Practical Exams

The practical exam was quite different from what Emma imagined it to be. She had expected the first practical exam to be about her Essence rank and her uses of her Essence, but it turned out to be regarding her beast.

Lyra stood atop a table, which she was made to do by one of the examiners. Bigger beasts were dealt with on the floor.

"She's 11 years old?" the examiner, a woman in her 50s asked Emma.

Emma nodded. "She is."

"Wow. I don't believe I have seen a best this physically young and yet this old in a long time," the woman said. "How could this happen? Did her parent perhaps have a rare gene that made her age slow? It couldn't be her cultivation base given how weak it is."

There was no way for the woman to know that the cubs had the fortune of meeting her father from a young age, drinking miracle medicine to help them deal with pain, and practicing one of the greatest techniques in existence in Astoria.