Tales of your exploits have begun to spread. You have done a great deed and whispers of your power are disseminating in the ether. You've received fifteen points of Vitality, twenty five points of Focus, forty points of Perception, and thirty nine points of Might!

My eyes just about bugged out of my head as I read that, though they were pretty quickly occupied by rolling up into my the back of my head as my entire body started to basically tear itself apart from the changes.

I'd never gotten anywhere close to this amount of points in one shot before. I'd been expecting a small twinge, maybe something like when I'd taken that pill, but this was on a whole different level in terms of pain. It occurred to me belatedly that the last time I'd gotten a huge amount of renown all at once I'd been unconscious when it had hit. I hadn't gotten this much when I'd stopped Aiden either, though what I had gotten hadn't hurt. I wondered if the slower trickle of note had resulted in less dramatic changes or if the delay somehow increased the pain. Hell, maybe it was just the scale. I'd only gotten fifteen points tops of my highest boosted stat before.

Regardless of the reason, I was in fucking agony. My Perception had increased drastically, which stacked with the already horrible pain from what I assumed was a huge shift in my recovery abilities from Vitality, and a complete cognitive upgrade from Focus was giving me massive returns on investment in terms of horrifying pain. I wanted to black out from the sensation overload, but sadly I wasn't that lucky. Everyone else seemed to be stiff with pain as well, so it wasn't just me. Once the misery faded I let myself exhale in relief as I pulled up my sheet to see where I was at.

Wishmaster candidate status. G-rank. Ability: Beginner Wish- Five times a day grant a Beginner wish in return for proper compensation. Wish must be feasibly achievable by the candidate's own efforts within a three day period with current statistics. Might 97 Impact 12 Fantasy 21 Vitality 44 Focus 63 Perception 80 Creation 32 Skills: Beginner Doom Sovereign Mastery,Lesser Enchanting Mastery, Lesser Cooking Mastery,Lesser Inventing Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Gymnastics Mastery, Minor Swimming Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor Singing Mastery,Minor Poker Mastery, Minor Archery Mastery, Minor Boxing Mastery, Minor Balam Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Minor Herbalism Mastery

I had to choke down a whistle at the progress. I'd made some serious strides in terms of raw power. I was nearly where Callie had been in terms of Might. I wondered briefly about why I hadn't managed to get any Fantasy or Creation, but looking back I hadn't really used either of those attributes where people could see. The Might was probably from all the damage I'd managed with stacked attacks like the one I'd used on Raleigh, the Perception from the acumen I showed in tracking with Seek Hidden, the Vitality was most likely a side effect of Jessie's ability letting me keep going nonstop, and the Focus was probably just people assuming we actually had an idea of what we were doing.

All in all I could see the reasoning behind why people would have focused on those stats to the exclusion of others. Looking around, I grinned. I could see that, as I had expected, every member of Grimmengap had advanced to G rank alongside us. It wasn't a huge shock really, they'd been middle to high H rankers to begin with, and I'd gotten more than a hundred points just from this one event. Granted, they had done less, and because there was less obvious impressive footage had almost definitely gotten less, but it was pretty obvious they would make it over the line from this either way.

I could see the new Impact just by looking obviously, the weight of their presence on the world pressing down on reality six times more firmly than they had before. I was sure they were much more powerful. Professor Tricks had been extremely clear about the fact that the stream would blatantly favor our group, making sure to cherry pick the footage for as many premium moments for the team as possible to gain maximum yield for points.

I had no idea how it worked, but he'd stated up front that they had long since developed formulas to plot out what stats would benefit most from which areas of the city and demographics, all to make sure to get as many points for each member of the winning team as possible. It would have exponential effects too. The people who remembered us would be more likely to show their friends, not to mention more likely to spread future deeds once we established out identities outside the Academy.

It was almost scary how efficient they were at it, but it did make sense. Cultivation was a way of life, so it was obvious the academy would have people who studied trends and psychological conditions to try to make the most out of the most precious resource a cultivator had. Fame. Hell, so much of our interaction with them had already made it clear that every facet of society was structured to get the most possible renown in the most efficient way., Even the existence of lower ranked cultivators served to act as a standard by which elites could be measured, and therefor praised.

I popped to my feet easily, feeling light and nimble. The gravity around me was literally exponentially weaker than it had been, and I jumped much to high and actually slammed into the ceiling with a crash. I actually got stuck in the plaster, even with the barely noticeable push I'd used for the motion, and it took a few seconds for them to pull me free, with the newly ascended G ranker doing most of the work since they had less to get acclimated to.

I fell back the ground, landing on my ass with a thud, and stayed extremely still. Callie gave me a reassuring smile. "Careful there." She turned to the room at large. "We all should be. This is the biggest boost in stats I think any of us have ever had. In terms of percentage I think several of us just had some stats outright double." She looked at Cark, who mostly seemed fine. "I'm guessing you probably got the smallest comparative boost given your already absurd Might stat. You should be mostly ok to move around right?"

The big bounty nodded. "Yeah, Might was most of my boost, it went up by about eighty. The more powerful you are the bigger the impression, but you reach a point of diminishing returns on big jumps like this I think. That or there just isn't enough people to support more, but that seems unlikely. Yes though, that eighty wasnt even a twenty five percent increase."

I cursed. This kind of issue wouldn't be as big of a problem later then. We would just have to acclimate to the boost slowly over time. I looked over at Celine awkwardly. "Sorry about your ceiling by the way. I can pay for it I'm sure." They'd let us come use their room and we hadn't even been smart enough to keep it from being wrecked. Well, ok I hadn't been smart enough. Still though, it would be shitty to ignore it. The plaster was seriously mauled. I was just lucky this place had such a high ceiling or I might have gone right through the whole floor.

The elf girl just chuckled, waving it off. "It's a dorm, and as someone technically on a diplomatic mission they'll hardly make me pay for it myself. You can count this as them paying for their own failure to warn any of us. We probably would have done it by accident if you hadn't. Besides, ranking up is easily worth the fees even if they had made us pay. The lifespan increase alone is staggering. Not to mention all the publicity will make ranking up again that much easier. You've done us a tremendous favor."

Now it was my turn to wave off a comment. "No way. You guys stuck by us through the siege and even helped us make it out. I know you were a huge help to Jessie with her tree defenses, and Sarah was invaluable in the Necropolis. Regardless, if you arent against sharing your secrets a bit, what did you all get the most stats in? I know it's a bit personal to ask for the actual numbers, but I figure sharing our biggest gains shouldn't be a problem. Mine was forty in Perception. Though again no pressure."

Mostly I didn't want Cark to be stuck as the only one sharing. He'd told us his before I mentioned the possibility of keeping it quiet, and given all he'd done for us a bit of solidarity was the least I could do. The others had gotten theirs more spread out I think, because hearing my number made them all flinch in genuine shock. Or maybe it was just that no one had gotten nearly as much in the way of perception points. Benny, always happy to have my back, raised a hand to get everyone's attention. "Well my highest was Focus at thirty."

That was pretty damn impressive. I could only assume they had included some production clips from him or something. I knew he did some crafting just to stay sharp, and as an inventing based ability user it made sense to lean into that stat. It just went to show that they had done some serious research into us before cutting things together. Focus was one of Benny's main stats and an integral one to Inventing.

Jessie was up next, and I could tell she wasn't even hesitant about sharing. "Fifty Vitality. Not as much as Cark, but I did pretty well. I think being in multiple roles all dependant on the same stat helped give me a bit of a boost. I got a pretty big chunk in a few others too, and even unlocked a stat I didn't have before. I'm pretty happy with how all of this turned out."

Callie seemed the least excited. She just shrugged. "Thirty points in Creation. Not my preference exactly but it does make sense based on what they saw me doing, and it does play a role in my ability even if it isn't my current main focus. Seems like they tried to push us each into a specific role to maximize our gains. Using footage that highlights a distinct strong point seems like a good way to ensure we all made the biggest possible impression on the audience." When she finished she very carefully didn't look at Celine, obviously trying not to pressure her to go next just because we already mentioned ours.

Celine and the others weren't strangers though, and they were happy to share. Celine got twenty five Vitality as her highest, while Sarah had twenty Creation and Martin had twenty Might. All much lower than ours, but then they had spent quite a bit of time in the background so it made sense they wouldn't have made an impression as big as ours. It seemed like the Academy knew what it was doing though because they'd all gotten enough to rank up and that was plenty for them.

With all of having shared and gone through our upgrades we were all kind of clamoring to get home. We agreed to wait until the next day to check our ranking boosts and set up a time to meet and sell off some of our materials from the hunt before heading home. Then my team and I headed for our skyride, offering to give Cark a lift back to our place where Zeke would be watching Cass still. He accepted of course and we all piled into the car, glad this was finally over. Of course, we still had to discuss the rest of our stat acquisitions, but that could wait. For now we could just relax.