Wish upon the Stars chapter 327

Our meeting with Natalie was later that night, after their own match,  so we said our goodbyes to Laura and her team. She seemed to be excited  to find a powerful opponent or potential ally and insisted on getting  Callie's scan ring number. Despite the rough first meeting, she was so  enthusiastic about it that Callie couldn't bring herself to turn down  the contact details. She also invited us to another party, but we took a  pass on that one for tonight given the meeting and all the ones we'd  been to lately.

After she got Callie's details, her smile  slipped a bit though. "You should be careful. We aren't the only group  hoping to guide how the tournament will progress. If you run into some  of the others next round...well, let's just say they won't be as  personable as us. You also need to be on alert. We got our fighting  assignment early through back channels, and we aren't the only ones.  There are people inside the Unity who are less concerned with victory  than a payday."

That was unsettling, but not unexpected.  We hadn't known for sure where they got their information, but a traitor  had been one of the more likely options. Unfortunately our ability to  address that was limited, given who was in charge over there. I doubted  Midknight would listen to us even if he cared. Which was pretty up in  the air.

We thanked the others and left, and after we did I  triggered Stealth so I could ask Callie a question. "What are the  chances you could get us a meeting with someone high up in the Unity who  isn't friendly with your dad? You said he's always fighting with some  of the other E-rankers to maintain control right? Could we get in touch  with one of those?"

Midknight was a dick, and if he had it  out for us there was no rule saying we couldn't back his enemies. I had  a contract with Melinda and the Beast Lord Garden, but they didn't use  all my wishes or anything. I'd have to recheck the terms but I was  pretty sure the exclusivity clause in there was specific to the WCP.

Callie  looked contemplative. "That...might work. It depends what we offer them  and how much they dislike him. I never really checked into his enemies,  that would have meant getting involved in all his political nonsense  after he left and I was pretty outspoken about wanting no part of his  life, but I bet Uncle Alex would know."

I nodded, at least  we had a secondary plan at the moment. We headed home right away to get  ready for our meeting with Natalie, with Callie planning to do some  research before we left. She did get a chance to make her last day's  wishes, finally bringing herself to the cap at three hundred thirty five  perception and me to a hundred fifteen G-ranked chits. It also marked a  breakthrough for my own Wish granting as I was finally able to give  four points on her final wish. Which meant I probably could have done it  earlier, but hey, live and learn.

With two three point  wishes and one four point wish that left two more for the day, which I  used on Benny, topping up two of my triple strength density shifted  attacks. He put those eight points in Focus, which balanced it with  Might. Benny had decided to do a combination of Focus for Inventing and  Might for usage as his model for stat distribution. It might not be as  over the top as Jessie's full Vitality allotment, but splitting most of  his points between the two should still open up some interesting  possibilities.

Callie, in the meantime, planned to started  Skill training hard, making sure her Shadow Manipulation broke through  to Intermediate before she ranked up and had to synergize it. She was at  the upper edge of Beginner, but the jump to Intermediate wasn't so easy  to manage, so she still had quite a bit of work to do. Though given our  plans for the night she'd elected to wait until the next day to begin  since we had a few days before our next match anyway.

After  a few hours we finally headed out to the meeting, with Natalie  insisting we meet in G-district at the pavilion. Our ability to move  undetected was much greater in the WCP, especially in lower end  districts where we were less likely to run into over the top abilities  or people with absurd Perception. When we arrived, my cousin was sitting  in Mel's office, feet up on the desk as her two henchpeople loomed on  either side of the door. I'd never heard either of them speak, they just  kind of...imposed. But they were pretty decent at being imposing.

Natalie  was looking extra relaxed, sipping for a tall thin glass with a wild  looking straw and an umbrella. We didn't have those here so I wasn't  sure where she'd gotten it. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, and she  took an extra large slurp before putting it down on the desk. "Baby  cousin!" She said with a beaming grin. "Look at you. Fourth round  already. I'm so proud. I knew teaming up with you was a good idea.  Congrats on the victory against the Empire's B-team. Even that much is  impressive."

My  stomach sank as she said that. Solemn Vow had been strong, if they were  the B-team...well it explained why the Empire hadn't tried to put the  squeeze on us harder. Speaking of. "So you knew the Empire was involved?  Because we didn't. That would have been good information to have."

She  shrugged. "Not really our business. Faction bullshit is for the big  dogs. They can't pressure us with anyone too strong so we might as well  not worry about it. Besides, the Empire won't go overboard. You have  more to worry about from the Cult. Heard you whacked one of their little  dictators. Good on you by the way. No one really likes them. They  aren't unique to the cult of course, but their structure makes useless  arrogant fops more likely to spring up."

"Not  the Empire?" I'd have figured nobility would be a sure way to make sure  nepotism ran rampant. Granted, I wasn't in a position to throw stones,  but still, it was a surprise.

She  snorted out a laugh. "Gods no. Nobility is rank based. That's their  whole cultivation system. Not that there aren't absolute bastards there,  it comes with the territory, but useless up and coming nobles get  killed off for resources long before they can before strong enough to be  a problem. I won't go into details, it involves the way the Empire  farms renown, but suffice to say people are very motivated over there."

"Fine."  I said waving that off for another time. "But what about their  F-rankers? They can send them after us and our guardians can't do  anything about it. Isn't that a huge loophole?" I'd been wondering why  they did the two rank buffer up to this point, but I couldn't exactly  ask Zeke. Natalie might have some workaround though, and I could take  care of some of my worries.

To  my surprise she laughed again. "It isn't a loophole. They leave us  vulnerable to people one rank higher because it tests our  resourcefulness. Guardians are WCP resources to keep us from getting  swatted like flies by high rankers, but they don't want us to get  complacent. While WCP resources we don't pay for can't be used to  protect us from F-rankers, our personal forces CAN. Allies too."

Callie  made a sound of understanding. "That makes sense. It's all part of the  test. With the wish ability, being able to recruit F-rankers and even  E-rankers should be a snap. That's why the guardian's duties end at  D-rank right? Because by that point they should be established enough to  protect themselves."

"I  like this one." Said Natalie approvingly. "She's much smarter than you,  hold onto her." I flipped her off and she just cackled at me before  responding to Callie. "Pretty much. It can be hard to build up momentum  at the lower ranks since newbies have no rep. From what I could find,  there was a big problem with candidates getting murdered early into the  process to prevent more wishmasters from being added to the WCP. The  guardian system was an answer to that."

"Where's yours by the way?" I'd never met Natalie's guardian and I was a bit curious.

She  shrugged. "Who knows. She's a C-ranker so she has enough Perception to  listen into anything that happens on this planet. Not like she needs to  babysit me directly. I'm sure your own guardian is entertaining himself  too. Probably has a few contingencies to keep you from getting randomly  butchered though."

I  shuddered at the thought of my mask eating that guy. She had no idea.  "So we should be making contacts with some of the stronger locals in  case we need them to deal with faction pressure?" That was pretty much  what we'd been looking at doing anyway. We already had three E-rankers  on our side who could step in if any F-rank pressure came our way. I  hadn't really considered what a deterrent that was, but it would be  hugely useful to us since Zeke could handle the E-ranked threats.

In  my head I'd made the mistake of matching E-rankers against E-rankers,  falling into the same trap most of the people on Callus did by noticing  how much more powerful higher ranked and more centralized warriors would  be. But even the faction geniuses who could fight up a rank would be  mostly able to contend with very early E-rankers, and all of our allies  were in the late E-rank coming up on D.

But  the WCP wouldn't be enough. I looked at Callie, and found her looking  back at me. She nodded, and I could feel through the bond that she  agreed with me, we needed more than ever to make sure that we got one of  the higher ranking Unity members on our side. With the WCP being an  outside faction, involving them would give Midknight a chance to move  against us, and while our E-rankers could handle themselves easily  against our enemies, if the Unity E-rankers ganged up on our people Zeke  wouldn't be free to intervene when we weren't in direct danger.

Natalie  seemed to sense the tension, and gave me a reassuring smile. "Hey,  chill. It's not a big deal yet. We're early enough out that no one is  going to be exerting their full pressure. Just watch out for potential  assassins and you should be good. The Cult are vindictive and not to be  screwed with. Especially if you get matched with one of their teams. An  Impact advantage is priceless at lower levels. It makes people your own  rank substantially less dangerous to you, and that advantage sticks  around for the rest of your life."

It  would definitely do a lot to alleviate the danger of the early phases  of a rank, where your stats couldn't keep up with all the more powerful  Ascendants who had been there for a while.

This  had been more reassuring than I'd expected, and I was able to put some  longstanding fears to rest. My biggest need here was to do what I had  been doing from the start. Making alliances and using my ability to gain  favors. I was still pretty annoyed to be stuck at G-rank for the next  few weeks, since I'd be losing lots of potential points, but I'd make  do. It would be tight getting my friends to F-rank in time for the  Moonsong Glade, though on the upside they would be able to rank up as  soon as they hit the cap because they weren't in the tournament  themselves.

We thanked Natalie and  headed home, already making plans for where to go from here. I was  worried about those assassins, and I wanted to make sure we were  prepared. We decided to try to get a meeting with one of the Unity  higher ups tomorrow. Now we just had to pick who we would approach.