Chapter 208: Chapter Two Hundred Nine

The next week passed in a blur. With my new ability to grant wishes  for three stat points instead of two, the thirty five wishes accrued  over those seven days came out to over a hundred total stats. Given the  lacking foundations of one of our members, namely, Benny I made sure my  friend got twenty four of those, which he paid off with four of those  triple strength density shifted blows, and four of the triple strength  tranq hits.

He chose to dump those twenty four into Might,  given the physical nature of his recent attack style. Jessie had given  me ten of those heals bursts for another thirty points of Vitality,  choosing to lean into her advantages, and Callie had gotten the other  fifty one points, specifically because she had enough accumulation to  actually trade me some points for myself instead of just adding to my  stockpile of attacks. She paid for eight of the wishes with shadow  attacks and then the other nine with ten points of Focus, ten points of  Perception, and seven points of Vitality.

With a fresh  twenty seven points and a massive stockpile of attacks, I was ready for  anything, even if I'd been forced to put Cark on the backburner for a  bit to prioritize my team. I still had two fire attacks in any case so  that wasn't urgent. Aside from the massive amount of wishes I'd spent  the week granting, we also spent the entire time ass deep in combat  training. Alden, true to his word, didn't rat us out, but he also kept  his promise of watching us like a hawk, which to him apparently meant  harsh and brutal training plans he custom tailored for us.

We  could have turned him down, but it gave us a good excuse to interact  with him, and a better excuse to continue our training and shore up our  foundations a bit in combat. The week was a hellish exercise in  persistence as we forced ourselves to follow various training regimens,  some reasonable, like weight lifting and fighting constructs, and some  insane, like being forced to run across precariously balanced sticks  without stats or Skills.

He gave each of us separate tasks  and we undertook them willingly, being forced to spar with new  opponents daily to test what we learned, even when dog tired. With our  Focus and dedication though, the last week had definitely shown results.  We were all much stronger than we had been when it started, even if our  Skills hadn't actually improved that much. Alden had helped us merge  our Skillsets into our combat styles more holistically, developing  trials that allowed us to use one skill at a time to accomplish a task  outside the purview of that Skill until we learned to apply them in  disadvantageous situations.

After enough of the sessions  we were able to use our Skills much more naturally and fluidly in  combat, and had learned a ton about when to use them too, rather than  just how. We had learned more in the last week than we had since  becoming Ascendants, and I could tell without even seeing it that if I  fought the me from a week ago, I would have crushed myself within the  span of a minute. Honestly at this point I was looking forward to  upgrading my DS Mastery and enchanting, because twenty four charges  daily just wasn't enough.

My stockpile of daily attacks  had been plenty when I first made the jump up to G rank, but over the  last week I'd seen how much smoother I could really be when using my  Skills, that kind of fluidity required a sort of ingrained repetition  that I couldn't afford at the moment, so I'd also added studying  Enchantment to my daily regimen. I'd carved out some time to Enchant at  the end of every night with whatever points I had left. It wasn't much,  but it was enough to get the Skill moving again, which was all I needed.

Of  course, this was what the three of us had been doing, but Jessie had  been undergoing much less training. Or rather our blonde team member had  been her own specialized training at the Beast Lord Garden, working her  way up the ranks as demanded. She did a few team battles with us, but  mostly spent her time in E district, learning more about beast taming  and helping heal injured animals. She somehow managed to come home  exhausted most night, even with her Vitality, but she was clearly  thrilled, and had even picked up Minor Beast Taming Mastery Skill.

She  wasn't going to merge that one, because her eventual goal of saving her  brother required her to have the life force related ability, and it was  already insanely useful and powerful, but still, having the Skill made  her current abilities that much more effective, so no one was going to  complain about it. She'd been doing so well that Melinda had even  arranged a personal card for her to use the lifts down to E district,  which was convenient because I didn't have time to escort her there  every day.

Training aside though, this week had also  brought as closer to Alden, who I believed was growing to trust us much  more than he had before. Even as he trained us we talked to him, and  while he wasn't revealing groundbreaking secrets about the lives of the  founders of the circus, he happily shared anecdotes about when the  cavalcade was just starting out and the antics all the original  performers got up to. After the full week of getting to know each other  though, he finally made enough progress to confirm some things, and  asked us to meet him in the same spot.

When we got back  there Callie set up the field again, resonating her Stealth Skill, and  putting us back into that undetectable state. Despite all the  interacting, this was the first time Alden had asked us to head back  here, so it was a reasonable assumption that he wanted to talk to us  about something sensitive, which really only left one option. Callie  smiled at the bearded man. "So, I take it you found something and are  deciding to trust us? Or are you planning to share the recipe for the  moonshine mash you've been working on."

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

"First of all."  Said Alden, in an amused tone. "I do trust you, and yes I have  information. Second of all, that recipe will follow me to the grave, and  you can try to pry it from my cold dead fingers after that. I've been  poking around while I had you kids doing your training. I had to oversee  most of it, but some of the exercises didn't actually serve a purpose  other than forcing you to do embarrassing shit so you would be  distracted." He grinned at us. "Don't worry, I made sure to have someone  record those for me when I wasn't there."

I bristled at  that. "You fucker! I knew that crab walking thing wasn't a real training  method. Don't tell me any of the others, it'll just piss me off. I'm  happier reading some nonexistent meaning into everything I did. I  suspect I might have learned a few things you didn't even mean to teach  me, and I don't want to ruin it. Plus if I don't have details I wont  need to punch you in the throat for the humiliation." I made sure my  tone was jovial enough that he didn't take it as an actual threat.

I  needn't have bothered. "You're a hundred years too early for that lad.  But as you wish." Alden choked in voice rife with barely controlled  laughter. "Anyway, as I was saying before you mouthy brats interrupted  me with your rabble rousing, I've been looking into what you told me,  and I managed to confirm at least some of it. Mel is being too careful  for me to manage to uncover what she's doing directly but I managed to  put together a series of clues and figure out when she's meeting with  her benefactors."

"I don't like it..." Alden said sadly.  "But I'm willing to bring you along to scout the meeting. Something  about this feels off, and worst case I can keep you three in line, but  if I bring you I want your word that none of you will interfere actively  without my say so. Aside from not knowing exactly what's going on, I  also don't want you ruining things if the meeting isn't what we think it  is. I will stop you if you try to get in the way of legitimate Pavilion  business, is that understood?"

His voice was serious  enough that we knew there was no room for argument, and we all nodded.  Callie confirmed it aloud as soon as she saw we were on board. "Agreed.  We'll give you priority on when to move. All we want is to see these  people. We don't need to act directly." I had ways of identifying  others, so it wasn't necessary for us to wade into a fight in an  inopportune moment. Not that we were afraid to wade in if he decided to  intervene, but promising to stay back so we could get the information we  were here for was fine. We could always attack later if needed.

The  bearded man sighed in relief. "Good. I won't lie to you, I'm a bit  worried about all this. Mel might be in over her head. I don't doubt she  received plenty of assurances we would all be alright, and was probably  even promised she would retain control, but she's a bit straightforward  at the best of times. When she's dealing with her feelings for Cicero  she's practically a bull in mid charge, and it wouldn't be hard to slip  some sneaky terms by her. I like you kids well enough, but I'm not in  the business of trusting most newcomers. I doubt whoever Mel is working  with has intentions as benevolent as she probably thinks they do."

I  winced at the reminder of learning that exact lesson from Cicero not  too long ago. Callie, ever the focused member of our little band, got to  the heart of the matter. "So when is this meeting taking place? It  would be nice to have some time to prepare. Not that we're going to need  it for a simple recon mission, but its nice to make sure of things  before you go charging off into danger. Double check our equipment and  so on." It was a pretty flimsy excuse. He probably thought we wanted to  stock up on bombs or something. In reality I knew Callie was thinking  about using wishes to make sure things shook out in our favor.

Alden  gave her a suspicious look, but finally nodded with another sigh. "It's  tomorrow night. I only managed to find out about it by tracking the  movements of some of Mel's more loyal lackeys. That girl has a knack for  inspiring her people, but she isn't always too smart about deploying  them. Battle maniacs don't make good spies. I don't know exactly who the  meeting is with, like I said, but I was able to put together its  existence at least. As for the exact time, I know one of the people who  will be there. We'll tail him to the meet."

With  that laid out, we arranged a time the next night to meet up, and then  said our goodbyes. None of us were stupid enough to spend the day  training and getting our asses kicked before a possible huge  confrontation. We all headed back up, calling Jessie home from the Beast  Lord Garden to fill her in. We would be bringing the wolves along for  this obviously. They were very stealthy when needed and would be a huge  force multiplier, even if they had to hang back at the start. Once that  was done we started to plan as best we could. I had the sinking  suspicion that this wasn't just going to be a simple recon mission, and  if it went sideways, we needed to be ready.

You can find story with these keywords: Wish upon the Stars, Read Wish upon the Stars, Wish upon the Stars novel, Wish upon the Stars book, Wish upon the Stars story, Wish upon the Stars full, Wish upon the Stars Latest Chapter