items people produced. So, each person vying for a seat as an elder would be shown a series of items and be asked to appraise them. Those who did the best job would become elders. Unfortunately, while this might be a good method for choosing elders, it didn’t easily lend itself to the spectacle that people were craving.
Low entertainment value aside, there was an important problem that Mo had to address for this competition to even be feasible.
Each contestant would be shown the same series of items, and a panel of deacons from the workshops would then have to judge who had given the most correct, complete appraisal of each item. For this to work, these judges needed correct, detailed information about every item that was going to be appraised. This was a bit of a problem since the only people who were qualified to produce such detailed information were the competitors themselves.
How was this panel supposed to judge the appraisals of people who possessed more knowledge and understanding than they did?
After failing to find a solution to this problem, Mo eventually came and asked me to solve it for him.
While I wanted to help, my knowledge of most professions was only superficial. Outside of pills and formations, I would have as hard of a time appraising things as anyone else in the clan.