Wish upon the Stars chapter 1148 (Patreon)

My teacher was not pleased. “Well,” he demanded harshly. “What exactly do you have to say for yourself? Do you know how much it cost to make that sphere? And you just melted it to slag. Not to mention the midterms weren’t OVER, so now they’re being delayed.”

I winced. “Does that mean I didn’t place first?”

“What are you, stupid?” he snapped. “Of course you placed first. You beat the second place entrant by almost doubling his time. If you don’t win, who are we supposed to give the position to? I’m just not sure why you felt the need to put yourself into some kind of berserk state and slag my device with your stupid overpowered tree stick.”

“Hey,” I protested. “That’s not fair, the Pillar didn’t do anything wrong.”

He sneered. “No, its master did. But I shouldn’t be surprised. Who uses a staff? Not a spear, or a sword, or some kind of halberd. A staff. Your solution to your problems is LITERALLY whacking them with a big stick!”

“Come on, that’s not fair,” I whined. “I use my staff for more than just smacking stuff on the head. There’s like…leverage. And there’s a range advantage. It’s very complicated, but it’s definitely more useful than you’re making it sound. Don’t shit talk my soul weapon, old man. There has to be some social convention against that.”

His face twitched. “I forgot it was a soul weapon,” he grumbled. “They’re not exactly common these days. It’s not as easy as you think to connect an object with your soul before creating a Domain.”

“Which is to say…” I said maliciously, knowing from his tone that I’d been right.

He sighed. “I’m SORRY I insulted your soul weapon. Whelp. Regardless, you DID pass. I admit, I was watching your trial. And that was an…interesting tactic. By which I mean stupid. Headbutting a door until the latch breaks is TECHNICALLY a method of opening it, but that doesn’t make it a good one. How you gained access to the temporal substrate I have no idea, but you’re lucky your weapon was handling most of the strain or your eyes would have exploded out of your head like eggs bursting on a hot pan.”

“Oh,” I said lamely. “I uh…I knew that. Did it on purpose.”

Rolling his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “That form of yours is interesting, which is why I helped you create it. I did NOT tell you to use your tr- your soul weapon to forcefully elevate yourself to the next rank. I didn’t tell you that because I assumed you would realize that the creation we made is BARELY considered a B-rank creature, and that pushing it up a rank put you PERILOUSLY close to trying to force yourself into the domain of an S-ranker.”

I froze. I had not realized that. I swallowed hard. “And if I had done that?” I asked warily. “Pushed myself too close to S-rank by accident?”

“S-rank is a qualitative difference to the ranks below,” he said frankly. “If you attempted to breach that limitation without a Saga to strengthen your body, you would probably turn to dust. Or possibly explode. Your armor and weapon MIGHT have allowed you to survive a few seconds of it, but at your current rank I doubt it. Maybe if you were an A-ranker you might be able to brute force it for an infinitesimal amount of time.”

I cleared my throat. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said uneasily. “Glad I didn’t decide to try that somewhere else, at least.” I paused for a moment. “What’s the temporal substrate.”

“The mechanical underpinnings of time,” he said bluntly. “At least to me. The substrate exists for everyone, but tends to manifest differently depending on your perception of temporal workings. Access to it is not a bad thing, but you’ve dived FAR too deeply into a pool where you should have been paddling around in the shallows. You may study the levels of access you’ve experienced in the past, but today’s feats should not be repeated, for obvious reasons.”

“Even after I take the Dean’s class?” I asked quickly. “The class name actually mentions substrates. Is that what he teaches?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “You signed up for that?” he sounded surprised. “It’s extremely expensive. I don’t know any freshmen who have taken it. I suppose Elonwy pointed you in that direction?”

“She did,” I nodded. “Seemed to think it would help me.”

“It will do that,” he admitted. “Had you not achieved at least this level of competence I suspect it would have been wasted on you. I admit, when you mentioned wanting to take one of my teacher’s courses I didn’t expect it to be that one. It’s an interesting selection.”

Blowing out a breath, I nodded. “Well, I need a lot of credits. I’m trying to get the ascension thesis. Not just me either. There are quite a few of us. The midterm will put me close, but I have a friend who needs a copy as well.” Winnie had spotted me the credits I needed for my candle, not to mention she’d been a huge help to me here, and we were in an alliance. I wasn’t going to leave her out to dry, which meant I needed to place on the final and not just the midterm. “I take it getting first place in the final won’t be as easy?”

He snorted. “No,” he said with a laugh. “We call the midterms mandatory, but that’s only for lower level students. Advance study candidates are exempt from the midterm exams. For example, your project with me, had you had more time under my tutelage, may have exempted you.”

“So you’re saying all the teacher’s pets are going to come out of the woodwork for the finals?” I asked with a grimace.

“Not just that,” he said with a malicious grin. “The finals are cross discipline. They have subgoals for each major to pass, but there’s a shared component to the final exam that requires large scale cooperation. You’ll form teams and work together to accomplish goals, all for the sake of powerful and unique prizes.”

I groaned, letting my head fall into my hands. “Of course we will. Because why wouldn’t we? I almost forgot this is an Ascendant school and everything has to be done in the most absurd over the top way possible.”

He shrugged. “Even the gods can’t escape our nature. Stories wish ever to be told. We try to minimize the showmanship to foster real learning, but at a certain point, you need to make it exciting.” He raised an eyebrow. “Or did you think that a giant hourglass full of diamond dust was the only medium we could possibly have used to test your skill with temporal mechanics?”

“It did seem a tad overdramatic,” I admitted. “Though I guess I’m used to that kind of thing at this point. Honestly, the REST of this place is almost weirder for being so practical. For some value of that word.”

“Like I said,” he shrugged. “My teacher tries to foster a real learning environment. One benefit of being an Overgod is a certain level of perspective on such things. Not removal, exactly, even Overgods live by the same waves in the ocean of fate, they simply don’t mind spending longer between the crests.” He grimaced. “I sound like Allegra. Insufferable woman. Never tell anyone we had this conversation.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I promise not to tell anyone you believe in anything except the cold mechanical precision of gears and sprockets. But still, finals sound…intense. I don’t suppose you can give me a tip about what’s coming?”

He raised an eyebrow at me skeptically. “Do I strike you as the kind of teacher who gives out helpful hints to my students?”

“Yes…?” I said hopefully.

“No,” he corrected. “I will not give you a hint. However, I WILL tell you that there’s an information packet on the general rules of the final exam available at the exchange, should you choose to purchase it. It costs one credit. I believe it’s been purchased about seven times in the past hundred or so enrollment periods.”

I blinked at that. They had a guide for sale? Actually, come to think of it, that fit the vibe of this place to a T. There had been information on the midterm (albeit not much) available when I’d asked. It struck me as amusing how few people seemed to consider just…asking. Even I hadn’t thought of it. I suppose we were all so used to things being unnecessarily complicated and dramatic that we didn’t really know how to handle reasonable people acting reasonably…mostly.

“So,” I said slowly. “Does this mean our lessons are over? I completed my work on Kronos, and I have examples of how to build timepieces. This was only an introductory course, after all, so I’m probably not entitled to more.” I was kind of sad to see the last of my grouchy old mentor, even if I doubted he felt the same.

To my surprise though, he rolled his eyes. “Fool,” he said scathingly. “If I let you run around doing incompetent nonsense after teaching you the bare minimum you’ll ruin my reputation. Melting people’s treasured artifacts and playing with the deep substrate like some kind of child. You obviously can’t be trusted to take care of yourself responsibly with what I’ve taught you. No, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to continue your instruction for the foreseeable future.”

“Right,” I said, hiding a smile. “Of course. Wouldn’t want you to be embarrassed. But what about the Dean’s class? And my divination course?”

He waved me off. “Don’t worry about the Dean’s course. He holds them in an atemporal instanced classroom. No time passes while you’re inside. They all technically happen at the same time and occupy the same space. Don’t take too many, though. We’ve had a few students develop paradox sickness because they kept running into themselves as classes got out. Never ends well.”

“Alright,” I said with a grin. “Then I’m in. Lessons continue. But I only have three temporal demons and they’re all finished being upgraded. What should we work on next?”

“I suppose your Azazel would be the simplest,” he shrugged. “He possesses the divination aspect, though through a non temporal attribute. I suspect it’s fate or some other nonsense, but it’s at least adjacent. It’ll give you a starting point, and should help transition you into Mythcrafting other attributes without a temporal linchpin in the design. I’ve noticed an overreliance on time mechanisms in your work.”

Sighing, I could only nod. That had been the problem with Owen’s original timepiece. I’d started addressing it, and we’d managed to scrub most of the problem from future designs, but those were time based designs to begin with. I was still going a little heavy on time elements, but since they were a core theme it wasn’t too big of a problem.

I stood, holding out a hand to my mentor. “Look,” I said after a moment. “I know you don’t do the sincere thing, but I do. I appreciate all your help, and I couldn’t have done this without you. I’ve learned a lot from you and hope to learn a lot more. Thank you.”

He stared at me for a moment, then sighed, rolling his eyes as he shook my hand. “Very well, since you DID take first place, I suppose I can break my rule and give you a small compliment. You are an adequate Mythcrafter. Verging on competent. And I suspect some day you may even be acceptable, or dare I say slightly above average.”

Snorting I released his hand and turned to head back to my rooms. I needed to catch Callie up on everything I’d learned and tell her my results. We were only a few steps from getting the ascension thesis. After that…well, if I wanted to help Winnie get her copy I’d need to start preparing for the finals. I had a feeling they weren’t going to be anywhere near as easy.