Mary always liked mornings, even though no one seemed to share her opinion. the feeling of the day just waking up was great, so unlike her peers she was always up to watch the sun rise in the morning. She was currently sitting on the highest branch of the highest tree in the courtyard doing just that, when two of the orphanage’s workers came in the courtyard chatting with each other. Mary couldn't understand a word of what they were saying, but naturally curious as she was she decided to try creating a spell, one that improved her hearing. Extending a strand of her mana she willed it to tell her what they were saying. Her mana formed strange shapes and soon after she could hear them as if they were crying in her ears.

“Did you hear, the Emperor executed a noble yesterday, for treason against the empire.”

“Yeah how stupid can one be, one would think after he made the grand duke a baron and executing another noble last year, they would've finally learned to not cross him.”

“I really hate nobles, doing what they want while we poor folk have to scrape together a living.”

“At least the children still have a chance to become someone. Did you know, there will be a ceremony shortly before the next festival?”

“No I didn't even know who there would be one this year. Who is it?”

“It's …”

The workers seemed to move out of the distance her spell covered as their conversation was cut abruptly. While she would have liked to know more, her mana had been running short anyway and breakfast was due to begin, so Mary terminated the spell and climbed down, moving in the direction of the mess hall. She wondered though, what these two had been talking about.

While she could understand the first part of the conversation she had heard, she had no idea what the second part was about. Even in her sheltered life in the orphanage she had heard about the fall of one of the empire’s five grand dukes, happening at around the same time as her birthday, him being accused of treason. As the grand duke as a person had been too important for the empire to just kill, the Emperor took all his holdings outside the capital as well as his title, making him a baron, the lowest of the noble ranks. The second part of the conversation would have been way more interesting to hear, as it probably had something to do with herself and her friends.

Now she had more important things to do however, like breakfast, as the problems of the empires high and mighty held no concern for her.

Nandelia watched as her charges fell upon the breakfast, Mary as everyday had been up before any of them watching the sun rise, joining them to eat later. She really hoped the children would have a successful life, as they would get a new caretaker soon, reaching the age of four, when the orphanage started preparing them for the life outside. While she was looking forward to getting new charges to care for, she dreaded the moment she would have to separate from them. Just as she was about to begin with today's lesson, one of the workers told her to go to Andra Jonun’s office. She told her class to occupy themselves for a little while and went off to meet the orphanage head.

“You wanted me to come Miss Jonun?” she asked after knocking at the door and being told to come in.

“Nandelia, yes I sent someone to get you, as you may know, a ceremony is being held soon and we may have the honor this time, as I received these tests in the morning. With you being the most educated caretaker around here and with you, your class I want them class to fill out these tests to the best of their abilities.” Nandelia had to hold back exclamations of glee as she heard the news.

“Of course, I will make them write the test immediately.” she replied joyfully. Though, on a more somber note she had always hated tests as a child.

After eating Mary went to the lessons given by Nandelia, though this one was slightly delayed. By now she was able to more or less fluently speak the elven and dwarven languages, though she somewhat struggled speaking the tongue of the lizards. Writing was no problem whatsoever, even though every race had its own script, they were easy to learn together with the language. The rest of the subjects were even easier to remember.

“Today we will be doing something else.” Nandelia started.

“We will be writing a test today, testing your knowledge. Sadly i didn't get to design it, so you may not be able to answer all questions, don't let that deter you though and just do your best!”

They each got several sheets of paper and a pen. With a few questions written per sheet. First, the test wanted to know her name, so she dutifully wrote her name, afterwards it wanted to know her age, something she didn't know herself, so she wrote ‘Presumably three and a half years.’ that didn't start well, having already failed half of the questions. The next questions were all simple things being written in the different languages she learned, like when was the empire had been founded and by whom, or who is the current emperor. She answered several more questions about history, like what one needed to secure in order to found a kingdom ‘At least a dragon supporting it.’ After history it wanted to know basic math, like how to add or multiply numbers and a few examples proving you could use the theory, or how far she could count, a stupid question, she was awesome and could count as far as she liked. She couldn't answer any questions about the gods, as Nandelia had teached them nothing about them, religion being as unimportant as it was in the empire. She didn't understand some of the questions as they were in languages unknown to her. The test wanted to know some stuff about economics as well, the basics like a platinum coin being worth one hundred gold coins, a gold coin one hundred silver and a silver one hundred copper, when asked what she wanted to work as, she had to think really hard, but in the end there was only one answer she could reasonably give ‘I want to be an adventurer!’. Likewise there were several other small topics, nothing really interesting though.

When she read the topic of the last questions Mary got quite excited, as it wanted to know stuff about magic. The first questions was ‘What is mana?’ ‘Energy to do Magic.’ was her answer. Then it wanted to know something entirely unrelated to magic ‘What are runes?’ she truthfully answered ‘The letters of old civilisations.’ really now why would anyone want to know that. The next one was even more stupid ‘What are runes used for?’ ‘To write!’ obviously. Up next was the question ‘How does magic work?’ ‘Magic is mana forming different shapes which determine how the world is influenced!’. Her answer to the question of what magician she would want to be, she answered ‘Definitely a Sorceress!’ she wasn't sure if she could be counted as one yet so she went with the save option. She had no answer to the other questions, like what school of magic she would choose to pursue, but they gave her some ideas for her magic training.

When she had finished, she looked up and saw everyone was waiting for her. She grinned sheepishly, “That was fun! Can we do another one?” she asked Nandelia happily. The others gave her a strange look

“What?” they started staring at her angrily.

“No!” was all she got. Seeing that she was the only one to have fun doing the test, she let it be. Nandelia collected every test and sent them off to play, cutting the lesson short by half an hour.

After collecting the test Nandelia ended the lesson early and went to give the test back to Andra, having looked at she was fairly confident her class had done well in everything except religion and the last topic, she had to smile to herself thinking back how Mary had reacted to the test.

Arriving at the headmistress’s office, she knocked and waited until she was asked to come inside.

“My class completed the test as you instructed, shall I mark it myself?”

“No that won't be necessary, i’ll wait for the rest of the orphanage to finish and then will sent it back to the noble’s representative to do with it as the noble wants, thank you very much Nandelia.” With nothing more to say Nandelia excused herself and went back to the courtyard, taking care her charges didn't do anything stupid. Not something that happened very often luckily, though it seemed to increase in the last few months.

Finally, Griel and his team had just arrived at the village of Callatis eighteen months after advancing their ranks, somewhere near the empire’s northern border. They were late by about a week, having a runin with old acquaintances, the bandits that wanted to rob them on their way to kill the drake about eighteen month back, as they hadn't actually robbed anyone before trying them they had been in prison for only six months, spending the next sixteen month preparing to take revenge at the adventurers that brought them to prison. Griel thought to himself these guys could be quite successful if they tried, as they would give any iron ranked team a run for their money, unfortunately for them they picked his team as their goal, people they wouldn't be able to surpass without the support of another noble.

They were on their quest to reach Gold Rank at the moment. This time they were hunting a pair of Shilks a high evolution of the common wolf, which relied on speed rather than mass. They were way more dangerous than anything they had hunted thus far, a shilk, unlike his brethren with lesser evolutions was a very solitary animal, living alone or with it's mate and children, this pair most likely thought the human village’s surroundings an easy hunting ground and had moved over the empire’s border. They were especially hard to hunt because of their cunning, as they were too smart to run into most traps.

A Shilk was about five meters from head to tail and three meters tall. They could outrun any horse, and furthermore had control over wind magic, using the air to subconsciously to blow against their foes, waiting for their balance to be destroyed and then charged their prey, throwing it to the ground, ripping their preys throats out in the process.

Fighting them required quite some skill and preparation. Shilks absolutely hated Ifleats a small furry creature that was nearly impossible to catch, getting the Ifleet Blood had been the most annoying part of their adventuring career so far. The blood had to be contained in a container that didn't let any smell out, as Shilks fell in a frenzy when they smelled Ifleats.

After bringing a sufficient distance between them an the village, they went about preparing for the battle. Their ranged weapons and spells would be useless most of the time, as Shilks were to fast to properly hit, so they had to resort to tricks, creating a sheet of ice around the fighting ground that would stop the beasts from using their speed proper. Additionally, they precast a spell that would close the retreat path of the monsters by creating earthen walls around the battleground. Moving that much ground required more mana than they actually had, so they used manastones containing about double of each of their mana capacities. The only thing the spell still needed was a small activation. After conjuring up several shield wards that would hopefully stop the canines first charge they threw the blood in front of them and waited.

About ten minutes later they could hear terrifying growls coming out of the distance and five minutes after that they saw the Shilks for the first time.

Really terrifying creatures, with teeth as long as a dagger and midnight black fur, a head that was big enough to swallow a human skull hole, and a deeply unsettling anger and hate in their black eyes, five meters long machines of death to summ it up. They could see the the muscles working under their fur, propelling them to speeds unattainable by most groundborn creatures.

The moment they saw them standing there waiting for them, they slightly changed their trajectory and came at them at full speed, the Ifleat forgotten as a far more dangerous prey had dared enter their territory.

Griel waited until they were firmly within the borders of their spell and then released the activation, an instant later they were upon them crashing into their wards at breakneck speed, Griel could feel the first three of his wards being broken, until they were stopped by the combination of the fourth and the shield he threw up as they saw the beasts charge, they had been pushed back by several meters by that impact, pressing their backs against the wall.

The bigger Shilk let out a angry howl, and the monsters retreated for a few meters until they hit the wall that by now had finished forming. Griel let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, as the most dangerous part of the fight was now over, surviving the charge of a Shilk was said to be an experience that noone wanted to do twice, that much was definitely true.

He could feel the pressure on his shields growing, as the monsters started using their magic to get them of balance. Their rangers started distracting the monsters with arrows, every single one being dodged by the monsters with an impressive feat of agility Griel couldn't help but envy.

After about half a minute with nothing happening, one of the wolf’s darted forwards trying to seperate them, it obviously didn't accelerate as fast as it expected, its claws scraping over the ice. His shield stopped it cold, before it could do any harm and it retreated back to its mate.

Jorishol finished the incantation of her spell, releasing it upon their enemies. The ball of fire shot forwards and was progressively dodged by both Shilks, melting the ice around their feet. Toldron completed his spell directly afterwards, and a bolt of lighting shooting forwards, missing both enemies again, but hitting the intended target, the water at the monsters feet and in turn being transferred to the Shilks making their muscles converge shortly, enabling their rangers to hit each of them once. Obviously monsters as strong as these wouldn’t let a few arrows deter them and came at them again with vengeance one shortly after the other, both times hitting the same spot of the shield way harder than before, all while keeping up attacking them with magic. Griel was pretty sure that they would be blown to the ground outside of his shield and the winds were still picking up.

Shortly afterwards his last ward was destroyed, quite problematic as holding up two shields required all of his concentration, adding a shield being way harder when the other ones were pressured constantly, as every strand of mana he extended was automatically used up by the already existing spells and even his improved manacontrol wasn't enough to circumvent this.

“We are on a timer, my shields will be running out in about three minutes if they keep this up"

“I’ll take the next shield.” Jorishol replied.

“We don't need three minutes to finish them!” Kidmoir took off one of the items they had bought for this fight, a quite handy contraption, that was capable of saving a spell and casting it when mana was inserted, without further ado, the dwarf added mana to it and threw it at the monsters. Having learnt from their previous experience, the shilks darted out of the water onto the sheet ice and in doing so avoiding being shocked again.

“Well that's unlucky these seem smarter than your average Shilk!” Dras started supplying her muscles with mana and gripped her shield a little bit tighter, likely being frustrated of not being able to contribute to the fight at all.

Griel thought hard, while they were in no immediate danger all of their mages having enough mana to shield the group for another one and a half hours if this frequency of attacks was kept up. That should be enough though, as the arrows had been poisoned slowing the monsters down enough to give them a chance to hit them with more spells. Using too much arrows wasn't that wise, as they damaged the skin.

About half an hour later they had killed the first one, without having to use more arrows. The second monster howled angrily and redoubled its efforts breaking through their shields, a futile attempt, as half of the onslaught had been lifted from them as the first died. They dealt with the last one in just ten minutes time, the monster starting to get exhausted in addition to the poison and having to constantly dodge spells and arrows.

After dismantling the the Shilks they went back to the village and retired for the night.

On the next morning Griel had regenerated all of his mana, so he cast message spell informing the nearest guildmaster allowed to rank up their class, who coincidentally was the same that ranked them up after fighting the drake.

“Guildmaster Hendrik, I report we dealt with the threat to the village of Callatis, killing both Shilks!”

“Very good kid, you were on a rankup quest weren't you?”

“Yes we were!”

“I thought as much, nobody wants to see a Shilk charge twice! Congratulations though, I will inform the guild of your success, it's not everyday someone reaches the upper ranks, I’ll see you at the ceremony in Rhovara then. And give my regards to your team!”

“Thank you very much Guildmaster.”

“The Guildmaster sends his regards, we’re finally there!” his team cheered.

While relatively easy to cast, a message spell was incredibly costly, allowing instantaneous communication with someone else, like teleportation spells they were effectively independent from range, a message spells mana cost increased with each time someone talked. After having taken care of the most important stuff, they mounted their great horses evolved horses and headed back in the direction of the capital. They left their Kekos behind this time, as their mounts were more than strong enough to carry the materials of the relatively small shilks.

On the next day after a healthy breakfast Griel cast another message, this time to the Baron.

“We managed to complete the quest, and have reached gold rank!”