Bea reached the necessary spiritual power in only 9 days.
Once she reached full saturation, she began the process of condensing her energy into a small ball, similar to the stars within humans.
However, spiritual beasts, unlike humans who condense a second star while their first remains with each increase in spiritual power grade, beasts shatter and replace their previous low-quality orbs with one of a higher grade.
These orbs not only serve as the site of storage for spiritual power, but they also will passively convert all of the absorbed spiritual power into a grade equal to the orb. Therefore, Bea will no longer have to spend conscious effort to condense the spiritual power she absorbs to red-grade.
Once she crosses this step, all of the spiritual power in her body will become denser and more powerful—and a beautiful deep red.
Each molecule of red spiritual power is equal in energy to at least 10 molecules of white spiritual power. That's why the same moves when executed by red-grade spiritual beasts compared to white-grade ones, use less of their own energy but manage to exert more power.
However, crossing this step could also be dangerous, or even crippling for spiritual creatures.
Afterall, in this process they need to also shatter their current source of strength. If they are not able to condense an orb of higher quality all of that unrestrained energy without a container will wreak havoc in their bodies.
This is why the quality of a spiritual beast is important. It is rare for Black-iron quality spiritual beasts to ever cross this threshold in their life.
Thankfully, as a Bronze-quality beast, condensing a red-grade orb should be quite simple for Bea. Getting to a higher level though will be challenging without evolving.
During the time Bea was undergoing this process he recalled her back to the star space, it was the most ideal environment for her after all.
He anticipated that it would take her 3 more days to fully finish, taking 5 days in total.
Thankfully, the feedings were finished 2 days ago, the academic exam was tomorrow and he needed to preserve his mental strength as much as possible. In order to be fully prepared.
In the middle of the night, with only a lit lamp to keep him company, he finished marking his last available practice exam.
Thankfully, Bridge decided to sleep at the Wolfblood training hall the past week so that he didn't have to worry about keeping him up and could better focus on studying.
This exam was one from 4 years ago, and supposedly the most difficult exam in recent years. That year only 3 students achieved a perfect score in the entire empire, unlike the usual 8-10 perfect scorers. Additionally, even students who answered 2 questions incorrectly managed to land in the top 100.
Therefore, he was saving this exam as his last one to test his ability, in case this year happens to also be more challenging than usual.
"98…correct. 99…correct. 100…" Kain finished going through the answers for all 100 questions in his last section—Science. He had already calculated his score in the other 4 sections: spiritual creatures, history, math, and geography.
He had received perfect scores in all 5 of them.
A perfect score on one of the hardest exams in recent history.
Feeling fully prepared for tomorrow, Kain finally went to bed after setting his alarm for 5 in the morning, 2 hours before the exam actually started. He absolutely did not want to risk being late tomorrow. Any late entrants will be turned away at the door and have to take the exam next year if they want to enter an academic major.
----
The next morning he awoke not to an alarm, but to the smell of curry, one of his favourite dishes being prepared.
'Who would make curry first thing in the morning…?'
Suddenly hungry, Kain headed downstairs to find their neighbour Sally in the kitchen.
"Sally?! What are you doing here"
Without looking up from the pot she replied, "Isn't your exam today. It's a 5 hour exam, I'm preparing the lunch for your half-time break."
Grrrr
"Although you can have some now if you'd like?" She gave a smile at Kain's embarrassed expression.
"Don't mind if I do," He said while reaching for a bowl. "Thank you so much Sal"
After eating breakfast and packing a lunch, he checked his bag for all of his required supplies plus his ID card and headed to the school.
There was an hour until the exam, and it took 30 minutes to walk to school from the orphanage at the fringes of the city.
Not to mention, the long process it took to verify his identity, get through security and confirm his attendance for the exam.
By the time he got seated there were only 5 minutes left until the exam.
He could see several of his classmates stealing glances at him. Likely wondering why a student with an affinity as highly rated as his was taking the academic exam when he should be preparing for the beast-taming exams that start next week.
Doing his best to ignore them, Kain sharpened his spare pencil to calm down.
"Students the exam will be starting shortly. Please put away everything except for a pencil and eraser. Any other unallowed objects will be confiscated and returned to you after the exam."
A teacher that Kain didn't recognize began to hand out the exams as the other continued with the opening remarks.
"Make sure to keep your eyes on your own paper. There are spiritual creatures monitoring this classroom. Any attempts at cheating will have you forcefully removed from the room and your test thrown out."
Several students looked around to see if they could see the spiritual creature but couldn't find it. Some began to even doubt if this was a line they used just to scare students away from cheating.
However, Kain knew that it wasn't a lie used to scare them. Possibly because he was bound to a spiritual creature with mental attributes, he could vaguely sense his mind being repeatedly scanned by some kind of invisible force for any thoughts of cheating.
'The anti-cheating methods in this world are quite advanced. It's quite hard to defend against something looking at your mind to see if you'll cheat'
Once every student had a test, a giant timer was displayed at the front of the room counting down from 60 minutes.
Kain picked up his pencil and began his first section in anticipation.