Project Overworld

'Is it really that basic?' Leyla wondered after being given her own object to complete. It resembled to be some kind of a motor, but the way it should be working was so simple that she thought the one hour they were given was quite an overshot.

Its reservoir already held a bit of fuel, just so she would be able to make it run. After removing the part preventing her from seeing inside the device, Leyla immediately realized what was being faulty in here.

'Well, looks like I need to fully connect the fuel pump to the combustion chamber. There seems to be some parts to be repaired there as well and the lighter also seems quite a bit worn out.' She concluded.

Alongside the objects they were supposed to repair, all the participants were given some spare parts as well as a few tools to proceed in their deeds. Leyla picked up some metal parts out of the bucket she received and modeled it to a cylindrical shape using pliers. She then attached it to the rest of the pump using some strong strings.

'Now, how should I fill the holes up?' She realized that the pipe she just made was a bit too small to perfectly fit into the round opening leading to the combustion chamber. Fortunately, she had the materials needed to make some kind of an engineering paste which she then spread around the pipe to completely shut it off.

'A bit crappy, but that should do the work.' Leyla thought. In a similar fashion, she then proceeded to repair the lighter and several other faulty parts before deciding to test it. She pulled a string from the motor a few times for it to ignite, before a loud buzzing escaped into the surroundings.

She looked around her and realized she was one of the first to actually manage to make her object run properly. Without giving it much of a second thought, she spent the remaing forty minutes optimizing the work she has done. She was not that concerned about it not working, so she decided against testing it another time so she would not be wasting any more fuel.

Obviously, the small amount of fuel and resources were part of the challenge Keith had thought about. If Leyla had actually tried testing it another time, there was a strong chance she would not have enough fuel remaining for the final test when he would be checking wether the device worked or not.

By the end of the time limit, not a lot of players actually managed to repair their own device. According to her, they should only be around a few hundreds to make it to the second phase. From the initial two thousands, this was a significant drop.

As for Keith, this result was perfect for him. The first phase was designed to eliminate all those players who either did not know anything in engineering but still applied to his company, or those who would be requiring too much time in becoming proefficient.

'Only the best shall remain.' He meditated. Obviously, there was a bit of luck involved in all of this since all the devices were either totally different or had different malfunctions resulting in them not working. Either way, people may have more of a hard time making their object run solely based on the difficulty of spotting the faulty parts.

However, to Keith, this was not a problem. If one could not adapt to the situation quickly and did not know what to do to make their device run, they would not deserve to be part of his company. As for the lucky players who did get some really simple problems to solve... Well he was not that concerned about them winning the second phase.

- "Five minutes remaining!" Keith exclaimed in his microphone. He wanted to see how people reacted to this very limited schedule and was actually quite surprised about it.

'Seems like there are some interesting players out there.' He thought while roaming around the arena.

Once the countdown reached its end, Keith used his speaker yet again and told everyone to stop what they were doing at once. Some sneaky ones continued anyways, but Keith instantly disqualified all of them using the various cameras disposed throughout the arena. There was no place for dishonest people within Spacol.

For the rest of the afternoon, Keith, his friends, as well as a few volunteers inspected everyone's work. By the end of it, a total of three hundred and forty-six players were selected to take place into the second part of this competition. It was quite a subtential amount of people that have been eliminated, but Keith had expected as much. There were not that many engineers throughout this game, and certainly not as good as to know how to repair complex devices with such limited resources.

However since there was not a lot of time left, especially for people living by the other side of the planet in the real world, Keith decided to call it a day and said farewell to everyone who was not selected for the second phase.

He then left the arena and went back to his base while making sure he would not be followed by anyone but his friends. Although it was already the end of the day for other countries, Keith had several hours before him to prepare for the rest of the event.

He had already finished designing the project he wanted people to work towards during the second test, but there was still a bit of improvements he could do here and there. Anyways, he also wanted to take a bit of time off this whole competition to actually code a bit for his base. He had recently tried to implement a program that could analyse the pictures taken by his satellites and warn him about unusual behaviours in a specific area.

It was a really complicated program, not even that useful for the future of his company. However, the more he trained his skills in electronics and automation, the more he would be able to work towards grandiose projects. As an added benefit, this could potentially help him protect his base from long range attacks or large scale assaults. Though, this eventuality seemed rather unlikely at the moment.

The next day, around noon, Keith went back to the arena he had built for the large-scale recruitement event and found everyone already waiting for him there.

'Looks like they're ready. Let's begin with the second test then.' He thought while climbing onto the stage.

- "Welcome back to the second part of this recruitement session." He proclaimed. "I've already talked a bit about the rules yesterday, but let me clarify all of this. Your goal for today is to reproduce a project I've been working on in the past few days. You will have a total of two days to do so before I start rating everyone's work based on three criterias."

Keith paused for a moment, letting the first informations sink in. The two days were given so that everyone, regardless of their time schedule, could put at least twelve hours into this build.

- "The first one will be the correct functioning of your build. If it doesn't even... Oh yeah, I've just realized I didn't introduce the 'thing' yet." Keith said while sprinting towards the door from where the truck entered the arena yesterday. The door slowly opened to reveal a vehicle they all knew too well from the recent news. There was a rocket standing next to the door, and they finally undertood that that was what they would have to work towards.

Obviously, this one was a lot small than the ones which were being used for the sake of space exploration several weeks earlier. However it still measured around ten feet in height, leaving everyone in awe before such a finely crafted launcher.

- "That's right, you will have to reproduce a rocket like this one and I want yours to..." He explained will going by the side of his rocket and activating some sort of a lever. The rocket's engine ignited and smoke escaped from its bottom. A few seconds later, it launched into the air at a frightening speed. "... to launch just like that. I mean, no exactly like that, but if your rocket doesn't even lift itself from the ground, you will immediately be eliminated." He finished his sentence. "The second criteria is where the best engineers will stand out for the rest. Your rocket will have to reach at least a few hundred yards up in the air and..." He left his speech on hold for a bit to direct the public's attention to where the rocket disappeared just moments ago. Since its fuel has been totally used up, it was now coming down due to Earth's gravitational force.

However a few yards away from the ground a parachute deployed, letting it land onto the Earth without much of a scratch. "... and come back on the ground without crashing. I don't expected everyone to accomplish such a feat, but try your best in that regard. As for the last criteria, it's all about the efforts you put into it. The total size, the fuel consumption, as well as the distance reached... Everything will be taken into account to give the most precise rating possible. Basically, the first two criteria will be determining your elimination or not, and the rest will be taken into account to choose the final winners of the competition." Keith concluded.

- "That's all for now, let the best engineers come out ahead!" He exclaimed before distributing all the necessary materials to the participants. They were not given much at the beginning, but throughout the two days that they would be working onto their rocket, they will be able to ask for more anyways.