Within the city walls, there was a training ground that belonged to the city guards and the young trainees.
Some had come from the families that had lower positions in the city or those that had been pushed to join by their own noble or rich families so that more power and control could be gained by their families through having power from the factions within the city guards forces.
Among them was a fourteen year old girl that was dressed in training clothes and was seen sparring each of the people there one after another.
On her ear was a hoop earring that seemed to be made with high grade metals and it also had a small gem embedded in it.
The girl was wearing no protective clothing to cover her appearance from others and she wore no face or body creams that helped disguised her appearance so it was unusual that she looked so very human to others and did not be discovered for her race.
After gaining a lot of understanding on mana and magic while expanding her knowledge on all kinds of professions ranging from useful ones to what were considered useless, she started understanding more and more as she gradually expanded her research directions.
Her magic could be put into several categories that had different uses and potential for the future.
Her mental and mana magic path was excellent for investigation, manipulation and creating shields or non elemental attacks like a mana sphere, needle or bullet but it also worked well with her other paths and assisted them.
Her chemistry magic path was excellent for understanding the structure of things, recreating them and even making more perfect things but when mana is introduced, it can be used to create even greater effects like making magical artefacts, magical potions and it also helped with creating spells to manipulate the various elements to be used in similar ways to her mana spells.
Finally was her biology or genetic magic that worked well for investigating the structure of living things and finding what controls each small part of what forms that living being from small things like a racial weakness like having uncontrollable hunger or the desire for battle.
She had yet to discover the true possibilities of the genetic magic but she had a theory that she could gain a greater understanding of her path the more that she investigated the genes of different living things ranging from plants, animals and human races.
With the help of those she was close to within the city, she was able to use her magic on many people during treating them to investigate their reactions to various medicines but also look deeper at their physiology.
When all that information entered her mind along with the persons appearance, body type and other hereditary traits or ailments that were passed to them from their family line, she was able to remember those things and compare the genetic structures to identify key areas for certain parts that determined certain things like skin colour, eye colour, hair colour and many genetic areas that determine other things like the face or body part shape.
There were occasionally sales of animals to be made into pets and even some smaller dinosaurs would be sold so she made sure to use her magic on them to add to the knowledge that she had so that she could compare them while a large amount of plants and herbs were available to study within the lands owned by the herb and medicine store.
So far it was helpful towards investigating and analysis of genetics but she knew that the potential did not end there.
Through her investigations, she had been able to pinpoint many areas in which she was different from others but she was unable to identify what it was exactly due to the lack of samples and information on the demons and other races.
The shapeshifting spell was one that she had fully mastered and rarely had a use for when she had found another way to hide her appearance but it was the first spell that she had properly mastered so she started by adding the mana and spell structure into an object that she was creating.
She had made sure that the spell was taken from the image and shape she had been using for her human form so once the spell had been integrated into the gem studded earring, she only needed to use the original shapeshifting spell on the tool to activate or deactivate it.
Due to the smaller changes in her body and overall appearance, the mana cost to shape shift was much lower when a medium was used and the earring was the medium or magical artefact that she had made.
From that day, she no longer had to wear clothes that fully covered her body, a hat that covered her ears, goggles or glassed that hid her eye colour a little and herbal mixtures.
The metal and jewel were both very strong and sturdy as it could hold together when the spell was activated and keep it stable.
The spell would be used to activate and deactivate it but the jewel was the best thing to be used to store mana within so she did not have to worry about it suddenly cancelling so long as she kept it supplied with a little mana.
It was very sturdy compared to ordinary jewellery but when compared with the strongest metals or jewels in the universe, it still had a long way to go but it served its purpose and provided new directions for her magic to be used like mana shield spell jewellery and other tools.
Most of her progress was more in the direction of different types of enhanced potions and pills that had less side effects and were more effective than even the best made goods.
When she has a teacher who has many connections in the outside world, she was able to learn everything quickly and form her own research results over the four years.
Within the sparring area, someone that was bulkier and taller than her had started throwing punches at her and he seemed better than the average human as he had been pushing himself quite far in his training but his punches did not touch Blush's body.
Each punching movement was sharp and deadly without any holding back but with her greater perception and training over the years, even if she was unable to climb up to greater heights like those in the two hundred power level area, she was able to consider herself better physically and mentally than the trainees but even some less experienced mercenaries or guards.
She had found some time to increase her sparring chances by joining the city guard training after she had crafted her earring a couple of months ago which had helped her to adjust to the improvement to her own body.
At first, she was fighting the trainees but later she had taken on some of the more experienced people there.
Even if she had lost due to the larger strength and experience difference, she still was able to come back and find a way to overcome them after a couple of sparring matches without resorting to underhanded methods and tricks.
Her present fight was against a guard that had a ranking that was considered as what was described as an E to D class mercenary.
If the likes of Mercenary Tao who has a power level above two hundred and could harness his ki energy to attack can be identified as an S class mercenary or assassin on earth then the person that she was fighting was several grades below.
Although her physical body was not as talented as others, she had kept to her training schedule and gradually improved it to suit her growth over the four years so her current strength was above a twenty power level but not any greater than a thirty five power level which made her stronger than Mai from the Emperor Pilaf gang.
Mai had mainly relied on technology and weapons however she did display excellent survival abilities often even though she rarely showed off her strength so Blush's abilities were already decent enough for her to start stepping out into the outside world.
Although the average rank of mercenaries can often be determined by achievements and other factors, the average strength tests were often used in the qualification exams so a minimum amount was required to more accurately put them into ranks as an individual or team.
For an individual, a G rank or entry rank was just for ordinary people to carry out small scouting or gathering tasks but above that was F rank which required a higher trained physique which could be considered as above fifteen power level and above.
E ranks would start at around thirty three power level or something that determined their physical strength or physical abilities to around that area and the minimum for D rank would be at around sixty six as it continues onwards until it reaches two hundred which lets A class be promoted to S class if they have the necessary experience.
Blush had beaten many lower E rank guards with her own and stepped up to challenge someone that was in the mid to upper range of E rank so she was challenging someone that was estimated to be above herself in power who had already taken the test to register as an F rank mercenary but still had yet to try the E rank test.
She was usually training with training weights that were used by F rank mercenaries but she could lift the E rank ones after a while and had better reflexes than most so she estimated that could pass the ranking test but she decided that it was best to not be promoted for various reasons.
If she had to estimate her growth over the four years then she had grown from around five power level to somewhere between twenty and thirty five power level but she had no way to determine the actual rate of her growth.
Each punch was deadly and could cause her harm but she narrowly avoided it with her smaller movements and greater perception that had been trained which helped catch the opponent off guard.
She turned the opponents strong force into her own power as she avoided another punch which had been slightly off balance and then flung the larger man over her shoulder.
Her foot came down and her heel stopped a little over his throat. "I win this time. Thank you for the opportunity."
Although she was considered as lower in physique and talent for martial arts with the addition of monthly interruptions to her training due to her woman's cycle which had caused further setbacks, her training and perception were a cut above the rest for raising a skilled fighter that could adapt to different opponents but also those stronger than herself.
There was also the fact that those with stronger physical strength or a special physique may not be able to use what they have properly while she had trained in ways to allow better control, reflexes and perception to allow her to overcome those stronger than herself, even for some stronger humans there was still a large gap between those that could use ki and those that could not when they both had around the same estimated power level and although she could not use it, she had an advantage over them due to her training.
Her reactions and mental perception let her determine when to avoid potential dangers and when to act against her opponent when a weakness is shown but it took some learning and experience to gain further mastery over.
Some weaknesses may not be weaknesses but instead are a type of bait that has been created for her to try to exploit which results in her falling into the enemies traps.
After fighting all kinds of opponents that use different tricks of their own, she was able to act more accurately and determine what was the best course of action based on her experiences.
The man grunted and then walked away after he had gotten back to his feet once again.
After the training and sparring had ended, Blush had returned to her room and touched her earring which caused her appearance to change.
Her skin turned pastel pink, her eyes became red and her ears had become pointed but her beauty and tall figure remained.
At the age of fourteen, she was already in her major maturing stage where she was experiencing rapid growth and development in many areas.
She was very tall even among girls her own age, she had a slender and curvy figure that was quite well trained and built like a balanced woman's athlete.
She had long and slim arms and legs that had shown a little more muscle definition when she tensed up or flexed her body, a decent sized and shaped chest that was around a C cup and a bottom which stood out to make her even more attractive but they were both not overly big on her body that they had become restrictive to her movements.
There was a beautiful and nicely shaped face without much fat on it which was very charming thanks to her sharp eyes and other parts like her nicely shaped nose and lips that fit well with the rest of her face shape.
Even with her pink skin colour, her appearance was still very attractive and with her hair tucked behind one ear and the rest parted and pushed to the other side, her pointed ears went well with her appearance as it gave her more of a mystical beauty that made people recall creatures like Demons, Djinn, Fairies or Elves.
Although she was still in her major growth phase, she expected that once it had ended there would be a sudden stop to her overall growth but she was already quite satisfied with her current body but she would not complain if she grew a little and would fill out more in the next couple of years before her growth had come to a halt.
Blush has started to pack a bag full of different things and started to strap many things to her one after another as a shoulder bag and a waist attachment or bag was strapped to her waist. "It is soon time to set out."
She touched the earring again and her skin turned to a light skin tone and her eyes changed to a brown colour from the original red while her ear shape had changed but the rest had remained the same.
Inside her bags were different types of potion or medicine, additional weapons or tools that may be needed but she had also secured a two handed long sword to her back.
She then grabbed onto a wooden pole which had a spear tip attachment on it but due to the thickness and less flexibility of the wood, it could be more considered as a wooden pike type of weapon or something to be used during travelling.
After leaving her home, she continued onwards as she found herself in front of the task board which was shown to have many jobs or tasks available.
Some were related to the mercenary guild while others were jobs that were available in other roles or professions and some were requests to find missing people or a specific item or ingredient.
She took a long look at the tasks and found one that had suited her needs which she then removed as she walked towards the mercenary guild building where there were many people gathered.
She took out a card from her bag and handed it and the job poster over with the wooden pike resting on her other shoulder. "I would like to participate in this please. I can work as a tracker and I have experience as a doctor."
The person at the desk had looked over everything and checked her rank before sighing. "Kid, I would not recommend it. You are much too young and you do not know what kind of dangers await you out there."
Blush calmly answered. "I have prepared myself and I will look out for myself so I will not bring down the groups performance. My previous gathering jobs should be enough proof since I have done them on my own."
Over the four years when she went swimming or running to different locations, she had made some trips to the forest and had found some materials so she had register to the mercenary guild so that she could build up her own ranking from scratch.
With the many things that she was able to locate with ease thanks to her detection spells, she had easily racked up her achievements so she could not be doubted but she was aware of the potential dangers when working as a group with others she did not know well enough.
The person at the desk looked once again at her documents and then said in a low voice. "Watch your back out there kid, there have been more missing people and reported deaths while going on missions recently so you need to watch your back out there."
They then pointed to the corner. "They are who you will be escorting. The Iron Fang group. Good luck out there."
Blush bowed and then smiled gratefully. "Thanks."
Suddenly the man at the counter looked away with a slight hint of redness on his face. 'This kid is too charming, I almost fell for her with just one smile. Hopefully she is smart enough to heed my warning and be prepared for any unexpected problems.'