Chapter 24: Are you sure that's not a demon?

Late in the night, many people were still awake as they refreshed the page of the Martial Arts Association website.

Since the Martial Arts Course Exam was held today, many people had stayed up late at night refreshing the association's website every few minutes as they waited for the results of the exam.

Every year the association would place up the results of the exam on their website along with a few clips of each of the candidates who had passed the exam.

The purpose of the clips was to both help showcase the prowess of the candidates while also helping to boost public image of hunters and the association to the public, since showcasing the strength of the candidates was the same as showcasing the future hunters that would be protecting them to the world.

The people who were most eager for the results of course were the various guilds. Since these candidates had already passed the exam, it showed that they had a certain level of talent and skill. After they were trained by the academy, they were guaranteed to be competent hunters at the very least.

If a guild managed to recruit a top ranked candidate early, they could get a massive advantage over their competitors that could allow them to rise up in the guild rankings.

That's why most guilds would have teams set up to analyze the various candidates that passed the test to figure out which were worth recruiting and which were not. This isn't to say that some candidates were bad, but that some candidates simply weren't worth recruiting over others.

When it was getting close to midnight, the association finally updated their website as the results of the exam were shown to the world.

The first thing the various members of the guild did was check the ranking of the top 10 candidates. When they looked at the rankings they were completely shocked by the disparity between rank 2 and rank 1.

Curious as to why the difference between the two scores were so great, the various guilds immediately started to analyze the video clips for each candidate.

The video for the rank two candidate was of Bradford. This video showcased his expert leadership skills as he led the rank 3 and 4 candidates in battle. It also revealed his expert combat senses and powerful fitness index which immediately attracted the attention of all the big guilds.

In one of the big guilds a conversation was going on between the analysis team.

"This candidate is impressive. He was able to lead a small group of students to kill three of the four bosses in the test."

"Indeed. His fitness index is also impressive for a candidate who hasn't achieved the martial apprentice stage yet."

"Place him down on the list of must recruits. We can't afford to lose him to any of the other guilds. If we lose him to one of the lower ranked guilds, I'm afraid our ranking is going to drop even more."

Similar conversations like this were also happening in the other guilds who watched the video of Bradford.

After they watched the video for Bradford, the analysis team immediately went on to watch the rank 1 candidate video.

When the analysis team started to watch the rank one candidate video, they immediately began to frown.

"Assassination? I didn't expect to see that as the rank one."

"Hmm, targeting the goblins seems to play a big role in his rank. Since the goblins were all low level monsters and had relatively similar habits to humans, they would be the perfect target for an assassin."

"I guess that's how he managed to rank so high. But still, he must have assassinated at least 100 goblins in order to get a score like that. That is impressive by itself."

"It certainly is impressive, but you mustn't forget that most assassins usually work by themselves. They aren't suited for the team raids that guilds do. For now we can put him on the potential recruit list."

"Roger that."

After the orders were given, the staff was about to change to another candidate when the mood of the video suddenly changed causing them to stop and continue to watch the video. Seeing that they were still at the halfway point, they were slightly curious as to what else the rank one candidate had to show.

As the video went on, the facial expressions of the analysis team slowly changed from one of curiosity to one of fear and shock. When the video finally ended, the room was completely quiet.

"…"

"Are we sure that was a candidate and not a demon?" one of the analysis team members asked as sweat dripped down his face.

"I-I'm not sure..."

"He lit the entire fortress ablaze and used the smoke as cover for his attack. That level of strategic thinking is indeed brilliant; however, it's what he did next..."

"He manipulated the fear of the creatures, sending them into mass panic…" The team leader of the analysis team pointed it out, "That level of manipulation is something that can both terrify his enemies and allies alike."

"Especially that last part. Did you all realize that he seems to speak the goblin's language in order to trick the goblin king?"

Hearing the words of the team member, everyone sucked in a breath of cold air.

"If he truly did speak the goblin's language... Then he is far more terrifying than any demon."

When everyone heard the words of the analysis team leader, everyone subconsciously gulped.

"Sir... are we going to leave him on the potential recruit list?"

Hearing the question, the team leader remained silent for a long time.

…

Similar situations were happening in every guild in the country. Most people didn't know whether to recruit Lake or not since having someone that would manipulate the fear of his enemies to get what he wants would be the same as having a ticking time bomb in the rifts where team cooperation is important.

What would happen if he ended up scaring his allies along with the enemies in that type of situation?

That's why most guilds around the world decided to leave Lake undrafted for the time being.

However, the situation on the internet was entirely different to the members of the various guilds.

The regular netizen didn't think so deeply about whether or not Lake would be valuable as a hunter or not. Most of them were focused on his appearance.

"Fuck, why are the top two for this year good looking? Do they not want to give the lower rank a chance? Haha."

"Lol, I quite like the charm of the cold and mysterious Bradford, but that psychotic look of Lake covered in blood is so cool. Ahhhh, I can't decide between the two!"

"Shit, it seems like they don't want to give us a chance either. My girlfriend has been pausing the frame on rank two's clips to stare at his face."

"Fuck If you think you have it bad, my situation is worse. The girls in my school dorm have started a war to figure out which one out of the two are better looking. I think in the future, none of the boys in our school are going to have a chance."

"A ranking? That isn't a bad idea."

After that post had been made, a ranking board of the different candidates based on appearance had appeared on the internet. The rank went to a voting system where the highest rank had the highest vote.

At the top of the list stood Bradford. Surprisingly Lake had fallen to rank 3 in this list. It seems most people were turned off by his terrifying combat style.

The person who had managed to take rank two was Allen. He managed to get so high mostly because people often saw him in Bradford's clips and gained a liking to him after seeing his smooth combat style paired with his slightly handsome look.

On the female side however, the ranking was a bit more strange and was constantly changing. The top five were never constant with names constantly falling out of ranking or rising back up. Kate managed to stay within the top ten and even made it to top five at a point but unfortunately wasn't able to breach the top three as there were surprisingly a lot of candidates with beauty similar or even slightly higher than her.

"Damn, the male candidates this year must be screaming with joy! Look at all these devastating beauties."

"If I was one of the male candidates, I definitely won't let a chance like this slip. I would definitely try to get one of them for myself."

"Haha. That's if you stood a chance. With candidates like Bradford, Lake and Allen, I would be surprised if anyone besides them managed to get someone from the top ten of the Beauty List."

"To the person above, I think you made a mistake. Lake definitely can't compare to Bradford and Allen. Although his appearance can be described as extremely handsome, no one would be interested in someone who might hold a knife to your neck when you sleep."

"Haha, I totally understand the person above concerns. However, I must say, as a man I can't help but admire Lake. When I saw him mercilessly slaughtering the goblins, I couldn't help but feel my blood boil. If I could, I would definitely want to be one with the smoke like Lake was. Moving and disappearing with the smoke, only to leave a cold lifeless corpse behind."

"+1 to the comment above."

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