Chapter 24: Chapter Twenty Four

We finished all the tempura pretty quickly, and Benny basically preened the whole time as I rolled my eyes at his gloating. That said I didn't actually comment because holy shit the food was good. Once we were done though I decided it was time to move on to his next three wishes. "Ok, so Minor Cooking Mastery at the peak of that skill rank is pretty awesome. Noted. Though honestly I still feel like it cost too much. Minor is equal to I rank, and the cap for I rank is ten, your wish was more than double that."

Benny nodded. "I think I know what that's about actually. I felt like my brain wasn't...big enough to hold all the information I was getting. Presumably since it was so close to Lesser I was coming up on the limits of a normal human mind and apparently I didn't measure up. I think some of your points got burned up to kind of...pad my brain to ease the transition? It's hard to explain. I don't think I'm like you, with a point of Focus or something, but my brain works better than it did before at the very least."

That...made sense actually. Minor skills were the limit of what a normal person could handle, so the peak of Minor would require the peak of a normal person. Benny wasn't stupid but he wasn't exactly a supergenius even by non Ascendant standards. I'd probably pushed him up to like three quarters of a point of Focus or something. At least, if you assumed that normal people could have stats as long as they didn't reach one, which seemed like a safe bet. Most people had to have Might and Vitality at least, though I suspected being close to a single point meant being closer to peak mortal.

It also kind of implied that I was superhuman in every aspect, even if I hadn't really experimented with that yet. That was something interesting to check into. Regardless I had other things to worry about. "Alright man, three more wishes to go. You said you had ideas so now it's time to bust them out. Impress me with your creativity. That whole 'most powerful skill you can give me' thing was fantastic and will solve a bunch of my problems. I want you to do some more of that." I needed some clever ways to use my powers to get ahead of the other candidates, and this was a good time to brainstorm them.

Benny chuckled and cracked his neck. "One clever wish, coming up." He made a speculative face. "Ok. Gonna do something good." He stared off into the middle distance, eyes narrowed. "Any second. Gonna make a perfect wish." His shoulder slumped. "Shit. You know, putting me on the spot like that isn't helping. I keep thinking of all my wishes and tossing them because they're too similar to the last one or too simple. Any suggestions? As long as I actually want it and pay you should still be able to help me out."

I laughed at my friend. "Yeah, should be fine. But it's not a huge deal man. There's only so much metagaming we can manage. Like I'm pretty sure you can't handle getting a point of stats without Impact. If you wished for a point of Might I feel like you would explode. I think the Focus thing only worked because you stayed within human limits, though I suspect only barely. That said, I do have an idea. I can't give you a skill and then trade it back because then the original wish will have had no value, which my power won't allow, but there's nothing saying I can't give you a skill and learn it the hard way. As long as you actually want it and pay for it it's yours to do with what you want."

He blinked at that. "Huh. That's...that's a good point. I know you can learn skills through doing them, not everyone can use wishes after all. Well then I'll do that. Let's see." He chewed his lip for a second, clearly still undecided until his eyes lit up. What about inventing? You said that's one of the crafting skills right? Inventing, Alchemy, and Enchanting are the main ones? Do I need stats to learn to invent?" He seemed really interested, in it, which was great because I'd love to learn that skill.

Luckily he was definitely able to pick it up, especially since I was pretty sure he was the mortal max for Focus now or close to it. "Nope. In terms of the main three crafting skills they're on a sliding scale in terms of resources. Alchemy requires a ton of resources that have Impact imbued into them and a few of your own stats, Enchanting requires pure stats with only a small amount of resources if any, and Inventing requires almost no stats or resources at all but is incredibly exacting in terms of skill. Of course, that's only to start, they all require both later on down the line."

I'd done plenty of research on crafting after I learned Enchanting, just so I would know how the other skills worked. It was fascinating stuff. I couldn't keep the excitement out of my voice as I explained it all. "The trade off is that Inventing has the highest bar to learn it. Minor Inventing is nearly impossible for mortals to pick up because without stats to lean on, it's basically trying to build things that slightly violate the laws of physics by virtue of crafting and skill alone. That said, if anyone can bypass that problem it would be me."

Benny looked as pumped as I felt. "That sounds fucking awesome. It won't be mad science but it's pretty close, and maybe I can synergize it with whatever power I get when you can grant my wish for one. That's the wish I want. I wish for strongest Minor Inventing Mastery skill you can safely give me." I was excited to see what the human limit for Inventing was actually, it should be higher at least than for a chef, though I knew cooking was a crafting skill too once you get it higher, so maybe they would cost the same.