Wish upon the Stars chapter 379

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: 1160/1000

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.