Wish upon the Stars chapter 85 (Patreon)

Two weeks was A LOT less time than it sounded like. One hundred and  forty points was a shockingly small amount considering how far my  teammates had to go. It took a bit over a hundred points (not counting  the pills that gave them ten each) between the two of them to get them  to G rank, but we managed it in the end. We had four days to spare at  the end, and Callie ended up getting those last points for her Might  stat, just to make sure she was up to the fight that was coming. I'd  been pouring my own stats into Might for a while so prioritizing such a  versatile ability seemed important.

Jessie was the first  one up. She had far fewer points to go until she hit her rank up. The  majority of her points went right into Vitality, with Might coming a  close second to make her controlled plants stronger. Aside from that she  was able to bargain a dedicated contract as the team healer going  forward for a rank up to Beginner in First Aid and Horticulture. Because  of how powerful the resulting geas was she was even able to get both  for one wish, enabling her to synergize the power she wanted on rank up.

Jessica  Evans- G rank. Ability: Beginner Lifeweaving- Infuse living things with  life itself and direct their actions while the users power flows  through them. Control had limited effect on sapient entities. Prolonged  exposure to life energy may cause lasting effects in controlled non  sapient subjects.

Might-32

Impact-12

Fantasy-8

Vitality-50

Creation-8

Skills: Beginner Horticulture,Beginner First Aid, Minor Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement

The  new power was a doozy. Even Zeke was impressed. Apparently synergies  didn't always end up exactly the same when you combined the same skills,  because skills themselves were unique to an extent. Each person had  their own unique experiences and understanding of what they learned  which could alter the results. Jessie's new ability was a potent and  powerful one with lots of possible applications, and she decided unless  something changed she wasn't going to synergize anything else for her  next few ranks.

With Jessie done we got to Benny.  He'd originally been planning to go first, but decided that he wanted to  try to grind up his Inventing to Beginner the slow way while I worked  with Jessie. He spent his time pouring over texts and doing experiments  to try to further his understanding, and with the absurdly deep  foundation of his wished for Inventing Skill giving him a perfect base  to build on he actually managed to rank it up in the five days I took to  get Jessie up to speed.

Sadly he as good as told me it  was a fluke. His wish had gotten him an incredibly stable and even  distribution of information across the spectrum to get him his Skill,  and he'd basically just cherry picked the stuff he was best at to build  on, meaning his Beginner Skill, while still pretty complete, was much  less stable a foundation to move forward with. Sure he could easily  build it up again, but it would be to a normal extent instead of the  perfect textbook skill he had before. His jump to Intermediate would  take MUCH longer. Still, I was impressed with how fast he managed it,  and his stats turned out pretty well.

Benicio  Cortez- G rank. Ability: Beginner Mechanical Embodiment- Allows the  integration of existing inventions into the users body for the purposes  of strengthening and enhancing them.

Might-35

Impact-12

Vitality-16

Focus-45

Perception-2

Skills:Beginner Inventing Mastery, Minor Cooking Mastery,  Minor Haggling Mastery

Like  Jessie, Benny opted to buff up his big stats rather than unlock any new  ones. Unlike Jessie he went for a more even spread across the two stats  he chose instead of leaning too heavily on just one, though the pill  had forced him to pick and he'd chosen to specialize a bit in Focus. I  was pretty sure he was banking on the new inventions he would be able to  make with his improved skills and stats to make up the difference in  combat. Aside from the boosts he'd also created and integrated a few new  inventions to do just that. Though he kept a few open slots because he  didn't get enough viable combat items.

Current  integrated tech. 8/10. Torso: Extending rope. Right fist: triple punch.  Left forearm: long range attack attraction. Left fist: minor slow acting  tranquilizer effect. Right foot: Density shifting to create heavier  kicks and more powerful jumps. Left Foot: momentum neutralization to  allow stopping instantly. Head: slight cognitive boost to allow more  thinking time. Back: ability to grow a shell to tank damage.

The  four new items weren't groundbreaking on their own, though each was  pretty damn good, but they gave him a huge amount of versatility and  flexibility in combat. Granted they were mostly H rank gear rather than G  rank just because of the materials needed, which seriously impeded  exactly how much they could do, but still, they would be a huge help to  Benny in battle, and I couldn't wait to see how he would use them.

It  took a grand total of ninety five stat points to get them both ranked  up, minus twenty for the pills, and even counting Jessie's skill ups  that meant ten days, giving me the final four to work with Callie.  Callie spent the entire ten day period training up her stealth skill to  teach me, so I had plenty of memories to take without impacting her  progression at all, but it was still a huge benefit for me to be able to  get that skill directly. She had me put everything into Might, and it  was one of her more terrifying stats now.

Callie  Reynolds- G rank.  Ability- Beginner Shadow embodiment. Ability to  control and manipulate shadow, as well as imbue it into compatible  objects.

Might-95

Impact-12

Vitality-150

Fantasy-50

Focus-30

Perception-144

Creation-112

Skills: Minor Tracking.Beginner Stealth, Beginner Disguise

With  the new power she had at her disposal she was able to create shadows  that were as sturdy as steel, moreso even. It took her combat capability  to an entirely new level, and combined with the crowd control she  already had it made all of us that much safer. All of that left us  completely prepared for this scavenger hunt, or at least as prepared as  we could get, but we still had one more thing to do before tomorrow when  we had to meet with the others. We needed to test out all this  progress. To see what the rank ups had really done for them. It was time  to spar.

We headed for the  training room. As we walked I asked Callie about how we should do this.  "Ok, I feel like one on one will take too long. Two on two will give us  more practice with each other as teammates anyway. That said I somehow  doubt that the two newbies versus us will go well. How should we divide  the teams up?"

Callie  chewed her lip. "You aren't wrong. I'd say our best bet is girls versus  guys. The crowd control capabilities of mine and Jessie's powers will  make it a real challenge for the two of you to get in to attack us, and  with the increased Impact these two should be able to take any glancing  blows we manage to land. That setup work for everyone?" She looked  around questioningly and the other two nodded. They were used to working  together by now, but given our upcoming trial and the fact that we  might be separated learning to mix and match seemed prudent.

We  got to the training room, stepping into the center so we could use the  obstacle course in the fight. The place was reinforced as hell since it  was made for an F ranker, so it wouldn't be an issue if our fight got a  little rough. Both teams took their positions on the field, ready to get  started. Callie and Jessie took up places close to a few obstacles,  giving themselves some room to maneuver and set up their control, and  then it was on.

My  first move was, as usual, Mistwalking, and I grabbed Benny to steady  him as I got in close enough to tell him the plan. "Alright, neither of  us have shit in the way of ranged mobility. Exactly how much can that  density shifting of yours do? Does it work on your whole body or just  your foot?" I needed to know the limits on his new inventions before we  went into battle if we were going to use our resources properly.

He  shook his head. "Foot and leg for now. I don't have enough Might to do  more. Not to mention it's a flat percentage increase in mass on the  affected limb, and not a big one. Twenty percent or so at the moment.  Gives me a bit of a power boost from increased muscle density, enough to  make my jumps off that leg higher, but nothing that's going to be a  huge asset. The big benefit is combining it with the momentum stop.  Let's me maneuver much easier. Did you have something specific in mind?"

I  actually did. Stone Limb was one of my least useful and versatile  spells. Not because of its effects but because the damn thing needed  ground contact to function. However, I was pretty sure the requirements  for use made it a much more open ended spell than I'd been aware of.  Stone Limb could work on any limb I used touching the ground, and I was  pretty sure that didn't just mean my own.

I  knelt down and put my hands on the ground, triggering the Skill and  focusing on Benny's right leg. Just as I'd hoped the stone crawled up  his leg, covering it past the knee and reinforcing the thing. "Ok, try  your density trick now." Benny focused and I could see the stone darken a  bit on his leg. I stood up. "Perfect, now I'm going to aim you at the  others and I want you to charge in and make tons of noise. Use all your  abilities to play distraction while I try this new Minor Stealth Skill  and slip around behind them."

Benny  nodded and after a second to get used to his new limb, pushed himself  off the ground in a massive jump. I was pretty sure the extra mass  increased the power of his leg even more, and since I could see through  the mist when it didn't have Callie's shadows mixed in I got to watch my  friend sail across the room at the girls. The both lashed out with  tendrils, shadow and plant reaching for Benny, but he suddenly stopped  midair, then planted his foot on one of the tendrils and pushed off it.

Confident  in his ability to hold their attention I slipped into stealth,  resonating the Skill with my DS mastery and Enchanting to try to blend  it with Mistwalking, and began to sneak around to try to get the drop on  Callie and Jessie. Before I could get too far a lumbering stick figure  came barreling through the mist toward me. I meant both lumbering and  stick figure literally, because the thing was made of branches. Jessie's  new ability in it's early stages I was guessing, but it had lots of  potential.

I  settled in for a fight Consecration fo Flame lighting up my tonfas. I'd  been hoping to finish this quick, but it looked like it would take a  while. I didn't mind though. The longer we fought the more we would  learn about ourselves and each other. We would be more than ready for  whoever came at us during the hunt, and with Cark onboard we'd be more  than strong enough to protect the others too. I was planning to win this  whole damn thing, I wanted that rank boost, I wanted the power, but  more than that, I just wanted to kick some ass. This whole thing  promised to be a blast.