“Oh… looks like he is not pleased with this development.” The director smiled, “Too bad, his problems are only going to get bigger from here on out.”

“Is it time?” A brunette, brown-skinned woman politely asked.

The director nodded. The rest of the teachers had no idea what these two were talking about. But then again, the director hadn’t been one to reveal all of her cards to anyone. Even to her most trusted comrades.

“Professor Meena, I assume you have only prepared trained night creatures?” The director mumbled as the artificial sun started going down, marking the second phase of the test.

“Yes, madam director. They have been trained to ‘hunt’ and not to kill. The examinees might get injured, but none of them would die.” Meena diligently replied.

The director hadn’t informed the academy’s best beast tamer why her beasts would be needed for the exam. But Meena trusted the director more than anyone in her life. So she did what she was asked to without a moment’s hesitation. 

Similarly to Meena, the director had given some of the other professors different tasks as well. But it was done in a way that they would have never been able to guess why she needed all of their help. On top of that, none of the professors was aware of the involvement of other professors in the exam.

With that being said, the Director was planning to use all of their resources to make sure only the toughest and most resilient werewolves among the examinees would be able to attend the academy. 

‘I can already see some rising stars among these younguns.’ She thought while looking at the eight examinees she had taken a liking to, ‘It would be a shame if some of them were not able to pass the exam.’

“It’s done, madam director.” Meena informed her shortly, “The beasts would soon enter the zones.”

“Excellent!” The director clapped in excitement, “Let’s see who will break first… make the announcement now! Huhu!”

***

“Attention all examinees! The Survival exam will now enter its second phase. For the next 24 hours, you will be shrouded in darkness with only little light available to you.” The announcer announced the new set of rules, “As you must be aware of, with darkness comes night creatures. Thus, some of such creatures will be released in your respective zones as well.”

“You have two choices. Either hide and wait till the exam is completed or put your life in danger and defeat as many night creatures as possible. However, as an incentive, you will be given points according to the number and type of monster you defeat. Good luck and may the best survive!”

“Things got a bit interesting…” Ashton couldn’t help but smile.

Darkness was his friend more than anything else. His was suffering through a stat debuff thanks to the sun shining over their heads. But now that it was going to be dark for the rest of the duration, he could finally start attacking rather than what he had been doing so far.

It also made sense why all of the weapons they had received through the chests and by looting others had bonus damage against the night creature apart from werewolves.

‘On top of that… I no longer need to depend on [perception]. The darkness of the night will help me out.’

Without wasting another moment, Ashton opened his info tab to check his stats. 

__

Name: Ashton Fenrir

Species: Zombie (Inactive), Vampire (Inactive), Werewolf (Active), Human (Deceased).

Status: Zompirewolf

Class: Unassigned

Title: [Defiant]

Age: 16 years

Gender: Male

Grade: F-tier (Evolution is possible)

Affiliation: Werewolves.

Level:

• Werewolf Level: 9

• Vampire Level: 7

• Zombie Level: 5

Stats:

HP: 1900/1900

Damage: 32

Armour: 22

Stealth: 18

Stamina: 34

Agility: 21

Intelligence: 8

Nature:

• Bratty

Abilities/skills/spells:

• Vampire Skills:

>> Mid-Grade perception

>> Skill Absorption

>> Transformation (Vampire)

• Werewolf Skills:

>> Enhanced Agility

>> Transformation (Werewolf)

• Zombie Skills:

>> Transformation (Zombie)

Current Vampiric skill points: 7

Current Werewolf skill points: 3

Current Undead skill points: 4

__

Ashton’s training had paid him off well. But he was still stuck being an F-grade being. Although he still had a lot of room for growth, he needed to figure out a way to evolve before he reached the bottleneck. 

This was the primary reason why he wanted to attend the academy. He believed someone there might be able to help him with this. After all, the entire purpose of the academy was to nurture young talents and make them grow to the best version of themselves. If… they were valuable able to do so.

In order to prove his worth to them, Ashton needed to qualify for the academy with flying colours. And thanks to the second phase of the exam, he would be able to do just that.

***

Meanwhile, on the other side of the zone, the night creatures had started to appear already. One of the groups that Lucas had incited was the first one to encounter the beasts and things did not end well for them. 

They wanted to be the first ones to hunt the night creatures… but they became the ones who got hunted down. But they weren’t the only ones. Mere minutes after the announcement was made, over two dozen examinees had been eliminated reducing the number of survivors to half of what it was when the exam started.

The night creatures tamed by Meena were trained to knock their opponents down and leave them be. These wolf-like creatures were one of the easiest night creatures to tame, but not the easiest to defeat, especially thanks to their pack mentality.

They were the ultimate prowlers and were named just that. Prowlers. They were creatures who had adapted themselves to the art of hunting using the darkness around them. Although their levels weren’t as high as that of the examinees, those of them who had no experience fighting them would not be able to defeat them head-on.

The entire purpose of using prowlers in the test was to make the examinees understand that while the levels and attributes were used to measure one’s strength and capabilities, it wasn’t absolute and even an insect could make werewolves cry tears of blood.