Malcolm Tent
patreon
Wish upon the Stars chapter 606
🕑 Added 2024-04-17 23:45:37 +0000 UTCWe ended up finding a nondescript inn near my mom’s place to stay, Chelsea making it clear to the owners that we valued our privacy. Once we all settled in at The Randy Skink (easily the worst inn name I’d ever seen) we headed to bed, eager to wake up the next morning and meet up with Gabe and Bethy. We made arrangements to rendezvous with them outside out inn.
“Shopping!” Cheered Bethy as she blurred up to us, Gabe nearly sprinting to keep up with her.
I grinned at my enthusiastic vampire friend. “Definitely.” I said with a laugh. I shot Gabe a wry glance. “I take it she’s been excited like this all morning?”
He sighed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.”Very much so. She’s been all but vibrating with excitement. I had to remind her that we all have our own money and that she doesn’t get to tell us how to spend it. There was pouting, but it wore off after about fifteen minutes or so.”
The aforementioned pout reappeared. “You’re all stupid.” Bethy said mutinously. “I am a connoisseur of fashion and style. No one can help you pick the best outfits like I can.”
“We aren’t here to buy clothes.” I said with a laugh. Then was forced to amend my statement by Callie’s threatening glare. “MOST of us aren’t here to buy clothes. You can help Callie look for a wedding dress if you want.”
Bethy squealed in glee, clapping her hands and bouncing up and down. “That’s so exciting!” Her face turned serious as she whirled on Callie. “How do you feel about spider silk? The softness is exquisite, but it's very thin, which means layers. I’d give it a six in tactile accessibility, a two in pricing, and maybe a four in auditory grace.”
Callie just blinked at her. “Auditory grace?” She asked hesitantly.
“Obviously.” Said the deadly serious vampire. “You don’t want to walk down the aisle with your dress tearing the air like a foghorn. Ascendant fashion is a higher level of art than mortal design. Our enhanced senses means that things like sound and smell are crucial. I’ve even seen formation dresses that blend the wearer with the flow of energy in the environment. Now THAT’S avant garde.”
I began to have a sinking feeling about my chances of getting out of this trip with much of my money left over. “Well, we need to get ourselves some new weapons while we’re here. My current staff is starting to get a bit out of date, and I want to take the opportunity to pick up a D-ranked weapon.”
“Shoo.” She said with a sniff. “Go buy your stabby things, real fashion is happening.”
Laughing, I turned and headed off. Callie was a big believer in the groom not seeing the dress before the wedding, and she was hoping to get her bridesmaids dresses in the same place as her wedding gown, so she ended up taking Mel, Jessie, Celine, and Chelsea with her, with Callen following behind to keep watch on his charge. Gabe took the opportunity to escape, leaving just me, him, Benny, Zeke, and Abel.
My uncle was mostly just trailing behind, taking small sips from the expensive mead bottle my mom had given him and sighing with bliss. And I was pretty pleased Callie hadn’t needed any chits for her dress. Not that I wouldn’t pay if I had to, but I’d almost forgotten after sharing pavilion expenses for so long that she had her own cash on hand for things other than wishes.
“So…weapons.” I said with a small laugh. “I’ll need something stronger. I know once you get up to Master rank weapons the two rank gap on usable gear turns to one, so I’ll have to stick with something D-rank.”
Zeke snorted. “The hundred to one chit ratio carries on from D-rank. You’re not even at a single C-rank chit, and weapons are expensive if they’re any good. It’ll be a while before you’re capable of affording a C-rank weapon. You SHOULD be able to get a pretty decent D-rank staff for what you have, provided you don’t get ripped off.”
I grimaced, but nodded. It wouldn’t be easy mobilizing even a D-ranked staff at my level. Much like my E-rank staff had been when I’d gotten it, it would be an adjustment, especially since I was pretty early into E-rank. Of course, between my income from wishes and my slowly growing renown, the last four months had pushed me much further ahead than I’d been before.
At ten points per wish and seven wishes a day for a hundred and twenty days I’d gained eighty four hundred points, and I’d gotten another thirty seven hundred in points from renown over that period, a total of twelve thousand one hundred stats.
It would have absolutely shattered all the windfalls I’d had before, but at E-rank that was just a drop in the bucket, barely more than a tenth of what I needed. Or it felt like that. I knew realistically that I was making absurd progress, and that it was only possible because of who and what I was.
Even other candidates wouldn’t be raking in points like I was, not having the boost from renown and great deeds like godslaying or winning a war. The excess was adding up, and the snowball effect was pushing me through E-rank faster than expected. Looking over my stats, I let out a low whistle at the differences.
Wishmaster candidate status. E-rank. Ability: Expert Wish- Seven times a day grant an Expert 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.
Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign- A Solid Path toward a great destiny.
Might-6005
Impact-65
Fantasy-4250
Vitality-5002
Focus-4020
Perception-4204
Creation-4554
Progress to next rank:28100/100000
Soul strength- Sapphire Soul Body
Stored:7 shadow attacks, 10 shadow jump (seven in reserve), 10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks, 10 triple strenth tranq blows (ten in reserve), 0 triple strength density shifted attacks. 10 spider leg attacks (ten in reserve), 0 heal bursts (3 reserve), 3 gravity attacks, 10 shadow clone (2 in reserve), 19 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)
Pet- Wolf named Jin
Financial resources:10 E-rank chits 80 D-ranked(worth 100 E-ranked, past master rank is a watershed)
Skills: Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign, Lesser Valtek Mastery, Intermediate Cooking Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Beginner Balam Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Intermediate Paired Dueling, Expert Dust Construction Mastery
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, False Fatality
Diviner: Overlay, Song of the Soil, Rhythm of the Wild, Eye of Revelation, Danger Sense, Piece of Mind
Two thousand points in each stat (I’d decided to concentrate on the ones the renown didn’t touch to round out my wish granting ability) plus the extra hundred had boosted my Vitality over five thousand. I’d also come close to breaking thirty thousand. Absurd progress for sure.
It would be more than enough to handle a well chosen D-ranked weapon, as long as I didn’t go overboard and get some uber heavy D-rank metal staff or something.
I hadn’t been sharing my progress with my friends over time (except Callie) because it just hadn’t come up, but when I mentioned how far I’d gotten to Benny he looked like he was about to fall over. “Damn it.” He swore. “Your power is such bullshit. It’s ridiculous that the WCP isn’t just full of S-rankers.”
“Becoming S-rank isn’t as simple as it sounds.” Denied Zeke. “Even getting to A-rank is exceptionally rare. Stats are the easiest part of progressing when you reach my level, and plenty of the advancement relies on things wishes can’t do much about.”
That was easy to forget for me, since I’d basically tripped into pushing through a lot of the bottlenecks I would face. Until I hit the peak of C-rank and formed my Chronicle, I wouldn’t be able to break through to B, but until then it was smooth sailing.
Except…maybe not. The Chronicle itself and some of the other aspects of advancement made me think some of the things Zeke had told me offhandedly were more important than he let on. Creating Skills, the connection between my legend and King Solomon’s, the way your path was supposed to help align your soul and stats.
The whole thing was part of this big overarching process I’d only been seeing parts of up until now, and it made me want to go back over everything I knew to see exactly what wrong conclusions I’d come to.
I shook that urge off, it wasn’t the time. For now I needed to find a good staff, something that would help me maximize my usage of my forms. Between my higher than average Impact and a higher ranked weapon, I’d be able to hang with even higher levelled E-rankers.
It was sad that the days where I could punch up with a high ranked weapon were gone, but even with a D-ranked staff I had no chance of seriously injuring a Master. Zeke had made that very clear when asked about it, because I wasn’t the first person to consider it. If that was all it took Callen wouldn’t have needed to use all his accumulation just to make the finishing blow on Weston.
To my surprise though, I wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines. “I want to get one too.” Benny said after we got a heading toward one of the markets. They tended to be on the edges of the territories, some with overlap between two factions and one big one in the center. “I’ve been talking to Callen and I think I want to learn to use a sword.”
I clicked my tongue. “Nah, you should get a hammer. With your abilities a big heavy mallet would work great. Especially since you got your hands on those flat stat amplifiers before we left Stratholme.”
It was one of the things that made me hopeful for Benny’s future, even without the kind of absurd growth I had. With those stat boosters (they boosted effect not actual value) he essentially had a high tier racial trait. Because of the interaction he’d need to replace them as he ranked up, but still, it was a great foundation to build a rep off of.
At my comment though, he just snorted. “I’m not taking weapon advice from someone whose entire combat philosophy is ‘whack it with a big stick’.” He said with an eye roll. “Callen is a genius swordsman, and a LITERAL sword Master. I’m sure he can teach me plenty about how the blade works.”
I sniffed disparagingly. “Well fine then. Have fun poking stuff with your oversized butter knife. I’ll continue to pursue a higher form of combat.”
“You’re both weak sauce.” Said Abel arrogantly. “Everyone knows real power comes from your fists. I don’t need any fancy tools to do damage. Just smash everything in front of me into paste and move on.”
Gabe snorted. “Imagine only using your own physical power to attack. Mounted combat is where the real power is. Haven’t you ever heard of the Fairy Queen’s Dragon Knights?” His lips were quirked up in a smile as he joined in the banter, and I found a matching grin on my own face.
Sometimes it was nice to just talk shit with your friends. Finally though, we got off a bus and stopped in front of a large market full of stalls, tents, and even a few actual shops. When we arrived, we all stopped talking, staring in awe at the bustle of powerful people in front of us. Time to pick my new weapon.
Comments
JJB4345_80_815
Thank you for the chappy! I really liked this line: (below) [quote] "Shoo.” She said with a sniff. “Go buy your stabby things, real fashion is happening.” [/quote]
