NOVEL NEXT Chapter Three Hundred Eighty
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 me. 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.