Wish upon the Stars chapter 154

We ended up back at the Academy the next day, specifically in the  dorms. We'd decided to ask Celine a bit about whatever F rank events  were going on around here. Chances were good she would know, given her  sources at the school and her position as a diplomat. Of course, some  questions were still unanswered, like how Carl would even get to F rank  in time if he was planning to enroll, but I was pretty sure there would  be ways to help pump someone's stats if you were strong enough. If there  wasn't, Zeke's geas wouldn't be so damn restrictive about how much he  could help me.

As expected, Celine was well aware of what  we meant. "Yes, of course there's a scouting event for higher ranked  planetary forces. Or rather, a scouting event for a scouting event. It's  something of an open secret. This year in particular the tournament is  incredibly important. The winner of the F ranked combat tournament for  Callus is guaranteed a spot in the black abyss dungeon. It's an  Ascendant territory. The top participants from all the E ranked planets  are allowed entry."

I remembered Callie mentioning  dungeons at one point. I knew materials were incredibly abundant there,  but that wasn't really important at the moment. If we were right about  Carl's reasons for coming then that combat tournament was a much more  pertinent issue. "So if Carl was aiming for that, aside from getting to F  rank, which is kind of a crazy hurdle on its own, how would he get a  spot in that tournament?" If this was a year out maybe he had some way  of rushing it, but mostly I just wanted to know exactly what the Jerks  were going to be doing. I didn't believe for a second those crazy  bastards wouldn't come up with some stupid weird plan to help their  boss's kid.

She shrugged. "Same as anyone else. Missions,  rankings, events. There isn't really a way to cheat the system with  resources or manpower. It has to be done that way since so many of the  Ascendants here come from powerful families. More than that though,  producing talented Ascendants reinforces the Academy's reputation. The  better the students do, the more convinced people are by the school's  press. Allowing nepotism to compromise their process would only decrease  their overall effectiveness."

I sighed. I'd been afraid  of that. Honestly it shouldn't even surprise me. The Jerks weren't that  grand diabolical scheme type. They just did literally whatever popped  into their heads, it was part of what made them so unpredictable. I  sighed and shook off the weird sense of urgency. I'd gotten so used to  there being some emergency to deal with that I'd jumped into problem  solving mode without thinking. I'd just have to deal with Carl and  whatever stupid bullshit he and his lackeys came up with.

To  that end, I focused on the immediate future, turning to my girlfriend.  "So, ignoring this nonsense for the moment, what's our next move?" Part  of the reason we'd come here was to ask Grimmengap what they had planned  and possibly invite them to work with us a bit more. We all made a hell  of a team, and especially since they hit G rank it wouldn't be a bad  idea to have them on our side.

Sure enough, Callie turned  to Celine. "Actually I was wondering if you all would be interested in  continuing our partnership. We worked well together back in the hunt,  and we know that up to ten person teams are viable. We can still take on  missions as a group, and our experience working together should make  that much easier." As expected, Celine didn't really seem against the  idea, and neither did the other two.

It made sense to keep  working with Grimmengap, we liked them, we had a good rapport, we  understood their abilities, and most importantly we'd already invested  in them. Whether it was giving them the wolves or elevating them to G  rank through the hunt we'd put in plenty of work getting them to the  same level we were at, and it made sense for us to keep that  relationship going. Everyone was happy with our collaboration so far. As  expected Celine indicated that she would be happy to keep working  together, and everyone was happy.

She also allowed the  unspoken caveat that Callie would remain in charge. While we weren't in  the hunt anymore, Callie was still the strongest member of either of our  groups as well as the most experienced. Letting her continue to run  things was the smartest play, and Celine clearly had no issue ceding  control as long as she and her teammates kept benefiting like they had  been. Not to mention I knew she still wanted Benny around and needed  Jessie to make sure things went well with the wolves.

Callie,  graceful as ever, accepted her trust without comment and switched gears  immediately. "Ok then, our next move is obviously to keep building up  our strength and reputation, making the most of the fame from our  stream." She glanced at me. "There might be a way to keep an eye on the  situation developing with the Jerks too though. Celine, is there a place  where we can get info gathering missions? You seem to have a ton of  sources here, that kind of information can't just come out of nowhere  even if you built your networks they would need some kind of foundation  right?"

Celine gave an embarrassed smile. "About that...I  may have exaggerated my reach a bit. While I have been making inroads  with the student body and expanding my circle of friends, a large  portion of my information came from the information hall. So yes, it's  not really publicly stated, but its a bit of an open secret that the  Perception faculty operates something like an information broker within  the Academy and the city at large. The kind of mission you're talking  about it exactly what they do there."

I snickered a bit at  that. I didn't blame Celine for the misdirect. If anything, it was a  brilliant use of resources. We were Ascendants, and convincing people  you're secretly a spymaster when you buy all your information from the  local broken was classic PR. The fact that we fell for it just went to  show that sometimes cultivation made us a bit too willing to believe the  amazing and fantastical. Just because people were capable of doing the  impossible with their abilities didn't mean that every action anyone  took was inherently rooted in our abilities. It was a good lesson that  logic didn't completely go out the window where cultivation was  concerned...just mostly.

I think more than anything Callie  was embarrassed that she didn't know that. Perception was one of her  specialties, and I knew she'd even gone and done the test over there at  one point. The fact that she didn't know about such a big part of what  should have been her own faculty clearly didn't sit well with my  girlfriend. I didn't blame her though. We'd been so wrapped up with all  the nonsense with the Heartrippers that we had completely ignored the  Academy as a whole. The hunt itself had shown us that there were some  really impressive people here, and the ignorance we were showing of this  place was firmly to our detriment.

We needed to get a  better lay of the land since we were going to be here for the  foreseeable future. Step one was looking around, but we also needed to  engage a bit more with the whole Academy system. Taking missions at the  information hall would serve multiple purposes in that sense. I could  see Callie thinking through all of this even as I did, and I didn't even  need to meet her eyes to know it. Despite that, when I cocked my masked  head at her, she smiled brilliantly, somehow able to pick up what I was  thinking in my body language. Maybe because of all that Perception.

Callie  and I hadn't been together that long, or even known each other for as  long as we could've, but one of the reasons we did so well in combat was  that we understood each other. The way our brains worked just tended to  click. Callie understood me better than most people in my life, even  better than Benny in some ways, and aside from my crush that was one of  the major reasons I wasn't worried about how fast things were moving  with her. We just...fit. It wasn't scary or intimidating, in fact I  barely even noticed it mostly, things with her were just easy, and I  found myself falling into an easy pattern with her without trying.

That  wasn't to say I always agreed with her decisions obviously, we had  plenty of clashing opinions, but even when we butted heads we found a  way to work it out because of that mutual understanding. Callie was my  first serious girlfriend, but I was pretty sure the rapport we had was a  rare thing. I was definitely grateful for it, because it was one of the  things that kept me balanced with all the building pressure on me  emotionally, and I like to thing I was a stabilizing influence for her  too.

I understood more than ever what Zeke meant when he  told me not to put off having a romantic life until I got stronger. I  wasn't sure I'd have gotten to where I was without her, or if I had, I  wasn't sure I would be the same person. Just the shorthand we had was  worth its weight in...some material more valuable than gold. Being an  Ascendant really screwed up some of my favorite idioms. I wondered what  she was thinking about as I considered all this. I doubt it was the same  thing. We were pretty compatible, but we didn't read each others minds.

Luckily,  she was better at communication than I was, not that it was hard to be,  given my tendency to get lost in my own head. "We'll take an info  gathering job, something related to discovering new forces if they're  looking, if not something that will take us to whatever neighborhood  they're in if we can find out where." I felt my shoulders relax. I had  this vague feeling whatever nonsense the Jerks were going to get upto  was going to suck me in. Carls little vendetta was only part of the  reason, the rest might be paranoia, but better to be proactive.

Despite  what I'd said about the tournament and the school being true, I very  much doubted an E ranker had only one reason for coming here. Rajak was a  big city, and Mr. Jack-tastic had been around on Callus for a long  time. You don't get to be an E ranker by thoughtlessly or stupidly doing  anything, no matter what impression you gave people. I imagine  recursion made him more prone to erratic behavior, but anyone who stuck  around that long was bound to have strong willpower.

E  rankers were the real powers of this planet, and Rajak was where most  if not all of them were gathered from what I knew. There was no way  adding another one, especially one as weird as Mr. Jack-tastic, wasn't  going to upset the apple cart. Maybe it wouldn't involve me, maybe I  could just skate through whatever they had planned without being  noticed, but my luck since becoming an Ascendant didn't give me much  confidence of that.

Whatever  was happening, I wanted to at least find out the details. If we could  avoid whatever was about to go down (and I just couldn't shake the  feeling something was) at the very least we wouldn't be blindsided  again. I was getting sick and tired of reacting to the crazy things that  happened around us last second. Knowledge was power, and I wanted as  much power as I could get.