Dean stepped forward, stopping right before a yellow line that had been drawn on the ground. Right before him were several large boulders. He stared at the boulders with a focused look, trying to deduce the best technique suitable for destroying the boulders in the most minimal amount of time.
The instructor looked at him with an unintended gaze as she spoke, "you know the drill?"
Dean nodded slightly.
"Alright then," she continued, "you may now begin."
Dean concentrated on the last bit of energy that he could harness. Most of his energy was already being spent on trying to counteract the effects of the residue celestial energy, so he really didn't have much to offer.
Dean, however, didn't waver.
He concentrated, and within a matter of seconds, tiny flares of pinkish-red energy began to swirl around his arms. They seemed weak, but steady nonetheless.
The moment the energy manifested, laughter erupted from different directions. Dean could hear the students taunting him and making fun of the ineffectiveness of his energy.
Dean didn't let them take his mind off his goal. He stayed still and focused, and compiled as much energy as he could.
The energy began to compress, turning into a hard ball, seemingly harder than the attack that the first kid unleashed when breaking the boulder. But the noticeable difference between them was the fact that Dean's energy was extremely lacking when it came to power and potency.
He still compressed the energy. It became smaller and smaller until it became the size of a tiny pebble.
But Dean didn't stop there.
He kept on compressing the energy. It got to the point where the energy was barely visible anymore, and that was when Dean unleashed it.
He released the compressed energy forcefully. It shot forward with an explosive speed as it headed for one of the boulders.
It made a violent outburst, causing a small shockwave to push forward, lifting dust into some of the students' eyes.
"Hey watch it!" A student yelled in anger.
The attack made an impact with the boulder, and it produced a thunderous sound. For a brief moment, the students actually thought that the boulder was destroyed, but the result was clear as day.
The boulder was still in the same perfect condition as before, with not a single scorch mark on it.
"I wonder what the results will be if I use the celestial energy instead," Dean thought.
Dean tried again, and again, and again. He used the same technique, compressing his energy to an almost infinitely dense point, unleashing it towards the boulder until it finally cracked open, crumbling to the ground.
Dean stared at the result with a satisfied look, and when he was about to go for another boulder, he heard a feminine voice.
"Time's up!" the instructor said in an exhausted tone.
What any of them, including Dean, failed to register was the fact that Dean was capable of compressing his energy into the tiniest bit possible without breaking a sweat.
His energy was no doubt weak, but he still managed to compress it to the point that it got so small that the eyes of a person couldn't see it perfectly. If Dean's energy were stronger, he would have been capable of destroying the boulder faster than any other person.
The constant use of his demonic energy was changing him. Dean was in a constant state of cultivation as he used his demonic energy constantly. His painful torture was slowly helping him.
Overall, Dean only managed to destroy one boulder, making his result extremely poor.
He moved on to the next challenge.
Several obstacles were situated all around him, each standing with a single goal of making contact with him. The timer started, and the obstacle poles started making their way towards him.
Each pole started slowly, moving with an observable motion.
The first poles reached Dean, but he acted quickly. He ducked down and rolled over to the side, missing the pole completely. More obstacles made their way towards Dean, their speeds increasing gradually.
It got to the point where the obstacles became even faster.
Dean saw a pole heading towards him from above, and another pole from his left. The pole from his left reached him in a matter of seconds. He jumped as high as he could, evading the pole.
Looking up, he could see the pole from above also closing the distance between them. He rolled to the side in a fluid motion, but he quickly noticed another pole heading towards him.
He jumped out of the way, but he was just too slow. The pole made contact with the tip of his leg. A blaring alarm went off, indicating that Dean had been eliminated.
The instructor looked at her timer as she spoke, "well, you lasted for a total of 2 minutes, 3 seconds."
Dean tried to mask out the laughter from the students as he headed over to the next test.
The timer was activated, and the targets began moving with an enormous amount of speed. Dean tried to focus on one target, hoping to hit them one at a time, but the speed was just too fast and random for him to observe.
He unleashed several attacks, but they hit nothing but air, not coming close to even one target. Dean decided to change his tactics.
He decided to release the attacks in random directions, hoping to luckily hit one of the targets, but it didn't work either. He went on unrelentingly for a while until he heard the instructor's annoying voice.
"And your time is… UP!"
The instructor stared at with a sigh. "Now it's time for your demonic ranking test."
Dean walked towards the machine. With a deep breath, he readied himself for the utter humiliation. He couldn't help but feel the temptation to use the celestial energy to perform the testing, but he couldn't risk anyone finding out about it.
He channeled his demonic energy, releasing a wave of red essence out of his palms. His demonic energy seeped into the machine. The machine lit up, reacting to the energy, but that was all it did.
Dean waited for the results to reveal themselves, but they never did. The machine just stayed lit up without displaying anything on its screen.
The instructor stared at the machine with an intrigued look. For a second, she thought that the machine was faulty, but she quickly realized why there wasn't any result.
She stared at Dean with a surprised look.
"I can see we have a rare case of… useless," she said.
"You do not have a demonic rank, do you?"