Two weeks was A LOT less time than it sounded like. One hundred and forty points was a shockingly small amount considering how far my teammates had to go. It took a bit over a hundred points (not counting the pills that gave them ten each) between the two of them to get them to G rank, but we managed it in the end. We had four days to spare at the end, and Callie ended up getting those last points for her Might stat, just to make sure she was up to the fight that was coming. I'd been pouring my own stats into Might for a while so prioritizing such a versatile ability seemed important.

Jessie was the first one up. She had far fewer points to go until she hit her rank up. The majority of her points went right into Vitality, with Might coming a close second to make her controlled plants stronger. Aside from that she was able to bargain a dedicated contract as the team healer going forward for a rank up to Beginner in First Aid and Horticulture. Because of how powerful the resulting geas was she was even able to get both for one wish, enabling her to synergize the power she wanted on rank up.

Jessica Evans- G rank. Ability: Beginner Lifeweaving- Infuse living things with life itself and direct their actions while the users power flows through them. Control had limited effect on sapient entities. Prolonged exposure to life energy may cause lasting effects in controlled non sapient subjects. Might 32 Impact 12 Fantasy 8 Vitality 50 Creation 8 Skills: Beginner Horticulture,Beginner First Aid, Minor Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement

The new power was a doozy. Even Zeke was impressed. Apparently synergies didn't always end up exactly the same when you combined the same skills, because skills themselves were unique to an extent. Each person had their own unique experiences and understanding of what they learned which could alter the results. Jessie's new ability was a potent and powerful one with lots of possible applications, and she decided unless something changed she wasn't going to synergize anything else for her next few ranks.

With Jessie done we got to Benny. He'd originally been planning to go first, but decided that he wanted to try to grind up his Inventing to Beginner the slow way while I worked with Jessie. He spent his time pouring over texts and doing experiments to try to further his understanding, and with the absurdly deep foundation of his wished for Inventing Skill giving him a perfect base to build on he actually managed to rank it up in the five days I took to get Jessie up to speed.

Sadly he as good as told me it was a fluke. His wish had gotten him an incredibly stable and even distribution of information across the spectrum to get him his Skill, and he'd basically just cherry picked the stuff he was best at to build on, meaning his Beginner Skill, while still pretty complete, was much less stable a foundation to move forward with. Sure he could easily build it up again, but it would be to a normal extent instead of the perfect textbook skill he had before. His jump to Intermediate would take MUCH longer. Still, I was impressed with how fast he managed it, and his stats turned out pretty well.

Benicio Cortez- G rank. Ability: Beginner Mechanical Embodiment- Allows the integration of existing inventions into the users body for the purposes of strengthening and enhancing them. Might 35 Impact 12 Vitality 16 Focus 45 Perception 2 Skills: Beginner Inventing Mastery, Minor Cooking Mastery, Minor Haggling Mastery

Like Jessie, Benny opted to buff up his big stats rather than unlock any new ones. Unlike Jessie he went for a more even spread across the two stats he chose instead of leaning too heavily on just one, though the pill had forced him to pick and he'd chosen to specialize a bit in Focus. I was pretty sure he was banking on the new inventions he would be able to make with his improved skills and stats to make up the difference in combat. Aside from the boosts he'd also created and integrated a few new inventions to do just that. Though he kept a few open slots because he didn't get enough viable combat items.

Current integrated tech. 8/10. Torso: Extending rope. Right fist: triple punch. Left forearm: long range attack attraction. Left fist: minor slow acting tranquilizer effect. Right foot: Density shifting to create heavier kicks and more powerful jumps. Left Foot: momentum neutralization to allow stopping instantly. Head: slight cognitive boost to allow more thinking time. Back: ability to grow a shell to tank damage.

The four new items weren't groundbreaking on their own, though each was pretty damn good, but they gave him a huge amount of versatility and flexibility in combat. Granted they were mostly H rank gear rather than G rank just because of the materials needed, which seriously impeded exactly how much they could do, but still, they would be a huge help to Benny in battle, and I couldn't wait to see how he would use them.

It took a grand total of ninety five stat points to get them both ranked up, minus twenty for the pills, and even counting Jessie's skill ups that meant ten days, giving me the final four to work with Callie. Callie spent the entire ten day period training up her stealth skill to teach me, so I had plenty of memories to take without impacting her progression at all, but it was still a huge benefit for me to be able to get that skill directly. She had me put everything into Might, and it was one of her more terrifying stats now.

Callie Reynolds- G rank. Ability- Beginner Shadow embodiment. Ability to control and manipulate shadow, as well as imbue it into compatible objects. Might 95 Impact 12 Vitality 150 Fantasy 50 Focus 30 Perception 144 Creation 112 Skills: Minor Tracking.Beginner Stealth, Beginner Disguise

With the new power she had at her disposal she was able to create shadows that were as sturdy as steel, moreso even. It took her combat capability to an entirely new level, and combined with the crowd control she already had it made all of us that much safer. All of that left us completely prepared for this scavenger hunt, or at least as prepared as we could get, but we still had one more thing to do before tomorrow when we had to meet with the others. We needed to test out all this progress. To see what the rank ups had really done for them. It was time to spar.

We headed for the training room. As we walked I asked Callie about how we should do this. "Ok, I feel like one on one will take too long. Two on two will give us more practice with each other as teammates anyway. That said I somehow doubt that the two newbies versus us will go well. How should we divide the teams up?"

Callie chewed her lip. "You aren't wrong. I'd say our best bet is girls versus guys. The crowd control capabilities of mine and Jessie's powers will make it a real challenge for the two of you to get in to attack us, and with the increased Impact these two should be able to take any glancing blows we manage to land. That setup work for everyone?" She looked around questioningly and the other two nodded. They were used to working together by now, but given our upcoming trial and the fact that we might be separated learning to mix and match seemed prudent.

We got to the training room, stepping into the center so we could use the obstacle course in the fight. The place was reinforced as hell since it was made for an F ranker, so it wouldn't be an issue if our fight got a little rough. Both teams took their positions on the field, ready to get started. Callie and Jessie took up places close to a few obstacles, giving themselves some room to maneuver and set up their control, and then it was on.

My first move was, as usual, Mistwalking, and I grabbed Benny to steady him as I got in close enough to tell him the plan. "Alright, neither of us have shit in the way of ranged mobility. Exactly how much can that density shifting of yours do? Does it work on your whole body or just your foot?" I needed to know the limits on his new inventions before we went into battle if we were going to use our resources properly.

He shook his head. "Foot and leg for now. I don't have enough Might to do more. Not to mention it's a flat percentage increase in mass on the affected limb, and not a big one. Twenty percent or so at the moment. Gives me a bit of a power boost from increased muscle density, enough to make my jumps off that leg higher, but nothing that's going to be a huge asset. The big benefit is combining it with the momentum stop. Let's me maneuver much easier. Did you have something specific in mind?"

I actually did. Stone Limb was one of my least useful and versatile spells. Not because of its effects but because the damn thing needed ground contact to function. However, I was pretty sure the requirements for use made it a much more open ended spell than I'd been aware of. Stone Limb could work on any limb I used touching the ground, and I was pretty sure that didn't just mean my own.

I knelt down and put my hands on the ground, triggering the Skill and focusing on Benny's right leg. Just as I'd hoped the stone crawled up his leg, covering it past the knee and reinforcing the thing. "Ok, try your density trick now." Benny focused and I could see the stone darken a bit on his leg. I stood up. "Perfect, now I'm going to aim you at the others and I want you to charge in and make tons of noise. Use all your abilities to play distraction while I try this new Minor Stealth Skill and slip around behind them."

Benny nodded and after a second to get used to his new limb, pushed himself off the ground in a massive jump. I was pretty sure the extra mass increased the power of his leg even more, and since I could see through the mist when it didn't have Callie's shadows mixed in I got to watch my friend sail across the room at the girls. The both lashed out with tendrils, shadow and plant reaching for Benny, but he suddenly stopped midair, then planted his foot on one of the tendrils and pushed off it.

Confident in his ability to hold their attention I slipped into stealth, resonating the Skill with my DS mastery and Enchanting to try to blend it with Mistwalking, and began to sneak around to try to get the drop on Callie and Jessie. Before I could get too far a lumbering stick figure came barreling through the mist toward me. I meant both lumbering and stick figure literally, because the thing was made of branches. Jessie's new ability in it's early stages I was guessing, but it had lots of potential.

I settled in for a fight Consecration fo Flame lighting up my tonfas. I'd been hoping to finish this quick, but it looked like it would take a while. I didn't mind though. The longer we fought the more we would learn about ourselves and each other. We would be more than ready for whoever came at us during the hunt, and with Cark onboard we'd be more than strong enough to protect the others too. I was planning to win this whole damn thing, I wanted that rank boost, I wanted the power, but more than that, I just wanted to kick some ass. This whole thing promised to be a blast.