Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 570
🕑 Added 2024-02-29 00:48:19 +0000 UTCCamden seemed shaken after we talked, but I think it was something he’d needed to get off his chest. He’d been a rock since we met him, but running himself ragged trying to prepare had clearly caused some cracks to form. After unburdening himself about Spencer and how afraid he was I could see a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
“Thanks for listening.” He said quietly. “I’ve never told anyone outside my family that story. After I tried and failed to make them all see what he was like…I just never bothered.”
I was speechless for a minute. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t going to bug him about elixirs after THAT. “I’m going to talk to everyone. I want one of ours with you when everything goes down. Maybe Callen, he has experience.” He ALSO had that monstrous sword, and while I knew he wouldn’t draw it unless it was absolutely necessary, he should be able to drive off even a D-ranker with it, at least once he was E-ranked himself.
“And I’ll get you your elixirs.” He said after a pause. Seeing my surprise, he smiled. “Don’t be too touched. This is all about priorities. You’re right, the spears we can do later, but we need Benny to get the walls done in time. And we NEED those walls.”
Though I was excited to hear that, I couldn’t help but feel bad. “Look, this is your operation, man. I don’t want you to feel pressured into caving. Benny can wait if needed.”
“No.” He said with a sigh. “You’re right. I was too focused on offense. Thinking about what Spencer is capable of, a strong defense is the priority. We can rotate centuries for the defense points if needed, and keep working on the spears. But if we get overrun we’re screwed either way. I’ll cancel some of the material orders.” He scribbled out a note. “As much as I’d like to fund our healer’s early ascent now too, I can’t spend THAT much. Take this to the same Alchemist you used last time.”
I took the note gingerly, scanning it, and my jaw dropped. “This…Camden this is basically a blank check. Giving me this is ridiculous. What if I clean out the shop and take off?”
“If you were going to run you would have.” He said with a shrug. “And without you here I’m as good as dead anyway. Holding back is just going to weaken us, and with the alternative being death…I’m not sure I’m taking as big a risk as you think.”
But looking at his face, I saw this for what it was. An expression of trust. After finally telling me what he was afraid of, I think he’d decided to go all in. He’d realized that he had to trust somebody, and he was betting it all on us. Considering how terrified he’d sounded earlier about being betrayed and what had already happened…I couldn’t imagine how much courage that must have taken.
“I won’t let you down, man.” I said solemnly. “We’re in this together. All of us. Once you join our group we have your back no matter what. Count on it.”
It seemed ridiculous, given the size of my crew, that I’d feel so strongly for them, but I did. Whether because fully half of them were my closest friends and family, or just because of all that we’d been through and all they’d gotten me out of, I’d have risked my life for anyone of them. Even the ones I didn’t know very well, like Callen, were important parts of my life now.
That wasn’t the kind of thing you can put into words though, and even if I could, it’s not the sort of thing you believe when someone says it out loud. You showed loyalty and trust with actions, and I was pretty sure we’d made a good start from both sides here, if we hadn’t already when we decided to stay.
I thanked Camden for his help, and told him to get some rest and let Alister handle some of the day to day for a bit, and not to run himself ragged. Camden was an E-ranker, and was bound to be needed in the field even if he was a noble. It wouldn’t do to run himself ragged with busy work.
After that I went to go find Benny. When he heard what was going on he got so excited I thought he’d drag me to the Alchemist, and the two of us took off to go shopping for pills. As we walked, I chuckled at his enthusiasm. “Man, you’re pumped about this upgrade, huh?” I asked.
“Of course.” He said bluntly. “I hate being left behind, but more than that, my stats are INSANELY focused right now. I’m not as focused as Jessie, but you know as well as I do that having hyper focused my stats means my next rank up is likely to improve my ability somehow. I can get stronger. I WILL get stronger.”
There was a fire in his voice that I respected, and I clapped him on the back. “Damn right. I’m pretty curious myself actually. Focus and Might? Could really go either way. Or maybe you’ll just end up with a stronger variation of your current. Able to hold more items.”
He shrugged. “No point in guessing, the number of variables is uncountable. All I can do is hope.”
After that we went quiet as we entered the shop, giving the Alchemist Benny’s exact requirements and getting a bag of pills in return. He even gave us seven single point pills, so Benny wouldn’t need a wish to bridge the gap.
Once we had everything we made our way back to the officers barracks, figuring we could use my room for his rank up. It was a dangerous thing to go through, and I’d been stressed enough keeping Chelsea hidden. I didn’t mind playing guard for him during rank up, but I’d prefer to do this one inside.
When we got to my room he took out all the pills, laying them on the floor carefully. Four hundred ninety nine points in Might, and four hundred Ninety eight in Focus. With his current soul strength, withstanding the pills would be easy, but even at green the upgrade to E-rank wasn’t going to be easy. It couldn’t be, since Impact was going to almost double.
I watched my best friend grit his teeth as he suffered the pain of his Ascension, and as much as I wished I could just wave it after seeing it once or twice, I couldn’t. This was rough to watch, no matter how many times I saw someone go through it. He took the pills one by one, tossing them back without much reaction until he hit the last one.
His body locked up, muscles tensing as the Impact hit him. I watched with my Eye of Revelation, seeing that same burst of soul energy that overflowed and spilled over, improving the rest of him as he struggled not to scream.
Finally he toppled over, panting on the ground. I passed him a glass of water, helping him sit up to drink it. While Callie’s soul was stronger, and presumably Chelsea’s too, I was shocked by how bad this was for him. If he had this much trouble how much pain would the process cause someone with a normal soul?
When he was done, he checked his stats and grimaced. “Well, I got a bit of an upgrade. Guess for a bigger change I need a Skill to mix in there.” I wondered if that was true, or if he’d just mixed his ability badly. Not that I was even remotely willing to try my Skill building bullshit on something like an ability. I was likely to fuck up and kill someone.
“Well.” I said impatiently. “Why don’t you show me then, you overdramatic bastard? What did you get?” He chuckled weakly, pulling out some paper from his ring and scrawling out the details before sliding it over to me.
Benicio Cortez- E-rank. Ability: Expert Body of Inspiration- Allows the integration of existing artifacts into the users body for the purposes of strengthening and enhancing them, two items per placement.
Might-4474
Impact-65
Fantasy-256
Vitality-141
Focus-4641
Perception-282
Creation-171
Progress to next rank: 10030/100000
soul strength: Blue 65%
Pet- Wolf named Rolf
Current integrated tech. 10/20. Torso: G-ranked intangibility for short bursts. Right fist: triple punch. Left forearm: F-ranked energy barrier or variable shape. 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. Heart: Illusionary double
Skills:Minor Cooking Mastery, Intermediate Inventing Mastery, Lesser Haggling Mastery, Minor Stealth Mastery
I nodded with interest. “Not bad, double the chances to integrate is pretty solid. It’s not a qualitative change, but like you said you might need a Skill to include. But hey, at least your soul got stronger during the process.” Risk vs. reward, that was how Ascension worked. More pain meant more gain.
Looking at his stats though, I wondered about something else. Abilities. Abilities weren’t usually phrased like Skills. Mastery wasn’t part of the names most of the time, they were more freeform and unusual. I’d always written that off, but knowing what I did about how Skills worked and how Ascension itself worked…
Was it possible that keeping your ability made it easier to form a Path with it? I’d lucked into Path of the Doom Sovereign, but most people had trouble forming a Path, let alone a solid Path. Maybe there were more reasons than just fast growth that people preferred heroic cultivation.
I filed it away as yet another thing about cultivation that made no damned sense to me, and focused on my friend. Seeing his troubled expression, I rolled my eyes. “Stand up, idiot.” I said almost gently. “I get you’re bummed you didn’t get too big a change to your ability, but you’re ignoring the best part.”
Raising an eyebrow in confusion, he climbed to his feet and…nearly leapt into the ceiling. Touching down, he gaped at me before his face bloomed into a full on grin. “Ok…that’s fantastic.” He hopped from one foot to the other, and I grimaced.
“Damn it, your Might is way higher than mine.” I groused. “You’re going to be substantially stronger than I am now. I’ll have to beat you with cleverness and tact.”
He smirked at me. “I think you’ll need to DEVELOP cleverness and tact first.”
“I think you need to develop shutting the fuck up.” I replied with a pleasant smile. “Though to be fair, that’s been a long time coming so I don’t know why it would happen now.”
He rolled his eyes, but I could tell he was thrilled. Benny had been feeling a bit left behind recently. Sure he was helping by paying me with his density shifts, but it wasn’t like he was doing the actual work. He’d been pushing himself to get to E-rank so he could help again, really be of use.
“You realize, of course, that both of our workloads just like…quadrupled?” I asked him bluntly. “Now that you can density shift those blocks, we’ll need to work non stop to get done in time. Aside from wish time with Jessie we’re going to be doing manual labor almost non stop.”
He shrugged. “I don’t mind, as long as I’m better at it than you.” Despite the camaraderie of the moment though, I couldn’t resist the urge to snicker. When he heard me he looked annoyed. “What’s so funny?”
I dissolved into a gale of laughter, and it took me a second to choke out. “Sorry, it’s just. Your mom tried so hard to push you into being like your dad.” His eyes narrowed as I gasped out. “Now you’re going to spend the next few months working with rocks.” I knew it wouldn’t really bother him, Benny had a good relationship with his father, but still, the look of horror on his face was totally worth the lamp he threw at my head. He missed anyway.
