Chapter 17

Sam had almost completely healed but still felt weak and so he used a crutch to help himself stay standing, he slowly walked out of the hospital while wearing a new military uniform as his old one had been completely destroyed. He took slow steps towards the army base's training grounds, it was 8 in the morning at the moment and the rest of the examinees were going to be teleported back at 8:30.

It would be exactly 168 hours since the beginning of the examination soon and everyone would be teleported back on the platform from which they had been sent on Tunger moon a week ago.

Sam just stood there and waited patiently, he had been informed in advance that everyone who passed with at least one beast core would have their name written on the board at the entrance of the camp while the names of the top 100 who will be joining the Elite corps would be announced right here and now in front of everyone, Sam felt a little dejected as he believed that 48 grade one core wasn't enough for him to score the top 100.

This year there were around 10 000 candidates so even if only 10 percent were talents who could hunt decently that would still be a thousand people !

As Sam stood there waiting for the time to pass he saw the familiar bright orange light seeping out of the stone platform and a second later a big crowd had surrounded him, some were sitting, lying down, others were crouching. Obviously they had been teleported when they weren't ready and were still doing their stuff !

"Fuuuuck I was so close to killing that Poisonous wasp !"

As soon as they came back Sam heard a few people complaining, they had been caught off guard by the automated teleportation as they had completely immersed themselves in the lives of hunters.

"ATTENTION !"

Soon the same group of seven walked to the front and the old man who was leading the group started talking, his name was General Wade and he had already been introduced to Sam by Edward.

"This year a good thing happened followed right away by a bad one, the number of examinees to pass the test was higher than the last ten years and it is an extremely good thing for us, Moryl's army to have more talented youths however, during this operation on Tunger moon we lost 4 of our friend's who were supposed to protect you during your examination. From today on we should use this lesson to do our work more cleanly and to never scamp our work, please everyone let's give one minute of silence to our friends gone too soon."

Most examinees there hadn't heard about that and so were confused about what was happening, in the crowd of 10 000 people only a few knew what had happened exactly and they were : Sam, Edward and the rest of the senior soldiers. The smart ones in the big group that had been evacuated by Ash were already linking this story to that night when they had to evacuate but they didn't know the details as nobody was there to tell them.

Even thought Edward looked friendly and outgoing that wasn't the case, he was like this only when together with Sam. He was also a lonely kid so he didn't even try to talk with the rest of the big group on his own volition when he got back there.

After a minute the general continued:

"This year we have 5467 passing candidates which is a very good number compared to the previous years, your names will be displayed on the board at the entrance of the camp but you should already be aware of you did it or not. For those who didn't you can still train hard and try your luck next year, I wish you good luck."

Killing a grade one alien beast sounded easy but it was the same as asking a 10 years old to kill an adult tiger with a dagger, for the unlucky ones the beast they fell against would be even stronger than a tiger and so there were a lot who ended up getting injured or just giving up after seeing the grim reaper from so close, it wasn't a weird thing as it happened every year. Over confident people came with high hopes for themselves but death isn't something everybody can stand together with, one needed a strong mental and a goal to achieve to push them further.

Even amongst the 5467 examinees who passed the test half of them would resign within half a year, the reason behind that was that a lot of people had a fantasist vision of the army and didn't realize that joining the military also meant going to war whenever asked, obeying to EVERY single order from your superiors and sleeping while never knowing when death would come for you.

After that general Wade looked a little happy as he said:

"I will now announce the names of the hundred talents who will be joining the Elite corps this year, when your name is called please walk on the stage behind me and stand.

Thomas Green, ranked 100th with 51 grade one beast cores !"

After the first name was called a hooded young man wearing a black sweatshirt under his uniform walked up, because of his hood nobody could see what he looked like and he just gave off a introvert feeling.

Sam was surprised, this guy who hunted 51 first grade beasts was only ranked 100th?

'If I didn't get Mechy I would have had a hard time ranking in the top 100, I really underestimated the other examinees, even after getting Mechy and my blazing legs skill I was too relaxed in my hunting, these guys probably slept only a short amount each night and used the rest of their time hunting.'

Sam when he had gotten his skill felt complacent and slept 6 hours a night, took some time to bath everyday and even barbecued meat every now and then, he felt kind of bad to all these examinees on the stage who looked tired and hagard but that was the privilege of the strong and If he wanted to be relaxed in the future he would have to work hard now, he decided he wouldn't rely too much on Mechy or that would make him lazy and it wasn't a good thing.

Names were called one by one and each of them went to stand behind the general, soon the general called a familiar name:

"Edward Dean, ranked 61st with 79 first grade beast cores."

Sam looked at his friend who walked on stage and even released his crutch to applaud as loud as he could, of course he attracted the attention from people around him but he didn't care, his brother had proven once again that he was simply a monster.

Names flowed one by one like the wind and Sam was curious about each one of them because they would surely be his teammates or rivals during the next years.

"Elliot Ream, ranked third with 112 grade one beast cores."

"Sophia Lanes, ranked second with 181 grade one beast cores and one grade 2 beast core !"

Everybody looked intensely at the beautiful girl who was climbing the stage, this beautiful girl had just crushed the third on the ranking by a huge margin and she wasn't even ranked first?!

What kind of monster was the first on the ranking ?