Chapter 40: Chapter Forty

We took a skyride to the academy. The air shuttle was overkill, even given the size of this city. The residential floor actually had a garage built into it where people could pull out of the building, though I wondered how they prevented visibility from the street. I hadn't seen any gaps in the tower from the outside. We all stepped into the skyride, another limo like Callie's, and the thing pulled smoothly out of the garage in such a way that I couldn't see how it got out.

Everyone was in costume, and Callie, Jessie, and I were all sitting on one side of the limo while Annie sat on the other. Jessie, of course, was the one who broke the awkward silence. "So, are we going to be starting today? Is there a registration we need to do? I know starting classes the same day is unlikely but do we have to do some kind of paperwork to be considered students?"

Shadowthorn shook her head. "No paperwork, we submitted it from your signup papers. There is a registration though. Every student gets one of these." She fished out a necklace with a bronze coin on it. As she held it up, it spun in a slow circle. On one side was a spiraling black rose design that matched the insignia on Shadowthorn's costume, and on the other was the number forty-two. "You keep them after you graduate, and most alumni carry theirs on them as a mark of pride, since the Academy is such an elite institution."

Leaning in, I stared hard at the slowly rotating coin. "I recognize the symbol from your costume, but I don't get significance of the number. Some kind of ranking I take it?" I cursed internally at the symbol itself. I'd never made my insignia. I just had so much going on I hadn't found the time. Now I was suppose to put it on a coin. I scrambled to come up with something suitable in my head before we got there.

Luckily high focus meant ease of multi tasking, so it was easy enough to pay attention to Shadowthorn's response. "Exactly. Your coin is rebranded with your highest ranking every time you move up. If you reach the top ten you get a silver coin. The top three get a gold. Considering there are a million students all jockeying for position having a gold coin is considered a mark of status. Forty two is the highest I ever ranked, and it's considered decent. Anyone with a gold coin is offered the chance to move up to a higher branch."

That snapped me out of my symbol panic. I raised an eyebrow. "I was under the impression you were from Velan. How did you go to the Academy?" I knew this was a sore subject, but I was too curious about it not to at least ask. I knew so little about the situation a few years ago. I knew Callie had run away at sixteen, and she was eighteen now, and Eric was two, so the whole move couldn't have been that recent, it seemed odd that Shadowthorn would have graduated already even if she'd gotten into the Academy.

She gave a wry smile. "I was twenty when I moved here, and G rank. I'd just had Eric, but Vitality means fast recovery, so I was in good shape. Graduation from the Academy happens at F rank, unless you stay on as faculty." I blinked. I'd forgotten that. Jessie had told me that same thing back in Velan but my Focus had been pretty low at the time. Noting that she was twenty when she had her kid made me hate Callie's dad just a bit more, I found him quickly climbing up my list of people I wanted to stab.

The worst part was that I was going to have to try to be polite when I met him because he WAS the guild master. The unity was way too good of an excuse for my rapid growth for me to give up on them because I felt like mouthing off to an asshole. That said, I would be passive aggressive as hell. I really hoped he noticed and started something, because he would be getting a visit from my B rank uncle and the thought of Zeke tormenting him made me smile, even without having met the bastard.

I put that out of my head and tried my best to get back to coming up with an insignia while Jessie picked up the lull in the conversation. Thank the gods for that girl, she'd saved every one of us from awkward silence more times than I could count. I played with a dozen designs in my head. I was pretty sure I wanted to use something wish related, follow the Solomon theme, but King Solomon's actual symbol from the old myths was pretty well known and it wouldn't be distinctive enough for people to link it specifically to me.

I pulled up a search on my scan ring and sifted through thousands of ancient symbols. I wanted something related to wishes so I could more easily integrate my Wish power into my legend later without needing to change it, but if I made it an obvious thing not only would it link me to the WCP but it would also lose impact because it was a common symbol. Finally I settled on something obscure but related.

It was a symbol called "The Well of Wishes". It was a circle bisecting four horseshoe shapes that faced out in four directions. I'd never heard of it before and it didn't look like it was in common use by anyone so I considered myself lucky and mentally selected it. Just to distinguish it though I put an S in the empty spot in the middle. I even took out some paper from the center console and sketched it out to make sure it looked ok. I liked it. It was simple but unique, and it was unusual enough to be attention grabbing.

Callie leaned over to look at it. "Ah, finally made an insignia huh? It's interesting. Don't see a lot of geometric shapes or symbols. People usually do images of things. Plants, animals, objects, that kind of thing. I like it though, it's clean. Sticks in your head." I gave her a nod of thanks since I was in my mask and my face wasn't visible. Her lips quirked up wryly. "Cutting it a bit close though, don't you think?"

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I was going to offer a defense, but I was distracted as Shadowthorn cleared her throat. Ignoring Callie's glare the older woman pointed out the window. We all turned to look, and got our first view of the Ascendant Academy. The first thing I noticed was that it was big. Not one huge building like the tower, but a sprawling complex of admittedly still fairly large buildings all built in a similar style.

The person who designed the thing had clearly been going for dark and elegant. Lots of looming parapets and gabled roofs. Still, the cohesive effect of so many complimentary buildings was more than even the considerable sum of it's parts. The Academy was in an enclosed valley just outside the city apparently, so we must have been close to the edge, because given the sheer size I doubted the trip to the other side would have been as fast.

I was impressed with the layout. It was like it's own miniature city outside Rajak, just for Ascendants to get stronger. It seemed obvious they had put a lot of money into this place. Shadowthorn smiled. "It's not the Unity building, but it's still pretty awe inspiring isn't it?" The limo set us down in a small field near the entrance to the valley, some kind of parking area for visitors I assumed, and we all climbed out.

Shadowthorn headed down the path from the entrance, heading into the school proper, and we all followed along behind her. "So we're heading for the student resources building. They'll get you your coins and register you for the rankings. You'll start at the bottom, of course. Though it's usually a pretty quick jump up for the first little while. Anything you do to get you contribution points pushes you higher, and the people at the bottom don't have many. Don't worry though, you're only competing with the younger students. The F rankers have their own rankings among themselves."

That was actually good to hear, I'd been worried about trying to climb over some older student who had been here for years accruing points, but anyone who managed to get that high in the rankings should have hit F rank by now anyway. We headed into a large dark building with a wide open inside and black marble floors. I had to admit the place was certainly impressive, and Shadowthorn brought us to the counter to get our coins and register pretty quickly.

The guy at the counter had bright red hair that was super long on top and shaved on the sides and wore a monocle. He gave us a dopey grin when we approached. "Hey there, I'm Rhubarb. What can I do for you today?" He had that sort of lazy drawl that told you that he wasn't particularly bright but was very friendly. The kind you saw in old surfer movies and things like that. I was guessing this guy wasn't invested heavily in Focus.

Shadowthorn smiled politely. "I have three students registering. There should be a note in the system about it? Reynolds is the sponsor." Reynolds was Callie's last name, and Annie's too probably given who she was married to. That meant either Annie or Paul, whom she had mentioned at the tower and who I assumed was Callie's dad, was our sponsor. That actually annoyed me. I didn't want him getting credit for anything I did, but sadly I wasn't in a position to bitch about it.

Rhubarb spun up a screen from a scan box set into the counter. He scrolled for a while before his face lit up in a happy smile. "Hey, I found it! Two H's and a G. Welcome. Can I have your names and insignias for your files? Cape identities are all that's needed. We have everything in the system anyway, but we don't want the wrong people to end up with the wrong insignias. That can be a mess." He laughed a bit, seeming completely unaware and unconcerned that none of us had thought that was funny.

I passed over my sketch. "Solomon. That's Agria, and that's Nightstrike." The girls passed over their symbols. Callie's was a black bolt of lightning against a black background. There was a white border differentiating it from the background. It was a symbol I'd seen before of course. Jessie's however, was new. She passed over a sketch of a daisy in a ring of thorns. It was an interesting choice. Friendly and reassuring but also with hidden dangers. It fit Jessie pretty well, and I gave her a slow nod instead of the smile she couldn't see under my mask.

Rhubarb took the sketches and left the counter. He was only gone a few minutes before he came back with several bronze coins that he handed us. They were all hanging from chains, and it was strange seeing the symbol I'd just come up with cast in metal. I ran a finger over the insignia before turning it over. The number nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine was engraved on the other side. It was engraved small. Compared to the big forty two on Shadowthorn's coin it looked pathetic. I sighed. It wasn't a problem, I'd just earn my way up. I was sure there was all sorts of tasks I could do to boost my ranking up. I just had to get started.

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