The first thing I did once I got into my room was, of course, call Zeke. I probably should have worried about spying or something, but Zeke always seemed pretty sure of his ability to keep our conversations private, so I trusted him. I'd gotten this scan ring from him in the first place, for my sixteenth birthday, and I was guessing it wasn't exactly normal. It's funny the things you don't consider when you have no reason to wonder.

Zeke picked up immediately. I could see in the background he was lounging in a plush leather chair in a room with dark walls, but the screen didn't show anything else. "Hey kid. Glad to see you made the trip alright. They must have sent a pretty nice air shuttle to get you there so quick. I arrived a few hours ago, and I'm still getting our new digs set up." Zeke had agreed to bring all my stuff with him when he came so I didn't have to pack, which was a relief.

I didn't bother asking how he got here so quickly, just moving on to the next part. "You're getting something big enough for the others to have a place to stay if they want right?" Apparently since he was arranging his own living space Zeke had some leeway in where we ended up staying. Since I knew Callie wanted out of here as soon as possible, and Benny would probably be staying with us at the very least, I made sure to ask him to get a decent sized place.

He rolled his eyes. "Nothing obscene but yeah, I'm looking at a small condo building in the the gourmet district. Good food and plenty of space for your friends." He gave a wistful sigh. "I think I even found a place that serves Revenant Wings. I haven't had them in years. There's a special spice they use in the sauce that you can only get from a certain belt of planets in Church territory. Your old man and I spent a few decades kicking around down there for a while." He stopped talking abruptly, wincing slightly.

Based on what I knew that meant he'd been about to discuss something dad didn't want him to talk about. Either something important about the WCP that would violate rules, which was unlikely, or something about my mom. I noticed things like that much easier with all my current points in Focus and Perception I could pick up subtler clues. It was an interesting feeling. "So. We have the Academy coming up, and I guess crafting for wishes still, but do you know how the Unity handles patrols?"

He chuckled. "It's a combination of a large scale surveillance grid and a sort of free for all. But now that you're in a good sized city there are other options too. Namely, Ascendant animals are more common in places this size. With so many people in the city, stories about local beasties get a ton of traction, and have plenty of renown to beef up their subjects. You can take hunting jobs to kill off nearby critters and either turn in the materials for credit or keep them to use for crafting yourself. Speaking of materials, you bring any cash for buying mats?"

Thankfully, I had. I'd cleaned out my account at the guild before leaving, collecting a hundred H rank chits that I could use to buy materials to test out my new and improved enchanting. He chuckled at my expression. "I know you're excited about permanent gear, but keep in mind that different materials have different potential. You'll need to be more selective about what you use for enchantments if you want to make items that are sustainable. It adds a whole new dimension to enchanting that only makes it more difficult."

I'd expected it to get harder as I ranked up the skill, so that wasn't a surprise. I also knew that materials played a bigger part in enchanting as it improved, though still not as big a part as Alchemy or Inventing. I was interested in a possible source of free materials though. "So how do the critter hunting jobs work? You just sign up and then look around to try to kill the things?" If they knew where they were, it seemed like a waste of time to do things that way, why not just hire one dedicated high ranker to take them out.

He chuckled at that. "No. The other way around. Most people go out looking, and if you catch one you turn in proof of the kill to get the credit. Usually a body part or something that isn't valuable. That or you just bring in the corpse to be checked over. They have harvesters on site that can extract materials without damaging them anyway. I'd wait on critter hunting though. You're starting the Academy, and Ascendant Academies are always time consuming as hell."

That was an interesting tidbit. "How does that actually work anyway? What does the academy even teach? Like I assume PR and image handling and things like that, but it sounded based on what Callie said that there's a huge faculty. Do they have people for every type of power?" Given how complicated that would get based on how specific abilities were I didn't see how they could.

Luckily Zeke was a fount of information, and since this wasn't WCP related he was free to share. "They do...quite a bit, actually. First off the academy is a way to compete. You do your best to rise up the rankings and gain renown within the school. They promote the high rankers on their leaderboards by broadcasting academy competitions to the public as entertainment, so it's a damn good way to accrue points. At least half the benefit of going is the promotion they do on their students behalf."

That sounded useful as hell, and like a pretty smart way to set up an Ascendant school. Zeke continued on though, not even close to done. "There are also faculties for each stat, except Impact obviously, and a crafting faculty. Then there are individual teachers for specific skills that are commonly found that function more like a traditional school. Between classes the academy has tasks and training that contribute to ranking to determine who takes part in the broadcast competitions."

I could definitely see the benefit. "And I'm guessing that students who take part in the competition usually do so under the name of their faculty? I bet that makes gains easier to funnel toward the stats of your choice. I'm also assuming that competition is pretty brutal? An environment like that would be pretty geared toward survival of the fittest." I'd kind of expected that based on the way Callie talked about Unity politics, but knowing we were going into a microcosm of that wasn't exactly a fun idea.

He shrugged. "That's cultivation. The Unity likes to play up the heroes and Villain angles because it makes marketing a snap, and that works for them mostly, but never forget that gathering renown isn't shaded by morality. Monsters are just as well known as Saints. Watch your back no matter where you go kid, because someone, somewhere, has something to gain from sticking a knife in it."

Zeke was never an optimistic person, but I'd never really heard him sound so...jaded. It occurred to me that my Uncle was probably much older than he looked, and that he'd most likely seen things I couldn't imagine. A small part of me even wondered if that knife he mentioned came from my dad. That contract he was under didn't seem like it was a nice one, and despite his apparent loyalty to my old man, I wasn't so sure my father treated his friend very well. It made me uncomfortable to think about.

Honestly I was mystified by my dads motivation for any of this. Did he benefit if I became Wishmaster somehow? Did he actually care and want me to succeed? Was this just some sick extension of his pride, living out his glory days through me? Hell, maybe there was an entirely different outcome that I couldn't even guess at. At this point it was impossible to say. All I could do was my best. Get stronger, keep climbing, and eventually, once I was high enough, I would be able to see everything I was looking for.

Admittedly "get stronger" rang a bit hollow as a goal at first blush. But...why? The universe was HUGE. There were so many amazing things to see and do, so many crazy planets to visit and abilities to witness. So what if I didn't have some long term master plan? Wasn't that what being young was about? Finding the path you wanted to take? Maybe I'd become the Wishmaster, maybe not. The competition was fun for the moment so I would stick with it. If it stopped being fun? Well fuck my dad and his plans.

Zeke was watching me carefully, and I imagined with his undoubtedly high perception he would be aware of at least some of what I was thinking. He looked...proud. I didn't bring it up. Neither did he. I smiled and thanked him for the help and we said our goodbyes and I settled in to think about my situation after we hung up. For the moment I was too weak to really make sweeping declarations about my future. I'd get stronger, explore and learn and see amazing things, and I'd help my friends do the same.Besides, I did have some long term goals. I wanted to find out more about my mom.

I wished I could ask Zeke about her, but it seemed clear he couldn't say word one, and I had no idea who else to talk to about the issue. I knew her name, of course. Sasha. And I knew that she was high ranking. I couldn't remember if he'd said she was A rank like dad specifically, but I was betting she was up there. That was where I ran into some problems though. Namely that if she was in the Unity, which was already a big if, she probably wasn't using her real name.

If she wasn't in the Unity, I was even more screwed, because the factions purposefully limited communication and information between them. The Conglomerate didn't want to feed the Queen of Fairyland any more renown than necessary, and vice versa. So just going online and searching 'A ranker+Sasha' wasn't going to do shit for me. I needed information from a universal source, which meant I needed the WCP.

That came with it's own problems though, namely money. I couldn't get things from the WCP for free, I needed to pay, and information about an A ranker, or even a B ranker, was going to be pricy as hell. Especially given the difficulties the Wish power had with information. The WCP employed spies and assassins but with Wish invalidated as an information gathering option for the most part they weren't known for that kind of thing as much as they were their smuggling and sales operations. Intergalactic news on a high ranker would be fucking expensive, so I needed a way to make money.

I thought back to all the things Zeke said about the academy. Based on his description I was betting there were some decently lucrative options at that place. Selling to other students, possibly winning cash in the form of prizes for some of the competitions he mentioned, maybe sponsorships or something. Whatever was available though it was obvious to me that there would be some means of making money, even if it was only to see who was best at it since I couldn't see a better way to rank crafters. I pulled up some of the broadcasts Zeke mentioned on my scan ring, deciding to do some research on my future school. I wanted to be as prepared as possible for what I was walking into.