Chapter 131: Chapter One Hundred Thirty One

The swim was relaxing and fun, of course. I'd always loved swimming,  and despite not having been in the water like that for years I took to  it quickly. Still, it didn't last forever, and after we all finished our  swim we spent the rest of the evening just chilling out and talking,  learning more about each other and introducing ourselves to everyone  else sans masks for the first time since we'd met them.

In  the end though we finished our downtime and realized we still needed to  actually work, so Callie got back into looking around for someone who  needed what we had, and she finally found something. She was poring over  her screen with interest, scanning through documents, when she finally  froze for a second and then let out a whoop of joy. "Yes! We got  something. Someone has been running searches on that stupid red crystal  butterfly, and they even searched it by name. Unless they have an  appraiser and found another one, the only reason I could think of for  that to happen would be if it was on their list."

That  was actually kind of disappointing. I thought the butterfly was kind of  cool, and being able to link it to a loved one and always know they  were alright was kind of sweet. Still it was admittedly kind of limited,  though the fact that it worked from anywhere was a dimension of power  that explained why it was G rank. Being able to maintain its effect  across the whole universe was pretty crazy, even if that effect was  mainly sentimental in nature.

I  leaned over her shoulder to try to read the details, but she smacked me  away with a glare. "I keep telling you not to do that, it drives me  nuts when people read over my shoulder." I stuck my tongue out at her  childishly, which turned her glare into a smirk she had to actively  suppress, but she shook off her amusement and annoyance both pretty  quickly and focused on the details again. "Anyway, the information here  implies someone nearby is looking for what we have, and hopefully they  have something we need to trade for it."

I  took a step back, trying to stand up on my toes to read over her  shoulder from farther away, which got me a sharp glance but no actual  comment from my girlfriend. "Ok, but does it say where they actually  are? We won't be able to trade with them if we can't find them. Also we  need to do some recon on the group in question before we make contact.  If they're too much stronger they're more likely to fight it out and try  to rob us. While peaceful cooperation isn't prohibited here, it IS way  less attractive than being a greedy bastard and just taking everything."

Callie  shrugged. "It's a false dichotomy. That option is always available no  matter where you are. Anyone you meet could decide to rob you blind, as  Zeke so generously reminded us. The question here is whether people will  get backed into a mental corner by the hunt. The Academy specifically  framed the interaction here to be combative, but the fact is that we  don't HAVE to fight each other. Alliances and cooperation are a viable  option, unless someone makes them UNviable by refusing to acknowledge  them."

I  could see her point. The Academy wanted us to compete to sharpen us, but  I was sure we would be just as heavily rewarded for finding other  solutions. Cultivators had a very 'ends justify the means' sort of  mindset, but that sort of made it easy to hyperfocus on violence as a  solution. We spent so much time gaining power that USING that power in a  way that made us gain more became as natural as breathing. Some of that  was recursion for sure, but some of it was just the human tendency to  take the path of least resistance.

Not  that I thought we could revolutionize cultivator society or some  nonsense. But knowing the problem made it easy to look out for it in  ourselves and others. Falling into the trap of always resorting to brute  force might seem like the best way approach every problem given all the  attention it got us, but achieving results was it's own form of  advertising. Making ourselves more well rounded and policing our  cultivator instincts to just blow shit up when it made us angry was  likely to yield positive results long term.

Not  to mention gaining a reputation for that kind of deliberation and  foresight would have recursive benefits for the way we thought in the  first place, forming a virtuous cycle. "You have me convinced, and I'm  sure you can manage to talk the people we need to work with into it too,  but the fact remains we have no idea whether they have what we need,  and you still haven't said if you know where they are."

She  grinned at me, gesturing out the opening in the side of the building  where the ravens would exit. "We have the best possible recon  specialist, and as for where they are, yes I do have a heading. Granted  it's hard to know exactly how far they are with only two points of data  to rely on, but I can at least estimate distance. Jessie will be able to  reach them with her ravens and we can feel out their response to a  peaceful trade."

I  hoped Callie's plan worked out. Being able to avoid combat would be  nice. Granted I would kick some ass if it was necessary, and I did LIKE  battle. But I was a bit exhausted with the normal combat grind. Which  actually gave me an idea. "You think we could tip the balance on either  of things in our favor? I've been wanting to experiment with my Wish  ability more, and we saw from the siege that we can do more than just  directly effect things. Can you think of any ways we might be able to  use that?"

I  could, a few of them, but I knew that if I gave her the ideas for the  wishes they wouldn't be viable. She needed to come up with them on her  own, though I could steer her in the right direction if she couldn't  think of anything after a bit of time. I wasn't sure that just telling  her the answer would make the wish invalid, but since I wanted this to  work for my own sake too, it seemed like it was safer to let her come to  her own conclusions Honestly there was a decent chance that she would  come up with a better idea than me anyway.

You are reading story Wish upon the Stars at novel35.com

Callie  was, of course, more than up to the challenge, and immediately got to  work considering the issue. Rather than jump the gun she decided to talk  out her decision out loud, which was fine as long as I didn't try to  tweak the wish to benefit me more. "There are a few ways to do that.  Wishing for them to be more open to negotiation seems...wrong. Aside  from mind control like that being a slippery slop I doubt a wish like  that would be cheap anyway. I was ok wishing for the sleepers to be  pushed a specific direction, but they were already being controlled."

I  felt the same way. "Agreed. I don't like the mind control thing, it  reminds me too much of the Black Sorrow Cult. People's brains belong to  them, I don't like monkeying with that." Just because I could do  something didn't mean I should. The versatile nature of my Wish ability  was a responsibility as well as a benefit. That was presumably why my  power always gave me the choice to grant a wish or not. If someone tried  to wish for something awful I was free to decline the request.

Callie  didn't look finished though. "That said, there are other options. We  know that Wishes can play with probability, but what about things like  Quantum Uncertainty. If we assume that the group closest to us will find  something new soon, we can leverage the fact that no one knows what  that is. Considering the Wish ability and how it interacts with secrets,  I bet shifting undiscovered materials out for other more useful ones  would be way less expensive than any changes to something that had  already been found."

I  blinked. I could follow the logic on that. It was like looking in a  box. Once you checked the box you knew what was in it, but until you  opened it hypothetically anything could be in the box. Callie was  guessing that it would be cheaper to wish for something specific to be  in the box than to change the object you already knew was there. It was  actually brilliant considering how attention and belief interacted with  stats. Like she'd said, the whole secrets thing proved that my wishes  were heavily impacted by perception, whether public or personal.

It  also explained the luck thing a bit. Good luck was notoriously fickle.  No one had any reason to believe they would specifically have good luck  at any given time, we'd mostly been conditioned to think of it as  completely random. That impression most likely helped leverage my power  more efficiently without the need to fight back against an entrenched  mindset that something couldn't happen. Once again I found myself in awe  of the original Wishmaster, who had apparently created my ability.

What  was more impressive was that when he'd done it as far as I knew the  Unity didn't exist yet. Ability based cultivation was a relatively new  thing, which meant the Wishmaster was most likely using the job system  or something similar when he created the skillset I was using and  brought it up to a high enough level to become a bloodline. It was a  crazy thought, and made me wonder exactly how many skills had gone into  the Wish ability and exactly how long it had taken to get them all,  synergize them, and continue to improve them all together until he  reached S rank with the result.

Callie  worried at her lip for a minute as she collected her thoughts. She had  the idea but she wanted to make sure she optimized her wish based on  what we knew about my powers. Things like conceptual resistance (the  name I'd just made up for the fact that widespread belief made some  actions inefficient) and the potential benefits versus costs of making  vague wishes that my power had to compensate for. The Balam wish had  turned out well but it had also cost a LOT, and we were pretty sure it  was because of all the heavy lifting my power had to do.

Finally  she seemed to settle on her exact wording, speaking carefully and  slowly as if deliberating even as she voiced the wish on how to  structure it best. "I wish that nearby group that needs the Heartbeat Monarch will stumble on something from our list as their next find." She  looked like she was considering making it more specific or adding  conditions but eventually just nodded as if satisfied with the outcome.  She smirked and reached into the box. "In payment I offer you sole  ownership of this cane as the leader of the team that found it."

I  grinned. If I'd been using it that would have still meant it was team  property, but offering me the actual object to own made it a valid for  of payment. I felt the rising static across the surface of my body even  as I saw the words roll across my vision in purple flaming letters.

 

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