The first thing I did when I woke up again was take the pill I'd gotten from Rustle. I had the thing on me and in the excitement of the whole imminent death thing I'd forgotten about it completely. I'd never taken Alchemical medicine before, so I was actually really interested to see what would happen. Ten whole points was a lot, but it was within my tolerance limit for artificial points even at H rank since I'd never boosted any stats before. Even the food back at Rantano's had just been a temporary buff.

I didn't mind the shortcut here because I was almost done this rank and probably wouldn't need those potential points for some emergency later anyway, I figured I might as well try this out. I needed to hit G rank as fast as possible if I was going to survive whatever the Heartripper Society was going to throw at me. I stripped out of my clothes just in case of sweat or thrashing around and tossed back the pill, laying down on the bed.

Once the pill hit my stomach I felt a pleasant warmth spread from it to every part of my body, it was pretty relaxing. A nice soothing feeling like a warm bubble bath rolled through my muscles and heated up by bones, and within minutes it had permeated every part of me. I felt like every cell in my body was being gently warmed. Then the gentle warmth started to increase. Degree by degree the temperature climbed, rising as I laid there, and the words gentle and soothing stopped really being applicable.

The feeling of every cell in your body slowly overheating was not one I would recommend, there was no way to stop it or slow it down, I staggered out of bed and jumped in the shower, pumping cold water onto my body, but apparently the heat wasn't actually physical, so I had to deal with the freezing water causing my muscles to cramp up and shiver while still feeling the horrifying burning. I collapsed into the water and spent the next five minutes somehow burning and freezing alive at the same time. When I finished convulsing in agony on the floor of my shower I dragged myself to my bed and checked my stats from under the comfort of my blanket.

Wishmaster candidate status. H-rank. Ability: Lesser Wish- Four times a day grant a Lesser 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 15 Impact 2 Fantasy 11 Vitality 12 Focus 13 Perception 22 Creation 16 Skills: Lesser Doom Sovereign Mastery, Lesser Enchanting Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Cooking Mastery, Minor Gymnastics Mastery, Minor Swimming Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor Singing Mastery, Minor Inventing Mastery, Minor Poker Mastery, Minor Archery Mastery, Minor Boxing Mastery

I was torn here. Part of me was excited to be only nine points from G rank, and part of me was super pissed off by how much it hurt. I pulled up the local network, which was much more comprehensive than the one in Velan, and some searching found the issue. That was G rank medicine, which while still feasible to take at H rank tended to have dramatic effects. Rustle had mentioned higher ranked pills could hurt you, but he'd specifically said MUCH higher rank, and I was right on the edge of G rank.

Still, live and learn. Aside from some soreness I was fine so I supposed he hadn't been wrong. I stood up and stretched a bit, trying to loosen up some of my knotted and cramped muscles. Vitality seemed to help out with stretching and after ten minutes or so I was feeling much better. I really wanted to try some more enchanting, but I'd burned through all my daily Impact pretty much with my earlier enchanting session.

I decided since it was later in the day and we'd done some stuff earlier I would do some cooking and work on my cooking skill, maybe spend some time with my friends. I texted Callie, Jessie, and Benny, and headed out into the kitchen to sort through ingredients. I was probably only a few Minor Cooking Mastery payments away from a Lesser Cooking Mastery Skill, so I wanted to get some practice in. Plus I had to admit part of me liked how much Callie enjoyed my cooking the one time I'd made food for her.

Benny came out covered in small amounts of grease and soot and slumped down at the table with a groan. "Gods I'm exhausted. You can order pretty much anything in this city, and since I can't use Ascendant materials for inventing I was able to pay with credits. That said I didn't realize how random and insane Inventing could get until I had a decent amount of materials to play with. It's no wonder they call them Mad Scientists. This nonsense would drive anyone crazy." I smirked slightly at the haunted look in his eyes, wondering what exactly he'd made.

A question that I didn't have to ask because Jessie plopped down next to him. "Oh wow, I didn't know you had a Minor Inventing Skill. It's crazy hard to get that one to work without an ability. You must be pretty close stat wise, maybe you're a late bloomer. What did you make by the way? Anything interesting?" I noted Jessie's usual level of enthusiasm was even higher than normal and made the educated guess she'd been talking to Maria. It was sweet that she wanted to become better friends with Benny because of her interest in his sister.

He thumped his head down on the table with a groan. "What DIDN'T I make? A small frog that turns into a helicopter, a pair of shoes that turn invisible, a shower head that dispenses water in a vortex, a spatula that shocks you if you miss the optimal timing on a pancake flip. The list goes on. I tried to stick to weaker materials because they were cheaper, and the results were...weird. My new alarm clock actually bites if you try to hit the snooze button."

That was actually really interesting. It sounded like as a trade off for the randomness Inventing didn't have the same limitations as the other crafting Skills. I was sure there had to be some limits, but the fact that Benny had made so many things in just a day was amazing. Plus he must have started when we got back since he couldn't have done much when watching Eric.

Callie, the last to arrive at the table, snickered at that last part. "Yeah, at Minor it's not as big of a deal, but higher level Mad Scientists usually do their research at the bottom of a bunker or in a tower out of range of civilians. There's a reason for the stigma, they can be kind of a menace if they don't have a cautious and methodical nature. Getting swept up in a recursion spiral is pretty easy for them if they make a couple of crazy destructive things by accident. Shouldn't be an issue at your level mind you, but if you do end up getting an ability be careful with that."

I hadn't considered that possibility, that a Skill could effect recursion as much as an ability if it was blatant enough, but thinking about it I could see how it would work. I left them to their talking for though, as I made my way to the kitchen. I decided to go with country fried steak for the meal. I had just woken up so it felt like breakfast but it was early evening, and country fried steak could hit both meal requirements, plus it was delicious.

I pulled out a ribeye as my base. Most people use cube steak for country fried steak because the original intent of the dish was to make cheap meat taste better. The recipe usually called for the meat to be heavily tenderized too, which kind of mashed out the flavor. Instead of smashing it with a meat tenderizer though, I just sliced the steak into thinner sections that were the same size around as the original. I used a lighter batter for the meat when I breaded it, and set it to fry while I made the gravy.

I used come chicken apple sausage for the sausage gravy, which was a bit sweeter than the usual base for that, but I tweaked it a bit as I was making it so the apple didn't overpower the taste and it ended up as a nice undertone to the usual sausage and peppercorn top note. I made scrambled eggs to go with it, which was admittedly more breakfast than dinner, and plated for everyone, serving it up and sitting down to eat with my friends.

Seeing their groans of approval made the work worth it and I smiled widely at the obvious appreciation. "Glad you like it, now what were we talking about? I missed most of that." They'd continued their conversation while I cooked and I'd been pretty wrapped up in my task, using all my Focus to maximize the amount I learned from this dish and try to boost my Cooking Skill a bit higher.

Callie groaned in approval. "Sweet Revenant that's good. We were talking about when to head back to the academy. Jessie needs to get some points in to get herself to G rank, and so do you. I figured she might be able to find some work doing ranking tasks over in the Creation faculty. The Alchemists always need people with a knack for plants. As for you, your normal crafting stuff seems to work well for you, for whatever reason. I bet you can find plenty of jobs to build your rep a bit."

I wasn't sure about that actually. Prosthetics were probably less a common request here considering any lost limbs could probably be regrown in other ways. Granted I could do other things, but making actual gear would be taxing enough that I could only do really low end stuff. Still, four pieces of gear daily would be a hell of an output even if they were incredibly weak artifacts. Lapis had specifically mentioned workshops specializing in quantity, and to be able to keep up as a solo act would be a great way to build my rep.

Benny rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and I was trying to change the subject because I still don't have an ability so this conversation is pointless for me." It actually wasn't, since I was going to be getting him his ability when I hit G rank, but still, the girls didn't know that, and I was betting all this talk about the Academy was making him antsy for when he could actually go there.

I decided to take pity on him. "He's right guys, talking shop with our civvie at the table is rude." He flipped me off and I stuck out my tongue at him, earning a laugh from the others. "Now, to circle back to an earlier topic, why don't you tell us more about all the crazy knick-nacks you made today, because it sounds like a laugh, and it's only been like eight hours. I'm curious how many weird little inventions you managed."

As he launched into descriptions of the eight or nine different things he made, including more detailed rundowns on the stuff he had already mentioned I just sat back and enjoyed the time with my friends. The peace and quiet was certainly rare these days and I had a feeling it would get rarer still in the months to come. I wanted to savor the time I had free, because tomorrow I was going to be buckling down. It was time to get back to grinding points, I had a rank up to get through.