Wish upon the Stars chapter 1147 (Patreon)

The test was very intimidating. The buildup, the scan, the general demeanor of the proctors, all of it was essentially designed to put us in a certain mindset, to keep us off balance. It all worked, too, and I for one had been pretty keyed up going into the assessment.

Unfortunately for them, I hadn’t STAYED keyed up. Because while the timeglass was deeply imposing and presented a terrifying obstacle for each of us…well, it wasn’t exactly dynamic to watch. Seeing someone try to make sand fall slower was pretty much the least interesting experience possible. Even the imposing crackle of electricity dancing over the surface of the sphere couldn’t keep it interesting for more than a minute or two.

Which admittedly, KIND of made it worse, in a way. Because trying to simultaneously keep myself honed to a razor’s edge and remain mentally prepared was MUCH harder when I was bored out of my skull.

Still, I kept Dantalion active, letting him scan the contestants as they went, and after a few tries, he started being able to construct a kind of representation for their efforts that would let me conceptualize what was going on. That part was actually pretty interesting, and I got to see quite a few fascinating manifestations of temporal power, even if they weren’t especially compatible with my own style.

The most interesting of the lot were, as Winnie had mentioned, the five most senior upperclassmen who were expected to take the top spots.

First was Crash. It wasn’t a question I needed to ask, nor did I have to wait for an introduction. It was obvious. Water was wet, the sky was blue (or most of them were anyway), and Crash was Crash. 

He was big. Like…bigger than me. Eight feet tall and made of solid muscle. His skin was covered with silver tattoos that writhed and twisted in patterns that made unsure if they were stationary or not. His long brown hair was wild and untamed, and his green eyes sparkled with a mad lust for battle.

To no one’s surprise, he didn’t even bother announcing himself, or preparing the device. He just hauled off and punched. The air, no, the world itself fractured under the blow, and I blinked as I saw the punch land a second before it was supposed to land as he fractured causality. The diamond dust had flowed immediately after he stepped up, as if it had known, but the punch slowed it. 

Inside the timeglass, the sphere pulsed, and the time or space or whatever he’d cracked started to repair itself. He frowned, punching again, and again it began to knit back together. The more he punched the faster it was repaired, and I saw him grit his teeth as he picked up speed, letting out a storm of blows as he tried to overcome the orb’s repairing operation.

Sadly, it wasn’t to be. One minute and forty two seconds after he began, a single fragment of diamond dust landed on the sphere, signaling the end of the attempt.

Elonwy looked impressed, since this had been the first real showing from an actual contender for the rankings. As a midterm, this was meant to test skills, so the actual threshold to pass wasn’t particularly high. Ten seconds would get you through, and even that wasn’t a point everyone was able to reach.

“Not bad,” she said with a nod of respect. “First of our contestant to pass a minute, and made it past a minute thirty in one push.”

Next was Sylvia Strohm, who floated the dust on a whirling sea of silvery water attributed time. It was boiled off by the sphere in one minute and twenty eight seconds, vehicle Desrick Flint’s attempts to freeze the dust in solid time was melted in forty five seconds by the sphere, having been particularly vulnerable to the effect it had used for some reason.

Orion…Orion was impressive. His Domain manifested around him fully, the first of them to actually utilize projection. It condensed as a giant hall of mirrors, showing reflections of him as he raised a bow and fired. A few thousand causal arrows cut through time, each one striking a piece of diamond dust, suspending them like a snowflake on a string. The sphere severed the strings easily, but he pinned them back, and it went on like that for two minutes and ten seconds before the first piece of dust touched the sphere.

Last up was Kent Masters, the strongest of the contenders, the mysterious master of some thief type Domain, according to Winnie. He approached the timeglass slowly, almost leisurely. Kent was a small man, a little thin, with a wispy mustache and a goatee. His nose was crooked, but in a jaunty, sort of dashing way, like he’d gotten punched in a bar fight that would have made a good story to tell your friends.

His eyes were warm and alive, a bright topaz that stood at odds with his dark hair, and his teeth were straight and gleaming as he bared them in a rictus of determination that might have been mistaken for a smile on a lesser man.

Those eyes locked on the sphere as he raised his hand, calling forth his Domain. It came in a wave of strangeness and possibility. A surging cloud of multicolored illumination somewhere between a mist and actual light, the internals shifting and rioting in a way that almost hurt to look at.

It drew in my gaze, capturing my attention, dragging me deeper as I looked, and I was absolutely positive that Winnie’s rumors were wrong. This wasn’t theft. If he could steal time it was something besides this Domain. This was…I didn’t know what this was. It was primal and horrifying, twisted and beautiful and painful and bliss itself. A name appeared in my mind. Arcadian Nexus. This was the ultimate possibility, the true apex of potential. This was imagination at the height of its glory, right before it tipped over the edge into madness.

The Nexus surged forward, covering the timeglass, and flowed right through the glass into the interior. It seeped into the diamond dust, infusing it all, and I watched it start to slow. It was gradual at first, like reverse momentum. It was a bit of drag, then a bit more, then eventually it crawled until finally, it came to a stop.

Below the cloud of shimmering dust, the sphere pulsed, dark electricity surging over the surface before it discharged into the cloud of dust. The light flickered madly within the diamond fragments, twisting and retching as it tried to escape the lightning. Kent gritted his teeth, tears pooling in his eyes, or so I thought. Turned out it was blood, dripping over his cheeks as he fought back viciously against the current. Finally, after three minutes, the first piece of dust drifted down to touch the sphere, ending the attempt.

Kent was on his knees, panting with exhaustion as he glared at the device. Elonwy nodded approvingly. “Well done,” she said in a gentle voice. “Three minutes seven seconds. Best time so far.” She glanced at me, clearly wondering what I would do.

“I’ll go,” I said as I stepped forward. Taking a deep breath, I reached into my soul, into my Domain, and followed the same procedure as last time. I connected each of the timepieces, hooking them all together to create Kronos, letting him fall over me like a cloak. But this time, I pushed it further. Tapping into the Pillar of Goetia, I triggered the boost I usually used on individual demons, pushing Kronos up to the next tier.

Tier 9. A-rank. Mythic. It wasn’t my first time touching that level with one of my demons. I’d used the boost before, many times. But it felt so different here. Kronos wasn’t a PERSON. Not really. Not like the others. He was an office. A rank. Kronos was a title that I was assuming. This time, it wasn’t one of the demons who had reached A-rank, for the first time it felt like it was really ME being pushed up.

I grit my teeth, letting the pressure flow through me and into the armor I was wearing. Without the Seal, this wouldn’t have been possible. I could feel it. What I was doing shouldn’t be something I was capable of. I was playing with forces beyond my control. But with the Pillar propping me up and the armor as my solid ground, I pushed through it.

Forcing myself to focus, I trained my eyes on the timeglass. In this form, I saw…everything. Too much. I had to force myself to refine my gaze, to look at ONLY the diamond dust, because in this form, at this rank, I could see so much more of the substructure of time. More than I could process or understand. Gears within gears within wheels within specks of dust. An infinite recursive pattern of ever shrinking machinery making up the substrate of creation.

Blowing out a breath, I forced myself to focus harder. I took a step. I could see the gears within and between the dust. I watched it turn as the time advanced. I wanted to do something fancy, to use Ruin to take it apart and get an all time high score that would blow away my competition, that was what I’d been planning.

That wasn’t happening. I could barely think. Barely move. I was DROWNING in time. I grimaced, reaching for the Pillar of Goetia. With all the force of will I could muster, I shoved it forward, following my instinct to locate a specific spot. The butt of the staff slammed into a spot between a pair of large gears, and everything stopped.

The dust froze, or at least slowed down so much it looked like it. The gears WERE turning, still, slowly, digging into the staff. I could feel them crushing down on me like the haft of the weapon was my body.

Inside the timeglass, the sphere pulsed, electricity crackling through the space and time and through the dust to reach my staff. It conducted into me like I was sticking a fork in a lightsocket. It hurt. A lot. I ignored it. It got harsher. The crackle of the electricity howled in my ears, spitting and snarling like a rabid animal as it savaged my body, trying to tear apart my very will.

Not that I let it. I just stood. I let it tear and rip and sear. I didn’t care. It was just pain, just sensation. I’d felt worse. It kept getting more extreme, more absurd, and I kept digging in my heels. I think I should have stopped, should have let go, but hands were stuck to the staff like they were magnetically sealed. All I could do was ride it out.

Eventually, it was too much. Even I had limits. I cut the boost from the staff, letting Kronos lapse back into B-rank. My hands came loose, and I stumbled back, falling to the ground, still twitching with the aftershocks of the horrible pain.

Everyone was starting at me in shock. I panted, trying to speak a few times, and nothing came out but croaks. Finally, I managed to say. “Did…did I pass?”

Elonwyn stared at me seriously. “Shane, you passed the next highest contestant almost two minutes ago. We tried to shake you out of it, but you were…stuck. I think it was going to kill you.” Her eyes snapped to the timeglass, or more accurately, to the sphere in the center, which hung half melted, molten slag dripping into the bottom.

I realized what happened. My staff had pushed Kronos to A-rank, but the staff itself was doing the heavy lifting. More specifically, my staff had gotten into a direct competition with Professor Hawkins time sphere…and had obviously won.

Clearing my throat, I glanced sheepishly back at Elonwy. “I…uh, I don’t have to PAY for that, do I?”