We dropped the three tokens one by one into the Ascension Upgrader, adding 2000 phase points each for the tokens that Freakenstein and I had, while the token Pinky dropped in added 3000 to my score. Well, that's what those of us based in New York received, with BrainCraft and Pinky both getting 3000 points for each of the tokens that Freak and I dropped in.

Regardless of the points, once Pinky added in the last of the three tokens she, along with BrainCraft, Swansong and myself, all received near matching notifications.

"You have input your Tenth Ascension Token, you have been advanced to the next level."

"Congratulations! You have reached Level 20. You will need to apply your stat and ability selections for Levels 17, 18, and 19 before applying these upgrades. You have unlocked Merchandising Options, please proceed to the Guardian Guild Hall to begin the Merchandising Tutorial."

"Phase Points Gained! Powerleveler: Gain more than one level within a single hour. This gain has a static value. 100 points times the amount of levels gained. Total Value: 200 points."

"New Achievement! Fast Track to Trouble! Level 20 already? Well given you've pretty much been skipping side missions and just going straight for the big boss fights I can't really say I'm all that surprised. It almost leaves yah wondering if you're a prodigy, a lunatic, or if you're just really, really allergic to down time. Either way, not bad, Loophole… Not. Bad. This is a Silver Level achievement. Reward: You have received a B:Tier loot box."

A small window at the side of my vision shook, reminding me of the small stack of levels I had so far ignored. Maybe it had been exceptionally stupid going out first thing in the morning without even applying the points, but given I had woken up literally just before 6 and rushed out the window to get into place, it was what it was. Still, before I let myself get too distracted and hoped the effects of my luck bomb were still in place, I opened the loot box and found 2500 credits and a Trophy Polisher.

I let the item vanish into my B.E.L.T. without pulling up the description and pulled my leveling screen into view. I had 16 stat points that I needed to distribute, 4 for each of the 4 levels I had gained since the previous day. The normal way I had been distributing my points was probably still going to be the way to go, dropping 2 of the points into my Luck and then using the other 2 points to raise either my Strength or Dexterity, but before I could place the first four points, I found myself hesitating.

"Hey Angie, it's been a few days and a hell of a lot of things have happened, but I remember you saying something about Charisma and Style playing a part in Merchandising, can you uh… can you explain that before I drop these points? Is there like, I don't know, a minimum I should have in those stats?"

"Wow… you're actually asking a question ahead of time? Who are you and what have you done with my scatterbrained Loophole?" Angie said with a giggle. I was just about to respond when she cleared her non-existent throat, stopping me in my tracks. "There will be a broader, more in depth explanation of this when you go and do the Merchandising Tutorial but I can give you at least a basic run down. The short answer is no you don't necessarily need to have a minimum score in either of those stats to utilize Merchandising Options."

"Okay that's good to sta-"

"But if you want the slightly longer answer on Merchandising Options, minus the fine print, well, I've actually really been waiting to explain this, so I'm gonna go ahead and do it while you seem like you're listening," Angie continued, interrupting me before I got her out of her groove. "The higher your stats, the shinier your swag empire. Every 10 points in Style extends your merch's reach. Your face ends up on coffee mugs and action figures in neighborhoods you've never even patrolled, and don't be surprised when it also pops up on knockoff lunch boxes sold out of the back of a van two cities over, flattery by bootleg is still flattery. Even a single point unlocks new products, so yes, your limited-edition lucky clover keychains can come in orange. On the Charisma side, think of it as your profit booster. Every 10 points nets you a bigger cut of the royalties, while individual points let you slap increasingly ridiculous price tags on your branded hoodies. And once your Charisma gets high enough… Well, oh buddy, get ready for the deluxe treatment: classic media deals, video game cameos, maybe even a Saturday morning cartoon... assuming you're not too busy saving the world to sign the licensing contract."

"Is… is there actually more to it than that that I'll need to learn about in the tutorial? That feels like it kinda covers most of it…" I said when a few seconds passed and it didn't seem like Angie was going to keep going.

"Oh there's still plenty more. A whole interface you'll have to tinker with in fact! But that's a future Loophole problem," Angie giggled.

"As excited as I am to see you start getting some shirts and stuff, and trust me, it's insanely excited, how bout you stop delaying and start distributing some points. You do have two Ability Augmentations to assign after all," Jon said, having been patiently waiting for Angie to stop as well. "Any thoughts on which ones you're gonna upgrade… wait… can you just like… do any of them now that you don't have Ability Bars?"

"Given the bars are generally supposed to be integrated into this system, even as you go way higher in level… yeah let's just get those Level 17 and 18 points assigned cause I'm super curious how this is going to work," Angie added. Before I responded, I found myself looking around the pit, taking in the group that had gathered as I took in what Angie had explained with the Merchandising Options.

Freakenstein and Miss Mist were murmuring to each other while Duskbreaker seemed to be looking down at his phone, fidgeting ever so slightly. The others all had their eyes glazed over working on their own level ups and Ability Augmentations since Pinky and Swansong had both hit 18 while BrainCraft went over the hurdle to level 16. I wasn't quite sure how he was getting experience given how often he was locked in his den, but I was sure there were probably rules more specific to his support style powers.

"So the question becomes… Do I keep pumping my Luck higher or do we start to diversify?" I said, reaching up and rubbing my chin. "I'm not necessarily thinking we need to maximize all of my stats or anything, just sort of wondering aloud here."

"You know, had you not just decided to pass out for the whole night, we might have been able to talk about this before now," Jon said with just a bit of exacerbation in his tone. It quickly vanished though as he started to hum lightly to himself and I looked over in time to catch as he leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. "Thing is, your Luck is up at 60 now with the Pendant's 50% buff. There probably is a point of diminishing returns with that where you're just not going to be able to buff your luck-based attacks any further just because of how hard you eclipse other people but I don't know if backing off until we see those gains fall off is the right decision."

"So… still 2 points into it?" I asked, mentally hovering over the stat window.

"The gamer in me wants to say yes, but I also would be lying if I didn't think we could spread things around every few levels, hmmm, give me a minute," Jon murmured. There was the sound of a throat clearing and I looked over to see Pinky getting to her feet as Jon started to click away on one of his keyboards.

"You done yet? I was thinking we could hit up the Sparring Dojo and go at it for a bit," Pinky said with a sharp smile in my direction.

"Nah, Codex and I are going over some of my stats real quick, haven't even finished up with my Level 17 stats yet," I replied and she let out a long groan.

"Sheeeeeeesh, come on Loophole it's not that hard, you should be used to this by now."

"To be fair, Level 20 unlocks Merchandising Options, his P.A.I. might have mentioned the Charisma and Style factors of it," Miss Mist offered and I pointed over toward her, nodding in acknowledgement.

"What she said."

"Well hurry up already, I need to work up an appetite before I grab some breakfast," Pinky said before she looked over at Freakenstein, her smile growing wider, "How about you Freak? You wanna tussle a bit?"

"I'm always up for a good fight," he said as he hopped to his feet, rubbing his hands together. "How bout we go do it over in the Fight Club though? Go and make it a real match, I've been dying to see what yah can do in a one on one ever since last night."

"Well now, this guy knows how to charm a lady," she replied, practically beaming before she looked over toward me. "How bout you hurry your stuff up and then you can come fight the winner."

"Might not have time for that between breakfast and the next tokens spawning. Besides, he does have to go over to Registration and put in that whole new name he gave us last night," Freak said, causing Pinky to roll her eyes.

"Yeah, are we actually going to go by Wildcard Assembly? Didn't yah think to maybe run it by us first?"

"Would you have preferred something like The Ascension Guardians?" I asked. I wouldn't ever tell any of them this, but I may have tried more than a few names on the crowd to see which one got the best reaction, though there was something about the new name that I rather liked.

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"Oh god no," Pinky said, her nose scrunching as she shook her head furiously.

"I might have gone with something like Paragon's Wake," BrainCraft offered, "Your little speech has been airing on most of the networks that are still active and it really did seem like you were building up to that by talking about The First's team, we would have been "the group that showed up in the wake of the Paragons," which would be oddly fitting in my opinion."

"Yeah, that's just as on the nose as the Ascension Guardians. I guess Wildcard Assembly is good enough… for now," Pinky said with a shrug, reaching up to pat Freak on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go beat the crap out of each other before we need to go and hunt down the next tokens."

The two of them headed for the hallway where our various base upgrades were instead of splitting up and heading for their personal safe house doors. I watched them briefly before I realized they were heading for the Phase Lounge that directly connected to the Guardian Guild Hall in Sanctuary Square. It wasn't necessarily a shorter path there, but it did stop them from having to split up as Pinky started to try to taunt Freakenstein in an effort to rile him up more for the fight.

Duskbreaker stood up as he slipped his phone into the inside pocket of his new cloak. "I guess if they aren't going to be using it, I'm going to go to the training room then, I need to see how the Shadow Planter ability this cloak comes with works."

"Mind if I tag along?" BrainCraft asked and Duskbreaker shot him a confused look. "Sorry, I should specify… There's a few things I'd like to test with your shadow portals if you'd be open to it. I understand that's a lot to ask your first day here but-"

"No… It's not too much… I'm happy to help," Duskbreaker said with a nod. "Is there anything specific you had in mind?"

"Oh quite a few things actually," BrainCraft replied, standing and walking up and out of the pit behind Duskbreaker. I looked over to Miss Mist, her hands still firmly holding onto her glass of orange juice.

"Well I'm certainly not going anywhere," she said with a shrug, gesturing briefly with the glass. "I'm gonna probably go back to sleep after I finish this juice… I said it last night and I'll say it again, if you can shapeshift into another form, don't ever let yourself get stuck having to hold it for hours on end… not fun."

"Are you… just going to sleep there again? Isn't that the door to your safe room over there?" Swansong asked, her eyes refocusing and causing Miss Mist to look over toward it, her brow creasing together.

"I uh… I guess I just kind of got comfortable here… it is a nice couch," she said, looking back toward Swansong. "I mean… if you guys want some privacy I could-"

"No, no! That's not what I meant…" Swansong interrupted quickly, her pale cheeks turning red in a flash. "I just… I meant… I…"

"Oh honey," Miss Mist said with a laugh that died off. She looked over to the door on the wall that was connected back to her home before looking down and into her cup, several strands of dark brown hair falling over her grey mask. "I uh… I shared my Safe House with Pinneedle… I… I just don't think I'm ready to face that just yet."

"Oh…" Swansong said, her voice trailing off. "I'm, uh… I'm sorry…"

"It's… well it's not fine but it's not your fault either," Miss Mist replied with a somber smile. "I'm guessing you got all your stuff handled?"

"I uh… I still have an Ability Augmentation to assign but I was waiting for Codex to be done so I could ask his opinion, it's kinda nice not being on the clock with the Acceptance Matrix off…"

"You gonna keep listening to them or do you want to take care of these stats finally? Cause Swan has been waiting real patiently," Jon said, his voice breaking through my internal chat, almost causing me to jump. Swansong looked my way curiously before she noticed Jon speaking on the other side of his glass with no sound coming out from it and smiled, the blush still fading from her pale, freckled cheeks.

"I'm gonna grab a glass of juice while I wait I think," she said, quickly breaking eye contact as she hopped to her feet. Miss Mist, with her glass mostly empty, followed behind her as I looked back down toward the table and let my interface take precedence in my vision once again.

Much like with most of the game, I really had no idea how Jon's Command Room worked, but the communication portion was probably both the simplest yet oddest to understand. Most of the time when we were just talking with the group, it sounded like he was sitting right there next to us, even if he was stuck in the corner of the room. But at any time, he could isolate any one or any grouping of us to talk to individually as well, and that wasn't even getting into the fact that he could apparently talk directly with everyone's P.A.I.s and someone acted like a conference room, allowing all of them to interact and share information between each other.

"Yeah, let's knock this stuff out. What're you thinking?"

"Okay, so most of your big stat gains are coming from gear. Really, Luck's the only one you've been building consistently with points, and yeah, your Pendant's doing a lot of the heavy lifting there too," Jon started, tapping his chin as he looked from one of his screens to the next. "It is working, and we've been making some headway with your Dex and Strength, but I'm starting to think the system's nudging you away from full-on stat dumping. Like I was saying, you haven't hit diminishing returns on Luck just yet though, so I'd still drop two in there for now. Just… spread the rest out a little, yeah?"

"Alright, let's see… If 8 of the points are going to end up going to luck, maybe just 2 into 4 different stats for each of the levels? If I did, say, Style and Charisma to help with the merch stuff for two levels, I could still boost my Dexterity and Strength with the other two levels… or should I just go all in for 4 levels and do 4 points into Style and 4 points into Charisma? I know the Catch Up feature will also be dropping some points, but I'm not sure how that's gonna work out if I have two skills that are both at the lowest point… um Angie?"

"It'll randomly pick between the stats that are evenly crappy! Then obviously the other one would get raised up the next level. Remember, the Catch Up feature happens last so you can influence the point drop that way as well."

"Thank you Angie," I replied. I had been trying to get into the habit of actually thanking her whenever she answered a question, even if she did still reply a bit more colorfully than I would have preferred. It at least seemed to be tempering her more… chaotic responses. "You know what, my Strength and Dex are getting some real boosts from my equipment, am I screwing my build over if I just toss all of these points other than my Luck points into Style and Charisma? That would make the Catch Up feature boost up my Toughness and Ingenuity a bit too."

"I'm sure there's a min-maxer somewhere out there that's screaming into a spreadsheet, but I don't think it's a terrible option. Besides, you've been cycling all your credits back into gear and books, which has definitely been the right choice, but it's probably a good idea to have a way to actually make some cash. We've got a few months before rent's due again, but I haven't touched a new contract since I finished rewiring the building for Mr. Greyson. It'd be a really good thing if we were able to get a nice little passive income going," Jon said and I could see as he leaned back and stretched. "Though you should probably go ahead and place the 17 and 18 stats first since you'll get frozen there until you do your Level 18 Ability Augmentation… which kinda brings us back to the question of what happens now that you don't have an Ability Bar to pick from."

"Well… guess we're gonna find out," I said, distributing my first two levels worth of points, adding a cumulative 4 points into my Luck, 2 into Style, and 2 into Charisma, with my Toughness jumping up each time from the Catch Up feature.

As soon as the points were placed, just like on every other even level I had hit so far, a new window opened. At first, it almost looked like my action bars were about to appear when the window glitched in my vision, the entire display going black before it closed and reopened. Instead of the regular, blown up version of my action bars, I was greeted with a scrollable window. Every one of the abilities I had created so far were listed and organized based on the source of their creation.

For most of them this organization made sense, with the abilities listed below the knowledge source that had allowed me to create them. The only spot this wasn't the case were with the handful of abilities that I made before I had completed my tutorial, including Water Into Wine, a skill that quite literally let me turn water into wine and Mute Button, which let me… well… mute things. Those abilities were listed under an "Unassociated" category.

"If you haven't already, go ahead and start helping Swan out, honestly I don't think there was ever a question what I was going to use this level's Augmentation on," I said, quickly navigating the list until I found what I was after.

"Give me some credit, I can multitask. I tore her away from her conversation with Miss Mist and she's picking an augmentation for her Song of Hercules. You're… ah yeah, I guess it has been 10 levels since you augmented Gravity Punch," Jon replied just as I selected the skill. In a flash, the Augmentation screen changed.

"Gravity Punch. Level 5 Activated Ability. Rapidly compress gravity directly around your fist before you throw a punch. Damage dealt is increased from your base attack by 90% for each 5% of your Stamina used. An attack utilizing 25% of your stamina will cause the enemy to be knocked back by 15 feet and an additional 5 feet for each additional 5% of your stamina. Augmented: For each 5% used above 50%, damage is increased by 180%. This ability has a 5 second cooldown."

"First Modification Option! Shockwave Drive! When you land a Gravity Punch, it now generates a brief gravitational shockwave that ripples outward in a cone behind the target, dealing 40% of your total punch damage to enemies in a 10-foot line, clearing out any debris or enemies in front of your target's knockback path and knocking any affected enemies back 10 feet in a diagonal line away from the shockwave's cone."

"Second Modification Option! Bounce Back! Gravity Punch's knockback effect now happens at all levels but your total knockback distance is reduced to 1 foot for every 5% of your Stamina. After using Gravity Punch, create a brief gravity tether between you and the target. After your target hits the max distance, spring them back and into your fist once more, dealing 20% of the initial strike's total damage and knocking them back a second time."

"Third Modification Option! Attraction! Gravity Punch's knockback effect now happens at all levels, 3 feet for every 5% of your Stamina. When knocking an enemy back more than 5 feet away from you, any enemies that come within 5 feet of your target are pulled along with your target's knockback, moving slightly faster than the target would be. When they finally collide, they take damage equal to 35% of the total damage you inflicted and your initial target takes an additional 10% base damage for each enemy that collides with them. For every 20% of your stamina spent, increase the range of affected enemies by 3 feet, up to your Local Area's maximum effective range."

"Well damn, am I stupid or are all of these somewhat decent?" I asked, trying to mentally wrap my head around each of the options. "Bounce Back kind of messes with how I normally use the skill to blast shit away though, so I think I'd probably avoid that one."

"Yeah, if you were a different type of fighter it might work, but I think you're between the first and third options," Jon agreed. A sudden thought occurred to me, and without another word of debate, I selected the Attraction option, leaving Jon raising a brow curiously. "Well damn, that was quick, wanna fill me in?"

"We're going to have to deal with Hydramental one way or another, this would help me get all of his clones in one place and chunk him down really fast, plus we probably aren't done with the droids just yet, they don't tend to stand in a line and wait for me to blast them away," I explained, reaching up and tapping my chin lightly. "I don't know how I'm gonna fully deal with him though, he just keeps adding elements…"

"Good thing you just got that BOGO coupon. I'd say you have some answers for most of the elements he's shown off so far, though it would probably be prudent to see if you can find a book on electricity," Jon said and inspiration seemed to strike him. "In fact… hold off on distributing your Level 19 and 20 stuff just yet. You can always do it in the Guild Hall. I know I just complained about you always spending all of your credits, but maybe you should see what rare options Betty is hiding… if we need to allocate some points to Intelligence, it would be better if we already had them on hand."

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