So Zach began running research about them, scanning the archive of memories from this body's past inhabitants, Zachaeus.
We have the number one, Arthur, the prodigy; he holds the achievement for defeating each and every platinum-ranked knight in one-on-one combat; all platinum-ranked knights fell by his blade, earning him the name Battle Prodigy.
Over the years, Arthur had trained under different premium instructors ever since he was a child, being able to incorporate his skill into his battle style; his battle skill is a full-on attack, ignoring what some of it does to the physical body.
Over the years, he has killed quite a number of monsters, making him a tremendous foe.
His bloodline also increases his comprehension ability by so much that he could learn every move by just simply looking at it; in the academy, Arthur is looked upon as the benchmark for talent.
Then we have the second strongest by records, but Zach holds him to be the strongest because of his unique swordsmanship, Grey—the Illusionary Swordsman.
He has learned the feat ability from ancient text, able to create mesmerizing illusions from his swordsmanship; his ability to predict danger one second away from him basically makes him untouchable among the students. (He's a Seer class.)
His current rank as number one before Arthur was because he rose faster than anyone else in the ranks, going from the Brink rank to the Gold rank in just a single year.
So he's spot is solidified.
Then the third strongest was a girl named Seraphina; Zach had seen her in the assembly, but never really took note of her appearance.
She's the only female knight to ever win the Grand Sun Tournament three times in a row; Zach was still unclear about her ability, but it was definitely something related to the sun and moon.
The fourth strongest was Darius, the Trap Master—his achievements: he defended the walls a year ago against a Thyxar invasion, defeating 19 fiends in three days; pretty insane record if you asked me.
Zach had never actually filtered through his memories, but this one was really shocking. "Are all the platinum knights this amazing?.."
_No wonder there hasn't been a platinum knight rising for 3 years._
The 5th strongest was a female knight named Delilah; her ability was to freeze items... that was all the info Zach knew from his artificial memories.
Oh? Her achievements: she was the youngest platinum knight, who became a platinum knight before she reached the age criteria to join the academy at 15, through incorrect documentation about her name.
As Zach kept filtering through his memories, the achievements just kept getting more ridiculous.
You mean this girl was actually battling fiends, meanwhile Zach was still eating boxed cereal in the comfort of his home?—Truly remarkable.
But I guess when the species of humanity is facing certain extermination, truly powerful individuals are forced to rise up and defend.
Zach could still remember some individuals back at his world, and he knew some insane records were set.
Anyway, let's continue.
The 6th strongest was Kael—the Storm Bearer; his achievements: using his ability to control storms, he was able to redirect a massive lightning blast and kill 100 monsters with one swing.
Zach tried to picture it in his head, but was unable to.
Then the 7th strongest cadet goes to Roland, the Beast Slayer.
Exactly—he has a beast class skill that allows him to summon any monsters he binds; he holds the current record for the most monsters killed in a single day, 482 monsters in a single day, earning him the nickname.
The 8th strongest was Lysander, the spell-casting knight; he was a mage that excelled in long-ranged attack, which was telekinesis; his ability to control multiple blades makes his swordsmanship almost impossible to counter.
He's the most versatile knight and balances long-ranged and short-ranged attacks pretty well.
Then there's the ninth, Valen: the Silent Reaper.
As his name implies, he's an assassin class knight; he has the ability to teleport, although Zach doesn't know; Zachaeus has only seen Valen use the skill once, and it looked like teleportation.
His achievement: Zach doesn't know why they call him, probably has done some shady jobs for the empire, that's why they call him that.
The last candidate is Orion.
His achievement: defeating a massive sky serpent that terrorized the area when he was just at the Bronze rank.
That pretty much sums up the list of monsters he had to recruit, and the list starts tomorrow.
Each had their distinct values that Zach had to explore.
But the sleep had really taken a toll on him, and he had to relax.
He turned into a hawk, the size of a small chest, and flew up towards the kingdom.
The eyes were sharper; the wind brushing against his beak as his feathers drifted through the winds felt surreal.
Anyone that saw the hawk would marvel at how unusually black and shadowy it looked—not more like a solid shadow, nothing like a black raven, just in the middle, a black raven with a shadowy trail.
Zach landed on the receptionist building, reverted, and walked into the small post.
The receptionist was taken aback as she saw a mesmerizing brown-haired young man walk into her reception.
He wasn't just handsome; he was magnetic; brown eyes like deep amber, and hair lush like oak wood; his shirt, though tattered, hid perfect muscles underneath that damp fair skin.
"Uh... umm... who... _coughs_ are you?" She stammered.
Zach replied with a stern tone; he could tell his voice was a bit deeper, but shrugged it off.
The lady looked at Zach's details in total confusion, going through the info to check multiple times if the info was correct.
She gave the key to Zach, eventually giving a very strange look; he wasn't used to.
But he couldn't worry about that; it was how to convince ten individual people to follow him before nine days' time.
And his quest would begin tomorrow.
Zach just plopped on his warm bed and fell asleep instantly.