Wish upon the Stars chapter 358

The next two days passed without much incident barring a missing  dessert I'd picked up for myself. I kept up training, but between my  daily improvements I made a point to relax and spend some time with my  friends. Jessie and Benny weren't in the tournament and had been left  mainly to their own devices, but seeing how dangerous things were and  how much work we were doing had them worried.

Benny I  mostly tried to distract. Callie might have had a point about letting  him stew. I'd wanted to leave him to think things through, based on  personal experience, but the reason that usually wasn't necessary was  that we were usually inseparable. I'd neglected to note that this time  was different because I wasn't around, and our time hanging out had  seemed to help a lot, so I decided to spend more of my time being around  my friend, to give him a bit of relief from the constant soul  searching.

In between that though, we did his wishes.  Twenty Might, twenty Focus. He paid mainly in chits, bringing my  personal stockpile to one hundred thirty six chits, as well as topping  up my tranq blows to ten. I'd considered stockpiling some extra attacks,  but honestly with the tournament ending soon I really needed to save  for my weapon. Hell, even not being able to use it I would have still  probably bought it if I hadn't been waiting for the new skills I was  developing.

For now though, it was the last night before  the second round, and I hadn't been able to come up with a proper Skill  yesterday, being stuck on Earthseeking. I'd tossed it around for a  while, trying to come up with a proper mix, but in the end had ended up  wasting two days on it. Today, I had decided to try something else, and  was planning to officially switch to a different skill. Specifically,  today I was going to be trying to tweak Seek Hidden.

Seek  Hidden occupied a strange place in my arsenal, being both extremely  useful and extremely useless. When it made a difference it made a big  one, but because of the nature of the skill I didn't find much use for  it as it was meant to be wielded. Seek Hidden was meant to be used on  large objects over great distances. It could be used on smaller ones  closer up, but that wasn't its real purpose.

Not to  mention it only picked up one thing at a time, which was a huge downside  to a skill like that. What I needed was the ability to look at  everything around me and see the hidden and concealed. I also used it  for investigation, so I needed to be able to pick up small clues with  this ability.

It took me quite a while to puzzle out  exactly what Skill I needed to mix it with to get what I needed, but  after spending some time on it, I made the connection that was obvious  if you were paying attention. Poker.

So I went through the  process of combining my Minor Poker Mastery with Seek Hidden, to create  the skill that I needed. Unlike the last couple times, where I kind of  guided them to the point they were close to what I wanted and then  smashed them together and let them do as they would, this time I decided  to try to guide the formation of the new skill more carefully.

In  the spirit of that, I decided to define the skill as I wanted it to be.  A new skill to let me see what was hidden, to find what was lost, to  discover the traces of that which would conceal. I resonated the two  skills, doing my best to use the aspects of both that I wanted to see.

Despite  being prepared, I almost passed out. Micromanaging skill synergies was  apparently EXTREMELY soul intensive. I felt like I was trying to lift an  engine block with the power of my mind, focusing so hard I was worried  I'd blow blood vessel or something. It hurt. A lot. More than any other  skill merge, but I pushed on. This was exactly what I wanted, exactly  what I was hoping for.

Finally, after what seemed like  forever, I felt the click that I'd been waiting for and the burden  vanished. I slumped over backwards, shaking and sweating, as I tried to  get my heart to calm down. I breathed heavily for a few minutes until I  finally had the strength to check my Skills.

Minor Poker Mastery was gone, as expected, and when I checked on my subskills I noticed the new one I wanted. Eye of Revelation.

Eye  of revelation was perfect. It wasn't a passive, only lasting for five  minutes, but while it was active it allowed me to find the hidden and  disguised, as well as discover traces of things missing. The tradeoff  was that Eye of Revelation had an extremely low radius of effect, only  being able to see things within twenty feet or so. Still, what it lost  in distance it made up for in versatility, and it would be ten times  more useful as it was.

I grinned, forcing myself to my  feet, and staggered over to the track where I'd been training. I  prepared to start...and then realized that I had nothing to actually  find. I considered what to do with this, and then decided that I might  as well have some fun with it. I headed upstairs, opening the  refrigerator and peered inside at an empty spot. I'd picked up a slice  of cheesecake on the way back from junk island, and someone had eaten  it. I didn't know who, but with my new skill I could find out.

Triggering  Eye of Revelation, I watched as the world kind of...darkened.  Everything got kind of dim, with the exception of a few brightly lit  items that I was pretty sure were hidden or clues. I could see some  candy hidden in the cabinet behind the fridge, a bag of cookies shoved  into the back of a cutlery drawer, and what looked like a plastic monkey  under the oven mitts, the last one presumably belonging to Cass.

Along  with that, I could also see footprints, leading off into the distance.  Well, twenty feet into the distance. I stepped forward and picked up the  next set, following them down the hall, stopping, to my complete lack  of surprise, outside my girlfriend's door.

Rolling my  eyes, I rapped on the wood, and she opened it, looking out at me with a  pleasant smile. I smiled back, then slipped around her into her room.  She looked confused, until I followed the trail to the back of the room,  dug around in a drawer, and pulled out a styrofoam container.

She  giggled nervously. "That's...not mine?" I just looked at her for a  minute, and then she pouted and looked away. "You didn't get me  anything. That was rude. It looked really good so I are it. Its not like  you put your name on it or anything." I opened the container, showing  her the inside, where my name was printed in black marker. She clicked  her tongue. "Yeah, ok I don't know why I even tried that."

"No  cooking." I said flatly."For a month." I didn't actually care that  much, but I liked cheesecake, and I wanted to make an impression so she  didn't do it again.

Her eyes widened in shock. "Wait.  What?" She crossed the room in a blink, clinging to me. "That's not  fair. Come on, I'll buy you another slice. I can't go back to eating  materializer meals and I don't have the money to pay for takeout. I  spent it all on wishes!"

"Want to make it two months?" She  jerked back, sulking but unwilling to risk it. I actually felt a little  bad but if I caved every time she gave me puppy dog eyes I'd never  stick up for myself.

I flopped down on the bed. "So, you  already had your second round right? What was it, yesterday?" It had  been day three of the first round which would mean two days after my own  match.

Snorting a laugh at the subject change she thumped  down next to me. "Yup. Next match is tomorrow. I won, in case you were  wondering."

"I wasn't." I said with a smile. "But I'm curious why you're up again so soon. Shouldn't you be in a later round?"

She  shrugged. "Guess not. Since there are so few people left the rounds  won't be as consistent. Not everyone will fight at the same point in the  rotation. I don't know who I'm fighting this time, or even where yet.  They're sending out locations the morning of."

"Makes  sense." I admitted. "If they told us where we would be fighting it would  be easy to figure out our opponents by process of elimination. This way  the surprise is fresh." I was still worried as hell about who I'd be  fighting, but I had to admit that the first round had been a blast.

She  rolled over to cuddle up next to me. "I guess. I'm just worried one of  us will run into someone really scary. I know there are safety measures,  but this is still battle. If someone like Abel decided to kill you, do  you really think you would survive? And now we have Celine's asshole  sister putting bounties on us, which granted, she was nice enough to  specify shouldn't cause our deaths, but..."

"But."  I agreed. "But there's still the cult. But we have enemies here. But  the tournament is the perfect opportunity to kill us without allowing  for interference."

"Do  you really think that would work though?" She asked cautiously.  "Like...Zeke is bound not to interfere, but after you died..." She  sounded uncomfortable bringing it up, but I got her point. Hell I  couldn't argue it because I'd asked him the same thing once.

I  mulled over my wording. "I think that the person who kills me is going  to have a bad day. Or century. But I also think that won't mean much to  me since I'll be dead. If it makes you feel better, I'm not planning on  dying, and I've made some serious preparations for the next round."

She  looked up at me, raising an eyebrow. "Oh really? And what would those  be? Inquiring minds want to know." She fluttered her eyelashes at me so  fast it looked like she was trying to blink morse code, and I cracked up  at her, which earned me a poke in the ribs and another pout. She didn't  push for my answer though, she knew I wouldn't give it. After all, we  might be up against each other at some point.

We  chattered for a bit about nothing, not wanting to give away anything  about our preparations but still wanting to spend time together. She  tried to convince me to cook for her early, and I resisted, leading to  lots of bargaining for one or two weeks taken off despite my steadfast  refusal.

Eventually,  we drifted off to sleep, and I couldn't help but smile as I dozed off,  loving that we were still able to relax together even though we might be  enemies if things went a certain way.

I  was woken the next morning by my scan ring, and Callie by hers, and I  groaned and sat up, flicking open the screen. Callie was yawning and  doing the same, and as the screens came up, we each noticed what the  other person's said and we froze, staring at the information. Nothing  too complicated, mind you. A simple address. Very simple, in fact,  because it was the exact same address on both screens. I glanced up to  find Callie looking at me in worry. We'd both gotten our assignments.  Our tenth round fight would be against each other.