Wish upon the Stars chapter 946

The rest of the raids went smoothly. We dropped in to help with two others, and to my complete and utter shock, we netted a cool hundred points for our efforts, two thirds of my entire haul up to this point. I was sitting at two hundred and fifty points total, and while I had no clue exactly how useful those would be, I knew from discussions with others that it was a high number for where and when in the competition we were at.

Sadly, there was no possible way to do more in just that hour. In fact, the only reason I’d managed what I had was Callie and I splitting up the support missions for the other two raids. I barely remembered what had gone on. I was distracted, agitated, and honestly just plain out of it. Thoughts of what I’d been through, of possible alliances with the Void, swirled in my head.

By the time I returned to Veltheim, I had already processed everything, and I realized that my soul felt…different. Stronger. I’d hit my cap in terms of color, but apparently I was still capable of clarifying things a bit more. I put that aside though, because now that I’d returned, I had apparently proven myself enough to rate a face to face with Fade’s blacksmith about my armor. And I needed that out of the way before we moved on to the A-rank zone, assuming we could get in, since I still hadn’t looked into how to do that yet.

Donovan Redfellow had summoned us for a meeting, calling me to the ancestral home of the Hall of Steel. Fade was going to be escorting me, along with Alanna, and Carmichael and Crell were coming along as well, but aside from those four I was essentially flying solo to this little get together, and I had to admit I was a bit nervous.

Not because of the limited escort, mind. But because the results of this meeting were going to have a huge impact on the lives of myself and my friends.

We set off pretty much immediately upon reaching the boarding house. Callie wasn’t happy about me going alone, especially given she’d already had to separate from me during the second raid, but I gave her a reassuring smile and a quick kiss, as well as sharing my confidence through the bond, and she calmed down a bit.

Losing my composure like that had helped release a tension I hadn’t even known was there, like the pressure had finally let up despite my actual situation not having changed. I felt freer, calmer, more centered. Some of that was probably whatever improvement my soul had undergone. Though I still didn’t know what had happened. So…I asked Fade. He was a resource at hand and we were traveling anyway, so I thought maybe he’d have some idea.

When I described the situation to him, he blinked at me. “Huh…you bound a page into your Chronicle.” He looked pretty shocked. “I…I’ve never heard of anyone doing that at D-rank before. I didn’t even think it was possible.”

I froze. Triggering Piece of Mind, I set a parallel to take up the journey as I dove into the depths of my library, heading right for my Ten Demons Tome. Lifting the heavy book, I flipped it open, and sure enough…the first page was full. In a strange, twisting writing made up of stat points (mostly Vitality, Might, and Fantasy) was the entire story of how I had cleansed the spirits of those dead.

“I…how did I do that?” I asked in a daze. “I wasn’t supposed to be able to. Not until at least C-rank, right?”

I went back over my actions, repeating them out loud. Fade was a peak B-ranker, someone with, if not a complete Chronicle, one that wasn’t far off. He was the best possible choice to help me figure this out.

“There’s a few possibilities,” he mused. “First, you were using a C-ranked form. Second, you were cleansing C-ranked ghosts. Third…well, it’s possible what you did was just so significant that your Chronicle couldn’t resist binding the feat. I’m not sure why freeing a few ghosts would count, though I guess the rank gap is impressive.”

But I could see why it might be. Not just the ghosts, but passing the test for the Void vessel. The first step toward a legitimate alliance with Void forces against their own. I had to imagine that was a hell of a feat to accomplish.

“So what is that going to do?” I asked slowly. I’ve never been clear on that. “What does the bound page accomplish?”

“You can use it as a focus,” he shrugged. “For what depends on what you bound into the book. The power involved in that feat, obviously, but there’s a reason people pick and choose which feats to bind as best they can, and a reason that the step for A-rank is Authoring the Chronicle. I’d assume you could use that page to boost your purification and soul restoration abilities, if you wanted to.”

That wasn’t too bad, actually. Zagan was one of my most potent forms, given what it was made of and how incredibly specific it was. Specialization, as Jessie had shown, always made a bigger impression, and hence yielded more impressive results.

I stopped asking questions, considering the possibilities as we traveled. It helped pass the time, and when we finally stopped at the Hall of Steel, my head was mostly on straight. I glanced up the mountain we’d stopped at. There was one path, and it wasn’t particularly stable or well crafted. Just a dirt road up the sheer mountain, the top of which held a large temple building made of solid metal.

“Wow,” I said as I stared up at the building. “That’s definitely…a statement.”

“It’s gaudy,” said Alanna disdainfully. “What is the point of a whole metal temple up on top of a mountain? Waste of good steel.”

Fade shrugged. “It’s some kind of focus for metalcrafting. Donovan made it. It does SOMETHING, even if none of us have ever quite managed to figure out what. He’s implied that it’s the reason his blades are always so much better though. He doesn’t NEED it, mind, he can and does forge in other places, especially after he retired. But that’s why we’re here now. It should help with the armor.”

“What about the other materials?” I asked as we started our climb. “I mean, I brought the shackles, but if we’re making a whole suit that won’t be enough. We’ll need to cut the alloy with other metals, right?”

“We’ve got some stock,” he shrugged. “As long as you pay what you can, and maybe pass him some scrolls, we can cover the excess. The main issue is we need to make it upgradeable. If we pick specific metals, we can splice in higher ranked versions when you hit B-rank and elevate the armor to A. Especially with the shackles as a core. It’s a difficult thing to do with crafting, but with Donovan working for you, it’s plausible.”

I knew it was also possible to just make the armor A-rank and suppress it to let me use it, like my grandmother had done with Callie’s starpluck bangle. But I’d need to not only pay for an A-rank set of armor, but more for the suppression. I didn’t have anywhere close to enough to cover that.

As we mounted the path to the top of the mountain, I felt something shift around us. The world warped slightly, flexing in a way I wasn’t used to, and I felt the weight of the nearby rock sort of press down on me. Not physically, exactly, but like every step I took captured some of the gravity of the rocks and poured it onto me, making me that much heavier. Every step increased it a bit more.

At first it didn’t really matter. My Might was hundreds of thousands of points now, and even with the Impact making this place that much heavier, the extra weight wasn’t anything to write home about. To start. After about five minutes though, I was staggering, my body covered in sweat, and my legs were shaking. To my surprise, the others all seemed similarly exhausted, though they weren’t showing it the same way. Except Crell, who was wheezing and all but sobbing as he dragged his battered body along the trail.

I glanced at Fade. “Ok, what the hell IS this?” I puffed as I stepped to lean against a wall. “Is this some kind of ambush? Defenses? It’s working on you too, clearly.” I didn’t think it was a trap for that reason.

Fade grinned at me wolfishly. “This is the path of steel. You have to have iron in your spine to climb it. There’s a reason we only had one hundred members despite being so popular. It moderates itself to your power level. It’s purely a test of willpower and determination. Don’t worry, there’s a font of life at the top we can use to replenish our energy. But it’s a great opportunity. How many things can really push you physically at this point?”

I snorted. It was weird, I should be annoyed. If I’d thought this was game playing, or if Fade hadn’t been going through it right beside me I might have been. But it wasn’t. It was pretty clear that he hadn’t even considered warning me OR taking me a different way (if there was one). He didn’t even consider this an imposition, but a gift he was giving me to help me get stronger.

Alanna rolled her eyes. “In the future, you should probably WARN your boss that there’s a physical challenge to get into your place.”

He blinked at her. “But…it’s a trial for entry. You have to do it without any prior knowledge the first time. Otherwise how do you show your dedication?” He glanced at me, puzzled. “You get it, right?”

I rolled my eyes. I’d gotten so used to Fade being stoic and competent I’d neglected to remember that he was a B-rank Ascendant. No one who made it to that rank did so without being kind of weird. Fade’s weirdness hadn’t shown itself TOO much, but him accepting the fight with Alanna and the way they interacted made it clear that he was just as much a battle maniac as Abel was.

He was right though. This was actually a lot of fun. I was used to strain on the soul, but I rarely had occasion to put pressure on my physical form like this. With how high my Might was, I didn’t hit my limits often, and when I did it didn’t tend to be slow and steady like this.

“Alright, no use chatting,” I said forcefully as I stood up straight. “Let’s get back at it. We have a meeting to get to.”

Crell groaned as he followed behind me, but I ignored it. Now that I had changed my mindset about this whole thing I was actually getting excited to push through this. I didn’t even trigger Zagan for energy. I wanted to do this cold. It felt like reforging my body like this was a perfect prelude to getting my first set of B-rank armor.

It only took about an hour to make it to the top, and when I arrived, I was only extremely out of breath. As soon as I stepped into the courtyard surrounding the temple, the pressure completely vanished, and I bent over to rest my hands on my knees as I panted out the effort for a bit.

“Took you long enough,” came a lazy voice. I looked up, not at all surprised to see a tall red haired man with wire rimmed glasses smoking a long pipe. His golden eyes watched me like a hawk, and when they met mine, he grinned around the stem of his smoking implement. “Now that you’ve arrived, let’s get started.” He gestured over to a large box full of metal bars. “Go pick those up and follow me.” Then he turned and headed inside. The box looked heavy. I sighed and walked over to pick it up. Guess I was going to be helping.