The Mutant Ability Assessment Room, underground at New York City's Howlett Extraordinary Academy.
"Principal Fox, is something wrong with Jean?"
Mrs. Grey looked at Ms. Kayla Fox, the "Silver Fox" and principal of the New York Mutant Academy, who seemed utterly shaken. She didn't understand what was so special about a so-called ability test.
Howlett Extraordinary Academy tentatively divided mutant powers into four major categories:
Physical, energy, rule-based, and the rarest and most difficult to explain, which were collectively classified as mystical.
Since the 1940s, the Howlett Family had been researching the principles behind mutant mutations and the characteristics of their abilities.
James Howlett had led Dr. Abraham Erskine, Arnim Zola, and others in establishing a five-tier system for assessing mutant potential, four major ability categories, and seven levels of destructive power.
Nowadays, America and countries around the world used this system to assess mutant abilities and supernatural powers.
At the Academy, the four major categories branched into more than twenty detailed classifications. As strange new mutant abilities continued to emerge, the categories were constantly expanding.
During the Academy's admissions assessments, a person's potential tier was determined by taking into account such factors as the age at which their mutation manifested, their ability category, its strength, and how it presented. A scientific algorithm was also used to calculate the final result.
Physical abilities were the most common among mutants. These included subcategories such as beast-type abilities, physical enhancements, and transformations—all purely bodily mutations that didn't involve projecting energy. Their overall ratings tended to have a low ceiling.
Energy-type abilities were the next most common. They included pure high-energy rays and various elemental energies, as well as sound waves and kinetic energy. Their ratings depended on the individual's awakened strength and how their power manifested.
Rule-based abilities were extremely rare, and