“You do,” Farrah said. “Well, not you, apparently, but everyone else. How many stones do you have?”

“Six,” Jason said.

“Good thing you can just use them, then,” Rufus said. “Going through a half-dozen rituals would take hours.”

“Wouldn’t be that bad,” Farrah said. “I’ve done a bunch of them, so I can knock them out fast.”

They sat down on the soft grass and Jason took out his awakening stones, laying them out in a row.

“They were using these as part of the sacrifice ritual?” Jason asked.

“Sometimes awakening stones get used as part of very powerful rituals,” Farrah explained. “Even essences, sometimes.”

“They did make an apocalypse monster,” Rufus said.

“Could that thing have really wiped out the world?” Jason said. “Not to say it wasn’t scary, but it didn’t seem up to the task of global annihilation.”

“They would have had to feed it for a long time before it became a genuine threat,” Farrah said. “They probably intended to keep it somewhere isolated and supply it with a steady stream of victims. Killing it as soon as it emerged was like smashing an egg before it could hatch into a dangerous animal.”

“Even if we hadn’t,” Rufus said, “there are people far stronger than us that could deal with it. Even if it became truly powerful, there are diamond rank adventurers out there.”

“Is that the highest rank?” Jason asked.

“It is,” Rufus said, “but you don’t see them very often.”

“Or at all, if you’re most people,” Farrah said. “I’ve only met one because of Mr Fancy Britches, here.”

“I don’t wear britches,” Rufus said.

“Rufus’s grandfather is diamond rank,” Farrah said. “He’s chancellor of the academy his family operates.”

“Diamond rank essence users are the peak of mortal power,” Rufus explained. “The Adventure Society likes to keep two or three in the biggest cities, in case a diamond rank monster shows up. That rarely happens, though, so they largely go unseen. When you’re that powerful, the idea of a higher authority is laughable. Mostly, diamond rank adventurers are mysterious figures pursuing goals known only to them.”

“And there aren’t that many diamond rankers in any case,” Farrah said. “The only reason they exist in the numbers they do is because they live so long.”

“They live longer?” Jason asked.

“All essence users age slower,” Rufus said. “At iron rank you wouldn’t notice the difference, but bronze rankers can live well past a hundred. Silvers can double that; reach silver rank young enough and you’ll look young for decades. Gold rankers live for centuries, and I’m not even sure diamond rankers can die of old age.”

“They’re immortal?” Jason asked.

“It’s a rumour,” Rufus said, “but a persistent one. There’s kind of an unwritten rule that diamond rankers don’t tell the rest of us the limits of their abilities.”