We let Jessie answer, though we had coached her on what to say. Since  we'd come down here to feel out forces before committing to an  alliance, we naturally weren't stupid enough to just tell her the whole  story right off the bat. Letting an E ranker know what we wanted without  any assurance of safety was eight different kinds of stupid. My blonde  teammate was much more reliable than she let on to most people, and she  had no problem navigating the situation.

She offered  Melinda a warm smile. "We were looking for a faction to join. You might  have heard of our group, we took first place in the freshman scavenger  hunt at the Academy. While that definitely helped us out in terms of   notoriety and even standing over there, we're not exactly top of the  heap. A lot of things can happen before graduation, so we figured we  would take advantage of our temporary fame to get our names out to other  forces and shop around for something that would be a good fit. After  all, it's not like we would need to quit the Academy."

That  had been a relief to learn, but it wasn't surprising. Joining a WCP  force wasn't grounds for expulsion. Plenty of graduates made the jump  actually. The WCP was the counter force for the momentum of The Unity in  Rajak, and they were a necessary part of the local ecosystem. Granted  they weren't thrilled when people with actual potential tried to join up  with the other team, but the WCP was a powerful enough force that  straight up forbidding it would be a poor decision.

Melinda  looked a bit interested, but not in a hurry to respond, so while she  thought it over I decided to cut in with a question. "Excuse me, earlier  you mentioned that Agria had good instincts to notice that the  Enchantment here was odd. Can you tell me what it is exactly? It doesn't  feel like anything I've been around before." The vibe I was getting off  the thing was really driving me nuts actually. I was a decent Enchanter  even if it had been a while since I indulged. Not knowing something  that seemed so interesting was bugging me.

She smiled  widely. "Of course. I'm happy to enlighten such a curious young man.  This is a formation." Since my mask was covering my face I cocked my  head as usual to show confusion. She paused, searching for the right  words. "Formations are naturally occurring Enchantments. You may have  heard for instance, that some materials are formed with special unique  runes on them. These runes can form into many different types of effect.  When several form together and promote each others function, it's  called a formation."

I had heard of that. All the way back  in Velan the Undine we'd met had taken a piece of stone from Callie  with a naturally occurring water rune. I hadn't really understood what  that meant at the time. Melinda continued. "Formations can be either  naturally formed through special circumstances, which is rare, or  arranged by formation masters. These people learn to move the special  material involved into unique patterns and structures to enable them to  resonate. The garden is a formation formed from dozens of powerful  Ascendant plants with naturally occurring runes."

That  sounded amazing. It also sounded expensive and like way too much work  for me to bother learning. There were lots of neat things out there that  a person could master as an Ascendant, but I'd come to the conclusion  over time that I was going to need to focus on the more punchy aspects  to keep up. I enjoyed it sure, but more than that, my power forced me to  distribute my stats in such a way that I was never going to be able to  compete with specialists in their stat category. Learning to use the  multipliers I had in combat and applying my martial skills was the only  way I was going to be able to keep myself relevant.

People  like Abel and the others at the Pavilion finally gave me a path to  walk, and the more I learned about it the more it seemed like a method I  could use to keep pace with my friends as they soared through the  ranks. Oh, I'd always be able to effortlessly keep up stat wise, but by  my nature even as I did I'd never surpass them in their area of  specialization. Not when I helped them focus all theirs into more  optimum configurations.

I didn't mind that honestly.  People hyper focused on individual strength. Teams were made up of  different pieces, people with different skills. But aside from wishes my  main skills were combat based, so I needed a way to remain combat  capable. I could just evolve my DS Mastery, and I would, but if I could  shift each of my subskills to more perfectly compliment a holistic style  I'd be able to get exponentially more out of the power I had right now.

Which  would be much easier once I could work with a larger force. Being able  to work with more varied Ascendants was key to being able to flush out  my stats to a more well rounded whole. As it was I was mostly taking  whatever my team could spare, and while it was helping me a bit in  shoring up my weaknesses, I definitely could use a wider pool to draw  from. Not to mention it provided a source of Skills and other things I  couldn't really get from my own people without depriving them of some of  their own tricks.

Jessie had been chatting with Melinda  for a few minutes, having recognized her chance to get the conversation  back under control when I lapsed into silence thinking about the whole  formations thing. She hadn't even given Melinda a chance to really  notice, but I made a mental note to try to avoid losing focus like that  in the future. It wasn't exactly safe to get lost in thought in  territory that wasn't ours, and it was a mistake I made far too often  for my own liking.

Melinda had listened placidly as Jessie  spoke, seeming amused by the younger woman's enthusiasm. She stroked  Travis under the chin as she waited, and finally, after a few minutes  she spoke up. "Well. I have to say I'm certainly interested in your  potential. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to offer you some kind of  valuable position in my inner circle or some such nonsense. You're  talented children, but you're still young. Feeding you too much renown  or resources will hinder your growth. If you choose to work with the  Beast Lord Garden, we would welcome you, but as entry level members."

To  my surprise, hearing that didn't actually bother me. I'd have expected  being told to work out way up would irritate me when we'd been expecting  terms like Cark had gotten at the Militia (at least for Jessie). But  thinking about it, she wasn't wrong. We'd seen at the pavilion how empty  some G rankers strength was in comparison to people who worked harder.  It made me like her a bit more.

Callie seemed well  disposed to the decision too, but she still needed to ask the obvious  question. "What about Agria? Wouldn't you want to train her personally?  You've seen what she can do and I'm sure she would be an asset. A friend  of ours had a power set complimentary to the Flame Riot Militia and  they made a point to focus on his development and give him a decent  position."

That got a laugh from the older woman. "Yes,  dear. He was the one who got you this meeting. But there's a major  difference. Blue flame callers are rare among pyrokinetics, and  pyrokinetics aren't that common themselves. Tamers however, come in many  flavors and varieties. There are no shortage of people who love animals  and want to work with them. Your friend certainly seems to have a gift  with beasts, and I prize that, but so do most of our other members. I'm  not putting down her ability, I don't even know what it is, but even if  it's something powerful and unique, it won't do her any harm to go  through the systematic education I give my tamers. I'm not as impatient  as Burning Fist."

Callie nodded. "That's fair. In the  spirit of returning that same honesty though, this isn't our only  meeting. We are going to speak to a few forces, so we can't give you an  immediate answer. It's only fair for you to expect your new recruits to  earn their place, but by the same token, it's only fair for newcomers  like us to seek out the best benefits possible when looking to join a  faction around here, especially while we still have access to the fame  and prestige that will make us a commodity in the first place."

I  didn't think Melinda was the kind to get upset about some bluntness,  and I wasn't wrong. She gave an approving nod. "Good girl. I'm not such a  hypocrite that I would fault some kids from trying to get the best  offer they could. Take your meetings, your place here is open if you  want it. That said, we aren't going to increase our offer no matter what  Santuary Hall or Silent Dagger offers you. What they want to give their  new recruits is their business, not ours."

We  thanked her and were just getting ready to leave, but Jessie stopped  us. Melinda raised an eyebrow at my green clad teammate, who blushed in  embarrassment. "Sorry if this is abrupt or rude but....can I pet your  weasel?" I bit down on my cheek hard to prevent myself from cracking up,  and I thanked the gods Benny wasn't here because he'd be rolling on the  ground right now. She stopped, went back over her words, then blushed  harder. "Oh gods, I'm sorry, I mean, your beast companion is very cute.  Can I scratch him behind the ears?"

Melinda  grinned at her. "Little girl, if you think I'm so old that I've never  heard that joke before, I think I might actually be offended. At least  you made it by accident. As for your request..." She looked down at the  small furry animal. "Travis says he'd be happy to let you scratch him  behind the ears." Jessie looked excited by the prospect and stepped  forward to gingerly scratch the small tube shaped silver animal behind  its tiny rounded ears. It made a happy chittering sound as she scratched  it.

Jessie  really did love animals, and the chance to pet an E ranked animal was  probably only slightly less exciting for her than the opportunity to pet  such a cute little critter. Either way she sat there cooing to the  little thing for about five minutes, and it flopped back lazily,  enjoying the attention. She didn't use her lifeweaving, presumably  because it would be rude without asking, but she clearly had a knack for  petting animals because the little weasel seemed thrilled by the  attention, and whined pitifully when she pulled back from him.

She  turned to Melinda with a wide smile. "This place is so pretty. For what  it's worth I hope we join your faction. I feel really at home here.  It's not my decision in the end but I'm definitely pulling for you." She  pumped her first once for emphasis and the older tamer laughed as she  bid us goodbye.

As  we walked out I looked back at the building, remembering the beautiful  garden and the formation and all the animals. I kind of hoped we settled  on this one too. I liked Melinda, and I thought she might be the kind  of person we could trust with my secret. We still had two other meetings  though, so it was too early to commit. For now, it was time to head to  our next destination. We were going to Sanctuary Hall. I was interested  to see what someone who called themselves the Peace Lord looked like.