Between the date and the conversation with my cousin, I was feeling recharged enough after breakfast to get back to training. I decided to forego doing all five wishes for the Beast Lord Garden folks, and knocked out one of them with Cark before we left so I could top up my fire attacks at least a bit. The great thing about that was that Cark exclusively cared about Might, and that increased his firepower, so the attacks got stronger with every wish, and since it was entirely to his benefit it was totally valid.

I saved one wish and did the three contractually obligated ones for Sloane, topping up my Fantasy to an even one hundred and ten before going to find Alden. Our mentor was sitting in the stands in the Pavilion, relaxing as he waited for our training to start. He'd apparently decided to watch this one. I waved to him as we approached. "Hey old man, haven't seen you around here for a week or so, why didn't you sit in earlier?" I dropped onto the seat next to him, reclining to watch the mostly empty ring.

"Watch?" He snorted. "Watch what? The two of you getting your fool arses kicked in creative ways by the boy? This training course was my creation lad, I know what the first week or so is like. Today is the sweet spot. First time against your real instructor after you've had the humility beaten into you. Mel and the boy couldn't even walk by the time the gave in on that first day. The next day though...that's when you see something. Had all the stupid smacked out of you enough to be halfway competent."

I was beginning to see how Abel had ended up the charming and compassionate person that he was. The poisoned apple didn't fall far from the man eating tree. Rolling my eyes at the bearded man, I continued with my point, though I stopped to have Callie put up one of her stealthed shadow domes. Most people here knew, but no point in advertising. He arched an eyebrow in concern when the dome went up, but didn't complain, just waited for us to explain.

Mulling over how best to phrase this, I decided to just come out and say it. "I can offer you a WCP wish. I have access to a source." I very carefully did NOT mention or look at his leg. It was obvious what he would wish for, and I didn't want to invalidate the wish by tampering with the compensation. "So..." I said lamely. "Do you want a wish?"

Alden burst out laughing. "Lad, that was the worst sales pitch I've ever heard, but I suppose when you're selling gold you ain't gotta hype the merchandise. Am I to assume this source is the reasoning behind all the support from the Beast Lord Garden? E-rankers don't much go in for lavishing gifts and aid on little do-nothing outfits like this. I was wondering how you got them to commit so many resources."

He looked down at his leg. "Now forgive me, but wishes take payment right? What might this old man have that would be worth a new limb? I already work for you lad, and I don't have much money to offer. The boy is already training you, and I trust him to do that much properly."

Callie, knowing I was reticent to comment on wishes because I was worried about skewing the results by biasing the recipient, cut in from where she had been quietly holding the shield. "Well you could pay with some of your attacks. Regrowing a limb for someone at our rank isn't just about normal stats though. It would require Impact. The payment for something like that would probably be more than just one attack."

That was true, I'd used Impact in most of my wishes as a stand in for other stats I was lacking, but I'd only ever granted an Impact related wish once. When I gave Benny his powers. I was pretty sure I had the stats to do it, but even I was under the impression that it would take more than one attack, even one as impressive as Alden's, to offset that cost. It was just a matter of how I perceived things. A few points were fine for an attack because attacks were made up of hundreds of points, the raw value was there and then modified by my need for combat ability.

Alden didn't seem worried though. "Alright then. If I do this the way I think, then I wish for my leg to regrow. I'm willing to pay with ten attacks, paid our over ten days. Does that work? I figure the delay means I should pay more of them, and it'll be a hefty price for a leg in any case." He raised an eyebrow at me questioningly.

Wish detected. Grant wish?

I confirmed. I was interested to see if this worked. It would be less of a priority day to day since points only took one attack to pay off, but it gave options for things like Skills if my friends needed them.

Stat points sufficient. Requirements. 36 Impact, 330 Vitality, 350 Might, 306 Creation.

Damn. That was a hefty chunk. I'd seen more expensive wishes, and granted this was essentially a Beginner rank limb. I wondered if souls strength played a role in determining the value or even effected it at all.

With the dome still up I decided to just get on with it. I reached out and put a hand on Alden's shoulder as I accepted. "I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to hurt really badly." I said apologetically. Big changes made to others usually hurt, and a physical one like this was bound to be even worse. Alden just nodded as the purple electricity began to build along my skin, until finally it hit a breaking point and rolled out of me, into the other man with the force of a tidal wave.

His body locked up, and I saw his jaw clamp shut tightly to prevent a scream as all his muscles tightened. The electricity seemed to gather in the stump of his leg, funneling down to where it was needed. As we watched, the bone speared out of the flesh, extending out to grow into the smaller bones of a foot, held together by tendons, with muscles knitting themselves together down the length as skin split and then grew down over the appendage. Finally, nails popped out of the toes and Alden was sitting there, a fully grown, if completely hairless leg.

The electricity faded, and Alden slumped back against the seating behind him, panting in exhaustion and pain. Before he could really relax though, the still fading electricity gather in his hand and Gravity started to warp into a sphere of disrupted space. The power condensed for a minute, electric arcs of purple dancing over the outside, before it popped like a soap bubble, and the electricity arced to me. It ran through my body, though not nearly as painfully.

I was kind of shocked. That was a pretty unique way of transferring an attack. It was different than Benny's physical attack, or Callie's semicorporeal shadows, or even Jessie's life energy. Regardless though, it was done, and Alden groaned slightly as he lay there, still panting. "Ok. Ow. You mightve undersold it a bit with 'hurt really badly' lad." He grinned tiredly. "Pain isn't much though. Thank you for this. It means a lot that you would trust me with this, and I know you did it because I was injured and needed it, which means even more."

We helped him sit up. "No problem." I said cheerfully. "Also, that was fucking gross. I've regrown limbs before, but it's usually faster than that. Watching it in slow motion was weird. Not sure why it was like that. Maybe because the limb was higher Impact so it needed more time to form. Still, glad I could fix it."

He snickered a bit at that. "Yeah, well I didn't have much time for admirin' what with being paralyzed with mindsearing agony, but I don't doubt you." He looked at Callie. "You can let down the shield now lass. If anyone asks about the leg I'll just tell them you got some kind of medicine from the Beast Lord Garden for me. Don't you worry. I won't let on you have connections to the WCP."

Callie let the shadows drop, and I was pleased to see she hardly seemed effected by the effort. She must have been working on her soul strength. We both stood up, stretching. I wasn't tired from the wishes, I rarely got exhausted from the easy ones, and it took more than one huge wish to wear me out with my current Vitality. With Callie still feeling fine the two of us were more than ready to get back to our training with Abel. Well...physically. Mentally we weren't ever going to be prepared for that sadism, but oh well.

When we reached the ring, Abel was waiting for us. He'd seen us come in and watched the dome go up, but hadn't seen the need to bother us. "You fixed his leg." His voice was quiet. "I...appreciate that. We were already planning to arrange it, but it would have taken time. Regrowing Ascendant limbs isn't a common ability, and tech that can do it is expensive, especially for someone as high up in the G-ranks as the old man."

"Of course." I said stoically. "He's done a lot for us, even before he really had a reason to. I'm glad we could help." I grinned unapologetically behind my mask, humor leaking into my voice. "Don't suppose this means that you're going to go easy on us today? Give us a break on the asskicking as a thank you for helping him out?" My tone was wry, because I had no illusions of the likelihood of that happening. Still phrasing it as a joke made asking pretty much nothing but potential gain.

Abel just chuckled warmly. "Oh, buddy. No. We're training. Taking it easy on you isn't a favor, it's a disservice. The less I push you the less you grow. You don't want me to hold back. We're already on a tight schedule. " His grin became sharper. "In fact, I think that this favor is going to earn you a more...thorough training session. I'll be sure to put my all into making you the best fighters you can possibly be. Doesn't that sound nice?"

It did not, as a matter of fact, sound nice. It sounded terrifying. But under the sadism I could tell he really was trying to help, even if I wished he didn't enjoy it so much. Besides, I was pretty sure trying to talk him out of it would only make things worse. I gave him a weak thumbs up as I sighed tiredly. "Oh sure. Sounds like a party." I chuckled uneasily to match his own enthusiasm, shooting a sidelong glance at Callie, who met my eyes worriedly.

Abel rolled his eyes a bit. "Oh don't be such babies. I'll even let Agria heal you up after. The point of the first day's training was to leave an impression. Now that you've had you ineptness drilled into you, just the pain of actually fighting me should be enough for you to learn from. Normally I would have waited another two days to allow healing, but since I'm doubling down today, I'll be nice and allow it early." We both relaxed a bit at that.

We got into position across from Abel, ready to try our hardest not to get demolished. I adjusted my stance to complement Callie's, ready to intercept any attacks that came her way as we both lapsed into that special state where we fought as one. As Abel blurred toward us my last coherent thought before violence overtook us was 'gods, this fucking dungeon better be amazing'.