Wish upon the Stars chapter 11

I spent the afternoon with Jessie, just hanging out and watching  movies and talking and generally helping keep her mind off things. She  showed off her new costume, which I was sure to tell her looked amazing  once again, and we just had a generally nice time until Cap and  Nightstrike showed up to get us. Once that happened we put on our game  faces and headed out to make our way to the WCP.

Unlike  last time I had a nice ride to the WCP. Nightstrike had a skyride limo  that just lifted us off and flew above the streets. Skyrides were  generally reserved for the richest of the rich so we didn't run into  much traffic up there, and the ride was smooth and enjoyable as we  stared out the window at Valen flying by. It was an amazing feeling,  flying like this, and I made a mental not to try to pick up some kind of  flight related skill. That actually made me curious enough to ask Cap.  "Can you get skills that let you do things like fly or throw fireballs?"

He  waggled his hand. "Yes and no. You can technically get a skill for  anything, but some things are incredibly difficult to do without  enchantments or abilities so skills are hard to come by. Skills don't  have a hard limit, but oddly specific or unusual ones are difficult to  rank up enough to be useful. Getting a skill to Lesser is feasible with  enough time and effort, but in the end, skills advance based on your  understanding of them, and there's a finite amount of understanding you  can get of making pizza dough for instance."

Nightstike  cut in. "Of course, you can synergize a skill with another skill and  forcibly create a new one theoretically. But unique skills are  considered kind of a dead end. You basically have to invent the entire  discipline from the ground up and they never go anywhere. You can make  some amazing abilities that way, but since advancing them is basically  impossibly any synergized ability made with a unique skill is basically  capped at the level you were at when you broke through with it. It's  pretty much the Ascendant version of giving up and deciding to stay at  that rank forever."

That  was...interesting. I could see why people would avoid that. Synergizing  skills with your ability to change it was already pretty versatile.  While being able to make crazy magical skills and use them to change  your ability would be cool it wasn't worth crippling yourself.  Unfortunately my power gave me no real answers to that. If the skill was  unique to your understanding then I couldn't charge people their skill  understanding to level mine up. Based on what I'd seen I could probably  accrue a ton of overlapping Minor Skills to level a skill to Lesser or  even Beginner.

I  shook off the thoughts as I focused back on our destination. I wanted  to know what they knew about the WCP. "So, have you guys been to the  Wish Curse Palace before?" Given the fact that we were literally flying  there in a hovering limo I was guessing we weren't heading for slums at  the edges. We would be going to the high end places to look around,  looking at shops that sold F and even G ranked gear.

Cap  looked amused. "Once or twice. We generally try to stay out of there.  The Unity, ostensibly ignores the WCP so it's frowned on for us to go  down there, but it's the best place to get higher end equipment. Our  only F ranked crafter is Beaker, and getting him to focus on literally  anything for more than five minutes is an act of the Revenant and he  outsources for other branches too. We have no one at G rank at all, so  buying stuff from the WCP is something the higher ups tend to ignore."

It  made me wonder exactly how the WCP managed their shipping channels. Was  there some sort of transportation enchantment? Did they just wish their  stuff to where it needed to go? I imagine the Divine Wish ability would  have a massive number of potential wishes per day, if there was even a  limit. Maybe the current wishmaster just took a percentage cut in  exchange for mass transport of goods. It would certainly explain why the  WCP worked the way it did. In fact it was a brilliant use of the Wish  ability.

Jessie  seemed excited by the impending visit. "What kind of place is the  Palace? I never hear much about it. People tend to keep it to themselves  when they go. I always figured it was like a shadowy underground  complex. Where everyone wears masks and skulks around in the dark." I  snorted quietly because that was a weirdly accurate description of the  outer area of the WCP but I'd seen the edges of the higher tier district  and it had looked amazing. I was really looking forward to seeing the  inside for myself.

The  grin on Nightstrike's face was almost predatory. "Well, the food is  excellent. They have a few truly high grade restaurants in the central  area that even the executive lounge can't compete with. For some reason  the Valen branch of the WCP is even more popular than the one in the  capital with people visiting from off world so their tourist section is  the best on the planet. In terms of gear the capital branch wins out  though, after all, it's where basically every E ranker on the planet  lives."

Cap  rolled his eyes. "Ignore the glutton. She's pretty much obsessed with  food." He turned to look at us seriously. "General rule of thumb, only  ten percent of your rank should ever come from special food or elixirs.  Anymore than a ten percent stat density from forcibly absorbed stats can  cause your ability to fracture when you rank up. Impact isn't just  defense, it's the very weight of your presence, and if your ability  isn't upgraded stably the weight of it can shatter your very being."

My  eyes widened at that. It explained why everyone didn't just shove  elixirs and food down the throats of people with strong abilities. It  also made a certain amount of sense. I looked to Nightstrike who rolled  her eyes. "I don't eat for stat points, I hit my cap ages ago. Ascendent  chefs can make all sorts of interesting dishes with all kinds of  effects, and even if they couldn't I absolutely adore the taste of high  grade fare. But yes, it's a poor decision to try to artificially stack  your stats to rank up. The results are...unpleasant."

I  tried not to think about what it would look like for someone's 'very  being to shatter'. I made a mental note to try to steer clear of stat  buffing food. I might try a bit here to see how it tasted but with my  power there was no real need to take that kind of risk. Luckily the  gloomy thoughts weren't an issue because the skyride touched down  outside the massive building that housed that familiar elevator. It was,  as usual, empty, and we made good time getting inside.

When we got to the elevator Cap pulled out a shining metal card to  access it, very distinct from my black candidate access card. I could  only assume this was a normal WCP access card, and when he saw me  looking he smiled. "This is moms. She's a steel grade VIP, at least when  the thing actually works. Half the time her access is disabled anyway  because she and Harlequin are usually not speaking to each other. The  VIP ranks are separated into a bunch of different ranks. Tin, Iron,  Steel, Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Obsidian."

That  was interesting, not least because it explained what my black card was,  but I was more focused on something else. "Is Harlequin the name of the  local Deacon? I heard he's supposed to be pretty tough." I had no idea  what Zeke's rank actually was but I was guessing the people here didn't  know either, because no fucking way would someone who could swat E ranks  be considered a rival by the F ranked guild master of the local branch  if they knew how strong he was. In fact I was guessing Harlequin was a  pseudonym, because no way someone as strong as Zeke didn't have a rep.

Cap  nodded. "Harlequin is a beast. Those stupid masks of his are a huge  force multiplier. Mom says she's pretty sure he's using a disposable  identity though. She's fought him dozens of times and she insists he's  too powerful to be some random nobody. She's pretty sure he might even  be higher rank than she is, just based on how little her attacks seem to  phase him when he doesn't bother pretending. It's not really rare for  crafters to be combat capable though, using your own gear is a better  way of accruing renown than pure crafting so most of them hit the  streets at some point."

The  elevator opened, that same weird shifting setup as last time where the  apparatus seemed to be pushed out of the way into a separate shaft after  we climbed on. We began our descent. It was interesting to hear about  what Zeke might be capable of. Someone like Stella had at least thirty  two points in Impact. an unimaginable number to me after having  experienced what even a point or two in that terrifying stat could do.  When you considered that any given F rank could usually shrug off blows  from a G ranker, blows that could mobilize literally tens of thousands  of stat points, the concept of Zeke being D or even C rank was  mindblowing.

I  made a mental note to ask him exactly what his rank was at some point.  I'd been avoiding it because I wanted to give him his privacy but I'd  gotten so curious I couldn't hold back anymore. I just hoped telling me  wasn't against the rules. Knowing dad was in the A rank just kept  getting more terrifying as I went along. That meant he had a Mythic  ability based on what I'd been able to find. Literally the only level  above that was an S ranked Divine ability. I knew the old man had  synergized his power and lost the original Wish ability but whatever he  had must be damn strong.

When  the elevator stopped we stepped out onto the grated catwalk I'd seen  last time, and I didn't have to fake the awe I felt at seeing it again.  The Wish Curse Palace was an underground city of staggering proportions  and seeing it once didn't prepare you for the second viewing. We mounted  the second elevator, and I felt Jessie cling to my arm as we walked  down the catwalk, clearly worried about the heights. Still she was just  as enthralled by the view as I was and the fear almost seemed like an  after thought.

When  we got to the bottom we strolled right through the outskirts completely  ignored. Or rather, Cap and Nightstrike were getting attention but no  one was stupid enough to actually try to stop them. We made it through  the rougher portions of the city to the inner areas pretty quickly. We  passed onto the higher quality cobblestones as we walked by the familiar  store front of the Wick and Candle and into the inner area. I'd passed  through here briefly on the way to Zeke's office but I hadn't really  paid much attention given my state of shock. This time I looked around,  taking it all in. The streets were better lit here, and the cobblestones  has transitioned from grey to bright shining white, seeming to get more  pearlescent as we went further in.

The  roads were lined with beautifully made buildings of all sorts of types  and styles. Squat black stone houses stood next to white marble  edifices, with wooden halls perched right next to them. I literally saw  one place that appeared to just be a giant boat sitting on the side of  the road. Finally though, we came to a huge restaurant and Nightstrike  pulled us to a stop. "If we want to find anything out we need to talk to  someone with sources, Rantano's is where all the somebodies eat, so we  start here." With a grin, she set off into the eatery. I looked at the  others then shrugged following her into the building. I admit I couldn't  wait to try the food.