Wish upon the stars chapter 55

I was excited as we followed Benny into the training room. This place  was pretty big, but we'd been around for a bit and we knew the general  locations of things at least. Finding the training space again was easy  enough, and when we got there my friend took his place in the middle of  the room and dropped his bag on the floor with a clank. "Ok, so  basically I have this bag of stuff, and I'm not sure what to integrate. I  don't know if or how I can de-integrate, or even what integration is  like, so I'm going to try to make sure I pick the best stuff."

I  got where he was coming from, but that didn't seem right to me. "The  inventions won't rank up and you will. Your ability wouldn't make sense  if you were stuck with H rank gear fused into you when you get to A  rank. You have to be able to remove the stuff. Do you have any innate  understanding of your powers? Like can you tell how many items you can  integrate at a time or anything?" I doubted he could hold too many or  anything of too high a rank for one, so it would help if he could feel  his limits.

He nodded. "Ten. I don't know why, but  honestly whoever designed this whole cultivation system seemed to be  obsessed with base ten, so that's probably the only real reason. As for  rank, only H ranked gear right now. My body can't integrate with  anything with a higher Impact. The interfacing process just fails."  Which made sense, his power had to have some kind of technopathic  component, and that wouldn't be able to connect to higher ranked gear.

I  gestured down to the bag. "Ok then, why don't you tell me what kind of  goodies are in your magical mystery bag? Even if you can remove stuff I  doubt it's fast or easy, so picking the best stuff seems like your  smartest move. What exactly did you manage to make out of all the crazy  materials you bought with most of our money?" Aside from the cash I  burned on the Force Pine, Benny had spent literally all of our money on  supplies. It was an investment of course, and a solid one, so we didn't  mind, but still. I wanted to know what he'd managed to come up with.

He  chuckled ruefully. "Quite a few things actually. Mostly I ended up with  combat based stuff, since I focused pretty hard on Might. Still there  were a few strange items that made literally no sense mixed into the  lot. If you want I can start with the stuff that seems like it would be  most suitable and fill you in on the random shit later? I spent a LONG  time on these, so there's a pretty decent chunk of stuff to get  through." He nudged the bag with his foot, nodding to the solidity of  the thing, which barely moved when he shoved it.

I  nodded, waiting for him to begin, and he snorted a bit at my obvious  impatience. He reached down and pulled out...a weighted glove. "This one  is pretty straightforward. Triples punching power. Easily the most on  the nose thing I made, but also the most boring. From what I can tell I  can only integrate one object in a specific spot on my body. So this  would take up one of my hands, and I didn't want to commit to that for  something sub par."

I  poked it. "Fair. Triple punching power would work well for you though,  given how Might heavy your build will be. Plus if you can replace it  later giving up one hand for something like that would be pretty smart  overall. Probably not the best to start with if you aren't sure about  removing stuff though. What else you got?" I was pretty sure it wasn't  an issue, but still, it made sense for him to pick something a bit more  unique and useful as his first integration just in case.

He  leaned back down and reached in again, pulling out an umbrella. "This  one is more interesting I think., It attracts ranged projectiles. I know  that sounds like something you don't want in your body, but if I put it  on a limb and armor the thing up...well I'd rather get shot in my well  defended arm than the head or chest." He handed the thing to me, and I  opened it, enjoying the flash of green light over the surface because it  was pretty.

He  put it down and took out a coil of rope. "This one is interesting. It  expands and retracts. I was thinking if integrating it into like my  torso or back. I considered my limbs, but honestly center mass seems  like a better plan since I can just extend it to catch things and this  way it doesn't put extra pressure on my extremities."

I  nodded. "I see the logic there. I feel like it'll sort of impede your  control, but you'll still have limbs to throw it with, and even if you  don't, that would mean the rope itself would have been ripped free to  begin with. Also how the hell did you make rope? And out of what?" I  kind of got the gloves, and the umbrella made sense, but making magic  rope seemed time consuming and like it would require ingredients he  didn't have.

He  shrugged. "I pickup up some plants when I was shopping, and the work  room you rented had a spinning wheel in it." I hadn't seen that, it was  interesting to note though. He stared at the rope for a bit and then  nodded. "I'm going to do this one first. If I end up stuck with it, my  torso won't be a huge loss and it'll still be useful even much later on  down the line as means of transporting myself, even if it'll get a  bit...flimsy, in comparison to other artifacts I might have." He took a  deep breath, looking pensive. "Ok. Well, maybe you guys should back up. I  don't know how this works."

I  snorted. I doubted he was going to explode into sparks and consume it  in some big flashy display, but it was his power, and Jessie and I  retreated further away and he walked away from his bag towards the  center of the room, the two of us pressing to the walls to make sure he  had a big open space. He exhaled slowly, letting himself zone out a bit  as he focused entirely on the rope, and pressed it to his...belly  button. I snickered a bit at that. It was a weird place, but it also  made sense kind of.

There  was a bright blue glow, and he began to push the rope into himself.  There was only about two feet of the stuff to begin with, probably  because being extendable made it pointless. He spent about two minutes  feeding it in, wincing slightly but not looking like he was actually in  pain, until he finally finished with a sigh. Then he just stood there,  waiting. We all held our breath's expecting...something.

Finally  when nothing happened he exhaled slowly. "Alright. That was...weird.  But it didn't hurt, and I feel like I can undo it. " He grinned. "Now I  just have to test it out." He exposed his stomach, pulling his shirt up,  and his face creased with effort as a rope slowly emerged from his  belly button. I wasn't sure how deep the thing went exactly but it  wasn't just attached to his skin, which was good because that would have  been much less useful.

He  grew the thing out about six feet and then, looking up at a hoop high  up above us for aerial training, he grew out a bit more and tossed the  thing up through the hoop. It fell over the edge and then back down to  where he was standing. He grabbed the end with both hands, and then he  closed his eyes and focused. I could see the rope growing shorter, and  as it retracted he had less slack until finally it started to pull him  into the air.

It  looked...weird. But really cool, and I was a bit jealous he had such a  versatile power. Inventions could get crazy later on. When he got high  enough he grabbed the hoop, pulling himself up to sit in it triumphantly  with a grin. He was coated in sweat, and shaking slightly, but still,  it was really impressive. He laughed at our expressions. "Ok, that was  fun. Only issue is that the efficiency is WAY decreased. Which I guess  makes sense, since if I could just spam overpowered artifact abilities  everyone would be using this power."

I  suspected he was ignoring the massive investment of materials needed,  but he wasn't wrong. it was pretty much moot though. "It's fine man.  When you get some more stat points it should let you handle the strain  easier even with the decreased efficiency. Granted you'll probably be  stuck to one trick at a time for a while, maybe two, but still, if you  get up high enough in rank or mix in a few other skills I bet you can  get really strong." I paused. "I wonder if you could get an Alchemist to  mix you one of those potions and make cyborg a racial trait?"

His  eyes widened. "That...wow that would actually be awesome. We'd probably  have to go to the faerie land though. Anyway for now I want to focus on  learning to use the power I do have. Which means integrating some more  of this stuff to see how it works together. I think you might be right  about one thing at a time right now, but maybe I can train that up so I  can at least use two. Being a multi tool sounds interesting but less  than overwhelming in a fight." He extended the rope again, looping it  over the edge of the hoop to lower himself down.

Once  he got to the ground he headed over to the bag and pulled out the glove  and umbrella, integrating the two object in about fifteen minutes. It  seemed like straining his power had slowed down the process, but he  still got it finished smoothly enough. He grinned once he was done,  taking a minute to catch his breath. "That was interesting. Now that I  have these I should try a bit of sparring with them." He raised a  challenging eyebrow. "What do you think? You want to fight?"

I  almost burst out laughing at that. "You want to fight ME? I'm G ranked.  Don't get me wrong, I get wanting to test your powers out but like none  of those artifacts were offensive except the glove. When I sparred with  Callie it was just so I could let loose without accidentally killing  someone. No man, you just barely hit H rank." I grinned and turned to  Jessie. "No, you have another person here you can fight."

Jessie's  eyes snapped to mine, widening. "Wait what? My power is plant based,  it's barely combat applicable. Why would he fight me?" She looked  unsettled, which was understandable, but it had occurred to me that we  couldn't keep dragging Jessie around with us if she couldn't defend  herself. Rank ups were great, but she was part of the team, and laziness  or non combat role aside she needed to learn how to keep herself safe.

I  shook my head. "No buts you two. You both have things to learn from the  other. Jessie, your power is less inherently combat focused, but your  stats are much higher than his. You Vitality in particular is massive  for your rank, so you shouldn't get hurt, and I want to see what you can  do with that wand before I make you a permanent version." I gave her a  kind but firm smile and she blew out a breath, nodding. Then she headed  for the middle of the room where Benny was. Time to see what the rookies  could do.