Wish upon the Stars chapter 351

After the match we went straight home again and I secluded myself.  This next part was going to be an important step, and I wasn't willing  to have anyone sitting in. Even Callie might be a competitor later in  the tournament, and as much as I loved my girlfriend, I wasn't going to  make it easy on her. We were finally on even footing, and unlike out  sparring up til now this tournament had real stakes.

Granted,  it would be fine if either of us won, but we both had our reasons for  wanting to advance, so if we ended up fighting I wasn't going to do any  less than my level best to win. She knew it too, could sense my resolve,  even if she couldn't sense what I was going to do about it.

Which  was, of course, get stronger. My stats were maxed, but I had plenty of  room to grow, and my DS Mastery was my best chance to do that. I had ten  or more subskills to upgrade still, and I needed to make sure to grow  them in a way that would let me fight one on one without relying on  backup from Callie or Abel or even Mel. I had to use my room to grow to  make myself a legitimate threat, and the best way to do that was to get  back to my roots a bit. It was time to min-max my build.

Or  at least the aspects of it I could. The Fatewalker build was fantastic  for DS, but it was less than ideal for a frontline combatant.  Specifically my divination, while useful, had yet to unlock any of the  combat applicable skills I could get later in the tree, and as such was  much less of a priority. I had a few tricks like the overlay, but that  wasn't really even a skill so much as an interface. Seek Hidden was  useful, but wouldn't be combat applicable in most situations.

Which  meant my upgrades should be aimed at the most compatible of my  subclasses. The monk. Granted, the rogue subskills were hugely useful,  but I'd upgraded most of them already, and I had no weapon anymore, at  least for the moment. After tomorrow I would finally have some breathing  time to get a new one made, but until then leaning into the monk  abilities and their synergy with martial arts was going to be the key to  making me stronger. Even after I got my weapon this would be a useful  path to take.

Now, I'd upgraded several of my monk skills  already. Consecration of Flame, Stone Limb, and Afterburner. Which meant  I had five more left. Mistwalking, Sucking Mud, Boiling Cloud, Cloud  Step, and Leaf on the Wind. Two water skills, an earth skill, and two  wind skills.

Four skills didn't give me any groundbreaking  options exactly, but it gave me some, especially if I used them in  conjunction with each other. Which meant I needed to figure out ways to  alter each of the skills to they would work in harmony with each other,  or at least a few of them. I was pretty sure I couldn't jail break them  completely, but by making multiple skills different enough to work as  part of an overarching whole I should be able to manage...something.

Then  I stopped. Skills could be used in conjunction. Part of a whole. They  could also be SYNERGIZED. While I wasn't sure if I could synergize full  Skills into my subskills, I didn't see why not. I had plenty of bullshit  Skills that did nothing, and combining them into aspects of DS Mastery  could improve its function.

I considered my options. First  up was Stealth. It was still at Lesser, which meant it was well within  tolerance for synergy. Mistwalking was designed to help me hide in a  cloud of mist, but there was viability for something much more powerful.  I might lose Stealth by doing this, I didn't know since it was my first  synergy, but even if I did I had stored charges and I could use it  through the bond.

So I closed my eyes and reached down  into myself. I used Mistwalking, filling the room with mist that would  let me move more sneakily. It was a pretty basic and uninspiring  ability. But I focused on a specific part of it. The hiding aspect. I  focused on the stealth element of the skill, trying my best to shift the  skill as I did with any skill, using my soul to sort of highlight a  path for it.

Instead of just altering it over and over  until it became effortless though, I altered it as far as I could and  HELD it. My head started to pound, but I ignored it as I focused on my  Stealth Skill, and holding the Mistwalking skill I resonated Stealth as  hard as I could. I felt something catch, felt the two skills begin to  harmonize as my skills did sometimes, but instead of letting it go, I  focused on the harmonization.

It felt...simple. Not easy  mind you. My head was throbbing, but simple. Like it was meant to  happen. I held it like that, letting the resonance get stronger and  stronger, and in the same way a skill eventually became different when I  upgraded it, there was a sort of...click, inside me and the two skills  blended together.

I fell over, letting myself breathe as I  tried to tamp down on the pain. It took a few minutes for my head to  clear, but it eventually did, and when it was done, I mentally checked  over my Skills. They were mostly the same, except two small differences.  First, Stealth was gone. I hadn't been sure that would happen, but this  was a Skill and not an ability so it didn't shock me. I knew most  Skills synergized with an ability didn't vanish since you had to keep  ranking them up to progress, but it looked like Skill synergized with  other Skills did.

Second was under my DS Mastery skill. I  could dive into that if I needed to, and it listed my subskills, but  Mistwalking was no longer one of them. In its place was an entirely new  skill. Moonlit Night. My subskills and skills didn't have descriptions  or anything, but I didn't need them. It was MY skill. I knew what it  did, and this one was pretty fucking amazing.

Moonlit  Night did what Mistwalking had done, filled the area with fog, but with  Stealth included that fog did a few new things. Aside from obscuring  sight, it also obscured me specifically from other senses, like hearing  and smell. On top of that, because Stealth was doing a lot of heavy  lifting, the Mistwalking skill was able to get back to its roots as a  monk skill, which meant it amplified the force of my blows when I was  hidden by the fog. In other words, I got a fucking sneak attack bonus.  Every blow I made undetected inside the fog caused double the damage.

I  wanted to do more, honestly, I couldn't wait to find some new way to  improve my DS Mastery. I could feel it becoming...more. Evolving as a  Skill not only because I had upgraded a portion, but because I had  included more Skills in it. What that would do I had no idea. Maybe it  would change the Skill when it upgraded, that was certainly how  abilities worked, but either way I was excited to become more powerful.

For  now, my head was still throbbing and I decided the best move here was  to test out my new ability. I headed down to the training room, making  sure it was empty before starting my practice. I closed my eyes,  triggering Moonlit Night. When I opened them...I could see.

I  hadn't considered why it would be called Moonlit Night, but standing in  the fog I could understand perfectly. Light. The fog itself wasn't  opaque, rather, to my eyes it looking like softly glowing phosphorescent  liquid. That was interesting. I had a full understanding of the  mechanics of my new skill, but apparently not how it would physically  manifest.

Other people, based on what I knew about the  skill's function, wouldn't be able to see, or hear, or smell me. Granted  some special tricks like my Seek Hidden would make it possible to  detect me anyway, but detection abilities weren't exactly universal,  especially among the enemies I'd be facing. They would all be pure  combat types.

I strode forward in the fog, silent as a  ghost, it was amazing, like being inside a giant Stealth Skill. I  couldn't wait to do this with my last few subskills and make DS Mastery  really mine. I shifted into my Balam stance moving undetected among the  targets on the edge of the training room. As I got within range of one I  spun off my back foot, scything out with a kick at the nearest target.

There  was a bang as my kick fulfilled the condition of a sneak attack,  namely, that no one was perceiving me actively within the fog. Double  the force was expressed through the blow. I triggered Mercy Kill,  inflicting three blows at half again the strength, a grand total of two  hundred fifty percent damage. I'd been hoping those would stack instead  of combining but I supposed it kind of made sense since they both came  from the same skill.

Looking at the  target, I didn't see any particular damage, but that was fine. These  were peak G-rank targets, and my Might was two hundred and twenty. Five  hundred and fifty points of Might wasn't anything to scoff at, but it  wasn't peak of anything. Then again, it didn't need to be. I could  deliver these all day, and this was without any enhancement at all.  Stack this with some of my triple strength punches and I was throwing  blows hard enough to be F-rank.

Now  I knew, of course, that it didn't really translate exactly like that  because of the way Impact worked, but against someone my own rank I'd be  able to do some serious damage, and everyone in the tournament was  G-rank, even if some of them would have F-rank defensive gear like I  did. I got back in position again, readying myself for another attack,  and proceeded to spend a few hours focused on utilizing every speck of  Might I had perfectly, finding the optimum usage for my Balam Mastery  for sneak attacks and mist based combat. I kept going until I could  barely stand, ignoring the pain in my head as I practiced.

Finishing  up my training I slumped down, head still pounding, and closed my eyes.  Sadly the pain didn't fade quickly, but that was ok. I hadn't strained  my soul too much, this was within my tolerance, it was just at the high  end of it. I would be right as rain tomorrow before the big match. Not  that it would matter because there was no way I was going to show this  new skill off in the team battle. I'd save it for when I needed it.

Once  I stopped feeling like a pack of boot wearing rat kings were playing  hop scotch on the inside of my brain I climbed to my feet and headed  upstairs. I climbed into the shower and slumped down on the bench,  letting the boiling water wash away the soreness and sweat from the hard  workout. I wasn't exactly invincible now, but I still had another four  monk skills and at least one rogue skill to upgrade before the solo  fights. I was going to make sure that I was a completely different  fighter by the time that all came around.

As  I stumbled into bed and dozed off, I felt Callie climb in after me, and  I drifted off to sleep happy with the progress I made. Tomorrow was the  finals of the group matches, and I couldn't help but be excited to find  out who we would be facing. Whoever it was, I was sure this would be a  hell of a fight.