My surroundings have been changing lately. The Academy has finished recruiting students and the school year has started. It's actually been three weeks since it started. 

My lessons have been advancing, but now sometimes different people are teaching me, because the old man has things he has to take care of for the academy. Only the old man ever teaches me about the races and history so I only learn about those things for two days a week. 

Jul has started teaching me about what's considered common sense. It's sometimes at odds with what everyone else tries to teach me... 

Garet is still my weapon and physical trainer. Shela has taken over my magic studies for now, she started teaching me more about enchanting. Because of her lessons, I began to wonder if I could infuse my food with mana. 

It didn't work. The food exploded in my face and knocked me over in my chair. As I laid on my back stunned Shiva and Asura ate my dinner off of my face. I lost interest in enchanting so she stopped teaching me about it and switched back to attributed magic. 

As it turns out the old man was right about her. She can still be scary sometimes, but only towards people she feels are acting like a complete idiot. Which means Garet most of the time... 

Anyway, because I have less lessons now, I'm spending more time adventuring. I'll reach D rank by the end of the month. I bet that by the time I'll be old enough to join the academy, I'll have reached at least B rank. 

People have taken to calling me Amber Cat as a nickname. Apparently it's common for talented adventures to be given a nickname. Artemis was the one who first started calling me Amber Cat, and it caught on.

Speaking of Artemis, she no longer lives at the orphanage. She and three other kids were 'adopted.' They moved away to live with their new families. 

The influx of people, who came to the academy during the registering period, lead to the kids being noticed and adopted. I haven't known them long enough to consider them family, but I still miss them. Except for redhead, he was annoying. Miss Ranmount made a huge cake to celebrate their adoptions. That I enjoyed, but everything else was horrible.

Why do I always end up separating from the people I know? Is my search for... No, I've thought about this already. I'm sticking with my choice. 

The old man has tried to tell me about philosophy, but I'm not too fond of it. I've decided to live in the moment and look towards my goal. It seems the goal of an orphanage is to give kids a new home, and they think the best way they can get them is through adoption. 

I smiled as they left with their new families. It seemed to comfort them. It actually made it easier for me to see them go. Maybe I should smile no matter what happens... I'll figure it out.

On the positive side, Lavender has started adventuring too. She started at F rank since she has no fighting ability. She mainly does gathering jobs and uses her magic to protect herself. It'll be awhile before she reaches the next rank. She's better than me at enchanting though. I know because Shela has started teaching her about it even though I'm not still learning about it. 

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The rabbit boy, clover- or was it Henry?-, also has a talent for magic. He's best at mind magic. I don't know when he started to learn, but Lavender told me about it when he started messing with the heads of some bullies. I also learned that he's actually my age, I thought for sure that he was younger than me. He's just short.

.....

I'm currently fighting right now. As part of my lessons on common sense, Jul has sent me to hunt a goblin village together with six D rank adventurers. Two of them had a problem with me at first. The bear like one and stick guy didn't think that I'm strong enough to fight such a large group of goblins. 

The bear, Regius who is their group's leader, was just concerned for me. The stick, uhh I don't remember his actual name, was being stuck up. I showed both of them I good I am at fighting by beating up Stick. Jul approved of my reaction. 

Apparently it's normal for adventurers to fight over disagreements, but he also said I should never be the one to start the fight. I can provoke people, but can not make the first move. The whole group was fine with me afterwards. I'm a better fighter than any of them. Garet would beat me up if I started getting cocky about it though. Goblins are weak, but there were over thirty of them so it would have been tough to beat them by myself without injury. 

I can see the benefit to working with a team. As we finish off the last goblin, I decide that I'll start training and adventuring with Shiva and Asura. They'll be my permanent teammates, and maybe we'll work with other people every once in awhile too.

"Hey guys, do you mind if we work together again? I think it's good experience, and I need to better understand group tactics."

"I'm fine with it. Someone who's as strong as you working with us would be a great help. I think I speak for the group when I say we'd be happy to have you along whenever you like."

""""Agreed!"""""

"Thanks! I appreciate it."

I rub against them to show my thanks. They laugh and pat my head, they weren't petting me so I was okay with it. Stick muttered something about 'a stupid animal'... 

It's fun to fight together with these guys. New friends to replace those who left. It'll keep life more interesting. I definitely need that. I recently realized that I'm going to spend five years doing basically the same thing. It is fun, but not very interesting. Will school life be any better?