The first thing I noticed when I stepped off the shuttle was how...nice it was. Being back on a real planet, one we were going to be staying on for a while was special. It felt good to have my feet on solid ground that wasn't ACTIVELY trying to murder me. Of course, the second thing I noticed was when I crossed the shield on the shuttle and the ground started actively trying to murder me.

Ok, that's a tad dramatic. I mostly felt like someone dumped a small galactic cruiser on my head. It wasn't dangerous, just really strenuous, and I could feel not just my body but my mind and even my soul compress under the conceptual weight of the planet's Impact.

We all stepped off and stopped, trying to process what was going on, with the singular exception of Cass, who was holding Zeke's hand and seemed perfectly fine. One of the many benefits of his absurdly high rank was his ability to manipulate his Impact in ways like this. We'd seen it when he suppressed his aura on Callus, but this seemed much more impressive and direct.

With Cark coming with us, Cass's safety and protection would be left to Zeke, who could obviously protect her better than any of us, and he'd made it clear that something like this wouldn't be an issue for him.

Standing our ground, straining against the Impact of this massive planet though, I didn't feel crushed or beaten down, I felt...nostalgic. This was what it felt like to be a normal person. Well, I was high F-rank, so it was probably what it felt like to be a professional mortal athlete or a minor superhuman, but still. This was almost nice.

"Fantastic!" Crowed Abel as he limbered up. "This is just fucking phenomenal. I haven't had a playing field this even in years. If everyone at F-rank is this suppressed this trip is going to be a blast. I wonder if there's an arena in town?"

Mel sighed. "I'm sure there is, but don't forget we're joining an army. They usually expect soldiers to be...you know...soldiering. You can't just run off to punch idiots." She held out a hand and concentrated, a small flame sparking in her hand. "Plus, our Skills still function, even if it a drastically reduced level."

She was right. I focused on Belial, letting the power roll over me. A thin layer of dark toxic stone covered me, and I could feel the poison being severely limited, but it did work. Focusing hard, I pushed with my Path, focusing on the Fatewalker aspect of my staff form, and the rock got denser, the green glow beginning to brighten.

"Use your Path if you can. Impact does less to hamper it I guess." I said as I felt some of my strength return. Nowhere near the full amount, but Belial did make me stronger than the baseline human I had been before. In exchange though, the power was slow and hard to conjure, the Impact pressuring my Solid Path and making it a strain that I couldn't keep up for long. It receded after only a few minutes, leaving my soul quivering and aching.

The others mostly didn't have a Path, and the ones who did hadn't reached Solid, so their usage was more instantaneous, but I could see when Callie tapped into her Abyssal Path and Abel his Path of Blood that it was exhausting for them.

"Well." Said Benny with a sigh. "This is definitely going to get old. Why didn't we go to a lower ranked world again?"

I rolled my eyes. "BECAUSE it'll get old. This is a perfect place to train. We're unknown, pitted against people our own strength, and this will give us a chance to get some ground up military training we couldn't get easily with so many stats under out belt. Besides, we're all pretty close to E-rank, and once we hit that we're going to be able to function way easier here, so it's not like it's long term."

Turning to Zeke, I cocked my head. "So, you walking with us to the next town? Or are you going to fly to the capital or something?"

He shrugged. "I'll stick with you, that way you guys can visit pint sized over here between engagements. I won't be involved with any of this training anyway, so no reason to worry about setting off the geas."

"Sounds good." I pointed off in a random direction. "Onward!" I announced boldly, striding off into the (unfortunately prevalent) blue green forest. Callie caught me on the way, pulling me back to whisper in my ear, and I cleared my throat before proclaiming. "That was a test to see if you were paying attention. Most of you failed." I swung my hand about sixty degrees. "We're going that way."

Benny snickered under his breath and I flipped him the bird, making sure to angle my body so I didn't teach Cass a fun new hand gesture. Our language wasn't going to fix itself anytime soon, but I didn't want to add to the problems.

Celine, for one, looked positively enchanted by the place, and as they drew even with us, I couldn't help but ask. "Hey Celine, you seem less bothered by all this Impact. Is it just being in the woods? Because I'm already getting sore and it's been like a minute."

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She laughed, shaking her head. "I grew up on a higher tier planet. Below F-rank isn't safe on anything above a C, but my home planet had areas where children could try to slowly acclimate to higher Impact levels. It's good for training the soul early on as well. It wasn't something we could do for long, and it wasn't this extreme, but I remember learning to hunt and fish under higher Impact on the grounds of mother's estate."

I couldn't imagine someone shunting the Impact from an area that large like Zeke was doing for Cass, but hell, Zeke could probably do it. I guessed it made sense as a training tool, even if it kind of highlighted how dickish Celine's family had been to her growing up. Though I guessed any proper training was a pretty shitty way to raise a kid. I'd had some basic drills and games and stuff growing up that dad had run me through, but no actual combat training, and I was kind of grateful for it.

As we set off, I froze in my tracks after about fifteen feet. "Um...small issue." I said slowly. "We're walking at normal people speed now right? Because of the Impact pressure?"

I'd told the shuttle to drop us about twenty miles from the nearest town, so we wouldn't need to deal with anyone seeing us come in and mark us as targets or enemies or whatever other stupid reaction we might get from random Ascendants. But...I'd neglected to consider the fact that we couldn't cross twenty miles in like ten minutes at a brisk walk anymore.

Callie gave me a horrified look. "You didn't factor in travel time? I assumed you had some kind of plan for that! Normal humans walk at about two to four miles an hour. That's a ten hour walk! Especially since we can only walk as fast as the slowest person in our group. Who is a NINE YEAR OLD MORTAL!" I very carefully didn't mention that it was probably a worse problem for her at five foot five than for me at nearly a whole foot taller than she was.

"Zeke can carry Cass." I said firmly. "He's B-rank, what's the point of keeping him around if he can't do manual labor. Plus Cass isn't involved in the competition so his geas won't prevent it. We'll be fine. We're all mid to high F-rank, so we're stronger than your basic human, even here. We'll almost definitely be able to walk faster than average, probably like five miles an hour. And that's a perfectly respectable four hour walk."

Callie gestured around us dramatically. "In the forest. We hate the forest Shane. And look at these roads. They're dirt. And not packed dirt either, we're out of the way. The chances of us running into someone driving around here who can give us a ride are insanely slim."

I sighed. I was high F-rank like she was, which meant I was stronger than pretty much anyone here at the moment under the suppression. Not counting Zeke or Callen, obviously. I turned around. "Fine. Climb on."

She blinked at me, backpedaling a bit. "Oh, I didn't mean... Shane that's sweet but I was just a little annoyed about the walk, I don't expect you to carry me. I'm exhausted just standing here, and you must be just as tired. I don't want you making it worse dragging me around."

"You sure?" I asked. "You're not exactly gigantic, and we're the same level of Impact so it wouldn't be too tough."

Benny let out a loud groan. "Come on! We're in the woods exhausted under this annoying new suppression, please don't also make us watch you two be adorable. There's only so much hardship a man can take."

"I'll give you a hard ship upside your head." I said spitefully to my annoying friend as he stepped on my moment.

He sneered at me. "That doesn't even make any sense. We're nowhere near a dock. Where would you even get a ship in the middle of the forest?"

I snapped my fingers, triumphantly holding up a book. "A boat building tome from the wizard's tower. Nerd. And we're surrounded by trees. I'll study the book, build a boat, and THEN hit you with it! You have anything to say about that? I didn't think so! Now you-hey!" I was cut off as Callie jumped on my back, sending me staggering forward. "What happened to not wanting to make things worse."

"I reconsidered." She said imperiously. "You two were being annoying. Worse is fine." She squeezed her knees like I was a horse. "Onward noble steed!" I was outraged, but I was mildly appeased when I saw Bethy jump on Gabe's back out of nowhere and mimic Callie's war cry. At least I wasn't suffering alone.

We made better time than expected. Three and a half hours, and carrying Callie really wasn't that bad. When we finally arrived I had to admit I was a little thrown by the entrance to the town. "Welcome to Saltzburg." I read aloud off a sign by the gate. "The imperial guard sees all. Huh. Clearly they're got a firm grip on this whole tourism thing. So...giant closed wooden gate. Do we knock?"

Almost as if they were waiting, a panel slide to the side on the gate at eye level. "Halt!' Bellowed a voice. "Who goes there?"

"I'm Shane." I said directly. After he paused for a minute and didn't respond I continued. "See why that's a dumb question now? We're strangers, we've come to try to get into the city. Can we get in?"

The voice was silent for a moment. "Do you have an imperial crest? Because that would make this much simpler."

"Do we LOOK like we have an imperial crest?" I demanded. "We just walked out of the woods covered in sweat and dirt. Is that imperial crest having behavior? Come on man, I'm sore, tired, and my girlfriend is getting bored. I don't have time for this shit. How do we get in? Like can I just bribe you?"

"A bribe?" The voice said cheerfully. "Well why didn't you just lead with that? Five G-ranked credits per person. Pleased deposit the money in the donation box to the left of the gate." I glanced to the side where a brass rectangle with a single knob at the top was set into the wall. I looked at the others, who seemed just as surprised as I was, then shrugged, setting Callie down. Well, it was nice to know some things were consistent at least.