I got the room closest to the big shower. I had given Callie three days worth of priority on wish granting. The others were annoyed but Callie was the only one who was strong enough to spar with me for it and I didn't feel like wasting the charges for the day. Once we got that settled everyone headed to their rooms and checked on our stuff. I fumed silently to myself at Zeke when I walked into the room by the bathroom I wanted and all of my things were in there. He'd given it to me ahead of time and I hadn't known it, but like hell was I going to admit he'd gotten me.

The rest of the day was just relaxing and having dinner (which i made, risotto to be exact) before heading to bed. The next morning found us all up and eager to face the day, getting ready for our return to the academy. I cooked breakfast and everyone sat down to discuss what we would be doing. I sat down and cut into my pancakes, looking up at the others. "So first off, we should discuss allocation of funds. Twelve hundred chits, we got extra for the two in perfect condition that Benny and Jessie took down. I suggest that two hundred go to them directly rather than being team funds."

I glanced to Callie, who was in charge, with a question on my face, and she smiled brightly back at me. "I was going to suggest that myself. Bonuses for good work are pretty standard, and having a hundred a piece in walking around money would be good for them. Especially being at H rank themselves, they can probably get their hands on some nice gear or materials. Or Jessie could look into rare seeds she could use. Those vines are useful, but there are all kinds of plants in the universe."

Jessie looked excited. "You think they might have some? I've been doing research but Callus has a pretty weak herbalism scene so I kind of resigned myself to waiting on that kind of thing. Having better seeds to use would really improve my combat abilities. Not to mention I could start looking into healing herbs to help level up my first aid Skill. I'm sure having a proper medic on the team would be useful, but my Lesser Florakinesis can only merge with first aid if it hits beginner before my next rank up."

That was definitely something I'd considered. i didn't know what that combination would make, but I was pretty sure it would be pretty damn useful to have on the team. Vitality was nice but it didn't instantly heal you unless yours was insanely high for your level or the source of the injury was insanely weak. I looked to Benny. "How about you, planning to buy yourself some new materials? Or did you want get some fancy clothes to show off for that pretty elf girl you couldn't stop staring at."

After all his teasing about Callie it was nice to mess with Benny about his love life a bit. He flushed bright red but no one else reacted. Benny hadn't really been subtle about his interest. Jessie stepped in to take the heat off him as a mercy. She raised a hand excitedly. "Are we going to ask her about the Fairieland? Because I've always wanted to learn more about it. It seems so amazing. I can't believe I met an actual elf." She paused, but couldn't resist a sly look at Benny to pile on. "She was so pretty too."

He groaned and dropped his head into his arms in exasperation. I just laughed and decided to be merciful. "Point is, you two did good work and you deserve to be rewarded. Clearly Callie agrees, and she's the boss. As for the other thousand we can invest it in the group. Maybe some enchanting materials I can use for gear. Or if it's enough maybe investing in a personal skyride so we don't have to keep using the guild's cars." I turned to look at Zeke. "Where would we get something like that by the way? And is a thousand H rank chits enough?"

He shrugged. "Might be. Depends where you go. Prices vary even among skyrides of the same rank. Not all cars are the same. Some are good for speed, some are better over long distances, some are defenses, and some are optimized for massive internal space. I've seen cars with entire apartments in the back of them, and they usually run a pretty penny, but you could buy a junker for less than a hundred. I can look into a dealer nearby that you can check out when you get back, assuming you're still heading out to the Academy."

I nodded. It was a toss up whether to bother, but in the end it was still a benefit. Plus Callie wanted to try getting on the Might rankings. My own Might was a bit low even with all my Skills to boost it. Though I could try to fix that. I turned to Callie. "I think we should start your three days of wishes tomorrow. That would let me get some Might points today, and I really need to beef mine up a bit." More than just physical strength, Might controlled the damage output of Skills that interacted with the physical world like my Monk techniques.

She agreed without hesitation. "Of course. I need to think about what Skill I can trade over too. The food memories are going to stop being valuable soon, I need to start doing what Benny and Jessie are doing. Maybe I could trade you memories of my tracking Skill and help you learn it. There's only so much cooking knowledge you can gain from eating dishes prepared by master chefs." She blushed a bit. "Also I'm losing way too many of my favorite meals and it's bumming me out. Like I don't remember what's missing obviously, but I remember my reaction to the memories."

I winced, that was probably smart. Skills could be regained and even stalling them was worth it if you could get better stats, but actual memories of experiences were a bit more unique. I made myself a promise to treat Callie to all the things she traded away again for the first time. We were working all the kinks out of this, but Skill memories seemed to be the sweet spot. They actually had a benefit and were a sacrifice, but not one that couldn't be recovered from like losing precious memories of experiences.

She seemed to sense the direction my thoughts took because she rolled her eyes, taking my hand. "Don't be an idiot, the food memory thing was my idea, I just think yours was better with the whole Skill thing anyway. I imagine we're going to have to actually rank the skills up though if we're going to keep using them to trade for points. I doubt a Minor Tracking skill will be enough once we start getting higher up. Even if the cost for raising points stat wise isn't higher, I'm guessing the payment starts to go up the higher the stat is." She looked at Zeke for confirmation.

My Uncle looked impressed. "Most don't catch that but yes. Points get harder to obtain as you get higher up, so despite using the same amount of power for just one, they're worth more. Not that one point makes much of a difference after a certain point." He looked at me curiously. "You tried making or trading two yet? With your Impact you should be in the strike zone, since it can cover part of the cost of other stats if necessary."

My eyes widened, I hadn't even considered that. Zeke picked that up too, from his expression. "Yeah, that innate perception that multiple points are difficult or impossible is one of the major reasons it's so expensive. Similar to the whole secrets thing, your powers work on a conceptual level. Each point past one gets exponentially harder to trade for in terms of cost. Two should be doable for now, with more coming as you go. I doubt you'll manage more than five before you get to F rank, even with the modifier."

Even two would double my daily point intake though, or output, but I doubted low level skill memories would be enough to pay for wishes at the scale Zeke was talking about. Until they could get the resources to actually pay for them I was pretty sure the one point boosts were the most I could manage for my friends, at least unless they decided to trade points from other stats to respec. Two points of Fantasy should be enough for two points of Might, or at least that made sense to me.

I finished my pancakes and stood up, dropping my dishes in the sanitizer."So we head out to the Academy today, and I'll try out my ability to get two points with one wish. Ten more Might would be a much bigger advantage than five obviously." I considered possibly spreading out the wishes over more people to try to lessen the impact of losing so much though, ten points gone, even if you got them replaced, would probably be noticeable.

The others finished eating and we all got ready, suiting up and heading out to the car. As usual Jessie drove, and the rest of us discussed possible materials that Benny could get for new gear. My personal vote was for something Fantasy based. I grinned eagerly at my friend. "The random nature of inventing would be even more random with that stat, but it opens up the possibility of even more amazing gear." He seemed intrigued by the possibility, but Callie shook her head, disagreeing.

Her face was contemplative, but she seemed pretty certain about her conclusions. "I'd recommend against that. Not because it couldn't yield good results, but mostly because the results are too random for the amount of money we have. If we had the chits to pour into getting a bulk amount of Fantasy materials and just letting Benny crank out gear until he got something good I would say go for it, but with our plans to buy a skyride and you only having a hundred chits to spend on your own I think it's too big of a gamble."

I conceded the point. "That's a valid point. It might be an idea with great potential rewards but it isn't cost effective. Probably put a pin in that for later, in the meantime probably Vitality then. If Fantasy is the most likely to to produce something random, I'd say other than Might, Vitality is probably the most predictable stat in terms of outcome. It only does a few things.Granted it's not completely predictable, it might bring the invention to life like it did for Tock. But you have a decent shot at some kind of healing or energy boosting item."

We spent the next hour or two discussing possible outcomes and different combinations that might work well, Benny had been researching different materials to look out for. While inventing couldn't be predicted because of all the varying factors he could still make an educated guess about the general direction certain combinations would take, and understanding materials helped make that more viable.

Finally though, we arrived at the field outside the Academy, hopping out and stretching after the long car ride. I took a long deep breath, enjoying the air. We'd texted the people from Grimmengap on the way so they would know we were coming today, this was around when we'd talked about meeting them, but a bit earlier so we wanted to let them know. We'd arranged a meeting at the crafting hall, since they had to sell their own materials and we were buying new ones. Looking to the others to confirm we were ready we all set off in that direction. I had to admit, I was excited to hear more about the most mysterious faction.