Everything happened just the way the knight had informed. Although he was one of the last people to appear for the test, Ashton was called inside first which kind of made the others blab a bit about him. However, the moment they saw that the kid was accompanied by royal guards, they immediately shut their mouths.
None of them even wanted to mess with regular guards of Deja, let alone royal guards who were the strongest force in the city. Still, they kept mumbling about it to themselves every now and then.
'No wonder the nobility and the royalty are just some petty brats. They get everything handed to them after all.' Ashton shrugged his shoulders and walked inside, 'Why the heck am I complaining though? I'm using the same privilege for myself, haha.'
Once inside, Ashton saw a dozen people working all around the room. Ashton did not know what they were doing but they appeared to be occupied. Only the woman who had called his name seemed to be somewhat free.
"Alright, looks like everything checks out. We can begin the test." The woman said while flaunting his shoulder-length brown hair, "The procedure is really simple. You'll head into the simulation room next door. There, you will have to face various F grade night creatures for ten minutes. The more night creatures you end up eliminating, the higher will be your rank. Any questions?"
"Will this process be recorded? And am I allowed to use my weapons and other gear?" Ashton asked the attendant without wasting any time.
"Of course, this process will be recorded. How else are we supposed to rank you?" The lady said with an annoyed look, "As far as weapons and gear are concerned, you are free to use whatever you like. However, the use of any potion is strictly prohibited. Anything else?"
"How many do I have to kill to get the Gold rank?"
"Ambitious, aren't we?" The lady shook her head. Ashton's ignorance was slowly getting on her nerves now.
The lady had no idea about Ashton's skill and all she knew about him was that he was a royal brat. Who often turn out to be mostly all talk and no show. On top of that, during this time of year when the academy had already begun, only those who could not make it into the academy came to get tested in hopes of redeeming themselves one way or the other.
Even the top 5 Diamond ranked adventurers had to slowly crawl their way up through the rankings and take multiple revaluation tests over a decade o reach where they are right now. Also, none of them had reached the gold rank in one go.
"Here's the ranking chart. Feel free to go through it." The lady could have given Ashton a direct answer, however, she instead decided to show him exactly what kind of hell he was in for.
Most of the nobles could only get to bronze let alone any other higher grade. In fact, after getting their result, some of them even end up giving up on being an adventurer altogether. And she had a feeling this brat was going to be one of them.
In the meantime, Ashton carefully went through the pamphlet the lady had so generously handed to him. As he went through it, he realised it was nothing extravagant. As long as people had the skill for it they could easily reach beyond Iron rank. The only problem was the time limit.
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No. of monsters killed / Rank achieved
Less than 10 → Not qualified to be an adventurer
10 to 24 kills → Copper Rank
25 to 49 kills → Iron Rank
50 to 99 kills → Bronze Rank
100 to 249 kills → Silver Rank
250 to 499 kills → Gold Rank
500 to 999 kills → Platinum Rank
1000 or more kills → Diamond Rank
Time limit: 10 minutes.
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"I'm ready." Ashton confidently replied and handed the pamphlet back to the lady, "Let's begin."
Ashton headed inside the room with his armour and whip in hand. It went without question that he was going to aim for the gold rank right from the beginning. However, he was prepared in case he could not achieve it.
After all, since this was a task given to him by the king himself, it had to be quite challenging, to say the least. If not gold he at least had to get the bronze rank. Anything below that would be damaging to his self-confidence.
As soon as the door locked behind him, the atmosphere of the room changed. All of a sudden it got cold... really cold and a dusky forest formed in front of his eyes. Followed by innumerable night creatures.
Ashton scanned the nearest one of them and it turned out to be a level 10. On top of that, these six-legged creatures were unlike Ashton had ever seen before. Horns converted their entire body and disgusting mutations had popped out of their bodies like wild mushrooms in monsoon.
In other words, they looked like a bunch of overgrown insects. Who now instead of sucking the blood of animals, were dead set on eating their flesh. However, since they were level 10 and below, Ashton could easily handle them. That is if there weren't literally over a thousand of them surrounding him.
Also, since all of this was being recorded, he could not afford to use his Vampire or undead skills either. He had to fight using the skills he had retained as a werewolf and the gear he had on himself.
"Fcking hell, let's do what we can and consider everything else later." Ashton sighed before jumping into the sea of monsters.
***
10 minutes passed sooner than expected and Ashton was out of the simulation chamber in no time. However, he was not pleased with the results. He knew what rank he had achieved, but it took about a couple of hours for his official results to arrive.
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Adventurer Name: Ashton Bismark
Adventurer Level: 13
Adventurer Class: Unassigned
Adventurer Rank: Bronze-A
Number of monsters killed: 94
Time: 10 minutes
Injuries received: None
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