The middle-aged man then stepped forward, while something clicked in Ray's mind as he now identified the middle-aged man as the dean of the academy. Someone, whom Ray wanted to have a chat with about his Versatile System.
***
The dean stepped forwards and said,
"As many of you may have noticed by now and for those who may not have, I am the dean of this academy. The academy is under my supervision and the test that we held today was also under my orders as normal, the test for special class candidates usually requires the candidates to defeat a level 8 combat puppet. However, this year, due to various changes in curriculum. We have now started to imitate more, a militia system within the academy to train better soldiers for our future".
As the dean said about imitating a military system of education, Ray realized that the leaders of Earth must have also analyzed and realized the threat approaching them daily.
The dean then continued,
"Moving onto the test results, The rankings are as follows, starting from the bottom,
-The candidate who acquired the-10th place is 'Tim Barns', for his extremely balanced defensive skills along with his impeccable work while fighting the intermediate tier beast and for the way, he respected his leader's words and acted as a tank for his team".
Looking back at Tim, Ray and his whole team clapped for him as it was a great achievement for someone from their team to attain top rankings. Meanwhile, the dean continued,
"The candidate who attained the 9th place is 'Hailey Kent'. The reasoning for it is just simple and that is that although Ms. Hailey has a good system that allows her to have a plant affinity using which she trapped the beast and defeated it. She did not play the role of a leader that well causing her team to suffer substantial injuries due to some reckless moves taken her.
"Moreover, the next candidate who got 8th place is, 'Aliya Rose'. The position goes rightly to her not only due to her special system with a healing ability. She also used her strength to the extreme to help her teammates take down the intermediate tier beast and for the fact that although she acted as support within her team, she did not waver and persisted till the end".
The dean then continued and stated all other rankings in which Elina got the 6th position while Sirius got 5th and Noah got 3rd position, mainly due to his rare spirit type system. The dean was equally impressed with all of their performances and even the remaining candidates were appraised by the dean on their skills and teamwork. While some candidates who did not make it to the top 10 within the rankings were given honorable mentions along with advice on what they should improve to move towards the top of the rankings.
The dean then went on for the second position, "The second position within the rankings is achieved by 'Nia Jhones'. She used her light-based system to track the beast into an illusion of fighting a decoy construct made of light while she and her team finished off the beast by using sneak attacks while avoiding an overhead confrontation with the beast. As the beast that they fought against specialized in extreme strength while its mobility and intelligence were on the bottom of the chart".
The dean then continued, "Therefore, Nia can gain the second position within the rankings just below the first position candidate, 'Ray Xanders'.
"He acquired the first position by not only defeating the beast without making his teammates suffer. He acted as the perfect leader by first, analyzing the beast and finding its strengths and weaknesses by probing it before the battle. Furthermore, he also made use of all of his teammates in the best way possible, and using the limited information he had about them, he gave them the role suited best for them. Showing him as an excellent judge of character. Along with that, Ray found the most efficient way to tackle the beast by using a solid formation that suited his team the most".
"Hence, he earned his first place by not only using his strength but also brains and making his team members show out most of their potential while not being subsequently injured and dealing with an intermediate tier beast in record time for a team of people with their cultivation within the early stages of Evolutionary Realm".
After this, the dean stopped for a moment to let everyone digest what he said while various teammates congratulated the top rankers. Amongst the candidates, the happiest was Ray's team as everyone within the team has found a place in the top ranking. Even Tim, who got the 10th position within the rankings was extremely happy and continuously thanked Ray and even made a vow to follow him to greatness. However, it was not only Tim who made a vow to follow Ray, all of his teammates had come to him and thanked him very much while everyone vowed to follow him as their team leader. After all, the rewards that Ray had helped them obtain by making them reach the top ranking of the special class were nothing short of unimaginable as everyone knew that the top cream of 'Academy For System Users' got the best rewards and techniques along with various artifacts to help them train and become stronger.
While all of his teammates thanked Ray, he did not know how to respond to them and he just nodded to their vows of following while he thought to himself,
"Don't these people from big and influential families have some self-pride within them, they just came here and vowed to follow me just to obtain the best rewards after ranking within the top 10"?
Then Aurora spoke as if listening to his thoughts,
"Yeah!, they seem to like to do anything for getting stronger. But you should have powers. You could always use a team to take out stronger opponents and it aligns with some of your goals as well".
"Yeah, what you said is true. After all, we will all be benefitting from each other". Ray said and started chatting with his teammates.
Meanwhile, as Ray and his teammates were chatting with each other, the dean of the academy was having a chat of his own with his system.
"Are you sure it's him, although he looks to be the best candidate for being the person to inherit it, I'm not very sure", Asked the dean from his system.
To which his system replied, "Yes, I'm sure of it. I can never mistake that suppressing aura of greatness and royalty and right now it's coming from him. Moreover, he seems to have advanced while giving the test as well. Other than that, there is another aura also coming over from him. It's an aura that even makes me feel frightened".
The system continued, "I shall tell you Prometheus, he is not be underestimated nor shall you ever get on his bad side. He is the hope within the dark, he will be the dawn that will make darkness seize to exist. Let me warn you, if he ever goes to the other side, only "utter destruction" awaits mankind. Nothing else".
After listening to his system talk in such a serious tone after so much time. Protheus got frightened as the last time his system gave him such warning, they were still suffering from the effects of neglecting it as nothing but mere words. But now, the dean of the academy knew that his system's special ability could not be wronged. Thus, Prometheus made sure of tackling Ray with extreme care as he was still totally unaware of Ray's character.
[A/N:- Bonus chaps coming this Sunday, be ready for them]