The swim was relaxing and fun, of course. I'd always loved swimming, and despite not having been in the water like that for years I took to it quickly. Still, it didn't last forever, and after we all finished our swim we spent the rest of the evening just chilling out and talking, learning more about each other and introducing ourselves to everyone else sans masks for the first time since we'd met them.

In the end though we finished our downtime and realized we still needed to actually work, so Callie got back into looking around for someone who needed what we had, and she finally found something. She was poring over her screen with interest, scanning through documents, when she finally froze for a second and then let out a whoop of joy. "Yes! We got something. Someone has been running searches on that stupid red crystal butterfly, and they even searched it by name. Unless they have an appraiser and found another one, the only reason I could think of for that to happen would be if it was on their list."

That was actually kind of disappointing. I thought the butterfly was kind of cool, and being able to link it to a loved one and always know they were alright was kind of sweet. Still it was admittedly kind of limited, though the fact that it worked from anywhere was a dimension of power that explained why it was G rank. Being able to maintain its effect across the whole universe was pretty crazy, even if that effect was mainly sentimental in nature.

I leaned over her shoulder to try to read the details, but she smacked me away with a glare. "I keep telling you not to do that, it drives me nuts when people read over my shoulder." I stuck my tongue out at her childishly, which turned her glare into a smirk she had to actively suppress, but she shook off her amusement and annoyance both pretty quickly and focused on the details again. "Anyway, the information here implies someone nearby is looking for what we have, and hopefully they have something we need to trade for it."

I took a step back, trying to stand up on my toes to read over her shoulder from farther away, which got me a sharp glance but no actual comment from my girlfriend. "Ok, but does it say where they actually are? We won't be able to trade with them if we can't find them. Also we need to do some recon on the group in question before we make contact. If they're too much stronger they're more likely to fight it out and try to rob us. While peaceful cooperation isn't prohibited here, it IS way less attractive than being a greedy bastard and just taking everything."

Callie shrugged. "It's a false dichotomy. That option is always available no matter where you are. Anyone you meet could decide to rob you blind, as Zeke so generously reminded us. The question here is whether people will get backed into a mental corner by the hunt. The Academy specifically framed the interaction here to be combative, but the fact is that we don't HAVE to fight each other. Alliances and cooperation are a viable option, unless someone makes them UNviable by refusing to acknowledge them."

I could see her point. The Academy wanted us to compete to sharpen us, but I was sure we would be just as heavily rewarded for finding other solutions. Cultivators had a very 'ends justify the means' sort of mindset, but that sort of made it easy to hyperfocus on violence as a solution. We spent so much time gaining power that USING that power in a way that made us gain more became as natural as breathing. Some of that was recursion for sure, but some of it was just the human tendency to take the path of least resistance.

Not that I thought we could revolutionize cultivator society or some nonsense. But knowing the problem made it easy to look out for it in ourselves and others. Falling into the trap of always resorting to brute force might seem like the best way approach every problem given all the attention it got us, but achieving results was it's own form of advertising. Making ourselves more well rounded and policing our cultivator instincts to just blow shit up when it made us angry was likely to yield positive results long term.

Not to mention gaining a reputation for that kind of deliberation and foresight would have recursive benefits for the way we thought in the first place, forming a virtuous cycle. "You have me convinced, and I'm sure you can manage to talk the people we need to work with into it too, but the fact remains we have no idea whether they have what we need, and you still haven't said if you know where they are."

She grinned at me, gesturing out the opening in the side of the building where the ravens would exit. "We have the best possible recon specialist, and as for where they are, yes I do have a heading. Granted it's hard to know exactly how far they are with only two points of data to rely on, but I can at least estimate distance. Jessie will be able to reach them with her ravens and we can feel out their response to a peaceful trade."

I hoped Callie's plan worked out. Being able to avoid combat would be nice. Granted I would kick some ass if it was necessary, and I did LIKE battle. But I was a bit exhausted with the normal combat grind. Which actually gave me an idea. "You think we could tip the balance on either of things in our favor? I've been wanting to experiment with my Wish ability more, and we saw from the siege that we can do more than just directly effect things. Can you think of any ways we might be able to use that?"

I could, a few of them, but I knew that if I gave her the ideas for the wishes they wouldn't be viable. She needed to come up with them on her own, though I could steer her in the right direction if she couldn't think of anything after a bit of time. I wasn't sure that just telling her the answer would make the wish invalid, but since I wanted this to work for my own sake too, it seemed like it was safer to let her come to her own conclusions Honestly there was a decent chance that she would come up with a better idea than me anyway.

Callie was, of course, more than up to the challenge, and immediately got to work considering the issue. Rather than jump the gun she decided to talk out her decision out loud, which was fine as long as I didn't try to tweak the wish to benefit me more. "There are a few ways to do that. Wishing for them to be more open to negotiation seems...wrong. Aside from mind control like that being a slippery slope I doubt a wish like that would be cheap anyway. I was ok wishing for the sleepers to be pushed a specific direction, but they were already being controlled."

I felt the same way. "Agreed. I don't like the mind control thing, it reminds me too much of the Black Sorrow Cult. People's brains belong to them, I don't like monkeying with that." Just because I could do something didn't mean I should. The versatile nature of my Wish ability was a responsibility as well as a benefit. That was presumably why my power always gave me the choice to grant a wish or not. If someone tried to wish for something awful I was free to decline the request.

Callie didn't look finished though. "That said, there are other options. We know that Wishes can play with probability, but what about things like Quantum Uncertainty. If we assume that the group closest to us will find something new soon, we can leverage the fact that no one knows what that is. Considering the Wish ability and how it interacts with secrets, I bet shifting undiscovered materials out for other more useful ones would be way less expensive than any changes to something that had already been found."

I blinked. I could follow the logic on that. It was like looking in a box. Once you checked the box you knew what was in it, but until you opened it hypothetically anything could be in the box. Callie was guessing that it would be cheaper to wish for something specific to be in the box than to change the object you already knew was there. It was actually brilliant considering how attention and belief interacted with stats. Like she'd said, the whole secrets thing proved that my wishes were heavily impacted by perception, whether public or personal.

It also explained the luck thing a bit. Good luck was notoriously fickle. No one had any reason to believe they would specifically have good luck at any given time, we'd mostly been conditioned to think of it as completely random. That impression most likely helped leverage my power more efficiently without the need to fight back against an entrenched mindset that something couldn't happen. Once again I found myself in awe of the original Wishmaster, who had apparently created my ability.

What was more impressive was that when he'd done it as far as I knew the Unity didn't exist yet. Ability based cultivation was a relatively new thing, which meant the Wishmaster was most likely using the job system or something similar when he created the skillset I was using and brought it up to a high enough level to become a bloodline. It was a crazy thought, and made me wonder exactly how many skills had gone into the Wish ability and exactly how long it had taken to get them all, synergize them, and continue to improve them all together until he reached S rank with the result.

Callie worried at her lip for a minute as she collected her thoughts. She had the idea but she wanted to make sure she optimized her wish based on what we knew about my powers. Things like conceptual resistance (the name I'd just made up for the fact that widespread belief made some actions inefficient) and the potential benefits versus costs of making vague wishes that my power had to compensate for. The Balam wish had turned out well but it had also cost a LOT, and we were pretty sure it was because of all the heavy lifting my power had to do.

Finally she seemed to settle on her exact wording, speaking carefully and slowly as if deliberating even as she voiced the wish on how to structure it best. "I wish that nearby group that needs the Heartbeat Monarch will stumble on something from our list as their next find." She looked like she was considering making it more specific or adding conditions but eventually just nodded as if satisfied with the outcome. She smirked and reached into the box. "In payment I offer you sole ownership of this cane as the leader of the team that found it."

I grinned. If I'd been using it that would have still meant it was team property, but offering me the actual object to own made it a valid for of payment. I felt the rising static across the surface of my body even as I saw the words roll across my vision in purple flaming letters.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed.

Stat points sufficient. Requirements: 36 Impact, 63 Fantasy, 150 Might, 96 Creation.

Since it didn't say compensation required I assumed that was enough to pay it off, and I immediately confirmed again. I felt the static charge build through me before finally exploding out, dissolving into the ether. I slumped down into a chair. Now we just had to wait, and let Jessie's ravens do the work.