Getting the others together was easier than expected at this time of night. Then again higher Vitality meant we needed less sleep, even if I usually tried to get as much as I could. So gathering them all up to meet in my room was pretty simple. It only took about fifteen minutes to get them all in the same room with me. Before they arrived at my room I used my one final Skill charge for the day to activate Seek Hidden, scanning the room for listening devices or bugs. The last thing I needed was to be eavesdropped on.

There weren't any. I had kind of figured. The executives lived in rooms like these, and there were literally thousands of them from what I knew. Monitoring the residents would be a full time job, not to mention invasive to some of the top brass, and we weren't important enough to merit specially planted bugs or ending up in a room designed to spy on someone. Still my power confirming it did make me feel much better about this discussion.

Once they got to the room I closed the door and made my way to the center of the space. I felt nervous and sort of exposed, and being in the middle of the room kind of helped for some reason. Like I was on stage or something. It made this feel less real. I cleared my throat nervously as they all shuffled in. Benny looked like he knew what I was going to do, which wasn't a shock. He knew me pretty well. He gave me an encouraging nod as I faced the girls, ready to finally tell them the truth.

Jessie and Callie were looking at me with confused expectation, completely unaware of what the hell was going on. I swallowed hard. "So. I called you guys in here because I wanted to tell you some things. You may have notices some...strangeness surrounding me. Fast rank ups, sources I shouldn't have, too many skills, that kind of thing. I'm sure you've been curious about it."

Callie gave Jessie a knowing smirk. "Alright, time for him to come clean. What was your bet again? Because mine was Unity's secret love child. No one knows what his power is, but it could totally be some weird video game related thing." She turned back to me. "No offense, but your power is NOT woodworking. Granted, even if it was you could just be Skill focused, but you rarely use wood for anything. That's realistic for an enchanter, but not for you personally. You're obsessed with min maxing and properly mixing abilities for combos."

I winced. Yeah my fake power was fine at first glance, but to anyone who knew me they would be aware just ignoring a big chunk of my powers would seem suspicious. I sighed and nodded. "Yeah, that's fair. I kind of phoned that in, but in my defense I wasn't planning for it to be an issue. Most people would assume I synergized my enchanting skill into something else." I turned to Jessie. "Her guess was...weird, but I could kind of see it. I'm guessing you have one too? I admit I'm curious to hear what you came up with."

Jessie grinned at me. "My guess was that you're some kind of video game elemental. Maybe a unique racial trait. It fits with all your powers and I bet it would make grinding up skill points way easier!" I blinked at her. That was...weirder. But actually kind of almost made sense? I should have expected something ridiculous but weirdly insightful from my bubbly blonde friend, it was kind of her MO.

We all just kind of stared at her in shock. She shrugged. "What? It kind of fits. Judging by the looks that isn't it but still, I stand by the guess. At least based on what we've seen from you. Plus it would explain Benny getting a power out of nowhere too! Like, you could have added him to your party and given him some kind of video game elixir or spell that would do the job. It makes perfect sense!"

That last part felt like a stretch to me honestly, but I could see her point in the abstract. She was good at thinking out of the box, and with the small amount of info she had I could understand the guess. I chuckled. "Sorry to break it to you but no. That's not even close. The game stuff is a Skill like I told you all. My actual power is less...overt. It's sort of a support ability. You've probably heard of it, or at least heard of someone who uses it, even if you didn't know the name or details of the actual power. My ability is called Wish."

Callie's eyes went wide. "No fucking way." Jessie looked at her confused and Callie laughed. "Right, everyone knows the original owner of that power but they don't know the power itself. It makes sense he would be able to pass it on though. Once you hit S rank your ability becomes integrated as a bloodline. All the skills that make it up merge into one single source and it can be passed on to children or grandchildren." She blinked. "You're a part of the Wishmaster's clan? That's...awesome."

I hadn't actually known most of that. It was interesting information. "Huh...I didn't really know the mechanism behind it. That makes sense that there's some kind of dividing line. But...yeah. The Wyndham family is the family of the past and current Wishmasters. In fact, the new Wishmaster is picked from among the family members. The current Wishmaster is about to set down the mantle, and someone with my ability is going to get it. Which is kind of the impetus behind a lot of things I'm going through. I'm one of the candidates."

She blinked at me, jaw hanging open. "Wait...as in, like to inherit the whole WCP? Because...Shane that's insane. The WCP is a universal power. They're the sixth faction level influence. The only reason they aren't part of the alliance is that they don't really hold territory. The Wishmaster's power made diplomacy a much easier thing for him, and he was able to grow the WCP through the other factions as opposed to around them, using his power as leverage for their leaders. At least as far as I know. Information gets murky that high up. Regardless the resources available...how are you not like already F ranked? I bet you can get any elixir you want."

I had to laugh at that. "No. Not even close honestly. As a candidate I have top level access to the WCP but I don't get anything free. My guardian says that if they did that it would turn into a competition between branches and not people, so they limit things. I have a black card that gives me unfettered access but I still have to pay for everything I get from there. I don't have even close to the resources to buy the kind of elixirs and items you're talking about. All I have is my power and some emotional support from my Uncle, and even that's pretty limited by circumstance."

The confused expression and cocked head were pretty obviously wondering about that comment. I smiled ruefully. "You know how I've been pretty sympathetic about your dad? Well, that's because mine is pretty shitty too. I grew up raised by my Uncle Zeke. Apparently he was my dad's best friend and he handed me over to him to protect. Except like a few months ago my old man sent me an email basically disowning me unless I got strong enough to come find him. To top it off he used his own abilities to put a geas on Zeke so he can only tell me certain things."

Callie's eyes widened at that. She swallowed hard. "I...wow. That explains some things." She walked over to stand next to me and pulled me into a hug, squeezing tightly. "I did say you could share whatever was going on with your dad with me, and I meant it. I'm here for you. Your situation sounds complicated as hell, but I'm here to listen." Her arms were warm around me and it felt nice to be supported like that. I'd never really been in a hugging sort of relationship with another person. It was...comforting.

Still, after a minute or two I pulled back, clearing my throat. "I appreciate that Callie, but I still have more to tell you about my powers and why I called you in here." I took her hand as she stepped away. She froze, looking into my eyes and I gave her a grateful smile. "It's noted though. And appreciated. I'll keep it in mind for later for sure." She nodded almost shyly as she pulled away, and I ignored the knowing smirks from Benny and Jessie.

I shook my head ruefully. "Anyway, the reason I told you all this, aside from it possibly being the reason the Heartripper Society wants to kill me, is that I have some ways to increase your power with my ability. My Wish power can do lots of things, and among them is grant skills or even stat points. I need fair compensation for that, but you can use skills or stats you don't use or need to trade for the ones you do. It basically lets you reallocate your points however you want or even add new ones based on what you want your power to be."

Callie jumped up excitedly. "That's why the sudden meeting! You think you can give me points in Might to help balance my power?" Her eyes were wide with excitement. "That would be perfect! It would cover my one weakness. More Might would let me use my shadows in combat directly and my utility would go through the roof! Not to mention the reputation bump from how much stronger I would get would help even more." She looked like she was about to squeal with joy, and I had to work hard not to laugh.

I nodded confirmation and turned to Jessie. "And you can focus all your stats you don't need into Vitality. Your ability is really specific, so that one stat is going to pretty much make you a serious threat. Other than maybe some Might to keep up physically you don't need much else besides possibly Creation. Being able to focus like that on one aspect of your build is going to make you much stronger than others at your level. I know being specifically focused on one stat is incredibly difficult, and my ability to rearrange them would help. You could definitely hit the top of the charts in the Vitality faculty."

She looked excited about that. "Yeah, Vitality is basically all I need. Creation only really comes into play if I MAKE plants and not grow them, which I don't really do. Might would make my plants stronger too so it would make sense to have as a secondary but I wouldn't need anything else. Maybe two to one Vitality to Might? Imagine how strong I could get!" Her eyes were blazing with excitement at the thought, I grinned at Benny who smiled back.

Telling them had gone much easier than expected. They'd been banking on something weirder anyway and had been open to hearing anything. They were excited rather than angry and while some of the energy was probably from shock, it was still about as well as this could have gone. I didn't know why I'd been so worried about telling them, but now with it out of the way we were ready to start getting stronger. Just like Benny though they would need to develop some skills or get some resources if they didn't want to lose too many stats, which meant one thing. We were heading back to the Academy. But before that, I had some things I wanted to test out.