Wish upon the Stars (Original Superhero cultivation sci fi litrpg)

[Strong_Thread]

On the one hand, I'm rooting for the kid. On the other hand, there's a part off me that wants this to be a hard fought loss for him. There needs to be a big loss at some point, if only for narrative balance, and better it be now when the stakes aren't life and death.
Between that and his raw newness in being intermediate rank with PoDS, I'm expecting it to be a hard win for Abel.
(For a moment there I almost called him Cain, wrong brother.)

 

[Malcolm Tent]

My first move was to immediately trigger Moonlit Night. Danger Sense wouldn't stop trilling in my head, but with the push a second ago it at least dimmed. I'd need to adapt it to the situation so it would actually work. Sensing that you were ALWAYS in danger wasn't actually a warning of anything.

Abel, meanwhile, stared into the fog with amusement. I'd moved out of the way immediately, making sure he couldn't see or hear me well enough to aim. He could probably cover the whole arena with his manifestations and a couple flurries of punches, but that would be sloppy and desperate, which were things Abel wasn't. I knew my teacher well enough to be aware that he was genuinely excited about this fight.

I'd sparred with him before, so I knew that none of my old tricks would work, but I had new abilities now, new tricks I could use. I needed to time this though, Abel's instincts were insane, and if I got close enough to attack he WOULD sense it. I wasn't sure if it was Perception, Fantasy, or some sort of combat sense from years of constant attacking but he was tough to sneak up on.

"Smokescreen." He said lazily. "Mediocre idea. Interesting execution though. My Perception should be enough to pierce a veil like this, which means that you somehow mixed stealth into the fog. Fascinating. I take it this is a new trick? Or were you sandbagging during training?"

It actually wasn't entirely new, but I hadn't shown Abel Moonlit Night yet, since I was keeping it secret for the tournament. I was guessing he hadn't bothered to come watch my matches either. Wanted to make sure he got a decent challenge. Deciding to buy some time, I triggered Pit of Despair, creating a silt trap under his feet that sucked him right in. He vanished into the ultra thin particles in an instant.

Knowing it wouldn't hold for more than a second I dropped to my knees, triggering my Magma Limbs, I just barely had time to apply my Touch of Tears before Abel came shooting out of the ground like a rocket, arcing down right towards me somehow.

My eyes widened in shock and alarm, and I saw his hands move, the images of other arms condensing on his right as he would up for one of those layered punches. Without waiting I triggered Stone Limb from where my feet touched the ground, coating my whole body, then used Mountain Stance for the first time, as well as a triple strength density shift. Stacking every defensive move I could possibly think of.

Abel hit me at speed, smashing a fist directly into my chest...and stopping cold. His feet landed, and he just gaped for a second, unable to see me, but having felt that a full force punch from him had stopped when it hit me. Don't get me wrong, it HURT. I think he slightly cracked my sternum. But with the massive defensive bonus of Mountain Stance (triple defense when my feet were firmly planted on the ground) enhanced by the density shift AND Stone Limb, not to mention the bleed off from my armor, I'd actually tanked the punch.

I didn't waste it either, I triggered Steam Arrow, and when Abel's non punching hand flew up to bat away the attack with his spatial lubrication, I triggered State of Grace and laid into his ribs with the strongest punches I could manage. I pummeled his midsection as hard as I could, but his armor wasn't bad either, and he somehow absorbed the blows as they made contact by clenching his abs. Some martial arts trick probably.

He stepped into a trail of lubricated space and slid effortlessly away from me, stopping about five feet back. "Ok." He grunted in amusement. "That was pretty good. I didn't know you had that kind of durability, kid. Must be new. I can't believe you took a serious punch from me head on." Reaching up, he shucked off his jacket, cracking his neck as he went about limbering up his shoulders.

I swallowed hard. That...that wasn't comforting. Taking off his jacket was the first sign that Abel was getting serious. He still had his mask on, so he wasn't going all out, but it also meant he didn't think he NEEDED to go all out, which wasn't at all comforting to think about.

Letting Mountain Stance fade with a sigh, I winced a bit as I felt the soul weight. That little defensive setup hadn't been easy to pull off, even if it was apparently a bit delayed, but sitting still and taking hits was the exact worst way to handle Abel. He'd punch through any defense I put up once he had time to build up steam. I needed to go on the offense.

I triggered Double Trouble, and then once I arrived I used another new skill. Marked for Death. Marked for Death was my most recent finishing blow from my rogue class. I got one every other level, and this one was both amazing and sub par. The actual damage increase wasn't great, just double. but the real value of Marked for Death wasn't the damage increase. Once the Mark was applied, the next blow would land with perfect accuracy. Regardless of space, defenses, or anything else, Marked for Death was an unblockable sure hit attack.

Probably. There were most likely high ranking Ascendants who could avoid or stop it, but within the confines of reasonably close ranks to mine, it would work. I grinned as I leaned on State of Grace and triggered Ripple Running to bounce away from Abel's response to my appearance, because despite leaving fast, I could see the glowing purple mark of my sigil, the well of wishes, on Abel's shoulder as I slipped away.

My mentor spun slowly, waiting for the next attack, and I considered the best way to hit him to do as much damage as possible. "I have to say Shane." He said warily. "You got lucky as hell with that Skill. It makes up for so many of your shortcomings."

He was right, though I frowned at the dismissal of my hard work. I'd built my Path of the Doom Sovereign Skill from the ground up. First in DS itself, and then with other Skills and hard work. It was unrecognizable from the original Skill, and the combination of it with my stored attacks gave me a ton of versatility. I was willing to bet I was leagues stronger than your average Candidate in a straight fight, and I didn't like the implication I'd just tripped and fallen into my powers.

But on second thought, I had definitely gotten a heaping helping of good fortune in more than a few ways. That thought was enough to deflate my ego a bit and let me clear my head. Once I did, I rolled my eyes. Of course Abel knew what buttons to press to piss me off.

Sadly for him, it wasn't going to matter. I was going to end this in a single blow. Afterburner, Steam Arrow. Touch of Tears, Consecration of Flame, triple stack density shift, triple stack tranq, a shadow attack for good measure, Mercy Kill. I piled my advantages and power ups so high I thought my brain was going to explode, but I barely managed to trigger the hit.

Marked for Death meant a certain hit attack, doubled the blow, further enhanced as a sneak attack inside Moonlit Night, sped up by State of Grace and stacked with Mercy Kill. It was the most devastating direct attack I'd ever made in my life, and I saw Abel roar in pain as the horrifying tranq fire shadow steam arrow abomination slammed into his fucking rotator cuff and tore right through it, bypassing all his defensive skills and armor.

Of course, I wasn't exactly in good shape myself. That had been WAY too much soul weight, and I was currently on my knees in agony as I gasped and clutched at my skull. I'd come VERY close to blacking out from shock with that one. I used heal burst, hoping it would help, and staggered to my feet, swaying slightly as I stared at my currently blood soaked mentor.

"Fuck." He spat. Looking genuinely annoyed for the first time this match. "You took my arm? Not cool." I closed my eyes, focusing on trying to recover at least a bit. He wasn't down, and I knew he was going to be coming at me hard. I was completely tapped, and I had no way to put him down. That attack had been everything I had. Hell, I had no clue how he was conscious, given all the boosts applied and the tranquilizer aspect of the attack.

At the very least, I could see lines of searing toxic magma radiating through the wound, though Abel wasn't showing what must have been the agonizing response to being eaten alive from your arm with poison. Contrary to his statement, his arm wasn't actually gone, though it was pretty much dead meat on his shoulder at the moment. I didn't respond, I didn't want him to know where I was.

That didn't work out, somehow he'd felt where the attack came from, because as he hauled back, my previously oscillating Danger Sense became a damned storm siren. A manifestation coalesced above his head. A fist the size of a bus. Then another and another. Six of them, all floating there before he compacted them down into one single fist and swung at me with everything he had.

I knew that fist would seriously injure me if it hit, and my immediate response was to try to turtle up. Mountain Stance, density shift, and luckily Stone Limb was still coating me. I hunched my shoulders and brought my arms in front of my face, trying to defense as best as I could from the coming attack. My head was pounding like a war drum, and I was about to pass out, but I held on, just for this one last move.

Afterburner was still in effect, and that had boosted both defensive abilities, though not Stone Limb, since it had already been active. As the fist landed I felt a crack, not just from the stone but from my arms and legs. I kept my feet planted because I had to or I'd lose Mountain Stance, but all four of my limbs fractured under the impact.

With the punch over, I barely managed to stay standing, mostly because of the still active heal burst patching me up, and as I watched the fog receded, Moonlit Night fading as I fought to stay upright and functional. To my shock, Abel was staring at me shakily, the tranq seeming to be wearing him down, he started thumping toward me, one foot in front of the other, almost dragging himself, his arm hanging limply.

I could hear the burning of the flesh as he approached, and I tried to pull back to throw another punch, but with my arms broken I couldn't move them, barely able to keep them up. Abel made it to the spot in front of my, wobbling on his feet as he grinned at me proudly.

He put a hand on my shoulder, something I couldn't resist at all in my current condition, and chuckled. "That was a hell of a fight kid. You almost had me." I wanted to reject the statement. To tell him it wasn't over. But I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could barely think. I was so close. I was almost there. But I just couldn't make it. I couldn't beat him. He gave a gentle shove to my shoulder, and Mountain Stance broke as I tipped over backwards, toppling to the ground with a loud thump. The last thing I saw as my vision faded out into blackness was the crowd going wild. Oh well, at least I put up a good fight.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was surprisingly pain free when I came to. Well...my body was. My head was fuzzy, but that was to be expected with overtaxing my soul. Oh, and the yelling. The yelling wasn't helping. "Look at him!" Screamed a voice. "How many bones did you break? Do you even know? Now he won't wake up even after healing. None of the rest of us were that badly hurt in any of our matches. Is there even an ounce of forethought it your head?"

Groaning slightly, I opened my eyes, taking in the situation. Callie was standing over me in the back of our car, bellowing at Abel like she was about to attack him. For his part, my mentor didn't look contrite, or afraid, or even guilty. Just patient, as if he was letting her get it out of her system. Which he was, since this little nap had been my fault not his.

Reaching out, I snagged her wrist, which was within arms length. "Whoa."I said groggily. "Keep it down Cal, my skull is splitting. What's going on?" Sitting up, I saw my girlfriend's relieved expression as she hurled herself at me, her knee driving into my gut as I grunted at the impact. I laughed, putting my arms around her. "Whoa there, what's wrong? Actually, why didn't you feel it when I woke up? I'd have figured the bond would have tipped you."

She squeezed so hard I groaned, but when she noticed the discomfort she eased up, staring up at me tearily. "It shut down. As soon as that punch hit the bond fried. Maybe it was all the soul weight, or maybe just you passing out, but I saw you lying there and the bond stopped working and I thought you were dead."

"You weren't dead." Abel chipped in helpfully. "In case you were wondering. Half dead, at worst. I carried you out to Jessie and let her patch you up before she started the drive home." He rotated hos arm stiffly. "Me too actually, shit, kid, you don't fuck around. If you'd landed that weird mark thing on my neck or head I'd have been a corpse."

I snorted at that. "As if you'd let me. You reacted as soon as I appeared and shifted your body unconsciously. I was aiming for the middle of your back. You're the one who changed the spot where you were going to take that blow. That final punch was monstrous, I guess you were holding back in all your other matches." Hearing my tone seemed to calm some of Callie's anger, though she still looked upset.

Abel shrugged. "Is it holding back to open a soda by twisting off the top instead of smashing it in half with a hammer? I just do enough to do the job. You came close to pushing me into going all out though. That was a hell of a fight, especially for someone who started cultivating so recently."

"Don't patronize me." I said flatly. "Mel told us that you don't get serious unless you take your mask off. I might have pushed you, but you sure as hell weren't going all out."

That got an acknowledging nod. "Well, fair enough. But you were damned sure the hardest fight I've had so far. Even if I'm pretty sure that won't continue to be the case. I hear that the top ten are monsters, one and all." He grinned. "Even a few familiar faces in there. Helix made it, and so did Lament. Whether they're going to pass round thirteen and take part in the finals is anyone's guess, though a five man free for all does sound like fun."

I looked over at Mel, who had been relaxing across from us, having been fighting at another of the arenas. Jessie had gone to pick her up after she dropped us off, and had made it back just after the match. "You've been quiet. Did you make it through your round?" I hoped she had, if not we would be left with only one entrant on the team. I mean, sure, he was our strongest and the one with the best chance of winning, but going into the finals with two of the five would be nice.

Sadly, she shook her head with a sigh. "Gods no. I got demolished. I ran into one of the tournament favorites. Roland Wilder. They call him the Walking War. He uses this crazy weapon summoning ability, calls up swords and spears and axes of different sizes and materials." She looked at Abel. "Decent chance he'll be your next fight, or Helix, or Lament. With only ten people left the chances of meeting up with someone you know gets more and more likely."

He grinned at her. "I promise you'll be avenged if I meet him. I'll stomp his teeth in and wear his head like a shoe."
Mel giggled. "You say the sweetest things." Her tone flattened, becoming severe. But don't underestimate him. He was one of the scariest people I've ever fought, and I've sparred with you plenty." She looked at Callie. "You looked into the people in the twelfth round right? Any educated guesses on who makes it to round thirteen?"

Rime, who I hadn't even noticed because she'd been so quiet, piped up. "Firn from Final Frost Heaven is almost a shoe in for the last round. She uses a weird mutated version of ice manipulation that makes extremely durable permafrost. Durable even for her rank, I mean. Her control is also insane."

Callie nodded. "Heard about her." Her voice was rough, still hoarse from crying earlier, though we all pretended it wasn't. "There's a teleporter named Lucas who seems to be doing well. Ambush fighter. Mixed his teleports with a nasty knack for Stealth. Not sure if he makes the top five, but you'll probably see him in the next round, even if you don't actually tun into him. Other than him, Arrabus, from the cult, is pretty scary. He uses that same dark corrosive energy we saw from Pietro, though it's not the same."

Mel nodded. "I saw him fight. He's Might focused. Makes the destructive aspects of the energy more apparent. Stat allocation has a strong influence on how abilities manifest, as I'm sure you know, since it's one of the ways to alter an ability without synergy."

None of this seemed to bother Abel. "I'll keep it in mind." He said casually. "We can worry about it when we find out who I'm actually going to be fighting. No use crying over being about to spill milk."

"That's...not a saying." Said Mel in exasperation. "It doesn't even make any sense. Can you for once take it seriously when someone tells you to watch out for an enemy, instead of barreling right at them like some kind of demented five year old on a sugar high."

Abel pursed his lips before shaking his head. "Nah, not my style. But thanks for worrying about me, love. You know I can take care of myself, but it's still sweet of you."

I groaned, and they all looked at me. "Sorry, not about you. Just realized I have to tell Nat I'm out of the running. Any of her team make it through?" I'd almost forgotten my cousin was in this with us, but if she had team members entering round thirteen that would massively increase our chances.

Callie brightened a bit. "Oh, right. Yeah, Valk, that red bearded guy with the weird gel powers. I guess he had a chance to make the finals too." She shot a stern look at Abel. "To be clear, if he makes it in, you're to team up with him until the other three are eliminated to maximize our chances. That means no free for all just to have some fun punching out a bunch of powerful warriors. Play it smart."

"Yes MOM." He said belligerently. Then grunted when Mel elbowed him in the ribs. He shot her a wounded look. "Hey be careful, I'm still in pain from my gruesome injury."

Her only response was a dismissive snort, which drew a smirk from my teacher. I rolled my eyes. "How did you beat me in a fight again?"

Abel's face smoothed out, his normally expressive features, so loud that it was easy to tell what he was thinking even under a mask, flattened as he stared at me intently. "With some effort. Seriously, kid. I don't think you get how much that means coming from me. You did good. I'm proud of you."

I froze. That...wow, that caught me flat footed. It felt...weird. I mean sure, Zeke had said it before, though not often, he wasn't the type, but that kind of thing is something you expect to hear from your dad, and I really hadn't. Ever. My dad hadn't said he was proud of me once in my entire life. Not even when he left me his final message throwing me into the deep end.

Callie, who out of everyone got what I was feeling, grabbed my hand and squeezed it as I muttered out. "Thanks, Abel." He nodded, effectively declaring the conversation closed, but I understood. Abel was a gregarious and outgoing guy, but that was mostly surface. He didn't share what was under it often. I appreciated him doing it now.

Finally, we came to a stop, and they helped me up to open the door. My brain had settled mostly, a bit of pain but the fuzz and discomfort I felt on waking was mostly faded.

As we made it inside, I heard cheering and turned to see Cass running up. "Happy losing day!" She said cheerfully. She was being so upbeat about it I couldn't even get mad, just laughing at the odd comment.
Cark, who came up behind her, rolled his eyes. "Cassidy, you're not supposed to point out when someone fails at something. It's rude."

She shot him an annoyed look. "Nuh-uh. You always tell me that trying your best is what matters. Uncle Zeke said he went to watch and that Shane tried his best and did really good. As long you try your hardest losing isn't a big deal, it's even better than winning, because you learn something."

We all just stared at her, before Callie burst into laughter. At Cass's glare, she held up both hands. "Sorry sweetie, that's just a really smart way to look at it. I'm laughing because the rest of us were being dumb. Where did you hear that take on it though?"

Cass rolled her eyes, as if Callie had asked the dumbest question possible. "From cartoons, duh. Anyway, I wanted to wish Shane a happy losing day, because he tried his best and that means he got to learn something. Isn't that way better than winning?" She whispered to Callie, loud enough for us all to hear. "He needs it more than you did, because he's a boy. They get stupid about that kind of stuff."

Even I couldn't help but laugh at that, though I noted Cark shooting Callie and Jessie suspicious looks and muttering something about bad influences. I grinned, taking my mask off. "That's a good way to look at it. But if we're celebrating I guess I need to make something for dinner, maybe even a cake." I paused. "Is it arrogant to make your own congratulatory cake?"

It was hard not to crack up as everyone vehemently assured me it wasn't, choosing to interpret that as support and not the obvious desperate attempt to get me to make dessert for them that it was. Turning to head for the kitchen, I heard the others trailing behind me, and I thought back to what Cass said. She was right, there was more than one way to look at a loss. Sure I wasn't thrilled, but I'd done better than most, and I'd really shown what I could do. This wasn't such a bad outcome really, at least I got to show Abel how strong I'd gotten. Now I could just sit back, relax, and let him crush our enemies. Poor bastards.

 

[Verdthandi]

Roland Wilder. They call him the Walking War. He uses this crazy weapon summoning ability, calls up swords and spears and axes of different sizes and materials.

Click to shrink...

Roland sounds like he needs a soundtrack. I'm undecided between this and this.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I had to admit that the people running this tournament were smarter than I'd given them credit for. The next day was downtime before the semi-finals, and to get everyone pumped they released the names. At this point, everyone had fought enough times and there were few enough people left that anyone who wanted to be prepared (Abel didn't) would be. In light of that, all the matchups were trumpeted from the rooftops.

It had only taken me a second to realize why the five way brawl was set up for the finals. Besides being big and flashy, it meant they could advertise ten different semi-final matches, maximizing the amount of attention each of the contestants got. Which was how we got the announcement that Abel was going to be fighting Lament for his match.

The grin on my mentor's face was so wide I expected his face to split when he found out. We were all gathered around the scan box in the living room, watching the coverage of the tournament so far. They'd been cherry picking the best moments to play for everyone on Callus and all the surrounding worlds with champions involved.

When my own fights came up, I froze. "Wait...I had the whole fight under cover of Moonlit Night. How are there so many clips from my solo matches?" I hadn't really watched any of the coverage, wanting to stay focused on training, but now that I was out I was free to enjoy the downtime, especially since Abel's match wasn't until tomorrow.

That got a snort from Abel. "Please, you think they don't have counters for Stealth effects? Those barriers that keep out audience sound act through Perception, same basic principle as Stealth itself, erasing sounds as they go through, but it ALSO acts as a sort of revealing lens for anyone or anything looking through from the outside. Nothing more boring that seeing two people vanish at the start of the fight and the pop up after its over."

Huh. That made sense. "Oh, well." I said with a shrug. "I knew some of my secrets would get out. Just a shame I won't be seeing the points from this tournament, since I'm at my cap."

Abel shook his head. "Nah, I told you there's a ceremony for rank up built into the tournament itself. That was the event doesn't end until the contestants have hit the next rank. Otherwise why waste all that time on promotion. Once it ends you'll get all the points at once, kind of like the scavenger hunt the academy does."

I tried to remember if someone had mentioned something like that. I remembered hearing about the ceremony, but wasn't sure if I ever asked why they had it. I turned back to the screen, where I saw a clip of Lament's insane lightning ability. "So." I said seriously. "You think you can beat her? Because she's about as scary as you from what I saw. I know you were holding back on me, but by how much exactly."

"Ah." He said with a grin. "But that would be telling. As for whether I can beat her...who knows. I look forward to finding out though. Don't worry kid, if I lose, it's not going to be because I was slacking off."

Cass, who had decided to watch with us, was staring at the screen with a serious expression. "Hey." She said solemnly. "Mr. Abel, can you teach me to fight?" We all froze, turning to look at the small girl and her intent gaze as she took in the on screen combat.

"Cassidy!" Snapped Cark. "That's not something you just ask like that. Mr. Abel has things to do, he's still in the tournament and he doesn't have time to teach you combat."

My eyes were wide with panic. "Cass, that's not really a good idea. What even made you ask that?" Having been through Abel's training, I knew it wasn't at all something I would ever put a child through. I could sense Callie's shock and unease through the bond as well, so it wasn't just me.

She shrugged. "Mr. Abel is really strong. I want to learn to be strong like that too. In case someone tries to hurt me again." Her voice was...flat. But too flat. And I detected a slight shudder at the end. She was trying her hardest to seem disaffected, but she was still obviously disturbed by what happened to her, not that I blamed her at all. We all knew about her bad dreams, and as much as she repressed it most of the time and played the happy carefree little girl, there were other signs too.

We all went quiet at that, all of us except Abel. "Sorry kid. I won't teach you to fight. You're too young for my kind of training." Her face screwed up in anger. Before she could voice her complaint though, he held up a hand. "But I CAN teach you martial arts. At least until we leave for the Moonsong Glade. Nothing fancy or dangerous, just some low risk training and forms. To help build confidence."

That...was less objectionable. I knew that learning martial arts could help a person feel more in control and safe, and if he was planning to teach her just Ragam, and gently at that, it seemed fine to me, but in the end it wasn't my call. We looked at Cark, who was scowling. He could see the benefits too, but I could tell he didn't want to admit it.

It must have been rough, knowing she needed help and not being able to give it. I mean, sure any of us could have taught her, but we didn't want to shove her into combat. She'd been through enough. Now she was asking though, and it clearly meant a lot to her. Eventually, he sighed. "Alright. But I want to sit in on the lessons, and if I feel like you're being too harsh I reserve the right to end them at any time."

In an uncharacteristic show of seriousness, Abel nodded, his face set. "Of course." He turned to Cass, standing up only to kneel down in front of her. "I'm just going to teach you exercises, some of the forms I found in the book where I learned Ragam. Even so, this won't be easy. Our martial art is time consuming an difficult to master, and you may never make much progress in it. Even if you become an Ascendant, not everyone can learn Ragam."

Seeming to ignore that last part, Cass squealed with joy and hurled herself onto him, hugging his neck as he laughingly stood up. He nodded to Cark. "Going to be swamped tomorrow, might as well start the lessons right away so she can work while I'm not around." He looked at Jessie. "Think you could come with? I think having a healer on hand in case she falls or something would be a good idea."

Jessie looked thrilled to be included. "Of COURSE! I'd love to come watch her practice. Can we do it in the outside building so we can hang out with Randall and the puppies after?" The building behind the house was...well we weren't sure of its original purpose. There were some hints of it being a garage, or maybe some kind of barn, and there was a swimming pool full of broken glass jars and multicolored twenty sided dice out there. No one was willing to touch it, because the whole mess was somehow F-ranked, and Zeke thought it was too funny to get rid of.

That was in the back though, and there was a big empty hangar type room in the front that Jessie had co-opted for the animals, and had spent days decorating and sprucing up.

With an eye roll, Abel nodded, and the small group headed outside, with Rime deciding to tag along because we were in the house with Zeke and therefore safe, plus she seemed fascinated by seeing Abel fight, which I couldn't exactly blame her for given the battles she'd seen from him.

Once they were gone, I turned to Benny. "Alright, so I got yesterday's points traded, how about we get today's out of the way early."

He shrugged. "I'm not against that. Yesterday was Might, and I'll do Might again today to even things up. Focus has been lagging behind." He fished out a small bag, tossing it to me, and I heard the clink as I jingled it around. Chits. This would bring me up to one hundred seventy one combined with the five from yesterday. He made his wish, pushing his Might up to three hundred and nine and his total points to seven hundred eighty three.

Benny finished up his wishes and decided to go check in with Celine, who had been staying with us, though mostly keeping to her room. With him gone, I slumped back into the couch with a world weary sigh. Callie frowned at me, having been letting us get the wishes done and enjoying the show until she felt my unease. "You ok babe? You seem out of it. Anything I can help with?"

"I...guess not?" I said contemplatively. "I was pretty down about losing until Cass's speech yesterday, and now I'm fine, but I'm also kind of lost. I've been going full tilt for so long, and now I have to just stop. The whole hurry up and wait thing is giving me whiplash. I know we have to wait for Abel to do his thing and leave it up to him, but at this point I can't sit still. I feel like I should be training or something."

She made a pensive sound. "Nope." I raised an eyebrow at the dismissal. "No training, that's an order from your team leader. Until the end of the tournament wishes are the only Ascendant thing you're allowed to do. Until then, you need to find other things to occupy your time. Visit friends, get a hobby, whatever you want." She gave me a sly look. "Maybe lavish your adoring girlfriend with attention. Or even do two of those things at once."

"I'm not sure cooking for you counts as a hobby." I said wryly. "But I'm starting to think you only like me for my culinary skills."

She gave me wicked grin, leaning in for a kiss. "That's a lot of talking and not a lot of getting in the kitchen to make me a sandwich." When I chuckled, she squeezed me tight. "You know I love you. I love you because you're sweet, and kind, and loving, and brave, and you're a total beefcake. The fact that you're a gorumet chef and happen to be a treasure magnet is just icing on my absolute favorite kind of cake."

I nodded solemnly. "High praise, given how much you enjoyed the one I made last night. But fine, I see your point. I'll try to take some me time. I don't suppose watching matches counts?"

"It does not." She said firmly. "Though you can still go, because we need to support our team. It's the right thing to do as teammates. Plus, come on, you have to admit you want to see Lament and Abel face of. They're the two scariest G-rankers I've ever seen."

I laughed at the admission, and she snuggled up to me to get started on this whole downtime thing. Of course, that didn't mean she let me pick what we watched, she connected her scan ring and started flipping through the channels on the scan box until she got to a cooking channel. From her surreptitious glance at me it was clear she was hinting at something but I just snorted settled in to watch. Though I had to admit, I'd never actually made stuffed peppers before, maybe I actually would give that a shot.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Finding a seat at the arena the next day was harder than expected. I don't know why I hadn't assumed it would be packed, maybe because it had been so sparsely populated all the other matches. People had watched from home or just ignored most of the lead up fights, since there were so many happening. Even last round, the top twenty, hadn't really been a concern for most.

This one was different though. This match was one of the ten semi-finals, and everyone wanted to be here. I don't think it even mattered to them who was fighting, one of the matches being as good as the next, they just wanted to be part of the spectacle. Which made finding a seat annoying and difficult.

Luckily, Rime was with us, which made it at least possible, as after thirty minutes of looking she finally approached a group of locals she knew and just literally kicked them out of their seats. They whined about it a bit, but she was annoyed at the wait, and once they knew she was being serious they lost most of their momentum, just quietly vacating, to join the throng of searchers.

Zeke had come along directly, and brought Cass with him. She wanted to see her new teacher fight, and Zeke was the only person she really felt safe with in a place like this. I wasn't sure the little girl KNEW how scary her 'Uncle Zeke' was, but some part of her recognized that he was at least competent. Along with them was Callie and I, of course, Cark, Jessie, Benny, and Mel.

To my surprise, we all seemed to be in good moods, almost as excited for this fight as Abel himself was. Mel was sitting closest to the aisle between the seats, just so she could reach the pit fastest if she needed to. I'd never seen anything close to uncertainty from her towards Abel before, so it was a bit jarring, but even she looked anticipatory. Still, I decided to at least say something. "Hey, you ok?"

She jumped slightly, looking up at me. "Yeah, sorry. Just out of it. It's been years since I've seen him in a really big fight." She coughed lightly. "Uh, no offense. But this just reminds me of how things used to be. When we were younger he would challenge anyone except freaks he had no chance of beating. I just- shit, there he is, time to watch."

Sure enough, Abel was walking out onto the sand, looking so excited he was about to vibrate through the ground. On the other side Lament emerged, hefting her spear over her shoulder and staring intently at me mentor. They spoke for a minute, not that we could hear them, and then the two of them started to circle.

Lament lashed out with a spear thrust, and Abel clapped his hands together, massive manifestations halting the thrust of the colossal spear head before it could reach him. He slapped the blade aside, driving forward with a flurry of punches, fist manifestations appearing and vanishing as he struck from a new angle with each blow.

It didn't phase Lament, who started to spin her spear, the haft manifesting in the air over her head, creating a whirling defensive manifestation that blocked all the blows. Shoving the haft forward, the whirling defense drove at Abel, and my mentor stepped lightly aside, carried on a thin stream of lubricated space out of the path of the attack, raising his arms, I saw him use that space warping effect to manifest six afterimages of arms around him, then condense them and hurl out a barrage of punches with three times the power.

Using her spear as a pole vault, Lament shoved herself aside, dodging back and forth to avoid that punches. She called out for her power, manifesting lightning to her blade, and flashed forward in a driving charge faster than my eyes could track, a manifestation of the lightning charged blade heading right for Abel.

My mentor tossed his jacket to the side, arms clenching as space seemed to shimmer and warp around them. Manifestations appeared above him, but these were somehow denser and more intimidating. Raising his arms, he brought them down, leaving a trail of afterimages, each one following behind the arms to stack on top of them a dozen times, space behind them lubricated and creating a sort of dimensional overlap.

There was a clap of thunder even the wards couldn't keep in as his phantom hands smashed into the spear, one at the head, and one halfway down the haft just over where the hand would be. The manifestation snapped, and with it the actual spear Lament was holding basically exploded in her hands, the spearwoman dodging back as quickly as possible, but not fast enough to avoid the shrapnel completely.

Abel shook out his arms, giving her an easy grin, and I saw the two of them start to argue. Or rather, Lament was arguing, seeming to get more and more agitated until...something changed. Literally, the weight of the spear user on my consciousness was altered as she..."Is she fucking breaking through?"

My question was answered a moment later as I felt her stabilize at F-rank. Mel whistled. "Wow, she does NOT want to lose. They'll disqualify her for this, but I somehow don't think she cares. Looks like they'll continue the fight though. Probably waiting for Abel to call it." She was trying to sound casual, but there was an undercurrent of worry in her tone.

Lament raised a hand into the air, and another manifestation appeared above her. I stared at it in shock, how the hell was she doing that without a spear? As I gaped, lightning condensed on the spear image, coating it completely, and then she clenched her fist and the manifestation began to CONTRACT. The huge spear image started shrinking, becoming more solid and more dense as it did, until a literal lightning spear was sitting in her hand, visibly physical and deadly.

"What the actual fuck?" I asked Mel, who was staring at the spear in horror. "How did she do that? Some kind of power synergy?"

She shook her head mutely. "No. That's a physically manifest Skill. Manifestations are physical, but only for a second or two during attacks. That's an actual solid object. Different people manifest things differently, but...I'm pretty sure she just ranked that Skill up to Expert."

I snapped back to watching the fight, terrified for my teacher, but to my shock he looked elated. Reaching up, he pulled off his mask and slipped it into a pocket, cracking his neck.

At the motion, Mel seemed to deflate, the pressure of her worry fading. "Ok, he's going to start taking things seriously."
I blinked at her. "Ok...but how much can he be holding back really? I've seen him fight, ans he's scary as he'll, but if she's an F-ranker and an expert now..."

To my surprise, Mel seemed to actually calm down at the words, starting to chuckle to herself. At my strange look, she chucked her chin down at the arena. "Let me ask you a question. We've talked about Ragam plenty right? Told you it's a striking art that allows you to condense force with pinpoint accuracy?"

I nodded, and her chuckle gained a wicked edge as she pointed to the arena. "Well, at any point during those explanations did we mention that Ragam only used PUNCHING techniques?"

My head snapped up, eyes widening as I saw a colossal phantom leg appear and sweep towards Lament from the side, seeing it, she spun her lightning spear, turning to intercept. As she did, Abel stepped into the manifestation, which extended from where he was standing to where she was blocking. The limb had been coated in his spatial lubrication before manifesting, and Abel basically vanished at one end, appearing in front of his enemy.

Lament's eyes widened and she lashed out at Abel, who rolled in midair, leaving behind a warped space in the shape of his body that seemed to condense as a manifestation, even as he slipped around behind her, spinning off his back leg to scythe a kick at her head from behind as the manifestation of himself launched a flurry of attacks and faded into nothingness as it was struck by the spear.

She yanked the spear out, rolling it up over her arm to place it between her and Abel. As his foot landed, he pulled back, shedding another blurry manifestation of himself cobbled together from warped space. He spun on his toe, whirling around her in a complete circle, leaving copies behind, and then changed direction as she attacked the spot he'd just been in.

As he moved back through the warped copies of himself he absorbed them, seeming to become denser and more powerful, not quite hitting the next point of Impact, but coming close. After absorbing ten clones he dashed forward, and engaged her in a direct head to head fight.

Her spear lashed out like a glowing blue rainstorm, striking the air and creating explosions of thunder as it tore through the sound barrier, but Abel was always a step ahead, twisting and contorting his body in a strange movement style that was both fluid and ragged, always just an inch from being hit as his blows smashed into his opponent with brutal and punishing force.

Blow to the short ribs, downward elbow to the collar bone, uppercut to the jaw, stomp the knee. Lament was getting frustrated, moving faster, attacking harder, and she even landed a few hits. Despite that, Abel didn't stop or slow. I'd see him get stabbed and think he was dead, only to realize it had been a glancing blow, or landed somewhere less vulnerable than intended.

Even with the new holes being poked in him, Abel was clearly in a frenzy of joy. Lament attacked again, driving the spear into his thigh, and I saw his smile turn feral as he used the second it was stuck in his leg to slam his head forward into her nose. Her eyes went hazy, head falling back as her nose fountained blood, and Abel's hand came up to grab her hair, holding her hear back as he drove the other into her throat, knuckles first, in a brutal knife hand.

She doubled over as he backed up slightly, tearing his ragged and bloody shirt off the tie it around his thigh in a make shift tourniquet, then stepped in and grabbed her head, smashing his other, uninjured leg into her bloody face, again, and again, and again. It took ten blows before she slumped over, unconscious, and Abel threw a fist up in the air as the crowd erupted in cheers.

I stared, dumbstruck. Not because he won, but because of what he'd done to get there. The pain, the blood, the injuries he just shrugged off. I could see what Abel had wanted us to see. That fights weren't clean and orderly like the ones we'd been in so far. Even the bouts with assassins had been neat, tame. We tried not to get hurt and to take down the bad guys. That was what heroic cultivators did.

This wasn't that. This was brutal, bloody, and unfiltered. If we wanted to take down people stronger than us, we'd need to fight like this when it mattered. I made a mental note to take all of this to heart as I stood up, following Mel down the steps to the edge of the pit as I saw Abel keel over, probably from blood loss.

With both fighters out they dropped the shield and Mel and I jumped down, bolting for Abel to heal him up. A heal burst and scan heal just to be safe, later, had him on the mend, and two more heal bursts sped things up a bit. Then we healed up Lament and carried them both out. Our team was in the finals for real. Time to celebrate.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

By the time we got home, Zeke was already there. He always beat us back, which was fine, but I had other things to address. Questions for Abel, more specifically. "Ok." I said heatedly. "What the actual fuck was that? I mean congrats on the win, but you were really holding back against me that much?"

My mentor was still healing, and I admit I wasn't gentle dropping his ass on the couch from the firemans carry I had him in. He grunted as he hit the cushions, but didn't seem upset about it as he crawled to a sitting position with a chuckle. "Not exactly. My Cicada Stacking Steps is new. I've been working on the technique for the tournament. I had something...kind of like it before. But what you saw from me today was me going all out."

I noticed he dodged the question, but I didn't bother to point it out. "Cicada Stacking Steps? How does that even work?" I had been damned impressed by my mentor's fight, and some of what he pulled off made almost no sense to me.

His grin was proud as he adjusted himself on the couch. Callie, Jessie, and Mel had gone out with Rime to get Enchiladas from the Raving Baby (Abel's favorites). We'd gotten permission from Zeke for a quick trip from the F-ranker into Doomtown, and they should be back soon enough. "Good question. Why not guess?"

Groaning at his insistence on making everything training, I gave my best guess. "Well the actual clones were obviously spatial lubrication. But I'm not how you did the rest exactly. Something with manifestations?"

He nodded. I can manifest any part of me used for Ragam, and at basically any size. Using my legs transitioned it to a full body art. I shed spatial lubrication behind me and then harmonized it with a quick full body manifestation, then used it to stack like my punches do, amplifying my strength multiple times over."

I whistled. I'd figured it was something like that, but the details...the complexity of something like that must be absurd. It wasn't just harmonizing several different instances of power use, but doing it with a Skill that already taxed the soul to the peak of G-rank. Speaking of which. "What happened to Lament by the way? I mean, she lost, so she was out anyway. Did they do anything to her for cheating?"

That drew a snort from my teacher. "Hardly. Like you said, she lost. If she'd beat me they'd have had to fix it, but since she was bounced anyway there was no reason. Plus her Master is a scary old man. Nobody wanted to pick a fight over a dead issue. I didn't throw a fit so why should they?"

"But aren't you..." I searched for the words. "Mad? Disappointed? She almost cost you all your hard work just because she was a sore loser."

He just chuckled, shaking his head. "See, this is why I think the Unity is a bad influence. It doesn't matter. It never mattered. Not just to me, because I wanted the fight to be as hard as possible, but at all. The world isn't about fairness, or hard work. It's about doing what you want. Finding that thing that makes your heart pound. If someone crosses a line it's not an offense, it's an opportunity to leverage them."

Rather than refute him, I sat and thought for a minute. "The way you were fighting..."

An approving nod accompanied his grin. "Exactly. People love to talk about the downsides of being an Ascendant. You have whiny romantics go on and on about losing themselves, and cautious people insisting they hone their force of will to resist recursion, but they ignore the best parts. The parts I love. To be Ascendant is to be a force of nature. A story made flesh. Never ceasing, never ending, even after you die, you don't because stories always live on as long as there are people to tell them."

I gaped at him. I'd never seen him so...philosophical. "But what if you DO lose yourself? Who you are? Giving so many people control of you is just..."

"But you aren't!" He said passionately. "Renown is reactive, not active. It's a response. You're the one throwing the stone in the pool, creating the ripples. Your destiny is all on you. It can be hard to keep complete control, but it's still you driving. It's a snowball, kid, the more you show the world the person you want to be seen as, the more they push you to that ideal. You're the author of your own story."

I groaned in exasperation. "So what? What does that have to do with your fight? With how self destructive you were being?"

"Because." He said like it was obvious. "The story I was telling is one of overwhelming power. And you can't have overwhelming power without something to overwhelm. The blood, the injuries, the pain, they paved the road I wanted everyone to walk down, showed them my journey in a way deeper than words. They walked my path with me, and because of that, they'll REMEMBER it."

Which I couldn't argue, really. He'd left a hell of an impression. "But is it like that everywhere? Is that the new standard? Will I need to watch Callie bleed like that? Hurt like that?" I could take the pain, it would suck but half the problem with injury was wondering if it would be the end of you, and with my abilities I'd be fine. But seeing Callie like that, hurting, tearing herself apart like an animal gnawing off its arm to escape a trap. It made me sick to think about it.

"Honestly. Probably not." He said, to my surprise. At my cocked head he laughed. "There are more types of stories than stars in the sky, kid. Callie is a sneaky type. People like that walk a fine line. Gotta be scary enough to build a rep, but being all blatant and violent like me is counterproductive. Sneaky people aren't supposed to get pumped full of holes and get up. They're supposed to be a maybe, to be a whisper that may or may not be true. It's a safer life, but a much more ruthless one in some ways."

That was surprisingly insightful, but I could tell from his drifting attention he'd said all he really wanted to say. So I changed topic. "Well, fair enough. Speaking of safety, are you going to be ok to fight in the finals? They gave us three days, but your wounds were from an F-ranker. That's a pretty nasty thing to heal." I gestured to the multiple holes still closing up.

The healing energy had prioritized the worst injuries because of the inclusion of a scan heal in my patch job, which upside meant he would be fine, but downside meant that there were still plenty of non vital spots that were the human equivalent of swiss cheese.

"I'm fine." He said with a casual wave. "Plus we have full time access to one of the best G-rank healers on this planet. Jessie already has a higher Vitality than most F-rankers start with, she can help patch me up with plenty of time to spare. Even if she doesn't feel like it, I've fought hurt before. I'll be there."

Seeing how little the idea bothered him brought me back to his little speech earlier. About making yourself who you wanted to be. Abel had been trudging forward without flinching for decades, this was definitely a result of that, and the idea of that kind of determination shaping who I was...it was kind of nice.

It was also an angle people like Zeke wouldn't even consider talking to me about. Zeke had been living it for longer than I'd been alive, probably MUCH longer. It would be like trying to give someone breathing advice. The downsides of being an Ascendant would be obvious, but not this particular aspect of things.

My thoughts were interrupted as the front door slammed shut. "We're home!" Called Callie. We got up to head to the kitchen, me giving Abel my shoulder for help and him ignoring it. I smirked a bit at how stubborn he was, but I kind of respected it.

In the kitchen, Callie was coming in with several containers of Enchiladas. She started setting them down as Rime and Jessie came in. Benny, who had been off with Celine, came in after, clearly summoned to help carry things in. Cass came running through the door with Cark and Zeke. The little girl sniffed the air. "That smells so good!" She crowed. "What is it? I want seconds!"

Callie giggled at the girl's appetite while Jessie set down the containers (metallic foil trays with crimped folding tops) and scooped her up to get her out of the way. Cass squealed in surprise and joy as Jessie carried her out of the room to go watch cartoons again.

We all chuckled, and Mel dragged him to the table, fussing over her boyfriend. "Sit down you insufferable idiot. We got your favorite, so park your ass and eat it before we decide to feed it to dogs. I bet they would love some enchiladas." Her voice was brusque, but the worry in it was clear, and Abel obviously got that too, since he gave her a solemn look and then sat with a nod.

It was weird to see her so worried about him, given what he could do, but then, I could do plenty, and Callie still worried about me. I guessed it wasn't often someone you loved fought an F-ranked Master Candidate. The rest of us crowded around the counter once they got Abel his food, Jessie coming back in with Cass (though with was a bit of an overstatement, it was more like she got dragged) and we all sat at the table to eat.

Abel, of course, had a stack of trays next to him with dozens of the damned things in there, which I was assured would not only be delicious, but help him fuel the energy burn of Jessie spamming her power on him for days. Jessie's power supercharged the body, but it still USED the body. Short term it acted like healing and a pure energy boost, but long term it needed nutrients to work with.

We sat around, stuffing out faces and enjoying the food, listening to Cass talk about her day at home, and I had to admit...it was nice. I'd expected to be a bit bitter about losing to him, but honestly seeing him so happy and feeling like part of the winning team washed any of that away. I'd never have won, I had known it deep down, even if I wanted it desperately. This though, this was better. Friends. Family.

Eating, laughing, spending time together, this was a damn good result for the tournament, and even if he didn't win the finals, this whole thing would have been worth it. It made us stronger, brought us together, showed us who we were. I could see why these things were so common, there was a lot to be said about learning from combat. Looking back the way Abel and I had come, I considered the next round.

The finals. The last thing he needed to get past to make this work. It wouldn't be easy, but at this point...I almost didn't feel the pressure. As a part of the team of course. I wasn't the one fighting, but even this round I had felt a drive for him to win. Now though...we made it to the end. If we fumbled here life would go on. I shook the thought away, tucking back into my Enchiladas as Cass started telling Callie all about how the main character in her cartoon had just gotten a power up. Like I'd said, it was all worth it.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Three days of downtime passed far more quietly than expected. Granted, it wasn't my downtime, it was Abel's, but still I'd figured I'd be more nervous about the last round. My odd sense of peace continued until the last minute though, and the morning of, I finished up my wishes with Benny. With another fifteen G-ranked chits in my bank for my weapon fund, I was free to give Benny another sixty points, forty in Focus and twenty in Might over the break. Then I headed to talk to Abel about his final fight.

Getting seats for the finals when it was all in one arena was rough, but we couldn't leave him by himself. The E-rankers had it covered though, and we managed to snag enough entrance passes for all of our close friends. Benny, Jessie, Celine, Mel, Rime, Lament, Wren, Alden, Sydney, Megan, and Sloane were all coming with, hoping to cheer on my terrifying teacher and maybe get their faces on camera cheering. Some of the other teams we'd made friends with had their own invites too, this was going to be a big event.

"You're sure you're healed up?" Asked Callie with concern as Abel actually stretched before we headed to the arena. Warm-ups weren't his usual style.

He just waved it off. "I'm fine, I called and talked to Shane's cousin, who put me in touch with Valk. He won his match, and we both agreed that the best possible outcome is one of us winning, so we talked through a couple of combinations to maximize our combat potential." We all turned to stare at him questioningly, but he just winked. "No spoilers."

"I'm surprised though." I volunteered. I'd have pegged you for the lone warrior type. I wouldn't have figured you would want to team up with someone you don't know."

Frowning, he nodded at Lament. "Yeah well, pigsticker over there showed me that I can't take this lightly. Chances are some of these bastards are tougher than she was, and while I'm confident I can take any G-ranker around, I'm not confident I can take FOUR of any G-ranker around. If I'd been fighting four of her, even before she shamelessly cheated and lost anyway, I'd have been in trouble. Barely."

Lament twitched, and Wren tried his best not to snicker. The other members of their team had stayed behind, but Wren was a friend, and he was enjoying Abel tormenting his captain. Of course, like he'd said before, Abel didn't hold it against her, but he DID love to mess with people, and was regularly poking her about the loss. The pigsticker comment was particularly cutting, since he'd smashed her spear in the fight and she had no way to get a new one on planet that was up to her standards, especially with the rank up.

To her credit, Lament didn't argue the point. She wasn't sorry, and had admitted that, but she also had a good fight and the consequences were all on her. She considered the right to shit talk Abel's due for winning. I decided interrupting would be the nicest thing I could do here. "So did we get confirmation on the finalists? I never checked."

Callie nodded. "The Walking War and Firn both made the finals. Helix didn't shockingly, got bounced out by some shapeshifter. Along with Abel and Valk that's the top five right there. The shapeshifter is from the Cult, as far as I can tell. Whereas I think Wilder, the Walking War, has ties to the Empire. Nobody is sure WHO the Final Frost Heaven is backed by, if anyone, but Firn is supposed to be damned scary."

Abel shook his head. "He's not a shapeshifter. He's got a racial trait. He's a Hyde. Valk sent me some videos of his matches. He's...not weak. Aside from being able to take on a massive supernaturally powerful form, he has some kind of black energy like what that asshat in Doomtown used." He pointed at my uncle. "Zeke says its called the Rath and the Ruins, and it's a martial art from the Cult, though not directly created by Black Sorrow. Much less prestigious and powerful than the Fist art that Alec uses."

That was surprising to me, but when we looked at Zeke he just shrugged. "He paid for the info, so it wasn't helping too much to give it to him. Is Natalie coming with us or is she going on her own?"

"Her own. She and Perit and their other teammate got tickets easily. Speaking of tickets, we should go shouldn't we? It's going to start soon."

During the conversation most of us had trickled out to wait in the car, Jessie starting it up and everyone packing in tightly, even with the expanded space. We got there pretty quickly from my view, since we didn't talk much on the drive. Everyone sort of mutually agreed to let Abel concentrate, and even my usually relaxed mentor himself was quieter than expected.

When we arrived, we all headed up to sit down in the stands, not finding anyone we knew. We'd brought our own party though, so to speak, so we didn't need to add to it. We were in assigned seating, because otherwise there was no way we would have ended up together, because the whole place was packed to the rafters. Or would have been. If open top arenas had rafters. It was pretty full, was the point.

Rather then the sand pit though, this one had a huge square ring surrounded by flat ground. The ring itself had a pentagonal shape on it where each of the contestants would take an equadistant place from the center and from each other. Before the match started though, Midknight himself strode out onto the platform.

Callie tensed, but I put a hand on her arm. As much as I hated that asshole, and as much as I wanted her to get another chance to teach him a lesson, I knew this wasn't the time. Politically though, this situation was a time bomb. We couldn't afford to throw gas on the fire when there was so much happening...actually, there was a LOT happening. I looked around suspiciously.

This would be the stupidest, and as such in some ways the smartest, time to attack again. If they thought they had a method to counter the defenses here it would provide a huge amount of reputation. But what was the point? By the time it ended the winner would be chosen. Was I being paranoid? Or was this my Fate sense latching onto a stray though?

Midknight cleared his throat. "Citizens!" He intoned, voice booming a bit more ominously than it had last time. He was hamming it up for the larger crowd. I wasn't sure what caused the shiver down my spine, but the effect was clearly felt throughout the arena. "We bring to you the final battle. The last moment. These warriors have bled and fought and cursed to reach this hallowed stage, and this is their reward. Glorious combat."

I got the incredibly strong urge to roll my eyes, and realized it was coming through the bond when Callie DID roll her eyes. I smirked at her from behind my mask, but neither of us spoke as Midknight continued. "Power. Skill. Determination. All important qualities, important building blocks on the path to success. But in truth, these blocks are all made of a single material, one substance that makes up the blood and bone of every truly great warrior. Victory."

He gestured widely to the ring. "And as with all true Victory, only one may claim it. Only a single warrior may emerge at the peak. These five competitors will now show you how those building blocks are forged. Show you the way they're laid down, so you might follow that path yourselves one day."

"Wow." I murmured under my breath, making sure to use Stealth so I wasn't heard. "He REALLY likes the sound of his own voice." I'd thought Callie had been being hyper critical when she mentioned that, but it seemed like she was just being literal.

My girlfriend used Stealth herself to stifle a giggle, and Midknight either didn't hear or didn't care as long as others couldn't, as he pressed on. "The competitors may use any means within the rules. They may team up, may even fall upon a single person as a group and beat them down. Anything is permitted. But at the end, when this finishes, only one will be crowned the victor. These five champions represent the strongest of their generation. Roland Wilder, of the War God Regiment. Appolyon of the Starchaser Pavilion. Firn of the Final Frost Heaven,Valk of the Wish Curse Palace, and Jack Carrax of the Weeping Clown Tomb. Which of them will emerge victorious? Only time will tell."

He snapped his fingers and shadows leapt up, obscuring the five points of the ring and receding to reveal the contestants. "You may begin." He slammed his palms together and the armor exploded into a shadowy mist, obscuring the ring for a moment before it faded away, revealing the five combatants standing across from each other, waiting for the right time to attack.

Everyone watched with bated breath. Abel was standing to the left of Valk, close enough to reach quickly, of course, but the five of them all just...stood. This was combat at the highest possible level. These were all people like Abel, monsters in human form, and the second one of them moved things would begin with a bang and they all knew it.

As the observed, I took in the forms of the enemies. The Hyde, Jack Carrax, was a tall, pallid looking man with sunken eyes and a hungry expression. His matted, greasy blonde hair hung limply to his shoulders under a tall top hat, and he wore an apron covered in blood.

Firn was a small, delicate looking girl with purple hair and blue eyes the color of ice, she wore a pair of purple shorts and a black sleeveless shirt with a purple silk jacket over the top of it. Her skin was chalk white, almost bloodless, and her expression was as cold as the ice she used in combat.

Finally the Roland was a short, dark skinned man with a wide, amiable smile and close cropped hair. His eyes were hazel, and were the only part of him that didn't scream kind and approachable, his gaze analytical and dangerous. He had on a functional set of leather armor, dyed red hide covering his entire body except for his face. I wasn't sure what the hide was, but it appeared to be F-ranked like my armor was.

The lull before the fight lasted for almost an entire minute, analyzing, waiting, deducing, until finally the tension snapped like a rubber band. Jack turned, shifting from a tall, thin man to a monster, easily ten feet tall and grotesquely bulging with muscle, arms so long the scraped the ground from a standing position. He hurled himself at Firn, who flicked a wrist to conjure a massive wall of pitch black permafrost in front of herself.

My gaze was dragged away as Abel used his spatial lubrication to flash across the distance to Valk, one of each of their hands clapping together as the air blurred. Suddenly a massive manifestation of Abel's other hand appeared cupped in front of them, but this time it wasn't normally colored. Instead the hand was made of blue gel.

The gel was Valk's ability, and it was lucky it was, because a wave for G-ranked swords came spearing down from above to pincushion our guys, stopped by the gel formed hand before even getting close. Roland surged forward to engage, and I turned to look at Callie with worry. Those attacks had all been terrifying. I hoped Abel would be ok, but all I could do was trust in my mentor. However this went down though, one thing was sure. This would be a hell of a fight.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Roland Wilder, the man known as the Walking War, was every bit as terrifying as his moniker suggested. While Firn battled with the Hyde (who was managing to just barely degrade her permafrost with his dark energy, and then using the weakening to smash holes in it with his massive fists) Valk and Abel were teaming up to combat the storm of conjured swords sweeping down on them from above.

While he didn't seem able to manually control the things one at a time, Roland WAS able to direct the torrent of conjured weapons, turning and shaping the attack pattern to try to avoid the hand. Abel stepped forward, making a circular motion with his palm, and created a rotating trail of lubricated space leading inward. The motion had the effect of making a sort of vortex in space that sucked in all the swords the other man was trying to get past the hand manifestation.

It was an interesting and terrifying move, but I could see how he wouldn't use it. Without the gel power Abel's manifestations were part of him, and could be harmed. It wasn't direct translation, but it effected him. Now though, the manifestation was catching the swords like flies in amber.

Which, as it turned out, was kind of the point. Roland had purposefully filled the hand with swords, something we didn't know until he used the next wave as a path, stepping on swords in the air and heading up after them.

This seemed like a supremely bad idea, but I realized as he got sucked in the the palm had been packed so full of swords there was barely any gel left. With a wave of his hand Roland dismissed the swords, and suddenly there were big open holes in the construct, and Roland stepped off a summoned sword and dashed through it.

Abel, not one to shrink back, flickered forward to meet him. Roland grabbed a sword from his summoned masses and brought it to bear in a powerful swing that Abel diverted easily with his power. I expected Valk to jump in, but I realized I'd been so concerned with the big show I'd missed the red bearded man leaving. Looking around, I spotted him engaging the Hyde, and was confused as to why he wasn't in position until I saw the dark energy wrapped around the whips on his hands.

I wasn't the only one who had noticed either, the distraction had been plenty of time for Firn, as a dragon made of black ice came howling down from above to swallow Jack whole. Seeing the opening, Valk turned and sprinted back to the fight between Roland and my mentor.

The swordsman had been trying unsuccessfully to get his blade on Abel, who had been using trails of lubricated space to divert every blow, never coming into contact. Roland wasn't a pushover though, and as Valk came in behind him he noticed, and with a stomp a barrage of swords erupted from the ground like spikes to perforate both fighters.

Abel avoided easily, and Valk used the dark energy whips to tear the blades apart. Before he could actually attack though, there was a roar as Jack came hurtling out of the ice dragon, shattering the black frost as he threw himself bodily at Valk, clearly enraged by the distraction even more than the actual confinement.

Abel flickered again, stepping into a trail of lubricated space that took him in an arc around the edge of where Valk was preparing to combat Jack. Valk didn't hesitate, turning and lashing out at Roland with the whips as Abel intercepted the Hyde.

The towering form of the monstrous brawler brought his hands down, collecting dark energy, and Abel dipped to the side to avoid it. Reaching up to pluck off his mask and slip it into his pocket, Abel flickered sideways, circling the Hyde and leaving a trail of duplicates, overlapping them again as he completed a second circle and empowering himself with his Cicada Stacking Step.

I blinked at the realization that Jack was STRONGER than my mentor. Whatever being a Hyde did for you, it apparently prioritized Might, and got some kind of natural modifier to strength like the Wendigo had. Jack lashed out with another punch, but this one Abel met head on, using a coating of warped space to prevent his hands from being degraded by the dark energy of the Rath and the Ruins.

Jack snarled at him, baring yellowed, uneven teeth, and snapped something we couldn't hear through the barrier before redoubling his efforts, attacking twice as fast, raining down blows. Abel whipped his jacket off and hurled it up at the other man. Jack slapped it aside nearly instantly, but that nearly was all the opening Abel needed. He used his spatial lubrication to slip around behind the Hyde.

Wrapping his arms around the giant man's waist, Abel bent over backwards, lifting Jack off his feet and slamming his skull into the dark stone of the ring. His tophat, which had somehow stayed on this whole time, went flying as his head slammed brutally into the stone, cracking the F-ranked material with the force of impact.

Abel would have followed up, but before he could attack, he seemed to sense danger. He pulled Jack in front of him as a rain of razor sharp black icicles came down on both of them, using the giant Hyde as a human shield to intercept the ice spikes.

Which turned out to be extremely wise, considering every place the permafrost slammed into Jack, ice spread over his bodyu, darkening his flesh with frostbite. Even though we couldn't hear him, the expression on his face made the pain clear. Firn had apparently taken the distraction as time to build up for something really nasty, because once Abel tossed aside his shield she didn't do that again.

Jack just writhed on the ground in pain, ignored as Valk faced off with Roland and Abel matched Firn head on. My cousin's guard was doing shockingly well though, his dark whips easily matching the torrent of blades Roland was bringing to bear. That dark energy was dangerous, and even G-ranked blades weren't able to stand up to it in combination with the force the whips were bringing to bare.

At this point, Valk was the one bringing the pain, and it was gratifying seeing the calm and cheerful Roland get serious, deflecting blows and being forced to abandon and resummon the swords he had in each hand as they became unusable under the assault.

Abel meanwhile, had rushed Firn, who had reacted by erecting some sort of spherical shield with nine large heads emerging from it, each a sucking tube of black ice with consecutive rotating rings of black frost teeth. Abel was bouncing from tube to tube, sliding down them on lubricated space trails to speed himself up and tying the damned things into knots.

I even saw one about to catch him, but as it chomped down he shed one of his Cicada shells, his strength dipping by a chunk but his body surviving the attack completely unscathed. He took advantage of the gap to push off heading for the shield, manifesting a massive fist, condensing several blows together even on top of the enhancement from the Cicada Shedding Step as far as I could tell.

His fist image hit the shield of dark ice and shattered it, smashing Firn INTO the stage, creating a crater deeper than I was tall. Abel turned on a heel, flickering in an arch along a trail of space I hadn't noticed him making, and came down with a smashing axe kick on a distracted Roland, who took the blow to the shoulder and was forced to the ground with a grunt. Judging by the expression on his face I was guessing his collar bone was either broken or cracked.

The two of them turned to Jack, who had dragged himself to his feet to glare at them. The Hyde took a step forward, and both of them prepared to fight, but he just toppled over face first. With him down, the two final competitors turned to each other. Valk spoke calmly, saying something I couldn't hear. I wished they'd left the shield noise permeable after Midknight vanished.

Abel flashed forward, and Valk whirled his whips in front of him in a defensive barrier. Sadly for him, the black energy had been used up quite a bit fighting Roland. I'd seen the effect waning as the fight went on, but now it was barely present. Abel slipped out of another shell, leaving behind a duplicate as her flowed behind Valk. The red bearded warrior shredded the shell, but realized too later what had happened as Abel hammered a spinning back elbow to base of his skull.

He fell to the ground heavily, and Abel looked around the area, eager for more despite the sweat and obvious exhaustion. The dome began to fall. The armored form of Midknight stepped up onto the stage, choosing to avoid. He approached Abel, grabbed his hand, and held it aloft triumphantly.

"Your champion!" He roared. "Winner of the ten spots for the Moonsong Glade, to be distributed however he sees fit. The rest of them fought bravely, but in the end only one warrior ca-" He was cut off as a blast of black energy detonated in the center of the stage, both Abel and Midknight being thrown clear.

I saw the armor dissolve from the blast, and Abel hit the sand rolling, having survived the explosion by virtue of being further away and having Midknights armor between them. In the center of the ring stood a trio of dark figures, each clad in a dark robe, the air around them crackling with the familiar black energy.

The one at the front of the triangle formation grinned widely, a flushed, boyish faced E-ranker with curly red hair surrounding a round face set with bright green eyes. "Sorry to interrupt!" He boomed happily. "I'm afraid we disagree with the results. Actually, we disagree with the tournament entirely. We've decided the Black Sorrow Cult will take the slots, and since you did such a poor job distributing them, we'll be taking this planet for good measure."

I froze, staring down at them. Of course they would try something, they'd been way too quiet lately. But this...this was crazy. I turned to Zeke. "They can't do this right? They know you're here! It would be insane for them to attack a world with a B-ranked protector on it."

He just shook his head. "This is faction business. This kind of thing happens. Callus would normally be too backwater to warrant a takeover attempt, but under the circumstances...I could see it. But the planet is my current home, and I have loved ones here besides you." He seemed confused. "There's no way they could be stupid enough to think I'd ignore that."

As if the words had summoned it, the redheaded cultist turned to grin up at us. "But please, don't think we're looking down on you bringing only a trio. We have many more agents placed around the planet, and even more than that, we made sure to bring some extra special helpers who will make sure that things are finished up fast."

The two figures behind him stopped holding back, and I felt the world slam down on my shoulders as the weight of their Impact manifested on the air. My eyes widened as I struggled to breathe under the suppression, not because they were trying to hurt us, they weren't, they were just that powerful. A level of powerful I recognized, though I couldn't pinpoint exactly where they fell on that scale.

B-rankers. They were both B-rankers. This was insane. Why were they here? What was going on? People like this shouldn't be on Callus. Zeke was staring at them with a glimmer in his eyes I'd never seen. Real, genuine fury was radiating off my uncle as he stood. Their eyes locked on him, and the redhead smiled. They knew he was here, and they'd come anyway. I just hoped they'd bitten off more than they could chew. Otherwise we were all dead.

 

[BJJPanda]

Why didn't he rank up btw? Is he waiting to max his other abilities? Also, throwing a bunch of enemies that he can't do shit to and has to rely on someone else to beat is a bit weird, not much story potential for mc

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Why didn't he rank up btw? Is he waiting to max his other abilities? Also, throwing a bunch of enemies that he can't do shit to and has to rely on someone else to beat is a bit weird, not much story potential for mc

Click to shrink...

He's going to rank up at the ceremony, the attention will give extra boosts. As for the latter, not exactly. It should be noted that Shane has a support ability. Wishin inherently relies on other people, and is mainly geared toward team development. He did get stronger throughout the tournament of course, but the strength of his team IS his own strength. I prefer stories like that. Though if it helps you can consider it setting the stage, since we're not even off the first planet and this is probably a quarter of the way into the story tops lol.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"You have a lot of guts coming here like this." With the words came a tide of power, pushing back the aura of the two B-rankers through his own and with sheer force of personality. Zeke wasn't worried at all, and it showed in the way he spoke. "You might not worry about some small time scuffle between the Unity and the Cult, but there are other interests here."

The redhead didn't seem worried (apparently he was as crazy as all the other cultists I'd met). "You won't get involved, but in case you did, we arranged some entertainment for you. Finding out there was an unknown B-ranker on the planet was an annoyance, but luckily, we managed to get the details from a reputable source. Isn't that right Miss Selka?" His smug grin turned to take in where I could see Natalie sitting.

The teal haired woman next to her, clearly her own guardian, rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to start trouble, Kix. I'm a neutral party. As long as my charge remains safe I'm not obligated to take a side, and while Natalie might think an alliance with her cousin is best, I'm not nearly so convinced."

It occurred to me that while Nat might be aware that Zeke was B-rank, and even knew his name, she hadn't passed the latter bit of information on to her guardian. Apparently the lack of trust ran in both directions, she and her guardian clearly had a much different relationship than we did.

Zeke looked mildly annoyed at the woman, but not upset. "Selka. That sounds familiar." He was talking normally now, as were the others, but with the Perception of everyone here and the cameras, it didn't seem to be a problem for anyone. He snapped his fingers. "Ricardo's daughter. Your mother is that little Countess with the teleportation power. The hair should have tipped me off. Surprised someone from Malachai's branch contracted you as a guardian, given how much he and your grandmother hate each other."

She glared at him. "Inter branch cooperation is important. Grandma knows that. And no REAL Wyndham would ever violate the sanctity of the candidate selection. Not that some random's pet B-ranker would know that." Wow...apparently Nat hadn't told her guardian ANYTHING about me. Maybe Zeke's little jab about branch politics wasn't that far off.
My cousin was pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. Neither of us were in danger, granted, but it hardly made her guardian being a shady asshole any less mortifying. Zeke just looked unperturbed. "It's always so cute when the little ones make plans. I assume you realized that the location and importance of this planet made it a prime target for annexation and decided to arrange this to both get rid of my ward and advance your own?"

"Pretty much." She said with a shrug. It would be suicide to attack you, and bad form even if I survived, but this way my hands stay clean and I make a nice profit. I'm not defecting or anything, but unlike you I have no obligation to protect your candidate."

Zeke just smiled wryly. "I'm guessing you don't know who he is? Or who I am? Because while a pair of mid to upper B-rankers would be sufficient for most, I assure you I can handle myself just fine. Tell you what, since I don't dislke ambition, I'll give you a chance. Help me take care of the rabble while I deal with thug one and thug two and I'll let you slink off after this without doing anything drastic."

She just snorted. "Drastic? You think you can take on a pair of nearly peak Arch-Bishops and you'll still be alive to hurt me? Everyone knows the cultists are hell to kill off, and in pairs they're more than a match for anyone their rank. Crazy bastards will self destruct if they think they're losing. Outnumbered you have no shot."

Sighing, Zeke shook his head. "Come on, don't be stupid here." He reached into his coat and pulled out and old, brittle looking mask. "I don't have a teleportation Volto mask anymore. My last one broke. Unless you were planning to spend the remainder of your life with your soul trapped in porcelain I'd take the offer." He held up the mask in the air beside him, then released it, leaving it hanging in the space he left it in. Under the mask, a form manifested, a black robe too dense to see a shape. "Besides." He said with a bloodthirsty smile. "Who said I was outnumbered."

Snapping his fingers, a bag appeared, a large black duffel. He unzipped it and started to remove masks, leaving them hanging in the air. Under each mask a robed figure manifested, each one floating up and away to take position around us in the air in a formation. Selka's eyes went wide with terror as she stared at Zeke, then down at her candidate in an expression of fearful dismay.

"I...I didn't know." She stuttered. "I swear, I didn't know. I wouldn't have contacted them if I had." Zeke just looked at her calmly, and she swallowed, standing and bowing. "Not a single cultist will remain on this planet by the time you finish." She said formally, and then, suddenly, she was gone.

Amusingly, she had NOT informed her former allies who Zeke was, though she clearly figured it out herself. Clearly we were far enough from wherever Zeke usually did his thing that random B-rankers didn't know who he was, because the hooded figures didn't back down, and Kix (who was an E-ranker actually) hadn't heard of him either.

The redhead's ever present grin had slipped, replaced with an annoyed scowl. "Bitch." He snapped. "I'll let my their excellencies deal with her after they finish with you. Your brat has been responsible for the deaths of several of our operatives, including a promising your talent her to attend the tournament he needs to pay, and since we're here anyway, we can just send a few messages all at once."

Zeke smiled. "Really? I thought you guys had found out his mother is the Star Queen and decided to enforce that shitty blood feud you nutcases have with those stuffed shirts at the church." At the shocked expression Zeke put on a faux embarrassed face. "Oh no, did I say that out loud? Now everyone knows. Of course, once they see what I'm about to do to your little buddies I don't expect they'll find the risk worth it."

I'd been shocked when Zeke blurted that out, but now I got it. People would learn about my mom eventually. But since he was in a position to fight them personally and make an impression, he'd thrown out the information himself. Now when he butchered the cultists two to one everyone would see it, and anyone who thought about getting to mom through me would think twice. Anyone B-ranked that is. But I doubted an A-ranker would bother. They could just attack her head on. and that wouldn't offend one of the biggest factions in the universe.

I was low ranked and part of a competition, them attacking was technically within the scope of that since Zeke was here to protect me. If they started moving out Saints and Popes to kill me it would literally just be declaring war on the WCP, and the Church would sure as hell jump in on the other side.

Kix, meanwhile, was turning red, his face looking like he'd had an anuerysm. "H-heretic! How dare you protect a heretic? That bitch has killed more of our Saints than any ten A-rankers in the entire church, and the Radiant Pope murdered our Saintess of the Drowning Shade, our Lady's own flesh and blood daughter!"

Zeke rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, that happened before he even broke through to S-rank. None of us were even alive. Besides, Drowning Shade was a psychopath, even by Ascendant standards. I've met serial killers lost in full recursion that weren't unstable enough to have spawned some of those stories."

The redhead was shaking like he was going to explode. "YOU DARE!" He screamed, his voice cracking. "Defaming our lost Saintess, speaking ill of our Lady's bloodline. Crimes! Crimes against the Cult! Blasphemy! Heresy! Sacrilege! You'll die for this. You and your brat and every person you've ever met!"

"See." Zeke said turning to me. "This is why no one likes dealing with Cultists outside strict mercenary assassination contracts. One wrong word and they turn into a gibbering lunatic." Looking back at the other man he clicked his tongue. "Also, heresy is the holding of an opinion counter to a religious precept, and usually carries the assumption of being a heretic, and heretic's can't by definition, blaspheme, which is defined as 'showing contempt for god or sacred things'. Can't hold contempt for something you don't believe exists."

Before the redhead could retort, he held up a hand. "Don't mistake me, I know Black Sorrow is real. I'm just making the point that you're contradicting yourself here. Regardless, this whole fight is deeply inconvenient to me. I don't have the materials to make two more B-rank masks. I'll have to seal your souls until I can make a shopping trip to get the materials for a porcelain that can contain them." He shrugged. "Oh well, doesn't matter I suppose. Any artist would be glad to have a new canvas to work with."

The two Arch-Bishops, predictably, didn't take this threat well, but before they could do more than step forward, Zeke snapped his fingers. Two of the masks began to glow, the hooded manifestations under them vanishing and appearing around the ring. A third gestured and the remaining contestants were subsumed in suddenly liquid earth, then spat out off the now self repaired stage. The two figures raised their arms and a cube of glasslike energy appeared, then shifted as the second masked figured warped the energy, creating a defensive perimeter.

Zeke took a step, vanishing and appearing inside the ring with the three cultists, while all the other robed figures, seven of them in total, drifted through the shield as if it wasn't there to join him. Smiling grimly, he reached into the bag again, withdrawing one last mask, then snapped his fingers to dismiss it as he raised the porcelain to his face.

As the mask covered him, I felt a sort of...shift, in the air. Zeke's body language changed, like someone throwing off an old cloak. Perception was important, and he was making no effort to hide the differences. His stance screamed aggressive and sadistic, and even the two hooded Arch-Bishops had stepped back, clearly realizing that they had picked a fight with someone with whom wise men did not fuck.

The floating robed figures had spread out to surround the enemies, slipping the edges of the ring to create a second line of defense. Zeke cracked his neck. "Oh dear, this one is always so bloodthirsty. Perhaps I should have used one of the others." He shrugged. "Oh well." He flickered, appearing in the middle of the B-rankers, right behind Kix, and shoved and arm THROUGH his chest. "Too late now."

The two B-rankers whirled, one bringing to bear that black energy and the other releasing a red lightning in a massive cloud of power that literally turned the shield into a box seething black with red sparks through it. When the energy faded, Zeke was back in his original spot, safely behind a line of defense erected by his masks. There was no evidence at all of the attack, since Kix's body was obliterated by the other B-rankers.

Zeke just clicked his tongue. "Killing your own subordinates. How gauche. Especially since he would have been fine." Their fists clenched and he cocked his head. "What? Did you think I actually attacked him? Didn't you hear me earlier? I don't have a teleportation mask." He flicked a hand and a perfect copy of him appeared to one side, high fiving him before vanishing. "But we've had enough fun for now. Let's get started." And with a snap of his fingers, both he and all his mask bearers disappeared.

 

[SilverEagle2121]

Wow. This is totally crazy and unbelievably awesome! I absolutely cannot wait for more.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It took me almost no time to figure out what that mask did from context. Illusions, obviously. But despite knowing that I also knew I had no chance of piercing through them. No one here did. Trying to bypass B-rank perception would be pure delusion, so I didn't try.

Zeke was far too much of a performer to let this end without a show, so I trusted the illusions wouldn't ruin our chance to watch them battle. Apparently, he was making enough of an impression here that the other two were genuinely worried. The taller of the hooded Arch-Bishops snarled. "You seek to unnerve us with your games, but you've shown your weakness. This shield exists to protect this planet and your charge. Should we take it down any casual attack would reduce this world to dust."

He started to gather dark energy in his hands. It...hurt. Just looking at it hurt. The energy Pietro had used had looked wrong, but it was nothing compared to this. Like the difference between a dark room before bed and the soul crushing depths of the deepest cave in the world. It was just conceptually incomparable. Callie grabbed my hand, squeezing it, as I struggled to tear my eyes away from the energy.

The worst part was that I suspected the shield was actually helping. It was mitigating the effects somewhat like it had with the attacks. Being able to box in a pair of B-rankers by himself was terrifying to me. Zeke was stronger than any of us had given him credit for. He wasn't just B-rank, he was to B-rank what Abel was to G-rank. He was a monster.

His voice echoed cheerfully from the empty air. "I wouldn't do that. That shield is made from a combination of very powerful abilities. The direct defensive applications are impressive, but the secondary effects are what really make it shine. Aside from filtering out harmful conceptual elements before they can damage the lower rankers here the defenses also-"

The Arch-Bishop cut him off by unleashing a TORRENT of the gathering power, a beam of energy packing into the size of a needle, so dense I almost threw up just seeing it. The beam struck the shield...then bounced off it in three different directions before spearing the other Arch-bishop, the red lightning guy, through the shoulder. The hooded figure howled in pain and literally RIPPED his arm off his body, hurling it onto the ground as it was consumed along with his cloak in a swirl of rotting darkness.

Zeke's voice continued his explanation as if there had been no interruption. "Deflect direct attacks along the inside of the defensive perimeter. It's made for aftershocks, but if you try to break it directly there's a backlash. It took me AGES to find that power interaction. Most B-rankers don't focus on defense.

The red lightning guy, who was revealed to be a large red haired man with mutton chops and dark eyes, glared at both his companion and the air around them. "Damn it Absalom! You have to stop doing that. This is why we got reassigned to this frontier nonsense. You can't just overpower everything." He looked down at his smoking shoulder. "Can you remove this corruption? I can do it but it'll take time we don't have."

Shuffling uncomfortably, the still robed figure took a step toward the other man and froze. There was a shift in the air and three masked figures appeared in a triangle formation. They raised their arms and a whirling vortex of brilliant white flame sprung up, swallowing the figure. As the injured one saw his partner attacked, he tried to rush to his aid.

The four other hooded figures swirled into existence around him. Two of them threw their hands out and dark chains lashed from the ground, binding him in place at neck, legs, and his remaining arm. One of the other masked figures made a drawing motion and a huge bow and arrow coalesced above their heads. The last one pointed at the arrow and power spilled down the length of the weapon, infusing it with a yellow glow so sharp it almost hurt to look at.

There was a rush as the arrow released, but the vortex burst, a flash of dark energy imposing itself between the red haired man and the arrow. The robe of the remaining figure was burned away revealing what looked like a desiccated corpse with its mouth sewn shut. Dark gems were set where its eyes should have been, and it punched the arrow head on, trying to destroy the energy.

It wound up with an absurd amount of power, even more than last time, and swung it in a close quarters blow meant to destroy the attack. A blow that hit...nothing. The image of the arrow vanished, and the corpse looking man choked, looking down at where he'd been bisected by the ACTUAL arrow, which had been fired from the ground where it had been hidden under an illusion.

Zeke stepped out of thin air as he saw the corpse fall, snapping his fingers. The three masks responsible for the white firestorm manifested around the plummeting figure's top half, unleashing another attack on someone far less prepared to defend himself.

By the time the flames faded there WAS no top half left, just a pair of spasming desiccated legs hitting the ground. Zeke clicked his tongue and turned to the red haired one, who was staring at his partner's remaining limbs in terror. "This is the problem with cultists. No sense of flare or imagination. You all pride yourself on being sneaky and dangerous, but give you an ounce of power and all you can do is slug away."

The other man pointed shakily at one of the masks. "That's...that's an Arch-Bishop of the Red Revenant Church. Those were flames of purification."

Zeke shrugged. "Partly. They were amplified by a few other powerful abilities. But they were definitely in the mix. Theodore Stoddard. Dreadful man. Tried to have my nephews mother assassinated so he could move up in the clergy. He did have a gift for the purifying flame though. Comes in useful when up against Black Sorrow's Enshrining Darkness."

Snapping his fingers, a small flask appeared in his hand. He opened the top and there was a swirl of crystalline energy as runes lit up along the flask. There were millions of them on the thing, so dense I wouldn't have been able to see them if not for my Perception. In the sky where the fire had struck, a phantasmal outline of the corpselike Arch-Bishop appeared, a dark bluish purple, screaming so loudly the stitches in his mouth had torn open.

The image of the man clawed at the air as an invisible force dragged him toward the flask. Zeke gestured to one of the masks and the same dark chains holding the red head grabbed Absalom the corpse and restrained him, allowing him to be sucked into the flask. Zeke screwed the top back on the flask, staring at it for a few seconds before flicking it with a sharp "Stop that." Then he put it away.

"What did you just do?" The red haired man asked in revulsion. "Was that his soul? Give it back! You can't take a soul that belongs to our Lady!"

Zeke snorted. "Imagine only being at Indigo as a B-ranker. I think Black Sorrow would thank me for cleaning up trash like that. Or she won't. I don't much care. I told you morons I'd be harvesting you for materials. Did you think I would go back on my word on a system wide broadcast? A man's word is all he has. Would you like to struggle? I'm still not sure what your ability is, and if you want to show off I'd be happy to allow it."

The man looked sick. "You're a monster! Our souls belong to the Lady. How many of our brethren have you used to create these abominations? How many have you stolen from the Red Revenant. You can't do something like this in front of all these people and expect to get away with it. The cult will-"

"Do nothing." Cut off Zeke with amusement. "I've been active for quite some time, my friend. The Church and the Cult know about me. You think they care? If they hunted down people for things like this I'd hardly be first on the list. Morgan Lark can consume the very stats that make up a person, yet the Vampire remains free, assumed to be the next being to become a god, do you know why that is?"

The cultist didn't respond, so Zeke continued. "Because power is all that matters. I'm strong, which makes me valuable. If you think I'M scary, you should see my best friend. When it comes down to it, you've played with forces best left alone. You weren't sent by the Cult itself, you and your little buddy decided to take this planet on your own. You wanted to prove yourself, didn't you?"

"We...we just wanted to be recognized for our power." He said blankly. "We wanted the respect our positions were due. There are so MANY Arch-Bishops, and we had to work our way up the ranks the hard way. We didn't get any of those special privileges like some of the children of the Saints and Popes. We're members of the Cult too. We just wanted them to acknowledge us."

Zeke just chuckled. "Of course you did. But you have no concept of what a REAL B-ranker looks like. There are real monsters out among the stars, my boy. You might be a cultist, but you aren't powerful enough to interfere in high level faction business. People like Sasha, like my buddy Elijah, they're in a whole different world than you."

He turned his eyes on the crowd, and somehow, I could sense him looking past them all, to everyone watching the recordings. "This is your one warning. All of you. Elijah Wyndham's son is under the protection of Janus. If you are of a match with him, are willing to pit your heirs against him, be welcome. Hone his edge. Held me mold him. But if you think you can interfere with the candidate selection, interfere with MY FAMILY, this is all that awaits you."

He walked toward the still chained redhead, and like he said, he let the other man use his powers. The cultist hurled red lightning at my uncle, and one of the masks appeared, erecting a small clear shield that I believed was similar to the shield they were in. The red haired man screamed, hurling bolts of crimson electricity, but none of them even came close to Zeke.

My uncle arrived in front of the man, with a snap, he slipped on a glove with pointed talon like fingers that lit up with a multitude of runes, just like the flask. Then he shoved a hand INTO the other man. Not through him, there was no blood, his hand vanished into the chest of his enemy, and as he withdrew it, I could see the struggling purple form as it was RIPPED out of the body of the cultist.

When he finally tore it loose the body slumped over to the ground, limp and motionless, breathing but empty. Another snap brought out a second flask, and he popped the cap with a thumb before stuffing the struggling spirit into the flask. Dismissing the glove he recapped the flask and put it away. He waved a hand and the bodies vanished, as did the shield, and Zeke turned and walked out of the arena, past a staring Abel who had crawled over to lean against the wall and watch.

The rest of the crowd was...quiet. That had been brutal, even by Ascendant standards. Zeke had been sending a message, and it was one that I knew came from a place of real anger. Seeing him do that should have horrified me, and part of it did, but it also made me proud. My uncle was strong and loyal and had my back. Despite how brutal he could be, I was damned glad he was on my side.

 

[BJJPanda]

"He snapped. "I'll let my their excellencies deal with her after they finish with you. Your brat has been responsible for the deaths of several of our operatives, including a promising your talent her to attend the tournament he needs to pay, and since we're here anyway, we can just send a few messages all at once."

Click to shrink...

A few mistakes here, also just goes to show how wide a gap there can be in the same level

 

[BJJPanda]

Zeke is a bad motherfucker, goddamn

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Healing or not, we had to carry Abel out of the arena. My mentor was in bad shape, though not as bad as the armor double Midknight had been using, which had been mostly destroyed. Callie had been...quiet, since we saw him get wrecked, and I wanted to pull her aside to check on her about it but we had other problems.

Zeke rode home with us this time, as did Natalie and her guardian, along with Perit and Valk. We were all pretty quiet until we got to the house, at which point I finally broke the silence. "Alright...what the actual fuck? Like, to all of that Zeke. Can you tell me what happened now that it's over?"

My uncle shrugged. "Stupid people doing stupid people things." He cut a look at Selka, who wilted slightly but didn't argue. "I made an example of them, so they shouldn't try it again, though you can bet they'll try other things. That's your problem though."

I couldn't really complain about that. "What about the other factions? Abel won, but the Empire, the Faerieland, are they really just going to back off because you smacked around a couple B-rankers? Like, won't they send more people to come and fight you?"

Zeke just snorted. "No. First of all, there are a hundred of these. Losing two B-rankers, even trash like them, is a blow over something this insignificant. Sunk cost fallacy isn't something the upper echelons of the Black Sorrow Cult engage in. Or any higher ups from the factions. Going to war over a random border planet would be ridiculous. Second of all they can't spare enough people to kill me off, especially knowing they'll lose most of them. I'm basically unkillable under A-rank and everyone knows it."

Selka nodded quickly. "It's true. Janus is infamous among B-rankers. He's predicted to reach A-rank in the next decade."

Seeming to send my skepticism at the time frame, Zeke snickered. "I know it seems like a while to you, but in the upper ranks you need hundreds of thousands or even millions of stat points to rank up. Not to mention...other things. The next decade isn't bad. I think that was part of why Eli did what he did. I'm sure you of all people can imagine how frustrating it is to be giving out points that let people rank up fast when you lag behind."

I hadn't experienced that, but he wasn't wrong. It was easy to picture. "Well that whole thing was certainly dramatic enough to diffuse things. I guess that means it's really over. We...we won." I felt myself melt into my seat gleefully. Like some magic switch had been flipped. I couldn't believe it. We'd been working so hard for such a long time for this, been through so much.

Callie looked shocked too, her eyes wide as she thought through exactly what it meant for us to have made it. Abel was grinning, despite his injuries. I couldn't see Mel's face under her mask but Jessie and Benny looked thrilled. We'd separated from the others after the mess at the tournament, planning to meet up again soon.

"So..." I said uncertainly. "How are we handling the Moonsong Glade. You can't get in, right Zeke? I was told it was F-ranker exclusive. How long will we be in there? Are you just going to wait outside? Can you suppress your power to come in with us?"

"Nah." Said my uncle casually. "Your mask will let me keep an eye on you. If things go too badly I'll break in and help, but it would destroy the glade which would be...bad. Even for me. I probably will wait outside. Plenty of the older generation will be out there. I'll make sure they don't ambush you when you come out for whatever you get. Though I think we should get you all some proper spatial gear before you enter."

"Like a ring? A real one? How would we even get that? They don't really have them available on Callus. At least not that I've seen. I've got some solid cash reserves, but we don't have access to the proper supply." It was a similar problem to the issue of my weapon. I really wanted something E-rank, but despite probably having enough for a relatively low level E-rank weapon there weren't any on world.

His grin was wolfish. "Well sure, which is why you'll be picking up what you need at the field market outside the glade. Someone always starts one. That large an influx of newcomers always spawns a bazaar. People need consumables and weapons before entering, not to mention that it ends up being a huge conglomeration of powerful elders from different forces waiting around for months on end."

"You think they'd have an E-rank weapon I could use?" I asked excitedly. "I definitely need a new stick to hit people with. Hopefully something that can take a beating."

Abel snickered. "You know, I understand the with for blunt damage, but you could pick up a more traditional weapon and develop an actual Skill for it. Maybe a staff? Bit longer than your usual but it wouldn't hurt to give yourself some range. It could synergize with your combat style too. Pole vaulting would be a good complement to you movement skills and open up more lines of attack."

My mentor had been mostly quiet since the tournament. He seemed happy to have won, but I saw him giving Zeke awed looks that made it hard not to snicker. Though as I nodded my agreement to look into a staff weapon a question popped into my head. "Oh, that reminds me. Was that really a B-rank fight? Don't get me wrong it was crazy, but I was figuring it would be...larger scale."

My uncle just smiled. "It was. You just couldn't tell. That shield protected you. It was dampening the Impact to prevent not just physical but conceptual damage. Looking at B-ranked attacks directly without any protection can damage your soul. Impact is a qualitative difference in level. Sound is just vibration, sight is light bouncing off an object. The size of the attacks wasn't massive because they were in a confined space and that wasn't necessary, but make no mistake those moves would have killed you just by observing them if I hadn't protected you."

Selka chimed in. "Not to mention any one of those casual blows would have atomized the planet and everyone on it. B-rankers operate in the ten million range of stat points. Any blow you're capable of throwing they can beat by thousands of times, and that's not even counting the qualitative leap that is D-rank or the effects of higher ranked Skills. If I were you I'd commit that fight to memory. You'll be benefiting from it for decades. Even if you can't see why yet."

I tried thinking back to the fight, to the movements, the abilities, and I could kind of see what she meant. There was...something, there. Something just out of reach of me. Like looking at a crack in the ground that's only a few inches wide but then realizing it goes down for miles. I was only seeing the crack.

The others almost all seemed nearly as distracted by the statement as I was. Mel though, Mel was all business. "I'll keep that in mind, but I want to know that Abel's win is going to be safe. He worked his ass off for that. How do we know they won't try something before the ceremony. Speaking of, when IS the ceremony?"

"Tomorrow." Said Zeke bluntly. "The actual date for the Moonsong Glade is in a month to make sure everyone's teammates have the best chance to rank up, but no one was comfortable waiting on the ending ceremony. Tomorrow they announce the top placements and allow everyone IN the tournament to rank up. You'll all be reaching F-rank." He glanced at Abel. "Provided you're willing."

My teacher nodded firmly. "No more waiting. I'm confident I've gotten the most out of G-rank, and I want to take the next step. I wanted a good fight to go out on, and I definitely got that. It's going to be brilliant ranking up and getting to fight it out with people so much stronger than I am on a relatively even playing field."

That was actually a good point. The idea that some people would be five times stronger than we were but still within our ability to harm was kind of crazy. Not that I was going to be fighting peak F-rankers, but the point remained. This would also be a huge opportunity for me to make sure I was able to reach the higher levels of F-rank in an area without E-rankers to take advantage of the gap.

"Wait." I said, remembering something. "You said it would be MONTHS?" I'd asked for a time frame earlier, and I guess I had one, but that was kind of crazy.

Zeke shrugged. "For you are least. Some people might stay longer, but I absolutely refuse to let you miss out on the soul trials. The Ruined Soul Temple is one of those places I mentioned to you where you can train soul strength outside of a clan. Once in a while the temple holds trials for people training there, and they offer prizes that can increase the speed of soul refinement and even reward special Skills and unique gifts."

That sounded intriguing. "So this would be a way for me to increase the grade of my soul to two ahead before D-rank? Because I know you said that's important."

"All of you, if you're ready." He said, looking over the others. "The Ruined Soul Temple is technically neutral territory, but practically it's hard for anyone outside the higher ends of a faction to get in. There are so many people scrambling for entry, there's no possible way to accommodate them all. The cream of the crop have their own soul refinement methods and locations, but for something like the soul trial even clan heirs will be showing up."

My eyes widened. "That's why everyone is paying so much attention to the Glade!" I said sharply. "When everything else is equal, a boost in Impact might be the thing that puts them over the top in the trials."

"Exactly." Said Zeke with a nod. "I didn't want to bring it up and increase the pressure, but now that the tournament is over it's best you know what's coming. The trial is a unique opportunity. You can get things there that even wishes would have trouble giving you, at least from any people low ranked enough to bother with any of you. Some people have even manage to pick up a second ability."

My head snapped up. A second ability would be...big. Especially for me. The current Wishmaster had his position specifically because he had two abilities, something that gave him the skills and power to beat even my dad out for the position. Not to mention it would enable me to have a surefire Skill that would always rank up without detracting from my effort in other areas. If I got a weapon ability for instance, I would be a natural. It would prevent me from ending up a Master Candidate like Abel, but that wasn't ever really in the cards for me anyway.

Seeing his comment had its intended effect, Zeke grinned, leaning back and closing his eyes. He wasn't going to sleep, Zeke just liked to tune things out sometimes when he was bored. His relaxed expression changed when his ring vibrated and he looked down to see a text, his face paling as he swallowed hard. "Huh. Apparently Stella wants me to come down for a visit so we can talk." He tried to sound nonchalant, but there was a quaver in his voice that made me laugh. Good to know my terrifying uncle could still feel fear.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The ceremony was held at the same arena as the finals. A huge luxurious building (without even the wear from the battle, which they had repaired) and pretty huge. Forty thousand people weren't enough to fill the place up, though it was hardly empty with every one of the ten thousand starter teams having shown up. There were a few E-rankers here too, possibly for security, and to my shock, I saw a fucking B-ranker standing next to Midknight.

I turned to look at Zeke, who noticed where my attention had gone and chuckled. "Attempted invasions are bad for morale. They send an executive from the cluster branch to oversee the rest of this. I don't recognize her, but I'm guessing she's a heavy even among people at her rank."

The B-ranker was...impressive. A tall, dark haired woman in a pitch black body suit covered with shining stars. Her black hair shared the spacelike impression, as did her mask, and in the depths of her dark eyes I could see galaxies forming if I looked too long.

Callie, not surprisingly, knew her. "That's Asteria. She's pretty much my dad's bosses, bosses, boss. She has a star based spatial ability, though I don't know of anyone with the details. People who make her use it usually don't survive the encounter."

After a second of thought, Callie knowing a high end B-ranker made sense. The systems and clusters in the Conglomerate were feeders for the Unity to gain renown for their top members. I knew that renown was weighted, so normal mortals probably didn't rate the effort, but I was betting people like Midknight knew ALL the big name Unity capes, and he'd have drilled them into his daughters head.

Mel whistled. "I want to be her when I grow up. You can feel the badass coming off her in waves."

We'd managed to find plenty of our friends in the crowd. Sydney, Megan, Sloane, Wren, Lament, Teague, Alec, there were tons of us all crowded together, though most of the teams were talking to whoever was nearby, given how hectic things were longer distance conversations seemed unlikely.

"You all ready?" Asked Benny with interest. "I still don't know how this works. Is this just an excuse to draw more attention to the highest placing fighters before rank up? Or is there some sort of significance to ranking up all together like this?"

Zeke shrugged. "Opinion is divided on that actually, but ceremonies like this USUALLY have better yields. Whether that's because they put the rank up on display and draw attention or because of some weird resonance from all the Impact, I couldn't say. I do know that they're good for the planet. Not enough to take this one to a proper D-grade, but they'll push the process ahead for sure."

Benny looked annoyed. "Damn. Kind of wish I'd made it in time for this bit. But I'm still a hundred plus points short."

My best friend was probably building to a nice long whining session, but the poke in the ribs from the girl standing beside him shut him up. I gave Celine a grateful smile she couldn't see behind my mask for cutting that off, but before I could comment everyone got really quiet.

"Welcome." Came a surprisingly soft, melodic voice. Every eye in the place focused on Asteria. She was suppressing her aura, but she was letting something...else, out. Some strange aspect of herself that made her seem like more than us, even without the pressure. I wondered if Zeke had that, if he did, he was much better at containing it than she was. "My name is Asteria, and I am the vice Guild Master of the Axiom cluster."

She looked over us all slowly, the sympathetic look on her unnaturally perfect features seeming at odds with her tall, muscular physique. She looked like a war goddess, but she had such a peaceful gaze. Her galactic eyes were hidden behind a small domino mask with that same starry sky distortion as her costume, but somehow, it just pulled focus to their depths, like she was sucking us all in.

I felt a sharp jolt and turned to see Zeke frowning at her, withdrawing his fingers after having pinched her. "Sloppy." He muttered in annoyance. Her eyes jerked up to settle on him, and my uncle raised a brow, her porcelain cheeks colored a bit and things...shifted. It either hadn't been on purpose or she was embarrassed to be caught, but she seemed much less intimidating now.

Clearing her throat, she returned to addressing the now confused crown, all of whom were still reeling a bit like I was. "You've been through a great deal recently." She said gently, bringing us all back to the topic at hand. "You all show great bravery coming here, though you need not worry now. I'm here to keep you safe. I'll be staying on world for a while, working from Callus as a preventative measure, and I'll need to count on all of you that are local to support me."

Zeke snorted lightly, clearly not buying it, but this time she didn't react. Asteria continued on for a while, announcing the names of the final five, in order based on ability. She also announced the top ten, of which I was a part, and we were all called up to be shown off as the stellar example of heroism and ability that we were (her words, and I'm almost sure that there was a pun mixed in there secretly, which made me like her more).

Finally, she finished telling us all what we'd accomplished, passed out some monetary rewards for the top ten (I couldn't remember if those had been mentioned or if they were hush money but I got another hundred G-rank coins so I wasn't complaining either way) and then officially let us all know that we were eligible to rank up now. There was even a big countdown as we all got ready to accept the rank.

The actual shift in the world around us when we accepted the rank up simultaneously was MASSIVE. The feel of that much Impact shifting at the same time was insane. I knew that since it was qualitatively within the limits of the planet there was no danger of damage, but it still felt crazy. Like a hurricane made of hammers bludgeoning us all, rather than the single wall of force I felt from a B-rank aura.

I felt plenty of changes, and had to look over my stats to figure out what they were, but once I did I found myself flabbergasted. I'd gotten a staggering amount of points over the course of this tournament. Thirty in Might, thirty in Perception, twenty in Fantasy, thirty in Vitality, twenty in Creation, and twenty in Focus. Which left me staring at my new stat screen after rank up.

Wishmaster candidate status. F-rank. Ability: Intermediate Wish- Six times a day grant an Intermediate 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-250
Impact-32
Fantasy-200
Vitality-220
Focus-168
Perception-180
Creation-180
Progress to next rank:1230/10000

Stored:7 shadow attacks,10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks,9 triple strenth tranq blows, 7 triple strength density shifted attacks. 9 spider leg attacks, 2 heal bursts, 4 gravity attacks, 7 shadow clone, 22 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)
Pet- Wolf named Jin
Skills:Lesser Cooking Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Lesser Balam Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery,Lesser Paired Dueling, Intermediate Path of the Doom Sovereign

DS Subskills. Monk: Stone Limb, Moonlit Night, Consecration of Flame, Ripple Running, State of Grace, Steam Arrow, Afterburner, Pit of Despair, Mountain Stance.

Rogue: Mercy Kill, Double Trouble, Touch of Tears, Flurry of Blows, Heavy hands, Marked for Death

Diviner: Overlay, Song of the Soil, Rythym of the Wild, Eye of Revelation, Danger Sense

My results were staggering, leaving me almost a quarter of the way to two thousand points after just one tournament, but that was nothing compared to the changes Callie had seen. My girlfriend's rank up had brought not just new stats, but a new ability, taking into account her new Skill synergy from shadow manipulation (which she had apparently ranked up during all the down time as the tournament progressed) as well as her lean into Perception towards the end of her accumulation.

Calliope Reynolds: F-rank. Intermediate Abyssal Infiltration- Enter the shadows and emerge where you will within range, shape the darkness to your call, moving it as if it were part of your body, and even extend your senses through the shadows to spy on your enemies.

Might-218
Impact-32
Vitality-142
Fantasy-150
Focus-58
Perception-375
Creation-185
Progress to next rank: 1160/10000

Pet-Wolf named Rellia

Skills: Minor Tracking, Beginner Stealth, Beginner Trap Mastery, Beginner Disguise, Lesser Balam Mastery, Intermediate Shadow Manipulation Mastery. Lesser Paired Dueling

Aside from the standard twenty points of Impact, she'd gotten fifty points of Creation, forty points of Perception, twenty of Might, and thirty of Fantasy. She was up to eleven hundred and sixty total, meaning she'd gotten a hundred and forty points off this rank up, but that was nothing compared to her Abyssal Infiltration ability.

Despite her control of shadows, Callie had never been able to fully enter them. She could, with preparation and concentration, HIDE things in her shadows, like she had with her bike, but she needed to spend a lot of time and materials making that possible and it effectively made it useless in combat. This new ability though, it more than made up for it. Not only could she meld into shadows, she could extend her Perception through shadows to spy on people, and it increased her versatility with the shadows she had.

After she finished telling me about it she threw herself into my arms and kissed me senseless. I could sense the happiness and relief through the bond. Callie, in a lot of ways, had been standing still since we met. It was easy to forget that while the rest of us had ranked up quickly to catch up to her, she'd been G-rank for years. Finally breaking that wall, not to mention evolving her ability to something truly amazing, made her really believe she could keep up.

I pulled back, smiling at her, and decided not to address her insecurities about being left behind. They were crazy, of course, but being told your emotions are dumb doesn't make you feel them less, and I'd learned enough being in a relationship not to make THAT rookie mistake.

I turned to Abel and Mel, both of whom looked pleased with their results, though they didn't share. We knew bits and pieces of what they could based on things they'd shared and that we'd seen, but we didn't have access to their stat pages and I wasn't going to ask. Callie could bring it up if she wanted, but I trusted them to tell us if there was something we needed to know.

Asteria cleared her throat, bringing all of us back to reality from our upgrade highs. "It seems you've all broken through to the next rank. Congratulations, both to my own citizens and to our visitors. As discussed, the departure will be in a month, any of our guests feel free to remain and visit, I assure you you'll be quite safe here." Translation: stay if you want to, I'll be watching you all.

With that she made her goodbyes and turned to stride out of the arena, Midknight trailing behind her silently. I didn't know if it was the real him or armor, but Callie looked worried as she watched him go. I knew she didn't forgive him, and shouldn't, but he was still her dad and she was a bit worried about him after seeing that armor demolished by those B-rankers. She didn't mention it though, and I didn't push. We had bigger worries anyway. We had a month left, or rather thirty one days counting today, to prepare and get Jessie and Benny ranked up. Good thing I had an extra daily wish. I'd need it.

 

[Droosh]

Loving this story! Thank you.

 

[BJJPanda]

Seems kinda weird how they got almost the same amount of stats even though he made it further, he has such a wide array of skills you would expect him to be eyecatching, especially after Zeke defended him

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Seems kinda weird how they got almost the same amount of stats even though he made it further, he has such a wide array of skills you would expect him to be eyecatching, especially after Zeke defended him

Click to shrink...

having a wide array of Skills is a downside in WUTS. Means he made an impression but it got spread out over a variety of stats, rather than someone like Mel who would have mostly gotten Might, or Jessie who would get mostly Vitality.

 

[Droosh]

My wish list:

I'd love to see him get more skills to merge into his main skill, or just to have. He could go back online and use his game profile to trade human skills for wishes again.

Or if there's justification for trading wishes with his cousin again say for a stronger type of alliance through the upcoming event or his uncle's protection, he could ask for something unique. Maybe one of the most expensive and rare ascendant skills that are sold in elite markets or he could request "the most complete beginner flying skill that you can provide and that I can safely accept" or "interpersonal skills" or "political savvy" or "tactical mastery" or "strategic mastery".

All skills he simply lacks and could use.

I've also wondered why he hasn't asked the Elf princess about the dark elves and if she could provide a contact or an introduction to a master in Balam martial arts? Seems like he should be looking for a trainer. Also, I think you mentioned originally that the style features sword in one hand and dagger in the other?

Maybe he'll be able to buy or commission some low level E-rank weapons that are special and can also channel his video game sub-skills? He could borrow money from his rich E-rank allies in exchange for future wishes.

Also, now that his uncle can't protect him from e-rankers anymore, will his girlfriend's uncle or one of his other e-rank allies join him off planet as personal bodyguards until he can punch up high enough?

 

[Malcolm Tent]

A month. A month of wishes, a month of stat gains. Slow and steady, constantly trying to build up my friends. Benny and Jessie were both within reach of F-rank. With Jessie's regular income of Might from her bond with Randall, not to mention my boost, and how close Benny already was, the seven hundred and forty four points I had to throw around for the month was more than enough to get them both where they needed to go.

Benny was first. One hundred fifty seven points. Seven days, six wishes each, though only half on the final day, got him to F-rank without a problem. Well, it would have been one short at a hundred fifty six (thirty nine wishes, four stats each) but Benny had been working on jobs pretty consistently, and had managed to snag a point of Creation despite only doing drudge work.

He was, of course, thrilled to reach F-rank like the rest of us, and had begun training with Abel nearly immediately afterward, trying to get the best out of his new abilities, especially since Abel had pushed his Ragam to Expert and was even MORE terrifying now.

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

Might-405

Impact-32

Fantasy-16

Vitality-31

Focus-463

Perception-42

Creation-31

Progress to next rank: 1020/10000

Pet- Wolf named Rolf

Current integrated tech. 10/10. 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. Chest: Pair of golden G rank spider legs that arch up from the shoulders. Waist: Belt of spiritual calming

Skills:Minor Cooking Mastery, Intermediate Inventing Mastery, Minor Haggling Mastery, Minor Stealth Master

And of course, Jessie's upgrade was much easier to manage. Her Bond to Randall, over the course of the month, gave her fifty five Might, bringing the stat to an even one hundred fifty. The entire rest of her development, four hundred and thirty four points of it, was all Vitality. A whopping seven hundred and sixty two points of the stuff, making her an absolute monster with the stat and exponentially increasing the power of her ability.

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

Might-150

Impact-32

Fantasy-28

Vitality-762

Focus-25

Perception-15

Creation-8

Progress to next rank: 1020/10000

Pet- Wolf named Lily and bear named Randall(Beginner Beast Bonding with Jessie)

Skills: Intermediate Horticulture, Intermediate First Aid, Beginner Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement, Minor Beast Taming Mastery, Beginner Beast Bonding

Just under twenty days and one hundred and nine wishes for Jessie. Amusingly, after paying for the wishes with coins (the upcoming bazaar was going to be expensive) I ended up with four hundred and thirty four G-rank coins, the same amount of points Jessie had added to her Vitality. Out of all of us I think Jessie came the furthest. During all the downtime she'd been training non-stop apparently. Horticulture and First Aid both hit Intermediate, and Herbalism hit Beginner.

Her biggest change though, was one small subtle shift in her ability description. The loss of the words non-sapient when it came to her ability to permanently enhance her controlled subjects. Her actual life force control didn't work on sapient beings still, but the change represented her ability to control beings in other ways (like Beast Bonding) and permanently enhance them even if they developed sapience. It was a game changer for her.

My last thirty eight wishes I used for myself, a hundred and fifty two points sourced from the Beast Lord Garden crew. A hundred into Fantasy and fifty two into Focus, which was lagging behind, bringing those stats to three hundred even and two hundred and twenty respectively. Getting everyone up to snuff was difficult, time consuming, and frankly, exhausting. Mixed in with my own consistent effort to get used to my new Impact and adjust my fighting style, the month flew by in a blur of exhaustion and pain.

But eventually, it ended. On the last night of the month, thirty one days after the ceremony and the last night before we left, we all gathered for a meeting on who would be coming. Natalie, Perit, Valk, Abel, Mel, Benny, Jessie, Callie, and Mel. Natalie's last team member, whose name I couldn't remember for the life of me, was apparently not important enough to come with us, and Benny had lobbied shamelessly for us to bring Celine in their place.

The elf herself was here, looking a bit nervous, but Benny was holding her hand for support, and it said something about how close their trials had brought them that she didn't seem bothered by the public display. I was happy for my friend. Callie...less so. "Why would we POSSIBLY bring her?" Argued my girlfriend. She shot Celine an apologetic look. "Not that I'm still mad. You made peace with Benny and almost died, I'm happy to let bygones be bygones, but this slot is priceless. We could get paid through the nose to bring someone."

That...was actually fair. Everyone had come here just for this. If word got out we had a spare slot for the Glade everyone would be swarming us to try to get it. Benny nodded. "That's true, but you could do the same for Celine. Despite her choosing me over her family in the end, her sister is the only one who knows. Her family is desperate to get someone into the Glade. Nalia would look like a rock star if she pulled it off, and that kind of reputation would be worth downplaying or omitting a few...indiscretions."

I whistled appreciatively. "Damn." Everyone looked at me. "That's sneaky, not just leveraging the family into letting Celine come with us, but making use of that exact same leverage to patch things up with her family and get rid of any evidence that Celine ever screwed them. Two birds one stone. Did you come up with that?"

He grinned proudly. "Celine has been giving me lessons in political theory. Pretty good, right?"

"Excuse me." Interrupted Callie. "But we still haven't agreed. It would depend on exactly what Nalia is willing to offer. I'm sorry Celine, but this needs to be about what's best for the team. If that's you then I welcome you with open arms, but we need to shop around." I could sense through the bond that Callie wasn't COMPLETELY over the back stabbing, which was fair, but she was willing to put it to bed for benefits not to mention helping out Benny.

Not that he seemed to notice, my best friend was glaring hard at Callie, but she ignored it. She had to do what was best for the team. Celine seemed to understand though, because she just nodded solemnly. "Can I at least have a bit to call and try to get you some kind of benefits before you let anyone else know about the slot?"

Callie glanced over at Benny with a sigh. "Alright. I can do that much. See what you can get." Celine slipped out of the room and my girlfriend shot my best friend an apologetic smile. "Sorry Ben, I can't let an opportunity like this slip away. We need every possible advantage going into a dungeon." Glancing at Nat, she said. "Speaking of which, do you know anything about this place? Now that we have the entry permissions planning ahead would be a good idea."

Nat just sighed. "No. The Moonsong Glade isn't a dungeon people normally have access to. It's in an unstable area of space, similar to the unstable spaces Mad Madigan used to make that Labyrinth we lured the Cultists into. The space sort of fluctuates, which means access is only possible at certain times or under certain conditions. Same reason only F-rankers can enter. There ARE people alive who have been inside, but they're ancient, and chances are things have changed a ton."

"Then what DO we know?" Callie said in frustration. "Even out of date information is better than no information. It would give us a starting point."

Nat shrugged. "Not much. We know there were people inside, locals who lived on the planet as it developed into a dungeon. Lots of beasts. The Moonglow Dew is stimulated by external access, so it doesn't spawn except when the place is open. No clue why, something about Impact resonance. Other than that we've got nothing. It's been a VERY long time since anyone was in there."

Callie sighed in aggravation as Celine came back into the room, leaning down to whisper in her ear. Callie blinked in surprise. "Wait...really?" She looked up at us. "Nalia is willing to offer a Skill crystal of our choice as compensation. That would be a pretty huge opportunity, especially for Jessie. Life and beast Skills are specialties of the elves. Celine's woodcraft is a good demonstration of that. She can get something Vitality based that will massively help her combat efficiency."

"Ask for Shape of the Wild." Celine said immediately. "The crystal we have is at Intermediate, so Jessie should be able to learn it. It's a supplementary Skill for Beast Bonding that lets a person transform into their bonded companion. Given how strong Randall is Jessie would benefit from it a ton."

Jessie's eyes went wide. "I can be a BEAR? That's amazing!" She looked at Callie pleadingly. "Oh please let me be a bear. That sounds so fun. I can slap fish out of rivers and hibernate in caves!" We all looked at her and she shrugged. "It looks relaxing. Plus I might be able to actually speak with Randall. Minor communication through the bond is one thing, but being able to SPEAK BEAR? That sounds so cool!" Her voice was starting to run together as she talked faster and breathed less. If she hadn't been an Ascendant I'd have been worried about her suffocating.

My girlfriend's gaze was not amused. "Traditionally, when negotiating, it's best not to inform the other side of the negotiations that you can't live without the thing being negotiated over." Her eyes narrowed. "Which you're more than smart enough to know. You're trying to help Benny."

Jessie grinned back at her cheekily. "Maybe I thought he needed a bit of help. Come on. We like Celine. I mean sure, I was pretty pissed about her stabbing us in the back, but she did it for her family, and she changed sides in the end to help us. We would have had a much tougher time with the Burning Heaven Abyss without her. They had a Master Candidate."

Callie sighed. "Fine. I'll agree to her coming. The Skill crystal is a good idea, and I do appreciate the suggestion. Do you think you'll be able to work that into your next rank up? Because it kind of fits with your whole theme. I assume that Vitality plays a role in this Skill, by the way?" She asked Celine.

The elf nodded. "Higher Vitality means a longer transformation. The power of the transformation depends on the Bond itself and the relative power of the two subjects. In this case both F-rank, so that'll help." it would also give Jessie a Might bump from what turning into a giant bear would do for her reputation.

Nat said nothing about it, so she clearly didn't care, and Benny was thrilled as we sat and talked over details before finalizing things. Callie called Nalia personally to sort through things, and once it was all finalized Nalia had the crystal sent over, promising it would be there by morning. Then we all started getting ready. The next day would be our departure for the Moonsong Glade. It was finally time to leave Callus. We were going to enter the wider universe at last.

 

[Strong_Thread]

... we all gathered for a meeting on who would be coming. Natalie, Perit, Valk, Abel, Mel, Benny, Jessie, Callie, and Mel.

Click to shrink...

You listed Mel twice.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next morning, we all got packed up, ready to leave and prepared to set off. Cass was sobbing uncontrollably, hugging each of us in turn and begging us not to go, and I wasn't the only one whose heart broke as the little girl started promising not to feed her vegetables to the wolves anymore if we would stay.

I...hadn't been thinking about Cass when we decided to leave, but now that I was it tore my heart out. We'd been like her new family since we rescued her, and she was desperate to keep us from leaving. I wasn't the only one who thought so either, because she was so heartbreaking Zeke finally spoke up.

"You know...I could use an assistant." He said casually. "We're going to be waiting around in space for literal months with nothing to do. I mean sure, there will be other people around, but doing all the menial labor on my own isn't my style. Maybe if Cark wants to stick around I can pay him in advice or something. Give him a few pointers. He's not part of your pavilion so there's no conflict of interest there. As long as he commits to never joining."

Cark looked hesitant, but I could see the eagerness too. He was part of a faction here, but he spent more time around the house than anything, trying to be there for Cass, and Burning Fist had taught him a bit, but the guy wasn't like...a mentor. Not to mention he didn't need to quit the faction. In fact, training under Zeke at ALL would be a hell of an education for later. Leaving Sage would suck for him, but he spent more time around the house than he did with her.

Finally, he looked over at Cass, staring at him with big shimmering eyes, and nodded, taking off to call Burning Fist and gather his stuff. As he ran off, I turned to Nat. "Ok, so I never bothered to ask but...how are we getting off planet? I've never left before so I don't know how it works."

She shrugged. "Varies based on distance. There are ships that can transit between worlds, but they're mostly system locked. Anything bigger or more powerful needs to be made by a high ranking Inventor, which obviously makes them extremely rare. Even ones who focus on control when they reach Intermediate have trouble staying focused on singular projects for long. For something across the cluster I expect they'll use a Waywalker."

At my confused expression she chuckled. "Waywalkers are long distance teleporters. One of the clans has kind of a monopoly on the industry. Shipping and transportation often depends on stability, so having an organization with a standardized power that allows transport across space is key. They do a lot of work with the Merchant's Guild."

That sounded awesome. "So they just...tear open space? To anywhere? That kind of spatial power must be insanely expensive stat wise. How do they have so many high ranking members?"

She shook her head. "Nah, they use anchors. Send them to various planets and then connect the space between their current location and the anchor to open a portal. For a system level jump a D-ranker can manage. Cluster level would be someone in the C-ranks. Past that it can get dicey. Cross galaxy transport is extremely hard to arrange. The higher ups at the Waywalker Convergence aren't really interested in being people's ride."

Zeke snickered from where he was sitting on the couch watching Cass play with Jin (the wolves were coming along with us because the Moonsong Glade would be a perfect environment for them to grow). When he noticed us looking at him he smirked. "They really don't. We took a Waywalker here when we first came over from the Empire. Your Grandfather's branch is in Empire territory. This absolute ass named Charleston was our transporter. He was an A-ranker, but given our affiliation we were of similar statuses. Huge prick."

Everyone just stared at him in terror, remembering the power they'd seen in the arena and then imagining mouthing off to someone STRONGER than that. He didn't seem to notice. Finally Cark came back out with a bag, wincing slightly. "I'm good to go." It occurred to me that while they didn't seem super serious, telling your girlfriend you planned to take off for another star system out of the blue was probably not a fun conversation. I didn't envy him that, but I wasn't going to poke at it.

We all headed out to the car to drive to...wherever we were going. Callie knew, apparently, and told Jessie, before sitting in the back with me. "You ok?" She asked quietly. "I know you've never been off world."

I smiled at her attempt to ignore her nerves by focusing on mine. I could feel her nervousness through the bond, and I knew what she needed, so I just smiled and said. "Yeah it's going to be a big change. I'll miss a lot of people here." I put an arm around my shoulder. "But I'm taking all of my favorites with me, so I think I'll be ok."

Her shoulders relaxed a bit as my words sunk in, but I knew it would take more than that to make her feel better. She was leaving her mom, her uncle, the only place she'd ever known. I'd been steered toward solitude, at least looking back on my life, so leaving with the only people I cared that much about was nostalgic but not sad. Callie hadn't had the luxury of that kind of mindset.

I mean sure, I'd miss Maria, Stella, Ian, and plenty of other friends, but I wasn't leaving behind a piece of myself. Not like Callie was. She'd called Amelia last night to say goodbye, and I'd help her after they hung up as she cried her eyes out, but she wanted to do this. Leaving home sucked, but it was important, especially to someone as independent as Callie. At least this time she was doing it with her mom's blessing. And she'd told me she called Alexander and demanded he stop by and check in regularly. She hadn't cried after saying goodbye to him, but she'd been sad about it.

We talked a bit over the drive, keeping each other distracted so we weren't thinking about the trip. The closer we got to the Waywalker departure point the less sure of myself I felt. I knew that was just fear of the unknown though so I ignored it and focused on talking things out with Callie. We weren't the only ones nervous, of course, and after a few minutes Benny came to sit with us, bringing Celine with him.

Since Jessie was driving Celine passed the Skill crystal to Callie as she sat down. My girlfriend stashed it away and then glanced at Benny. " You doing ok? This is probably pretty scary for you too right?"

He sighed and leaned back. "Yeah. Leaving my family sucks. I mean Jessie is leaving Maria too, but they weren't really official and it's not the same. Not just her either. My parents are here. I know intellectually I haven't seen them since we visited home, and traveling further is just more of the Sam's. But it feels like a bigger deal."

I clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll be back, man. And we'll have stories to tell and souvenirs to give them. I can even give them abilities if they want." It would be too noticeable to start doing that to everyone as I was now, but when we came back I'd be stronger. It would be much less of a problem.

He smiled at that. "That would be nice." He still sounded sad about leaving, but Celine squeezed his hand and we lapsed into silence.

Before we could talk more the car slowed down. Callie took a deep breath. "Alright...we're here. Is everyone ready? Have everything you need?"

Benny snickered at that. "Yes MOM. Let's go." Celine pulled him up as she stood and the two of them headed outside. We all filed out after, and I was surprised to find us outside of an arena.

Zeke nodded. "Smart place to put it. These things all have decent protections on them." We headed inside and made our way down to the ring, where Midknight, Asteria, and surprisingly Frostbite were waiting. Rime was there, and we nodded to our former bodyguard. It would have been nice to take her with us, but our contract didn't extend that far. Not everyone wanted to leave the planet after all.

Asteria smiled as we approached. "Ah. Our champion and his party. Welcome. I trust you're all prepared to depart?" At our nods she gestured to one side. "Please take your positions." She tried very hard not to look at Zeke, presumably out of fear, which seemed to suit him fine.

We all lined up where she pointed, and she stepped forward, laying down a small stone with intricate carvings all over it. Tapping the top of the stone, she created a spark, which flooded the runes across the rock's surface. There was a flash of light, and then, before our eyes, the air CRACKED.

There was a shudder in space, and my head swam a bit as I watched the world itself tear apart, prying reality open until there was a portal sitting in the air in front of us. As it had opened, I'd been able to see the fluctuations of unstable space in the cracks around the edges, but now that it was open it was just a...hole.

Like looking at a window with no frame, on one side was one place, and on another a second. It was weird looking at the portal, because the portal itself was two dimensional and flat, but it was showing three dimensional space on either side. Zeke looked bored, but everyone else seemed shaken by the ability. It was a pretty impressive sight, I had to admit.

Asteria pointed at the portal. "Your path to the Moonsong Glade lies through there. The Glade isn't QUITE revealed yet, though it's accessible enough for them to arrange accommodations. You'll be dropped off on the floating city established outside the Glade while you wait for the other tournament winners and their teams. You will not be provided with a return trip, and will need to arrange that yourselves."

That kind of sucked, but it also made sense. This was an open tournament. There was a net benefit to the Unity from all the publicity, but once the winners left, it was hardly their problem. We were nominally members of the Unity, but only junior members. It wasn't worth paying for us to come back without some sort of benefit to them. Granted, I could probably have arranged a trip for some wishes if I wanted to pay, but we had a next destination after the Glade, so there was no point.

Frostbite looked mildly annoyed, but she was an E-ranker, and Asteria was the one who made decisions. I was guessing our ally had tried to lobby for better treatment and got shot down. Someone as strong as Asteria had probably met plenty of candidates, and while we theoretically had amazing potential, not all of us lived up to it.

Staring through the window, I saw a sprawling, massive city, with a night sky background somehow far too close to be believable. I reached down to grab Callie's hand and she squeezed back. I felt her nervousness and excitement in equal measure through the bond. With one last look around at the planet I'd spent my whole life on, I gave the others a short nod, then Callie and I stepped through the window together, emerging for the first time in the wider universe. As the others stepped through behind us and the window closed, I couldn't help but grin as my heart pounded. The sadness had mostly faded, all I could feel now was the anticipation. Now was when the adventure really began.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

When Zeke had mentioned the bazaar, I had assumed we would be attending some small gathering of stalls. Maybe some tents, a few blankets on the ground. The word invoked images of a temporary market that contained equally temporary sales locations. What we actually ended up walking into was...not that.

For one thing I felt...heavier. Like I was under pressure I hadn't been before. It was a strange feeling to experience, like I was suffocating even as I took a deep breath. Once I realized I was panicking about nothing and forced myself to calm down the panicked sensation went away, though the weight remained. For another thing though, the place we'd ended up was...amazing.

The close night sky in the portal made much more sense once I got to view it up close, since we were literally IN space. It looked like someone had torn a city (a very large one mind you) out of the ground and let it float among the stars. Buildings extended for as far as the eye could see, all of varying shapes and styles. "This is...temporary?" I said in shock. This place was just a random camp set up to wait on the glade, but it looked like it had taken centuries to build.

Zeke snorted. "They've probably got a high ranking Architect around somewhere. I've seen variations of that ability that can make entire countries with a snap of their fingers. There are a bunch of ways to do it. Though out in space like this they either had the rock shipped out or they hired one of the Fantasy based variants. The latter would be pretty damn expensive though."

There was a sound as a man cleared his throat, and we turned to see a short, burly man with curly dark hair and horns. His eyes were goat eyes and he had a small patch of facial hair that went well with his annoyed expression somehow. He held out a hand. "My tip?"

Rolling his eyes, my uncle started muttering something about Waywalkers, and fished out a chit he flipped to the goat man. The other ascendant caught the chit, then made a show of biting it while staring at Zeke, before nodding and vanishing into thin air in a blink. I was guessing since Zeke had been transported too, tipping wasn't a breach of contract, but I wasn't going to ask in case he'd just managed to slip that by the geass by not thinking about it.

"So...we're here." Said Callie slowly. "Wherever here is. Does this place have a name?" She looked around excitedly. "Actually, I can find out on my own. I should try out my new powers here. I can use them to spy on everyone around here to figure out all the important info. Learn the ins and outs of the city."

She stepped toward a wall, but Zeke held up a hand. "Don't!" He said quickly. When she stopped to give him a confused look he just sighed. "Don't forget that your ability, while amazing, IS Perception based. Anyone with a sufficiently high Perception can detect you even in the shadows. This place is full of random elders and faction management. Given the low standard of the cluster, I'm guessing that there won't be many B-rankers, if any, but a C or D-ranker is more than up to noticing you."

Wincing slightly she stepped away from the wall. "Ah. And you can't protect me because I'm not your charge. Speaking of, D-rank is the new level of protection you can offer right? If we run into any E-rankers and piss them off we're screwed." She sounded about as worried as I felt.

Zeke just waved it off. "Oh sure, but there won't be any here. Sending an E-ranker to this place would be stupid. Everyone else would be stronger, or weaker, depending on if they were entrants. With the Glade blocking anyone below or over F-rank, and any protectors being notably powerful, most of the people will be C-rank. Only lower middle class factions will send B-rankers. Strong enough to have them but weak enough not to trust their reputation to protect their people."

That seemed to put Callie back on balance. "That makes sense. This whole thing is its own kind of challenge. The chaperones will be seen as expressions of both power and confidence. Won't having you here make us seem weak though? You're WAY overkill for this place."

"Nah." Said my uncle casually. "I'm his sole protector, technically speaking. Stuff like this tends to be a gray area for candidates. If anything having a protector like me is bound to impress. Most candidates get rookies like her." He jabbed a thumb as Selka, who was standing next to a calm but interested Nat.

The other guardian bristled. "I'll have you know that I'm a talented combatant. You don't get chosen to be guardian unless you can handle yourself. Don't treat me like some punk kid."

Zeke just grinned maliciously. "Awww, it thinks it's dangerous. How cute. Here's the thing though, you ARE some punk kid. It become exponentially harder to rank up as you move up. You may never reach B-rank, and even if you do it'll take you absurd amounts of time to reach the point I'm at in B-rank. By that time I'll probably be an A-ranker." He paused. "Or dead. I might just be dead. Either way, respect your elders kid."

Her glare was almost funny, until I snickered and she turned it on me, at which point I shut up. "Anyway." Said Callie firmly, regaining attention. "Where are we going? Do we have some sort of...faction safehouse here? Are there other WCP branches here? Can we trust them if there are?"

"There are, and we can't." My uncle said firmly. "I don't know if there are other candidates, though if there are I would wager not many. Regardless, the WCP isn't cohesive enough for that. Maybe if it was another member of your branch, but there's no way to know at the moment. Too many people for me to keep track of, so I can't even check. Not that my geass would allow it."

Callie scowled. "So...maybe a hotel or something? Do we even have the money for that?" I hadn't paid much attention to join funds lately, but I knew I personally was just short four and a half E-rank coins. I was betting that would NOT be enough.

Zeke just gave her a pitying look. "Did you forget we're traveling with a pair of wishmaster candidates? They're basically walking piggy banks. You can trade wishes for nearly anything." He pointed over at Nat and I and I scowled at him in annoyance.

"Hey!" I said loudly. He just raised an eyebrow at me. I looked away, grumbling to myself. "You could be nicer about it, you know. I'm not just some asset to pay for things."

"You're a PAIN in my asset." He drawled. "But we can figure out where to go with an easy trick of the trade. I wish we had the location of a safe place to stay." I blinked at him. Zeke had never wished for anything from me. I could see how it was within his geass, since he needed a place to stay too. He paused as the words flowed across my vision. "Oh, payment." He pulled out a chit and flicked it to me. An F-ranked chit, which was pretty decent.

Wish detected. Grant wish? I confirmed, accepting the point cost which was much lower than my usual wishes theese days. There was a flash of electricity and I realized why there had been Creation points folded in. A piece of paper covered in a spidery scrawl flashed into existence, a map that showed all the nearby areas, including a single neatly marked X off to on side, with a caption over it saying. "Daylight Dreamer Inn."

I grinned at him. "That's a good idea. I take it you want me to get more used to using my Wishes as an asset now that I'm stronger?'

He nodded amiably. "Yup. There will probably be another candidate or two around here, given the sheer scope of a cluster wide search. Even candidates who don't travel horizontally among similar scale worlds like Natalie probably got swept up in this mess."

Clapping me on the shoulder, he chuckled lightly. "More candidates means that your Wishes are both more and less valuable. You can use them more freely, but they aren't quite as limited a commodity as they used to be. You'll need to adjust to the new environment. Granted, it's pretty specific to places like this, but the Ruined Soul Temple will be one of those locations as well, so it's something to get used to."

I nodded, following Callie as she grabbed the map from Zeke and set off in a direction. Benny stepped up next to me. "This place is nuts, right?" He said, gesturing around us. "Because I thought Rajak was big, but this place has to be like...half the size, and they put it together short term as a place to hang out and wait? Architect or no that's insane."

"Yeah." I murmured back. "I feel that. I think I feel...slower here. Weaker maybe? Which is nuts because my stats are higher. This must be a higher level area than our planet. Probably just D-rank though. If we were more than a rank up right now I assume it would be much more obvious."

Zeke, who was ahead of us, turned to nod. "Yeah, D-rank. Since your planet is a psuedo D-rank world anyway it's less difference than you would expect. It won't have much effect at this level. Just a bit of suppression and a change to the strength of your abilities. Nothing too noticeable with all the recent upgrades."

"It's true." Celine said solemnly. "I've been on higher ranked planets before. Your combat efficiency doesn't drop much, considering it's a linear change across the board. The one difference is that the surrounding environment tends to be harder to damage. I doubt it would be a simple thing to destroy a building here, if we were even capable of doing so."

Which seemed like a big change from our psuedo D-rank planet, but then again, this place was much smaller. Maybe the Impact was more condensed here. Suffice to say I could understand why they didn't let anyone under F-rank off the planet. While this was only mildly stifling for us, I got the feeling that with twenty less Impact it would be much more difficult to bear with, even if still possible.

Finally we came to a stop in front of a large, tower like building. With cream colored walls and red tiled roof, the place looked like a vacation destination more than a run of the mill inn, but it was definitely upscale enough to be a feasible place to stay. Zeke looked it over carefully before nodding. "Decent security and top notch stealth. Probably a high C-ranker running the place. Not perfect but more than enough for our purposes."

I was curious how it had top notch stealth when we found it so easily, but I was sure I wouldn't care about the answer anyway. He said it was fine and I trusted his judgement. So we stepped inside, strolling up to the counter. The girl behind it had black hair in a ponytail, pale skin, and dark lips with a single ring in them. Her eyes were ringed with dark liner, and she mostly ignored us as we approached, engrossed in a leather bound book.

Knocking on the counter, I cleared my throat. She looked up. "I'm hoping to talk to your boss about accommodations." She pointed above her head at sign with pricing on it before returning to her read. Must be a fascinating story. I scanned the values and sure enough, WAY too many chits. I grinned, knocking again. "Tell them we're from the WCP. And we're willing to trade wishes." It was satisfying how quick she slammed the book shut. It's nice to be taken seriously.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The owner of the Daylight Dreamer Inn was not what I expected. Though to be fair that was probably more my issue than his. He looked younger than I'd thought, but reconsidering Ascendants were almost always young looking, at least once they were full grown.

Sindar was more the kind of person you'd expect to see at a club than in the office of an inn though. Handsome guy, dark skin, dark eyes, and long wavy black hair. He had on an expensive looking suit (which for an Ascendant meant it was enchanted) and had an easy smile that was belied by the coldness in his brown irises. I could tell he was trying to give off the impression of a friendly, amiable guy, and I could ALSO tell that if I believed that impression I was going to get badly ripped off.

Which was interesting, because he was at least at the peak of F-rank (probably one of the entrants), and he really should have had a Skill that would make it harder for me to spot that. It took me a second to realize that I'd picked it up through the bond, and that Callie, with her high perception stat, was the one who had noticed. It was a bit jarring how smoothly that had come through, honestly.

"So." Said Sindar. "I'm told you have a precious resource you're seeking to barter with." He folded his hands in front of him as he smiled at us cooly. Then he did...nothing. Damn it. He was waiting for us to make the first offer. I tried to consider who would be the best fit for this situation. Benny had the haggling Skill, but it was Minor, and there was no way it would useful here.

To my relief, Celine stepped forward, offering a cool smile. "Mr. Wyndham is interested in safe lodgings until the Glade fully opens, but we had some...concerns. Just a few questions we need to have answered before we can decide if your establishment is right for us."

I had to stifle a sigh of relief, and Callie felt the same, as we both turned to stare at Celine. Because of course being a noble she knew how to negotiate. I was suddenly extremely glad that we'd brought her along, because she clearly had a much better handle on this situation than any of us.

What came next was a master class in diplomacy. I learned enough to almost pick up a Skill just watching her I think. First she turned the tables on him with that initial reversal, forcing him to go on the defensive instead of waiting patiently for us to respond. Once she had him off balance she pretty much tore him apart.

Every comment he made was taken in the worst possible light, every open ended statement was looped around to be a negative. It was almost beautiful watching the character assassination of his inn, and by the time she was done, I don't think even HE considered the place worth staying at. She finished the negotiations with a one wish per day payment schedule over a single month, and he looked confused and almost nauseous when she was done.

As we headed up to our rooms, each of us with our own room key,we all turned to stare at Celine in horrified fascination. She just gave a small but smug smile. "Negotiations are an important part of diplomacy. As a noble I'm naturally quite experienced in the art of discourse. I hope that was helpful?"

Callie burst out laughing. "You smug ass, of course it was helpful, and you know it. But I appreciate the save either way. I'm glad we decided to bring you along. You're officially in charge of haggling and negotiations." As she saw Celine's smile grow, she countered it with one of her own. "I wouldn't be so happy about that if I were you. We're about to go to an interstellar market. You're about to get a pretty sizable amount of work."

The elf girl's expression fell as she realized she'd basically just been upgraded to a personal shopper for the foreseeable future, and Benny snickered at his girlfriend's dismay, only for her to whirl on him and shoot him a surprisingly expressive glare. "Oh, I wouldn't be laughing if I were you." She said sweetly. "I know you have the haggling Skill, and I plan to train you up so that we have more options in the future. You're going to be coming along everywhere I go."

His eyes widened in panicked horror, but sadly for him, his fate was sealed, Celine grabbed him by the wrist, wished us all luck with finding our rooms, and dragged him off down the hallway. Callie was smirking as she watched them leave, a thoughtful look on her face I didn't really like. The last thing I needed was my girlfriend deciding she needed to take a firmer hand in our relationship.

"Oh hey." I said desperately. "I forgot to ask you what you think about my weapon? I'm about to replace it. Zeke was talking about possibly picking up the staff so I could learn a martial art. What do you think?" She was startled out of her thoughts by the question, which was about weapons and therefore BASICALLY loot. Helping me shop would keep her distracted, and I also really wanted her opinion.

The others had scattered to their rooms, leaving the two of us alone to find ours, and she looked pensive as we walked. "That's a good question. I could see how a staff might work, but it seems...off. The length is wrong. Maybe I just got used to you with a cane though. If you think it would work I could see it though. Maybe take it further, try for the spear? Having a blade on the end of your weapon might be nice."

I shook my head firmly. "Hard pass. A lot of my Skills increase flat impact damage. A blade would mitigate some of the advantages, and it just...feels wrong. Not like me." Pushing through the door to our room, I looked around in surprise and enthusiasm, stopping the conversation so I could take in the new digs.

The hallways of the inn had been well appointed but small. About five feet across, with thick carpets, smooth painted walls and the odd bit of bric-a-brac or a painting hanging at eye level. I expected similarly meager sizes for the rooms, but when we stepped inside, I was blown away.

If the room had been some gymnasium sized palace with tons of marble and beautiful gold accents I'd have been pleased and amused but not shocked. Rather, ostentatious and huge was what I'd come to expect from Ascendant places. To my surprise though, this place was actually pretty homey. It wasn't a small room, fifteen feet by fifteen or so, and painted in dark earth tones.

The furniture was plush without being showy, looking a bit beat up but supremely comfortable. The only nod to traditional over the top Ascendant decorating was the absolutely massive bed, large enough for me to lie sideways and not have my head or feet stick out. Callie bolted across the room, throwing herself bodily through the air to land with a loud whump on the mattress with a giggle, making comforter angels as she groaned in appreciation.

"Ok." She said in a voice of utter bliss. "We're buying this bed, or we're sneaking it out when we leave. We'll have spatial rings, we can pull it off. I demand we carry this with us everywhere now. What rank is this?"

I glanced down at the bed, surprised based on how happy she was that it was only G-rank. I didn't see enchantments or anything, but for all I knew it was an Invention, some random interaction between materials making the perfect bed. I dropped my bag, dropping my mask on the dresser as I walked over to climb up onto the absurdly comfortable mattress.
Callie's earlier groan had been completely understandable, and I made one of my own as I pretty much melted into the cloudlike softness of the bedding. "Ok. Deal. This is ours now. I'm never letting anyone else sleep in this bed. It belongs to us and there's nothing anyone can say to convince me otherwise."

She rolled over to cuddle up next to me. "My hero." She stayed like that for a bit, and I was about to bring up the weapon again when she finally spoke up. "Doesn't this feel weird?"

With the bond and my own knowledge of her, I could tell exactly what she meant. "It does. Being on our own like this. Like, we were living on our own anyway basically, minus Zeke who doesn't count as an authority figure, but being out in the wider universe together like this...it feels like a big deal."

She looked up at me, bottomless blue eyes boring into mine. "Big in a bad way? Are you having second thoughts about us?"

Leaning down for a quick kiss, I shook my head, laughing. "Hardly. It just makes me amazed at how far we've come. From dancing around each other until you finally asked me out. I spent a while just dragging my feet and it makes me wonder if we'd have had more time together if I had just had the guts to ask instead of asking you on dates until you broke from the frustration."

That got a giggle. "It's ok sweetie. I don't mind that you made me work for it. Besides, I like where we are. We were friends before we got together and I think it made us more comfortable with each other. Without all those dates you probably would have been a squealing fanboy still." At my offended noise she grinned at me. "Oh please, I remember the first time we met. If your jaw dropped any faster it would have broken the sound barrier."

"I have no idea what you are talking about." I said with dignity. "I admit I always found you attractive, but I certainly never let it unbalance me."

Rolling her eyes, she kissed my cheek. "Owning my merch would say otherwise, but whatever you need to tell yourself, love." She paused. "You as excited about this whole Moonsong Glade thing as I am?"

"Probably not." I said mildly. "There's loot in them there woods. I'm surprised you're even lucid. I half expected you to be floating along a golden scent trail into the void with giant credit signs flashing in your eyes." Her glare was adorable, and I ignored it. "But...I am kind of pumped about all the new enemies. Not to mention my new earth and plant based divination skills will come in so much handy here."

She lit up. "That's TRUE! Oh I can't wait to get mountains of treasure and then sell some of it. I want a giant vault filled with chits with piles of magic items strewn throughout it. Maybe we can drag the bed into the vault and sleep on piles of our money." Her high pitched squeal of delight made me chuckle as I tried to imagine her as a dragoness sleeping on a hoard of treasure.

"Well." I said with a yawn. "I think we'll have plenty of cool treasures to see in the bazaar. You can have as much fun out there as you want. For now though, this comfy bed is making me tired. We should head take a nap, then we can figure out our next move after."

Snuggling into my side, she let out her own yawn, glaring at me for getting her started. "I guess we can do that. I am feeling a little sleepy." And I closed my eyes, letting the warmth of the bed and someone I loved lull me to sleep on a floating city in space above an alien world. My life could be pretty cool sometimes.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I woke up to the sound of pounding on my door. Not urgent pounding, granted, but someone wanted me to wake up. It was annoying and I tried to ignore it, but they were insistent and I eventually dragged myself out of bed, ignoring the annoyed whine of my extremely clingy girlfriend as she burrowed into the covers. When I threw the door open with a glare, I was mostly unsurprised to see Benny waiting for me, Celine looking mildly uncomfortable behind him.

"What!" I snapped, knowing it wasn't anything serious by the smug look on his face. I'm not a morning person almost ever, but being woken up before I've finished sleeping puts me in a bad mood every time. Even for naps, premature wake ups are the best way to piss me off if there's no special reason for us.

He just raised an eyebrow, long since immune to my bad moods. "You've been sleeping for like four hours, and I'm bored. We want to go to the bazaar now."

"I'd like it noted that this wasn't my idea." Celine said, raising a hand to get my attention. "Also hi Shane. I told him to let you sleep, but he's actually kind of excited about the shopping, despite how scared he was earlier when I told him that he'd have to learn to haggle."

Benny glared at her. "Don't TELL him that! Now he's going to think I'm a huge pushover."

"Oh please." I snorted. "That ship sailed years ago." I blew out a breath in annoyance. "I...guess we could go out. I'm up now so I guess it doesn't matter." I looked over my shoulder. "Hey, Cal, you up?" My girlfriend's only response was a hand with the middle finger out poking through the covers. Celine actually giggled at that, and I turned back to Benny. "Yeah, she's up. I wouldn't expect much civility from her for a while though."

There was a series of muffled words croaked out from under the blanket, and Celine went red as Benny blanched. "You can't say that to someone!" He squeaked. "Where did you even learn to talk like that?" Her hand snaked out again and pointed to where I was standing. My best friend glared at me. "You're a bad influence."

I just gaped. "I didn't tell her to say that!" I snapped indignantly. "She's got an even worse mouth than I do sometimes when we're alone." Sulking a bit, I huffed. "Go get ready or whatever, we'll be out in a bit to get going. You check with the others? Do they want to go?"

He shook his head. "Mel and Abel already left to explore, Jessie is cuddling with the animals, Natalie is in her room and Cark and Cass are in for now. I went to check in and I think Cass decided to follow in your footsteps and take a nap. Cark was hanging out reading some book Zeke gave him. Seemed pretty into it. Basically, it'll just be the four of us."

I hadn't seen a spot to put the animals, but this place was an Ascendant inn, so they probably had a basement for it or something. Shutting the door in Benny's face, I walked over to grab some clothes. There was an attached showed behind a hanging tapestry on the wall that I'd only just noticed. I poked Callie as I went by. "You want to join me?" There was some muffled muttering and I winced. "Not only is that not anatomically possible, even if it was I wouldn't do it. How about you wake up a bit while I shower and we can talk later." Her response was a muffled grunt that may or may not have been a four letter word.

By the time I came out, Callie was awake, albeit wearing the blanket like a hood. She'd managed to scrounge up a cup of coffee from somewhere and was sipping it, staring blankly into the distance. I snickered because I'd seen this before. When Callie was really tired, especially after partial naps, her brain kind of overloaded itself after waking up. She would stare into space while her thoughts ran for a few minutes, letting her mind catch up.

Despite that, when I walked in, wearing my armor, her eyes snapped up to me. "Shower." She croaked. And I just laughed and gestured that it was all hers. She downed the coffee like a shot, shook her head back and forth like she was trying to shake start it, and the stumbled into the bathroom, grabbing her clothes on the way. After she left I grabbed my mask off the dressed and popped it on my face, then I started stretching a bit to loosen myself up after that absurdly comfortable nap.

The hot water from the shower had relaxed me a ton too, and the combination meant I needed to warm my muscles up a bit to really feel like I was awake. As I was stretching, the tapestry pushed aside and steam billowed out of the bathroom. "Oh gods." Groaned Callie as she emerged. "I'm going to punch Benny in the throat someday when he isn't looking."

I just laughed. "Don't be so grumpy. The nap would have messed up your sleeping schedule anyway. Besides, I'll make you breakfast to make it up to you. In return make sure he IS looking when you punch him in the throat." She giggled at that as she dried her hair with a towel, not worried about normal water damaging her armor or anything. "Anyway, aside from the spatial rings, you planning to look for anything?"

She gave a hum of consideration. "I think I might look into some weapons myself. I raided the pavilion coffers before we left, so we'd have enough for rings, but I should have some leftovers for a dagger or something. My personal stash I'm saving for wishes, but I think it's about time for me arm up. If you remember I can imbue my darkness into items and control them like shadows. I did it with my bike, though it took years of imbuing and special materials."

"Ah." I said, understanding her point. "You've improved. Your new rank and all the stats will make it easier. Plus I bet having a smaller target would help too. Will you need to find a dagger with special materials for that? Or can you just brute force it with anything darkness related." I wasn't sure even a market this big would have her weapons if they were too rare.

She grinned at me. "Pretty much. I just...gods Shane, I never thought I'd be this strong at this age. It would have taken me YEARS in Valen to get to F-rank, if I ever did. I might have been able to do it in Rajak if I'd left with my dad originally, but I'd have basically been selling my soul. Now not only am I an F-ranker with a TERRIFYING new ability, I have a whole team of friends and I'm STILL growing. By this time next year I might be at E-rank at this rate!"

I wanted to tell her not to jump the gun but...she wasn't wrong. I didn't think it would be quite that fast. but still I could see her point. "So...you're happy then?" She gave me a flat look and I held up my hands. "Ok, forget I asked. I know we just talked about this. I just worry. I don't want you to regret coming with me."

She rolled her eyes. "You're such an idiot about some stuff. You're lucky you're so cute. Not much in that giant head of yours."

It was my turn to flip her off, to which she just giggled, then finished brushing her hair and dragged me out of the room. We met up with Benny and Celine in the downstairs entryway, and then the four of us set out to explore the city. As a cheat, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the map that led us here, but it didn't actually help at all. Lots of streets and buildings but nothing was labeled.

"Nice try." Said Zeke's voice from behind me. I jumped out of my skin, whirling to find m uncle leaning against the wall behind us. He gave a lazy wave.

"What are you doing out here Zeke?" I asked incredulously. "You're usually pretty hands off. Do you have something you wanted to pick up?"

He sighed. "This place has way too many C and B-rankers. I can cross a planet in a blink, but that only matters if my abilities are leagues above everyone else. If two equally strong B-rankers are attacking someone, the closest wins. Don't want to risk you pissing off someone who might be a genuine threat. After that big show I put on I figure I should stick close."

That hadn't occurred to me, but it seemed like a sensible precaution. "The mask won't work on high rankers. Right." I paused for a second. "Wait...is this mask made from a person? I know your other ones are..."

He snickered. "No. I have a limit to how many greater masks I can make. I can add little buffs and stuff to them with my Voltomancy easily enough, but soul binding a mask is complicated and time consuming, and I can't sustain too many of them. Thirteen at a time, give or take. I can make as many lesser masks as I want from lower ranked Ascendants, but I usually don't bother."

"That's a super creepy power." Said Benny matter of factly. "Just in case you didn't know. At least they're masks made of porcelain and not like...actual faces."

Zeke nodded solemnly. "Even I have limits. Anyway, you're all looking for the marketplace. What specifically were you hoping to find? I know spatial rings, but I also know Shane wanted a weapon. What kind of weapon did you settle on? I can point you in the right direction. Since I'm with you and don't feel like wandering around for hours it's only really helping myself."

I nodded. "I've been waffling, but I decided on a specific type of staff that has the properties I like. It's called a Bang. Some crazy Ascendant with a monkey trait used to use one a long time ago. It's a short staff made of wood with long iron caps on both ends. Small, heavy, and with good spin, plus it's compact and easy to carry on my back. There are some martial arts that use that kind of weapon, so I can pick up some new Skills with it and keep a similar style of combat."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I know the guy you mean. Way before my time obviously, but I think the original Wishmaster knew him. Gods don't age at all as far as I know, and he's been around a LONG time. Not that I can swear to it, I've only met the old man a few times. He likes to spoil the grandkids but attendants aren't usually allowed near him. Me and Eli were close so he got an exception made."

I stared at him in shock. "You...met the Wishmaster. The original? What was he like? I always figured he'd be really scary."

"He wasn't." He said simply. "But because of that...he was. Being a god and being able to hide your presence so thoroughly you seem like a normal old man? He looks to be in his fifties probably, and the one time I met him I couldn't tell. Not based on the way he moved, or talked, or even his senses. He just felt...regular. It was extremely jarring, because I knew he could atomize me with a strong thought."

He trailed off, seeming distracted, so I focused back on the task at hand. "We can talk about that later. For now, let's see if we can find my weapon. I assume you have a place in mind?" The grin he gave me in response made me a bit worried, honestly. I got the feeling this was going to be a wild kind of place.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Well." I said uncertainly. "I wasn't expecting...this." Zeke smirked smugly as we stood on the stairs down into an underground chamber filled with tables and stalls. The whole individual vendor thing wasn't a surprise, since this city was supposed to be a bazaar. No, the surprise was the fact that the entire setup was built on a giant sword sticking out of the rock of the cavern.

Below us, I could see a yawning abyss, and off far in the depths, a few shining lights that had to be stars. The hole we were standing in dropped out the bottom of the city into fucking SPACE. Weirdly, the air here was fine, and I wasn't too worried about freezing to death or my lungs exploding, but even knowing that empty space was within sight was seriously freaking me out.

My uncle took in a deep breath, inhaling the smoky, metallic smelling air. "Titanblade emporium. The whole giant sword thing is a bit of a gimmick, but the family that runs the place are weapon fanatics. They're a unity wide organization, and have branches like this all over. I knew someone would have set one up here."

Benny raised a hand cautiously. "Um...what the hell is big enough to use THAT." He pointed at the sword. "Or is it just a platform made to look like a sword."

Zeke chuckled. "Nope. Every Titanblade emporium is built on an ACTUAL titanblade. Giant swords forged for the elders of the Kyros family. They're size shifters, some of the very best. Dakken Kyros, the S-ranker who founded their clan, is known as the Worldhurler. Because he literally gets big enough to THROW planets. Pretty high rank ones too."

I stared down at the massive sword and gulped, but Zeke just patted me on the back. "Don't worry so much. That thing is a push pin compared to one of Dakken's blades. I've seen the main branch of their emporium before. The sword is stuck in the side of that planet like a dart in a dartboard. The hilt reaches the atmosphere. I'd imagine this thing probably belonged to one of the C-rankers the family sent over."

Thinking of a blade that size was...terrifying. Especially since the emporium was probably on a high ranking planet, and they got BIGGER as you ranked them up. It was part of the reason for the gravity increase. Some of it was the weight of Impact, but massive planets had a stronger gravitational pull. You could probably fit a hundred Calluses lengthwise in whatever world that blade was stuck in.

Walking down the steps, we made our way onto a crystalline energy bridge that extended from the bottom of the steps, leading us out into the metal platform created by the huge blade. I expected the floor to shudder or make a hollow clang, but it was like stepping onto a normal metal floor. The only strange thing was that I could feel some of the Impact of this thing. It was much higher ranked than I was, though it seemed to be suppressed somehow.

Since my uncle didn't seem to know more about this place than where it was, it took some wandering around to find the shop we needed, but find it we did. One specific old man sitting at a blanket covered in a literal pile of staves, in front of a squat red tent. As we approached, I started looking through them, but since some of them were buried under the others I eventually got sick of trying to differentiate with just my eyes and turned to ask him. "Hey, I was wondering if you have a short staff with iron caps on the end."

The old man, white hair hanging in a braid down his back and hands folded in the sleeves of his long red robe with gold trim, sighed, muttering. "There's always one." His eyes focused on me. "Yes. I have a Bang you can buy."
"Perfect." I said with a grin. "I'm looking for and enchanted one that-"

"Changes size." He cut me off with annoyance. "I know. Like I said. There's always one. I don't have a size changing staff. They're pointless and not cost effective. You wouldn't be able to handle the increased Might requirements when using it, and even if you could, without some kind of specialized Skill for it, or a staff that was indestructible, it would either be impossible to control or just break under its own weight."

This had the air of a rehearsed speech, but despite how direct he was, I felt the need to point out the obvious. "We're STANDING on a giant sword."

He groaned. "We're standing on a giant sword MADE to be a giant sword. It doesn't change sizes. It's a huge blade made with the express purpose of being used by a huge person. That's why Titanblades are made like that. I can't sell your a size changing weapon, and if I could, I wouldn't because it's stupid."

I just stood there and blinked at him for a second before sighing. "Ok, fine. What does the staff do? And what rank is it? I was hoping for an E-rank weapon. Future proof my layout a bit. Do you have a bang that's E-ranked?"

Shoving his hand into the pile, he fished around for a second before withdrawing...power. The staff WAS E-rank, and I could tell it would be tough to get used to. I knew that people could use weapons and armor one rank above them, but I'd never asked what was required to actually do it. Judging from this sensation, I was going to need to train with this thing for a while just to be able to hold it.

The shaft of the staff was deep, rich brown wood, the grain seeming to form enchantment symbols on its own, though the symbols were never the same when I was looking at it too long. The caps on the ends were made of a greyish black iron, and I could see screaming faces in the metal, their empty eyes pleading for release in a truly chilling way.

"Ghost iron and Infernal Ash wood. Enchanted by an elven master. They have a peculiar way with wood based enchantments. The weapon can pass through solid objects if you focus. The ghost iron also has the interesting effect of absorbing minute traces of life energy on contact. The energy can't exist inside the necrotic metal stably, so it's stored and corrupted, and can be released and an explosive burst of death damage."

He offered it to me, and when I took it I almost staggered at how heavy it was. Not physically, but...in other ways. The Impact of the staff weighed on me, making it feel like I was standing under a great burden. I loved it. "It's perfect." I whispered as I ran my hands over it. "How much?"

He squinted at me calculatingly. "That's a lower end E-rank weapon, but it's made from the finest materials. I'd say fifteen E-ranked coins." I winced, since there was no way I could afford that, but when I went to argue, I was cut off as Celine stepped in.

I'd forgotten she was our go to for haggling so I back off as she issued her counter offer, and when it was rejected, tore into the old man. She started making weirdly accurate deductions about his social standing and effectiveness based on his placement in the market and the condition and organization of his wares.

Sadly despite my hope that our terrifying negotiator would be able to get him down low enough, He stopped at ten E-rank coins and refused to go lower. He wasn't an amateur like Sindar had been, and Celine's skills (or possibly Skills) weren't enough.

"Alright." I cut in once the haggling stalled. "How about this?" I wrote down a few lines on a piece of paper I was carrying
and passed it over, and his eyes widened in shock when he saw them, then narrowed in suspicion.

He glanced from me to the paper. "How many?" I held up three fingers. "And you want me to throw in six rings?" I nodded. His eyes gleamed with avarice. "I can use them as the actual payment, yes? Because if these are compensation I'm not paying twice."

"Yes." I said firmly. "If you have somewhere private nearby to go we can do the trade directly." I poked a thumb at Zeke. "Though be warned if you decide to try anything funny I'm not without protections." This guy didn't strike me as the type to watch tournaments, and even if Zeke couldn't intervene most of the time, there was no need for him to know that.

Zeke met his eyes, and there was a frisson of pressure, too fast and focused to jar the sword or alert anyone else. The old man's eyes went wide again, this time with fear. He was an F-ranker, which meant he was old as hell to look like he did. Like thousands of years old, but feeling what Zeke really was obviously scared him shitless.

He led us back into the tent, closing the flaps, then he touched a few runes that lit up with contact and turned to nod at us. I'd carried the staff in, but he plucked it out of my hands and dropped it on a pillow in the middle of the tent, fishing in a pocket and pulling out six rings. "As agreed. Three wishes. One for the staff, one each for three rings." At my nod, he grinned. "Good. I wish to be young again."

Wish detected. Grant wish? I was positive this wouldn't work like he wanted, but I confirmed, and sure enough. Insufficient stat points to restore youth to target. Requirements: NA reversing thousands of years or Ascendant aging beyond the capacity of Intermediate Wish ability. I'd assumed it wouldn't work, but I expected that message. It was the same one I got when Benny tried to wish for a Master rank ability when I was at Minor.

"That's not going to happen." I said bluntly. Before he could argue, I cut him off. "As in, I don't have the stats to do that. You're too high ranked and it's too much time. I'd suggest shooting for something a bit more feasible." I didn't suggest a wish, because I was paranoid about them not working if they knowingly benefited me too much, but with the hint I was confident the old man would think of something.

He looked annoyed, but then thought it through. "I wish for ten biological years of my youth restored to me." He said confidently. I confirmed when the wish came up but shook my head. "Nope. Too much, scale it back. That's three hundred and twenty years of life. Literally ten percent of your total lifespan."

He snarled out a curse and then snapped. "Fine! Three years. I wish for three biological years of my life back." He paused, waiting to be let down, but...huh. That actually worked. Maybe because of the three times modifier or maybe it was just a more reasonable ask.

When I told him he brightened a bit. Considering three times thirty two was ninety six, which made the three years I'd given him almost three more centuries of lifespan, I could understand why. He made all three wishes, then passed us over the rings and handed me back the staff. He looked sprightlier, albeit not to an insane degree. He'd probably been biologically in his mid nineties (albeit in extremely good shape because of Vitality), so taking him down to ninety two wasn't a huge physical change. Still I could tell, especially with my Perception being what it was.

I weighed the staff (apparently it was a Stygian Branch) in my hands, grinning madly at my new weapon and how much fun it would be to use it, and thanked the old man before we moved on. We had more shopping to do, looking for a weapon for Callie and possibly something for Benny to integrate alongside the new inventions he informed me he'd just finished. I was happy to shop though. I still had all my money to spend. This would be so much fun.

 

[BJJPanda]

He should have checked other stalls, scope the options