Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

After the previous person finished their test and left, the staff finally opened the big door in front of me and let me in.

Inside was a spacious circular training arena. A muscular middle-aged man was sitting shirtless behind a table near the entrance, writing something.

I heard the door close behind me. Hearing someone enter, the middle-aged man put down his pen and looked at me, then held out a hand.

"Ah..." I immediately understood and handed him the card I had been clutching.

"What a cute little girl... Angel? Are you sure?" The middle-aged man was smiling at first without paying much attention, but the moment he saw my card, he immediately frowned.

"Impersonation will get you blacklisted from the Association, you know."

"Yes, that's right." Hearing this, I quickly nodded to confirm, and at the same time, unfurled the two pairs of wings on my back that I had been concealing.

"A four-winged angel... I didn't know angels could hide their wings?" The middle-aged man seemed shocked, as if it was his first time seeing an angel like me.

"Well, let's begin then."

With my identity confirmed, he didn't waste more words either. He stood up and led me to the edge of the training arena.

"I'm Wozwal Hus your chief examiner, a level 6 swordsman."

He pointed to the rows of weapon racks around us filled with various weapons.

"You can choose any weapon here as you wish, and attack me in any way, including magic. As long as you can beat me, it will prove you have reached level 6. If you think my skills are lacking, you can request a higher level examiner..."

As he went through the standard procedural introduction, he walked towards the center of the arena and stood there, waiting for my next move.

"You have 5 minutes for the test."

After listening to all the instructions, I went straight to the weapon rack and drew out a longsword. Although the only weapon I had used before was Nicola's Condensation Sword, this was still the most familiar to me here.

"Let's begin then..." Seeing me choose a weapon and stand before him, Wozwal had initially been empty-handed, but after some thought, he also ran back and took a longsword from the weapon rack.

This...

The corner of my mouth twitched. I wanted to tell him there was no need to be so cautious. I was quite clear about my abilities after all this time. There was absolutely no way I could harm a level 6 swordsman. I guessed even Nicola probably couldn't do it without her Condensation Sword.

Actually, when I first entered, I was very nervous. After all, before transmigrating, I had never even fought before, let alone an actual combat test against such a powerful master.

Fortunately, I had some battle experience previously and had just advanced to four wings recently, so my strength had increased a lot. Now the weight of the longsword in my hand was almost negligible, which gave me a bit more confidence.

I quietly wiped the sweat from my palms. Anyway, since I didn't know any sword skills, I took a deep breath, lifted the longsword with one hand, and without further ado, slashed at my opponent.

"Not bad! That strength has indeed surpassed mid level 4." Wozwal easily parried my slash, evaluating while smoothly counterattacking with a backhand sword strike.

Seeing this, I immediately retreated one step, barely avoiding his counter.

"Hmm...reactions and speed are decent too."

At first, he spoke quite affirmatively of me, but after a few exchanges, he gradually began to feel something was off.

"You seem to not know any sword skills at all?"

"Uh..." Hearing this, my hand paused. As expected, he saw right through me huh? I had just been hacking and slashing wildly with no technique at all, so it would be strange not to notice.

"Indeed I don't know any..." My face reddening, I could only admit candidly as I temporarily retreated to the side.

"Then why did you choose a sword?" He looked at me very strangely, then seemed to recall something and asked me, "What about your light magic? How come I don't see you using any?"

"I don't know that either..." Now this was even more embarrassing. I could barely look him in the eye. Knowing nothing was a perfect description of me right now. I could only rely on brute force.

"This is..." The other party also didn't expect that the rare angel he met, one with four wings, would actually turn out like this. With a speechless expression, after thinking hard for a long time, he could only command me, "Then keep attacking me with your full power, don't stop!"

"Oh, okay!" I knew this was my last chance to perform, so I didn't dare hold back anymore either, exerting my utmost strength to charge at my opponent.

"Clang... Clang... Clang... Clang..."

The entire training arena was filled with the sound of my wild slashing. No matter what angle or direction I slashed and stabbed at Wozwal from, his sword always seemed to magically appear to block mine. Occasionally he would even counterattack.

Having gone all out, I no longer used dodging and retreating. To avoid wasting opportunities, I thought of flying up high to evade before diving down to utilize gravity for more powerful chops.

"Not bad!" Wozwal praised me for the first time in a while. "Using your physical advantages for suppressive attacks."

But even so, it had no effect. He still easily neutralized my moves without the slightest panic.

"5 minutes up..." The moment he finished speaking, my unstable sword was flicked out of my hand by him.

Then with flawless precision, he threw his own sword back onto the weapon rack, inserting it right back into its original spot.

"Test complete."

"How...how was it?" I stuttered nervously. My mood right now was absolutely awful. I didn't expect the test to be so strict. The examiner was too powerful. Even with the advantage of an angel's body, I didn't gain any upper hand at all.

"Hmm..." Wozwal slowly walked back to his previous seat and pondered for a while before giving his evaluation.

"Although your physical abilities like strength, reflexes and speed completely exceed level 4, due to lack of combat skills, I can only give you a level 3 rating."

"Level 3 huh." This result was actually quite surprising. It had exceeded my expectations already. I thought I would at most get level 2.

"But your awareness is decent. You're quite flexible in your thinking during battle. If you train more in martial skills in the future, you should still have good potential." He paused, then praised me some more, making me feel embarrassed.

"Thank you!"

I bowed deeply and was about to leave with my card from him when Wozwal suddenly added,

"It's very strange you don't know any light magic at all. And you're an angel too. If possible, you should go learn some. It's a huge advantage for your race."

"Ah?" Hearing his suggestion, I was taken aback. I didn't expect he would bring up magic. But he was right. In the previous fight I had solely relied on close combat. Just because he didn't use magic didn't mean I couldn't use it either. If I could use magic, my evaluation probably would have been much higher.

"I get it." I nodded. It looked like I had to consider learning magic.

After leaving the room, I breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the words on my card:

"Level: 3"

I would have to wait three more months for the next comprehensive test.

"How was it?" Seeing me come out, Vivianne who had been waiting rushed over. And Nicola behind her followed right after into the room.

"Not bad I guess." I showed her my card.

"Only level 3!" After seeing the number on the card, Vivianne was shocked, looking indignant on my behalf. "Could they have made a mistake? You are..."

She seemed to realize her voice was too loud and quickly covered her mouth.

"You should know even the most common dual-winged angels have at least level 4 strength." After pulling me to a corner, she lowered her voice and softly said, "You already have four wings, how could you only be level 3?"

I couldn't help it. Being called out like this by her made me feel quite embarrassed. Initially, I hadn't thought much about it and had even thought being level 3 was pretty lucky. But Vivianne's reaction now made me realize I had completely disgraced the angel's name.

Only after I roughly recounted what happened in the test room did Vivianne finally come to a realization.

"It's all because I forgot about your amnesia. So you don't know light magic."

It wasn't just because of amnesia, but if I could learn magic, it might make up for things a bit.

"How about we go to the magic bookstore and take a look?" I suggested to Vivianne. There was a magic bookstore in a corner of this Adventurer's Guild hall. I just hadn't had the chance to check it out until the examiner mentioned it to me.

"That place huh..." Hearing me, Vivianne seemed hesitant, but still went with me into the bookstore.

The store looked just like any ordinary bookstore on the outside, except that the books sold were all about various magics. You couldn't tell the difference from its exterior.

The store wasn't big. We browsed around quickly and soon found introductory books on foundational magic including fire, water and other elemental types.

There were very few books on light magic. After searching for a long time I finally found a few titles related to it. So I randomly grabbed a copy of "Light Magic Combat" which didn't look very thick, trying to flip through it a little, but realized I couldn't open it no matter what.

"It's enchanted with magic. You can't read it without paying." Vivianne said to me after seeing this.

That made sense. If you could just casually browse and memorize the basics, it would be equal to stealing it for free.

"How much does it cost?" I checked the entire book but couldn't find the price listed anywhere.

"The price is down here." Vivianne pointed to the area below the counter and told me.

Glancing in that direction, I was immediately stunned, unable to speak from the shock.

"75,000 silvers!?" I couldn't help crying out, my tongue practically twisting. "Why is it so expensive?"

"Shh, quiet down!" Vivianne jumped in fright at my voice and quickly dragged me out of the bookstore.

"Light magic books have always been expensive." She slowly explained to me after we were some distance away. "Moreover, this is at the Adventurer's Guild headquarters, so of course it costs even more."

I understood this point. It was like how things sold at train stations and airports are much pricier than elsewhere. But this price difference was still too outrageous.

"But the fire magic books next to it were less than 3,000 silvers..." Although I had only glanced at the prices, I still saw that introductory books for the fire, wind and earth elements were around 3,000 silvers. Even water magic which would be more expensive was only about 6,000 silvers tops.