It’s been a day and a half and I’m not sure if things are really as bad as Mara claims to be or she’s just being overprotective of me because I was still ’grounded’.

The good thing was that the team that was supposed to replace us arrived so we handed over the station to the Zwerger Navy and we could officially conclude our business with them and get paid.

I checked the rewards and it seems like Amber was right about the Cruiser’s bounty being at a million Credits.

Well... It was a million and twenty two thousand Credits to be exact but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, Mara managed to find an Academy that she said was reputable enough for us to enroll in so we would be heading there directly to take their classes.

Apparently, from what she has managed to find, they have one class per season and only take a specific number of students each season which would then graduate at the end of the season.

And from what I heard, a season is basically about two weeks worth of lessons.

Sounds like the instructors have a really easy life if they only need to teach a class eight weeks a year... At least, that’s assuming that they’re paid well.

I was a little worried about the fact that they were picky about their students but Mara seemed confident that we would get picked for some reason so I assume it was something to do with paying them enough Credits to take us in.

Speaking of Credits... I realised that I haven’t been checking my email in my Codex for a while and since I was still stuck in Mara’s medical room being bored, I decided to sort them out.

Actually, I don’t even know if they’re called emails but basically they’re like official text messages sent from corporations or just official groups and such.

I would actually liken them to e-pamphlets or something instead but well... Calling them emails sounds more appropriate anyway.

I stopped looking at them when I realised that most of the time I just get spam adverts from the shops within a station and while I could just filter them out into the trash, at that time I was curious about what they were selling so I just kept them.

But now that it’s overflowing with it, I got lazy to check them.

Deciding that I would most probably not even bother looking through those adverts anyway, I simply typed into the filter to sort out all the adverts and dump it in the trash.

All the thousands of emails that I received instantly disappeared.

I was just about to put it away when I realised there were a few emails still remaining despite the earlier filter.

That would mean that these shouldn’t be spam adverts then.

I looked at the senders to realise that these were actually sent by the Mercenary Guild and I had a moment of panic thinking I missed some kind of important announcement as I opened the oldest one that they sent.

’Congratulations, you have achieved enough Mercenary Points to have your rank be elevated to Gold Rank, Level Two...’

Ah...

Wait a minute, this email was sent like... Almost a few months ago!

Are you telling me that I have not even realised I got promoted all this time?!

My eyes were then drawn to the whole list of missed mails that were above the one that I just wrote.

I quickly opened the next one.

’Congratulations, you have achieved enough Mercenary Points to have your rank be elevated to Gold Rank, Level Three...’

I moved out of the email to check that the subject for each of them were exactly the same before I skipped all the way to the latest email and opened it.

’’We would like to extend our heartiest congratulations to you, Miss Tera, for you have achieved enough Mercenary Points to have your rank be elevated to Platinum Rank, Level One. We are proud to...’

Wait... I’m already a Platinum Rank Mercenary? Since when?!

Oh, this was actually sent yesterday... I guess that raid was what gave me enough points to go from Gold to Platinum.

The tone they used for the last one was even more formal than the others, which I guess it’s because I’m now a Platinum rank which should be considered pretty high in Merc’s standards.

The rest of the message was just basically them glazing me about reaching Platinum rank so I just ignored it.

Wait... What about Amber?

"Amber?" I called out.

My lover pulled her head back from where she had been nestling in the crook of my shoulder to cuddle while seated on my lap to tilt her head at me.

Since I was stuck in Mara’s medical room, Amber decided to just stay here to cuddle with me instead.

"What is it, Tera? You horny? Want me to go down on you?" She giggled.

"No, I just got the message that I’m apparently Platinum rank now... I didn’t even realise I had been ranking up this entire time."

Amber gasped and started clapping her hands, "Waaa!! Congratulations Tera!! A Platinum Merc is a pretty big deal you know? That already puts you in the top ten percentile!"

"Twenty five," Mara corrected from where she was seated in front of her research table without looking back.

Amber waved her hand dismissively in her direction, "Yes, yes, twenty five percent. Close enough. My point is that this is the rank where people would even start recognising you just for being you! And you might even start getting private hustles where clients specifically request for you to handle their problems and pay a premium for that! We should celebrate, Tera!! Let’s have a party today!"

"People already recognised us while we were still in Gold rank though," I reminded her.

"That’s because you managed to take down that Pirate Lord all by yourself, Tera! That’s something even a Platinum Mercenary would struggle to achieve! Actually... If you were to include Yumiko, that means you’ve taken down two Pirate Lords already! That’s so cool, Tera!!"

"I’m pretty sure you were the one who soloed that Pirate Lord to begin with... Now that I think about it... How did I miss the fact that you were clearly using your Psionic powers in that fight? It’s so obvious now..."

She giggled, "Ehehehe~ I thought you would be afraid of me if you knew I was a Psionic."

"Right... What about you though?"

Amber tilted her head, "Hmm? What do you mean?"

"You must have also increased your rank, right?"

"Oh right! I have!"

She pulled out her personal terminal and showed me her own emails to reveal the message that said she was now a Platinum rank, level one.

Seeing the date on the message, she ranked up a few weeks ago so she has been Platinum rank for at least some time already.

"Did you even know that you became Platinum rank?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, of course~"

"And you didn’t say anything about it?"

She shrugged, "I didn’t feel like it was a big deal though?"

"You’re making a deal out of me becoming Platinum rank though..."

"Yeah, because I believe you’re also now the fastest Mercenary to reach the Platinum rank too~ That’s a pretty big deal!"

I blinked, "Really? I mean... Is it really that difficult to reach Platinum rank? It feels like we’re basically just doing normal stuff and we’re rising up really quickly."

"Because of the results you are bringing, Captain," Mara answered, still not looking back. "You get more Mercenary points based on how well you did your jobs. Most Mercs don’t blow up an E Class ship while they’re still just a Gold ranked Merc piloting a C Class or B Class ship, Captain."

"Well... We only managed to do it because we got to the station’s gun to use it against them."

"And did you realise that no other Merc even tried to reach that place to use the same gun we did? In fact, we even had to step in to bail a group of them out from being pinned down as well."

I made a face at her, "Are most Mercs just... Well... Not that good?"

"They’re normal people just with guns who are not afraid of putting their lives on the line for Credits, Tera. I’m willing to bet that this is the only Mercenary Company that has two... Well... Now three, Psionics on their team in the Outer Colonies. We even have a Sage class Alv, a genius Nekomata mechanic, a former Pirate Lord who was also once part of the special forces within the UTG, and a Psionic entity that can shapeshift into clothes that can eat anything and shrug off bullets while also duplicating herself."

Well... If you were to put it that way... I guess I can see why we could rack up so many Mercenary points this quickly...

In fact, I’m a little surprised that the Guild hasn’t called us in for an audit for rising up that quickly if that was really the case.

Maybe they still remember the fact that we took out that Pirate Lord and knew we were legit or something.

Oh well... I guess now I can call myself a Platinum Merc then.