It was time! Another month had passed since the last festival and today Mary would finally be allowed to take the rangertest.

Nolan hadn't been allowed to tell her anything about it. A ranger apparently had to adapt to the conditions without proper preparation. The ranger guild owned a small part of the forest surrounding the capital, so they didn't have to travel for a month to test their trainees in the capital.

Her father had gifted her a set of enchanted leather armor which was painted with green and brown colors, though the enchantments were not allowed to help her in any way, they only served as protection should something unexpected happen.

She was giddy with anticipation to be in a real forest for the first time in her life. The test would start in the early morning and take until the afternoon. Currently she was sitting in one of her father's carriages driven by one of his guards. They were on their way to the edge of the forest where the test would commerce. The only thing she had been told about the test was the basic procedure. She would get a goal by the testers, which she had to accomplish and than return to them. The test always took ten hours. You had to manage at least five tasks in this time in order to pass.

She was awaited by the three master rangers that would test her. They were all quite skilled and managed to blend into their surroundings really well. Though she only needed a few seconds to spot them, that wasn't fair for them, as she was naturally apt at finding hidden people. She decided to pursue her standart tactic, and patiently waited for them to break the silence after smiling at each of them.

Ten minutes later they came out of their hiding places and one of them addressed her guards.

“We will take over from here, you can fetch the young lady in the afternoon.” The guards saluted and were off. “Now to you, you think you have what it takes to be a real ranger, I will warn you only this once, the life of a ranger is nothing for a pampered noble child like you and you are quite young anyways.” He tried his best to look intimidating.

“Of course I want to, that's why I'm here!”

"Very well, we will start the test then, follow us to todays base of operations, don't fall behind and make no noise.”

And off they were. Mary followed the rangers for the next thirty minutes, as they quickend their pace every five minutes.

After arriving at the camp, she had to admit they were way better than her, while she managed to keep up, they didn't seem all that bothered by the speed they were travelling and held back to not lose her.

She got a few minutes to catch her breath after which she was told to join them at a table.

“Good job keeping up kid, didn't think a noble had what it takes.” They all looked completely different, way more friendly and not at all grumpy like before.

“Your first objective is to track a Kegin to its lair, a dangerous evolution of the common squirrel that, unlike it's lesser brethren hunts small animals and monster.”

Kegin were a strange species, Mary read about them in the library. If not for their looks you wouldn't believe they had once been squirrels. Compared to them, they were huge, getting up to eighty centimeters tall. That of course meant they had extreme problems climbing trees and were largely groundbound. They were not really dangerous, they were still squirrels after all, though they could take on a child or goblin on their own if they got the jump on them.

The Kegin in question had been hunting in the surroundings of the camp for quite some time, so it's tracks were all over the place. The rangers showed her how one of the tracks looked and sent her on her way to find it's lair, with instructions to avoid the beast and return to them after she found it's lair.

Qinfir was once again waiting for an external trainee to arrive for the rangertest. All citizens of the empire could apply to be tested for a small fee to the guild. The testers were selected by the leadership according to their importance. That meant the trainee they would test was a noble, as standard procedure dictated every ranger could test a trainee with two others. The more important the applicant, the more powerful the testers would get, though only nobles got the honor of three master rangers testing them. Of course that served a dual purpose, as master rangers were way harder to bribe than normal ones.

The first of these tests was unlike the later ones, as it was more about testing the basic skills needed for a ranger. The later tests focused more on one specific skill per test. For example there were two main ways a ranger could fight, one was the standard bow or crossbow, and the other was wizardry, while most successful rangers picked up the basics of the other weapon, the trainees were not required to fight that early anyways and as such the test was designed to not involve any fighting.

When the noble arrived they were already waiting, having prepared the testing grounds beforehand. The details of the test the applicants were told were, of course bullshit. The test started the moment the trainee arrived and ended when the testers arrived at a conclusion.

They were all quite surprised when the noble in question was a small girl, about four years old. After she exited the carriage, she looked around excitedly and then smiled at them and waited. They weren't concealing themselves to the best of their abilities, that wouldn't be fair for the tested after all, though still better than most rangers could. All in all quite the surprise, most trainees needed a few minutes to find the testers.

After she proved to have at least some patience, they came forth and dismissed the girls guard. After testing her resolve by intimidating her, adding a bit of mana to the surroundings for good measure, they told her to follow them.

They didn't have to hold back as much as feared, the child holding up surprisingly well for a noble of her age.

The girl didn't know, but she had already passed the first parts of the test, impressing them with good eyes, skilled movement in the forest and one of the most important parts of their craft, patience.

The spot they were in was chosen with care, there was nothing dangerous around, and the prey they sent her to track had been taken care of beforehand. The test should test the tested’s reactions under pressure as well as their skills. But not actually endanger their lives, as the guild didn't want to lose promising people.

Kegins were among the strangest of evolutions. They had some of the same habits as their lesser brethren, taking the prey they managed to hunt back to their lair and burying the parts they didn't eat for the winter, really they were some of the most stupid monsters in existence.

The girl would just have to see some of the prints were deeper than others which always was a sign the beast ate its prey in its lair. She should, after finding them, be able to follow them to the beast's lair with ease. After the girl left the camp, they followed her silently and without her notice. She found the lair in record time, returning to the camp in a straight line instead of following the tracks back. They rushed past her when she neared the camp, awaiting her return in the camp with stoic expressions.

Mary returned to the camp elated, if all the tests would be as easy as this one she’d finish the test in no time at all. After entering the forest she quickly found the monsters tracks. When she came across some deeper footprints, she remembered Nolans lessons, where she learnt some monsters took their prey back to their lair. So she followed the deeper tracks until she reached its lair. After depositing the beacon she had been given, she quickly returned to the camp where she was awaited by the three testers.

“Did you manage to find the monsters lair?”

“I did, I deposited the beacon as instructed! What to do next?”

She asked excitedly, she didn't want to sit around in the camp anymore, tracking the Kegin had been really fun, and moving in a big forest was a great experience and the most fun she had had in months.

Next up was a task shouldn't take much time, she had to find enough edible roots and berries for a breakfast for all four of them, as well as laying traps to hunt small game for lunch later on.

Surprisingly completing that task took about two hours, and after she returned they made a break of another thirty minutes. It had taken her about an hour to find the Kegin’s lair, so she still had six and a half hours to complete the last three quests.

It had been surprisingly hard to find enough of the plants.

After breakfast Mary had to prove she was capable of moving silently, moving past several magical constructs one of the rangers had created. They were about as attentive as an human, which meant she really had to take care. The goal was to find their camp and return to the rangers without getting spotted. That, of course meant she had to sneak past their sentries.

It took ninety minutes until she found the first sentry, always a safe clue you were on the right way. Sneaking past it was a child's play, the magical construct seemingly sleeping in it's hiding spot. The sentries got more frequent, and soon enough she had to sneak past several of them at the same time, and while the sensory abilities of these were as limited as a human’s, the parameter was well thought out and the sentries posts were hidden cleverly.

When one of the sentries perked up to some rustling leaves a human wouldn't be able to hear, she tested his senses sensibility and came to the conclusion it was more at the level of elves, which meant she had to be way more careful. She crouched down and watched the sentry for several minutes, searching for a way to sneak past it, she furthermore searched for better concealed sentries, as elves liked to post one obvious sentry that would lull their enemies in a false sense of security.

Ten minutes later she was sure there were only the sentries she already spotted, so for the sake of safety she assumed all of them were ‘elves’ even though they didn't behave like them. Slowly she got up, careful to not make any noise and went to the right where she had spotted a small opening in the parameter that would open when one of the sentries scanned its surroundings.

She thanked her mother she had black hair, as she would have serious problems sneaking through there should she be blonde. When the sentry turned its head, she quickly slid forwards, always keeping her eyes trained on it. When the head started turning back, she was only a third of the way through, as expected, so she lay still, her armor and hair perfectly blending in the shadows of the forest surrounding her, the dirt she had put into her face concealing her skin. After repeating the ordeal another three times, she was finally through the perimeter.

Instead of standing up instantly, she first scanned her surroundings for anything out of place. Luckily she didn't find anything, so she could stand up and carefully move towards the center of the guarded perimeter again.

Further down the perimeter the sentries guarded, she nearly ran into an alarmward. Now the rangers were cheating, how should a normal girl even know it was there. She climbed the nearest tree and tried to see the camp, as using magic wasn't an option here, the rangers guild didn't need to know something important like that after all.

She barely managed to see the tip of one of the tents through the foliage, so she stopped and slowly returned to their basecamp.

Quinfir was really impressed by the skill the noble displayed, she evaded the ‘human’ sentries with ease, and as luck would have it, even saw that the next line didn't consist of ‘humans’ but ‘elves’ which, even though barely, she managed to sneak past as well. The test was set up to be failed, teaching the trainees important lessons, they should never rely on given information and seek to confirm it themselves for example. That was the reason they set up the alarmward after she started to sneak past the ‘elves’ but somehow she knew it was there, stopping in her tracks the moment before she would have failed, then retreating a few meters and expertly climbing a tree.

Obviously satisfied with what she saw, she started retreating, so they rearranged the sentries in order to catch her. Infuriatingly the girl barely slipped past these again, and as such was one of the very few who managed to complete this part of the test. Though most that did were older way older than she was and already had years of experience as a ranger as well as a mage. Sadly they couldn't pressure her to join the order like they would should she be a normal citizen, and even though the rangers guild was one of the most powerful in the empire, threatening a noble was nothing short of stupid.

She even completed this part of the test in record speed needing just four hours to find the camp and return. Most of that time was spent sneaking past the elves, as the way she took was quite slow. After congratulating the girl of her success, they sent her to get some the animals in her traps. This time only he followed her, the other two too shaken to move properly. Ten minutes later she was back with two rabbits, which they proceeded to cook with magic, having another thirty minutes break.

They sent her on her next task, another monster to track, though this time a little harder to follow.

Not that it really mattered, the noble had passed the test already, the duration of the test was only to test the students endurance, and she didn't seem all that exhausted and would surely manage the last hour.

Mary was currently tracking a Vlerk, one of the few groundborn birds in the empire, they were harmless monsters, but well liked among the races as their meat tasted really good. They were among the hardest to track monsters of their level of threat, which was effectively nonexistent.

Suddenly she heard a pitiful chirping sound coming from the trees to her right. Curious she interrupted her hunt, and went to check out the sounds.

After two minutes of following the sound she found the source of the sound, a small falcon chick that started to tremble uncontrollably when she came into view.

Mary kneeled down in front of it, and carefully started to modulate her manasignature to calm it down. Something she had learnt when watching her fathers falcons was the way the adult falcons behaved, and more specifically how their mana signature behaved when they were interacting with each other, it was out of curiosity. She didn't know if she would be capable, but tried it anyways.

Only one of the rangers was currently following her, and this one was no accomplished wizard so he wouldn't feel her feat.

After the chick calmed down, she tried to find its nest, which had to be in the nearby trees. She didn't see anything though even after a few minutes of searching. The chick still had it's nestling feathers, meaning it hatched only a few days prior.

It was obviously freezing so she did what she wanted to do anyways and picked it up in order to warm it. As there was no nest in seight she returned to the tracks she had been following with the chick in her hands. Following them was easy enough, while the bird’s tracks were relatively hard to spot it was quite simple to follow them.

After she spotted its nest she quickly returned to the camp, where she was already awaited by the three testers. When they saw the bird in her hands, they raised an eyebrow.

“I take it you completed your task?”

“Of course I did!”

“And where did you find the bird?”

“It fell out of its nest and I wanted to help, but I didn't see a nest, so I took it with me!” The man shrugged, he obviously wasn't all that interested in her pet.

He coughed and straightened his pose.

“Congratulations you lady, you herby passed the trial of the rangers!”

“But I didn't pass five tasks!”

“You didn't know the tasks, the quests you did the whole day were judged by us. We watched you perform them, and then decided if you were fit to be a ranger. You are, at least you have all the basic competences a ranger needs in order to survive.”

And with that sentence she passed the trial of rangers and was qualified to work as one. Obviously she wasn't allowed to work because she was only four but that didn't matter.

A little bit later they arrived at the forest's edge again where she was awaited by the carriage again. She entered it together with her baby falcon.