Wish upon the Stars chapter 309

Getting back to the Pavilion was different this time than the last.  Before it had been a quick stop. The night we spent waiting for the four  and arranging everything had passed in a flash. Now though, now we were  home. Our home. our place, that we actually owned. Not like the house  Zeke bought. And speaking of my uncle, he was waiting for us when we got  into the Pavilion.

"Hey, you're back." He said casually  from his spot on the bench. To my shock, every other pavilion membed was  clear on the other side of the tent, not training, but trying to press  themselves into the wall in the tightest possible configuration. When he  saw where my eyes went he chuckled wryly. "Ah, sorry. I felt the  trouble and figured I'd wait here for you to get out just in case. When  that E-ranker picked his fight and I warned him off I might have been a  little annoyed. My aura leaked a bit."

That certainly  explained the looks of existential terror plastered across the faces of  some of the most hardened battle maniacs I'd ever seen. I grimaced at  him. "Yeah, about that." I held up the mask. "What the actual fuck? I've  been wearing this thing on my face and it eats people? That's pretty  messed up." I was still uncomfortable putting the mask back on, and had  used my old scarf to cover my face on the way back up here.

Zeke  cracked up. "I can't believe he actually triggered it. What a dumbass. I  did warn him. I guess I was a bit too gentle with the aura. I didn't  want to go full blast and fry a bunch of randoms." He shrugged. "As for  the mask...it did its job. It was supposed to protect you. I can make  you a new one if you want. A weaker one. But I have to warn you that  including the defenses let me skirt the edges of what I'd normally be  able to put into something like that. If I make a new one it won't be a  thousandth as good."

I climbed up on the stands to drop  down next to him bonelessly, letting the mask clatter to the ground. I  wasn't worried it would break. He looked amused but didn't mention it.  Callie followed me in, sitting next to me quietly and not saying  anything. She'd been hovering since I killed Pietro. I'd been worried  she would be horrified, but all I felt through our bond was a sense of  worry. The others all headed in, giving us space as they went to check  on the traumatized pavilion members.

"You know...I always  figured this mask was too weird to be low level. How can I even use it? I  assumed it was impossible to use gear too many ranks above you. This  thing has to be at least E-rank to have killed that guy so easily. How  come it didn't crush my soul?" Trying to leverage an item with that much  Impact would probably do something dramatic like that. Either way, I  knew it should be impossible.

He shrugged. "Because I  cheated. There's an Impact seal on it. My Voltomancy can manipulate  masks I make in ways that wouldn't normally be possible. It slowly  releases portions of that power as you rank up. Still, that material has  the toughness of a B-ranked wood. The emergency defenses I put on it  are well within the tolerance level of something that durable."

Now  that he mentioned it the thing HAD jumped right off my face before it  ate the guy. Presumably so it could channel that Impact without crushing  me. That was..."Zeke, what exactly can your ability DO? That sounds  more like an AI than an Enchantment. Is this mask AWARE? Because I don't  care how strong it is, I'm not wearing a living being trapped in a hunk  of wood on my face."

He chuckled. "Don't freak out. It's  not aware. That was a preprogrammed response, to use your computer  jargon. A conditional enchantment. There are countless tiny runes on  that thing you can't see, and they make some pretty complex instruction,  but they aren't anything close to an actual entity. It's like a  personal alarm. Someone too strong tried to hurt you so it went off."

I  wasn't sure why that made me feel so much better, but it absolutely  did. "Alright..." I said slowly. "What about Pietro, did you see when  I..." I didn't know what his senses could do, but he'd been able to see  Malachai well enough to scare him off. I cleared my throat. "Is that  going to be a problem? Will the cult start trouble because he died  here?" I'd been pretty confident when I said that wouldn't happen, but  'pretty confident' isn't 'sure.

My uncle actually sneered  at me for the question. "Honestly. No. The Cult isn't going to attack a  D-ranked planet. Nothing here is worth starting even a minor skirmish  over." He paused. "Maybe you. At least to some of them, but the kid  didn't know who you were. He was just some typical spoiled little elite  who was far too confident in daddy. They're a credit a dozen back at the  clan, and pretty much everywhere else. Regardless, no. They won't  declare a war."

Callie cleared her throat. "What about the  others?" I looked at her in confusion. "The rest of the team. They're  four people right? Were they all down there? Or are we going to be  meeting a team from the Cult with an alternate thrown in. That seems  like something it would be good to know."

Shit, I hadn't  even bothered to check that. I should have asked to make sure the rest  of their team was around. Zeke didn't seem bothered, but then, I doubted  the sun exploding and swallowing the planet would bother Zeke overly  much. Being at B-rank couldn't possibly be good for your scale measuring  problems in relation to normal people. Speaking of ranks, I'd gotten my  wishes in on the way back, putting me that much closer to F-rank.

Yesterday's  wishes were all used up on escape prep, though shockingly none of my  teammates has actually triggered them. The spells had been keyed to  potential lethal danger, which they'd all thankfully avoided, so they  each had one in the pocket. Benny hadn't really engaged so much as stuck  to the edges smashing things with a hammer, Jessie had let Randall do  the fighting, and Callie had been working with me and our teamwork kept  her from being exposed too much.

Sadly in order to afford a  full on teleport all the way to the Pavilion they'd had to keep things  specific, which meant limiting the time covered by the escape, but I  didn't consider the wishes a waste even if they never triggered. Better  to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Still, between  that last available wish and the other five I had on hand that put me at  eighteen points added to my total, that much closer to rank up. My  stats were looking pretty good actually. I'd added the eighteen points  to my Creation, bringing it up to an even one hundred and sixty. I'd  also gotten topped up with some of the reserved attacks from my  teammates.

Wishmaster candidate status. G-rank.  Ability: Beginner Wish- Five times a day grant a Beginner wish in return  for proper  compensation. Wish must be feasibly  achievable by the  candidate's own  efforts within a three day period  with  current  statistics.

Might-160

Impact-12

Fantasy-180

Vitality-130

Focus-148

Perception-150

Creation-160

Progress to next rank:940/1000

Stored:10  shadow attacks(two in reserve waiting to be granted), 9 fire attacks,  10 triple strenth tranq blows, 8 triple strength density shifted  attacks. 8 spider leg attacks, 10 heal bursts (26 reserve waiting to be  granted), 10 gravity attacks, 10 shadow clone, 27 scan heals (I-rank  ability so Shane can hold more)

Pet- Wolf named Jin

Skills:Beginner  Doom Sovereign Mastery,Beginner Enchanting Mastery (four charges per  point of Impact), Lesser Cooking Mastery,Lesser Inventing Mastery,  Lesser Stealth, Lesser Paired Dueling, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor  Gymnastics Mastery, Minor Swimming Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor  Singing Mastery,Minor Poker Mastery, Minor Archery Mastery, Minor Boxing  Mastery, Lesser Balam Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Minor Herbalism  Mastery

I'd gotten sick of not being able to  tell how close I was without doing math, I'd tinkered around with trying  to change the way I envisioned the stats themselves to surprisingly  good results. As I checked my sheet though, I noticed something much  more interesting. I'd been so caught up in Pietro dying and the fallout  that I hadn't even noticed the change in my bond with Callie. My eyes  snapped to hers. "Holy shit, Cal did your Paired Dueling Skill rank up  to Lesser too?"

As I listed off my stats to her, I also  explained how I did the whole progress bar tweak. It was mainly an  exercise in Fantasy. The representation of our stats was itself part of  the same system that gave us abilities, so it could be affected by  stats. Not much, and not to any real use, but little alterations were  more than possible. Once I finished she checked her own stats and shared  them, confirming her rank up.

Calliope Reynolds:  Beginner Shadow Embodiment- The ability to control and shape shadows  either molding them into constructs of imbuing them into specially  prepared objects to enable enhancement and control.

Might-198

Impact-12

Vitality-142

Fantasy-120

Focus-58

Perception-175

Creation-135

Progress to next rank:840/1000

Pet-Wolf named Rellia

Skills:  Minor Tracking, Beginner Stealth, Beginner Trap Mastery, Beginner  Disguise, Lesser Balam Mastery, Lesser Paired Dueling Beginner Shadow  Manipulation Mastery.

Aside from the rank up, I  was even more shocked to discover something else. "Wait...I'm closer to  F-rank than you?" I stared at her in dumbfounded astonishment. Callie  had always been stronger than me. I mean, granted, she still was. My  stats were far too spread out, while hers were much more concentrated in  her main specialties. Not to the extent of someone like Jessie of  course, but she had nearly forty more Might than me, just to name one  stat. Still, my total was actually higher now.

She sighed,  giving me a fond smile. "Yes, idiot. For a while now. It's not a  surprise. You've been working hard, and doing more than a bit of extra  work with the Beast Lord Garden. I admit though, I didn't expect you to  be a full hundred points more advanced. I guess I wasn't keeping track  of your overall stats." It wasn't hard to notice, with the bond and my  own knowledge of her, that her smile was a bit strained.

"Hey."  I said reaching out to take her hand. "I get that it's weird, but don't  forget we have the same end point. We're both stopping right before  F-rank for the tourney, and we have a whole week to get you there.  That'll be a hundred and five points." I paused. "Shit, that means we're  going to be short. I have some of my elixir total left I can use to  make up the difference for me, but we'll have to rush yours during the  tournament itself."

She laughed sweetly and leaned up to  kiss my cheek. "I know. I don't begrudge you the advancement. It's just  weird. We met only a few months ago and you're already stronger than me.  But I know we're a team and I'll catch up. The tournament should be a  week or two long, so getting us both to the peak of G-rank in time  shouldn't be a problem, don't worry so much."

Zeke rolled  his eyes. "Well, this is getting uncomfortable for everyone who isn't  you two. I'm going to go check on the minions I traumatized. Anything is  better than watching you stare soulfully into each others eyes.  Seriosuly, you two even make ME sick, and with my Vitality that  shouldn't be possible." I laughed along with Callie as Zeke walked away.  Things were scary in some ways, but I was also pretty lucky. I decided  to focus more on that. The rest of it I could figure out as it came.