Hunter Registration

Ezra woke up earlier than usual as he wanted to register as a hunter as soon as he possibly could. He had a quick shower before putting on some old clothes that he wouldn't mind getting dirty or torn.

Without even eating any breakfast, Ezra left his house full of excitement and made his way to the nearest Hunters Association Building. It was a large building that stretched both outwards and upwards and was covered in glass on the exterior.

Ezra walked inside the building and waited in line behind around ten other people. The Hunter Registration process' first step was notorious for having lots of unnecessary questions that you had to fill in before you could carry on.

Once he reached the front of the line, a bored looking woman handed him a piece of paper, "Fill this in and hand it to the desk to my left."

Ezra looked at the paper before picking up a pen and answering the required fields.

Name: Ezra Blackwood

Age: 17

Gender: Male

Level: 1

Class: None

Hair Colour: Blonde

Skin Colour: White

Eye Colour: Blue

Skills Y/N: Y

Specific Skills (Optional): Eagle Eye

Points: 0

The questions continued in a similar fashion to this, and after a few minutes Ezra had filled the entire sheet in. He handed it to the man behind the other desk, and he seemed confused while reading it over, "It seems you've filled part of this in incorrectly."

Ezra was unsure of what he meant as he was sure he had filled the sheet in perfectly, aside from leaving out some of his information to do with skills, "What do you mean? Would you mind explaining?"

"You've put that you have blonde hair and blue eyes, but they're clearly both dark green."

This confused Ezra even more, "Huh? There's no way that can be right." He pulled his phone out and flipped his camera to face himself, and he saw for himself that his hair was a dark green and his eyes were the same colour. He didn't want it to be any more suspicious than it already was, so he acted like it was a mistake, "Oh, sorry I must have been confused, I haven't been awake long if I'm being honest."

The man laughed, "It's alright, we all have those days. As you are only a level 1, you do not need to participate in any other tests and will receive an automatic F ranking, this means you will be able to enter F rank dungeons at highest while alone, and E rank dungeons while in a party of at least four other F rank hunters. When you feel like you need to rank up, you can come back and take a re-evaluation test to increase it. Thank you for using our service, see you again soon, goodbye."

Ezra did not want to leave with only an F rank so he disputed this, "I would still like to take the other tests to make sure my ranking will be correct, rather than just basing it off of my level."

The man was quite surprised by this, as normally level 1 hunters would be okay with the automatic F rank as they would not be able to fight against much stronger monsters, "Are you sure you want to, you could be in danger as you will be fighting against real monsters to test your combat power."

"That's fine with me, where should I go for this?"

"If you wait in the seating area over there, your name will be called for the test."

"Sure thing, thanks.'

Ezra went and sat down in one of the many chairs in the waiting area, and after about twenty minutes of sitting on his phone, his name was called and he entered one of the testing centres. He was not given any equipment, and was sent in with just the clothes he was wearing, this was to ensure that the tested person was not only getting results due to a weapon and it was actually because of their own physical ability.

The room was plain white and cube shaped, and there was a barred door on the other side. A countdown began soon after he entered the room and, once it finished, a goblin burst through the door.

The goblin was around five feet tall, which compared to Ezra's height of 6' was enough to not make it seem particularly intimidating. It had light green skin with a long nose and sharp teeth, as well as yellow claw-like nails. Goblins as a whole tended to have physical abilities around that of a thin middle-aged man, so not particularly strong, however their tendency to group in large numbers as well as their barbaric natures meant they were more dangerous than they appeared.

The goblin charged towards Ezra, seemingly crazed as it had most likely not been fed since it was captured. However, it was unable to eat anything as Ezra tried out his new skill, and quickly disappeared when the goblin got close enough. It stood still, confused as to where its prey had gone, but before it could finish its thought, a dark grey blade cut the goblin in two.

"Pretty good for a level 1 skill, it should be even more useful at a higher level."

"Test 1 has been completed, announce if you want to proceed with the next test."

"I want to proceed."

Out of the same door, five goblins emerged, all of which seemed as crazed as the first one. Ezra wanted to try his other skill, and used Fearful Disguise on all five goblins. This caused the goblins to hallucinate and see a man dressed in armour slaughtering their kind over and over again. While the goblins were paralysed with fear, Ezra used Disappearing Slash on all of them and passed the second test.

Before the announcement could be made that he had completed the second test, Ezra shouted that he wanted to continue.

This immediately sent a hobgoblin out of the door. Unlike the goblins, the hobgoblin was almost as tall as Ezra and it was more muscular. Luckily, despite his lack of stats, Ezra used the same tactic of Fearful Disguise followed by a Disappearing Slash to quickly kill the enemy.

He continued onto the next test, but he was unsure if he would be able to complete it as it had taken a toll on him mentally to use Fearful Disguise on a monster that was stronger than him.

The monster that came through for this test had to crouch down to get through the door. The monster in question was an orc. It had a large dark green body covered in muscles with a face covered in scars and two huge tusks coming out of its mouth.

Ezra tried to use the same tactic as before on the orc, but fearful disguise did not work as the monster was too strong. This caused him to go directly for disappearing slash and ,despite the speed of the attack, the orc managed to block it resulting in only a loss of one arm.

Although this seemed to annoy the orc, it did not seem too phased, as orcs had relatively good regeneration rates and its arm would grow back in a few days.

The orc swung its fist at Ezra and he was knocked to the ground, the orc positioned itself above him and began trying to attack him, but Ezra was barely managing to dodge the punches.

As he could not see a way out, Ezra thought he might need to transform to beat the orc and, when he thought that, he felt his hand transform into that of his Cipactli form. However, the rest of his body remained the same.

Ezra took advantage of this and the mouth on the palm of his hand bit into the orc's face and tore away the flesh. This made the orc drop its guard, and Ezra used Disappearing Slash again and this time it connected properly. The head of the orc was cut horizontally in two and this level of the test came to an end. He would have liked to try out devouring the corpses of the monsters he had killed, but he was unable to as he did not want to reveal one of his S rank skills yet, as he knew this could put him in real danger if somebody wanted to target a future talent before they had become stronger. Therefore, he would keep his talent hidden until he became stronger.

As Ezra had a difficult time with the orc, he decided it was time to end the test as he could not defeat anything stronger than an orc, or even a group of multiple.

"I want to finish the test."

In response to this request, an announcement came, "The test will now conclude, return to the desk that you previously received your rank assessment at to receive an adjustment."

Ezra left through the door he had come into the room with, and walked eagerly back to the front desk, "Hello again, I am here to get my rank adjustment."

The man who he had spoken to before smiled, "I've just had your results in. You will be given the rank of C, this means you will be able to enter C rank gates at highest while alone, and B rank gates at highest while in a party of at least 4 other C rank hunters. However, you are able to enter the Tower anytime you want now, as you have surpassed the D rank restriction."

"I understand, thank you for letting me know." Ezra already knew this, but he still wanted to be polite to the man who he knew must deal with rude hunters frequently. Ezra was even more excited about his rank as the man mentioned the Tower, which made him want to enter it as soon as possible. The Tower was a one hundred floor structure which seemed to be linked to the existence of monsters and dungeons, as the inside had trials on every floor which needed to be completed to ascend a floor. Every country had a tower, but they all linked up to the exact same Tower inside.

A lot of hunters used the Tower as a way to get stronger, gain powerful items and gain system points, as well as a way to show off their power by reaching high floors. As such, the highest floor ever reached was by the S rank hunter known as Thunder, as he had reached floor 54 before retreating due to the difficulty.

Before Ezra went into any dungeons, he wanted to enter the Tower and get as powerful as possible. This was because the benefits of dungeons were the exact same as the Tower, albeit potentially a little worse as hunter's growth rate within the town was higher than that of in the dungeons.

This meant the only reason hunters ever really cleared dungeons was to prevent dungeon breaks and amass fame by saving people. As other people could do that while Ezra was getting stronger, he was much more drawn to the Tower, and he planned to go straight to it after leaving the hunters association building.

He wished the man at the counter a good day, and left the building before walking in the direction of the Tower.