Wish upon the Stars chapter 235

After breakfast we went and got the others, It was decided we could  do the debrief on how they'd grown on the way, so piled into the car  after saying goodbye to Cass and Cark and headed for the Academy. As  usual Jessie drove, because we wanted to arrive at our destination via  landing and not smash into the ground in a horrifying explosion of  twisted metal. Callie had mostly gotten used to being forbidden to  operate the thing, so she hardly even pouted, though I was secretly glad  she hadn't stopped completely because she had a gorgeous pout, not that  I would tell her that to her face.

Benny, being the one  who wasn't driving, was the first one to catch us up, after hearing  about our own growth. "Damn, that's an impressive jump for both of you. I  went up twenty five Perception, twenty Might, and shockingly twenty  Creation. That last one kind of confused me, but I have to assume  someone was talking about the origin of my ability being Inventing."

"Only real downside is that I guess I got Creation instead of Focus." He said. "Which is what I needed, but I can always trade some attacks for more points in that." He shuddered at the idea. "Those spider leg attack hurt a ton,  but it sounds like you got some serious use from them. I might be  willing to try again sometime. Anyway this was what I ended up with."

Benicio  Cortez- G rank. Ability: Lesser Mechanical Embodiment- Allows the  integration of existing inventions into the users body for the purposes  of strengthening and enhancing them. insignia is a half gear in the  shape of a C

Might-84

Impact-12

Fantasy-10

Vitality-31

Focus-75

Perception-42

Creation-30

Pet- Wolf named Rolf

Current  integrated tech. 9/10. Torso: Extending rope. Right fist: triple punch.  Left forearm: long range attack attraction. Left fist: minor slow  acting tranquilizer effect. Right foot: Density shifting to create  heavier kicks and more powerful jumps. Left Foot: momentum  neutralization to allow stopping instantly. Head: slight cognitive boost  to allow more thinking time. Back: ability to grow a shell to tank  damage. Chest: Pair of golden G rank spider legs that arch up from the  shoulders.

Skills:Minor Cooking Mastery, Beginner Inventing Mastery, Minor Haggling Mastery, Minor Stealth Mastery

It  was solid gains. Now that I had those three mandatory wishes reserved  for the Beast Lord Garden, an attack stockpile was the best way to help  my friends grow from here, and I needed it badly myself. I'd burned off  most of mine during the battle but they'd been indispensable to the  fight as a whole. Plus Benny's stats were so low already that the  additions to Creation and Perception provided at least a solid baseline  for him to work with. No matter how specialized, it was a good idea to  have at least some foundation on the other stats, especially something  like Perception.

Jessie's cheerful voice rang out from the  front seat. "Wow, not bad at all. I got a huge points dump into  Vitality, obviously. Fifty points directly. I also got twenty five in  Focus, probably for the mental component of beast taming, and oddly  fifteen points in Perception, most likely from using my raven to scout  out Cicero's tent before we went in." I could hear the annoyance in her  voice. "Once again I'm absurdly specialized without even trying. Though  it's nice I at least managed to get my last two stats unlocked. It  feels...strange. Hard to describe. I ended up with this though, stat  wise."

Jessica Evans- G rank. Ability:  Beginner Lifeweaving- Infuse living things with life itself and direct  their actions while the users power flows through them. Control had  limited effect on sapient entities. Prolonged exposure to life energy  may cause lasting effects in controlled non sapient subjects.

Might-52

Impact-12

Fantasy-28

Vitality-191

Focus-25

Perception-15

Creation-8

Pet- Wolf named Lily and bear named Randall

Skills: Beginner Horticulture,Beginner First Aid, Minor Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement, Minor Beast Taming Mastery

It  was staggering how high Jessie's Vitality was given how low her total  point count was, but then again her power WAS life. I couldn't think of  anyone whose ability exemplified a stat so perfectly anywhere else I had  seen. It was truly staggering. It also explained how fast she was  growing. Fifty points was a crazy amount, but it made sense. Our world  tended to favor big flashy feats, and Jessie's healing had always been  staggeringly effective whenever it was used. She was naturally suited to  rapid growth whenever she was in battle, especially with a tamed beast  like Randall.

I was honestly wondering if we should bring  her with us to the tournament anyway, but it seemed unlikely to go well.  Even if Randall could keep up she wouldn't be able to, and I had no way  of getting her to F-rank fast enough to be viable. Hell, I wasn't sure  WE would be viable. We were bound to run into people just as established  in the F-ranks as Abel was in the G-ranks. Could we even take someone  like that? They wouldn't BE Abel obviously, because then we would just  get crushed, but we had a long way to go, and I had a feeling I would  need every advantage to make it through.

Still, we'd all  made great progress from this, and it was nice to hear. I was  particularly glad that Jessie and Benny had slept through their gains  too. Given how large the percentage jump had been, I was guessing it  wouldn't have been pleasant to experience awake. It made me wonder if  letting the points slowly come in your sleep was the proper way to do  things and the Academy had encouraged us to take the points dump to  scare us away from rushing too fast. If so, it was a pretty effective  method, even if it hadn't actually worked for us.

I  decided to change topics though, because we had a big one to discuss.  "What are the chances there are other jobs to do with what we found? I  mean, it was a pretty big conspiracy. With all that information already  out it's only a matter of time before it leaks, might as well cash in on  the points before it hits the grapevine."

"Should be  decent." Callie said contemplatively. "I mean, we'll need to talk to  Celine about the details since she knows the place pretty well, but  there's no way we haven't moved up the scale on what missions we can  take. We might need to do some of the tests over and crank our rankings a  bit. But that might be a good idea anyway. If nothing else, Jessie has a  pretty amazing Vitality stat. I don't actually know what the Vitality  test entails but getting her rank up will give her some regular points  that should boost her overall ranking."

I groaned a bit at  the thought of all the numbers needed to calculate the rankings. There  were so many factors, it really boggled the mind. The only upside to  this whole mess was the the tournament was going to be far more  important than the local one that usually took place, so we didn't need  to bother with trying to rank up to join. I was pretty sure the Moonsong  Glade tournament was one you could just join, though I should probably  learn the details soon.

All of that was a problem for  future Shane though. I decided to tease my best friend instead. "So,  Benny. Haven't seen your girl in a while huh? Think she's going to be  mad you haven't been around? Or have you been sneaking away for long  soulful phone calls every night to check in?" He had, and I knew that,  which was why I said it in the most irritating way possible. In reality I  thought it was sweet, but I also remembered him constantly harassing me  about Callie, and I was owed vengeance.

My best friend  narrowed his eyes at me. "A joke about me being too attentive? How  clever. Did you come up with that this morning while you were making  your girlfriend her extravagant breakfast?" Callie smirked a bit at  that, though whether it was from amusement at the barb or happiness at  the memory itself I had no idea.

I brushed off the  shoulder of my coat. "Extravagant? Oh, I'm sorry, is an omelette a  difficult meal for you to prepare. I'm happy to do things for Callie but  it was hardly necessary to put myself out for such a simple recipe. I  think you're confusing my effort with your own incompetence." My faux  haughty tone got a legitimate laugh from my girlfriend this time. Alone  with an eyeroll.

"Alright you idiots." She said through  her laughter. "You're both stoic badasses who don't wear your hearts and  your sleeves and remain a mystery to those around you. Can we get back  on topic now? I swear, going anywhere with the two of you is like  herding cats." Despite the mocking words her tone was fond as she curled  against me, and I put my arm around her as I laughed along.

Benny  snickered a bit too. We both knew we were being stupid, but familiar  childhood rituals were comforting. We spent the next hour or two talking  about possible missions we could do to improve our rankings, provided  we had enough time to squeeze them in. We wouldn't obviously, but it was  nice to just go over some of the tasks we'd seen when we were first at  the information hall from the perspective of someone with much more  strength and ability than we could possibly have imagined when we first  got to the Academy.

Part  of me wanted to go challenge Fisher or one of the other heavy hitters  from the scavenger hunt, just to see what they were capable of and how  their growth stacked up to us. I dismissed it immediately, it seemed  pretty unlikely they had managed to keep up Though Fisher in particular  had been pretty terrifying and had a hell of a reputation for a  freshman. Maybe he would surprise us. Plus there were always elixirs.  Even if he did though, I doubted he would have the combat ability of  members of the Titan Twenty. Looking back, Beat and Sever were  exponentially scarier than any of the freshman we had come across, and  they were the weakest of that lineup.

When  we finally arrived at the school, we headed straight for Grimmengap's  dorm. Sarah answered, and beamed as soon as she saw us. Stepping forward  to give us each a hug. "Hey, guys! It's so good to see you. Been busy  lately? We haven't heard from you in a while." She shot Benny a wink.  "Celine has been extra quiet lately, and that's saying something. I  don't think she's mad or anything, but she always seems happier when  you're around."

My  best friend's face lit up a bit at the thought that the pretty elf girl  was so affected by his presence, and even I didn't have the heart to  tease him about his obvious excitement. Jokes aside, I was really happy  for Benny. I hoped he found with Celine what I had with Callie, and I  reached down to lace my fingers with hers at the thought. She didn't  look away from Sarah, but she squeezed my hand, her cheeks flushing  slightly.

We  headed inside to chat with the others before heading down to the  information hall, and as we walked in I looked around with a wide smile.  It felt...strange, to be back. It had been such a short time really,  but we'd changed so much. Still, it was comfortable. We hadn't spent  much time in the dorm, but it had been warm and welcoming for the time  we had spent, it was nice to be back. I hoped not too long from now our  friends would feel the same way about the pavilion. Until then it was  just nice to be back.