"That might take more time though..." he said to Ryuk, who nodded his head before replying.
"I hope you get a high grading on the test," he said to the man, who smiled before replying.
"Yes. You too."
"Batch Number 3A, Number 5. Please proceed to the test door." The words sounded out as Ryuk watched the man rise up.
"Seems like it’s my turn..." he said, as Ryuk waved him goodbye, watching as he disappeared through the door.
When the man left, the room regained its silence as Ryuk leaned on the chair, choosing to shut his eyes.
Time passed pretty swiftly, and he occasionally heard the sound of names being called, but not people exiting, though. After about six minutes of waiting, he finally got the call.
"Batch Number 3A, Number 7. Please proceed to the test door."
Without wasting a second more, Ryuk rose to his feet and walked toward the door—whose knob suddenly twisted by itself and then opened up as if carried by some mysterious force—as Ryuk stepped into the door and it shut itself close behind him.
’Telekinesis?’
The words echoed in the minds of everyone who was present in the room as they watched the door shut close by itself, the knobs returning to normal.
When Ryuk stepped through the door, he could immediately feel it: the sense of stepping through a teleporter—and his eyes flashed when he found himself in a blank white dimension.
It extended as far as his eyes could see.
A blank white with no stain—but just about ten meters away was a white office table with a white notepad, and sitting behind the desk was a white office chair where sat a chubby man who wore spectacles.
"Ryuk Knull, I presume. Please come forward and stand in the runic circle..." the man said without raising his gaze, as Ryuk walked forward to stand in a circle covered by green runic lines just five meters away from the man.
"So, you’re here to take the Adventurer Test?" he asked, as Void, who was sitting on Ryuk’s shoulder, twitched its eye from the man’s dumb question.
But Ryuk replied still,
"Yes, I am."
"You have successfully passed the first test. You will now be sent to the next..."
The man said, resulting in Void’s eyes widening to saucers, and immediately, green dots of light flared out from the runic lines around Ryuk’s feet, and he disappeared into thin air.
"Send in the next person..." the chubby man said, never raising his gaze to look at Ryuk throughout the entire ordeal.
____
The teleportation was fast, and in a blink, Ryuk was before another blank white room.
At its center, just a few meters away from Ryuk, was a huge ball—and standing behind it was a female who had a holograph floating before her.
"Ryuk Knull, I presume. What class did you belong, please?" she asked, as Ryuk’s eyebrow furrowed, and he replied.
"Class?"
"That is to say, are you a Conjurer—the most common class of which is Elementalists—or an Enhancer, which is the use of Apex Energy to improve bodily abilities? Or are you an Emitter—most common of which are Healers?"
"I’m a Conjurer," Ryuk replied as the lady tapped her hand swiftly on the holograph before ordering,
"Please place your hands on the glass ball for your element to be assessed, and your Cultivation Rank..."
The woman said, and Ryuk stretched out his right hand as he placed it on the floating glass ball.
Immediately, a ton of silvery lights bloomed in it, as Ryuk felt a bizarre force snaking through his body and heading for his veins—but he acted instinctively, sinking his Void Veins into his nano-bones, leaving just the Frost Veins out.
The energy meandered through the Frost Veins, and Ryuk watched as the light from the ball began shining brighter and brighter until it reached a blinding level where it could no longer be observed.
"Your element has been assessed to be Ice Elementalist at a Cultivation Stage of the Initial Plane of Cataclysm..." the woman called out loudly, typing on the holograph as Ryuk replied,
"That is correct."
"Good. You have passed the second test. Head to the next..." she said, and like an automatic command, a wave of green light immediately shone beneath Ryuk’s feet, and once more, he blinked out of existence, disappearing away from the room.
_____
This time, when Ryuk opened his eyes, it wasn’t in a white room, but instead a seemingly endless grass plain.
And when he looked to the left, he found a middle-aged man standing there with a notepad and pen in hand. He turned to Ryuk.
"This is the final assessment, Ryuk Knull."
"You are to complete the stages in an allotted time of 30 minutes. The more stages you can progress through, the higher your Adventurer ranking will be..."
"Failure of stages, either by getting wounded enough to be tagged as killed by the system, will give you an adventurer rank that should be the previous stage. Or by failing to complete within the timeframe, which will also mean you have failed and will be tagged with the rank below."
"Since you’re at the Cataclysm stage, you will begin with the D-Rank Adventurer Test," the man said, and in the next instant, Ryuk watched as the green grass morphed into a primitive-looking cave ground, with deep darkness in front.
The man remained in the same place behind him, but there was a sleek and gorgeous glint coming in and out of him, occasionally making him resemble a holograph.
"The first test has begun. And do not worry, the beasts are but holographs, like you may have realized."
"They can’t do real damage, although every damage is being assessed by the system..." the man explained, as Ryuk’s eyes flashed before he turned to the darkness in the cave.
GROOOWWWLL
SCRAAATCHH
That was when he began hearing the sound of the floor getting scratched by heavy nails and deep, beastly growls.
And walking out from the darkness were beastly wolf-like creatures, set with sharp bones jutting out from their joints—and mostly concentrated around their spines.
There were a total of five, and they walked forward toward Ryuk, flashing him a menacing growl.
’Interesting.’
’Five beasts at the peak of the Dominion Stage.’
’That’s what must be faced before one can be tagged a C-Ranked Adventurer?
’I guess we’ll be ranking quite high...’
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A/N:
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In and Out_SnowySmoos