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Welcome to the 353rd Daisy Exams.

Welcome, humans. You stand here as a token from your sectors. As vowed, I’ll test you and determine whether your seed should last or fade.

Even though Kai tried hard to spot any machine-like quality in Daisy’s voice, it was indistinguishable from a real human’s. She sounded almost motherly. There was emotion in her voice. Her words dripped with dignity and purpose, something he’d only heard in passionate speeches. He tried thinking of Daisy as just an artificial intelligence, but it was difficult not to think of her as a person when she spoke.

He turned his hands over and moved them. Remarkable. The accounts were true. Being here was identical to being outside. Even the scar on his right hand was here. Although he had heard the stories around the bonfire many times, related by many different people, nothing surpassed experiencing it in person.

Kai took a deep breath and waited. The overwhelming cough never came. He closed his eyes, trying to feel any pain in his body. There was no sore throat or weakness. He sighed in relief. Having to deal with the symptoms of the blight would have severely impacted his performance in the exam. This meant that he and Ariel still had a chance.

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From focusing on his body, he turned his attention to his surroundings. There was no one in sight. As soon as he was plugged in, he found himself inside an empty white cubical room with no doors or windows. It was austere, and it made him think of a hospice. If Daisy’s purpose was to help him relax, she was failing at it miserably. He felt like he was about to go into surgery.

So far, he found no clues as to what he was required to do. He could imagine many others like him trying to make sense of their surroundings elsewhere. After all, over half of the sectors were left.

The other challengers had to be in separate spaces. As Kai looked around, he tried not to show impatience or restlessness. Daisy was watching. She was always watching.

The beginning of the 23rd exam was similar to this. People were thrown into a room and given no rules or objectives. When the first trial runners started protesting and demanding answers from Daisy, she removed them from the trial. Afterward, she revealed to the ones left that she had been testing their patience that year.

He didn’t know what weak points Daisy had seen in humanity during the last year, but he tried to look the part and stay calm in case they were being judged on impatience. There was no point in being anxious. The lack of information was to be expected. Daisy never spoon-fed the participants. After a few more seconds without anything happening, it became increasingly harder to look impassive, but Kai focused on his breathing and made himself relax.

This year’s challenge was a big question mark. It could be a maze run, a cooperative game, or a quiz. Very rarely in the history of the exams did challenges repeat from one year to the next, so this year, it would almost certainly not be something having to do with survival.

Daisy’s dignified voice interrupted his thoughts.

This year, the trial shall be Snap Craft. This will test the two weakest traits of the last era: creativity and logic. The trial will now begin.