A Ballad for a Curious Water Sprite, Part Three

{Cara}

Another long day was nothing terribly unwelcome to the seasoned adventurer. Cara would certainly rather be back out in the field, but organizing some reports here and there was a fine way to pass the time for her. She took it as an opportunity to assess where each of the students was at the moment, and what they needed to do to progress, so she could get these notes to Mannon and see where the dean and the guildmaster wanted to go from here.

Going through them one by one, her notes started with the adventurers who showed the most promise.

[Sara: Agile, strong, and skilled. There's not much in the form of huge, glaring errors with her. The one thing she could certainly correct is that she has a tendency of getting lost in fights. That lack of focus could come back to bite her in the ass if she's not careful.]

[Dylan: Fleet-footed, calm, and patient. Unlike Sara, Dylan's training came in the form of experience out in the field. He's probably already had to fight some monsters that are well beyond the other adventurers' pay grades. However, although he clearly knows what he's doing, he could stand to be a bit more aggressive. Maybe I can push him in that direction.]

[Elisa: Powerful but deceptively quick. Not much to say about her, honestly. Not only is she a true natural, but she received some of the best training money can buy before she even joined the Academy. Her improvement will come from the missions she does. We just need to get her out and working to see what we can work on.]

These three were definitely the "golden ones" among the students. As long as they avoided the sort of unlucky moment that Silvy fell victim to earlier, then they could all go as far as their ambitions let them.

The next ones were the students she noted had some level of talent, but were very rough around the edges.

[Seth: I don't think anyone would doubt his strength. That alone will be enough to carry him through most missions. However, well, he's kind of a knucklehead. In sparring, the instant he meets a challenge like Sara, or like Elisa, who can deal with his strength, he suddenly has no clue what to do. It's an issue a lot of bigger fighters have. I had that problem too, though. I can probably help him in this regard.]

[Eve: I don't know if it's because she's a fairy or not, but her Essence pool is absolutely enormous. As such, she can certainly be a gifted supporting-role type of adventurer. And, luckily for her, those tend to be in pretty high demand these days. Her problem is simple. With her size and physical composition, if she gets by a single attack from any dangerous creature, she's probably dead. Her reflexes will need to be sharp enough to account for that. That said, I don't think we should hesitate to send her out when she's ready. I believe in her.]

[Carla: It's easy to ignore Carla when you compare her to her classmates, but I've come to the conclusion she keeps it like this on purpose. Carla excels in stealth and surprise attack tactics. She's quick enough to make that style work, too. The problem is, she has absolutely no clue what to do once the fight turns fair. During one of her missions, I watched as she managed to take out three different kobolds without them ever spotting her, but the last one did, and it managed to land a stab at her thigh. I had to step in because of that. My overall take on her is that she needs a bit of combat training, but she could be a decent assassin in the field.]

[Alea: If I was ranking these students by their drive, and their determination to be the best, then Alea would take the top spot without a doubt. A solid mage already, I often catch her in the library trying to memorize spellsigns and researching monsters. She has the hunger in her. There are a few problems with her, however. Firstly, if things don't go according to plan, she tends to break down. That is, unfortunately, one of the worst traits an adventurer can have, as things tend to go wrong all the time. Second, she doesn't exactly get along with others well. I have no idea why that is, but whatever the reason, she needs to get over that. Adventurers work in teams all the time, and if she doesn't learn to do that, I fear her career may be a short one. Still, there's a solid foundation here. Maybe I should sit down and talk to her.]

Finally, she finished her reports with the adventurers who were showing good signs but had too much to work on before she could confidently say they were ready to start taking missions.

[Lisa: A caring, gentle person, with a decent Essence pool. She has what she needs to be a good healer, but the issue is that it doesn't seem like she has it in her to do much else. Now, granted, as I've already said, supporting-role adventurers are in high demand. She could definitely make things work as just a healer, but if she doesn't get a bit of aggression in her, she won't have the kind of drive that you need to survive long-term out there. I might have to play the "bad teacher" a bit with her. Either that or maybe she'll learn on her own.]

[Varyn: The boy's best quality, from what I can see so far, is his resilience. I haven't gone on any missions with him, but from what Harriton tells me, he's taken plenty of hits that have made the mage think he should step in, only for Varyn to rise up and take down his enemies. He's got natural durability to him that will serve him well. The problem is that, not every hit you take is one you can just push through. If he's not careful, he might end up in a situation that's too bad to come back from, but the fact that he's a spellweaver does mean he should be pretty far from harm most of the time. Still, he needs to work on his awareness, and his physical capabilities.]

[John: He has the Essence pool to be a decent mage, the problem is that he doesn't really stand out in any particular aspect. Harriton and Eli have been the ones to take him on his missions, and they say that although he doesn't do anything terribly, he's also not really great at anything, the way most of the other students are. This isn't inherently bad. If anything, having someone who's well-rounded like this can serve as a good foundation for an adventuring team. However, I worry he won't be able to tackle any of the higher-ranked missions. He might end up being a low-econ adventurer, not that there's anything wrong with that, but the point of the Academy is to create stand-out adventurers. And, right now, I can't see how he could reach that point.]

That left her with one more student she needed to write a report on. She jotted the girl's name down and paused.

[Rin: I'm worried for her. Sure, she's being trained by Maria personally, and she's picking up on my coworker's lessons pretty well. She's getting stronger, and faster, and she's learning the skills she needs to succeed at a good pace. There's just one simple issue. Confidence. Or, the lack thereof. Given what happened to her at the start of her semester, it's easy to see why she'd be a little bit haunted by that, but it still seems to me like she's unsure of herself. I already talked about how Lisa could use a little bloodlust, and Rin's lack of confidence falls under that same category of concern. If she doesn't believe in herself, it could lead to moments of inadequacy on the field that could be fatal.]

She stopped writing for a moment, putting a hand on her head. With a sigh, she kept going.

[Maria doesn't like it when I involve myself too much with her, but I feel like I have to. If Maria doesn't get this girl to think that she can do this, that she can be a great adventurer, I might have to do it.]

---

{Xhez}

Standing outside a small building, Xhez, Rin, and Elisa formed part of a line that stretched nearly to the end of the street. Everyone was here with one goal in mind. They wanted to get their own tickets.

It was a little hard for Xhez to keep herself straight. That weird feeling the water had given her was still there, and her knees felt a little weak. At the same time, however, she felt so happy her cheeks were starting to hurt.

"Well, shit," Elisa said as she looked around. "Good thing we got here when we did, I guess."

[The excitement is so clear to see,] Xhez said with a little smile as scanned the human's faces. [I can feel such brightness in everyone today. Why is that, though?] She asked herself before her eyes fell on someone who was in the line as well. Someone she'd seen at the Academy, when she walked around with Rin.

[Ohhh, the beastborn!] She thought. [Varyn, I believe his name was. I should go talk to him!]