By the time we got back to the house, I had a pretty decent idea of where my girlfriend's head was at. Even Jessie, who normally tried to lighten the mood with her happy chatter, was uncharacteristically silent during our drive home. Once we got inside the three of us split up, with Jessie bounding off to say hello to the wolves and Callie and I retreating to my room to sit and talk. I escorted her inside, closed the door, and waited until she seemed to have gotten her head on straight enough to speak to me about whatever she was thinking.

Finally, she looked up at me. "So. That was a lot." She kept her tone light, but her eyes were lost and worried. Despite that I didn't say anything even when she stopped talking. She was thinking this through out loud and needed time to sort it out. After a brief silence she kept going. "I learned a whole bunch of things I didn't know today, and I'm not sure which of them is the most shocking, or the most relevant. I'm guessing you know perfectly well why I turned down Alexander's offer of tutoring?"

She looked almost worried about how I would react, but I just rolled my eyes. "Yes, I know you're planning to wish for that Skill now that you know it exists. We've been over this Cal, I don't mind granting you wishes, I don't feel like you're taking advantage of me." I gave her a gentle smile, having already removed my mask when we came in. "Besides, I also know the reason you gave him wasn't a lie. You know as well as I do that your victory over your dad is personal business. You don't want to get sucked into some nonsense family power struggle."

The chuckle she let out at that was thick with stress and impending tears, but she held them back. "You have a point. I still can't believe my dad has an evil twin. Well, IS an evil twin. Whatever. Wow, I kind of get why Alexander kept that a secret, it's kind of an easy place to go mentally. Still, that's not the biggest shock of the night. That would be the Shadow Manipulation Mastery Skill. I can't believe I didn't consider that before. I mean, it's so damn obvious in retrospect, but I can't believe I haven't hit Minor."

I just shrugged. "What the hell even is Minor Mastery of Shadow Manipulation? Making those puppets on the wall with your hands? Minor Skills are supposed to be normal mortal grade stuff. Whatever, we know that it exists, but I can understand the shock certainly. This is a good thing. I mean, it's not going to turn you into an absolute peak master of combat, but thinking about it, your ability to make things has always been kind of...simple. Blades, waves, boxes. Just shapes mostly. I saw you do a key once, but it was small and not too intricate."

She opened her mouth to retort, but then paused. "Well damn. That's a really good point. I only ever trained by trying to increase responsiveness and things like thickness and sharpness. I wonder what kinds of things I'll get from a Skill like that. Of course, I'll still be working it into proper combat training. I'm going to milk those training facilities at the pavilion for all they're worth. I know you feel the same. But still, I feel like that one supplementary Skill opens a huge door for us all."

The bitter snort that leaked out of me came too fast to catch. I tried to play it off but Callie looked at me with concern and given how upset she already was, I relented with a sigh. "It'll benefit YOU. My power is pure support. It's a great way to help you all grow but it's functionally useless to me except for stockpiling stats. My most promising Skill is my DS Mastery, and that's a ways off from taking a jump in effectiveness. Supplementary Skills are useful to you all because you can wish for them, but I can't. I can only trade them other people, and they won't have any of the ones I need. I can't use any of the flashy impressive attacks you all have."

Callie froze, appearing thunderstruck. "But...why?" I blinked at her, not sure what that meant. She looked like she was starting to get excited. "Why can't you use our attacks? We've paid with memories, with tasks, with Skills even, why not attacks? What if you could charge us attacks for wishes, and then seal them up in a bottle or something. Then you could stockpile an arsenal and then unleash them in combat. That's your big problem right? You need more force. But you don't need to stick to just the stat gain method for acquiring it. I mean, you can still get stats from us and help us change our builds, but this would make you WAY more effective in combat."

I just gaped at her. She was right. She was so fucking right I felt like an idiot for missing it. The image of mixing Callie's shadow waves or blades, or a life force boost from Jessie, or one of those flame blasts from Cark, into my attack patterns was amazing. I'd already seen I could mix my DS attacks with other people's moves too. I could use that aqua acid flame on my own without any need for Cark to be there.

It wasn't exactly the most glamorous attack style, but with enough attacks like that I could just straight up drown the other person in overwhelming force. It was an attack style only I could use, and it would maximize my advantages while also being incredibly flashy and impressive. No one would be able to guess my ability from it either, because I'd be dropping a ton of powerful attacks from all different kinds of abilities. It would completely obscure my Wish ability.

Before she could even process what was happening I'd swept her up in my arms, getting a surprised squeak in response as I spun her around before kissing her soundly. When I pulled away we were both laughing and when I finally set her down she smiled up at me happily. I flushed as I realized how sudden that had been. "I've been really worried about that. I feel like I'm getting further and further behind in terms of damage potential. But now that I have this option there's hope for me to keep up."

She went up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. "I'm glad I could help. But we still need to see if it actually works. We need to figure out if you can actually store them anywhere. So, in the spirit of that, I wish for the Beginner Shadow Manipulation Mastery Skill. I'm willing to pay with a full power attack." I hopped up and sprinted over to grab a bottle and a piece of paper, figuring I'd give my power options for storing the attack in case one of them didn't work out.

Sure enough, the familiar purple flames rolled over my vision.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed without a thought. Stat points sufficient.

Requirements: 189 Focus, 240 Perception, 63 Fantasy, 246 Creation, 36 Impact.

I was pretty sure that the reason I kept hitting the ceiling for all my stats on Beginner Skills was that I didn't have enough to create a top tier version, just a solid one. It was just making the best Skill possible, with Impact making up any differences as it did. I was still able to grant the wish, but if she'd wished for a peak Beginner level Skill right on the edge of Intermediate I didn't think it would have worked.

But she didn't so I reached out my hand, taking hers firmly as I accepted the wish and let the already rising electricity roll out of me and into her. We'd been sitting on the bed after I put her down, which was lucky, because it meant she didn't have to fall over as she writhed on the mattress. I winced in sympathy as she grit her teeth through the screaming. Beginner Skills appeared to be pretty unpleasant to recieve, and I was almost glad I hadn't met anyone willing to trade one yet.

As the Skill was burned into her, there was a rush of darkness. A funnel of shadowy power was sucked out of her, condensing into a tight vortex as it dove down at my other hand, where I held the bottle, and...bypassed the damn thing altogether as it seared itself into my wrist. I hissed in pain myself but didn't move, letting everything play out before she finally went still with exhaustion. With Callie ok and recovering, I let go of her hand, pushing up my sleeve to reveal a small tattoo on my wrist of her sigil.

Huh. That actually made some sense. No normal paper or bottle would be able to hold a full power G ranked attack. But my body could. I WAS a G ranker. I didn't think I'd be able to handle an infinite number of these of course, the body can only take too much, but I was pretty sure more than one wouldn't be a problem. The burning in my wrist settled down, leaving behind just smooth skin marked with Callie's symbol. I could feel the thing on me, ready to be unleashed, though I couldn't alter or mess with it like a normal Skill.

It seemed like Callie had a mental image of what kind of attack I would be using when she agreed to pay it. This one was a wave of dark blades. I should be able to aim them well enough, but changing size or shape or any of that wasn't on the table. Callie, meanwhile, seemed to be processing her new Skill, and I scooted over on the bed to pull her head into my lap, rubbing her temples to help her deal with the pain as she digested the new information.

Finally, after about twenty minutes, she opened her eyes. She hadn't been sleeping, just in so much pain that she needed all her focus on processing, but I sighed with relief when her eyes opened. I smiled down at her. "Well, that seemed like fun. We should make this a regular thing. Maybe have Beginner Skill granting date nights once a week." I gave her a crooked smile, trying not to show how worried I was, but she saw through me. She lifted a hand to stroke my cheek before sitting up gingerly.

I helped her up, making sure to take special care so she didn't fall or hurt herself. She gave me an exhausted grin. "Tell you what, we can trade off turns. On odd numbered weeks I can get a new Skill, and on even numbered weeks you can lay your head on a rock platform and let me smash it with a sledgehammer." Her grin became sugary and sarcastic. "After all, I want to make sure that we both get the same amount of enjoyment out of our dates."

I stuck my tongue out at her and she giggled, pulling me in for another kiss. Then we both laid down, Callie too exhausted to head back to her room, and cuddled against each other. We could deal with the new Skill and the implications of the other uses for my ability later. For now I was tired, and so was she, and we just held each other as we drifted off to sleep. It had been a long day, and lots of things had happened. But regardless of the drama or the pain, or even the new use for my ability, this part of it, just spending time together and relaxing, was still a memory I was going to treasure.