After breakfast we went and got the others, It was decided we could do the debrief on how they'd grown on the way, so piled into the car after saying goodbye to Cass and Cark and headed for the Academy. As usual Jessie drove, because we wanted to arrive at our destination via landing and not smash into the ground in a horrifying explosion of twisted metal. Callie had mostly gotten used to being forbidden to operate the thing, so she hardly even pouted, though I was secretly glad she hadn't stopped completely because she had a gorgeous pout, not that I would tell her that to her face.

Benny, being the one who wasn't driving, was the first one to catch us up, after hearing about our own growth. "Damn, that's an impressive jump for both of you. I went up twenty five Perception, twenty Might, and shockingly twenty Creation. That last one kind of confused me, but I have to assume someone was talking about the origin of my ability being Inventing."

"Only real downside is that I guess I got Creation instead of Focus." He said. "Which is what I needed, but I can always trade some attacks for more points in that." He shuddered at the idea. "Those spider leg attack hurt a ton, but it sounds like you got some serious use from them. I might be willing to try again sometime. Anyway this was what I ended up with."

Benicio Cortez- G rank. Ability: Lesser Mechanical Embodiment- Allows the integration of existing inventions into the users body for the purposes of strengthening and enhancing them.

Might 84 Impact 12 Fantasy 10 Vitality 31 Focus 75 Perception 42 Creation 30 Pet: Wolf named Rolf Current integrated tech. 9/10. 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. Chest: Pair of golden G rank spider legs that arch up from the shoulders. Skills: Minor Cooking Mastery, Beginner Inventing Mastery, Minor Haggling Mastery, Minor Stealth Mastery

It was solid gains. Now that I had those three mandatory wishes reserved for the Beast Lord Garden, an attack stockpile was the best way to help my friends grow from here, and I needed it badly myself. I'd burned off most of mine during the battle but they'd been indispensable to the fight as a whole. Plus Benny's stats were so low already that the additions to Creation and Perception provided at least a solid baseline for him to work with. No matter how specialized, it was a good idea to have at least some foundation on the other stats, especially something like Perception.

Jessie's cheerful voice rang out from the front seat. "Wow, not bad at all. I got a huge points dump into Vitality, obviously. Fifty points directly. I also got twenty five in Focus, probably for the mental component of beast taming, and oddly fifteen points in Perception, most likely from using my raven to scout out Cicero's tent before we went in." I could hear the annoyance in her voice. "Once again I'm absurdly specialized without even trying. Though it's nice I at least managed to get my last two stats unlocked. It feels...strange. Hard to describe. I ended up with this though, stat wise."

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 52 Impact 12 Fantasy 28 Vitality 191 Focus 25 Perception 15

Creation

8 Pets:

Wolf named Lily and bear named Randall (F-rank)

Skills:

Beginner Horticulture, Beginner First Aid, Minor Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement, Minor Beast Taming Mastery

It was staggering how high Jessie's Vitality was given how low her total point count was, but then again her power WAS life. I couldn't think of anyone whose ability exemplified a stat so perfectly anywhere else I had seen. It was truly staggering. It also explained how fast she was growing. Fifty points was a crazy amount, but it made sense. Our world tended to favor big flashy feats, and Jessie's healing had always been staggeringly effective whenever it was used. She was naturally suited to rapid growth whenever she was in battle, especially with a tamed beast like Randall.

I was honestly wondering if we should bring her with us to the tournament anyway, but it seemed unlikely to go well. Even if Randall could keep up she wouldn't be able to, and I had no way of getting her to F-rank fast enough to be viable. Hell, I wasn't sure WE would be viable. We were bound to run into people just as established in the F-ranks as Abel was in the G-ranks. Could we even take someone like that? They wouldn't BE Abel obviously, because then we would just get crushed, but we had a long way to go, and I had a feeling I would need every advantage to make it through.

Still, we'd all made great progress from this, and it was nice to hear. I was particularly glad that Jessie and Benny had slept through their gains too. Given how large the percentage jump had been, I was guessing it wouldn't have been pleasant to experience awake. It made me wonder if letting the points slowly come in your sleep was the proper way to do things and the Academy had encouraged us to take the points dump to scare us away from rushing too fast. If so, it was a pretty effective method, even if it hadn't actually worked for us.

I decided to change topics though, because we had a big one to discuss. "What are the chances there are other jobs to do with what we found? I mean, it was a pretty big conspiracy. With all that information already out it's only a matter of time before it leaks, might as well cash in on the points before it hits the grapevine."

"Should be decent." Callie said contemplatively. "I mean, we'll need to talk to Celine about the details since she knows the place pretty well, but there's no way we haven't moved up the scale on what missions we can take. We might need to do some of the tests over and crank our rankings a bit. But that might be a good idea anyway. If nothing else, Jessie has a pretty amazing Vitality stat. I don't actually know what the Vitality test entails but getting her rank up will give her some regular points that should boost her overall ranking."

I groaned a bit at the thought of all the numbers needed to calculate the rankings. There were so many factors, it really boggled the mind. The only upside to this whole mess was the the tournament was going to be far more important than the local one that usually took place, so we didn't need to bother with trying to rank up to join. I was pretty sure the Moonsong Glade tournament was one you could just join, though I should probably learn the details soon.

All of that was a problem for future Shane though. I decided to tease my best friend instead. "So, Benny. Haven't seen your girl in a while huh? Think she's going to be mad you haven't been around? Or have you been sneaking away for long soulful phone calls every night to check in?" He had, and I knew that, which was why I said it in the most irritating way possible. In reality I thought it was sweet, but I also remembered him constantly harassing me about Callie, and I was owed vengeance.

My best friend narrowed his eyes at me. "A joke about me being too attentive? How clever. Did you come up with that this morning while you were making your girlfriend her extravagant breakfast?" Callie smirked a bit at that, though whether it was from amusement at the barb or happiness at the memory itself I had no idea.

I brushed off the shoulder of my coat. "Extravagant? Oh, I'm sorry, is an omelette a difficult meal for you to prepare. I'm happy to do things for Callie but it was hardly necessary to put myself out for such a simple recipe. I think you're confusing my effort with your own incompetence." My faux haughty tone got a legitimate laugh from my girlfriend this time. Alone with an eyeroll.

"Alright you idiots." She said through her laughter. "You're both stoic badasses who don't wear your hearts on your sleeves and remain a mystery to those around you. Can we get back on topic now? I swear, going anywhere with the two of you is like herding cats." Despite the mocking words her tone was fond as she curled against me, and I put my arm around her as I laughed along.

Benny snickered a bit too. We both knew we were being stupid, but familiar childhood rituals were comforting. We spent the next hour or two talking about possible missions we could do to improve our rankings, provided we had enough time to squeeze them in. We wouldn't obviously, but it was nice to just go over some of the tasks we'd seen when we were first at the information hall from the perspective of someone with much more strength and ability than we could possibly have imagined when we first got to the Academy.

Part of me wanted to go challenge Fisher or one of the other heavy hitters from the scavenger hunt, just to see what they were capable of and how their growth stacked up to us. I dismissed it immediately, it seemed pretty unlikely they had managed to keep up Though Fisher in particular had been pretty terrifying and had a hell of a reputation for a freshman. Maybe he would surprise us. Plus there were always elixirs. Even if he did though, I doubted he would have the combat ability of members of the Titan Twenty. Looking back, Beat and Sever were exponentially scarier than any of the freshman we had come across, and they were the weakest of that lineup.

When we finally arrived at the school, we headed straight for Grimmengap's dorm. Sarah answered, and beamed as soon as she saw us. Stepping forward to give us each a hug. "Hey, guys! It's so good to see you. Been busy lately? We haven't heard from you in a while." She shot Benny a wink. "Celine has been extra quiet lately, and that's saying something. I don't think she's mad or anything, but she always seems happier when you're around."

My best friend's face lit up a bit at the thought that the pretty elf girl was so affected by his presence, and even I didn't have the heart to tease him about his obvious excitement. Jokes aside, I was really happy for Benny. I hoped he found with Celine what I had with Callie, and I reached down to lace my fingers with hers at the thought. She didn't look away from Sarah, but she squeezed my hand, her cheeks flushing slightly.

We headed inside to chat with the others before heading down to the information hall, and as we walked in I looked around with a wide smile. It felt...strange, to be back. It had been such a short time really, but we'd changed so much. Still, it was comfortable. We hadn't spent much time in the dorm, but it had been warm and welcoming for the time we had spent, it was nice to be back. I hoped not too long from now our friends would feel the same way about the pavilion. Until then it was just nice to be back.