In a large control room, screens covered the walls as rows of workers typed on the control panel before them. This room was the monitoring facility that the Association uses to keep track of and manage the students that were taking the exam.
While the workers monitored the screens before them, they were also making various reports.
"Candidate 0523, eliminated."
"Candidate 0231, eliminated."
"Candidate 0051, eliminated."
On a big screen at the front of the control room, a counter was displayed showing the number of candidates that had already been eliminated. Every time the workers reported an elimination, the counter would increase. At the current time, only around an hour and a half had passed, yet the percentage of students eliminated was almost 50%!
In the back of the control room stood one man who was overlooking all of these operations. The man appeared to be in his late thirties. He wore thin framed glasses and had on a long trench coat. His eyes looked tired and he had a messy untrimmed beard. If Lake was there, he would recognize the man to be Alec Malcom, the man who introduced the contents of the exam to everyone.
At this point in the exam, Alec stared coldly at the monitors on the walls that showed the live action performance of the students in the exam. As he was going through them he was also commenting on their performance.
"Candidate 0150, shows overall great survivability but is too slow. Overall skill level, high-tier inferior."
"Candidate 0234, strong build and high defense, however, severe lack of maneuverability. Overall skill level, low-tier normal."
"Candidate 0015, Hmm, both strong and swift attacks, shows decent level of adaptation and flexibility in battle. Overall skill level, mid-tier superior."
As he spoke out his comments the workers besides him were recording his statements on their monitors.
This was Alec's job in this exam. As a high ranking hunter in the Master Realm, he was assigned to give an overall rating of the students' skill level depending on their skills, adaptability, tactical analysis, physical strengths and mana.
After analyzing two more candidates, the worker's beside Alec said, "Good work so far Mr. Malcom, you can take a 5 minute break before we begin the reviewing process again."
Nodding his head, Alec took a seat behind him as he sat down and watched the battle performance of the candidates for this year. However, the more he watched the more disappointed he became.
The quality of candidates for the last few years were simply too low for his standards. As both an instructor at the Martial Arts Academy and a professional hunter, Alec simply couldn't stand the quality of the students that had been entering the academy.
This year was the same as well. Although there were some promising seeds among the new batch, he still hadn't seen any extraordinary students that would outshine everyone else like he wanted.
Feeling depressed just thinking about it, he leaned back his head against the chair as he closed his eyes to rest.
However, before he could get any proper rest, he was startled by an excited report of one of the workers below.
"Candidate 0100, 0050 and 0099 have successfully hunted the Blood Raptor, the boss of zone one!"
Hearing the report of the worker everyone else stopped what they were doing as they looked over at the worker who made the report.
Seeing that everyone was looking at him, the worker didn't want to be misunderstood so he quickly transmitted the recording on his screen to one of the large monitors on the wall.
When the video was finally shown, everyone stared with wide eyes. Alec had also stood back up from his chair as he watched intently at the video being played.
In the video it showed three candidates working together to combat the Blood Raptor and its pack. One of the candidates used a sword as he fought in a one on one fight with the Blood Raptor. This candidate showed amazing skill and control with the blade as he used it to deflect, block, slash and stab the creature in front of him, constantly applying more and more wounds onto the body of the Blood Raptor, all while avoiding all of it's attacks
The other two candidates were busy preventing the rest of the Blood Raptor's pack from approaching the duel between the candidate using a sword and the Blood Raptor.
Using a bow in the backlines, a female candidate picked off the raptors approaching from afar while the other candidate used a variety of weapons to kill any raptors that came close to the group.
The workers in the control room along with Alec watched this scene with stunned expressions.
After a while, one of the worker's swallowed his saliva as he said with slight disbelief, "That... Candidate is fighting the Blood Raptor... in a one vs one."
Everyone heard the words of the worker but no one replied. They were also stunned by the scene they were seeing before them. Everyone wanted to know if their eyes were working properly or if someone had switched out the video for the scene of a real hunter hunting a Blood Raptor as no one could believe that a candidate can fight a Blood Raptor in a one vs one.
This is not to say that they thought the candidates were weak, but that the Blood Raptor was too strong. In this exam, it must be noted that all of the candidates aren't even martial artist. Most of them have only absorbed a small amount of mana and can barely enhance their physique to above one to achieve values between 1.00 to 1.15.
The monsters in the exam were also extremely weak to the point that even these students would be able to fight and kill it. However that wasn't the same for the boss monsters.
All of the boss monsters had strength equivalent to Martial Apprentices, with Fitness Index all over 2 with some even reaching as high as 3 and the Blood Raptor was ranked high on that scale with a Fitness Index of 2.8! Without a proper team of at least 10 candidates, it would be impossible for these candidates to take down a creature of this level and would be even more impossible for a candidate to fight one of them in a one vs one duel!
That's why everyone was so shocked when they saw a candidate doing just that.
After a while, without the interference of the Blood Raptor's pack, the sword candidate managed to kill the Blood Raptor, successfully intimidating the rest of the pack into running away as their leader had already been killed. With that he managed to give his team the time to rest and recover while they divided up the points from the battle in an organized manner, showing great leadership skills.
Looking at the screen in front of them everyone was silent as they simply couldn't comprehend what they just saw.
After taking some time to recover from the shock he had just experienced, Alec was the first to speak as he shouted at the workers beside him.
"Get me the profile of these three candidates from the video, now!"
Hearing his shout, everyone in the control room snapped back to their senses as they immediately started to follow Alec's orders while the rest got back to their work.
Soon Alec got his hands on the candidates profile for candidates 0100, 0099 and 0050 as he quickly went through it, only looking at the important parts.
[Name = Allen Spindale]
[Overall Fitness = 0.85]
[Mana Rating = 0. No mana detected]
[Notable Traits = Grandson of the Hundred Weapons Grandmaster.]
"The hundred weapons Grandmaster, no wonder he could utilize so many weapons at once. It seems like the kid is carrying on his family's legacy. That would explain why he could fight so well even with such a low fitness index."
[Name = Kate Blackheart]
[Overall Fitness = 1.10]
[Mana Rating = 0.15. A trace of mana detected]
[Notable Traits = The daughter of the Blackheart Guild Master.]
"A member of the Blackheart family, I see. In the future when she graduates she'll most likely directly join her father's guild if nothing goes wrong. With the support of her father and depending on how well she grows in the future, she should be able to make a decent name for herself in the hunting industry."
Looking at the background of these two candidates, Alec couldn't help but sigh. One is the grandson of a Martial Grandmaster while the other is the daughter of the rank 8th guild in the country. All that leaves is to check the profile of the last candidate who showed the most outstanding performance during the battle.
[Name = Bradford Keraunos]
[Fitness Index = 1.50]
[Mana Rating = Unknown]
[Notable Traits = Nothing]
"Hmm?" Alec frowned as he looked at the profile before him. Besides from his high Fitness Index, Alec couldn't see anything else noteworthy about his background. His family background is completely normal.
Before the exam, he lived in a small apartment with his parents and little sister. Both his parents weren't extraordinary people nor did he have any relatives that could explain where his strength came from.
Alec frowned but couldn't think of anything for the meantime. Shaking his head he placed down the candidate profiles as he said to the workers beside him, "Place these three down on the special class list. Everyone else, keep a look out for any more anomalies ."
The worker besides him nodded her head in response while everyone else continued to monitor the rest of the candidates.
As Alec was about to sit back down, he was stunned to hear that someone already made a report right after he gave the order, and it was a completely shocking report.
"A-An anomaly has been detected! S-Someone is slaughtering the goblins in the fortress of zone two!"
Alec felt his mind go blank as he stood half seated above the chair behind him.