Kyle was training with Bonk almost every day.
Of course, he was also visiting Gill's course whenever it was available.
Sadly, Gill's courses were not available every day, and there was no regularly scheduled time. It all depended on if Gill had time to hold the course.
Sometimes, Kyle also fought a couple of weak beasts to get better at using Ether Strike.
Otherwise, he was mostly focused on completing missions.
The missions for all of the Newbies were very quickly used up by the four Newbies.
Naturally, the missions were designed to be completable by the Newbies, which was why there were no issues with them.
Well, almost.
One of the missions ended in failure.
It was the mission Dylan undertook to join a team in a local tournament.
The reason why it failed was simple.
While the team initially accepted Dylan with open arms, they changed their tone after a couple of days of practicing with him.
Dylan was not good at fighting in a team.
He charged in solo most of the time, and while he was very strong, that wasn't the best approach when fighting in a team.
Usually, he managed to keep two enemies busy at the same time due to his immense power, but that left the other four to fend for themselves.
Sure, a four-on-three fight seemed to be advantageous, but not when the opponent had free reign to do whatever they wanted.
As a Shouter, Dylan had to be a constant threat.
Of course, this led to severe disagreements.
Dylan said that he was taking care of two enemies at once, while the team claimed that he wasn't protecting them from the actual important attacks.
Due to the disagreements, the two sides had a very antagonistic split.
Failing a mission for Newbies was very bad since they were not difficult to complete.
Dylan just needed to be more receptive to feedback and team play.
The failure of the mission landed Dylan in hot water.
If he failed such an easy mission again, he would be fired.
Noah told him that he acknowledged that Dylan was the most powerful of the Newbies, but if he couldn't fight in a team or fit in, he would be fired.
Dylan was not happy about that, but he tried to change.
Meanwhile, Tracy, Horatio, and Kyle were easily completing their missions.
When the missions of the Newbies ran out, Kyle decided to look at the general board of missions.
As expected, the missions were not good.
Some of them seemed vague and unsolvable.
Some seemed way too dangerous.
Some barely paid anything.
'Well, a couple of Ether Pebbles is better than nothing,' Kyle thought as he accepted one of the boring, low-paying missions.
It was a familiar one.
He had to escort Lady Whiskers for her stroll.
One Ether Pebble for several hours of work.
It was no surprise that nobody liked taking on this mission.
At least it also paid one contribution point, which made it bearable.
Kyle met Lady Whisker's owner, who was the wife of a high-ranking officer.
The officer was stationed near the frontlines, and he left Lady Whiskers to his family as protection.
Following Lady Whiskers was not easy at all.
Sometimes, she entered a random bush and seemingly just vanished.
Kyle was only able to pass the mission because of his sense of smell.
Surprisingly, the louder Kyle was, the more Lady Whiskers seemed to vanish.
It was like she was annoyed at the noise Kyle made.
In subsequent missions, Kyle learned to be a bit quieter, and Lady Whiskers didn't escape as much anymore.
He also felt how Lady Whiskers used her Ether a couple of times.
It was almost like she was taunting Kyle.
"Here, look at me! I'm going to vanish now, and there's nothing you can do about it."
After a while, Kyle managed to partially understand how Lady Whiskers could be so quiet, and he could somewhat replicate the effect.
He was not as stealthy as an Archer Fighter, but he was still quite silent.
By completing a worthless mission several times, Kyle had actually gotten rid of one of his weaknesses.
He was not an assassin, but he was also not a trampling rhino.
From time to time, Kyle also accepted some of the seemingly unsolvable missions.
Examples would be finding out why the population of a certain kind of beast dropped or finding a precious item that was either lost or stolen.
Accepting these kinds of missions was risky since success was not guaranteed, and failing a mission was horrendous for one's standing and career.
However, Kyle still accepted them for three reasons.
His instincts, Theodor's knowledge, and his Aristocrat's Body.
The Aristocrat's Body was useful because Kyle could easily disguise himself as a Sorcerer, Conjurer, or Artificer, which made him much less suspicious.
Shady people were careful around Fighters since the Stark Brotherhood was viewed by these people as some kind of special investigations unit.
The guards were too busy, which was why many people didn't even go to them and just directly asked the Stark Brotherhood to solve these issues.
As a Sorcerer, it was much easier for Kyle to gain entry to the seedy places of the city.
He often found valuable stolen items in the black market.
He sometimes found a bunch of illegal beast parts for sale, which were related to the missing beasts.
He often found abducted people in the wilderness since his instincts and sense of smell told him if there were people nearby.
Eventually, the three-month period for the Newbies passed, and they joined all the other Fighters.
As expected, things worsened for the Newbies.
Dylan was waiting for missions every day, but whenever a good mission was posted, he wasn't fast enough to get it.
The other teams all had fast people who specialized in grabbing missions while he was alone.
Because of that, Dylan was forced to accept horrible missions that barely paid anything.
Horatio had it easy since he had already officially joined a team.
Tracy eventually decided to accept Wyveria's offer and joined a special team consisting of women.
And Kyle?
Well…
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