I was woken up by meowing and barking. I shot off a manaball in the approximate direction of the noise and tried to clog my ears with mana.

"Who the fuck was that?!" resounded the voice of a teen. I grumbled and got up. In a clearing, a couple of trees from me, a bipedal grey cat in clothes was fighting a bunch of wolves.

It was about the height of a normal teenager, wore a striped, green and beige gambeson tied with a simple leather belt and had broad leather pants. It had toes sticking out of a hole in one of its boots. The five wolves were avoiding most of the slashes of its sabre.

I boosted over the trees and sat on one at the edge of the clearing. "You are being awfully noisy on this relaxing and still dark morning," I informed the teenager.

It swivelled its head towards me, then jumped and yelped as one of the wolves almost bit its leg. I yawned, it was too early in the morning to exercise. I'm sure, even Cate slept at this hour.

A blur appeared around the sabre and the kid slashed into the leftmost wolves head. I golf clapped. Kids sabre was stuck in the skull.

"Why don't you make yourself useful, huh!?" The cat yelled towards me and ripped the sword out. I shot at the wolf lunging for its neck. The animal rolled over next to the kid.

I threw some lazy balls at the rest. One got hit on the nose and sneezed. I grumbled and stretched.

"Oh, done already? A whole lot you did!!" Came an angry yell and the kid slashed at the sneezing wolf, which in turn jumped back and growled.

I focused and shot proper manaballs. The wolves yelped in unison and I gathered five balls to shoot at the closest one. Each shot threw the animal back a little, the fifth making it crash into another one and breaking its ribs.

The kid finished it off and the rest run away. "As repayment for waking me up, you will skin them," I informed the cat, jumped off the tree and sat down to read a random book.

After a couple of seconds, I looked up. The kid just stood there and looked at me. "Wolves, remove the skin." I turned back to the book and smirked, this was fun.

The cat grumbled something about noble brats and got to work with a knife. Halfway through cutting into the first wolf, it froze and got up.

"My camp is nearby, we can deal with them better there." He said and added a little bow. I clapped and got up. I picked up the cut into a wolf, with mana and waited for the kid to lead the way.

It cleaned the knife on the grass and stuffed into the right boot. Then it sheathed the sabre through its belt and picked up the other wolf, throwing it over a shoulder.

"I'm Tom." The kid said and reached out his hand.

"Alright, and what's your name?" I gave the boy an innocent smile.

He looked confused and replied, "Tom is my name."

"Are you a pussy then?" Early morning humour was the best. I hoped my cute little face did look innocent.

The kid looked at me for a while, withdrew his hand and led on, taking extra long steps. My lips spread in a wide toothy grin. I boosted myself and sat on Toms wolf free shoulder. "Get off." "No." I secured myself with mana and reached into the bag, thinking of an Academy rule book. I grabbed onto something.

"You are heavy." "I'm three." I leafed through the booklet for a while. The cat seemed to give up and just walked on.

"... candidates can join with other eligible children in groups no larger than three. ..."

I put away the booklet, then poked Tom on the ear.

"How old are you? What are your stats? Are you going to the Academy or just on vacation?" Each question got a poke on the ear. Maybe he was a noble killing cultist. I fixed my bracelet. It would be a shame if Horace had to come and kill the kid.

"I'm eleven and they're high enough." Tom sounded proud. I poked him more and his ear began to twitch. "Academy?" "Yes."

"You will go with me," I informed my travelling companion. We reached a tent, a simple green thing draped over a rope stretched between trees.

"Why?" Asked the kid in shock then continued before I could reply, "If I join your guardians, I won't get the large room!!"

"I'm alone, I want a large room too." I smacked the cat on the nose lightly and jumped off. "Where do I put the wolf?"

"Drop it by the tent, I will set up some ropes." He said and went into the tent. He came out with a large, canvas backpack. "Can't your parents buy you a mansion?"

"I don't have those." I dropped the wolf in front of Tom and pulled out the violin. The kid just stood there and kept opening and closing his mouth. "Skin the wolves," I said in a cheery voice and got to practice.

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Was it the truth or a lie? My Earth parents were probably still alive, but I was dead to them. I shrugged, causing the bow to skip and make a weird noise. I shook my head, focused and tried to play Lacrimosa. I was terrible. Maybe playing a piece I heard like once, was still too high a hurdle. Yes, I would leave that stuff for when hopefully, thirty or forty in mind and soul gave me super memory. I continued still.

Tom's ears kept twitching and he made faces. He looked like he really wanted to complain. The wolves were skinned, gutted and strung up on a tree after ten rotations.

"They should be alright to cook in the evening." The cat said and began working on the non-consumable parts.

"Alright, I'm gonna take a walk." I withdrew a bunch of random books and threw them over to Tom. "Read them on top of that a tree. I won't find you otherwise." I pointed at a random tree before me.

"I have work to do!!" He said exasperated and gestured at the fleshy things.

"Then train supporting them on mana panels, that stuff isn't heavy," I said and boosted to the top of the tree behind me. If his stats were good enough, he should have been able to do at least as much as me.

I looked around. The mountain looked to be a couple of fingers taller. The range near it also began to peek over the horizon. There was no range around the Dragon Mountain. Should I read up on the geography here? Nope.

To the left, I saw some tall rocks jutting out of the trees. I jumped back to the ground and walked on.

As I passed Tom I paused and looked up at him. "I'm Mads by the way."

The rocks were absolutely boring. Just.. large grey rocks, with some moss and other green stuff on them. I boosted to the top of the closest one. It looked like there was a decline forming a bowl beyond the rocks, just... I tried to count. More than three trees away from me. Maybe about twenty? Counting trees was boring. I jumped down.

Beyond the rocks, I noticed the ground was just covered in flowers. Some looked similar to Earth ones, like ones with all sorts of blues and violets and looking like tiny bear faces, there were also some of those bell-like ones. I would work on botanical memories later.

There were also tulips taller than me. Instead of stalks, it looked like strings connected them to the ground, to stop them from flying off. Closer to the decline, there were some wild rose bushes and they were fruiting so I collected some. Here and there, tiny bees buzzed. Bees. There were more of them deeper in.

I took off my backbag and poked around in it. After failing to find full body clothes, I pulled out some see-through scarves, gloves, strings and a belt.

I picked a black scarf and tied it around my face. Then I tied a string around my neck and hood, so there'd be less space. For gloves, I took arm long ones, that were a little too big and got them over the sleeves. Finally, I secured the belt, low on my waist.

Prepared, I strolled down, searching for the largest bee gatherings. The search turned out to be easy, as there was a bigger tree at the very bottom. It had a lot of holes and wax structures hanging from the branches. Fist sized bees were guarding the hive.

The buzzing got pretty loud that close. I checked my belt and neck string, then with weaker boosts propelled myself towards a bigger hole on the right side of the tree. There was a large branch a little below and to the other side of it, but I'd be able to see into the hole from it.

I landed on the branch and had to push to the sides a bit, to keep myself stable. The hole was full of wax partitions. I tried to send a mana blade in, but still lacked control for it, so it just bent some wax. The bees got louder but didn't harass me yet.

I looked around. Higher up, on the other side of the tree, there was a rather large wax structure, connecting a bunch of branches, some I could stand on. I boosted over to it and pulled out a dagger from my bag.

I secured myself with mana and began hacking. Whenever I got some wax to separate, I guided it into the bag. The bees and larvae looked weird, when the wax got in, leaving them out. Then some of the bees flew in. I shrugged.

I began singing some songs about a yellow bear and continued my gathering. The bees of various size tried to attack me, but the clothes did their job well. Glory to spider silk.

I was in the middle of the second song, when something large hit me from the side and punted me off the branch, making me let go of the dagger. I mana reached for my bag and fell. I managed to hold onto the backbag, just before hitting into a lower branch and tumbling over.

I puffed mana to slow down my fall. A large bee, with aggressively orange and red stripes, charge into my stomach, propelling me faster down. I boosted to the side and hit the ground in a roll. I was lucky to land next to the dagger and I shoved it into the bag.

The bee and two others like it were charging at me and I bailed in few quick bursts around the tree. I could not outfly the bees, so they punched into me three more times before I reached the top of the slope. I reached a mana bowl into my bag and thinking of the little bees and larvae. I threw the bowl out and a couple dozens of the bugs flew out onto the big ones.

I boosted myself above the trees. I went the wrong direction and the stones were to the right. I boost sprinted to them. When I tried to land on one, I misjudged the distance and fell on its other side. I heard the bees smash into it. I laughed and forgot to slow down my fall. I managed a small poof just over the ground, but still twisted my right ankle a little. I looked at it incredulously. I looked up and sighed, rolling my eyes.

I remembered the bees. I tensed up and searched around. They were gone. I straightened up and puffed out my chest with pride. I dropped on my ass. My ankle hurt. I giggled and shook my head.

I boosted back up, above the trees. Tom was sitting on top of a tree ahead. I nodded and with less frequent bursts, got back to him. I vaulted above him, dropping some honey and the wax on the leather he was trying to keep from falling. Then I fell to the ground, keeping my fall slow with puffs.

From the ground, I yelled, "I got us honey!!"

Tom, rather than jump from the tree, like a normal person, collected the skin and climbed down. Once he was finally on the ground, he replied something. I wasn't paying attention, I had clothes to pack in the bag and honey to collect.

"You've got some plates?" I asked while holding my haul with mana. There was about twice as much honey as there was me.

"No, I do not have plates." The cat said tiredly, but there was excitement in his eyes. I shrugged, put most of the honey back in the bag and just kept a couple of fistfuls in a mana bowl.

"Is the wolf meat good now?" I questioned, looking over at the carcasses. They didn't look to be dripping anything.

"It can be serviceable," Tom answered. I nodded and waved for him to bring some. He just tilted his head. "Bring some over to me... oh, and if you got any herbs, pull them out. We are eating a roast."

Two hours later, we ate the most amazing fucking roast. I totally didn't run out of steam after half an hour, needing Tom to save the meat and move it over a proper fire. Nope.