Being a D-ranker was…surreal. Literally, reality felt different to me. A qualitative shift in my perception of the world. It was hard to describe, but I finally pinned down the sensation, and once I did it made way too much sense. It was my sense of Impact. It had always been there, useful for keeping track of other Ascendants and detecting threats. I still remembered Abel teaching me to fine tune it beyond just detecting rank.

  But not it was so much more. I could do more than sense Impact. I could smell it, taste it, feel it on my skin. I could even kind of see it if I squinted, though it was hard to describe in that context. Synesthesia, the phenomena where sensory input becomes entangled.

  The weirdest part was that nothing had actually changed. Well, a lot had changed around us, but that wasn’t what I meant. My body had shifted as it usually did with rank ups, and quite a bit too, but I was still…me. I was just more of me. It was extremely difficult to put into words, but I realized why D-rank was considered such a watershed. I was much greater than the sum of my parts, in a way that no rank up had ever brought me close to being before.

  “I feel like…” Callie paused for a minute. “Like I’m drunk on minutes and I just threw up my sense of equilibrium.”

  Zeke burst out ughing. “Yeah. That happens. I’ve never heard it described like that, but it fits. It’s called ‘the Blinks’. It wears off pretty fast.” He looked around with interest. “I can’t believe Moravian’s ridiculous formation actually worked. I always kind of assumed it was a pipe dream. Grandmaster or not, it takes a LOT to rank up a pnet.

  “Legendary Formation Master.” Corrected a smug voice. “If you please.” We all turned to see the huge form of Moravian standing nearby. It…kind of hurt to look at him. My new altered senses detected that same weird oneness I had seen before, but moreso. Every movement, breath, eye blink was one with nature. Which was still deeply in flux around us. It was really weird, lots of slight adjustments too fast and minimal for me to track.

  “Rave.” Said my uncle with a nod. “I owe you a blue dwarf star.” He admitted. “I’m TEMPTED to cim it doesn’t count because this was an unforeseeable freak accident. But you changed tactics on the fly and you helped my nephew, so I’ll pay up.”

  My mom rolled her eyes. “Idiots.” She said fondly. “But thank you, Moravian. For helping my son. I won’t forget it.”

  He gave a regal nod, then turned and loped away. He looked kind of stop motion in the shuddering Impact of the still Ascending pnet. It was weird. I stepped forward, pulling my mom and then my uncle into tight hugs. “I’m gd you’re both here. I don’t think we would have gotten hurt while ranking up, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.”

  “For sure.” My uncle nodded. “And congrats on D-rank. Saving a pnet is always a nice bump. I remember my first pnetary siege.” He grimaced a bit. “Did not go nearly as well. We sank a continent. Pulled it off in the end though. I think there’s a statue of your dad in some sunken city on Rattfeld still. Their princess was a sculptor and she was REAL into him.” At my mom’s look, he shrugged. “What? This was way before we met you. Plus she wasn’t his type. Too slithery.”

  Deciding I had no desire to ask what THAT meant, I changed the subject. “So…I should probably check my stats after my rank up right?” I grinned at Callie. “Do you want me to go first again?”

  “You earned it.” She ughed. “You really kicked his ass in that fight.” She gnced at Travis’s body. “I would normally be a little annoyed you felt you needed to ‘defend my honor’ but since we’re married I think you get a pass.”

  My mom nodded. “It’s in the rules. A certain amount of overprotectiveness is allowed after they put a ring on it. It’s mutual though, and if he’s anything like his father you’ll need to bail him out of more than enough scrapes to make you even. Don’t even get me STARTED on the mess Elijah got into on our honeymoon.”

  Rolling my eyes and internally promising myself to ask more about my parents past after things settled down, I closed my eyes and focused, letting the purple fmes of my status screen roll across my vision.

  Wishmaster candidate status. D-rank. Ability: Master Wish- Eight times a day grant a Master 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.

  Master Path of the Doom Sovereign- A Solid Path toward a great destiny.

  Might:26,200Impact:105Fantasy:14,020Vitality:12,674Focus:20,920Perception:15,004Creation:14,054Progress to next rank:102,977/1,000,000Soul strength:Amethyst Soul BodyStored:7 shadow attacks, 10 shadow jump (seven in reserve), 10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks, 10 triple strenth tranq blows (ten in reserve), 0 triple strength density shifted attacks. 10 spider leg attacks (ten in reserve), 0 heal bursts (0 reserve), 3 gravity attacks, 1 shadow clone, 18 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)

  Pet:Wolf named JinFinancial resources: 50 E-ranked chits 45 D-ranked(worth 100 E-ranked, past master rank is a watershed)Skills: Master Path of the Doom Sovereign, Lesser Valtek Mastery, Intermediate Cooking Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Beginner Bam Mastery, Minor Fire Manipution Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Expert Paired Dueling, Expert Dust Construction Mastery

  I didn’t bother copying down the whole thing. Aside from a change in my Skills to reflect my upgraded Path, there wasn’t anything really different aside from the stats, so I didn’t need to rewrite all the subskills and forms and techniques. Five thousand Might and five thousand Focus. Ten thousand points was such an innocuous difference at this level, but it was like night and day.

  The biggest change was my Impact though. A hundred and five. It was staggering to see it in the triple digits, even being able to feel it in my bones now.

  Callie read over it, beaming as she took in the differences.

  “We did it.” She whispered. “We really did it. I mean, I knew I did it, and I knew you did it. But like…WE did it.” She snatched some paper from the air and copied down her own stats, passing it to me excitedly.

  Calliope Wyndham. D-rank. Ability: Master 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:30,550Impact:105Vitality:9,742Fantasy:20,520Focus:7,908Perception:22,375Creation:14,485Progress to next rank: 105,685/1,000,000Soul strength:Amethyst Soul BodyPet:Wolf named RelliaSkills: Minor Tracking, Beginner Dual Dagger Mastery, Intermediate Stealth, Intermediate Trap Mastery, Beginner Disguise, Lesser Bam Mastery, Expert Shadow Manipution Mastery. Expert Paired Dueling.

  Path of the Abyss-Illusory. Technique: Dance of the Abyssal Fairy

  I blinked at the st line. “What is the ‘Dance of the Abyssal Fairy’?” I asked with interest. That wasn’t on there st time I saw your sheet.” Which had been like, a few days ago.

  She grinned. “I was doing some training up on the Necromedes. Your mom and I were trying to figure out a movement technique based on a combination of her Supernova Step and my Path of the Abyss. I hadn’t quite gotten it down when I arrived back on Callus, but it clicked during the fight. I ended up working Bam into the technique a bit. I’ll show you ter, it’s pretty cool.”

  I ughed at that, sweeping her up into my arms and spinning her around out of sheer…joy. We were together, we were safe, the pnet was ok and none of our friends had died. Sure, Valk was probably traumatized, but I could fix that eventually, like I was with Felicity.

  Who wasn’t here, actually. I wondered if she was helping with cleanup. I gnced back at Wintervale. “So…I’m guessing the wedding venue is going to have to change. Think anyone will mind if we have it back in Valen?”

  “Who cares if they do.” Shrugged Zeke. “You guys have been through a lot. And you saved this whole pnet. Anyone with a problem can fuck right off.”

  “Crude nguage aside, Ezekial is right.” Said my mom enthusiastically. “And the ceremony is already done, so now it’s just the party. Anyone who doesn’t want to come doesn’t have to. It’s not like we have any reason to force them to come eat free cake.” She whirled on Callie excitedly. “Speaking of which, I couldn’t help but notice the name on your stat sheet. Welcome to the family!”

  She mirrored my actions from earlier, sweeping Callie up into a tight hug. My wife just ughed, hugging her back, and Zeke reached out and patted her on the head a few times condescendingly, which got a sort of pouty gre that reminded me of a cat during bath time, and that made all of us burst out ughing, even Callie after a second.

  We headed back to Wintervale after the Blinks wore off, and it was a heady experience. We weren’t one with the world like Moravian, but we’d definitely become more entwined with the universe. A distinction without a difference before I’d made the change, but now I could see the line easily.

  Benny was waiting when I arrived, along with Jessie, Chelsea, Bethy, Gabe, Mel, and Abel. My teammates had been nowhere close to D-rank, sadly, but the rest of my crew had ridden the wave of the Ascension event and their role in it up into Mastery, and it was gratifying to see them standing around looking so powerful and sure of themselves.

  Behind them, I could see many D-rankers actually. Probably a hundred of our original hundred and fifty (though we seemed to have had some minor losses, which I tried not to dwell on) and the entire hundred from the cold storage had ranked up, contributing heavily to the swirl of ambient Impact on Callus.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what would happen, but Zeke informed me that pces with dense ambient Impact like this tended to give birth to more Ascendants, people, pces, and things. It seeped into otherwise mortal things and pushed them over the threshold if they were close. It wouldn’t directly strengthen established Ascendants though. That wasn’t really how Impact worked in an ambient form.

  Everyone was excited about the changes, chattering and patting each other on the back and filling each other in on our battles. I told everyone in broad strokes about my fight and rank up, listening to all the stories, but eventually we all decided to head out.

  Wintervale was wrecked, and while we could probably have found a reasonably intact room at the lodge, no one was really feeling like staying here. We moved to Valen, where I’d helped them rebuild well enough that there were plenty of pces to sleep, and rented out one of the local hotels for all of our guests, both new and old.

  By the time Callie and I made it to bed, we were both too exhausted to even speak to each other, not physically, but mentally drained from the day's events. We communicated through the bond until we fell asleep, talking about our reception and what we were going to do. I wanted it to be more than just a day, maybe a festival or something to commemorate the wedding and the end of the siege all at once. I even had a few ideas for festival games. I’d made Travis a promise, after all.