The ceremony was held at the same arena as the finals. A huge luxurious building (without even the wear from the battle, which they had repaired) and pretty huge. Forty thousand people weren't enough to fill the place up, though it was hardly empty with every one of the ten thousand starter teams having shown up. There were a few E-rankers here too, possibly for security, and to my shock, I saw a fucking B-ranker standing next to Midknight.

I turned to look at Zeke, who noticed where my attention had gone and chuckled. "Attempted invasions are bad for morale. They send an executive from the cluster branch to oversee the rest of this. I don't recognize her, but I'm guessing she's a heavy even among people at her rank."

The B-ranker was...impressive. A tall, dark haired woman in a pitch black body suit covered with shining stars. Her black hair shared the spacelike impression, as did her mask, and in the depths of her dark eyes I could see galaxies forming if I looked too long.

Callie, not surprisingly, knew her. "That's Asteria. She's pretty much my dad's bosses, bosses, boss. She has a star based spatial ability, though I don't know of anyone with the details. People who make her use it usually don't survive the encounter."

After a second of thought, Callie knowing a high end B-ranker made sense. The systems and clusters in the Conglomerate were feeders for the Unity to gain renown for their top members. I knew that renown was weighted, so normal mortals probably didn't rate the effort, but I was betting people like Midknight knew ALL the big name Unity capes, and he'd have drilled them into his daughters head.

Mel whistled. "I want to be her when I grow up. You can feel the badass coming off her in waves."

We'd managed to find plenty of our friends in the crowd. Sydney, Megan, Sloane, Wren, Lament, Teague, Alec, there were tons of us all crowded together, though most of the teams were talking to whoever was nearby, given how hectic things were longer distance conversations seemed unlikely.

"You all ready?" Asked Benny with interest. "I still don't know how this works. Is this just an excuse to draw more attention to the highest placing fighters before rank up? Or is there some sort of significance to ranking up all together like this?"

Zeke shrugged. "Opinion is divided on that actually, but ceremonies like this USUALLY have better yields. Whether that's because they put the rank up on display and draw attention or because of some weird resonance from all the Impact, I couldn't say. I do know that they're good for the planet. Not enough to take this one to a proper D-grade, but they'll push the process ahead for sure."

Benny looked annoyed. "Damn. Kind of wish I'd made it in time for this bit. But I'm still a hundred plus points short."

My best friend was probably building to a nice long whining session, but the poke in the ribs from the girl standing beside him shut him up. I gave Celine a grateful smile she couldn't see behind my mask for cutting that off, but before I could comment everyone got really quiet.

"Welcome." Came a surprisingly soft, melodic voice. Every eye in the place focused on Asteria. She was suppressing her aura, but she was letting something...else, out. Some strange aspect of herself that made her seem like more than us, even without the pressure. I wondered if Zeke had that, if he did, he was much better at containing it than she was. "My name is Asteria, and I am the vice Guild Master of the Axiom cluster."

She looked over us all slowly, the sympathetic look on her unnaturally perfect features seeming at odds with her tall, muscular physique. She looked like a war goddess, but she had such a peaceful gaze. Her galactic eyes were hidden behind a small domino mask with that same starry sky distortion as her costume, but somehow, it just pulled focus to their depths, like she was sucking us all in.

I felt a sharp jolt and turned to see Zeke frowning at her, withdrawing his fingers after having pinched her. "Sloppy." He muttered in annoyance. Her eyes jerked up to settle on him, and my uncle raised a brow, her porcelain cheeks colored a bit and things...shifted. It either hadn't been on purpose or she was embarrassed to be caught, but she seemed much less intimidating now.

Clearing her throat, she returned to addressing the now confused crown, all of whom were still reeling a bit like I was. "You've been through a great deal recently." She said gently, bringing us all back to the topic at hand. "You all show great bravery coming here, though you need not worry now. I'm here to keep you safe. I'll be staying on world for a while, working from Callus as a preventative measure, and I'll need to count on all of you that are local to support me."

Zeke snorted lightly, clearly not buying it, but this time she didn't react. Asteria continued on for a while, announcing the names of the final five, in order based on ability. She also announced the top ten, of which I was a part, and we were all called up to be shown off as the stellar example of heroism and ability that we were (her words, and I'm almost sure that there was a pun mixed in there secretly, which made me like her more).

Finally, she finished telling us all what we'd accomplished, passed out some monetary rewards for the top ten (I couldn't remember if those had been mentioned or if they were hush money but I got another hundred G-rank coins so I wasn't complaining either way) and then officially let us all know that we were eligible to rank up now. There was even a big countdown as we all got ready to accept the rank.

The actual shift in the world around us when we accepted the rank up simultaneously was MASSIVE. The feel of that much Impact shifting at the same time was insane. I knew that since it was qualitatively within the limits of the planet there was no danger of damage, but it still felt crazy. Like a hurricane made of hammers bludgeoning us all, rather than the single wall of force I felt from a B-rank aura.

I felt plenty of changes, and had to look over my stats to figure out what they were, but once I did I found myself flabbergasted. I'd gotten a staggering amount of points over the course of this tournament. Thirty in Might, thirty in Perception, twenty in Fantasy, thirty in Vitality, twenty in Creation, and twenty in Focus. Which left me staring at my new stat screen after rank up.

Wishmaster candidate status. F-rank. Ability: Intermediate Wish- Six times a day grant an Intermediate 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 250 Impact 32 Fantasy 200 Vitality 220 Focus 168 Perception 180 Creation 180 Progress to next rank: 1230/10000 Stored: 7 shadow attacks,10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks,9 triple strenth tranq blows, 7 triple strength density shifted attacks. 9 spider leg attacks, 2 heal bursts, 4 gravity attacks, 7 shadow clone, 22 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)

Pet- Wolf named Jin Skills: Lesser Cooking Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Lesser Balam Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery,Lesser Paired Dueling, Intermediate Path of the Doom Sovereign Path of the Doom Soveriegn: Monk: Stone Limb, Moonlit Night, Consecration of Flame, Ripple Running, State of Grace, Steam Arrow, Afterburner, Pit of Despair, Mountain Stance

Rogue: Mercy Kill, Double Trouble, Touch of Tears, Flurry of Blows, Heavy hands, Marked for Death

Diviner: Overlay, Song of the Soil, Rythym of the Wild, Eye of Revelation, Danger Sense

My results were staggering, leaving me almost a quarter of the way to two thousand points after just one tournament, but that was nothing compared to the changes Callie had seen. My girlfriend's rank up had brought not just new stats, but a new ability, taking into account her new Skill synergy from shadow manipulation (which she had apparently ranked up during all the down time as the tournament progressed) as well as her lean into Perception towards the end of her accumulation.

Calliope Reynolds: F-rank.

Ability: Intermediate Abyssal Infiltration- Enter the shadows and emerge where you will within range, shape the darkness to your call, moving it as if it were part of your body, and even extend your senses through the shadows to spy on your enemies.

Might 218 Impact 32 Vitality 142 Fantasy 150 Focus 58 Perception 375 Creation 185 Progress to next rank: 1160/10000 Pet: Wolf named Rellia Skills: Minor Tracking, Beginner Stealth, Beginner Trap Mastery, Beginner Disguise, Lesser Balam Mastery, Intermediate Shadow Manipulation Mastery. Lesser Paired Dueling

Aside from the standard twenty points of Impact, she'd gotten fifty points of Creation, forty points of Perception, twenty of Might, and thirty of Fantasy. She was up to eleven hundred and sixty total, meaning she'd gotten a hundred and forty points off this rank up, but that was nothing compared to her Abyssal Infiltration ability.

Despite her control of shadows, Callie had never been able to fully enter them. She could, with preparation and concentration, HIDE things in her shadows, like she had with her bike, but she needed to spend a lot of time and materials making that possible and it effectively made it useless in combat. This new ability though, it more than made up for it. Not only could she meld into shadows, she could extend her Perception through shadows to spy on people, and it increased her versatility with the shadows she had.

After she finished telling me about it she threw herself into my arms and kissed me senseless. I could sense the happiness and relief through the bond. Callie, in a lot of ways, had been standing still since we met. It was easy to forget that while the rest of us had ranked up quickly to catch up to her, she'd been G-rank for years. Finally breaking that wall, not to mention evolving her ability to something truly amazing, made her really believe she could keep up.

I pulled back, smiling at her, and decided not to address her insecurities about being left behind. They were crazy, of course, but being told your emotions are dumb doesn't make you feel them less, and I'd learned enough being in a relationship not to make THAT rookie mistake.

I turned to Abel and Mel, both of whom looked pleased with their results, though they didn't share. We knew bits and pieces of what they could based on things they'd shared and that we'd seen, but we didn't have access to their stat pages and I wasn't going to ask. Callie could bring it up if she wanted, but I trusted them to tell us if there was something we needed to know.

Asteria cleared her throat, bringing all of us back to reality from our upgrade highs. "It seems you've all broken through to the next rank. Congratulations, both to my own citizens and to our visitors. As discussed, the departure will be in a month, any of our guests feel free to remain and visit, I assure you you'll be quite safe here." Translation: stay if you want to, I'll be watching you all.

With that she made her goodbyes and turned to stride out of the arena, Midknight trailing behind her silently. I didn't know if it was the real him or armor, but Callie looked worried as she watched him go. I knew she didn't forgive him, and shouldn't, but he was still her dad and she was a bit worried about him after seeing that armor demolished by those B-rankers. She didn't mention it though, and I didn't push. We had bigger worries anyway. We had a month left, or rather thirty one days counting today, to prepare and get Jessie and Benny ranked up. Good thing I had an extra daily wish. I'd need it.