*splash* *thud*
The moment Soren charged outside the door, he had suddenly jumped off from a floating water bubble and the moment he land on the ground, a burning and suffocating feeling had suddenly assaulted him on his gills.
'HOLY SH*T! CRAP! CRAP! CRAP!' Soren cussed inwardly in a panic, as he was covering the sides of his neck with his wet hands and kept flailing madly.
"Quick, someone give him a transformation potion." One of the hooded men ordered quickly, as he signaled towards one of his subordinates, before he added:
"Don't worry. Just hold for a minute."
Soren, on the other hand, could barely hear anything since his panic had gotten the better of him and had dulled his senses heavily. As he felt like he was slowly losing his consciousness, he suddenly remembered something and quickly screamed in his mind:
'Of course. Quick! Quick! Change me into a human. Human Transformation! Go! Human Form Activate! DO SOMETHING QUICK!'
In the next couple of seconds, his body suddenly convulsed in pain and started shaking violently. The scales started slowly entering deep into his skin, his gills were closing, as if a wound was closing itself quickly, the ends of his tail were also contracting into the ends of his body. Once his body had gotten rid of his gills, scales and tail, he suddenly felt as if some sort of lump was being ripped apart violently deep down into his body and at the same time, the scaleless tail was slowly splitting itself, as if it was being ripped in half forcefully and the end ends of the split tail were slowly changing into feet.
Although this process looked like it would have taken a decent amount of time, it didn't take any longer than half a minute and once his body had fully changed into a human one, he suddenly started screaming and coughing with a desperate expression:
"*cough* *cough* *huff* That... *cough* *cough* *huff* THAT WAS HORRI- *cough* *cough* *cough* *huff* NO ONE TOLD ME THIS WOULD- *cough* *huff* HURT! *cough* *cough* "
"Are you alright young man?" The hooded man asked worriedly, as he checked Soren's body for any injuries he might have, before he added:
"Racial transformations are extremely painful. Quickly. Someone give him some painkillers, quickly."
Another hooded man had arrived with a bottle of pills in his hand and passed a couple of yellow pills to the hooded man who had requested them and then, he passed them to Soren quickly. Soren quickly consumed the painkillers and tried to calm down his aching body, as he tried to stop the coughing.
"Are you alright? That was a pretty violent transformation." The man next to him asked, as he slowly lifted Soren to try and stand on his feet.
" *cough* I think I'll make it- *cough* *huff*" Soren answered with a bit of difficulty as he was trying to stop the coughing from interrupting his breathing. Thankfully for him, it didn't take long for his breathing to stabilise and his coughing to stop.
"Why didn't anyone say that there would be no water past that door?" Soren asked with an angry and pained expression, as he was rubbing his throat slightly.
"Because that would have been obvious?" A tall burly man answered with an annoyed expression, as he was looking down on Soren with scorn.
"How should I have kno... wn...?" Soren's angry expression quickly changed into a nervous one, as he saw the tall, red-haired, burly man in front of him and quickly added:
"Or maybe that was my mistake..." Soren quickly lowered his voice nervously, as he was looking away from the man in front of him.
"Tsk." After the man clicked his tongue, he left with an annoyed expression and only then, did Soren's body manage to loosen from the tension.
"Well, I don't think you'll be needing my help anymore, right?" The hooded asked with a calm voice, as he already let Soren stand on his own two feet.
"I would like to ask what this place might be." Soren asked as he stared at the flat grassy plains and the dozens of people around.
"This is the registration exam for Ira's Fields of Wrath." The hooded man answered expressionlessly.
"And uhhh... What do I need to do to pass the exam?"
"Whatever the leader has assigned you to do. Is that all?"
"I guess..." Soren answered a bit hesitantly, but the man left and went to welcome the people who were coming from some of the elemental balls nearby.
'You could have waited a bit before leaving, y'know.' Soren thought to himself as he slowly took a look around him. The field itself was rather unremarkable and the only point of interest were the people from all the different races around him. Humans, elves, dwarves, angels, demons and dragonkin were around him, but he hadn't seen any of the merfolk yet, but it didn't take long to realise that they had probably transformed into humans as well and they were probably mixed together with the other humans.
Before long, another group of merfolks came out of the water ball he had previously come from and those didn't fare any better than him, so they quickly drank some sort of red juice from a bottle and their bodies changed similarly to Soren's. As for Soren, he was rather surprised and intrigued from the process of the transformation and couldn't help but keep his eyes on the group, as they were slowly transforming as well.
'At least I wasn't the only one who had to go through that violent process.' Soren commented inwardly with a relieved expression. After a little while, the elemental balls stopped ejecting people and then quickly disappeared.
"With this, all the applicants are here. Everyone else who hadn't made their way towards their registration exam, shall be automatically disqualified and kicked out with no memory of the events that transpired here." One of the black hooded people exclaimed with a loud and serious voice, before he continued:
"Now, put on your masks so the exam may start right now."
'Wait, right now?' Soren asked inwardly with a slightly nervous expression, but as he looked that most of the people around him had put their masks on, he couldn't afford to fall behind and quickly put his on, while hoping that nothing bad happened. The moment he put his mask on, he suddenly heard a mechanical voice:
{Please take out your identification tablet and put it in front of the mask.}
He was rather surprised by the mechanical voice, but decided to do as the voice said, lest he got himself into more unnecessary trouble.
{Identity confirmed. Participant Sky for the rank of Sprite has been acknowledged. Please await further instructions.}
After he heard that, he put his tablet away and it was at this moment he noticed that a big change had happened in front of him. All of the hooded individuals could be now seen without any masks or hoods, as if those weren't there in the first place.
'Just what is this mask?' Soren asked to himself inwardly, but before he could gather any more thoughts, a black portal had suddenly appeared in the middle of the participants and a man had come out of it. The man himself had black hair and red eyes, without any other special characteristics on him, aside from his devilish and beautiful face and once had walked only a couple of steps, some of the people around him had suddenly bowed and it didn't take long for Soren to realise who the man was in front of him. In a moment, the black-haired man suddenly spoke with serious and arrogant smile:
"Let me introduce myself, young fledglings. I'm the leader of the Fields of Wrath, and your future leader, Heiran. Welcome to my examination."