Their return to the academy was joyous, with a spring in their step, they arrived in the academy the day after they killed the hugbear. After a satisfying lunch, they had decided to there was no need to postpone their return and made good progress before nightfall.

The academy had a wall of fame, where all notable achievements were displayed, for example the fastest to reach a certain rank.

Mary and her team were able to score third in reaching the bronze rank. In doing so, they threw the team of the arrogant noble that threw her out of the way on her first day out.

They never had a chance to reach the first two teams as these got the quest as soon as possible like them, but their prey had its hunting grounds near the academy, so they didn't have to travel as much, of course Mary and her team had had luck in that department as well, having only a day and a half to travel.

She was just on her way to her dorm, when she was surrounded by the group they expelled of the board. The prince stepped forwards.

“I know you are a noble yourself, what did you think when driving us from the board, I am your prince!” He accused her menacingly.

“We are just better, I didn't even know there was somewhere you were credited about something like that until yesterday!” She lied in his face. He squinted his eyes.

“I think you did, what noble house did you belong to again?”

“Falconbridge.”

“Ah the fallen house, don't you think you should be a little bit more careful when dealing with me, you don't have the backing of a grand duke anymore!”

“And why should I? You are just one of the princes after all, and you’ll never get the throne anyways!” That caused the whole group to yell angrily, and the prince looked at her with renewed hate.

Until now, he had just been angry they stole his spotlight, but now she had offended him. The emperor always choose his successor out of his or his brothers children, not that the imperial family had any daughters anyways. The successor was always the one the current emperor deemed the most worthy, something the one in front of her would never be.

He lacked the personality to do so, seeing as he was the single most arrogant noble in the entire school and thought the achievement of reaching bronze rank would do any good for him. By now his team Silver ranked, able to deal with most of the threats the world had to offer, so she was quite surprised he took offense in that.

“And how did you get that conclusion, you don't even know me!” He yelled with barely suppressed rage.

“The fact that you are here, surrounding someone two years younger than you with six others people is proof enough!” She stated.

“Oh I don't need any assistance to destroy you!” She decided to not antagonize him further, he already was near breaking point, and while confident to take anyone of them alone, she didn't favor her odds against all of them at all.

“Obviously, you are two years older it would be a real disgrace if you didn't!”

“Now if you don't have anything more to say, I’ll have to excuse myself, I have somewhere to be after all!” Before she could extract herself, the six surrounding them closed where she wanted to go!”

“You only go once you have properly apologized to you prince!” The biggest one of them said. The guy was easily two meters tall, so she really had to look up to see his face.

“For what, being better than him, I didn't hurt him in any way!”

“For not being respectful and having the audacity to best him!”

“You know, I would think about it if he wasn't such a crappy person and only have friends like you!”

“You don't know when to stop don't you?”

“What do you mean? I just stated the truth!” The noble had even less control than the prince, and she could easily afford to offend him, his father was a small baron after all.

While not proficient in it, she had Dehla teach ehr how to do enhancement magic, so taking control of her mana, she infused herself with enough to push him out of her way.

“I’ll get going now, I hope to not see you around!” She said and pushed him out of the way.

The look on his face was priceless, he just couldn't believe he had just been pushed out of the way by a girl forty centimeters small than him, apparently without any problems.

Before the rest of them managed to process her disappearance, she took several turns and was successfully out of their way.

Mary would have to make sure to prevent such runins in the future, while they wouldn't actually dare to seriously hurt her, they could do all sorts of unpleasant things she didn't want to experience.

The next day started with monster lore, one of the few topics that would never run out of material. There were, after all, an infinite amount of monsters in the world.

“Does anyone know the Chloi?” The teacher started the lesson with a question as always. Though, this time all of the lizardfolk started to get uncomfortable, something that didn't happen often. The teacher saw that too, but decided to ignore it, waiting for someone other than them to answer the question.

One of the dwarfs seemed to know it as well, so he started to answer that question.

“Chloi are dangerous monsters. While not intelligent, they are cunning monsters and always hunt in groups. They look akin to the lizardfolk, though with elongated limbs longer snouts. They are uniformly brown and move on four limbs. They live in tribelike communities and are able to build basic stuff out of the materials they find in nature.”

“Very good, do you know what threat level they pose?”

“Depending on the size of the tribe anything from iron to silver rank, they can't use magic, so you need someone who can keep them of your mages for them to kill them.”

“Very good. Can any of you think of ways to battle them?”

Mary raised her arm.

“How fast are they, can you outrun them, how good are their senses?”

“You won't be able to outrun them and their noses are at the level of beastkin, their eyes are a little better than humans but they are nearly deaf.

Any more questions?”

None came, and like always they got some time to come up with ideas how to fight them.

Like every single time, one of the other nobles started with the same stupid idea as always.

“Charge straight in their tribe and kill all of them they are stupid and don't need a plan to be dealt with!”

“We already discussed that, nobody wants to charge monsters, especially when they are stronger faster and meaner than you!”

“Anyone except Mary has any ideas?” He asked, already expecting her to have thought of a plan, like she always did. The lizardfolk raised their hands as one. One of them was chosen to talk.

“My people have many ways to deal with the abominations, but killing one and letting it lie around their huntingroute riles them enough to get the whole tribe at once.

Usually you get a mage or two built some basic fortification with a choke point and then kill all of them like that. Extreme prejudice is the only way to deal with them!”

“Ah yes the lizardfolk have a racial hate for them as well ever since a country killed all their tribes because they thought them to be the same!” The teacher said.

“So Mary anything to add to the age old method the lizardfolk use?”

“Nothing significant no. I would have suggested a different lure bit that works as well. To get anything better would need more time and detailed information.”

“That's good enough for me.” The teacher stated.

“Let's move on, the probability you’ll have to fight Chloi are next to nil anyways, as the lizardfolk exterminate them whenever a tribe is found.

Two months later, they were once again out in the forest, on their quest to rank up to iron rank, hunting a spitting gibbon, she had a new team, though she managed to get her two friends in her team once again. This time their team was made up of an elf wizard, an other of the lizardfolk, a human force mage and a healer.

As they were approaching its hunting grounds, Mary started laying out the plan.

“Ok, we are approaching our target. I will cast an illusion that will disguise three of you so our prey will even consider to attack, furthermore I will cast a shield to stop the initial acid attack.” She smiled confidently.

“Kaeso you will inlay a forceshield into my shield, so we can stop its charge. If we want to succeed at the first try we will have to be strike fast and true, because if the ambush doesn't work, it will run away.”

“I gather we’ll have about thirty seconds until it recovers from the shock of the barrier and the noise of the spell I’ll cast. Remember to shield your ears or that will hurt like hell” She turned to Dehla.

“You two will have to cut in the tendons of its legs so it can't jump in the treetop to escape.”

Sadly, they had no earth mage or that enemy would be way easier to defeat, by anchoring a net in the ground after stopping the first charge.

At first, Mary cast the spell she learnt for the hunt and three of them vanished.

After trekking through the territory of the gibbon for nearly an hour, her shield was finally hit with the acid, which was then flung away exactly as planned, landing on a nearby tree and melting through its trunk.

Seconds later, one hundred kilograms of angry monkey barreled into the shield of the force mage from somewhere out of the treetops and were stopped in their tracks.

Immediately afterwards she casts a modified lightning bolt that didn't even hurt the gibbon as it discharged all around them in a pretty lightshow.

More importantly though, it created a deafening sound that had her ears ringing even through the prepared shield.

The monkey, still recovering from the shock of the interruption of its charge shrieked in pain, as it started to wail in pain.

Everything worked as planned and the two lizards cut the tendons in its legs, stopping an escape.

While unable to properly use its legs, it still fought lime possessed, until Taimanu ended its life with a lance of ice into the brain.

“Nice shot Tai, good work the rest of you too, let's get the pelt for our crafters as well as a proof of kill and return to the academy. Next time remind me of taking one of the academy’s Kekos with us, all these bones will be going to waste.”

An hour later they had finally removed the pelt from its previous owner, it didn't need it now after all.

They started their return to the academy, when Mary saw something angry swinging through the trees through Starshadow’s eyes.

“Incoming!” She yelled and threw up a shield.

Seconds after her warning, a glob of acid was deflected by her shield, which was broken directly afterwards as the gibbon’s mate cracked it.

Initially it had been aiming at her, seeing as she was the second smallest of their group, it didn't go for Taimanu because beastkin were more agile than humans and she’d have a decent chance to dodge it.

Of course Mary wasn't human and had an advance warning, so instead of its momentum being stopped by her body, it was stopped by the ground.

Without warning, she cast the same spell as before, once again causing the beast to wail in pain, this time though, it didn't stop the attack and started to close in on her.

She managed to dodge the first attack, but the second hit her in her left arm and sent her on the ground. It hurt like a bitch, she was pretty sure the arm was broken as well.

Before the beast managed to close in on her again, Dehla threw herself between them.

Mary’s spell didn't affect the lizardfolk as much because they didn't hear as good as others, missing ears and all that.

Dehla managed to deflect one of the attacks with her halberd, and defend herself from a second one with her arm, breaking it in the process.

The others recovered from the shock and started attacking the beast as well.

Kaeso cast a spell she had suggested he learn, a forcecage that seriously hampered the movements of a foe.

With its mobility and strength restricted, they managed to regain the initiative.

The broken arm temporarily forgotten, Mary stood up again, though that wasn't actually needed to cast magic.

She shot a lightning bolt at its eyes, overloading the visual receptors of the monster for a few seconds, blinding it.

Taimanu, who managed to shield her ears in time, finished her spell as well, freezing the gibbons head while heating its feet, confusing the beast.

With a freezing head, hot feet, restricted movement and no hearing it overcame its anger on its mates death and turned to flee.

They didn't allow it to though. Shortly afterwards it was dead and their healer took care of their injuries.

She healed all of their ears and Mary and Dehlas arm as well as quite a few scratches the lizard had received.

“That was unpleasant, it would have been nice to know there were two of them.” Mary grimaced.

“Sorry for the spell, I panicked for a moment.” She apologised.

“No problem, just take care it doesn't happen again.” The healer said.

“It won't, now let's take this thing apart and return to the academy.”