Wish upon the Stars (Original Superhero cultivation sci fi litrpg)

[logicmmr]

Why is it so hard for you people to add a fucking basic summary to these things? What is this about? What's happening and why? Have you ever read a real book in your life? All these and more... never!

 

[Quenster06]

Why is it so hard for you people to add a fucking basic summary to these things? What is this about? What's happening and why? Have you ever read a real book in your life? All these and more... never!

Click to shrink...

I mean, it's not like this is the full book. It's more like a public draft to stir up interest. You're really expecting a lot for something that's published for free.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We ended up back in Common City before too long. We didn't run all the way there, obviously, but we did hurry back because we had some research to do. As soon as we were somewhere private (we ended up having the meeting in my Domain, in the meeting chamber behind my throne room), I called Dantalion out, along with Wisdom of Solomon, and even Nine Phoenix himself, and consulted them about the feasibility of Callie's idea.

I was pretty sure it would work, to be honest, but then, I didn't have the theoretical foundation that Dan did. Even during our incarnations, I was only absorbing relevant memories when they came up. Dan was constantly intaking so much information that a full download every time I incarnated him would have gridlocked my brain every time I'd tried. He knew everything I knew, and plenty more, and he was the first person to ask about a project like this.

Of course, I DID have some ideas, especially given my research, but I wanted a second opinion, and sure enough, he gave it to me directly. "It might work," he agreed after a moment's conferral with the other two. "In fact, I believe it can. But there's a problem, and I think you know what it is."

I sighed. "Structure," I said grimly. "Brad's technique isn't designed to function as a full support. This would be a comprehensive upgrade for Genesis Burst. I take it you came up with the same solution as I did?"

"You need to use Mythcrafting build a support structure," he confirmed. "Something that has an opening where you can slot the device. Brad can open pits in anything, and if you leave a space for it to occupy, it should allow the timepiece to act as a foundation. Personally, I would advise putting it off until a later date, once you have more practice."

"No," I said immediately, voice firm. "No waiting. It needs to happen now. I can just…feel it. It's important."

Callie perked up. "Important as in 'I'm paranoid my wife will lose her ugly new shield' important or 'tomorrow afternoon we're all going to be on fire' important. Because one of those is going to pull a thread." Her tone was joking, but I could tell through the bond she wasn't happy with what she was feeling from me.

I just shrugged. "No idea. Just…important."

"Why did you have to be a Fatewalker," she moaned. "Why couldn't you have been a 'detailed hand written manual-walker' or a 'good news about cake-walker'?"

"Aesthetics, probably," I grinned. "But I'll pass the suggestions along to the DS developers if I ever end up meeting them. Anyway, I can come up with something for a timepiece, I have the experience. I'll need to study the lantern shield after you invert it. Are you sure it won't like…hurt you to have it permanently removed?"

She waved me off. "It's fine. I've been working on my Domain a ton. I can remove things permanently under certain conditions. The only real drawback is that the lantern shield itself won't be able to leave the vault. In order for the inversion to remain permanently active I need to sacrifice the original. It's called Enshrinement, and it's a new trick I've been working on. I was going to surprise you with the ability to make powerful permanent items we could sell."

"That's amazing," I told her, my voice filled with awe. "Your vault has so much potential already, but permanently making inversions is…that's a game changer."

No wonder she'd been putting so much work finding new artifacts to test out. Crafting wasn't so easy that just anyone could do it, and the canyon made it clear that it was apparently a lot easier to make things that cause harm than things that help. With access to the local supply of cursed items and the ability to make permanent stuff, Callie could potentially supply our whole faction with high quality, powerful gear.

Honestly, I had kind of taken for granted how overpowered my Domain was, and that was still true, but this kind of proved that I shouldn't underestimate the Domains of other powerful people my age. Not just Callie, the midterms had shown that Domains could have strange and complicated effects that surpassed my expectations.

"Alright," she said excitedly. "So, we're really doing this. Creating a new phoenix template. I love this kind of stuff. Speaking of love, what should we call this stuff? The opposite of Hatefire is…what, Lovefire?"

"We're NOT calling it that," I said firmly. "I'm not telling people that I'm a love phoenix. Besides, Hatefire is just a catchy name Harper used. It's more resentment than hate, remember. We're supposed to be pacifying them. That's why I picked Genesis Burst. It's a healing flame for souls. I'm imagining us helping the Void Children pass on, releasing them from their suffering. So how about something like…Peaceflame."

She reached out and took my hand, smiling at me softly. "I like that," she said in a warm voice. "I like that a lot. And I like that you think of it that way even more. This is a special template. I'm glad we're not making it with animus in mind. That feels right."

I squeezed back. "This is like Life Nova," I assured her. "Its purpose is healing. It's just a different kind of patient."

"Actually," she said slowly. "Maybe we can fine tune it with a bit of tweaking. How do you feel about some test subjects? Remember we wanted to try to help Bethy's siblings? Their behavior certainly sounds a lot like the resentment Harper told us about. In fact, some people consider Vampirism a curse. I bet your Peaceflame could purify their bloodlines."

"Huh," I said as I thought it through. "Maybe some of us will be on fire tomorrow afternoon. Though probably not that soon. But yeah, if that works…we could help Bethy. Fully help her. Purify all the malice from both bloodlines maybe. Or at the very least purify the bloodlust from the vampire." The more I hashed it out in my head, the more excited I got. Bethy had been asking for help for so long, and I'd been working in stages, but it was easy to get wrapped up in my own stuff, and she was always so good at keeping things bottled up."

Callie brought my hand up to her lips and kissed it with an adoring smile. "I'm sure she'll be thrilled. But are you sure you can do it?"

"Bethy is still peak C-rank," I informed her excitedly. "With the Pillar, I can bump myself up to A-rank. Her bloodline is strong, but direct exposure to a specialized purification phoenix that's two ranks higher? If it's feasible on her siblings, I can make it work. In fact, I can alter my timepiece design to MAKE it more feasible. I'll need to talk to Professor Hawkins about this. Lucky we got those contribution points. Harper said you can use those to commission research projects."

Professor Hawkins had been planning to continue my education, but not the same way he had when he'd been working with me on our project. That was actual interference, and I got the impression he hadn't really been SUPPOSED to do it, and had used my interesting concept as an excuse to help.

Now though, he had no excuse. The contribution points would provide a way for me to pay him, and for him to help more directly with my development like he had before. I was hoping with his help, we'd be able to create something that could help not only the Void Children, but my friend and her siblings too. I knew Lark was worried enough about them to pawn them off on us, which said some fairly alarming things about their states of mind given the kind of things he did casually.

She nodded excitedly. "I might approach one of the crafting professors if I can find and in. I bet they would have some amazing ideas for how to apply my Domain, and I can't imagine it's a common mechanism. I bet a crafter would be fascinated to study how it works. Or deeply offended that I'm essentially phoning in their whole profession…maybe I shouldn't talk to a professor."

I waved her off. "I get the impression most people kind of count Domain stuff as part of your bag of tricks. You're a crafter now, they'll consider you one. Also, realistically, no matter how cheap your ability is, it has limits. I doubt you're a threat to literal crafting gods, much less a whole faculty of them. Like there's only so much one person can damage the market, especially if you can only do one for one swaps with permanent items." I could see her point, but it didn't seem likely that her power was going to seriously disturb the crafting ecosystem here of all places.

She coughed in embarrassment. "Oh. Right. Guess I got a bit carried away thinking about how cool my new power is."

"Nah, I get that," I assured her energetically. "My new Arch-Demon form is fantastic. There's something so fun about iterating and working on new applications for your abilities. Honestly, I've been feeling a bit aimless since I completed my Domain. The thrill of discovery is something I always loved. Hence the whole…seventy two demons thing."

She snorted. "I've been deceived. You're supposed to be a big reckless meathead. Turns out I married a huge nerd. Oh the humanity."

"Hey, watch it," I said dramatically. "You're going to ruin my reputation." Pulling my mask up, I leaned down to give her a peck on the lips. "And I love you too. Fellow nerd. Don't worry. It'll be our secret. Just between you and me. And me. And me. And a fourth version of me." I shot a glance at my demons. "Keep this one in the box, boys."

"Wasn't listening, don't care," Dan called as he looked over his shoulder briefly and returned to his powwow.

I shook my head despairingly. "No respect," I whined. "I remember when he used to call me 'my lord' all the time. I've clearly been spending far too much time with him working on my research. The shine is off the apple."

Of course, Dan was ALWAYS respectful. He was teasing, something he DID only get comfortable enough to do once we'd worked together for a while.

Callie just nodded. "I too have trouble maintaining respect for you after prolonged exposure. You're best enjoyed in short bursts. Like a puppy." She winked, blowing me a kiss as she hopped out of her chair. "Whoops gotta go love you, bye!" She vanished in a burst of blue black flames.

I rolled my eyes fondly. She could travel to her Domain from mine through the Angelic bond, though she only used like that it when she was being playful.

Chuckling, I turned to Dan. "So, any notes?" I asked my information demon. "I know you WERE listening. I was always planning to ask for your feedback. I think the Professor should be able to help, even if this isn't his exact field of study."

"Outside his bailiwick as this may be," Dan said wryly. "The man is a god, and an experienced Mythcrafter. He should be more than up to the task of aiding us, even in such an obscure endeavor. Though the involvement of the lantern shield does worry me a bit. Even if it has degraded, are we really sure putting such a thing into a timepiece is wise?"

"I considered that," I admitted. "But since Callie is making the copy, it won't be the original. No chance of a freak recovery because the inversion won't be a degraded ancient artifact, just a normal one she made."

He hummed in acknowledgement. "Well then, I suppose I have no further concerns. I take it you plan to approach him soon?"

I nodded solemnly. "Yup. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll try to start this research project. Like I said, I have the feeling this needs to happen soon." I had no idea why, but my instincts were screaming at me that getting this done was important. I was happy to work on the project, I just really wished I could do it without the knot in my stomach. I had a feeling my instinctive drive to hurry meant nothing good.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"I can't help you with that," my teacher told me bluntly after I explained my problem to him. I froze. I hadn't expected that. I'd figured he would be excited by the challenge, especially with the contribution points to smooth things over.

"If this is about payment," I started, scrounging for an alternative. Did I have anything else the professor wanted? I was a decent Mythcrafter by this point, and getting better by the day, but I didn't have the theoretical foundation to manage something this complicated. The interaction between the two Domains, the ancient drained artifact, and the Nine Phoenix Template needed to be machined to a nearly infinitesimal precision. I had zero hope of doing it alone.

He sighed, shaking his head. "I don't mean I WON'T help you, kid. I mean I CAN'T. Your proposal is fascinating, don't get me wrong. But it's got no theoretical grounding. I wouldn't even know where to start. Your demon's unique attribute, the inverted object, the anchoring mechanism, not to mention the unique nature of the totem you're attempting to make. It's like trying to stitch together a masterwork painting from scraps of other canvases. It's MUCH harder than painting it yourself."

"So…it's not possible," I said, slumping back onto the couch. "If you can't do it…"

"I didn't say that," he snapped. "There's just too many variables. Hell, I could probably manage if I had a bit of experience with even half those factors. Though I'm guessing you don't have and drained remnants of ancient deities perfectly attuned to phoenixes lying around for me to experiment with."

I froze. Because…I did have one of those. In fact, I hadn't really found a USE for it since I had finished using it to craft my Cosmic Phoenix bloodline. "Would something like a sword made from a phoenix feather formerly imbued with hostile worldforce that I cleansed work?"

He turned to stare at me. "Explain," he said slowly.

So I did. I told him about Drexel, about cleansing the feather with Atlas's ritual, about using the Cosmic Phoenix flame to create a template and then refine my bloodline, and how I still had it just kind of…lying around.

Because of the suppression in the chasm for who knew how long, mixed with the purification, the Cosmic Phoenix feather sword was about peak C-rank or low B-rank at this point. It used to be much more powerful, but a large portion of that power had been worldforce I'd wiped out, and it hadn't been able to recover more than a bit of its former strength.

"What is your life?" he complained. "I'm a literal god and I don't run into so many good things. A Cosmic Phoenix feather? One that perfectly complements your body tempering technique? Do you know how RARE those are? People LITERALLY compare rare things to phoenix feathers as a godsdamned idiom!"

I shrugged. "I mean, there are a lot of universes out there, I'm sure they're not that rare."

"And you think ALL universes have spatial phoenixes as their creation event?" he asked dryly. "Kid, you literally have a Domain. You know that gods evolve them into realms, which can evolve into planes. How many gods do you know whose Domain is founded on something like phoenix fire? And how many of those do you think make it to Overgod or Worldgod? Beyond that, phoenixes are adaptive. A space attribute phoenix needs to be exposed to an extremely overbearing spatial terrain, and those aren't common in almost ANY universe."

I thought about the chasm, but I realized by now that my universe wasn't exactly standard. It wasn't some super special unique snowflake world, but there were quite a few rarities tucked under the hood of my little corner of the sky.

Deciding it would be faster, I just withdrew the feather, setting it down on the table with a clank. The item was still in the shape of a sword, having been forged into that form by Drexel presumably. I didn't really use those, and I'd been considering giving it to Callie to see what the Vault might do to it, but this seemed like a more urgent use, sadly.

He reached down, picking it up gingerly. "And you said you already have a matching template and bloodline?"

"Yeah, I deduced it myself," I said proudly. "You think that'll help?"

"I do," he said with a thoughtful nod. "I can use it to map the interaction between the artifact, your bloodline, and the timepiece. It should allow me to model a projected design outcome for the new template. You'll need to curate it carefully to make sure it fits the mechanism. We need to ensure that object, timepiece, and template are all perfectly aligned. Especially if you plant to build in an anchor point for other mechanisms like last time."

Grinning sheepishly, I shrugged. "I mean…I kind of was. I'd have three of them now. Or at least, Life Nova basically counts. I might need to anchor the template there when I design my timepiece for that one. But that leaves me with a need for a matching demon to use as a baseline. Mephistopheles fit the ruin phoenix well enough for us to brute force it, but this seems like it'll be more delicate."

"Your Waltz should do," he said with a shrug. "It has flame and space attributes. That should be plenty to work from." He nodded as if he was solidifying his idea. "Yes. With a stable template to reverse engineer, a similar object to map the trajectories, and a trial run with all the necessary attributes, I believe I can come up with something."

"Will the one hundred contribution points be enough?" I asked worriedly. "Wouldn't this be two research projects?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "Prototyping is a part of development. Upgrading your Waltz should be within bounds, considering we won't need to apply for too many materials for the work. Not NONE, mind you, but the ones I need will be reusable. I suspect a quantum state multiplier would be helpful here. Temporal resonance stabilizers for the chronoflow inducers…" he trailed off, clearly noting my blank look even through my mask.

"There are tools that can aid in Mythcrafting," he said dryly. "Shortcuts and analysis devices that can streamline the creation process. I didn't apply for any of them last time, because quite frankly your other projects didn't warrant the expense. Contribution points don't go on trees. But with an actual project budget, we can afford to be a bit extravagant, and especially if we're planning to complete two such fascinating constructions before the finals, we will most likely need it. You DO want them done by the finals, I assume?"

I consulted my instincts, knowing they wouldn't steer me wrong. "Yes," I said after a brief consideration. "By the finals is important."

He wrinkled his nose. "Must you rely on base instinctive divination in my presence? You could at least pretend to think critically. Allegra is a terrible influence. But no matter. You've stated the projected timeline, and we shall simply soldier on." He picked up the feather sword. "I assume you won't mind me holding onto this? I need to take some readings. I'll also need to examine YOU to establish baseline parameters related to your cosmic bloodline."

I nodded dazedly, but in my head, I was already all but blazing with excitement. Mephisto's Waltz was one of my earlier creations, but its use had somewhat waned over time. It was based on one of my mother's techniques, actually, and had been the first one I'd created when she explained technique creation to me years ago.

Sadly, over time, I had sort of left it in the dust. Teleportation through flame became more difficult as I arrived in more weighty places with higher Impact. The Waltz used Mephistopheles's destructive flames to essentially destroy the space between the start and end of my movement. It was powerful, but also inelegant, and it got harder the further I went.

But this…this could be a game changer. The Cosmic Phoenix bloodline was one of my most powerful and mysterious. It had strange interactions with space that even the Dean considered interesting. Imagining what a….a Cosmic Waltz would be capable of left me almost shivering with anticipation. Not to mention possible combinations with my other phoenix template demons, because this would mark several of them.

Professor Hawkins was looking at me with an amused smirk, but he didn't make any comments about my obvious enthusiasm. I supposed he was used to seeing this from students. "Sure," I told him as I passed the blade over. "I'll leave it with you tonight and head back over tomorrow for the testing. How do I transfer you the contribution points?"

"You don't," he said bluntly. "You're not a postgraduate student or a faculty member. You can't HAVE contribution points. Dean Harper will be holding them in trust, and I'll contact him to retrieve them. It's functionally the same process as you transferring them yourself, but there's no real mechanism for students to accrue contribution points. The instances of it happening are rare enough we've never seen the need to formalize it, and when it does the student in question mostly redeems them on the project in question."

I shrugged. "Fair enough, I trust you to make it happen."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "I suspect you don't realize the value of what you've offered, or you wouldn't be quite so cavalier. But in this case your trust is not misplaced. In fact, allowing me to fund the project will have benefits. My faculty access is far greater than most. If you had to put a title on it, you would probably call me an advanced professor. I get preferential deals on certain project assets and have access to locations and devices other faculty do not. Ones you would be unable to avail yourself of had you a way to directly fund this project."

"Well, I appreciate it," I told him respectfully. "I appreciate all the help you've given me."

"It is in my own best interest," he shrugged dismissively. "You present several unique research opportunities. Assisting you is simply the most efficient way to gain further access to those potential benefits in a timely manner."

"Timely manner," I said with a chuckle. "Was that a joke?"

He glowered at me. "It was not. I do not make puns. They're the lowest form of humor. Regardless, you may leave. I have an artifact to study and preliminary plans to make. My designs will no doubt require revision once we've completed the tests, but having a baseline will help me prioritize the most necessary tests and minimize waste. We only have so many contribution points to spend, and two iterations to complete with them. Best to maximize resources."

He's already seen my process up close, so he had more than enough knowledge of how my designs worked to begin the process on his own. I nodded gratefully and turned to leave, ready to head off and tell Callie the project was go.

"Oh, and make sure to bring your wife with you for the testing," he said lazily without looking up. "I'll sign off on an entrance pass. If she's going to be constructing the anchor material for the second iteration, I'll need to analyze her ability and how it works on similar objects. It would behoove us to start the process early."

Huh, apparently I was going to get to see the inversion of the feather after all. I couldn't wait to see what that ended up being. Maybe Callie could use it for her research while she still had access. It should be an interesting application of space, and might help her draw the attention of some of her department's professors. I couldn't wait to tell her all about this. My next few months were going to be both busy and exciting.