I spent the afternoon with Jessie, just hanging out and watching movies and talking and generally helping keep her mind off things. She showed off her new costume, which I was sure to tell her looked amazing once again, and we just had a generally nice time until Cap and Nightstrike showed up to get us. Once that happened we put on our game faces and headed out to make our way to the WCP.

Unlike last time I had a nice ride to the WCP. Nightstrike had a skyride limo that just lifted us off and flew above the streets. Skyrides were generally reserved for the richest of the rich so we didn't run into much traffic up there, and the ride was smooth and enjoyable as we stared out the window at Valen flying by. It was an amazing feeling, flying like this, and I made a mental note to try to pick up some kind of flight related skill. That actually made me curious enough to ask Cap. "Can you get skills that let you do things like fly or throw fireballs?"

He waggled his hand. "Yes and no. You can technically get a skill for anything, but some things are incredibly difficult to do without enchantments or abilities so skills are hard to come by. Skills don't have a hard limit, but oddly specific or unusual ones are difficult to rank up enough to be useful. Getting a skill to Lesser is feasible with enough time and effort, but in the end, skills advance based on your understanding of them, and there's a finite amount of understanding you can get of making pizza dough for instance."

Nightstrike cut in. "Of course, you can synergize a skill with another skill and forcibly create a new one theoretically. But unique skills are considered kind of a dead end. You basically have to invent the entire discipline from the ground up and they never go anywhere. You can make some amazing abilities that way, but since advancing them is basically impossible, any synergized ability made with a unique skill is basically capped at the level you were at when you broke through with it. It's pretty much the Ascendant version of giving up and deciding to stay at that rank forever."

That was...interesting. I could see why people would avoid that. Synergizing skills with your ability to change it was already pretty versatile. While being able to make crazy magical skills and use them to change your ability would be cool it wasn't worth crippling yourself. Unfortunately my power gave me no real answers to that. If the skill was unique to your understanding then I couldn't charge people their skill understanding to level mine up. Based on what I'd seen I could probably accrue a ton of overlapping Minor Skills to level a skill to Lesser or even Beginner.

I shook off the thoughts as I focused back on our destination. I wanted to know what they knew about the WCP. "So, have you guys been to the Wish Curse Palace before?" Given the fact that we were literally flying there in a hovering limo I was guessing we weren't heading for slums at the edges. We would be going to the high end places to look around, looking at shops that sold F and even G ranked gear.

Cap looked amused. "Once or twice. We generally try to stay out of there. The Unity ostensibly ignores the WCP so it's frowned on for us to go down there, but it's the best place to get higher end equipment. Our only F ranked crafter is Beaker, and getting him to focus on literally anything for more than five minutes is an act of the Revenant, and he outsources for other branches too. We have no crafters at G rank at all, so buying stuff from the WCP is something the higher ups tend to ignore."

It made me wonder exactly how the WCP managed their shipping channels. Was there some sort of transportation enchantment? Did they just wish their stuff to where it needed to go? I imagine the Divine Wish ability would have a massive number of potential wishes per day, if there was even a limit. Maybe the current wishmaster just took a percentage cut in exchange for mass transport of goods. It would certainly explain why the WCP worked the way it did. In fact it was a brilliant use of the Wish ability.

Jessie seemed excited by the impending visit. "What kind of place is the Palace? I never hear much about it. People tend to keep it to themselves when they go. I always figured it was like a shadowy underground complex. Where everyone wears masks and skulks around in the dark." I snorted quietly because that was a weirdly accurate description of the outer area of the WCP but I'd seen the edges of the higher tier district and it had looked amazing. I was really looking forward to seeing the inside for myself.

The grin on Nightstrike's face was almost predatory. "Well, the food is excellent. They have a few truly high grade restaurants in the central area that even the executive lounge can't compete with. For some reason the Valen branch of the WCP is even more popular than the one in the capital with people visiting from off world so their tourist section is the best on the planet. In terms of gear the capital branch wins out though, after all, it's where basically every E ranker on the planet lives."

Cap rolled his eyes. "Ignore the glutton. She's pretty much obsessed with food." He turned to look at us seriously. "General rule of thumb, only ten percent of your rank should ever come from special food or elixirs. Anymore than a ten percent stat density from forcibly absorbed stats can cause your ability to fracture when you rank up. Impact isn't just defense, it's the very weight of your existence, and if your ability isn't upgraded stably the weight of it can shatter your very being."

My eyes widened at that. It explained why everyone didn't just shove elixirs and food down the throats of people with strong abilities. It also made a certain amount of sense. I looked to Nightstrike who rolled her eyes. "I don't eat for stat points, I hit my cap ages ago. Ascendent chefs can make all sorts of interesting dishes with all kinds of effects, and even if they couldn't I absolutely adore the taste of high grade fare. But yes, it's a poor decision to try to artificially stack your stats to rank up. The results are...unpleasant."

I tried not to think about what it would look like for someone's 'very being to shatter'. I made a mental note to try to steer clear of stat buffing food. I might try a bit here to see how it tasted but with my power there was no real need to take that kind of risk. Luckily the gloomy thoughts weren't an issue because the skyride touched down outside the massive building that housed that familiar elevator. It was, as usual, empty, and we made good time getting inside.

When we got to the elevator Cap pulled out a shining metal card to access it, very distinct from my black candidate access card. I could only assume this was a normal WCP access card, and when he saw me looking he smiled. "This is moms. She's a steel grade VIP, at least when the thing actually works. Half the time her access is disabled anyway because she and Harlequin are usually not speaking to each other. The VIP ranks are separated into a bunch of different ranks. Tin, Iron, Steel, Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Obsidian."

That was interesting, not least because it explained what my black card was, but I was more focused on something else. "Is Harlequin the name of the local Deacon? I heard he's supposed to be pretty tough." I had no idea what Zeke's rank actually was but I was guessing the people here didn't know either, because no fucking way would someone who could swat E ranks be considered a rival by the F ranked guild master of the local branch if they knew how strong he was. In fact I was guessing Harlequin was a pseudonym, because no way someone as strong as Zeke didn't have a rep.

Cap nodded. "Harlequin is a beast. Those stupid masks of his are a huge force multiplier. Mom says she's pretty sure he's using a disposable identity though. She's fought him dozens of times and she insists he's too powerful to be some random nobody. She's pretty sure he might even be higher rank than she is, just based on how little her attacks seem to phase him when he doesn't bother pretending. It's not really rare for crafters to be combat capable though, using your own gear is a better way of accruing renown than pure crafting so most of them hit the streets at some point."

The elevator opened, that same weird shifting setup as last time where the apparatus seemed to be pushed out of the way into a separate shaft after we climbed on. We began our descent. It was interesting to hear about what Zeke might be capable of. Someone like Stella had at least thirty two points in Impact. an unimaginable number to me after having experienced what even a point or two in that terrifying stat could do. When you considered that any given F rank could usually shrug off blows from a G ranker, blows that could mobilize literally thousands of stat points, the concept of Zeke being D or even C rank was mindblowing.

I made a mental note to ask him exactly what his rank was at some point. I'd been avoiding it because I wanted to give him his privacy but I'd gotten so curious I couldn't hold back anymore. I just hoped telling me wasn't against the rules. Knowing dad was in the A rank just kept getting more terrifying as I went along. That meant he had a Mythic ability based on what I'd been able to find. Literally the only level above that was an S ranked Divine ability. I knew the old man had synergized his power and lost the original Wish ability but whatever he had must be damn strong.

When the elevator stopped we stepped out onto the grated catwalk I'd seen last time, and I didn't have to fake the awe I felt at seeing it again. The Wish Curse Palace was an underground city of staggering proportions and seeing it once didn't prepare you for the second viewing. We mounted the second elevator, and I felt Jessie cling to my arm as we walked down the catwalk, clearly worried about the heights. Still she was just as enthralled by the view as I was and the fear almost seemed like an after thought.

When we got to the bottom we strolled right through the outskirts completely ignored. Or rather, Cap and Nightstrike were getting attention but no one was stupid enough to actually try to stop them. We made it through the rougher portions of the city to the inner areas pretty quickly. We passed onto the higher quality cobblestones as we walked by the familiar store front of the Wick and Candle and into the inner area. I'd passed through here briefly on the way to Zeke's office but I hadn't really paid much attention given my state of shock. This time I looked around, taking it all in. The streets were better lit here, and the cobblestones has transitioned from grey to bright shining white, seeming to get more pearlescent as we went further in.

The roads were lined with beautifully made buildings of all sorts of types and styles. Squat black stone houses stood next to white marble edifices, with wooden halls perched right next to them. I literally saw one place that appeared to just be a giant boat sitting on the side of the road. Finally though, we came to a huge restaurant and Nightstrike pulled us to a stop. "If we want to find anything out we need to talk to someone with sources, Rantano's is where all the somebodies eat, so we start here." With a grin, she set off into the eatery. I looked at the others then shrugged following her into the building. I admit I couldn't wait to try the food.