Wish upon the Stars chapter 457

"Benny!" I greeted my best friend as he finally made he way into the  manor we were staying in.  "How was training?" Killian had lent it to  use as our traveling accommodations, and everyone had long since gotten  used to it. Callie and I were laid out on the couch waiting for everyone  to get back before picking a movie, and my friend groaned and tiredly  dropped into a seat nearby as he arrived.

"Painful."  He said with a grimace. "But useful. Between the considerable help  you've given me over the last few months and my new piece of tech, I put  up a much better fight."

Callie  hummed with interest. "What are your stats actually at by the way?  You've been pretty secretive about the whole thing. Even Celine doesn't  know. Granted, she told me she hasn't told you hers either, but that's  just retaliation for being so secretive."

He  shrugged. "I've been avoiding saying anything because it feels like  I'll stop making progress if I talk about it. I know it's stupid, but  it's like a hot streak or something. Secrecy is my lucky underwear. If  we're going to slow down on training for the remainder though, might as  well tell everyone. Once Cel gets here I'll share my progress, as long  as you guys do the same."

We  both agreed, since it wouldn't be a bad thing to let people know where  we were. Some of our team members weren't at the point where they were  comfortable sharing that stuff, but Jessie, Callie, Benny, and I didn't  have much to hide. Probably had something to do with the drastically  different environment we'd come up in compared to the others, plus the  speed. Honestly whatever we shared would be out of date in a month or  two anyway.

Celine,  Nat, Perit, Valk, Abel, Cark, Cass and the whole rest of the team  showed up, and once we all settled in, we decided to show off how  awesome we were before the movie. Benny, being the one of us with the  biggest change recently, went first.

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-1405
Impact-35
Fantasy-56
Vitality-141
Focus-1683
Perception-282
Creation-171
Progress to next rank: 3773/10000

soul strength: Orange 25%

Pet- Wolf named Rolf

Current  integrated tech. 10/10. 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, Minor Haggling Mastery, Minor Stealth Mastery

Everyone  just stared in shock at the numbers. I grinned, buffing my fingernails  on my shirt and then blowing them clean. "After the big jump from the  godslaying incident, I can do seven points per wish now. Twenty two  hundred of my three thousand seven hundred and eighty total points for  the last few months went to Benny. We didn't just put them into his  mains either, though most of them went there. Two hundred of it was  rollover from the battle, but he didn't get quite as much attention as  the rest of us."

Benny grinned.  "Plus my new heart device which lets me create an illusionary double.  It's twice as effective because the double is technically me, which  means it can access my abilities despite not being corporeal. The spider  legs have physical presence because they're an effect, which means some  interesting possible combinations."

Callie  whistled. "Damn, you really have been putting the work in Shane." She  raised an eyebrow at my friend. "The invention is neat, but it's not  really the same amount of effort." He rolled his eyes and flipped her  off, and she just snickered, before turning to the rest of us. "As you  know, I've been making steady gains since the battle, and I've hit the  halfway point, though it's starting to slow down."

Calliope  Reynolds  F-rank 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-1250
Impact-35
Vitality-342
Fantasy-1105
Focus-108
Perception-1875
Creation-485
Progress to next rank: 5200/1000

Soul strength- Orange-16%
Pet-Wolf named Rellia

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

"Well...a  bit over half." She admitted cheerfully. "Most of it went to Perception  though. My Might gains were mostly from people who were there, my  stealth and Perception abilities got hyped a lot in the aftermath,  apparently people are making it sound like a backstab." She didn't sound  particularly upset about that, which I could understand given her truly  ridiculous gains.

"Guess it's  my turn then." I said with a grin. "While twenty two hundred of the wish  points went to Benny, I also spent a portion of the time doing point  rebalancing for some of the other people on the ship, resulting in a  substantial gain for me."

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-975
Impact-35
Fantasy-500
Vitality-720
Focus-720
Perception-704
Creation-260
Progress to next rank:3914/10000
Soul strength Orange-50%

Stored:7  shadow attacks, 7 shadow jump, 10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks, 10  triple strenth tranq blows (ten in reserve), 10 triple strength density  shifted attacks (ten in reserve). 10 spider leg attacks (ten in  reserve), 4 heal bursts, 4 gravity attacks, 3 shadow clone, 21 scan  heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)
Pet- Wolf named Jin

Skills:Intermediate  Path of the Doom Sovereign, Minor Valtek Mastery, Lesser Cooking  Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar  Mastery, Lesser Balam Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery,Lesser Paired  Dueling

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

"Fifteen  hundred and eighty points from that, and another five hundred from the  battle over time." I said smugly. "Not to mention all the soul training  from working on my Path, which has put me up to a full fifty percent.  Callie may be way ahead on stats, but I'm not exactly being left in the  dust." I was damned proud of my progress actually. Though it made me  wonder about our last original team member. "How about you Jessie?"

She  shrugged. "The complete Vitality focus left a big impression. I got  about a thousand off the battle in the last few months. Plus about five  hundred rollover from the Bond with Randall. My soul is up to about  eighteen percent now."

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 had limited effect on sapient entities. Prolonged  exposure to life energy may cause lasting effects in controlled  subjects.

Might-875
Impact-35
Fantasy-78
Vitality-2292
Focus-55
Perception-65
Creation-58
Progress to next rank: 3458/10000
Pet- Wolf named Lily and bear named Randall(Beginner Beast Bonding with Jessie)

soul strength: Orange- 18%

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

I  whistled. "Benefits of hyperfocusing. That Bond is kind of bullshit  too. Still, barring our resident godslayer, we're all pretty similarly  far along. I admit I expected Jessie to lag a bit, I was planning to  dedicate some wishes to boosting her for a while, but it seems like that  won't be necessary."

She  nodded. "Might from Randall aside, I'm WAY overpowered as a healer for  my level, which makes a big impression. I'm not surprised a lot of those  people I saved were talking about it. I've also spent the last month  healing everyone who needs it on the ship, so there's been some renown  from that too. Probably not much but you know what they say, ABH, always  be healing."

"No one says that." Said Benny with an eyeroll.

Jessie  grinned at him cheekily. "Well they'd better start if they want me to  heal them next time they get their teeth kicked in by an army of  ghosts." He gave conciliatory shrug at that, and the rest of us laughed.  "Now I believe there was some talk of a movie being chosen?"

Cass, who had been unusually quiet (practicing her damned katas again) began to bounce with excitement. "Oooh! Let me pick!"

"No."  Said Cark shortly, glaring around at all of us. Despite Cass being like  a little sister to the whole team (I'd even caught Nat sneaking her  candy a few times) she was Cark's ACTUAL sister, and we deferred to him  when it came to making decisions for her.

"I think I should pick." Said Callie loftily. "I AM the strongest F-ranker in the group."

"In  terms of stats." I said with a scoff. "I have the strongest soul." Abel  cleared his throat and I rolled my eyes. "Or whatever. You know what I  mean. You don't count, you're a monster."

Benny  groaned. "Oh gods, can we just take a vote please? Everyone's  submission counts for the same amount. Otherwise we'd have to just let  Zeke pick." He shuddered. "Which would be a tragedy. He has absolutely  terrible taste in movies." He glanced at me for backup. "Remember that  six hour romcom marathon when we were eleven?"

I ALSO shuddered. "I don't think it was possible for me to forget that BEFORE I had seven hundred plus Focus. Voting is better."

"I like romcoms." Said Callie in an affronted voice. "They're not so bad."

Shaking  my head, I corrected her emphatically. "Except he doesn't watch regular  romcoms. He watches THEMED romcoms. Zombies and werewolves and aliens  and shit. The production values are always awful and the writing is  trash. I have no clue where he even finds them. I've never heard of half  the movies I was forced to watch growing up anywhere else. It's like he  conjures them or something." I shot him a suspicious look.

He  just grinned. "I don't. Nor are they wish based or anything. I just  have a pretty decent sized collection. Granted they're in an alternate  format, so I had to have them converted into scan files, but it was all  worth it. Besides, it's not my fault anyway. Your mother was the one who  got me into those. Eli hated them, but Sasha would force him to watch  them every time we had a movie night."

The  geas didn't activate, presumably because that bit of info wasn't  related to cultivation. Still, I ate up every syllable. I just couldn't  picture my ice cold dad being bullied into watching bad movies. That  sounded like something Callie would convince me to do. What had my  parents relationship been like? I always envisioned it as like a  marriage of convenience or something. Mom had left when I was too young  to form many memories, so I hadn't seen them together.

It  was just another in the long list of questions I had for my mom about  why she left us. About why she took my sister away. I was getting really  sick and tired of being in the dark about my own life. I tensed for a  minute, but then forced myself to relax and enjoy the bickering from my  family. I would find out the truth soon enough, for now I should live my  life as it was now. No use dwelling on the past when I couldn't get the  answers I wanted until later.