Wish upon the Stars chapter 1131 (Patreon)

We sat down to eat together first thing. Apparently, everyone was hungry above everything else, and I couldn’t fault them. Common City had some amazing smelling food stalls and restaurants, and well wanted a taste. Inevitably, we decided to pool our funds to pay for a big banquet. I dropped twenty as leader, and several of my friends and cabinet members put up ten, scraping together enough for a hundred point dinner.

Once we were all seated and eating, the real talk began. “So,” I said looking around at the others. “Anyone bother to check how expensive the actual legacy information is? Like the path to Overgod? Because I think we all know that’s what we’re here for.”

“It’s called an advancement thesis,” said Callie with a sigh. “And it’s a hundred thousand credits.”

I hissed in shock. I mean, I’d seen a few things around that price, and it was a big deal, so I shouldn’t be too surprised, but having seen exactly how hard it was to GET those credits, I knew what a monumental task that was. “Can we pool our credits to buy it?” I asked hopefully. “There doesn’t seem to be a rule against that even if we can’t transfer them directly.”

“Only within the same major,” she said with a grimace. “Which means we need a LOT of points. There are a few we can cross off. I don’t think there are any crafting gods around, so that’s three gone off the bat. And trade is obviously not going to be a big one. So that leaves us with eight that we need to get. There’s no way to know how they’re different or which ones our gods need, so we kind of have to get most of them.”

I sucked my teeth. “I don’t know if that’ll be POSSIBLE for us, Cal. Sorwen and I are the only ones in temporal studies, so even if she agrees to help with the cost we would need fifty thousand credit points each. Maybe we have a few C-rankers in the lower levels of the major, but even then… I need to get a new material to even get started on learning time manipulation, and that’ll cost me nine thousand.”

“So we just place high in the midterms and finals,” Jessie chirped happily. “The incentives for the top rankers are huge. If a few of us place well we should be able to cover it easily.” We all just stared at her blankly. She rolled her eyes. “Was I the ONLY one who went to the introductory seminar?”

“Probably,” Benny shrugged. “I was going to, but I got distracted by all the cool stuff.”

I shrugged apologetically. “Same. Well, not the cool stuff part because I’m a responsible adult, but Callie and I were catching up on some important information I learned. The mythcrafting thing.”

My best friend rolled his eyes. “Responsible adult my ass, you were just flirting with your wife. That doesn’t make you better than me.”

“No, my height makes me better than you,” I said smugly. “Shorty.”

Callie slammed a hand down on the table. “Do NOT,” she said menacingly. “Ruin my dinner with your height sniping. You’ve had this argument five hundred times. You’ll probably have it five hundred more, but this will not be one of those times.”

“Yes dear,” I said quickly. Benny snickered, but then I heard a thump and saw him wince as Celine kicked him in the shin, so I felt a little better.

“Seriously though,” I said, bringing us back to the matter at hand. “How are we doing this? What’s this about midterms and finals? Because if it’ll help us gather credits, it’ll definitely be worth doing, but how do they actually measure that?”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “Skill in your major, obviously. They have a basic skills assessment for the various elements of working with your attributes. They didn’t give us a lot of details, but we should find out more during midterms. Anyway, each assessment has rankings, and ranking high or surpassing certain milestones means you’re eligible for incentives. I think it’s a reward for those of us who actually bother to go to classes instead of treating this place like a marketplace and social networking hub.”

I nodded slowly. “I can swing that, I think,” I said slowly. “When are midterms?”

“A few months,” she said immediately. “Probably three or four. They didn’t give us an exact date, why?”

“Just doing some math,” I said slowly. I needed to get that Ruin Phoenix candle to create a template, then condense my next bloodline. I suspected something would happen with my third, given that nine was three sets of three, but I had no way to be sure. Regardless, if I pushed I was convinced I could manage that within a month. Once I had the candle I was planning to use it to upgrade one of my demons. That would help with condensing a template ahead of time like I had with Life Nova through Archie.

A month was cutting it close for that, but once I had a time attribute integrated with my body my learning speed would massively increase. The following three months I could use my demons to continue doing tasks, and then spend the credits I earned on classes to hone my abilities. With Wisdom of Solomon, the Pillar, and all my other advantages, I refused to believe I wouldn’t be able to master those skills faster than the other students.

But all of that would require me to buckle down and get this done. I needed those credits as fast as possible so I could integrate the candle and hopefully convert one of my demons. I was thinking of using Mephistopheles for this one. I would need to talk to him, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need a full reincarnation. His destruction flame was already pretty close to the right attribute, we just needed to find a way to nudge it a bit.

“Well you’ll have to keep us updated,” Callie said with a nod. “But there are more than a few of us in some of the majors who can pool their credits. Jessie, how many of us are in the applied biology department?”

“Twenty,” my friend said happily. “Alyssa and I have a bunch of Lodge members with us, and a few representatives from the church. Not as many as I’d have expected though.”

“My grandmother sent a big chunk of her people,” I explained. “She’s all about stars, so a lot of the church faction are in that major.” I glanced around at the packed room full of people. Our forces were pretty diverse, but it was still kind of jarring just how many people were here, between all six of the realspace gods, our three Void allies, and the new friends from the higher realm, we had a seriously impressive crowd.

Of course, not all of them were really under my command. The WCP and Church crews, the vampires, the Asura, and the Lady’s delegation were willing to listen to me. The others were mostly playing along for the sake of the alliance, not that I minded.

More than that, we had some new friends too. Bethy had brought along a new buddy of hers from the trait major, Casiina Flutterheart, a sort of butterfly elf who used some kind of strange butterfly based origami ability I didn’t really get. She seemed unusually strong though, and her wings were kind of cool. It figured Bethy would be the one to find someone like that. The girl seemed as overwhelmed by Bethy as everyone else was, sitting with my friend and her two siblings as Bethy talked animatedly.

Speaking of the siblings, I grimaced as I looked them over. William and Tamsin Lark were…not ideal companions. Bethy had been keeping them under control, in the sense that they hadn’t EATEN anyone, but the pair were deeply unsettling, and they watched all of us with hungry eyes that gleamed with malice.

I trusted Bethy to ride herd on them, but I worried they might get up to something behind her back. At the very least, the three of them were all in the trait based major, and there weren’t many of our people there. It was just them, Dayna, and the Asura. I trusted the multi armed war machines to keep themselves safe, and Bethy would look out for Dayna. It would have to be enough for now.

Speaking of the Asura, they had proven surprisingly amicable. Abel had been getting along well with them, to literally no one’s surprise. They were very straightforward and often brutal people, but they respected strength and tenacity, and my mentor had that in spades. It was nice to have them here representing Atlas’s interests, since he was the only god aside from the old man we could REALLY confirm was on our side.

I trusted my grandparents, and through them the revenant, and I trusted the Lady well enough, but when it came down to it, their interests were similar but not the same as ours. Atlas was our real backing here, and having the Asura on hand to help out was certainly useful.

Unfortunately they were almost all in the weapon major. Martial Excellence apparently included unarmed combat styles, and Abel and the Asura were all shoe ins for that one. Fade was obviously there with them as well, as was Alanna. Crell, to my surprise, had chosen the trade department, which seemed like an interesting potential learning opportunity for my Master of Contracts.

We had someone in basically every major, though not all from my direct faction. The only ones missing were the rune and alchemy departments. Benny was in the crafting major, so we had someone there, and I made a note to see if I could help him gather the credits to pay for the thesis. While we might not have a crafting god around, that didn’t mean we never would. Having a method for my best friend to reach Overgod seemed useful for future endeavors.

Unfortunately, this whole thing only brought home how little time I had. I wanted to spend time with Callie, and I would before I left, but I doubted I’d bother staying for the full two days. The sooner I got back, the sooner I could begin grinding out those tasks to stockpile my credit points.

I glanced over at my wife guiltily, but I found her smiling back at me fondly. “What?” I asked defensively.

“Just cute you think I don’t know you well enough to see that you’re already climbing the walls to get back,” she said dryly. “I know you won’t be staying the whole weekend. It’s fine. Just promise me you’ll come back next time. I want you to spend at LEAST one day a week here with me. You need rest too, and I don’t trust that you’ll take it without me. Just because you CAN ignore pain and stress doesn’t mean you SHOULD.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but…she was right. I sighed, leaning over to put an arm around her. “I promise,” I told her softly. “And thank you. Both for knowing I need to do this and not letting me take it too far.”

“Well, it’s kind of my job,” she grinned. “Keeping you from being stupid is a full time commitment, but one I made knowingly and feel compelled to honor. At the very least, you always make it a challenge.” Her teasing smirk softened at the edges as she leaned up, letting my mask retreat at the bottom so she could kiss me. “Just…remember that we have the rest of our lives together. I need you intact and SANE. Pace yourself, love. There will be time for everything later if we need it.” I nodded, and she smiled, resting her head on my shoulder as I dug into the nearest dinner dishes with more gusto. I wanted to enjoy this time while I had it. Tomorrow it would be back to the grind.