Wish upon the Stars chapter 380

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.