The race before him was simply mind-boggling. They looked like birds, yet they were humans, making Ryuk feel like his brain was no longer functioning properly.
Instead of human heads, they all had bird heads with long beaks. Most of them had feathers for hair, and their claws were clearly visible, glinting like the edge of the sharpest daggers.
Their eyes were incredibly piercing to behold, and they had different colours of feathers, even amongst each other.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t hard to distinguish the males from the females because of their body shape.
The females had larger, more accentuated curves, even though, with their bird heads, one would still find it hard to identify anything feminine about them.
There was only a single individual among them who didn’t have a bird head.
Instead, he had a human head with feathers at the sides of his cheeks, but he bore two large wings folded behind him.
"The Avian Race. Somehow, they’re the least humanoid among all the rip ten families, followed by this other race…" Ryuk mused as he turned his head to the side and found a race that consisted mainly of females.
But they were strange in the sense that each had a ball of water floating above their heads, somehow pouring water into their bodies.
Yet, instead of their clothes being soaked in water, surprisingly, they weren’t, and the water wasn’t dripping to the ground. Instead, it disappeared directly into their bodies.
Most of them had fins covering their cheeks, along with eye-catching blue hair. They walked on legs and wore revealing clothes that exposed parts of their legs.
There was only a single male among them. He had the same blue hair but bore a strange small blue crown on his head.
Their lips were moving, but Ryuk, even with his sharp senses, couldn’t pick up any information.
All he heard was the sound of water jiggling and disrupting any clarity.
"Still, I feel like I could forcefully pierce through the weird water barrier and listen to their words, but that may just cause problems…" Ryuk mused, choosing to ignore them instead.
The last race was hard to distinguish in form, let alone identifying whether they were male or female.
They were all clad in long pitch-dark robes that covered their legs, completely obscured their hands, and had hoods covering the top parts of their faces. The only part visible was the lower portion of their faces, yet one would see nothing but flickering shadows there.
They all stood motionless, making no sound. Their presence was gravely silent and somehow chilling to the heart. It was as if they didn’t even exist at all—almost like shadows.
"The Shadow Walkers…" Ryuk mused.
He found them pretty interesting since they were shrouded in secrecy, but they also didn’t radiate much of a threat, making it easy for him to simply skip over their figures.
The place held only the Ten Family Geniuses, and since there were ten from each family, there were a total of 100 geniuses present in the field.
They all seemingly waited patiently, but not for long, as everyone heard an explosive sound echoing in the distance, accompanied by a bright light moving rapidly in their direction.
All of the geniuses immediately rose to their feet.
Barely three seconds later, a large shockwave exploded in the air, sending wild gusts of air blowing across the field.
Two beams of light paused mid-air and slowly descended, stopping at about two meters above the ground.
The light soon cleared, and their faces were revealed.
One was actually a human male, seemingly aged around 25, with short dark hair. The other was a lady elf, still covered in green light.
"Welcome, students of the Ascension Academy. Yes! You are already students of the academy; you don’t need an extra test to prove that," the human male said, causing some of the geniuses to raise an eyebrow.
"Then what are we doing here, then?" a genius from the Vampire family asked, voicing what was on the minds of the majority.
"Good question, whose answer I will leave in the hands of Lady Friera."
"You’re here for a test known as the ranking test. This test will determine your position in the academy and hence your treatment," the elf, Lady Friera, explained.
"The Ascension Academy operates on the rules of hierarchy, and the strongest get the highest hierarchy, which translates to more benefits. The weaker ones are at the bottom of the hierarchy, which also means fewer benefits, and in some cases, no benefits at all.
"For all of the newcomers, there is the newcomers’ hierarchy ranking. Your treatment, including access to more powerful cultivation manuals, better equipment, lectures from more powerful and experienced instructors, and more rewarding quests, will depend on your position."
"This ranking will be effective for a month. Mind you, there are more than 100 newcomers, but you 100 will take the top 100 hierarchy spots because of your backgrounds.
"The higher you rank in the hierarchy by passing the test well, the better the treatment you get. Indirectly, this also correlates to how fast your growth will be, opening doors to more possibilities."
"Hence, the hierarchy test."
"Do you all understand?" she asked, and everyone nodded.
It was hard not to understand, as the same hierarchy existed in every family of geniuses.
Even in the Fallen family, there were hierarchy tests that ranked them from 1 to 60. It seemed the Ascension Academy followed the same structure.
"Well then, with that understood, let’s go to the content of this test."
"And it really is simple."
"At the end of this forest is the Ascension Academy gate. Simply cross the forest and arrive before the gate."
"Your ranking will be determined by how early you are to the gate." she said as the geniuses simply looked on blankly wondering what exactly she meant by simply crossing a forest as some sort of test.
But their confusion dispersed when an holographic image appeared in the air.