Wish upon the Stars chapter 38 (Patreon)

The first thing I did once I got into my room was, of course, call  Zeke. I probably should have worried about spying or something, but Zeke  always seemed pretty sure of his ability to keep our conversations  private, so I trusted him. I'd gotten this scan ring from him in the  first place, for my sixteenth birthday, and I was guessing it wasn't  exactly normal. It's funny the things you don't consider when you have  no reason to wonder.

Zeke  picked up immediately. I could see in the background he was lounging in  a plush leather chair in a room with dark walls, but the screen didn't  show anything else. "Hey kid. Glad to see you made the trip alright.  They must have sent a pretty nice air shuttle to get you there so quick.  I arrived a few hours ago, and I'm still getting our new digs set up."  Zeke had agreed to bring all my stuff with him when he came so I didn't  have to pack, which was a relief.

I  didn't bother asking how he got here so quickly, just moving on to the  next part. "You're getting something big enough for the others to have a  place to stay if they want right?" Apparently since he was arranging  his own living space Zeke had some leeway in where we ended up staying.  Since I knew Callie wanted out of here as soon as possible, and Benny  would probably be staying with us at the very least, I made sure to ask  him to get a decent sized place.

He  rolled his eyes. "Nothing obscene but yeah, I'm looking at a small  condo building in the the gourmet district. Good food and plenty of  space for your friends." He gave a wistful sigh. "I think I even found a  place that serves Revenant Wings. I haven't had them in years. There's a  special spice they use in the sauce that you can only get from a  certain belt of planets in Church territory. Your old man and I spent a  few decades kicking around down there for a while." He stopped talking  abruptly, wincing slightly.

Based  on what I knew that meant he'd been about to discuss something dad  didn't want him to talk about. Either something important about the WCP  that would violate rules, which was unlikely, or something about my mom.  I noticed things like that much easier with all my current points in  Focus and Perception I could pick up subtler clues. It was an  interesting feeling. "So. We have the Academy coming up, and I guess  crafting for wishes still, but do you know how the Unity handles  patrols?"

He  chuckled. "It's a combination of a large scale surveillance grid and a  sort of free for all. But now that you're in a good sized city there are  other options too. Namely, Ascendant animals are more common in places  this size. With so many people in the city, stories about local beasties  get a ton of traction, and have plenty of renown to beef up their  subjects. You can take hunting jobs to kill off nearby critters and  either turn in the materials for credit or keep them to use for crafting  yourself. Speaking of materials, you bring any cash for buying mats?"

Thankfully,  I had. I'd cleaned out my account at the guild before leaving,  collecting a hundred H rank chits that I could use to buy materials to  test out my new and improved enchanting. He chuckled at my expression.  "I know you're excited about permanent gear, but keep in mind that  different materials have different potential. You'll need to be more  selective about what you use for enchantments if you want to make items  that are sustainable. It adds a whole new dimension to enchanting that  only makes it more difficult."

I'd  expected it to get harder as I ranked up the skill, so that wasn't a  surprise. I also knew that materials played a bigger part in enchanting  as it improved, though still not as big a part as Alchemy or Inventing. I  was interested in a possible source of free materials though. "So how  do the critter hunting jobs work? You just sign up and then look around  to try to kill the things?" If they knew where they were, it seemed like  a waste of time to do things that way, why not just hire one dedicated  high ranker to take them out.

He  chuckled at that. "No. The other way around. Most people go out  looking, and if you catch one you turn in proof of the kill to get the  credit. Usually a body part or something that isn't valuable. That or  you just bring in the corpse to be checked over. They have harvesters on  site that can extract materials without damaging them anyway. I'd wait  on critter hunting though. You're starting the Academy, and Ascendant  Academies are always time consuming as hell."

That  was an interesting tidbit. "How does that actually work anyway? What  does the academy even teach? Like I assume PR and image handling and  things like that, but it sounded based on what Callie said that there's a  huge faculty. Do they have people for every type of power?" Given how  complicated that would get based on how specific abilities were I didn't  see how they could.

Luckily  Zeke was a fount of information, and since this wasn't WCP related he  was free to share. "They do...quite a bit, actually. First off the  academy is a way to compete. You do your best to rise up the rankings  and gain renown within the school. They promote the high rankers on  their leaderboards by broadcasting academy competitions to the public as  entertainment, so it's a damn good way to accrue points. At least half  the benefit of going is the promotion they do on their students behalf."

That  sounded useful as hell, and like a pretty smart way to set up an  Ascendant school. Zeke continued on though, not even close to done.  "There are also faculties for each stat, except Impact obviously, and a  crafting faculty. Then there are individual teachers for specific skills  that are commonly found that function more like a traditional school.  Between classes the academy has tasks and training that contribute to  ranking to determine who takes part in the broadcast competitions."

I  could definitely see the benefit. "And I'm guessing that students who  take part in the competition usually do so under the name of their  faculty? I bet that makes gains easier to funnel toward the stats of  your choice. I'm also assuming that competition is pretty brutal? An  environment like that would be pretty geared toward survival of the  fittest." I'd kind of expected that based on the way Callie talked about  Unity politics, but knowing we were going into a microcosm of that  wasn't exactly a fun idea.

He  shrugged. "That's cultivation. The Unity likes to play up the heroes  and Villain angles because it makes marketing a snap, and that works for  them mostly, but never forget that gathering renown isn't shaded by  morality. Monsters are just as well known as Saints. Watch your back no  matter where you go kid, because someone, somewhere, has something to  gain from sticking a knife in it."

Zeke  was never an optimistic person, but I'd never really heard him sound  so...jaded. It occurred to me that my Uncle was probably much older than  he looked, and that he'd most likely seen things I couldn't imagine. A  small part of me even wondered if that knife he mentioned came from my  dad. That contract he was under didn't seem like it was a nice one, and  despite his apparent loyalty to my old man, I wasn't so sure my father  treated his friend very well. It made me uncomfortable to think about.

Honestly  I was mystified by my dads motivation for any of this. Did he benefit  if I became Wishmaster somehow? Did he actually care and want me to  succeed?  Was this just some sick extension of his pride, living out his  glory days through me? Hell, maybe there was an entirely different  outcome that I couldn't even guess at. At this point it was impossible  to say. All I could do was my best. Get stronger, keep climbing, and  eventually, once I was high enough, I would be able to see everything I  was looking for.

Admittedly  "get stronger" rang a bit hollow as a goal at first blush. But...why?  The universe was HUGE. There were so many amazing things to see and do,  so many crazy planets to visit and abilities to witness. So what if I  didn't have some long term master plan? Wasn't that what being young was  about? Finding the path you wanted to take? Maybe I'd become the  Wishmaster, maybe not. The competition was fun for the moment so I would  stick with it. If it stopped being fun? Well fuck my dad and his plans.

Zeke  was watching me carefully, and I imagined with his undoubtedly high  perception he would be aware of at least some of what I was thinking. He  looked...proud. I didn't bring it up. Neither did he. I smiled and  thanked him for the help and we said our goodbyes and I settled in to  think about my situation after we hung up. For the moment I was too weak  to really make sweeping declarations about my future. I'd get stronger,  explore and learn and see amazing things, and I'd help my friends do  the same.Besides, I did have some long term goals. I wanted to find out  more about my mom.

I  wished I could ask Zeke about her, but it seemed clear he couldn't say  word one, and I had no idea who else to talk to about the issue. I knew  her name, of course. Sasha. And I knew that she was high ranking. I  couldn't remember if he'd said she was A rank like dad specifically, but  I was betting she was up there. That was where I ran into some problems  though. Namely that if she was in the Unity, which was already a big  if, she probably wasn't using her real name.

If  she wasn't in the Unity, I was even more screwed, because the factions  purposefully limited communication and information between them. The  Conglomerate didn't want to feed the Queen of Fairyland any more renown  than necessary, and vice versa. So just going online and searching 'A  ranker+Sasha' wasn't going to do shit for me. I needed information from a  universal source, which meant I needed the WCP.

That  came with it's own problems though, namely money. I couldn't get things  from the WCP for free, I needed to pay, and information about an A  ranker, or even a B ranker, was going to be pricy as hell. Especially  given the difficulties the Wish power had with information. The WCP  employed spies and assassins but with Wish invalidated as an information  gathering option for the most part they weren't know for that kind of  thing as much as they were their smuggling and sales operations.  Intergalactic news on a high ranker would be fucking expensive, so I  needed a way to make money.

I  thought back to all the things Zeke said about the academy. Based on  his description I was betting there were some decently lucrative options  at that place. Selling to other students, possibly winning cash in the  form of prizes for some of the competitions he mentioned, maybe  sponsorships or something. Whatever was available though it was obvious  to me that there would be some means of making money, even if it was  only to see who was best at it since I couldn't see a better way to rank  crafters. I pulled up some of the broadcasts Zeke mentioned on my scan  ring, deciding to do some research on my future school. I wanted to be  as prepared as possible for what I was walking into.