Wish upon the Stars chapter 323

The next day, we decided to come in and watch Lament and Wren's  match. They were set up in a different arena, but they were in the  second day's lineup, so were able to come watch their fight. Zeke  actually came along too for some reason, and I was curious as to why. As  we settled into wait for the match to start I decided to just ask. "So  what made this fight interesting enough to check out with us?"

Zeke  turned to look at me with a smile. "Lament. Not many people manage to  train their soul strength to that level out here in the boonies. There's  three or four kids here who made it to the same point, and that's solid  talent without any sort of heritage or guidance, though it isn't  something you can do further up. At least not nearly as easily. There's a  reason that even at G-rank they call them Master Candidates."

The  way he was talking made it sound like they'd hit some kind of standard.  "Is there a method of gauging soul force comparatively? Like some kind  of metric people can use?'

That got me a grin. "See,  that's the kind of question you should be asking." He was clearly  pleased I'd brought this up. I was guessing it was basic cultivation  info he was allowed to share, but only if I asked. "Yes. There is. Soul  strength is gauged through color. I-rankers have an ivory soul.  H-rankers are pink, G-rankers have a red soul, so on and so forth. To  clarify, you're maybe ten percent into red. It's MUCH easier to train  your soul at low levels, and the hammering method you and the others  here use only really works well at red."

"So Abel the  others are at the peak of orange?" It made sense that since they were  almost Experts they would be at the top of the orange soul strength  bracket.

Zeke just laughed. "What? No. They're BARELY  orange. Listen, kid. Soul strength is incredibly important, for reasons  that won't become apparent until you get much more powerful. Most people  however, never cultivate soul strength. Despite that, even basic ass  cultivators are able to rank their skills up to a single rank ahead.  Intermediate at G-rank isn't impressive, not like PEAK Intermediate.  Orange can take you to the peak of Intermediate, but it's impossible to  break through to Expert without breaking through to F-rank unless your  soul reaches yellow grade."

"So they're at orange, barely,  which means despite being right up against the barrier they can't push  through that last little bit without WAY more effort than you'd expect?"  I asked uncertainly. Abel had made it sound like his soul was just a  drop away from strong enough, but it seemed like that drop was the  difference of an ocean.

He nodded. "Sure. And when they  rank up that process happens naturally. The process of ranking up is a  sublimation. The weight of your stats condense your being and you become  heavier, your Impact rising. In the process your soul becomes tempered  and categorically rises on rank."

I frowned at that. "So  there are ten ranks of soul strength, just like cultivation ranks?"  Well, eleven but I wasn't counting gods because who knew how the hell  you became one of those.

"Not exactly." He said wryly.  "But don't worry about that for now. As far as you're concerned there  are ten for the moment. Tempering at red can be done through your  current method, it's called hammering. Being able to hammer your soul to  orange is no mean feat. All those kids are geniuses. Maybe not monster  level existences, but they have a natural strength of heart that most  people can't match. The soul gets harder to temper through hammering as  it condenses, you're at maybe ten percent, like I said, but it's going  to take you years to get to orange even with all your advantages."

My  displeasure at that must have been obvious, because he just laughed.  Undeterred, I pressed on. "Ok, if hammering isn't the way to temper your  soul, what is? Is it really something that only large clans can do?" I  wasn't resigned to being relegated to a space hick for the rest of my  life. All the powerful combat techniques in the world were useless  without the soul strength to mobilize them.

That seemed to  be the right thing to ask. "No. Other people can d-" The symbol on his  forehead flared, and he gritted his teeth, forcing his breathing to even  out. "Shit. That's too much. Fine. There..." He stopped to think over  his words. "There is a PLACE, where anyone can temper the soul. I can't  tell you more. But I can tell you this. After your soul reaches Master  rank it becomes too sublimated to change. Blue is when tempering stops."

Something  about that was important. He couldn't say what, but it was clear from  the geas flaring that he'd been about to tell me something related to  cultivation secrets that were outside the scope of the competition. I  tried to puzzle it out, but Callie got it first.

"It's  important that we go to this place early. Probably during F-rank. You  mentioned people able to support Skills two above their rank before. If  we can only go up two ranks, then if we wait until we're E-ranked we  can't go up two full ranks, we'd stop at blue." She caught the crux of  it before I did.

Zeke beamed. "I knew there was a reason I  liked you." Then he winked. "Not that I can, of course, confirm the  statement you just made. That would be beyond the scope of my role. But I  feel a completely unrelated need to comment on your cleverness at this  seemingly random time." His eyes flicked to the pit. "Anyway, enough  talking about soul strength, your friends are coming out. I want to see  what the spear girl can do. She and your little buddy are the most  interesting two here."

Lament,  Falken, Wren, and Lestri came out onto the sand as a unit. Lament was in  the lead, with Falken dragging behind. I didn't know what Falken could  do, but I was pretty sure he was strong. Apart from Lament he seemed to  be the strongest team member based on how the others acted. Not a Master  Candidate most likely, but still powerful as hell. "Who the hell are  they fighting by the way?" I asked Callie.

"Blood  Fiend Society." Said my girlfriend with a grimace. "Nasty bastards.  Sacrificial abilities that can induce temporary berserk modes. Finding  information about them was actually really easy, since they aren't  exactly subtle. Of course, that's just their core heritage. How much  each person uses their faction's unique Skills and methods and how much  their rely on inborn abilities is up in the air, as we saw in our last  fight."

The  other party did kind of look...Blood Fiend-ish. They all wore deep  crimson robes and stylized demonic masks. Couldn't tell anything about  their appearances except their eyes were red like fresh blood. As they  stepped out, they glided over the sand, not literally, but with dramatic  swooping strides that trailed their long robes across the ground.  Sadly, the isolation barrier stopped us from hearing what was said, but  judging by Lament's bored expression, it wasn't anything too interesting  anyway.

The  society members spread out around the Spear Legion, taking up a four  corners position, before two of them dashed in, transforming mid stride  into some sort of slavering red furred beast. Lestri and Wren stepped in  to deflect them. The larger brother whirling out his massive spear to  keep them at range. Lestri used a rapid fire stabbing technique that  relied on the spear sliding through his hand like a pool cue, driven by  the grip he had on the base with his other palm.

The  other two members of the society raised their hands and called forth a  storm of sanguine energy. Crimson fire and blood red lightning, that  pooled together above their heads in a vortex. As that happened, the  sand in the arena began to glow an ominous red, and energy started to  flow out of it, siphoning up into the vortex. The more energy that fed  into it the more terrifying it became, growing in size and ferocity even  as the red sand dimmed.

"What  the fuck is THAT?" I asked in horror. That attack was much stronger  than it should be coming from two G-rankers. At this point that vortex  had firmly pushed into the realm of F-ranked attacks.

Zeke  whistled. "Crafty. They used the vortex invocation as a focus for a  blood sacrifice art. That arena has had a LOT of blood shed in it over  the years. It's baked into the ground at this point. Shouldn't be able  to take all of it though. Even both their souls together shouldn't be  able to handle that kind of pressure. I expect they're just about done  with the buildup."

True  to his words, the siphon of sanguine energy cut off. Rather than charge  it more, the two casters raised their hands and pushed, slowly forcing  the cloud of roiling energy to shrink. They condensed the power slowly  and steadily, and as it shrunk it started to shape itself. By the time  they finished there was a giant head that resembled the creatures the  first two had turned into.

It  became obvious that the two creatures were playing distraction for the  casters, and I expected Lament and Falken to take the time to attack,  but neither did. Lament just watched the huge head of bloody fire and  lightning form in the air, and Falken appeared to be napping, held up  only by his spear.

The  hooded figures threw their hands forward, and the head began to  descend, its giant mouth opening in a soundless roar. Or soundless to  us, based on the way the sand moved it wasn't soundless to the rest of  them. Lament cracked her neck, smiling confidently, and started to spin  her spear. One rotation, two, hand over hand as she whirled it in a  slowly accelerating circle. The shaft of the weapon began to spark.

Each  pass made the electricity gather more densely, and after a minute or  two the spear was a blue glowing blur in front of her. She'd closed her  eyes as she did it, ignoring the descending head, but as that terrifying  blood monster approached her eyes snapped open, and her grip CHANGED,  the spin turning into a brutal upward thrust with every ounce of her  body behind it.

She  grabbed low and dipped as she got under the blow, and the rising spear  traveled from low to the ground up to full extension in a flash,  ascending like a pillar of heaven. Above her head, the image of a  colossal spear formed, driving upwards with all the momentum of a blue  volcanic eruption. The spear manifestation smashed into the howling  beast head, and impaled it right through, the spear rising past it and  smashing headlong into the dome over the area, which rather than just  block sound apparently protected the audience. The dome fucking CRACKED.

Thankfully  it didn't break, but the head did, exploding into a massive  conflagration of bloody flame and blue and red lightning. The two  casters clutched their heads and fell to their knees, and Falken's eyes  snapped open, his spear snaking out as his form blurred, smashing into  the monster Wren was fighting and sending it hurtling into the wall of  the arena as Wren seamlessly turned to attack the one besieging his  brother.

Everyone  just stared in wonder as the match came to an end within only a few  minutes of starting. I'd certainly learned a lot. Firstly that Lament  had a lightning ability, second that these people had been STRONG, even  without a master candidate, and they'd been able to force her to, if not  go all out, at least put in effort, and thirdly that Lament was way  more terrifying than I had expected. I swallowed hard as I turned to  look at Callie, muttering. "We...should probably train some more."