Wish upon the Stars chapter 1117 (Patreon)

Bethy, as it turned out, had been busy. After I gave her the assignment, she had wandered off, and I hadn’t really heard anything from her. I had expected her to sort out her plants, maybe have a pot or two stashed away that she could hybridize for some results.

It turned out, she thought a LOT bigger than that. My jaw dropped as I stepped into the large open room where her orchard was planted. A huge, full sized orchard. That appeared to have been grown here. “Um…wow,” I said slowly as I looked around. “Was this here a week ago? Because I feel like someone would have mentioned it.”

“Shane!” Bethy shouted excitedly as she appeared in front of me. “You came to see me! I mean…greetings boss.” She gave a sloppy salute, her face taking on a stoic, imperious expression before melting back into her usual exuberant grin. “You’re here for the wine, right?”

I nodded as I looked around. That chamber was huge, and more importantly, it LOOKED even bigger. The walls were painted with scenes of endless sprawling fields and rolling hills from the countryside. There was a sun peeking over one of the hilltops, and whatever paint had been used for it was emitting actual sunlight that fell on the carefully curated vines dotting the field beside what looked like some kind of villa. “This is…a lot. How did you get all this here?”

“Hm?” she asked with interest. “Oh, I carry most of my vines around with me in my Domain. But you wanted me to do some tinkering so I just ordered a bunch of A-rankers to bring me the stuff I needed. Since I’m on your cabinet everybody has to do whatever I say, even if it doesn’t make sense.” She paused, her brow furrowing before she yelled over her shoulder. “Chelsea! Can you send someone to hallway sixty four to tell that guy to stop doing jumping jacks? I forgot!” 

There was a weary sigh from the villa before my sister called back. “I already did! Please stop ordering people to do punitive workouts and forgetting about them. People have started avoiding us!”

“Well, good to see you’re not abusing your power,” I said wryly. “But since I’m here, why don’t you show me around?”

She perked up. “Oh, that sounds amazing, come on!” she grabbed my arm, dragging me out towards the fields where rows of trellises held up winding vines covered with multi colored grapes. “So, I’ve been working on so many different varieties of wine,” she confided as she pulled me towards the closest trellis. “Ever since I started working on my grapes I’ve realized how soothing it is. I love it so much. And I have this natural gift for it from my mom that just makes it so easy to find good combinations.”

I stepped forward to squint at a vine nearby, reaching up to touch the silvery blue grapes hanging from it. “Ok, so…what are these?”

“Sword grapes,” she said immediately. I blinked at her, and she smiled. “The iron in the soil comes from ground up sword shards imbued with sword power. I used the broken swords your Uncle Moon made training with Callie. He couldn’t exactly spar with her using S-rank blades, and the C-ranked weapons he was using tended to…well, disintegrate.”

“Sword energy?” I asked with interest as I sniffed a grape. “I didn’t know you could harvest energy like that.” Then I paused, my eyes widening. “Vampirism. You can siphon off mythology, not just stats.”

She beamed and nodded. “Yup! Pretty cool, huh? It was a pain to learn how to do it, and I needed Alyssa’s help to figure out how to get it into the plants. Usually I use my blood, but I’ve been experimenting with alternative methods, like the sword dust. I’m trying to bottle sword mythology for Callie, but so far it just tastes kind of sharp.”

“Mind if I try one?” I asked, and she gestured for me to go ahead. I popped one in my mouth and winced. “That’s…interesting,” I said with a grimace. “Sharp is a good term. It’s like sourness without the sour. The muscles in my face are buzzing.”

Bethy giggled. “Yup, it’s not done yet. But I have a bunch of different varietals cooking. I’ve been getting mythology from all over the place. For your grapes, I repurposed some I got from Nat and crossbred it with one I made from Killian’s shadows. The ones he uses for soul stitching. I think they turned out well, but I wasn’t able to REALLY nail the mixture until I mixed some dust from a use wish scroll into the soil.”

“How did you make them GROW so fast?” I asked, impressed at her work ethic. “When you said you were planning to make a new strain of grapes for me I didn’t realize quite how involved it all was.”

“My vines are a part of me,” she shrugged. “The vampiric vines I told you about internalized it the most, but they can all grow from absorbing my blood. Most of them just don’t actually incorporate it into the fruit. I promise, no blood taste in the wine I make for your tree. It’ll be the most delicious fertilizer ever.”

I snorted at that. “When you say it that way I feel kind of stupid for being so weird about that. But also I don’t, so let’s continue the tour.”

“Sure thing boss man,” she saluted, skipping to the next trellis. “These are pretty cool. They’re life grapes. Jessie helped me make them. Her lifestorm ursa powers are SUPER compatible with plants, as you might imagine. These are actually AMAZING. Try one.”

I plucked a grape, shocked at how light and airy it was to hold, I popped it in my mouth and hummed in pleasure as I bit down. Grapes had always been a favorite food of mine, especially green grapes. There were very few things as delicious as a crisp, fresh grape. When they were at their peak it felt almost like cracking glass when you bit into them, minus the pain or discomfort. Just a rush of cold sweet flesh and delicious juice.

This particular grape was infused with life force that poured into my body when I swallowed, resonating with my Life Nova blood drops and filling me with a pleasant, happy warmth.

“Can I get some of these to bring back to Callie?” I asked brightly. “She’ll love this. And I guess I want to reserve a bottle when you finally…wine it? Vint it? I have no idea whatsoever what the verb form of making wine is.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I have people for all that boring sciencey stuff. I just do grapes until it gets boozy.”

Benny groaned from behind us, and I turned to raise an eyebrow. “What, you want a grape?”

“I mean…yes, but I was groaning because you two are weirdly similar sometimes, even if you don’t want to admit it. You both have the subtlety of a ten ton hammer.”

“Hey, I’m as subtle as a much smaller hammer than that,” I protested. “One ton. Tops.”

I turned back to my Master of Challenge. “So, where are the grapes we’re using for the ritual? And do you need time to make the wine? I know it usually has to ferment and stuff, but you didn’t seem to need to last time.”

“Oh, nothing like that,” she shrugged. “I just need to stomp on the grapes and then the wine happens. It’s actually super fun.”

I only vaguely remembered her process from last time but that sounded about right. Not to mention that was several ranks ago. Bethy had probably refined the whole thing since then, in her own Bethy way.

“So, do you want to get this out of the way now?” she chirped. “I can mix up the wine and we can get started on feeding your tree buddy.” She looked down at my stomach, poking my armor with a finger. “Whose a hungry little plant being, you are, yes you are!” I stared down at her in complete perplexity.

“Bethy, why are you talking to my stomach? You know that isn’t how Domains work.” My voice was exasperated, but I couldn’t help but be a bit amused.

She shrugged. “Your tree wasn’t in your Domain to start with right? Anyway, come on, let’s get started! I love catering parties. Oooh, maybe I can make your tree a hat. Do you think you could put a hat on that spiritual tree avatar in your Domain?”

“I do not, no,” I sighed with a rueful chuckle. “But yes, we can get it out of the way, do you have everything ready?”

I had to admit I was excited. Not as excited as when I reached B-rank, but I knew the utility my staff could bring to bear. Having it at A-rank was going to be damned useful. Not least because it would restore my ability to rank up my skills temporarily, which I hadn’t been able to use since I hit B-rank and achieved parity with the ten demons tree.

More than that though, the tree was a pillar of my fighting style and Domain, its silent support gave me the confidence to fight above my level and to face anything that came my way. It ALSO kept me from feeling the pinch from my demons ranking up, which while not a problem yet, I was worried about.

In fact, I suspected several of my lesser demon court members had been sandbagging so as not to unduly strain my Domain. Well, that and I was pretty sure some of them were hoping to get reincarnated. After Brad had joined the court, a lot of the weaker members seemed to find lots of reasons to express their openness to change, it was amusing, but a tad obvious. Regardless, with the tree at A-rank I could support a bunch of tier 9 demons if it became necessary, and any number of tier 8s would be child's play.

I followed Bethy along the rows until we reached a trellis that stood out from the others, mainly because it looked so new and unsullied. The vine wrapped around it was fresh and bright green and looked much more vital than the other, steadier plants. Bethy picked up a wooden bucket, passed it to me, then passed another to Benny. After grabbing a third she quickly and expertly plucked MANY more grapes than I had expected to be on the vine, filling the buckets with a pile of juicy looking black fruits that I had to resist the urge to try for myself.

Once we had them all collected, she gestured for us to follow and carried the buckets to a back room of the villa where another, larger wooden tub waited. She had us pour them all out before gesturing for me to take out the Ten Demons Tree and drive it into the pile in the center of the tub.

She slipped on a pair of shoes that looked like they were specially made, cleaned them off, and then jumped in and started stomping, holding up the staff as she did. The movements were…alien, almost painful to watch. I knew that it wasn’t just normal steps. It was a dance. The dance of the maenad. With each crash of her foot the tides of dark juice changed slightly. I could smell the scent of ozone filling the room, like a storm was brewing.

Finally, after about twenty minutes, she lifted the staff and slammed it down again, driving it through the bottom of the tub and into the floor. As she stepped out of the tub she stumbled, my sister appearing to catch her, and we all watched as the staff began to absorb the wine directly, like tree roots drinking up fresh rain. But that was just the beginning, because inside my Domain, changes had already begun.