Wish upon the Stars chapter 18

The day after my big commitment to help Callie outfox her dad  was...anticlimactic. Specifically, it involved lots of wishes. I managed  to finally hit my daily allotment of four wishes, and I was bone tired  from the effort, but it was worth it in the end because combined with  that fourth point of Might I'd managed five entire points to my stats. A  full twentieth of what I needed to hit the next rank up.

Aside  from that point of Might I got three points of Focus and a point of  Perception. Nothing particularly useful for the moment but still, every  bit helped. Not to mention Focus was pretty neat to have even if it  wasn't really something I'd needed much so far. I grinned to myself as I  called up my stat sheet in my vision, using the purple flame to conjure  it instead of needing to consult my contract. I suspected my increased  Focus was what made that possible, so it was definitely useful even  outside of wishes.

Wishmaster  candidate status. H-rank. Ability: Lesser Wish- Four times a day grant a  Lesser 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-4

Impact-2

Fantasy-2

Vitality-2

Focus-5

Perception-3

Creation-1

Skills:  Lesser Doom Sovereign Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Cooking  Mastery, Minor Gymnastics Mastery, Minor Swimming Mastery, Minor Guitar  Mastery, Minor Singing Mastery, Minor Enchanting Mastery

Aside  from the stat boosts I could see that all important skill on there now,  enchanting. I was pretty sure that was going to end up being one of my  most important skills, so it was a relief to see it. Speaking of  enchanting, I'd decided I was going to create a new enchanted item  today. Specifically I was going to make something for Jessie. I'd  considered making something for Benny first but I was mostly worried his  mortal body couldn't handle the stat use. I was a beginner after all,  and I didn't know how theses things worked, so I would have to wait  until I had some practice for that.

Before I got started I  sat down with a piece of paper to try to plan out what I wanted the  item to do. Just like last time I wanted to figure out a specific scheme  for the enchantment before I started on it. Just like Zeke said I  worked backwards, my first step was deciding what the enchantment should  be. I'd have loved to make something crazy and overpowered, but  unfortunately I only had access to basic temporary enchantments, so I  needed to settle for something simple. I decided I would make Jessie a  trinket that would let her grow plants faster.

It would  probably burn out pretty quickly admittedly, but such a limited ability  should be doable even with my low standards. Once I decided on the  effect I needed to figure out how to achieve it. There was no stat that  affected speed, so I would need to work with one that effected life  force. Vitality would be a must for plant growth, and luckily I had two  points of it. That said Vitality on it's own wasn't going to produce the  effect I needed. I needed to make a proper form rune to channel it  through her ability.

A form rune like that would be tough  for me, but since I would basically just be making an outlet to plug the  energy into it should be possible. Jessie would channel her power  through the trinket and it would be released out the other side through  the enchantment. I decided I would use a stick, or rather, a wand. It  was a bit off the wall, but still fit with the image I was going for,  and making a consumable weapon would be simpler for me that creating  something impressive like a ring or something.

Wood had  worked well as a medium last time, and this time it would work even  better because of it's affinity with plantlife. The form rune would  create a structure to project her power through and the Vitality rune  would supercharge it, but I still needed a few other components. First  an expression rune, something to make sure it only triggered when she  wanted it to, and not just whenever her energy leaked into the object.  Secondly a Creation rune, which should not only help the plants grow  faster but help make it easier to grow them at all.

Finally  though I added one more rune. A rune I hadn't had a chance to try yet. I  created a law rune for the design that would restrict the flow of  energy from the expression rune until a certain threshold and then  release it all at once. By creating a build up of Vitality shaped by  both her power and the form rune, and channeled through the creation  rune, I could let her build tension and then snap it like a rubber band.  When the ability was cast it would all release at once, causing a  massing spike of growth that would shoot into the plant she was aiming  at.

I wasn't sure how Jessie's power worked, she might not  be able to control the plants she grew, but this might give her a skill  to do so if she couldn't and even if it didn't do that she could create  violent shooting plants she could use in combat. Whatever method of  battle she had the wand I was making should theoretically make it  exponentially more effective for her. The only real issue with the item  was that since I'd created a rune layout with five runes it would take  me three days to get the damn thing done.

Still, I was  proud of the design, it wasn't extravagant or special, but it was  workable and I'd been able to come up with it fairly quickly. I could  see so much potential in enchanting and I just couldn't wait to rank the  damn skill up so I could realize that potential. I wanted to use my  Blood Emerald, and any other special materials I was able to find. I had  so many amazing ideas already. I was especially excited to see if the  enchantment was that much more effective because of the material.

Suki  had mentioned back at Rantano's that the piece of sea agate had a  naturally occurring form rune on it. It implied that certain materials  could be used to hold certain enchantments more easily. Granted I was  positive this random stick didn't have one of those, but even a tiny bit  more compatibility could send me down a road that would be massively  helpful in the future. At the very least I wanted to see if it made  carving the form rune for the plant trinket easier since the form was  related to the material itself. Carving form runes fucking sucked, and  I'd love to have a cheat for it.

With that in mind I  decided to carve the form rune first, heading into the workroom again to  go and pick up the tools I used. Zeke's carving gear was pretty good  quality, even if I was pretty sure I was either using fake tools or  didn't know how to use them properly. They weren't nearly as effective  as one would expect from the tools of someone higher than E rank. Then  again this was a home workroom. Maybe he just kept the good stuff in his  office.

Finally I sat down to  try to carve the form rune. I knew better this time than to try two in a  row, but I'd done my wishes for the day, so I had nowhere to be.  Finding a proper stick to use was the hardest part, honestly. It took  some digging in the workroom to find a wooden cylinder that would do the  job. Once I had something (a smooth piece of oak about a foot long) I  sat down at my desk to begin the carving process.

I  took a deep breath, knowing form runes were harder than any of the  other runes I knew, and started. As per usual, it was grueling. It still  felt like I was carving hundreds of lines at once all stacked on top of  each other. However, I noticed something amazing. Each specific line  was slightly different mentally, as usual, but some of them were much  easier. Not many, just one or two, but it was noticeable.

The  only thing I could think of was that the wood was more receptive to the  form of the enchantment. I'd been right about my theories when I heard  Suki mention the natural form rune. Which meant that my force burst was  not a form that naturally lent itself to a baseball bat, or rather,  wasn't a form that lent itself to wood. I wasn't sure what form it WOULD  lend itself to, but I made a mental note to do some experimenting with  it.

When I  finished the first rune I was exhausted. Wishing didn't really deplete  my resources the way that enchanting did, though I was mostly sure that  was kind of a cheat. That thought made me curious about the wish power.  It was so expansive and unusual. Did the first Wishmaster really just  Ascend with this ability in its current form? Some of the features felt  intentional, and I had to wonder if he built this power by synergizing a  ton of skills with something else. it was an interesting concept.

Now  that I'd finished that first rune though, I had to deal with my one  true nemesis. Boredom. I'd tried calling Zeke earlier about the  enchanting, but he hadn't been available, which was a shame. I had a ton  of questions about a ton of things, which in retrospect was probably to  avoid the exact questions I wanted to ask. I considered playing Doom  Sovereign, but honestly it had lost it's appeal now that I could  manifest the abilities in real life. Theoretically I could train it, but  I somehow doubted I'd break through to beginner grinding fetch quests.

With  all my wishes granted and my friends busy I'd almost given up hope when  I got a call on my scan ring. Grinning in relief I pulled up the call, a  small screen appearing over my hand with Callie's face in it. She  wasn't wearing a mask but she was grinning like a cat that ate a few  dozen canaries. "Hey. Did I interrupt something?" She barely waited for  me to shake my head before she launched into an excited stream of words.  "Good! Because I got a possible lead on the killer! One of my sources  mentioned seeing someone carrying a scary looking knife into on Mr.  Jacktastic's fight nights."

I  blinked at that. "Wait...what? He let's people bring knives? Also they  just had it out? That seems...convenient. You really think it's them?" I  felt bad bursting her bubble but honestly this seemed trappish to me.  Plus it was obvious from her method of contact that she wanted to do  this just the two of us to avoid any leakage to Shadowthorn. Apparently  she'd taken my offer to heart. Which on the one hand was good because I  meant it, but on the other meant we were going in under gunned. Well, as  under gunned as a team consisting of G ranker could get in this town.

She  shook her head excitedly. "Attic Bat has a sensory ability most people  don't know about. He's a guard at the fights and he keeps an eye out for  strange things for me. Granted it might not be him, weird guy with a  scary knife is an uncomfortably large target demo, but still, it's  better than nothing." Her face fell a bit. "Unless you don't want to  come. If not that's fine, didn't mean to bother you." It was obvious  from her tone that it wasn't fine at all, but that didn't matter because  I was obviously going, which I told her. "Great!" She grinned at me  brightly. "Get dressed in your costume, I'll pick you up in an hour.