The last two weeks had been quite tiring, even though Mary only trained her mana control for one or two hours per day, it was extremely exhausting. Yet the training had wielded satisfactory results, as she had reached her goal. As she had no clue what spells were or how to cast one she decided to repeat her first attempt of igniting a small light.

“Let's do this!” Mary encouraged herself and took control over a tiny part of her mana and willed it to emit the light of a candle. Her mana tried to escape her control, so panicked she tightened her reign over it. Nothing happened which was disappointing. Wondering what went wrong, she repeated her experiment, the outcome didn't change. After trying another five times she had to admit to herself that it wouldn’t work like this.

Perhaps she should just let her mana do its thing, while still retaining control, but more in the background. This time, instead of reigning in her mana when it tried to slip her control she let it do as it pleased. The mana shaped in some kind of strange form, yet before the form was completed it ran out of mana and fizzled out of existence.

Mary sincerely hoped she was on the right path and repeated her experiment with a little bit more mana. It worked like a charm and a small light was floating in front of Mary's eyes. She jumped in joy, subsequently losing control of her mana and the light blinked out of existence. That was something to work at, it wouldn't do to stop her spells from working by losing concentration. So for the next week Mary did just that, doing everything she would normally do while maintaining her spell, she learnt that her spell needed constant mana supply to work. She decided it was the time to investigate the spell that constantly drained her mana reserves. The spell formed a beautiful pattern consisting of dozens of symbols. As she didn’t know what they did she couldn’t just want them to form, so she had to manually form the individual shapes to see what they did.

It was surprisingly hard to form the strand of mana into these unknown shapes. But Mary being as stubborn as she was managed to form one of the easier ones after an hour of trying. The shape was completely useless, it did nothing she could see or feel, even though it worked.

A month later Mary had given up trying to find out what the spell did, she knew however that her mother or whoever cast the spell was a prodigy in Illusion Magic. Trying to comprehend the spell had helped advancing her magic control by leaps and bounds, similarly showing her how important it was to have complete control over her mana as she could easily imagine other sorcerers being unwilling to learn any spell other than ones of their affinity as it had been really hard forming the shapes manually.

Nineteen months earlier

“Watch out!” Griel cried, as their path was suddenly blocked by several logs. The half a year of experience kicking in, he instantly surrounded them with a basic shield, that while weak against a concentrated effort was effective against most basic attacks, shielding his team was his duty, as it turned out he had a certain proficiency in shield spells. The shield came up none too early, as shortly after arrows came out of the woods around them. Griel would pity the bandits, they had been stupid enough to pick out a professional team of adventurers as their target. Of course the bandits didn't know that, when they saw only seven people accompanying four Kekos, they likely thought them easy targets. Sure enough shortly after, the barrage of arrows stopped and several bandits stepped out of the forest.

“Concede your goods and equipment and you will be spared!” the leader of the group declared.

Griel had to control himself to not laugh out at the cliche statement, instead he replied.

“Sorry to tell you buddy, but we are way more than you can chew.” The bandit leader did a double take at that and then arrogantly stated.

“We have you surrounded and outnumbered by at least four times!” Pretending to think about it Griel waited until he heard three bird calls coming out of the forest in quick succession, then he replied.

“You see while we live in a civilized land and I don't really like killing humans you really tempt me, attacking my team that close to the nearest city, that's just plain stupid!”

“And while you were gloating about your superiority, my rangers took out all of your man in the forest. Moreover Todron here has just finished the spell for the rest of you.” At the end of his sentence all bandits fell to the ground.

“Nice timing Todron!” he complimented. “Bloody idiots the lot of them!” Isilynor, one of their elven rangers said. “You never give someone who obviously has at least one mage in their party the time needed to cast a spell. “Don't fret over it.” Griel responded, “I’m more upset about the loss of time we’ll have because we have to deliver them to the nearest garrison.”

“Still better than in other countries, where everyone just murders each other!” Agrim responded with a gruff voice. “That's certainly true!” Griel had to admit, “But they still could have picked other targets, it's not like we have nothing better to do than delivering some random bandits to the empire.”

“At least it pays handsomely!” Drisk one of their lizards, who called themselves the Ephozyrn, something nobody could pronounce, said.

They had been on their way for the final mission needed before advancing to Bronze rank, the first of the middle class ranks, when they had so rudely been interrupted by the bandits. They were currently Zinc ranked adventurers having advanced the other lower ranks in the fastest time allowed by guild policy. They started out as probationary adventurers no real rank that was given to all applicants until they completed one quest. The reward for that quest was a full membership at the adventurers guild, and a card that proved you were capable of doing copper-ranked quests. To advance in the lower ranks one had to be the previous rank for at least a month as well as completing a minimum of five quests of that rank.

So after three months they had easily risen to zinc rank, which was the highest rank someone of lower class could have. To advance an adventurer class, they had to fulfill additional requirements, like bringing up their level of equipment by a certain margin, quite the feat for most, as they needed to actually pay the craftsmen for their work, unlike them. Quite unlucky for the Bandits, as they just left the capital with the best gear possible at their level, the master craftsmen of the Baron had worked wonders with the materials. So they had known about the ambush even before the bandits knew of them and hoped they wouldn’t be stupid enough to attack them. The quest they were on the way to was a subjugationquest, they had to hunt down a lesser earthdrake, a huge reptilian monster twenty meters long that had a rudimentary control over the ground around it. Lesser drakes were one of many monsters one could kill to meet the requirement of killing a monster of sufficient strength to advance. The particular monster they were hunting had been terrorising one of the empire’s villages.

A week later Griel and his party had delivered the bandits at the garrison and traveled to the village in question, after questioning the villagers about the lesser drake and placing their Kekos in the village head’s stable their rangers went out and started tracking the monster. The rest of the team would search for an appropriate clearing away from the village where they would then lure the lesser drake to and kill it. The clearing was easily found and they set about preparing the battlefield.

They always knew where the rest of the party was as they all had a Party Ring, constantly telling them the basic status and rough whereabouts of the rest, quite the costly enchantment if you didn't havea noble paying the craftsmen you needed.

So when Paeral suddenly started taking of towards them with full speed, they knew something was amiss, luckily they had just finished preparing the clearing and were reasonable prepared to face the incoming beast. About five minutes afterwards Tethys and Isilynor came into the clearing, also having sensed the change in Pearl's behavior.

Shortly afterwards Paeral burst into the clearing, clearly out of breath and yelled. “Incoming, the fucker somehow evolved into a drake, I just saw him finishing off another party!”

Griek quickly formed a plan and instructed his teammates. They could already hear the trees bursting. “Get ready!”

“Todron ‘World of Ice’!”

“Jorishol internal heat on Drisk and Dras!”

“Drisk, Dras get its attention!”

“The rest of you get out your weapons and prepare for some action!” he commanded his party.

Shortly after a huge lizard burst into the clearing easily being thirty meters long and about six wide it's head alone being big enough to swallow one of them whole, the beast’s mouth full of teeth all long enough to pierce through each of them, all in all not something one would want to see running at them. It's brown scales were good news at least, suggesting it kept it's elemental alignment through the evolution, lucky that as any other drake would have caused them quite the problems.

Even though they were no wizards, they knew the basic spells to influence nature and had used the roots of the trees around the clearing to negate the monsters magical means, by binding the surrounding soil with roots. With courage Griel was sure he would never have, Drisk and Dras charged the lizard, activating one of the enchantments their heavy armor had, making them glow brilliantly in the afternoon sun, the drake's eyes immediately focused on them as they were recognized as the most immediate threats.

It roared in challenge and charged the two. Jorishol had just buffed their two tanks with a spell negating the temperature around them when Griel himself finished his spell influencing the trees around the clearing stem the flow of air in the clearing. Shortly afterwards Todron finished with his spell ‘World of Ice’ that despite its name had nothing to with water magic, it was a firespell that decreased the temperature around them by around twenty degrees. While uncomfortable for them it would be devastating for all reptilian creatures as they relied on external warmth to work. The two Ephozyrns had by now reached the drakes range and were busy distracting it from the happenings around it. The dwarfs being the incredible little buggers they were started using the special arrows the elves shot in the side of the drake to climb it, completely avoiding its notice as the thick hide wasn’t completely pierced.

Griel was happy the enchanted arrows did what they were supposed to do, he had been worried as a drake was a league of its own. Drisk and Dras had split up, one distracting the drake at the front, while the other went for its hind legs, seeking to confuse the beast by switching it's attention between them. The meanwhile the dwarfs had split up on the beast's back, one going in direction of the tail and the other to the head. Drakes, unlike their previous evolutions, were not vulnerable at their eyes. Just when the dwarfs reached their positions, one being just over the drakes hind legs, the other waiting at its neck, the inevitable happened, Drisk just dodging the drakes attempt at stomping him was hit by its tail and sent flying over the clearing. Suppressing the worry that came up for his friend and trusting in Jorishol to see about his survival, Griel concentrated on the battle, Agrim having reached the lizards hind legs took out a big spike and rammed it in the drakes hide. Now was the moment of truth, should he be able to get the spike deep enough in the drakes spine it's legs would stop working and they had a chance of surviving the encounter.

The dwarf took one swing and struck true buring the spike in the drake up to its hilt. While not working as intended the legs seemed to severely lose in strength. They still had a chance of surviving, he was just about to finish his next spell. so he gave Paeral an order.

“Paeral give me an anchor on its head!”

Paeral nodded and shot a special arrow between the drakes eyes, giving Griel a solid foundation to anchor his spell, the spell would decrease the air pressure around it's anchor, robbing the drake of air it needed to breathe. The spell hit and with the cold finally taking its toll of the lizard its movements became more and more sluggish. Jorishol rejoined the battle as well, having made sure Drisk would survive his injuries. After that they managed to distract it enough for Kidmoir to ascend to its head and drive his spike in it's skull ending the battle in their favor.

“We just did that didn't we?” Todron asked disbelieving,

“We just killed a fucking drake!” Agrim yelled. “Fuck yeah!”

Griel hated to bring them out of their great mood he felt the same, but they had a comrade to tend to and work to do before night.

“Get out of it, Jorishol tend to Drisk, Agrim and Dras go fetch our Kekos, the rest to me, we have a drake to dismantle, celebrations can be made after we’re done working!”

Drisk’s injuries had been severe, being hit by several hundred kilograms of tail did that to you, but he would be up and about in the morning, they spent the next five hours dismantling the drake getting all materials they could use as well as a proof of kill. They had had immense luck, knowing how to fight and kill a drake, as they had all the equipment ready to do so, they originally planned to kill the lesser one like one would kill an actual drake as a sort of test, so they informed themselves how to deal with a normal drake.

About a week later Griel and his team arrived at the city of Rhovara one of the five cities surrounding the capital. First, they organized a stable for their Kekos, as the beasts definitely deserved some rest having carried all the materials for the last week. Then they went to the Guildhouse and presented their proof of kill. They were told to wait by the receptionist. Soon after she came back with Guildmaster, a retired Mithril ranked adventurer.

“In my office! Now!” he bellowed, one didn't say no to the guildmaster so they all followed him.

“Tia told me you met a drake?” he said as they closed the door behind them. Griel swallowed hard, then took a step forward and answered.

”Yes Guildmaster, we were on a quest to kill a lesser earthdrake that was terrorising one of the empire’s villages we wanted to advance our adventurer class. We arrived at the village and questioned the inhabitants about it, everything sounded fine, so after taking care of our Kekos we set out and prepared a clearing for the battle while our rangers set out to find it. Paeral found it, but it had evolved into an earth drake and had just wiped out another party. It noticed him before he could retreat, so he came to us and we managed to kill it as we had planned to kill the lesser drake like a normal one. All in all we were extremely lucky!”

“Well I think you definitely earned that rankup, Tia go fetch them all an iron badge, they definitely deserved it considering they killed a monster that even most iron ranks think about engaging twice, with the gear for killing a lesser drake nonetheless! Good job, though next time I wouldn’t let it notice me if I were your ranger!” he told them good natured.

“You definitely have to tell me exactly how you managed it later, but now is time to celebrate!”

“Griel was relieved, he had thought they were in trouble as the Guildmaster normally only appeared when some serious rules were breached.

“I will forward my regards to your benefactor about picking such a skilled team!” they looked at him in shock, “Don't look so surprised of course we know of the stupid little bet the nobles have going on, I can tell you, you just made a baron very happy, as you are now the top contender.”

“You should see to get some more training though, as you still don't have a familiar, something my mage friends told me to be very useful.”

“We were planning to get some training in after this quest.” Tethys chimed in.

“Drisk needs some time to properly heal anyways.”

“Skilled and smart enough to know training is an essential part of advancing. The guild needs more people like you!” the guildmaster told them as he ushered them out of his office.

Guildmaster Hendrik was quite impressed by these young people, gods knew they needed people like them as way too many parties were happy to stay in the lower ranks never risking the dangerous advancement quests. That was one of the reasons the Guildheads allowed the bet to start.

He was pretty sure the kids had no clue of the extent of the feat they had performed, their mages being too young and inexperienced to actually know spells capable of harming the more dangerous monsters. After having questioned Griel about the fight in detail later, he was quite impressed how the kid had circumvented these problems. Affecting the environment to slow it down was an ingenious move considering one normally used ‘World of Ice’ to cool drinks. Likewise, even though they said they killed it with luck one didn’t kill a drake with luck, while no problem for him or other people of his strength, a party with their equipment should stay far away from foes like that. He was pretty sure only one in a hundred parties could manage the same.