Chapter 69: Chapter Sixty Nine

Stepping through the door, the first thing I noted was how absurdly large this place was. I'd been expecting that from all the hype, but what I hadn't been expecting was..."Why the fuck is everything Orange?" It wasn't the most important thing in the world, but the absolutely appalling color scheme was definitely jarring.

Zeke snickered. "That would be why I was able to get this place so last minute. It's big enough that redecorating would be an actual effort, and it's absolutely hideous. Comfortable as hell, but the person who made this place was apparently chronically allergic to style. Trust me, it gets so much worse." I winced, finding that hard to believe. I couldn't really imagine anything uglier than this. He just chuckled. "We can fix that later though, for now pay more attention to what's under the decoration disaster."

We stepped into the lurid orange front room onto surprisingly plush carpet and he started pointing things out. "As you can see we have plenty of couches for lounging on. A recessed scan box mount in the middle of the room. The carpet is stain resistant, though if you CAN manage to stain it feel free, it's not like you could make it any worse." Benny snickered at that while Jessie held down a giggle. Callie and I just smirked.

I wondered if one of them would wish to change the color scheme of this place. Since I wanted it to happen I couldn't pitch it to them. My involvement would fuck up the potential compensation making the wish basically worthless because it wasn't of real value to them, which would in turn mean there was no valid payment. Still with so many people here there was a decent chance someone would think of it. Hell Zeke might have already come up with the idea, after all he had been friends with my dad and would be pretty used to wishing, though even if he had I wasn't sure he would mention it.

He led us out of the living room and into the kitchen, gesturing proudly to the enormous space. "Of course a top of the line kitchen since I know there are chefs among you. Granted every single piece of equipment is orange somehow, which seems like way too much effort even if you somehow thought this looked good but hey, can't say they weren't committed to their color palette. High end stove, oven, a materializer if you suddenly decide you hate yourselves or the two of you who can actually cook arent here, and a massive refrigerator. Any questions there?"

We all looked at each other in shock. Awful decorating aside the kitchen was massive. A huge open room with a massive marble top island in the center. The counters had huge cabinets lining them filled with all sorts of expensive utilities for cooking, some of which even I hadn't heard of. I was really looking forward to cooking my first meal in here and judging by the looks so were the others. I chose not to comment on that and just kept walking, mostly because I didn't feel like cooking tonight.

Next we headed into the bathroom, and literally all of us froze in awe. Zeke smirked. "Yeah, not even the person who made this place got everything wrong. This is easily my favorite room in the whole place." He gestured to the massive marble bathroom and I had to agree with that. It was beautiful. The tub was on a raised platform in the back corner, sort of a stage with carpet around the edges where it was set into the floor. The tub itself was massive, ten feet by ten feet and a set of mirrored shelves lined the walls nearest to meet in the corner behind one of the corners of the bath.

The marble floor was open and empty aside from some rugs as it stretched out to where a massive stall shower was set across from a lavish toilet. The shower was made with smooth tile and the glass for the shower door was opaque, but I could see a vent at the top that could be open or closed and next to it was a switch that could be turned after the vent was closed to make the thing a steam room. When I opened it I found a marble bench set back in a wide open shower with four different heads so you could get pelted with water from all sides or just take a normal shower with a single head.

Now there are lots of weird quirks people have, but mine is hands down my love of large showers. I could sit in a shower all day long just relaxing under the hot water and letting my troubles melt away. I used to worry about my skin drying out but with my current Vitality I bet that wouldn't even be an issue. Zeke saw my look and sighed. He turned to my friends. "If I were you I would limit his time in the shower. None of the rest of us will be able to use it if he has his way. He has a problem."

I glared at him. "I don't hog it. I'm happy to get out when people need to shower. If no one else is in there I don't see what the problem is. Plus isn't this place huge? I'm sure there are other bathrooms, I can just take the room closest to this one." I glanced over at the carpeted platform the tub was set into, briefly wondering if it was comfortable enough to sleep on. Having a bathroom as a bedroom might be convenient. But I dismissed the thought, that would be ridiculous, my scan ring might get wet.

Zeke grabbed my shoulders and literally steered me out of the bathroom. "Nope. We can talk about rooms later, now is the tour, we're leaving." I tried to protest because I wanted to stay in the nice bathroom but Zeke was MUCH stronger than me, and even holding back it became hard to resist when he pushed me. I finally gave up and started walking on my own. I could come back later on. I was sure I'd spend a ton of time in there. Our old shower at the place in Velan had been one of those shower curtain monstrosities, and I hadn't bothered to use it more than the quick daily shower I needed to stay clean. Now that I was living in a house with the perfect shower nothing would stop me.

Luckily I wasn't the only one freaking out. Our next stop was the training room, and Callie lost her entire godsdamned mind. The basement training area was absolutely massive, and instead of an empty room the whole place was filled with obstacles. Hurdles, pit traps, rings hanging from the ceiling, sand boxes, balance beams, and even more difficult obstacles that could be added between them to make them harder like swinging pendulums and robotic attack arms. It was absolutely gorgeous and even I was interested in trying it. I was betting I could rank up my gymnastics with this.

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Callie was bouncing in place in excitement. Apart from food, Callie's main passion was actually training. It was how she got so far ahead of everyone else back at the guild. Some of it was a good public presence, but some of it was the actual skill to back up that presence, which she got by being a training maniac. She didn't even wait for the ok, just took off at a run after staring for a minute, bouncing up onto a balance beam as she dodged around a series of mechanical arms trying to push her off.

I turned to Zeke incredulously. "Who the hell lived here? Between the weird decorating and this training room I have to assume it was someone strong. I figured Ascendant based on the house, but with all this nonsense around I have to assume a higher rank. This level of weirdness reeks of serious recursion. Or at the very least someone like the Jerks who weaponizes their oddity to accrue points." There were all kinds of Ascendants, and I knew for a fact you could get strong by being a complete weirdo. This place had that kind of vibe.

Sure enough Zeke burst into laughter. "Yeah, he was an F ranker. I won't tell you which one, though if you look around for the info you'll figure it out. Still, you aren't wrong. The weirdness tactic is valid but the recursion is harder to avoid when you use it. Mentally stopping yourself from becoming a monster can be tough but its pretty straightforward. More unusual recursive behaviors can be harder to recognize. Once you start leaning in it can snowball. Innocuous shit like eating a specific kind of pie can be a gateway to all sorts of crazy behavior."

That was something to look out for, for sure. Though honestly I doubted I'd have taken that route anyway. People like the Jerks might have an easier time getting points but it was impossible to take them seriously. I didn't want to be the joke of the whole city like they were. No, my wishing was enough to give me an edge, and the more I used it the more I would shock and awe people and the more powerful I'd get. Besides I was having trouble resisting the basic recursion of just being a hero.

Speaking of, I turned to Zeke. "So I've been having a bit of trouble with my recursion. Specifically it pushing me towards violence. I'm guessing that's partly because of Stricture?" If anyone would know how to get around this it would be Zeke. It wasn't like her was going to make it worse somehow.

He smiled. "The punch your problems away mentality. Yeah, that one is common with younger Ascendants. People assume a predisposition for violence. It's one of the most consistent forms of recursion. Not for everyone of course. There's implicit bias towards people like Jessie who use plant based stuff. They assume they'll got for control or healing for instance. Your actual showing in the world is just fighting though, plus you killed Stricture on your first major run in with an enemy."

I winced at that. "So there's no way to fix it? And why aren't people more pissed about that. I'm supposed to be a hero right? I'd have figured offing someone would have made all the civilians nervous. Though I guess they might have just been relieved not to have to deal with him."

He shook his head. "No way around it sadly. And you're buying into the press too much. Would it have bothered you as a mortal?" I frowned but then shook my head. He nodded in satisfaction. "Heroic Cultivation is a PR stunt, they set themselves up as protectors of the innocent and all that nonsense because it's an easy way to monetize fame so to speak, but they're still cultivators. The Unity is very careful to steer people in such a way that they accept the necessary harshness of that kind of business. It's not effective marketing if you have to hide everything you do for it to work."

I could see his point. Cultivation was much more cutthroat and brutal than I'd expected going in, but I still kind of just accepted all that. I never had any high moral expectations for heroes or assumed villains were monsters one and all. It was all just spin, and somewhere deep down part of me kind of knew that.

It was a lot to think about, but I was glad I'd asked him. I felt like if I had kept any of that internalized idealism I might have run into some problems later. Still, I was happy with my moral stance. I was a hero, and I enjoyed that. What that might mean for my relationship with other forces or how I handled my enemies was something I could figure out later, for now I was moving into a new place with my best friends. Life was pretty good.

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