Doublenile
I think your doing great adding your own side stories before the main plot picks up again, but i think you shouldve skipped the first 1-2 missions and just done the 3rd as a chapter and in the future reference some of the things that happen in the other battles we didnt see, like right now blowing wind and fire to make a furnace type thing, its a bit simple to make a chapter over, especially for some rats that we dont know or care about, it mightve been better to just briefly mention it and then in the future as a good method to take down large amount of enemies and he mentions it briefly along with the mistakes he made and how he will avoid them. Also hope when he meets Tess again at the academy they dont do the whole “i wont say hi before you do” thing since that felt like it was stalling their relationship progression for no reason.