Four weeks had passed since the term had started, and they were on their way to the central tower to finally join the guild. Today was a monday and the lessons were cancelled for today.

The students of the academy joined the adventurers guild in waves, thirty five students per week and her group was the third to do so.

They would be excused from any lessons for that week, as they split up in five teams of seven and finished their first quest, under the watchful eye of a teacher.

Luckily they had some choice in the matter, so she would get to be a team with Dehla, Taimanu and another four people. The process of joining was simplified for the academy, as most of the tests were already done by the teachers and they were all approved to join.

Instead of the lengthy procedure, they just went to one of the guilds staff and supplied their name.

A guildcard was bound to an adventurer by his manasignature and helped identify them. The only things noted on a card were guild rank, name, continent and country of origin and number if completed quests.

The probationary card said even less, only name and country.

“There you go lady Falconbridge, welcome to the guild!”

After everyone got their cards, they were gathered by one of the present teachers.

“Alright everyone listen up! You have thirty minutes to form teams, everyone who doesn't have one in time will be assigned to one!

Over the next two years, you all will be required to be in a number of teams, until you get to chose your team at the start of the third term!”

The three of them went to search for four others. Originally, Mary wanted to take Valamin with them as well, but he had been part of another group. Without further ado they set to find four others to join them.

They found another of the lizardfolk two elves and a dwarf to join them.

The two elves were both wizards, the lizard was another melee fighter and the dwarf was adept in earth magic. Sadly they didn't find anyone adept in healing magic, but that wasn't really necessary for the most basic quests.

After assembling, they only had to notify the teacher of their team composition and went to receive their first quest.

As they hadn't even joined the academy yet, there was only a small amount of quests they could choose from.

They chose a simple request to hunt down twenty horned rabbits that had been bothering the farmers around town. After accepting the quest, they got one of the waiting teachers accompany them. Of course, all quests available at the lower ranks weren't really dangerous for them, as you had to be a decent mage just to join, so they could be confident they wouldn't run into problems until reaching zinc rank.

Horned rabbits were exactly what they sounded like, a rabbit that evolved and grew a horn, a quite useless evolution to be honest. The problem when hunting them wasn't finding or killing them, but catching them.

Together they set out, intend on finishing the quest today so they could get some more quests underway in the next week. The description told them to look to the towns east when searching for the beasts.

Ten minutes after leaving the town, Starshadow spotted a group of them peacefully eating the crops on one of the towns fields.

Mary told the dwarf to slowly lower the ground they were on without disturbing them. It worked like a charm, and soon enough about thirty of them were imprisoned on a small hole in the ground. Mary told the two elves to use the crops around the hole to form a cage around their pit.

Thirty minutes after finding the beasts, they were ready and started their attack. It was over quickly enough, with Taimanu and Mary firing their spells and the two lizards killing them with their weapons. After killing the required amount, they withdrew and opened up the cage, so the rabbits burst out and quickly ran in the forest.

They collected their bounty and returned to the academy only two hours after leaving, quite pleased with their success.

As it turned out, they were the first group to return, so after submitting the rabbits, they got their real card, and advanced to copper rank. As the day was still young, they uniformly decided to take on another quest.

Again, nothing interesting, but that would change as soon as they advanced in ranks.

For their next quest, they had to find some of the less common herbs in the forest, again something that was really easy as both she and Taimanu had experience in forests and while uncommon the forest still had plenty of them if you knew where to search.

They still needed the rest of the day to find the required amount of herbs. All in all the day had been satisfactory, they managed to complete two quests. Next morning Mary was up early ready to do some more quests.

They met after breakfast again, ready to start early in the morning, they weren't the only ones with that idea though, as all but one of the other teams arrived at the guild with them. Luckily there were enough low level missions for all of them.

While adventurer ranks enabled you to do missions of their respective difficulty, an employer could add a required amount of completed quests to the commission, which rarely happened in the lower ranks, but as the academy was a school first of all, most quests available were blocked by those requirements, so you did good in trying to complete as my missions as possible.

As they would have to wait for another month to pass before being able to progress further, they would have to complete as many quests as possible beforehand, to be permitted to advance, they would need at least twenty completed missions, if they were to do the advancement quest at the academy that is.

The first of the longer quests would be available after completing five missions.

Their goal for today was completing the last three quests and going on a longer one tomorrow.

This time, they accepted three quests at once so they could save the time they would need to return to the academy. As they were the only ones to do so, they were the last of the groups to set out.

The first quest today was actually a repetition of their first quest, though they were faster this time as the others already understood what she wanted them to do.

After Taimanu froze one of the rabbits and they took a proof of kill from the rest. They left the fields surrounding the town after only an hour this time, and entered the forest. They had to find and hunt two Gefacs, a lizard that grew up to fifty centimeters in length. They weren't really dangerous, like everything they were allowed to hunt.

Finding them would have proven difficult without her, because they rarely left the trees they lived in. As she had a view from above, she was able to find them in quick succession, so after four hours of hunting, they only had one mission left.

After a short break for lunch, they resumed their quests.

The last one would prove harder than the previous ones though. They had to hunt a couple of Dorigs, a species of small weak wolves that was the limit of what they were allowed to hunt at their

After Mary and Taimanu had spotted recent traces a few hours later, they started to set up the trap. The rabbit Taimanu froze earlier was used as bait and deposited under a tree. With the help of the two elven wizards they hid in the tree. Their scent concealed by the blooms of the tree.

An hour later, they could see their prey carefully approaching. It took another ten minutes for them to be in a range where they could be sure to kill them instantly. Mary prepared one of her lighting bolts, while the two elves took aim with sticks they sharpened as arrows and Taimani one of her ice spells. The trap worked like intended, and after taking a proof of kill they started the way back towards the academy. All in all, they were faster than anticipated, and had perhaps three hours of daylight left.

After completing their quests they went to dinner together, happy to be allowed to do something more interesting for the rest of the week.

After rising early once again, they went back into the hall and started to search for an interesting quest. They found one with several steps, which while not challenging, would prove interesting at least.

The quest had several stages. First they had to find a rare herb. Then they were to use said herb after finding the tracks of their prey to lure it to them and kill it without damaging the fur.

They would be hunting a creature named Calyc. It was a very rare feline creature that was said to be incredibly careful. Of course they were only rare because they were hunted whenever one was sighted them, because their fur was beautiful.

Finding the Krelda required to lure the Calyc took the first day, as they had the advantage of a beastkin in their team, so they could just follow Taimanu’s nose to the smelly plant.

While they had been given a rough location of their prey, they still needed another day to find any tracks.

Afterwards it was as simple as following the tracks to a source of water as they had no hopes of sneaking up to its lair. Planting the Krelda near the pond it seemed to frequent. The monster they were hunting was nocturnal, so in preparation for the night, they rested for the rest of the day, eating the food they took with them.

The sun set and Mary started to control the air around their small camp. While airmagic couldn't make one invisible, it was really efficient against foes that heavily relied on smell. The spell she cast created a bubble of air around them that slowed the movement of air and as such stopped their smell from spreading. A Calyc’s eyes were excellent as well, so to counter that the two elves raised plants all around their campsite.

Surprisingly the spell didn't cost much mana, she could probably keep it up for most of the night.

They already had a plan on how to kill the monster without damaging its fur. While she could kill it with one spell, that would singe the fur and as such decrease the furs value.

Around midnight their prey finally appeared, attracted by the smell of the Krelda. Mary prepared to drop her shield and stun it with a weak lighting attack.

The monster noticed them at the same time her spell hit, their smell needing some time to reach it. The Calyc’s muscles started convulsing while she already cast her second spell. This one restrained the beast, lifting it in the air to prevent any escape.

Afterwards they approached it and ended the monsters misery with a quick stab in its eye, killing it without any damage to the fur.

The quest clearly required the whole body, so they had Taimanu freeze it again and finally went to sleep.

The track back to the academy started as peaceful as it could, until sometime around midday Starshadow spotted something disconcerting.

They were being followed by a small group of humans that did everything to stay hidden.