A thrill shot through Jun as more of her [Sapping Snare] tendrils wormed their way through the sand of the courtyard. Managing so many spells at once had become second nature to her, but without Shiori distracting Keira, Michael, and Aya she would've been hard pressed to do anything more than hide behind her barriers. Cian was trapped in the middle of the ring by a dome of barrier layers, but her teammate's blows were quickly shredding through the invested mana. The damage from Aya's spell did something to disrupt the force distribution aspect of her [Swarming Barrier], but an infusion of mana started healing the damage to the remaining layers.

  Cian continued to bash away she felt the infused mana in her barrier drop below half, the reinforcement from Aya's fire spell long spent. As she moved to push more of her dwindling mana into her barrier she paused, quickly doing the math. Without the fourth layer to share the burden of the blows, her remaining layers took far too much damage at once, ruining the stability of the entire spell with every strike. Even with mana reinforcement, the third layer would soon shatter and then she'd have to deal with Cian and his mastery of weapons with just her shield which would take all of her concentration. No, letting Cian out would mean defeat since she would no longer be able to support Shiori against Michael, and she didn't want to just be carried by her Master.

  Pulling half of her remaining mana out of her core, Jun cast another [Swarming Barrier] modified to flex and bend to be less rigid in the hopes that it would better resist the blunt force of Cian's blows. As she layered the spell over her existing cocoon, something she hadn't expected happened and her eyes to widened as the two spells touched. The mana tendrils linking her to the spells merged together as her spell coalesced, healing the damage done by Aya's spell and Cian's blows! The impact of her teammate's blows now spread across all seven layers of her spell, and the inner three layers had taken on the flexibility of her newly casted spell and felt almost like it had the consistency of hard rubber like an air-filled tire instead of the rigid crystalline structure her barriers usually had, drastically reducing the damage Cian was doing.

  With Cian locked down for a while longer, Jun turned her attention back to the others. Aya had given up on trying to cast a spell, her mana fully drained from her snares though one had been fully destroyed while she focused on Cian. Keira was still struggling against her spell, having somehow grabbed another dagger and was viciously sawing at the spell. Shiori seemed to be having fun with Michael, the healer chasing after her as Shiori ran with his amulet in her mouth.

  Pulling more mana, Jun fought off a slight dizzy spell as she dropped below ten percent as she cast another [Sapping Snare], sending the conjured ropes after Michael, this time not bothering to hide the spell's approach under the sand. The pugilistic healer stopped chasing after Shiori as Jun's snares approached and swayed around the swiping ropes, catching and crushing them one by one. In just a matter of seconds Jun was down to two tendrils as Michael shifted tactics, dodging a horizontal strike as he sprinted towards Keira at surprising speed! The man didn't blur like Keira did, but he was fast and agile, randomly changing directions faster than her snares could as he closed the distance between them. Jun sent both of her remaining snares in to pincer Michael, launching horizontal strikes from opposite directions to cut off his avenues of escape. With no other option Michael dove forward, narrowly avoiding both of Jun's strikes as he reached out with his hand to grab one of Keira's restraints!

  And fell right into Jun's trap.

  Moments before he could grab one of Jun's snares, the near invisible barriers Jun had been using to help Shiori move appeared in his path, the weak spells stacking together to reinforce each other and form a thin wall that Michael's hand smacked into. The weak barrier wasn't near strong enough to hold back the weight and force behind Michael's dive, but it was enough to slow him long enough for Jun's snares to recover and wrap around his wrists. The mana siphoning effect was just strong enough to repair the snares as Michael struggled and Jun sighed with relief. Managing that many spells at once had been difficult, but with Shiori's help she'd managed to capture everyone and was regenerating her mana fast enough to at keep holding Cian in the barrier cage.

  As she started to relax, Shiori's voice whispered in her ears. "Never relax in the middle of a fight kitten," she said with a lecturing tone as Jun felt one of her spells snap. As Jun's eyes darted back to her teammates, she realized that the magical ropes holding Keira were empty as Keirah somehow slipped out and landed on her feet. With a vicious grin, Keira charged at her, her feet a blur. Jun tensed up as she set her stance and shoulder and instinctively threw out a shield bash. Despite Jun being much shorter than Keira, the scout ducked Jun's blow and came up inside her guard, tackling her to the ground!

  Jun gasped as Keira landed on top of her and put her into a grapple, sitting on Jun's stomach and holding both of her wrists in her hands. Jun tried to struggle as Keira held her down, but despite her increased stats, the red-haired girl was stronger. Keira looked down at her, her chest heaving and her face flushed with exertion as she smiled. "Good fight," she said before releasing Jun's wrists and standing up, holding her hand out.

  Blushing, Jun took the other girl's hand as Keira hauled her up to her feet. As Shiori padded over, still carrying Michael's amulet in her mouth, Jun released the rest of her spells, sighing with relief as the strain of spellcasting vanished from her mana channels. As Jun, Keira, and Shiori moved to rejoin their teammates, the barrier holding them inside the ring dropped and Arwen stepped in, shaking his head with a frown.

  "Fine, the cat's your familiar," he said begrudgingly, his eyes narrowing as Shiori padded up to rub against Jun's leg, Michael's amulet still clutched in her mouth like a prize. As if pretending Jun no longer existed, Arwen turned his attention to her teammates, the frown on his face growing.

  "As for the rest of you, that was pathetic," he said, gesturing towards them. "Cian, you let yourself get captured too easily. Keira, despite claiming to be a scout, you didn't notice the snares until it was too late. Aya, you held back because Jun's your friend, putting your team at risk. Michael, you held back too much, letting a cat toy with you!" Arwen pointed at each of Jun's teammates one by one, highlighting each of their faults and mistakes during the spar. Jun couldn't help but frown with distaste for their advisor, his rude words towards her friend and teammates grating to her ears.

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  "You did well kitten," Shiori said, jumping up on her shoulder and dropping Michael's amulet into her outstretched hand. Jun silently passed it over to Michael as Arwen continued to dissect how each of them were lacking and the healer nodded at her in thanks even as it started to glow, casting a warming aura over the team. As the aura passed over her, soothing her muscles that had already been sore from the Sergeant's classes in the afternoon, she tuned Arwen out and idly thought about how she'd love to learn how to heal, if only just to use to deal with everyday pains.

  After a few minutes, Arwen's insults to their skills slowly transitioned into a more helpful lecture on common group and solo tactics for dealing with a variety of enemies, but Jun still only paid half attention, the man's attitude destroying what respect Jun had had for him as an advisor. After half an hour Arwen dismissed them, ordering them to meet him at the guild hall on Sixth Day before kicking them out of the courtyard. Tired and demoralized, the party walked in silence through campus in the early evening until they were back amongst other students moving about after late classes. Surrounded by peers and with no professors or crazy advisors in sight, the party grumbled about Arwen's attitude while they grabbed a late dinner. Despite having eaten before their session with Arwen, Jun was starved and she and Shiori joined the party for another meal that helped to buoy their spirits.

  After dinner they split up for the night. "Despite what the bug said, you and your friends did well," Shiori said as they passed between groups of students on the cobblestone paths between buildings.

  Jun nodded in response, the conservative praise making her feel warm even as a cool night's breeze blew over her. "Thank you Master," she whispered, certain Shiori would hear her. Shiori only purred in response, settling in on Jun's shoulder as she walked and tossed over the fight in her head. Shiori's strategy to tie down her teammates had worked really well even though Jun lost in the end. The only person she could fault for the loss was herself, having relaxed too soon and losing focus on her spells.

  According to Shiori, when she'd relaxed she'd unconsciously loosened her snares' grip on her teammates and Keira had been able to take advantage, slipping out of her binds even though she'd been mostly drained of mana. Though her speed had been much lower at the end then normal due to Jun's spell draining her mana so that Keira couldn't use the enhancement skill she used to move rapidly, it'd still been enough for her to reverse Jun's fortunes. Still, she couldn't help but feel some pride at her accomplishment. Even though her Master had helped a lot, Jun had gained a lot of practice using her new spells in a fight and had several more ideas for what she could do with them.

  Once they got back to the privacy of Jun's room, Jun immediately started to ask Shiori about some of her ideas but her Master had quietly silenced her, telling her it would be better for her to meditate on her thoughts first. Sighing, she started to get into a meditation pose as Shiori hopped to her desk, Jun's window opening on it's own. As Jun opened her mouth to ask what was going on, Shiori silenced her again. "Focus on your meditation kitten, I have a task to take care of." Before Jun could come up with a response, Shiori had leapt out the window into the night.

  Shiori cycled her mana as fell through the air, twisting the world around her as she landed atop the roof of the Academy's Administrative Building. She briefly toyed with the idea of stopping by the Registrar's office again this evening, but she was running surprisingly low on rat heads. Besides, Sean had been increasing his defenses as he hunted for whoever was stealing his valuables and replacing with dead mouse parts. Though messing with the odious man was fun, Shiori had started to grow bored after several weeks. She'd give him some time to cool off and think the danger passed. Perhaps she'd forget about her toy and he could go back to his insignificant life only minorly inconvenienced, or perhaps she'd grow interested in messing with the man again.

  For now however, she had a new target. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the elven bug casually walk through the Academy gate. With a flex of her will, Shiori erased her presence completely as she leapt from the Administrative Building over the Academy's wall and through the barrier that covertly protected the campus. It was a quaint enchantment. Powerful enough to stop anyone short of the Diamond ranks and at the very least notify the School's hidden guardians of any greater threats. Shiori passed through it like a ghost, not a single mote of mana disturbed by her passage.

  For some time, she simply followed Arwen as he walked through the city. Though she could have simply monitored him with her aura senses, there was something more satisfying about using her own eyes, ears, nose, and whiskers to follow him. As the man entered the IAG guild hall, Shiori followed at his heels, casting a personal spell that phased her presence out of step with the normal plane of existence, leaving her halfway between the real and the void. It was a fantastic upgrade compared to mundane invisibility since she only interacted with whatever she chose to. Even Master ranked versions of invisibility could be detected through mundane means such as bumping into a cloaked entity, but Shiori's own spell erased such weaknesses. The only downside was the tears her passage left in the fabric of reality, but that was a simple enough matter of repairing the fabric as she moved.

  Shiori followed Arwen through the guild house until he entered a set of rooms covered in enchantments of a surprisingly advanced nature. As Shiori followed the man in, she couldn't help but smile as she looked at the man's belongings scattered throughout the richly appointed room. As the bug shed his clothes and started to clean himself, Shiori snickered as she started selectively removing threads from the man's clothes and altered the self-repair enchantments woven into them so that they would only do the bare minimum of repair to certain sections when activated, a trick she'd learned from Saladin after a particularly brutal prank war.

  Shiori patiently waited as Arwen relaxed for the evening and eventually turned in to sleep for the night. As the bug activated a series of alarm and protective enchantments, she had to give it to him. He was surprisingly well prepared and competent, for a bug. Many of the man's enchantments and measures rivaled or exceeded those at the Academy her kitten chose to study at, but it still wasn't enough. A mouse head here, a severed tail there. Shiori casually moved through the elf's chambers as she started to take any items that caught her attention. Several books found their way into her personal storage, including what appeared to be warded personal journals and research notes. She was curious what the bug might be researching that required such defenses. Besides, the wards seemed simple enough that they would make a good beginner's challenge for her kitten to learn [Ward Breaking].

  Momentarily satisfied that she had claimed enough compensation from Arwen for his poor treatment of her kitten and her kitten's friends, Shiori returned to the fun part of the evening. Centipedes, beetles, roaches, and other creatures the two-legged peoples seemed to have problems with magically teleported into small barrier containers that Shiori kept floating above the elf's body. A particularly large live spider she placed just above the man's sleeping face. Once she was satisfied, Shiori willed her phased self up until she passed through Arwen's ceiling and stuck her head back down through it. Content with her perfect view, Shiori erased all trace of the mass teleportations from the local fabric as she banished her barriers, sending her drafted allies to scuttling all over the sleeping elf.

  Arwen awoke as the large iron ranked spider landed on his face, it's clawed feet lightly digging into his Gold ranked skin. The other Bronze ranked creatures scuttled across his body as he slowly woke, his eyes widening as the spider bit him on the nose and he erupted into chaotic motion, slapping himself all over as he swore and flung the creatures all over his room, setting off his alarm enchantments as he cursed. Shiori snickered as her ears twitched with amusement. His screams were delicious.

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