Chapter 150: Chapter One Hundred Fifty One

We got home in short enough order, Jessie driving of course, and  headed inside to check in on Cass. When we arrived we found her sitting  in front of a huge screen, watching a replay of the stream from the  scavenger hunt. Since she hadn't been able to come with us, she hadn't  gotten to see everything that happened, but watching all of our  adventures during the stream, not to mention the adventures of the other  teams was obviously thrilling to her.

I had to admit, the  people at the Academy knew their stuff. Not only had they strung  together all that footage in a way that firmly made us look like the  stars, they'd managed to create a cohesive narrative with the clips they  picked. The way they arranged it made sure not only that the other  teams looked good and got a bit of screen time too, but that the  impression they left made them more impressive as a counterweight to us,  making us seem even more powerful in comparison. Punching out a bear is  way more impressive if you just watched that bear kill a mountain lion,  so to speak.

Watching the video, which maintained a  stable and compelling storyline, even I thought we looked pretty damn  impressive. Cass was sitting on the couch in the middle of the orange  living room, hiding her face behind her hand and watching it from  between her fingers whenever she found a point where her brother was in a  fight too big for him to handle. She gasped and cheered and was clearly  completely enraptured in the action. I wondered if someone at the  academy had some kind of stoytelling Skill, because this was actually  really good.

We didn't have the heart to interrupt her, so  we went over to check with Zeke, who was sitting on a different couch,  arm thrown over his eyes and clearly trying to sleep. Despite not being  able to see us, when we came inside and walked over behind the couch it  was simple for someone with his Perception to notice us. "You're back.  Good, you can watch the kid now, I'm going to sleep. I'm counting this  job as over, you can make crepes for breakfast to make the wait up to  me." He hopped to his feet, landing nimbly, and reminding me of my own  humiliating mistake earlier.

Despite his apathetic words  he shot another look over at Cass to make sure he was ok, and I had to  smile internally. My Uncle liked to pretend to be a lazy good for  nothing, but he was a big softie deep down. He'd acted the same way  about me when I was a kid. I could tell he liked the kid, and I decided I  would check and see if Cark wanted to take one of the spare rooms here.  The place was huge anyway, and having them around would be convenient  as well as fun. Besides, Cass livened things up around here. Having  someone who wasn't a cultivator nearby would make sure we did things  other than train.

Of course I'd check with Callie and with  Cark himself before I offered in front of the kid, but I didn't see  anyone having a problem with it. Now wasn't the time for that  conversation though, so while Cark stayed downstairs with Cass the four  of us went up to talk over our new stats in their entirety. We picked  one of the training rooms, but rather than start the training we just  sat down to go over what everyone got. Since we'd already chosen sort of  an order I decided to tell them everything I got first, and when I  finished, everyone seemed pretty impressed.

Benny was the  one who seemed most annoyed. "Man, other than Focus I didn't get any  huge lump sums like that. I'm guessing all that Might came from some of  those huge blows you landed. I saw that one that put Raleigh down and  that was fucking monstrous. Other than the thirty focus I got ten  Creation, which was a new stat for me, fifteen Vitality, five Might,  fifteen Perception, and ten Fantasy. No clue why I got any Fantasy at  all to tell the truth, probably one of my item effects, but still, that  was another new one and marks a full unlock for all my stats so I'm not  complaining." He wrote out all his totals just to be clear.

 

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