We ended up back at the Academy the next day, specifically in the dorms. We'd decided to ask Celine a bit about whatever F rank events were going on around here. Chances were good she would know, given her sources at the school and her position as a diplomat. Of course, some questions were still unanswered, like how Carl would even get to F rank in time if he was planning to enroll, but I was pretty sure there would be ways to help pump someone's stats if you were strong enough. If there wasn't, Zeke's geas wouldn't be so damn restrictive about how much he could help me.

As expected, Celine was well aware of what we meant. "Yes, of course there's a scouting event for higher ranked planetary forces. Or rather, a scouting event for a scouting event. It's something of an open secret. This year in particular the tournament is incredibly important. The winner of the F ranked combat tournament for Callus is guaranteed a spot in the black abyss dungeon. It's an Ascendant territory. The top participants from all the E ranked planets are allowed entry."

I remembered Callie mentioning dungeons at one point. I knew materials were incredibly abundant there, but that wasn't really important at the moment. If we were right about Carl's reasons for coming then that combat tournament was a much more pertinent issue. "So if Carl was aiming for that, aside from getting to F rank, which is kind of a crazy hurdle on its own, how would he get a spot in that tournament?" If this was a year out maybe he had some way of rushing it, but mostly I just wanted to know exactly what the Jerks were going to be doing. I didn't believe for a second those crazy bastards wouldn't come up with some stupid weird plan to help their boss's kid.

She shrugged. "Same as anyone else. Missions, rankings, events. There isn't really a way to cheat the system with resources or manpower. It has to be done that way since so many of the Ascendants here come from powerful families. More than that though, producing talented Ascendants reinforces the Academy's reputation. The better the students do, the more convinced people are by the school's press. Allowing nepotism to compromise their process would only decrease their overall effectiveness."

I sighed. I'd been afraid of that. Honestly it shouldn't even surprise me. The Jerks weren't that grand diabolical scheme type. They just did literally whatever popped into their heads, it was part of what made them so unpredictable. I sighed and shook off the weird sense of urgency. I'd gotten so used to there being some emergency to deal with that I'd jumped into problem solving mode without thinking. I'd just have to deal with Carl and whatever stupid bullshit he and his lackeys came up with.

To that end, I focused on the immediate future, turning to my girlfriend. "So, ignoring this nonsense for the moment, what's our next move?" Part of the reason we'd come here was to ask Grimmengap what they had planned and possibly invite them to work with us a bit more. We all made a hell of a team, and especially since they hit G rank it wouldn't be a bad idea to have them on our side.

Sure enough, Callie turned to Celine. "Actually I was wondering if you all would be interested in continuing our partnership. We worked well together back in the hunt, and we know that up to ten person teams are viable. We can still take on missions as a group, and our experience working together should make that much easier." As expected, Celine didn't really seem against the idea, and neither did the other two.

It made sense to keep working with Grimmengap, we liked them, we had a good rapport, we understood their abilities, and most importantly we'd already invested in them. Whether it was giving them the wolves or elevating them to G rank through the hunt we'd put in plenty of work getting them to the same level we were at, and it made sense for us to keep that relationship going. Everyone was happy with our collaboration so far. As expected Celine indicated that she would be happy to keep working together, and everyone was happy.

She also allowed the unspoken caveat that Callie would remain in charge. While we weren't in the hunt anymore, Callie was still the strongest member of either of our groups as well as the most experienced. Letting her continue to run things was the smartest play, and Celine clearly had no issue ceding control as long as she and her teammates kept benefiting like they had been. Not to mention I knew she still wanted Benny around and needed Jessie to make sure things went well with the wolves.

Callie, graceful as ever, accepted her trust without comment and switched gears immediately. "Ok then, our next move is obviously to keep building up our strength and reputation, making the most of the fame from our stream." She glanced at me. "There might be a way to keep an eye on the situation developing with the Jerks too though. Celine, is there a place where we can get info gathering missions? You seem to have a ton of sources here, that kind of information can't just come out of nowhere even if you built your networks they would need some kind of foundation right?"

Celine gave an embarrassed smile. "About that...I may have exaggerated my reach a bit. While I have been making inroads with the student body and expanding my circle of friends, a large portion of my information came from the information hall. So yes, it's not really publicly stated, but its a bit of an open secret that the Perception faculty operates something like an information broker within the Academy and the city at large. The kind of mission you're talking about is exactly what they do there."

I snickered a bit at that. I didn't blame Celine for the misdirect. If anything, it was a brilliant use of resources. We were Ascendants, and convincing people you're secretly a spymaster when you buy all your information from the local broker was classic PR. The fact that we fell for it just went to show that sometimes cultivation made us a bit too willing to believe the amazing and fantastical. Just because people were capable of doing the impossible with their abilities didn't mean that every action anyone took was inherently rooted in our abilities. It was a good lesson that logic didn't completely go out the window where cultivation was concerned...just mostly.

I think more than anything Callie was embarrassed that she didn't know that. Perception was one of her specialties, and I knew she'd even gone and done the test over there at one point. The fact that she didn't know about such a big part of what should have been her own faculty clearly didn't sit well with my girlfriend. I didn't blame her though. We'd been so wrapped up with all the nonsense with the Heartrippers that we had completely ignored the Academy as a whole. The hunt itself had shown us that there were some really impressive people here, and the ignorance we were showing of this place was firmly to our detriment.

We needed to get a better lay of the land since we were going to be here for the foreseeable future. Step one was looking around, but we also needed to engage a bit more with the whole Academy system. Taking missions at the information hall would serve multiple purposes in that sense. I could see Callie thinking through all of this even as I did, and I didn't even need to meet her eyes to know it. Despite that, when I cocked my masked head at her, she smiled brilliantly, somehow able to pick up what I was thinking in my body language. Maybe because of all that Perception.

Callie and I hadn't been together that long, or even known each other for as long as we could've, but one of the reasons we did so well in combat was that we understood each other. The way our brains worked just tended to click. Callie understood me better than most people in my life, even better than Benny in some ways, and aside from my crush that was one of the major reasons I wasn't worried about how fast things were moving with her. We just...fit.

wasn't scary or intimidating, in fact I barely even noticed it mostly, things with her were just easy, and I found myself falling into an easy pattern with her without trying.

That wasn't to say I always agreed with her decisions obviously, we had plenty of clashing opinions, but even when we butted heads we found a way to work it out because of that mutual understanding. Callie was my first serious girlfriend, but I was pretty sure the rapport we had was a rare thing. I was definitely grateful for it, because it was one of the things that kept me balanced with all the building pressure on me emotionally, and I like to thing I was a stabilizing influence for her too.

I understood more than ever what Zeke meant when he told me not to put off having a romantic life until I got stronger. I wasn't sure I'd have gotten to where I was without her, or if I had, I wasn't sure I would be the same person. Just the shorthand we had was worth its weight in...some material more valuable than gold. Being an Ascendant really screwed up some of my favorite idioms. I wondered what she was thinking about as I considered all this. I doubt it was the same thing. We were pretty compatible, but we didn't read each others minds.

Luckily, she was better at communication than I was, not that it was hard to be, given my tendency to get lost in my own head. "We'll take an info gathering job, something related to discovering new forces if they're looking, if not something that will take us to whatever neighborhood they're in if we can find out where." I felt my shoulders relax. I had this vague feeling whatever nonsense the Jerks were going to get upto was going to suck me in. Carls little vendetta was only part of the reason, the rest might be paranoia, but better to be proactive.

Despite what I'd said about the tournament and the school being true, I very much doubted an E ranker had only one reason for coming here. Rajak was a big city, and Mr. Jack-tastic had been around on Callus for a long time. You don't get to be an E ranker by thoughtlessly or stupidly doing anything, no matter what impression you gave people. I imagine recursion made him more prone to erratic behavior, but anyone who stuck around that long was bound to have strong willpower.

E rankers were the real powers of this planet, and Rajak was where most if not all of them were gathered from what I knew. There was no way adding another one, especially one as weird as Mr. Jack-tastic, wasn't going to upset the apple cart. Maybe it wouldn't involve me, maybe I could just skate through whatever they had planned without being noticed, but my luck since becoming an Ascendant didn't give me much confidence of that.

Whatever was happening, I wanted to at least find out the details. If we could avoid whatever was about to go down (and I just couldn't shake the feeling something was) at the very least we wouldn't be blindsided again. I was getting sick and tired of reacting to the crazy things that happened around us last second. Knowledge was power, and I wanted as much power as I could get.