Improvements made

Soon later, the day of the exam finally arrived. I could tell from everyone's faces roughly how excited they were. Especially Iris, it seemed like she hadn't gotten a lot of sleep tonight. As we stood before the training hall, no one dared to take the first step in there.

It took a couple minutes of awkward waiting but then I decided to take one for the team and opened the door. The order of tests would be the same as last time. First, we would spare with a teacher, Mr. Black or Lisa most likely, to then asses our level of celestial energy with the artefact. I was especially worried about the second part, it had also caused myself a nearly sleepless night.

I walked up to where the teachers stood and there Mr. Black immediately pulled me away for my exam. We started to prepare right away and like last time, he would give me the initiative for the fight. I chose to use my demonic katana, Lisa allowed me to use it by now. I was still far away from wielding it to its maximum extent of power, but at least I wouldn't faint so easily anymore. Mr. Black noticed this and swapped his sword out to a magical one as well. His sword however wasn't decorated nicely or even stood out in a particular way. It appeared to be a regular sword at first glance but if one looked closer, the celestial energy flowing around it came across as refined to a point I hadn't seen celestial energy before. This just showed the vast amount of difference in power level.

I shuttered instinctively in fear of the sword. Mr. Black took notice of that and tried to calm himself down to keep the energy from leaking out. Most students couldn't take notice of celestial energy like me after all. Until now I had thought him to use his celestial energy only to a small amount but in reality, he just didn't go serious at all. He was taking all of us lightly. I wondered what kind of monster needed to appear for him to go use all of his might. From my point of view his power appeared to be limitless and with no end in sight.

"Will you stop overthinking already and start with the spar? I have many other students lined up and waiting for the test, you know?" Mr. Black interrupted my thought process; I was again starting to ready myself.

Going head on wasn't an option against him, so I tried using faints again. If I didn't, he certainly would see his time going to waste.

I charged right at him, stirring up the dust beneath my feet. My right hand was holding onto the katana and swung the sword at his chest area. Compared to the last exam, my fighting skills had increased by leaps and bounds but still, against Mr. Black all of that appeared to be useless.

He simply parried my sword with a nonchalant movement. I, however, abused the recoil to gain momentum. With that, I managed to leap behind him. I turned myself around and redirected the katana to head for his stomach area this time. While doing so, my left fist headed for the other side of his stomach.

All of that was in vain again, however. Mr. Black parried my sword similarly to before and just took the impact of the fist. His body didn't even move a little from the impact, yet my fist hurt badly.

"Let us stop this, I have seen enough", he said, putting his sword back into its sheath.

I mirrored his gesture and sat down on the floor. Looking at my arm I realized it was hurt worse than I first thought. The bone of my arm appeared to be broken, I could hardly move it around. Even my other hand, which held the sword, hurt badly, although not broken. In some way, he seemed to have redirected the brunt of the impact to me. Nothing like that ever happened whilst training against Iris or the other students.

"You have obviously improved by a lot, both in strength and fighting technique. However, it appears like I have overestimated your growth. Your lacking cultivation with celestial energy takes away the needed durability of your body at your current level. Due to this, you got hurt from just the recoil. Despite of your disadvantage, you still gave it your best admittedly. Your strength right now is at E grade and your technique at a D grade. Don't be disappointed in yourself, if you manage to get a hang of your celestial energy, your strength will grow rapidly", Mr. Black explained, trying to soothe my mood.

However, it didn't help a bit and I was kind of feeling bad. Even though I put all the necessary effort in, my strength increased by way too little for what it could have. I didn't even want to hear how much the others had improved. I could already guess what the outcome of the other test would be.

I walked over to where Lisa was waiting for me. It looked like I had exactly the same examiners as last time. Although this didn't bother me at all, I hadn't interacted with any of the other teachers anyway. As I already knew what to do, I put my hands on the artefact and told Lisa to finish it fast.

I stood there and could feel the celestial energy getting drained out of my body. This time however, I didn't feel much weaker because of it. Suddenly, one of the stones lit up. I looked towards Lisa and she smiled at me. I kept my hands on the artefact, hoping for more of the little stones to light up. More stones lighting up meant a higher grading after all.

After five more minutes and no other stone lighting up, Lisa told me to stop however. I took my hands of the artefact and waited for her explanation. This outcome wasn't what should have happened after all.

"Congrats, Yoru. Even though you can't manipulate celestial energy on your own, you still managed to improve it by a bit. This is mostly thanks to your training with the demonic katana. Doing so made your body used to celestial energy and cultivated it to a certain extent. It isn't as effective as regular cultivation, but far better than nothing. Your celestial energy is now at an E grade, maybe you will achieve more next time, so continue training as hard as you do now."

"Yes, I sure will", I answered enthusiastically.

With the exam complete, my ID was updated to match my now stats. I took a look at it and it read the following:

Name: Yoru

Age: 13

Race: demon hybrid

Subtype: magical swordswoman

Fighting strength: F --> E

Celestial energy: F --> E

Fighting technique: E --> D

Overall rating: E+