Chương 65: R&R Ch. 4 — Cookie Challenges

Jasmine had a love hate relationship with growing stronger. On one hand, she mostly loved it. There was something intoxicating about getting stronger and being able to do more than you had been able to the day before. But that didn't really work for her power, yeah she could make whole new sets of gear and that would work, but that wasn't what she felt comfortable doing. It was literally cutting off pieces of her soul and saying she didn't need them anymore. So she had to upgrade them.

With her new reforged body, she could be riskier now. External forces couldn't harm her soul anymore; the cost was just shunted off to her body or the pool of power used to keep them isolated. And she could sacrifice her own flesh to heal her soul faster. Which was tempting to do, but she wasn't going to go with that right now. Her main load out was on tier now and the gadgets for her gunslinger fit were assimilating now. She knew she was going to do the support build next after she took care of the flying swords.

In another rank, both of them would be able to fly, but she would probably keep them on tier, anyway. Jasmine's big question was what to do with the spear. It wasn't part of a build, but it was a powerful weapon that had saved her life multiple times. The big problem was the part of her soul she had used for it. Unless it was her or Nicholas, the spear seemed to radiate hatred and malice at everyone, no matter the situation. That wasn't something she wanted to keep strengthening.

As her power grew, the will of her soul forged items would grow, and if they ever got to being living items, something born of that would be bad. She could turn it into fuel for the soul engine to trade her offensive weapon that could punch through anything for the tool that would let her bridge the gaps. But it was still her soul. That rage, that hate, that desire to break things. It was all hers. So instead, she used her knife to cut up her soul, focusing on the concept of mercy.

She wouldn't turn the spear into a kind existence. That wasn't something that she could do, but she could temper it. Both traits could work together. She hoped. Once that was also assimilating Jasmine took a moment to gauge her soul, she could keep going, even before her level up this would have been enough for her to keep going, now she could heal it even faster by injuring herself and she or Nicholas could mend that. Probably.

Instead, Jasmine put everything away and returned to her room to pick up the food Nicholas had left for her before then heading out. She knew he certainly hadn't done it and someone had to make sure they were properly registered for their new rank. They would get some complimentary prize in the next city, and she could use some creature comforts to put in her forge.

At this stage she had more than enough space that she could start making a proper living quarters in there instead of just having a haphazard corner where she threw camping supplies into. The official process to get registered usually took longer, but being on the train made it faster since she got to skip most of the protocol stuff. And the feats that she and Nicholas had done made it even easier for the two of them.

It still took well over an hour, but they would get their new credentials sent to the room and they could add them to their suits whenever they had time. Officially done with everything she was supposed to do today, Jasmine mentally checked her bond without sending anything through it. Nicholas seemed to be agitated and in the process of cooling off. Jasmine knew if she asked he would come hang out with her and do whatever she wanted to help her soul heal, it wasn't that hard of a pattern to figure out.

They both needed a day off from time to time, and while she was pretty sure she drained his social battery less than other people, that didn't mean she didn't drain it at all, just that she did so less. Besides, now that they were a higher rank, they could move to the higher tier areas and she could go explore those. A text later and Jasmine was meeting up with Twister, who had gotten to rank E last week.

"Finally decided to join us?" Twister teased, falling into step with Jasmine as they wandered around the spatially expanded cars for the E-ranks to hang out in.

"Yeah, soul damage was done, so we didn't want to wait a second longer," Jasmine agreed as she marveled at the entertainment they had available to them at their tier. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. The F rank break area was like any other place where everything, while not civilian grade, would work out more or less the same for games shows and more.

And there was a good chunk of that here too, but there were also equivalents made for people who clearly were using their enhanced speed and strength. Her Grandma had warned her about this. That as you grew in power, people tended to disconnect with the people beneath them. It took no effort to live at a higher speed, even if they couldn't be running at maximum speed all the time. How could you normally interact with people when they lived in a different time stream to you?

Jasmine had never met him, but her father was apparently like that. Somewhere riding the trains, living at his natural speed, and saving the world. And seeing things like this, she could almost not blame him. Most of her reason to not blame him was because she knew her mother and the family. They weren't good to anyone. But she couldn't accept all of that. Heroes saved people, they didn't fight for no reason. Jasmine refused to only live life at super speeds.

Not that she wouldn't try out all the new things available to her, just that she was going to try primarily to live like a normal girl when off the clock.

"Kind of pretentious, aren't they?"

"Huh? What?" Jasmine asked, blinking the confusion out of her eyes as she whipped her head around to see who said that. Twister giggled.

"You were staring off into space at the can't be played by human games, so I thought you were thinking what I was," Twister said.

"Kind of. I don't think it's wrong to have stuff you can do with your capabilities. But it feels like a trap to me somehow." Jasmine admitted.

"I feel like if I started playing with them too often, I would forget the little guy. And I can't be a superhero if I'm going to start forgetting the little guy." Jasmine agreed with that. With their stances made, Twister dragged Jasmine to a corner of the car that was more dedicated to people living life in the "slow" lane in super terms. Mostly littered with her friends from the wave. She doubted most of them had the same attitude that she and Twister had, but she wasn't going to mention that.

Even if they were just here to hang out with her and Twister, along with the others that didn't want to do all of that, it was perfectly okay. Or they were here because the older supers made them nervous.

"Hey everyone," Jasmine said, settling into the couch and hugging a pillow to her chest. Whatever anyone else thought they were crazy, hanging out with all of your friends was an excellent way to recover your soul. Especially because most of them would never move beyond this rank, or if they did, they would be stuck at the next. Something close to eighty percent of supers stalled at E rank.

"Are you and Retort going to be taking every rank up this slow, or was it just this one?" Twister asked once everyone's introductions were done.

"Probably just this one. Normally, the moment we're ready to move up, we're going to. But with how severe the soul damage was and how unbalanced we both were? Not a good look. So we waited. It's unlikely to cause problems if you move up early, but we're both trying to become Pinnacles eventually and every edge could help." Jasmine said with a shrug. There were the usual scoffs at the idea that anyone would go for a pinnacle spot, but these people knew her grandma. Which made it both better and worse.

"So after you reach A, is she just going to do the passing of the torch to you and make you the pinnacle?"

"She's not going to have to reach A. She's already proven she's not a slacker. Her grandma is going to power her up whenever she wants to retire," another answered. Jasmine drew in on herself as they started discussing the merits of what Brynhild would Ascension or wouldn't do for Jasmine's ascension. Jasmine wasn't going to bother correcting them. It wasn't like they would believe her, so there was no point. She just wasn't sure if this was better or worse than someone just laughing at her goal.

"You and Retort are going to go for it? So who's his sponsor or patron then, or is he dumb enough to think he can get there all on his own?" Jasmine wished she had spent more time remembering people's faces. She knew the names and powers of everyone here, but for the life of her, she couldn't recognize them.

"Before that train leaves the station, let's just move on. Now that our fearless leaders have joined us, do we have any advice for them on adjusting to superhuman physical ability?" Twister said, giving Jasmine an apologetic smile. She knew they meant well. It was like saying you were going to go to the moon in the time before powers, according to Darlene. People would laugh and scoff at you all the way until you reached it, and then they would do everything they could to decry the achievement.

It even happened to her grandma. Tons of people said she was only a Pinnacle because she was from the before time and things were harder now. Jasmine wasn't so sure about that, but she was glad Twister had given her a conversation topic she could mostly ignore. She and Nicholas would practice fighting at max output, and then for day-to-day stuff she would just be normal, and there wasn't anything more for that.

But it was something everyone was familiar with and things relaxed after that, and for the next three hours, Jasmine was just having fun shooting the breeze with her friends. But all things have to come to an end eventually and she was getting hungry again for something other than snack food, and it was probably for the best that she dragged Nicholas out of his room to make sure he ate. She was halfway back to her quarters when a voice stopped her.

"Jasmine!" Constellation called and Jasmine was struck dumb with the question of when did she share her real name. It wasn't actually hard to figure out her identity. It wasn't like she kept it a secret, but she was pretty sure she hadn't said her name anywhere.

"What's up?" Jasmine asked, spinning around to greet her friend. He was dressed oddly nice for a random day off, but she wasn't going to judge that much. Sometimes you just wanted to look good.

"I was wondering if," Constellation paused, looking around to check if anyone was there. But as far as Jasmine could tell, they were alone.

"If you would want to get dinner with me, to celebrate your achievement."