We got home in short enough order, Jessie driving of course, and headed inside to check in on Cass. When we arrived we found her sitting in front of a huge screen, watching a replay of the stream from the scavenger hunt. Since she hadn't been able to come with us, she hadn't gotten to see everything that happened, but watching all of our adventures during the stream, not to mention the adventures of the other teams was obviously thrilling to her.

I had to admit, the people at the Academy knew their stuff. Not only had they strung together all that footage in a way that firmly made us look like the stars, they'd managed to create a cohesive narrative with the clips they picked. The way they arranged it made sure not only that the other teams looked good and got a bit of screen time too, but that the impression they left made them more impressive as a counterweight to us, making us seem even more powerful in comparison. Punching out a bear is way more impressive if you just watched that bear kill a mountain lion, so to speak.

Watching the video, which maintained a stable and compelling storyline, even I thought we looked pretty damn impressive. Cass was sitting on the couch in the middle of the orange living room, hiding her face behind her hand and watching it from between her fingers whenever she found a point where her brother was in a fight too big for him to handle. She gasped and cheered and was clearly completely enraptured in the action. I wondered if someone at the academy had some kind of stoytelling Skill, because this was actually really good.

We didn't have the heart to interrupt her, so we went over to check with Zeke, who was sitting on a different couch, arm thrown over his eyes and clearly trying to sleep. Despite not being able to see us, when we came inside and walked over behind the couch it was simple for someone with his Perception to notice us. "You're back. Good, you can watch the kid now, I'm going to sleep. I'm counting this job as over, you can make crepes for breakfast to make the wait up to me." He hopped to his feet, landing nimbly, and reminding me of my own humiliating mistake earlier.

Despite his apathetic words he shot another look over at Cass to make sure he was ok, and I had to smile internally. My Uncle liked to pretend to be a lazy good for nothing, but he was a big softie deep down. He'd acted the same way about me when I was a kid. I could tell he liked the kid, and I decided I would check and see if Cark wanted to take one of the spare rooms here. The place was huge anyway, and having them around would be convenient as well as fun. Besides, Cass livened things up around here. Having someone who wasn't a cultivator nearby would make sure we did things other than train.

Of course I'd check with Callie and with Cark himself before I offered in front of the kid, but I didn't see anyone having a problem with it. Now wasn't the time for that conversation though, so while Cark stayed downstairs with Cass the four of us went up to talk over our new stats in their entirety. We picked one of the training rooms, but rather than start the training we just sat down to go over what everyone got. Since we'd already chosen sort of an order I decided to tell them everything I got first, and when I finished, everyone seemed pretty impressed.

Benny was the one who seemed most annoyed. "Man, other than Focus I didn't get any huge lump sums like that. I'm guessing all that Might came from some of those huge blows you landed. I saw that one that put Raleigh down and that was fucking monstrous. Other than the thirty focus I got ten Creation, which was a new stat for me, fifteen Vitality, five Might, fifteen Perception, and ten Fantasy. No clue why I got any Fantasy at all to tell the truth, probably one of my item effects, but still, that was another new one and marks a full unlock for all my stats so I'm not complaining." He wrote out all his totals just to be clear.

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 40 Impact 12 Fantasy 10 Vitality 31 Focus 75 Perception 17 Creation 10 Current integrated tech. 8/10. 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. Skills: Minor Cooking Mastery, Beginner Inventing Mastery, Minor Haggling Mastery, Minor Stealth Mastery

I had expected him to get more Might, but I supposed he'd been kind of playing a background role and relying more on his support abilities. Maybe the Fantasy was from his tranq punches. It also explained why he hadn't seemed nearly as fucked up from the stat dump, since his were more spread out. I noted he'd also gotten less overall than me, but that made sense since Callie and I were the stronger of the four of us, and the recent G rank members of our team probably stood out less in comparison.

Jessie was up next, and she seemed just as excited to share as before. "As I mentioned, I got a full Fifty points in Vitality, which as you might expect was my largest gain. I did get a decent bump in both Creation and Fantasy though, at twenty each. That was basically it though. I didn't get any new stat unlocks like Benny did. I guess my ability is one of the ones that people tend to typecast as using certain stats. I'm super pissed I didn't get any Might especially, but I figure I can move some of those Fantasy stats around." She wrote hers out just like Benny had.

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 32 Impact 12 Fantasy 28 Vitality 108 Creation 28 Skills: Beginner Horticulture,Beginner First Aid, Minor Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement

She wasn't wrong, people had definitely focused more on her healing related stats, but still, she got some use out of most of those. Not Fantasy so much, but those were good points fodder to buff up her other main stats. Her Vitality had already passed a hundred, which was nuts. It had taken me ages to get a stat past a hundred, but to be fair I had sort of gone out of my way to keep my points more evenly spread.

Finally it was Callie's turn. I knew she'd gotten a huge bump in Creation, which was still helpful even if she would have preferred Might. I was sure she'd gotten at least some Might points though. She'd been kicking plenty of ass in the hunt. Creation would be a big help to her though. Creation helped her make MORE shadows, while might gave them physical presence and Vitality gave them enhanced mobility as she could breathe more life into them.

She didn't seem upset though, like I'd noted, and she talked as she wrote out her totals. "As mentioned I got a big bump in Creation. Other than that I also managed to get another twenty Might, twenty five Perception, eighteen Vitality, twenty five Fantasy, and twenty eight Focus. Focus was the biggest change for me, and where most of the pain that hit me during the upgrade came from I think. Still, all in all I'm happy with the outcome. I think the big Focus boost shows that people had a good impression of me as a leader and a tactician, which I'm happy about. The other stuff is mostly shine on the apple, those stats were already high."

Calliope Reynolds -G rank. Ability: Beginner Shadow embodiment- The ability to control and shape shadows either molding them into constructs of imbuing them into specially prepared objects to enable enhancement and control. Might 127 Impact 12 Vitality 164 Fantasy 75 Focus 68 Perception 175 Creation 142 Skills: Minor Tracking.Beginner Stealth, Beginner Disguise, Lesser Balam Mastery

It was interesting how clean Callie's sheet looked compared to the rest of ours. She had less skills, but they were all much higher than most of ours, and while she was obviously focused on specific stats her points were pretty spread out. It was intimidating to see what proper understanding and a good build could do for you. Callie had created a strong foundation that made continued progress much simpler. I was just hoping that we'd managed the same for Jessie and Benny. My build was basically a lost cause.

Callie looked absolutely thrilled with everyone's growth. "This is amazing guys. I can't begin to tell you how quickly we're improving compared to most teams." I was pretty sure we had a decent idea, but it was nice to know she was happy with the results. We also had tons of spare points now to funnel into more important stats from ones we used less. I was able to grant wishes like that even at my own suggestion, because a one for one points exchange was inherently fair as far as my power was concerned.

We had all this gear to sell too, and all that money was bound to give us new opportunities to grow. Even if we couldn't turn it directly into strength (which we could in some ways since none of us had even scratched our ten percent elixir limit in G rank) we could still benefit from the cash. We could buy expensive powerful gear, hire people to run us through missions, or hell, post our own missions to take care of problems.

After we discussed our future plans a bit more, and talked each other out of peeking at our Academy coins before the agreed upon meeting time, we officially decided it was time for bed. Benny and Jessie got up and headed back to their rooms, leaving Callie and I alone. I pulled her against me and we both slumped back onto the floor to stare up to the ceiling. I spoke casually. "So, we got through it. When were you thinking we would go back to visit your mom?"

She snuggled into my side, sighing happily. "Not sure, don't want to think. I'm just so damn relaxed. I've been stressed as hell during this whole thing. I know I'm not the only one who has to be responsible for the rest of the group, but being the leader makes it feel like that. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate you guys putting your faith in me, but it's still a lot. I'm going to enjoy some downtime."

I felt the same way and told her so, and she smiled leaning over to kiss me soundly before getting up. "Alright well I'm heading to sleep. Get some rest, I need you in top form tomorrow, we have to sell all that stuff. I know Benny has the haggling skill, but I trust your judgement." She turned and strolled off down the hallway, a bounce in her step. I hopped to my feet and stretched widely. I was a bit tired, plus I had to get up in the morning to make breakfast. There was no point in forcing myself to cook sleepy. With that I headed off to bed, thinking about what Callie had said. Hopefully things would stay this peaceful.