The Demon Empowered Orphan

Chapter 4: Skills Exam

After hearing the announcement, Zak  hurried to find the sign-up area for the combat division. After he searched for a few minutes, Zak  found the sign-up booth. He was late for the sign-ups because of his encounter with Nathan, so there weren't too many people in line.

Zak  lined up and waited for his turn to sign up. After a few minutes of waiting, a mysterious-looking boy lined up behind him. He carried 2 daggers on his waist and he wore a cloak that covered most of his face, so you could not really make out his appearance. This person was Joe, the person Nathan sent to spy on Zak .

After a few more minutes of waiting, it was Zak 's turn.

"Student ID, please.", said a female voice from behind the desk.

Zak  took out his student ID and handed it to the girl behind the desk. She took the card and scanned it on her computer.

"Thank you sir. Now please draw a card from this box to see what group you will be in for the skill evaluation exam. As you can tell, we have many students applying, so we had to separate each exam into 50 groups with at least 10 people each. Don't worry, it doesn't matter what group you end up getting. Every group will do the same exam."

Zak  nodded and stuck his hand into a huge box full of papers. After he ruffled it up for a few seconds, Zak  finally picked one.

After seeing Zak  ruffle up the papers inside the box, he prepared to peek at what group he will get in, in order to get in the same group. Finally, Zak  pulled out a paper. But before he got the chance to make a quick dash and peek at the paper, he heard a voice in front of him announce loudly,

"Cool! I got group 42.", Zak  said as he took his paper and left the booth in a jolly mood.

Joe just stood there, speechless at how careless this guy was. After Joe got his ID scanned, it was now his turn to draw a card. After ruffling it up for a bit, he pulled out a paper. It was number 42. The same one as Zak . Joe had a special ability that gave him really good sensory, which allowed him to choose the same number as Zak . This was the reason that he was the one chosen to spy on Zak .

After 5 minutes of waiting alone on a bench, all pumped up and excited for the exam, he heard an announcement.

"Sign-ups are now over. Everyone, please head to the exam area that corresponds to your group number and wait for further instructions."

After looking around for a bit, Zak  spotted exam area 42. There, he found 9 other students standing there, waiting patiently. As soon as Zak  showed up, the instructor looked at everyone and nodded.

"It looks like everyone is now present. I will be your examiner, Leo James. Before we start, let me explain the exam. This is the exam that will determine your power ranking. The ranks go from F to X. X being the best and F being the worst. These rankings will be very important, so I advise you to try your best."

The instructor, Leo James, was a big muscular middle-aged man with dark spiky orange hair, a full well-kept beard and hazel eyes. He had big broad shoulders and stood tall with an impressive height of 6'4. He was wearing a regular muscle shirt that exposed his bulging muscular arms and emphasized his pecks.

The instructor walked over to a weird-looking machine.

"Your first test will be this power machine. Just attack the red point on the machine with whatever attack or weapon you want, and it will give back a number. Like this!"

Leo stepped back and took a fighting stance in front of the machine. Then, he punched the machine with such immense strength that it caused shock waves.

The number on the machine started to skyrocket.

The number finally stopped at 60060 points. The students were all speechless as they stared at their examiner in admiration.

"Well dang, I thought it was going to be higher, but I guess my hand slipped a bit. Sorry guys," Leo said with a smile while rubbing the back of his head.

At that point, the student's jaws dropped even further than before as they had a hard time believing what they had just heard.

"Well anyway, this is the second and final test. The speed and reflex test. Just stand here for a few moments and then holograms of balls will shoot at you with increasing speed. Your goal is to last as long as possible without being touched by the ball. I won't be showing a demonstration for this test because we are already low on time. Are there any questions before we start?"

The group just stared back in silence.

"By your silence, I assume you're all ready to go. When I call your name, please come up and take your exam."

After that, the exam went by really quickly. Some applicants had really interesting abilities that Zak  had never seen before. So far, 8 students had taken their exams. 1 got F rank, 3 got E rank, 3 got D rank, and 1 got C rank.

Abby Ried, the C rank student, was especially strong. She had long red hair tied up into a ponytail that went down to her waist. She wore an expensive-looking red dress with a long black cape that covered her back. From her actions, she seemed like the talented and confident rich noble type that thought she was better than everyone else. She was really pretty compared to most  girls, which even further boosted her ego. You could infer just from her appearance that she was a fire ability user.

Out of all the elemental abilities, Fire was one of the strongest and least common due to it not being sold on the market. In fact, only a few families in the world had inherited a fire ability. Each fire ability differs slightly from one another, having their unique styles and properties. Each family holds an enormous influence and power in society. The Reid family is one of the well-known families that inherited the fire ability.

Abby being classified as a C rank in the starting examination was no small feat. She got 7620 points on the power machine, and lasted 5 minutes on the speed and reflex test. This gave her a power level of 7540. To put this into perspective, on the power test, the usual scores are as follows.

And for the speed and reflex test, the usual scores were:

E rank: 1 minute to 2 minutes 30 seconds

D rank: 2 minutes 30 seconds to 4 minutes

C rank: 4 minutes to 6 minutes

B rank: 6 minutes to 8 minutes

A rank: 8 minutes to 9 minutes

S rank: 9 minutes to 10 minutes

These scores were then averaged and combined to create an accurate power level. 

Here is the power level scale:

The last 2 people to take the exam were Joe and Zak . First, it was Joe's turn. Although Joe had no strength-enhancing ability, he could still score 1000 on the strength test due to the extra strength, the mutation one gets when they gain an ability.

However, his true talent would only be shown during the speed and reflex test. Because of Joe having a sensory type ability, he could fairly easily dodge the incoming projectiles.

Joe's ability enhanced his senses to the extreme, which gave him superhuman vision, hearing, smell, and reaction time. This gave him a good 3 minutes for the speed and reaction test, which easily gave him D class speed and reaction.

In the end, Joe ended up with a power level of 1710, which was around the middle of the E rank.

Lastly, it was Zak 's turn. When he walked up, you could hear a few girls begin to gossip with one another.

"Hey who's that guy? He's pretty cute, totally my type."

"Ya, I agree that guy is pretty handsome."

"Hey guys, don't fall for him, look at his clothes, he's totally broke."

"I guess that's true, but maybe he's super strong! He looks like he trains all the time."

"Well, you will find out soon enough how strong he is."

Zak  was too far away to hear anything they were saying. Although Zak  was considered handsome, he never got any female attention. He had silky black hair that fell past his eyes, jade green eyes and fairly pale skin with no sign of acne. He also had a fairly respectable height, standing at 6 feet tall. Zak  never even once considered that he was handsome because females always tried to stay away from him. Without fail, every female that found out that Zak  was poor with no abilities would avoid him like the plague. Their perception of him instantly took a complete 180 as their interest in him turned into disgust and hate. Zak  never thought that his poverty was the problem and just chalked it up to him just being ugly and didn't think too much of it.

As Zak  was walking up to take his exam, examiner Leo approached him and said.

"Hello there Zak Farrell , from your records it says that you have no ability, is that correct?"

"Yes sir, that is correct."

As soon as he said that, the girls that were previously interested in Zak  had a complete change of heart.

"See! I told you he was a bum!"

"Ewww, what did I ever see in a guy like that!"

"Ya, now that I look at him again, he's not even handsome. If anything, he's pretty ugly."

The examiner reached into his bag and pulled out 3 different elemental ability orbs.

"As per our policy, we will give any student with no ability the option to choose between the 3 basic elemental abilities. Of course, the ability orb will only be level 1, but it's better than nothing. You may choose either wind, earth, or water." Said Leo as he showed Zak  all 3 ability orbs.

After thinking for a few seconds, Zak  shook his head, denying the orb.

"I am very thankful for your generosity, but I must decline your offer. I don't have any intentions to be indebted to the military. Plus, It's not like I'm completely defenseless. I have my family's martial arts." Zak  said with a firm resolve.

After hearing that, everyone, including Leo, became very confused. In all his years of teaching, Leo never had a student who had rejected the ability orbs. Leo seemed a bit annoyed at Zak 's answer.

"Okay, fine then, let's see how well you do during the exam," said Leo with a hint of skepticism.

Zak  lined up in front of the power machine. He unsheathed his chipped rusty sword from his waist and took a stance. It was the stance for the demon slash. Zak  focused his demon energy into his sword and sliced it down with all his might. Visually the attack looked really impressive but...

Everyone started laughing at him from the back. After all that talk about how he's not completely defenceless, he ended up with only 790 points in the power test.

Zak  thought little about his score and immediately went on to the next test.

He stood in the designated area and waited for the holographic balls to come out. For the first 30 seconds, they were easy enough to dodge, but after that; they became an enormous challenge. At 56 seconds, it was pretty much impossible for Zak  to dodge the balls. Zak  now had to rely on his other secret move, the demon flash.

He focused his demon energy into his legs and performed 1 demon flash, dodging a few balls in the process. For the next half a second, Zak  seemed like a blur to the audience, but they didn't think too much of it. Even Joe with his enhanced vision could not clearly see what happened.

The only person who clearly saw what happened to Zak  was Leo. Zak 's 2 secret techniques greatly impressed Leo, so he decided that he would keep a closer eye on Zak . It seemed like Leo had taken a liking to this abilityless kid.

Zak  ended up with 57 seconds on the speed and reflex test, which was just under E level.

"Zak Farrell , F rank power level: 800." said Leo with a smile on his face.