Lucy, and Gary watched from behind a tree as two B-class students faced off. The first girl was launching explosions all around her seemingly chasing after something's shadow. The second girl was the shadow she was chasing. One could see that she had blade arms, and was dodging every explosion perfectly, but she seemed to be quickly running out of steam. In fact they were both on the verge of collapsing. There is only so much energy, and Innate Talent adept has. Lucy took this opportunity to freeze the feet of sword-arms, and send an ice bolt at the explosion-girl. The explosion-girl was quickly teleported out as the ice-bolt was about to strike her, and sword-arms was dispatched by Gary. That was two merits now in Lucy's name.

Gary, and Lucy were taking a break in the mouth of a cave. They had spent the day sneak attacking other students, and had worn themselves out. Gary was still in top form, having not needed to use any of his spells. Lucy on the other hand had worked herself to the bone in other to accumulate as many merits on the first day as possible. The fewer students passed the greater those that did would stand out. They got back to hunting over the next week, but weren't so lucky. It seems that the students that remained were wiser. They had only had the luck of finding 3 students to ambush. In the second week they found familiar faces.

The three girls Jane, the human, Maxie, the bog goblin, and Diana, the half-elf had somehow found each other, and were wandering nearby to Lucy. She remembered that they were all in the Innate Talent stage, but all three together would be a problem for her to deal with. She decided that her best course of action was to use Gary effectively. Lucy jumped out from behind a bunch and launched ice boltz at Maxie. Maxie quickly blocked them with a psychic shield.

"It's the freak!" Yelled Jane, as she summoned out two sword and shield wielding puppets. The puppets charged at Lucy. Diana took flight, and began to bombard Lucy with Force missiles. Lucy brought up an ice wall, and hid behind it. Maxie created psychic whips, and began to smack the ice wall with them. Lucy kept hiding behind the shield. She was pinned down, and the puppet soldiers would soon be on top of her. Gary pounced on Jane from behind, and struck her down. Then he unleaded a flurry of blows onto Maxie forcing her to shield herself. Lucy took the opportunity to shoot her with an ice bolt. Diana elected to run away. Her flight affinity gave her too significant of an advantage, and at this stage there was nothing either of them could do to catch her.

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The fight had been extremely satisfying for Lucy. Although she hadn't been able to take down all three of the girls, she had gotten some payback for her friend's disgrace. She wondered how they were doing during this exam. The wilderness was too big to find them anytime soon. They went back into their cave and relaxed. Lucy had once again spent a lot of mana. An icewall was not a cheap spell to maintain. Especially at her level. Seeing how tired the girl was from hiding behind a wall, Gary felt smug about relying on physical force rather than magic. Although he still thought magic was pretty cool.

The rest of the exam was relatively uneventful. They had found a few other students, but no one Lucy had been looking for. Diana, and Fritz passed the exam. So had Ellen, and Kristie. Joseph did not. All those that failed the exam would have to take an extra combat and survival course. This meant that Joseph would have less time to hang out with his friends. It also meant that Jane, and Maxie would have less time to harass Lucy, and her friends. One needs free time to cause trouble. Lucy was upset that she hadn't found Fritz, but there would be a ranking tournament at the end of the semester between all of the first years. She hoped to meet him there, and kick his ass. She had gotten the top score for the exam. As she had survived the longest, and beaten the most students. She had received quite a few disapproving looks, because of this. She no longer cared. Their looks meant nothing to her. She was hoping that her results might net her a master from one of the guilds. There were many guilds in Calassaria, and if she could join one of them, no one would be able to harass her, or her friends ever again.

For Gary there was no time to rest. Firstly the girl forced him to train even more. She didn't even take the time to rest anymore. He was fortunate that she still made time for her friends, because if she didn't he would have to constantly skip sleep to cultivate. Secondly he had far greater dreams than to simply follow her around. Sure, he was attached to her in a literal sense, but he still remembered that he had places to be, and things to see. He wanted to get back to Timor. It was where his journey had started, and he felt that there were more opportunities there than here. Gary forced himself into a cultivation trance. Finding his channels had proven extremely useful, as his mana Gathering rate had gone through the roof. At this rate he would be back where he was in no time. He didn't know what his potential was as a cat, but it would surely be better than what he had before as a human.