Abel had been right. The next morning we both felt so much better. Eight hours of healing was enough to fix us up and I was good as new when I got out of bed. I got up and headed to the kitchen to cook breakfast for everyone while I considered exactly what we would be doing today. More fighting with Abel if I had to guess. We usually didn't move on until we'd learned our lesson at each step, and we were nowhere close to keeping up with that monster as a duo. Even without his skills or abilities, his raw stats and sheer combat prowess let him pick us apart.

Still, it wasn't hopeless. Abel had been teaching us for over a week now, and we'd gotten markedly better. At this rate, we might be up to snuff in this tournament. I'd made the mistake of thinking it would be easy at the start, but Abel had quickly disabused me of that notion. Even if he and Mel were the two strongest of their generation, number three hadn't been that far behind, and their teamwork, while impressive, had never been the best among the Titan Twenty. Not that we would be fighting their peers for the most part, it had been years, but still. This would be far from easy, and that was without acknowledging that the people we were up against were from all over the Gloryfire System.

Which meant we really needed to know as much as possible about this whole thing. As I started cooking, I spun up my scan ring and placed a call to a number I'd never used before. My cousin picked up. "Hey little cousin, to what do I owe this pleasant surprise? I figured you would be too busy with training for the tourney to call upon little old me? Hoping for some words of wisdom to help you get closer to that smokeshow you're dating?"

I rolled my eyes, having to fight back a smile at how...normal, this felt. "No Nat. I don't need your advice on my dating life. Callie and I are doing great. Sadly I'm calling about business. Though we could catch up first if you want? Our teacher is letting us come in late today because he kicked the shit out of us so hard yesterday." That actually wasn't the real reason. It was more that Abel had overestimated the amount of time we could last in one on one training with him, and adjusted the time we needed to arrive to compensate. He didn't like getting up at dawn either, and since we'd ended up with half a day leftover anyway he just figured he'd let us sleep. We'd gotten the text about it on the way home.

The image of my cousin pouted. "Lame. I totally have sage wisdom to share. But oh well, we can talk about boring stuff I guess. I assume you're calling about the tournament?" I nodded. "Well, I'm not sure how much I can help. I don't have the sources to suss out all the players showing up, though I suspect I do know enough to tell you who everyone is once we meet them. The layout itself is pretty simple. Team elimination matches until there are only a hundred and twenty eight fighters left, and then it's a single elimination bracket. Winner gets all ten slots to distribute themselves."

I whistled at that. "Holy shit, final one twenty eight? How many contestants are there going to be in this thing? Also, wait, single elimination? Does that mean I'm going to have to fight my teammates?" Because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to beat Abel. I MIGHT be able to pull off something against Mel, if I managed to pick up an appropriate set of attacks before the tournament. But I had no clue what ability I could stockpile to help me counter whatever spatial nonsense my rabbit masked teacher used.

"Yup." She popped the P as she said that. "Which is why I made my alliance with you. My chances were originally three in one twenty eight, now they're seven in one twenty eight. Well...probably a a lot higher actually. Between my guards, your girl, and that monster in the rabbit mask and his partner, I don't hate our chances of scraping out a win no matter who shows up. Hell, even you'll probably put up a good showing. Though I admit, you took a different route than most of us do."

That was intriguing to hear. "I figured I wasn't the first to stockpile attacks, but why isn't it more common? It's damn effective, and I figure it would be a pretty common method of combat." It had seemed like such a perfect idea for me, it was hard to understand why any of my relatives wouldn't use the same strategy.

She chuckled. "Because it requires an absurd amount of soul strength, and training that hurts like a bitch. The attacks are all pretty static, and using them strains your soul, which most of us don't bother to improve. It's much easier and less painful to just contract a bunch of minions you can boost, or to get paid in cash or artifacts and show up ass deep in firepower. Most of us aren't the hands on type. Don't get me wrong, we're all dangerous as hell, and most of us have trump cards you won't find anywhere else, but still, we aren't the punch it till it dies type."

I blinked. That...made sense. My soul strength was high because of my DS Mastery Skill. It DID suck to train it, and if I wasn't so pumped about the Skill itself I might not have gotten into the habit. I remembered how muddled and in pain I felt after my fight with Beat. I could definitely see the advantage of just buffing a bunch of guards. Still, it wasn't my style. I liked being in battle, micromanaging everything from the back would drive me nuts. Plus it was one of the factors in punching up ranks.

More than that though, it felt...important. The strength of our souls grew when we ranked up, sure, but I couldn't help but think that more of it would be better. I was pretty sure having a strong soul would be useful later on, even if I didn't know why. Maybe it was Fantasy pushing my instincts, or maybe if was wishful thinking. I grimaced at the unintentional mental pun and Natalie raised an eyebrow at me. "I mean, it seems to work for you." She said. "But not all of us like getting up close and personal."

Realizing she thought I was grimacing at the fact that more of us didn't use my style I chuckled and shook my head. "Not that, sorry. Got lost in my own thoughts. I do that. I was pretty sure it was a factor of my Perception being much higher than my Focus, but apparently it's also just part of my personality. Remind me to make sure word of that doesn't get out. I'll end up having some nonsense 'wisdom' aspect added to my legend and spend all my time daydreaming. It would be thematic at least, if nothing else."

She snickered at that. The Focus will probably help, but yeah, I'd keep a lid on that around enemies. I think you should be fine though, unless you go into a daze mid fight, in which case we might need to have a discussion about our alliance." She winked to let me know she was kidding. "Anyway, don't worry too much about the tournament. Not that it isn't a big deal, but I can tell you're working your ass off, and you can't do more than your best. We'll win or we won't. That's the best part of living in this crazy universe of ours. Even if we miss out, there's always another big event somewhere else if you're willing to look for it."

That actually made me curious about something else. "Do many of us travel like you do? Not the usual upward trajectory but moving around on D-ranked planets like this one looking for interesting things and people? I never really considered leaving Callus just to go to another planet the same level. It just seems like a waste not to get as much as I can from here and then head up to the next level."

She shrugged. "You aren't the first to think so. And no, it's not common. But I'm in no real hurry. We grow the fastest out of all the divine clans, it's what we're know for. The Wyndham clan has the most S-rankers, though ours don't tend to be as powerful in a straight fight. I can always catch up later, but making sure to get as much as I can out of this System, hell this Star Cluster, is bound to pay off down the line. People forget that this competition is aimed at building connections. People tend to be easier to befriend when they're in the early stages of growth."

There was so much information in that statement I didn't know where the hell to start. I could guess at some of it. I knew clans were a thing, divine clans obviously being the clans founded by the six gods. I hadn't known we had the most S-rankers, though it made sense given my own growth. I was pretty sure I was growing faster than most because of my starting point having all my stats unlocked, but still, I had no illusions about the usefulness of my power in encouraging growth. But there were so many smaller, less obvious questions I had. "Ok. That's...wow. How many clans are there exactly?"

She shrugged. "Who knows. A few dozen. The universe is a big place, and anyone who makes it to S-rank can found a clan. Though if it's an inherited power like ours they have to make do with a branch clan or oust the original founder. The branch founders are all on a clan council that makes decisions absent the founder's decree in our clan. Our grandfather is on the council actually. Not that we ever see him. Grandpa Malachai rarely interacts with anyone below S-rank himself. Once you hit that point you don't need renown to grow anymore."

I wondered what that meant exactly, but it didn't seem like the time to get into it. She'd already given me a ton to think about. I resolved to talk to her later about possibly learning about the divine clans and any others she knew about, but I had a feeling it would be a long conversation, and we DID still have training today. It would need to wait. I had the information I wanted about the tournament, and I'd finished cooking as I talked (cooking one handed was remarkably easy with stats like mine) so I went ahead and said goodbye.

I called everyone else in to come eat, and sat down to enjoy the cheese blintzes I made. I sat next to Callie as I ate, but didn't talk much. I was thinking over my conversation and how much information I still didn't have. I could always find out that stuff later, and I likely wouldn't come into contact with it until later, but still. There was so much in this world that I hadn't even scratched the surface of.

Oddly that didn't upset me at all. It excited me. So much to do, so much to see. I had so many things to learn and experience. I put an arm around Callie who leaned into me a bit while still shoveling food into her mouth. I gave her a kiss on the top of the head, chuckling at the fervor with which she was eating. Yeah, the world was big, but if you had the right people to see it with you, the journey was probably the best part.