Wish upon the Stars chapter 41

After getting our coins, I was eager to look around the place. We  were going to be coming here for a while, and I wanted to get the lay of  the land. I turned to Shadowthorn. "So, what now? You said we won't be  starting classes, but can we maybe register for some of those tests or  tasks? I've been here for ten minutes and I already hate seeing my  ranking so low." I tried to think of a way to boost it, maybe some kind  of crafting job.

Shadowthorn  shook her head. "The tests won't be feasible for you yet. Nightstrike  may be able to make a decent showing, but no H ranker can manage.  They're hosted by the faculties even the lowest records are mid G rank  or so. We can go and watch some of them if you'd like? Might is the most  straightforward I think. The output can be somewhat insane, given the  presence of hundreds of points of the stuff combined with skills and  abilities that can amplify impact. It's usually quite a spectacle."

I  had to admit that sounded pretty awesome. I wondered what kind of might  I needed to be able to output for my abilities to get me on that record  list. The best way to find out was probably to go check it out myself. I  looked to the girls, who nodded with eager smiles, and I passed that  expression on to Shadowthorn. "Sounds like fun. Lead the way." She  turned and walked us out of the hall. "So, tell us about the tests. Are  they always going on? Is it a daily thing where they hold them at a  specific time? And what is the Might faculty like?"

So  many questions were running through my head about this place. It seemed  so interesting to me, and I couldn't wait to see it in action.  Shadowthorn chuckled. " The Might faculty are the most direct. Most  people belong to multiple faculties, since it's pretty much impossible  to stick with only one stat, Impact aside. As you improve overall the  lowest stats go up easier, since your performance in those areas will be  assumed to be better due to your overall power. Still, of all the  faculties, Might has the most people by far."

Which  made some sense really. Might was easy to demonstrate and obvious to  see, not to mention being pretty simple to calculate. Predictable and  stable results would be much more attractive to some people than  something like Fantasy. " The tests are always going on, and most of the  Might faculty attempts them daily just to keep fresh. They're also some  of the most focused on training. While Might gives a set amount of raw  output from the body, you can maximize your use of that force for better  results, which nets you more points. That kind of thing is easiest to  see with Might."

We  followed her down a well maintained path heading west from the student  resources building. I could understand what she meant. Martial arts and  similar types of training could ensure that force was applied in the  most effective way. You could usually calculate Might from human max. A  thousand pounds of force per point was the approximate. Doing the math  on that bat swing I'd used on the that support pillar I had to wonder if  that thing was made of normal concrete, I hadn't thought about it at  the time but that's a lot of force for such a cheap substance to handle  so well.

Finally  we came to another hall, walking inside to find a... a big rock. To be  fair, it was a REALLY big rock. But still, just a rock. Except I could  see spots of color on the thing. White, pink, red, orange, yellow,  green, blue, indigo, violet, and black. There were splotches of color  all over the rock, most of them white or pink. Shadowthorn grinned  fondly up at the thing. "The Might Stone. Simple to use. You hit the  rock, which is E rank at this point so it's impossible to break, and it  turns a color. White is up to a hundred Might, and black is up to a  thousand. The rock is connected to a leaderboard where your score is  calculated in Might points."

I  noted one specific thing she'd said. "Wait, at this point? Are you  saying that the reputation of the Might stone in the Academy raises its  rank?" I knew that materials could rank up, but I'd thought it was more  based on the type of material

than  individual objects. I looked up at the leaderboard and saw that the  actual point values were listed in the same colors as the splotches. All  the scores in the top one hundred or so were black. The highest was a  whopping five thousand plus points.

She  smiled approvingly. "Good catch. Yes, The Might Stone is a local  legend, the more people who work on it the stronger the thing gets. It's  pretty much never in danger of being broken since only G rankers ever  use it." I flinched and pointed at the first place score, which got a  chuckle from the older woman. "Ah. That. Like I said some people have  skills and abilities that add modifiers to their strikes. You can have  dozens of the things, and plenty of people in the Might faculty stack  them until they can synergize at rank up. That first place IS a G  ranker, as hard as it is to believe."

Five  thousand points was halfway to E rank on it's own. I remembered what  I'd been told before about some people having the stats to hit up ranks,  and I imagined someone with that kind of power could probably hurt an F  ranker even with the Impact deficit. I tried to imagine what kind of  multipliers were needed to do something like that, but my own  amplification abilities were nowhere close at their current level. Even  with a heavily enchanted weapon and a thousand points of Might I  wouldn't come close to touching that record.

Sensing  my discomfort Shadowthorn patted my shoulder. "Don't worry about it. If  you look, second place is only barely over a thousand. The top rankers  on each board are almost always monsters, though admittedly that score  is the highest I've ever heard of. Whoever it is must have pushed Might  hard. Here, there's someone going up now. A random person taking the  test should give you a better idea of what the norm is for this.  Remember this is out of a million Ascendants, there are bound to be some  outliers."

As  she spoke, a small woman with close cropped red hair and bright red  eyes walked up to the stone. She was athletic and looked energetic, with  no mask and a sleeveless long dress slit up both sides with shorts  underneath for movement. She was carrying and absolutely behemoth club  with runes carved across the surface in tiny spiral patterns. I looked  to our guide. "Can she use an enchanted weapon like that? I wanted to  use one of mine when I finally take the test myself." I wouldn't bother  until I hit at least a hundred Might. Leaving a white mark wasn't the  impression I was aiming for.

Shadowthorn  just nodded. "As long as it's G rank or lower. Though H rank materials  don't usually survive the kind of force people exert on the Stone, so G  rank is the standard. Money and resources are a type of power too, and  the only thing that matters to the Might faculty is raw force." I  wondered how much Might was in the enchantment on that thing, it looked  heavily enchanted so I was betting it was a decent amount.

The  small red haired girl turned to grin at us all. "My name is Tiamat, and  I'm ranked sixty thousand and ninety fifth as of my last attempt. It's  been three months." I checked the board and sure enough Tiamat was  sitting at sixty thousand ninety fifth place written out in pink. Under  two hundred points of Might last time then. That was pretty impressive  to me given my accomplishments, but clearly wasn't much here.

Tiamat  took her place in front of the stone. She took a deep breath, set her  stance and wound up with the club. Her draw back was smooth, probably  some kind of batting mastery, and she twisted her whole body as she  brought it around at the Stone with every ounce of strength she could  muster. There was a loud crash as the club hit the stone, and the area  of the rock where impact occurred turned bright red. There was a glow  from the board as Tiamat's name rocketed from sixty thousand plus to forty two thousand two hundred and twenty fifth place.

The  girl in the red and gold battle dress looked ecstatic at her progress,  pumping a fist in the air. "Yes! Top fifty thousand!" She turned to grin  at the watching crowd, mostly made up of people who were taking the  test soon themselves. "I'll make it into the top twenty five thousand  next time, just you watch!" She waltzed proudly out of the hall to a lot  of cheers and applause. Clearly that kind of improvement in such a  short time was impressive even somewhere like here.

Shadowthorn  chuckled. "I forgot how excited the lower ranks get when they move up.  The top twenty five thousand are mostly where the seriously focused  Might students are, so everything below that tends to see a pretty big  jump for even a small improvement. Her's was actually pretty marked, so  it's no wonder she made it into the top fifty thousand. She's jumping  the gun aiming for the top twenty five though. No one under green makes  it on there, and most of them are closer to blue even at the lower  ranks."

I was  pretty shocked. Green was five to six hundred, and blue was six to  seven hundred. Even with multipliers that was insane. I was really  curious what kind of skills the Might faculty had for amplifying impact  and damage. I hadn't seen anything aside from my game skills that had a  flat percentage increase, so I was curious to see how that worked for  more normal Skills. "So what was your high score on this thing,  Shadowthorn?" I was guessing they took people off the board when they  reached F rank, or there would be a LOT more names.

She  chuckled. "I never broke top fifty thousand. My build isn't Might  heavy, and I don't have many amplification skills. I managed top ten  thousand on the testing ground for Creation though. And I was in the top  one hundred for Perception. Anyway, the other testing grounds are a bit  harder to watch." She paused. "Except for Fantasy I guess, but that one  doesn't get used often, so we don't have good odds of catching a show."  She led us out of the Might Stone hall and back out onto the paths,  before turning us south and setting off at a brisk walk.

As  she pulled ahead she spoke back over her shoulder. "I know you did a  lot of good work with the crafting hall back in Velas so I figured I'd  show you the one here. The Creation faculty mostly runs the place, but  anyone is free to take jobs if they have the skills for it. I imagine  it'll be where you get a large portion of your reputation from. Though  to be fair after taking out a serial killer you'll have a bit of a head  start there." She sounded cheerful as she wove around various buildings,  leading us to our next stop.

I  hurried to catch up. I was interested to see what kinds of things the  Creation faculty could teach about enchanting. It was my weakest stat,  but I could fix that, and I was pretty sure I WOULD be spending a lot of  time at the place in the future, if only to get my wishes in. Granting  wishes for gear had been working well for me so far. No reason to stop  now. Finally we came to another dark, elegant building and Shadowthorn  pushed the door open, exposing a bustling space full of all different  kinds of people. "Welcome to the hall of crafters."