After getting our coins, I was eager to look around the place. We were going to be coming here for a while, and I wanted to get the lay of the land. I turned to Shadowthorn. "So, what now? You said we won't be starting classes, but can we maybe register for some of those tests or tasks? I've been here for ten minutes and I already hate seeing my ranking so low." I tried to think of a way to boost it, maybe some kind of crafting job.

Shadowthorn shook her head. "The tests won't be feasible for you yet. Nightstrike may be able to make a decent showing, but no H ranker can manage. They're hosted by the faculties even the lowest records are mid G rank or so. We can go and watch some of them if you'd like? Might is the most straightforward I think. The output can be somewhat insane, given the presence of hundreds of points of the stuff combined with skills and abilities that can amplify impact. It's usually quite a spectacle."

I had to admit that sounded pretty awesome. I wondered what kind of might I needed to be able to output for my abilities to get me on that record list. The best way to find out was probably to go check it out myself. I looked to the girls, who nodded with eager smiles, and I passed that expression on to Shadowthorn. "Sounds like fun. Lead the way." She turned and walked us out of the hall. "So, tell us about the tests. Are they always going on? Is it a daily thing where they hold them at a specific time? And what is the Might faculty like?"

So many questions were running through my head about this place. It seemed so interesting to me, and I couldn't wait to see it in action. Shadowthorn chuckled. " The Might faculty are the most direct. Most people belong to multiple faculties, since it's pretty much impossible to stick with only one stat, Impact aside. As you improve overall the lowest stats go up easier, since your performance in those areas will be assumed to be better due to your overall power. Still, of all the faculties, Might has the most people by far."

Which made some sense really. Might was easy to demonstrate and obvious to see, not to mention being pretty simple to calculate. Predictable and stable results would be much more attractive to some people than something like Fantasy. " The tests are always going on, and most of the Might faculty attempts them daily just to keep fresh. They're also some of the most focused on training. While Might gives a set amount of raw output from the body, you can maximize your use of that force for better results, which nets you more points. That kind of thing is easiest to see with Might."

We followed her down a well maintained path heading west from the student resources building. I could understand what she meant. Martial arts and similar types of training could ensure that force was applied in the most effective way. You could usually calculate Might from human max. A thousand pounds of force per point was the approximate. Doing the math on that bat swing I'd used on the that support pillar I had to wonder if that thing was made of normal concrete, I hadn't thought about it at the time but that's a lot of force for such a cheap substance to handle so well.

Finally we came to another hall, walking inside to find a... a big rock. To be fair, it was a REALLY big rock. But still, just a rock. Except I could see spots of color on the thing. White, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, and black. There were splotches of color all over the rock, most of them white or pink. Shadowthorn grinned fondly up at the thing. "The Might Stone. Simple to use. You hit the rock, which is E rank at this point so it's impossible to break, and it turns a color. White is up to a hundred Might, and black is up to a thousand. The rock is connected to a leaderboard where your score is calculated in Might points."

I noted one specific thing she'd said. "Wait, at this point? Are you saying that the reputation of the Might stone in the Academy raises its rank?" I knew that materials could rank up, but I'd thought it was more based on the type of material

than individual objects. I looked up at the leaderboard and saw that the actual point values were listed in the same colors as the splotches. All the scores in the top one hundred or so were black. The highest was a whopping five thousand plus points.

She smiled approvingly. "Good catch. Yes, The Might Stone is a local legend, the more people who work on it the stronger the thing gets. It's pretty much never in danger of being broken since only G rankers ever use it." I flinched and pointed at the first place score, which got a chuckle from the older woman. "Ah. That. Like I said some people have skills and abilities that add modifiers to their strikes. You can have dozens of the things, and plenty of people in the Might faculty stack them until they can synergize at rank up. That first place IS a G ranker, as hard as it is to believe."

Five thousand points was halfway to E rank on it's own. I remembered what I'd been told before about some people having the stats to hit up ranks, and I imagined someone with that kind of power could probably hurt an F ranker even with the Impact deficit. I tried to imagine what kind of multipliers were needed to do something like that, but my own amplification abilities were nowhere close at their current level. Even with a heavily enchanted weapon and a thousand points of Might I wouldn't come close to touching that record.

Sensing my discomfort Shadowthorn patted my shoulder. "Don't worry about it. If you look, second place is only barely over a thousand. The top rankers on each board are almost always monsters, though admittedly that score is the highest I've ever heard of. Whoever it is must have pushed Might hard. Here, there's someone going up now. A random person taking the test should give you a better idea of what the norm is for this. Remember this is out of a million Ascendants, there are bound to be some outliers."

As she spoke, a small woman with close cropped red hair and bright red eyes walked up to the stone. She was athletic and looked energetic, with no mask and a sleeveless long dress slit up both sides with shorts underneath for movement. She was carrying an absolutely behemoth club with runes carved across the surface in tiny spiral patterns. I looked to our guide. "Can she use an enchanted weapon like that? I wanted to use one of mine when I finally take the test myself." I wouldn't bother until I hit at least a hundred Might. Leaving a white mark wasn't the impression I was aiming for.

Shadowthorn just nodded. "As long as it's G rank or lower. Though H rank materials don't usually survive the kind of force people exert on the Stone, so G rank is the standard. Money and resources are a type of power too, and the only thing that matters to the Might faculty is raw force." I wondered how much Might was in the enchantment on that thing, it looked heavily enchanted so I was betting it was a decent amount.

The small red haired girl turned to grin at us all. "My name is Tiamat, and I'm ranked sixty thousand and ninety fifth as of my last attempt. It's been three months." I checked the board and sure enough Tiamat was sitting at sixty thousand ninety fifth place written out in pink. Under two hundred points of Might last time then. That was pretty impressive to me given my accomplishments, but clearly wasn't much here.

Tiamat took her place in front of the stone. She took a deep breath, set her stance and wound up with the club. Her draw back was smooth, probably some kind of batting mastery, and she twisted her whole body as she brought it around at the Stone with every ounce of strength she could muster. There was a loud crash as the club hit the stone, and the area of the rock where impact occurred turned bright red. There was a glow from the board as Tiamat's name rocketed from sixty thousand plus to forty two thousand two hundred and twenty fifth place.

The girl in the red and gold battle dress looked ecstatic at her progress, pumping a fist in the air. "Yes! Top fifty thousand!" She turned to grin at the watching crowd, mostly made up of people who were taking the test soon themselves. "I'll make it into the top twenty five thousand next time, just you watch!" She waltzed proudly out of the hall to a lot of cheers and applause. Clearly that kind of improvement in such a short time was impressive even somewhere like here.

Shadowthorn chuckled. "I forgot how excited the lower ranks get when they move up. The top twenty five thousand are mostly where the seriously focused Might students are, so everything below that tends to see a pretty big jump for even a small improvement. Her's was actually pretty marked, so it's no wonder she made it into the top fifty thousand. She's jumping the gun aiming for the top twenty five though. No one under green makes it on there, and most of them are closer to blue even at the lower ranks."

I was pretty shocked. Green was five to six hundred, and blue was six to seven hundred. Even with multipliers that was insane. I was really curious what kind of skills the Might faculty had for amplifying impact and damage. I hadn't seen anything aside from my game skills that had a flat percentage increase, so I was curious to see how that worked for more normal Skills. "So what was your high score on this thing, Shadowthorn?" I was guessing they took people off the board when they reached F rank, or there would be a LOT more names.

She chuckled. "I never broke top fifty thousand. My build isn't Might heavy, and I don't have many amplification skills. I managed top ten thousand on the testing ground for Creation though. And I was in the top one hundred for Perception. Anyway, the other testing grounds are a bit harder to watch." She paused. "Except for Fantasy I guess, but that one doesn't get used often, so we don't have good odds of catching a show." She led us out of the Might Stone hall and back out onto the paths, before turning us south and setting off at a brisk walk.

As she pulled ahead she spoke back over her shoulder. "I know you did a lot of good work with the crafting hall back in Velas so I figured I'd show you the one here. The Creation faculty mostly runs the place, but anyone is free to take jobs if they have the skills for it. I imagine it'll be where you get a large portion of your reputation from. Though to be fair after taking out a serial killer you'll have a bit of a head start there." She sounded cheerful as she wove around various buildings, leading us to our next stop.

I hurried to catch up. I was interested to see what kinds of things the Creation faculty could teach about enchanting. It was my weakest stat, but I could fix that, and I was pretty sure I WOULD be spending a lot of time at the place in the future, if only to get my wishes in. Granting wishes for gear had been working well for me so far. No reason to stop now. Finally we came to another dark, elegant building and Shadowthorn pushed the door open, exposing a bustling space full of all different kinds of people. "Welcome to the hall of crafters."