After leaving the headmasters office, Mary went to get checked up by one of the healers.

“You got hit on the head?”

“Yes, the headmaster said you should check it out. See if there is any remaining damage.”

“Sit down on the bed young lady. Let's see if there is anything.”

He cast some kind of spell to see if there was anything left. It was quite interesting to note that she thought she’d be able to stop it if she so wanted. Something she would have had problems with a few months ago.

“There is nothing left. Are you sure you didn't imagine it? There is no student your age who is able to heal a head wound as completely as this.”

“There is no need. I have a greater healing ward.”

The man was suitably impressed.

“That would explains things yes. If so I am sure you will be fine. You are dismissed.”

Leaving the central tower, Mary went to her dorm. She didn't need as much sleep normally, and slept even less when in the forest. The wound had used way more energy than normally so she decided to sleep until dinner where she would meet up with her team and discuss what was next.

As she was about to lay down, her gaze fell on the boxes she used to study evolution, and she got an idea.

She nearly hit herself for not thinking of it before.

Taking one of the boxes with her, she went out to search for the enchanter that built them for her.

Thoral was busy doing some enchanting when he heard someone enter the workshop he used.

He didn't know who it was, though there weren't that many people present in the academy that were among his clients.

After taking some extra time to finish, he turned around and saw one of the most interesting students in the academy.

Mary was three years younger than him. More importantly though, she always had some unique ideas which helped him advance in the ranks.

“Thanks for waiting, I take it you have something you want me to do once again?” He asked.

“Yep.”

“Something interesting?” She took out one of the manacontaining boxes he made a few months back.

“Something like this. Only instead of a box I want four stones or something to create a field that will let ambient mana in but not out.” That was certainly something new.

“How big do you want the field to be?”

“Five on five on three meters.”

“That's not going to be easy, I will need eight stones for that. And with stones I means gems.” He really hoped that she would be able to provide the materials once again, but he needn’t have worried, the human noble seemed to have an infinite amount of resources at her disposal.

“Sure I’ll send them in a day or two. How long will you take?”

“The enchantment will need three to four days, it’s quite unique and I will have to do some research for it. The actual enchanting will take another day and finally linking the different stones will take one too.” He very much enjoyed working on challenging things like this one. The other projects would have to be put on hold, they were basic enchants after all.

“Thanks Thoral, I will bring you the gems tomorrow, bye!”

The human was one of his best customers, when she first approached him he had been sceptical of working for someone younger who wouldn't be able to supply any of the materials needed to improve his craft.

Only with persistence and determination did she manage to persuade him to do a commission. It had been one of the best decisions of his life. The enchantments she wanted him to do had always been unique.

Unique commissions were even more important for the students of the academy, since they needed to do all kinds of different enchantments to advance in class.

On the one hand, the adventures types had it easier to advance, they just had to kill stuff. On the other they had to risk their lives so he would never chose that option.

Over the next week, life continued on. Mary managed to get the elf she wanted to join her team just today. He had readily agreed because his team had always delegated all unpleasant work to him.

Getting the gems for Thoral had been easy enough, she only had to get some rough stones and rearrange their essence with a spell.

Of course nobody knew she was capable of transmutation magic and she had made sure nobody would while she cast the spell.

A few months ago that wouldn't have been possible due to the immense manacost of the spell, but she noted an immense growth in mana since moving closer to the middle of the continent.

The others started to get over Dresk's death, the talk with the teacher proving to be more helpful than she anticipated. Her team would need a successful quest to get their confidence back, something she had already made plans for.

She had been quite concerned at first, noticing she didn't seem to care about his death all that much. It had more been like she was angry she lost someone and not sad she lost a friend.

After some consideration she managed to find the source of that. Her monster heritage was the reason. From what she could tell, attacking her without reason was a sure way to have her ignore that person for good.

On the other hand, she was fiercely loyal to her friends or ‘tribe’ and would do next to anything to help them.

Today, she would be introducing the rest of her team to the elf, Enaril.

With Taimanu, Dehla, Kaeso and her, she only needed two others to join her team to be the best available team in her year.

The healer they had now was decent, but she didn't think he was fitting for the team, he missed the ambition to fit in her team. The same went for the elven wizard that was currently the seventh person in the team.

While at first, she had thought Valamin, the elven wizard and healer to be a good candidate. Sadly, he turned out to be a huge asshole and way too confident in himself to fit in her team.

If possible, she would replace the elven wizard with one of the few dwarfs that were not going down the craftsmen route, a metalmage, a rare but useful combination.

The healer she set her eyes on was a dwarf as well, a strange woman that actually believed in a god, the first person Mary met that did.

Other than that strage perk though, the girl was incredibly talented. While her healing was slower than that of humans or elves, it was way more precise as well.

What was more interesting was the way she used her healing magic on enemies. From what Mary managed to hear, she was among the few that were able to heal at range and was using small heals to distract enemies in fights as their mana didn't block the beneficial mana.

Two hours before dinner, she received a notice from Thoral that her stuff was ready. He used a variation of the normal message spell that wouldn't create a two way communication and instead just sent a chime to the receiver, most of the time a agreed upon set of short noises.

She left the library and went to the craftsmen area,where she found the dwarf in his usual spot.

“Hey Thoral, my stuff is ready?”

“It is, has been harder than I thought.

With the gems you got me the field can contain up to three times of the ambient mana concentration around here. I have no clue why you would want something like that, I can think of no uses, but that's none of my concern.”

“Thanks a bunch, I will be seeing you when I need something else.” She grinned at him.

“Bye, always a pleasure doing something for you.”

After setting the stones up in the corners of her room, she let the enchantment start gathering mana.

Dinner would be soon, so she went out to meet up with her team. She reached them as they were waiting for her in front of one of the dining halls.

“Hey Mary.” They greeted her.

“Hi.”

“So why’d you want us to meet you?”

“Seeing as we just lost Dresk I know this isn't a good moment, but I managed to get someone else help Dehla keep the monsters off us.

You will be meeting him at dinner.”

They deflated a little at the mention of the lizardmen, but luckily didn't seem to hold finding a replacement against her.

“So who did you talk in joining?” Dehla asked.

“Enaril.” That seemed to surprise them.

“Oh I didn't know an elf would be suited for such a role.”

“He is” She had to search for a word a few seconds. “unique, but I think his fighting style is best described by him, you will see he is perfectly suited for such a thing.”

Ten minutes later, the elf appeared. He was unlike most other elves, though just as short, he was as broad as a human and heavily muscled.

The few of her team that had not seen him before stared at the elf.

After introducing them to each other, Mary watched in amusement as Dehla started to interrogate the elf on his capabilities.

“So Mary told me you will be helping me in keeping monsters of them?”

“Yes.”

“You don't seem to be perfectly suited for that, being a small elf and all that.”

“Yes.”

“Why would you do it then.”

“I like it.”

If she didn't interfere, that would go on for quite some time, the mask of ignorance the elf wore clearly wearing at the others nerves.

“You know if you want to be accepted you should drop the act.” She said, earning her an astonished look from the elf. While reasonably competent at keeping up the facade, Mary saw through it within minutes of speaking with him.

He tried anyways, tilted his head and tried to look as stupid as possible.

“Huh … What act?”

“You know, overdoing won't help.”

Looking around, he noticed nobody except the six on the table seemed to notice the conversation.

Furthermore the faces of her team told they all believed her more than him.

“Well that was quite the surprise, normally nobody seems to notice until they know me for longer than ten minutes.”

“If you only surround yourself with idiots that's a given.” Taimanu stated.

“So now that we have that done, what can you really do?” Dehla asked.

“You all are too much business and no fun. Well I am a sorcerer. I am both a body enhancer and a wizard. I made a wooden golem which I enter and control to fight. The golem can, depending on the situation, be anything from two to four meters tall.” He explained.

“And what in the world made you, an elf, decide you want to fight melee? It’s not like your race is really suited for close up fights.” Dehla stated.

“I really like the thrill of a close up fight, blasting the enemy from afar just isn't appealing to me.”

They spent the next hour discussing how he could be incorporated in their team, until they were thrown out of the hall. Together with Taimanu, Mary returned to the dorm.

Returning to her room was more refreshing than she would have thought possible. In the time she was eating dinner and planning for future fights, the enchantment had been at work all the time.

By now, her room was filled with mana, by now, it only had two times the ambient mana but that was good enough.

She couldn't believe how good it felt, though deep inside she knew she would feel better the manaconcentration increased more.

If that was the reason why powerful monsters were drawn towards the middle of the continent, she could understand why.

Every moment she soaked in the mana she felt better.

Without further ado, Mary changed into her nightgown and threw herself on her bed. She was out in a minute.