Chapter 51: Chapter Fifty One

Getting out of the trash heap took a while. We ended up killing about ninety of those damn raccoon things. Every time we finished a wave off more of them showed up, and apparently the corpses of their kin weren't enough to scare them off. Still once we killed a bunch of them we managed to get enough of a reprieve to carry the things out of the dump using emptied trash bags.

Luckily the trunk of the skyride was spacious, and the raccoons were small, so we just barely managed to cram the damn things in there. As we did though, Benny started snickering. I looked at him questioningly and his snickering turned into an outright cackle. It took him a second to calm down. "Sorry. I'm just thinking about how horrified the guy in charge of these cars is going to be when we get this back. I mean, this is gross as hell, but at least we can just shower. Getting blood and trash grime out of the inside of this is going to be a nightmare."

Callie just shrugged as she loaded in her next bag. "Not really. There are dedicated cleaners for the tower with purification powers. They're actually paid really well because it's hard to find someone with that skill set. Cleaning skills are easy enough to get, but you need something valid to mix them with. Usually something energy based. It's also usually pretty Fantasy heavy since you get stuff like fire that cleans instead of burning. Mostly it's a long, drawn out process and you don't find a ton of people willing to go to the trouble."

Jessie, who was sitting to one side, watching the rest of us carry bags of trash and dead raccoon and NOT helping for some reason, made an interested noise. "That sounds really useful actually. I wonder what I would get if I combined my ability with cleaning?" That was an interesting question. There were a ton of really interesting abilities that could be made through synergy, and powers offered almost infinite customization. I was just kind of bummed I couldn't afford to do that myself.

I did plan to create a new ability later on down the line, once I could afford to lose the three times modifier. Once you have a few million in every stat it isn't really as necessary, something I expect my father had realized, and the most likely reason for him changing his power at A rank. It was interesting to think about what kind of amazing ability I could make if I combined my Wish ability with something like DS Mastery. Finally after all of us (except Jessie) finished loading all the bags into the trunk we stopped for a break.

We were all glaring at Jessie, who just sat to one side, humming happily as we covered ourselves in sweat and grime. She'd somehow managed to stay perfectly clean during this whole mess, aside from a bit of dirt on her cloak. When she saw us glaring she smiled and waved cheerfully and we all rolled our eyes. Apparently aside from being incredibly friendly, good at information gathering, and a terrible slob, Jessie was also pretty lazy. Which made sense now that I thought about it...I'd never really seen her DO anything if she didn't have to.

Ignoring our team's secret layabout, I turned to Callie. "So where do we turn these in? I'm guessing it's the Unity building?" I HOPED it was the Unity building. This city was big enough without adding new destinations to our list. I supposed the crafting hall at the Academy would be reasonable guess as well, but I got the feeling they liked to keep that place pretty cut off from guild business when they could.

Thankfully she nodded. "Yeah. There's a place off the lobby. I didn't find out about it until later actually, when I went to look into critter hunting. The lobby is pretty distracting. I don't think many people notice the turn in hall since its off the main entryway and the view is so insane as it is." She paused though. "That said...I don't actually know how we're supposed to get everything down there. The skyride garage is pretty high up. I guess we could use the elevator?" She shook off her musing. "Nevermind, we can just figure it out when we get there. Someone has to have a way."

We climbed back into the car, after I physically hurled myself in front of Callie to keep her from reaching the drivers seat, despite her protests about getting us there faster. Jessie was our driver again on the way back, and it was a relaxing ride that progressed smoothly through the sky around all obstacles. We were lucky she knew what she was doing, since neither Benny or I could drive one of the three dimensional cars. I suspected her brother had owned one back in Velan, given his status as a guild executive.

After a relatively short trip back we arrived at the skyride garage and climbed out of the car. We were in costume, but we were still coated in blood and muck, despite my best attempts to use Mistwalking to clean us off. Sadly the skill had zero direct combat applications, which meant the water pressure was shit, and it barely cleaned off any of the grime. Because of the obvious mess, we were getting a lot of stares, most of them from the people running the garage, and most of them, as Benny guessed, unfriendly. Callie may have been right about the purification powers, but if she was, these were most likely not the people who had them, and they were going to have to deal with the mess until those people showed up.

Ignoring the hateful glares I approached the nearest employee. "Hi there, do you know how to get goods down to the monster hunting bounty office?" The small woman in a crisp white button up, vest, and bow tie, was glaring at me like I'd just asked her the best way to saute a baby.

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She pointed off to one side with a snarl. "There's a bulk goods elevator over there." She shoved a finger into my chest. "HOWEVER, it is preferable if you simply use the loading entrance on the ground floor when bringing in...corpses." I winced. Yeah, I could see how that would have pissed her off. With one final sneer she turned and stalked away. I made a mental note to try to buy lunch for the garage crew or something with the money from the raccoon bounties, if we made enough. I'd always heard that 'don't piss of the people who make your food' was an important rule of survival, but 'don't piss off the people who maintain your flying car' had to be at least as important a rule.

We moved the car down to the bulk elevator and hit the button, all relieved to be away from the garage. I turned to the others. "Ok. So we let Benny turn in the bounties solo. Hopefully it's enough of a boost for him to hit H rank, but if not it'll at least get him closer. Then we split the chits. I suggest we use at least some of them to spring for lunch for the people in the skyride garage. We're going to be using those again eventually and I'd rather they not give us the one that has no brakes or something."

Jessie nodded emphatically. "Yes please! It's hard enough driving one of those things when it works well." We all ignored Callie grumbling about how it wasn't hard at all. Jessie turned to Benny. "One thing though, you need to pick a name. A temporary will work but personally given how generic your costume is I'd say you would be better off sticking with whatever you decide on. You can keep the color scheme with your new costume and just ride the wave."

I could tell from his silence that Benny was thinking pretty hard about it, but he finally nodded. "Yeah. You're right. I'm just...not totally sure what to pick. I kind of want to go with something relevant, but I'm planning to change my ability when I get to H rank." I knew he could merge Lesser Inventing, and I'd expected him to do it, but it was still crazy to me that someone could change their ability so early. He bit his lip. "I'm guessing Hephaestus is taken?"

Callie snorted out a laugh. "Benny, almost everything is taken. You think this genius over here is the first Ascendant to ever go by Solomon? The universe is a big place though, and being heavily separated by region helps with that. People usually avoid using the same name as someone big on the scene already because it pulls focus. But yeah, Hephaestus is one of those super common names that will make it pretty much impossible to advance. There are dozens of them usually, it's especially popular with crafters."

I snickered at her comment, I'd checked online after I picked my name, there were no Solomon's on Callus, but she was probably right about there being a bunch of others. I wasn't worried about it really, since my personal method of growing stronger didn't rely on rep as much as most others, though it was helpful. Still, I felt his pain here, picking a name was a giant pain in the ass for me. I frowned, thinking over the potential names that might fit. If he was going to something inventing based he wanted a machine vibe probably. But something interesting and fresh too, at least as fresh as possible.

I blinked. "Hey. What about Clockwork? It's not exactly on the nose, but that's not a bad thing. Names that give away everything about you are a liability anyway." Metal and inventing was sure to come up with some interesting things when combined, and I was betting Clockwork would apply pretty well then, but it still wasn't the kind of name that made you think tank. More Mad Scientist, which would be a huge advantage for him going forward, since people wouldn't expect a Might focus.

He nodded thoughtfully. "I like that. It has a nice ring to it. Not too obvious, and I haven't heard of any Clockwork's how about you guys?" He looked to the girls who shook their head. Honestly analog clocks weren't really relevant except as show pieces anymore. But I knew Benny had a pocket watch his father had given him for his thirteenth birthday, the wealthy still used things like that as a status symbol. It was niche but still recognizable, which I thought was perfect for a name.

We climbed into the elevator, heading down to the ground floor. When we finally made it, we ended up in a side hall that I hadn't seen, with counters along the sides dotted with big metal platforms that judging by the sensors at the bottom were scales. We found and empty one and sent Benny ahead to turn in the job on his own as we waited off to the side. As he did I began to consider next steps. With four stat points (three not counting Impact) Benny was only six away from H rank, and this particular great deed should pay out some serious points, probably unlocking at least one stat too.

Once he was at H I had a ton of room to pump him up without notice, and if he ranked up faster than most they would just attribute that to the academy. I could give him the stats he needed through wishes if we could find a way to help him pay for them. The best way I could think to do that was to get him more materials, and the best place for that was probably the Academy. Looked like tomorrow it was time to go back to school.

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