Wish upon the Stars chapter 245

Between the date and the conversation with my cousin, I was feeling  recharged enough after breakfast to get back to training. I decided to  forego doing all five wishes for the Beast Lord Garden folks, and  knocked out one of them with Cark before we left so I could top up my  fire attacks at least a bit. The great thing about that was that Cark  exclusively cared about Might, and that increased his firepower, so the  attacks got stronger with every wish, and since it was entirely to his  benefit it was totally valid.

I saved one wish and did the  three contractually obligated ones for Sloane, topping up my Fantasy to  an even one hundred and ten before going to find Alden. Our mentor was  sitting in the stands in the Pavilion, relaxing as he waited for your  training to start. He'd apparently decided to watch this one. I waved to  him as we approached. "Hey old man, haven't seen you around here for a  week or so, why didn't you sit in earlier?" I dropped onto the seat next  to him, reclining to watch the mostly empty ring.

"Watch?"  He snorted. "Watch what? The two of you getting your fool arses kicked  in creative ways by the boy? This training course was my creation lad, I  know what the first week or so is like. Today is the sweet spot. First  time against your real instructor after you've had the humility beaten  into you. Mel and the boy couldn't even walk by the time the gave in on  that first day. The next day though...that's when you see something. Had  all the stupid smacked out of you enough to be halfway competent."

I  was beginning to see how Abel had ended up the charming and  compassionate person that he was. The poisoned apple didn't fall far  from the man eating tree. Rolling my eyes at the bearded man, I  continued with my point, though I stopped to have Callie put up one of  her stealthed shadow domes. Most people here knew, but no point in  advertising. He arched an eyebrow in concern when the dome went up, but  didn't complain, just waited for us to explain.

Mulling  over how best to phrase this, I decided to just come out and say it. "I  can offer you a WCP wish. I have access to a source." I very carefully  did NOT mention or look at his leg. It was obvious what he would wish  for, and I didn't want to invalidate the wish by tampering with the  compensation. "So..." I said lamely. "Do you want a wish?"

Alden  burst out laughing. "Lad, that was the worst sales pitch I've ever  heard, but I suppose when you're selling gold you ain't gotta hype the  merchandise. Am I to assume this source is the reasoning behind all the  support from the Beast Lord Garden? E-rankers don't much go in for  lavishing gifts and aid on little do-nothing outfits like this. I was  wondering how you got them to commit so many resources."

He  looked down at his leg. "Now forgive me, but wishes take payment right?  What might this old man have that would be worth a new limb? I already  work for you lad, and I don't have much money to offer. The boy is  already training you, and I trust him to do that much properly."

Callie,  knowing I was reticent to comment on wishes because I was worried about  skewing the results by biasing the recipient, cut in from where she had  been quietly holding the shield. "Well you could pay with some of your  attacks. Regrowing a limb for someone at our rank isn't just about  normal stats though. It would require Impact. The payment for something  like that would probably be more than just one attack."

That  was true, I'd used Impact in most of my wishes as a stand in for other  stats I was lacking, but I'd only ever granted an Impact related wish  once. When I gave Benny his powers. I was pretty sure I had the stats to  do it, but even I was under the impression that it would take more than  one attack, even one as impressive as Alden's, to offset that cost. It  was just a matter of how I perceived things. A few points were fine for  an attack because attacks were made up of hundreds of points, the raw  value was there and then modified by my need for combat ability.

Alden  didn't seem worried though. "Alright then. If I do this the way I  think, then I wish for my leg to regrow. I'm willing to pay with ten  attacks, paid our over ten days. Does that work? I figure the delay  means I should pay more of them, and it'll be a hefty price for a leg in  any case." He raised an eyebrow at me questioningly.

Wish detected. Grant wish? I  confirmed. I was interested to see if this worked. It would be less of a  priority day to day since points only took one attack to pay off, but  it gave options for things like Skills if my friends needed them. Stat points sufficient. Requirements. 36 Impact, 330 Vitality, 350 Might, 306 Creation. Damn.  That was a hefty chunk. I'd seen more expensive wishes, and granted  this was essentially a Beginner rank limb. I wondered if souls strength  played a role in determining the value or even effected it at all.

Wish  the dome still up I decided to just get on with it. I reached out and  put a hand on Alden's shoulder as I accepted. "I have a sneaking  suspicion this is going to hurt really badly." I said apologetically.  Big changes made to others usually hurt, and a physical one like this  was bound to be even worse. Alden just nodded as the purple electricity  began to build along my skin, until finally it hit a breaking point and  rolled out of me, into the other man with the force of a tidal wave.

His  body locked up, and I saw his jaw clamp shut tightly to prevent a  scream as all his muscles tightened. THe electricity seemed to gather in  the stump of his leg, funneling down to where it was needed. As we  watched, the bone speared out of the flesh, extending out to grow into  the smaller bones of a foot, held together by tendons, with muscles  knitting themselves together down the length as skin split and then grew  down over the appendage. Finally, nails popped out of the toes and  Alden was sitting there, a fully grown, if completely hairless leg.

The  electricity faded, and Alden slumped back against the seating behind  him, panting in exhaustion and pain. Before he could really relax  though, the still fading electricity gather in his hand and Gravity  started to warp into a sphere of disrupted space. The power condensed  for a minute, electric arcs of purple dancing over the outside, before  it popped like a soap bubble, and the electricity arced to me. It ran  through my body, though not nearly as painfully.

I was  kind of shocked. That was a pretty unique way of transferring an attack.  It was different than Benny's physical attack, or Callie's  semicorporeal shadows, or even Jessie's life energy. Regardless though,  it was done, and Alden groaned slightly as he lay there, still panting.  "Ok. Ow. You mightve undersold it a bit with 'hurt really badly' lad."  He grinned tiredly. "Pain isn't much though. Thank you for this. It  means a lot that you would trust me with this, and I know you did it  because I was injured and needed it, which means even more."

We  helped him sit up. "No problem." I said cheerfully. "Also, that was  fucking gross. I've regrown limbs before, but it's usually faster than  that. Watching it in slow motion was weird. Not sure why it was like  that. Maybe because the limb was higher Impact so it needed more time to  form. Still, glad I could fix it."

He snickered a bit at  that. "Yeah, well I didn't have much time for admirin' what with being  paralyzed with mindsearing agony, but I don't doubt you." He looked at  Callie. "You can let down the shield now lass. If anyone asks about the  leg I'll just tell them you got some kind of medicine from the Beast  Lord Garden for me. Don't you worry. I won't let on you have connections  to the WCP."

Callie let the shadows drop, and I was  pleased to see she hardly seemed effected by the effort. She must have  been working on her soul strength. We both stood up, stretching. I  wasn't tired from the wishes, I rarely got exhausted from the easy ones,  and it took more than one huge wish to wear me out with my current  Vitality. With Callie still feeling fine the two of us were more than  ready to get back to our training with Abel. Well...physically. Mentally  we weren't ever going to be prepared for that sadism, but oh well.

When  we reached the ring, Abel was waiting for us. He'd seen us come in and  watched the dome go up, but hadn't seen the need to bother us. "You  fixed his leg." His voice was quiet. "I...appreciate that. We were  already planning to arrange it, but it would have taken time. Regrowing  Ascendant limbs isn't a common ability, and tech that can do it is  expensive, especially for someone as high up in the G-ranks as the old  man."

"Of  course." I said stoically. "He's done a lot for us, even before he  really had a reason to. I'm glad we could help." I grinned  unapologetically behind my mask, humor leaking into my voice. "Don't  suppose this means that you're going to go easy on us today? Give us a  break on the asskicking as a thank you for helping him out?" My tone was  wry, because I had no illusions of the likelihood of that happening.  Still phrasing it as a joke made asking pretty much nothing but  potential gain.

Abel  just chuckled warmly. "Oh, buddy. No. We're training. Taking it easy on  you isn't a favor, it's a disservice. The less I push you the less you  grow. You don't want me to hold back. We're already on a tight schedule.  " His grin became sharper. "In fact, I think that this favor is going  to earn you a more...thorough training session. I'll be sure to put my  all into making you the best fighters you can possibly be. Doesn't that  sound nice?"

It  did not, as a matter of fact, sound nice. It sounded terrifying. But  under the sadism I could tell he really was trying to help, even if I  wished he didn't enjoy it so much. Besides, I was pretty sure trying to  talk him out of it would only make things worse. I gave him a weak  thumbs up as I sighed tiredly. "Oh sure. Sounds like a party." I  chuckled uneasily to match his own enthusiasm, shooting a sidelong  glance at Callie, who met my eyes worriedly.

Abel  rolled his eyes a bit. "Oh don't be such babies. I'll even let Agria  heal you up after. The point of the first day's training was to leave an  impression. Now that you've had you ineptness drilled into you, just  the pain of actually fighting me should be enough for you to learn from.  Normally I would have waited another two days to allow healing, but  since I'm doubling down today, I'll be nice and allow it early." We both  relaxed a bit at that.

We  got into position across from Abel, ready to try our hardest not to get  demolished. I adjusted my stance to complement Callie's, ready to  intercept any attacks that came her way as we both lapsed into that  special state where we fought as one. As Abel blurred toward us my last  coherent thought before violence overtook us was 'gods, this fucking  dungeon better be amazing'.