We finished all the tempura pretty quickly, and Benny basically preened the whole time as I rolled my eyes at his gloating. That said I didn't actually comment because holy shit the food was good. Once we were done though I decided it was time to move on to his next three wishes. "Ok, so Minor Cooking Mastery at the peak of that skill rank is pretty awesome. Noted. Though honestly I still feel like it cost too much. Minor is equal to I rank, and the cap for I rank is ten, your wish was more than double that."

Benny nodded. "I think I know what that's about actually. I felt like my brain wasn't...big enough to hold all the information I was getting. Presumably since it was so close to Lesser I was coming up on the limits of a normal human mind and apparently I didn't measure up. I think some of your points got burned up to kind of...pad my brain to ease the transition? It's hard to explain. I don't think I'm like you, with a point of Focus or something, but my brain works better than it did before at the very least."

That...made sense actually. Minor skills were the limit of what a normal person could handle, so the peak of Minor would require the peak of a normal person. Benny wasn't stupid but he wasn't exactly a supergenius even by non Ascendant standards. I'd probably pushed him up to like three quarters of a point of Focus or something. At least, if you assumed that normal people could have stats as long as they didn't reach one, which seemed like a safe bet. Most people had to have Might and Vitality at least, though I suspected being close to a single point meant being closer to peak mortal.

It also kind of implied that I was superhuman in every aspect, even if I hadn't really experimented with that yet. That was something interesting to check into. Regardless I had other things to worry about. "Alright man, three more wishes to go. You said you had ideas so now it's time to bust them out. Impress me with your creativity. That whole 'most powerful skill you can give me' thing was fantastic and will solve a bunch of my problems. I want you to do some more of that." I needed some clever ways to use my powers to get ahead of the other candidates, and this was a good time to brainstorm them.

Benny chuckled and cracked his neck. "One clever wish, coming up." He made a speculative face. "Ok. Gonna do something good." He stared off into the middle distance, eyes narrowed. "Any second. Gonna make a perfect wish." His shoulder slumped. "Shit. You know, putting me on the spot like that isn't helping. I keep thinking of all my wishes and tossing them because they're too similar to the last one or too simple. Any suggestions? As long as I actually want it and pay you should still be able to help me out."

I laughed at my friend. "Yeah, should be fine. But it's not a huge deal man. There's only so much metagaming we can manage. Like I'm pretty sure you can't handle getting a point of stats without Impact. If you wished for a point of Might I feel like you would explode. I think the Focus thing only worked because you stayed within human limits, though I suspect only barely. That said, I do have an idea. I can't give you a skill and then trade it back because then the original wish will have had no value, which my power won't allow, but there's nothing saying I can't give you a skill and learn it the hard way. As long as you actually want it and pay for it it's yours to do with what you want."

He blinked at that. "Huh. That's...that's a good point. I know you can learn skills through doing them, not everyone can use wishes after all. Well then I'll do that. Let's see." He chewed his lip for a second, clearly still undecided until his eyes lit up. What about inventing? You said that's one of the crafting skills right? Inventing, Alchemy, and Enchanting are the main ones? Do I need stats to learn to invent?" He seemed really interested, in it, which was great because I'd love to learn that skill.

Luckily he was definitely able to pick it up, especially since I was pretty sure he was the mortal max for Focus now or close to it. "Nope. In terms of the main three crafting skills they're on a sliding scale in terms of resources. Alchemy requires a ton of resources that have Impact imbued into them and a few of your own stats, Enchanting requires pure stats with only a small amount of resources if any, and Inventing requires almost no stats or resources at all but is incredibly exacting in terms of skill. Of course, that's only to start, they all require both later on down the line."

I'd done plenty of research on crafting after I learned Enchanting, just so I would know how the other skills worked. It was fascinating stuff. I couldn't keep the excitement out of my voice as I explained it all. "The trade off is that Inventing has the highest bar to learn it. Minor Inventing is nearly impossible for mortals to pick up because without stats to lean on, it's basically trying to build things that slightly violate the laws of physics by virtue of crafting and skill alone. That said, if anyone can bypass that problem it would be me."

Benny looked as pumped as I felt. "That sounds fucking awesome. It won't be mad science but it's pretty close, and maybe I can synergize it with whatever power I get when you can grant my wish for one. That's the wish I want. I wish for strongest Minor Inventing Mastery skill you can safely give me." I was excited to see what the human limit for Inventing was actually, it should be higher at least than for a chef, though I knew cooking was a crafting skill too once you get it higher, so maybe they would cost the same.

Wish detected. Grant Wish?

I confirmed.

Sufficient stat points available. Requirements: 3 Creation, 15 Focus, 6 Fantasy, 9 Perception, 1 Impact. Compensation required.

I gave a low whistle. Damn. That was pricey. I was especially surprised because this was the first time I'd seen a non Ascendant wish cost Impact. Even most Ascendant wishes didn't. If the requirements were this high it was no surprise mortals almost never learned the Inventing Skill.

I nodded to the backpack and Benny reached over and opened it, fishing out a square cut sapphire the size of a playing card and passing it to me. I focused, but shook my head. I could feel it wasn't enough. He started reaching into the bag, passing more and more stones over, until finally after four rubies, a diamond, another sapphire, and a really nice emerald I felt the familiar static. I gesture for him to stop and he laid down on the couch, trying to get comfortable for what was probably going to be an extremely painful experience. When he nodded, I granted the wish.

He started screaming almost right after my confirmation. I felt for him, the charge on this spell had been massive, and my bones were tingling just from granting it. He tried to clench his teeth to muffle the screams but it didn't really work, and I winced in worry and sympathy as his whole body locked up into an arch of pure agony. It felt like it took an hour for him to finish, though I suspected it had only really been a few minutes, but when it was finally done he collapsed, panting and covered in sweat.

His eyes were still glowing purple when he opened them, turning his head to grin weakly at me. "Wow. You just keep raising the bar for shittiest possible experience." He blinked owlishly as he sat up. "I...I get why mortals don't learn this though. It's possible to use this skill without stats, or rather, with stats below one point, but it's monstrously complex. You need specialized knowledge and skill that would take almost a lifetime to acquire. I can also see why the entry level of this doesn't have a stat requirement. It's...amazing."

He rubbed his temples with a wince. "Gods, it's a lot to take in. I...can teach you this. Especially with five Focus to help you learn, but it won't be fast. Inventing is an inexact term for this. It's more like stacking maybe? You use mechanical and technique knowledge to put together a bunch of parts that accomplish more than they can do on their own. Use just a touch of power to shift the nature of an item. You can do it without a point of stats, but it's like setting up a million dominos to knock over something heavy. Complicated and time consuming."

That was fascinating. "So in a way, Enchanting is using your energy to do the heavy lifting, Alchemy is using the materials, and Inventing is perfectly integrating both to achieve an exponential result." He nodded, seeming tired and distracted. "You ok man? You seem...fried. I don't think we should do any more skill wishes today. Hell, we maybe shouldn't have done the two of them in succession like that." I went back into the kitchen to get him some water, bringing it out and handing it to him.

He took it with a wan smile. "Yeah two in a row might have been a bad decision, but I'm fine. I felt something...reinforcing me. Like I was becoming more real, more solid, so the changes couldn't hurt me. Was that Impact?" I nodded and he whistled. "Nice. It didn't stick around, so I'm guessing slowly building up to a point of Impact won't work, but it was a rush when I was feeling it. I can't imagine experiencing that all the time." He took a deep pull of the water, closing his eyes with a refreshed sigh. "Thanks man, I needed that."

I nodded. "It's fine. Just take your time. We should have waited between wishes at the very least. No reason to rush the next two. We can give it a few hours. Maybe you can wish for some materials later and test out your new skill, but for now just...take it easy." Despite his insistence that he was fine Benny looked pale and a bit shaken. It had been sloppy of me not to consider that getting skills could cause cumulative stress, especially after I saw how much the first time had hurt. But he had. "You wished for the strongest skill I could safely give you. You knew it might be too much."

He chuckled. "I did. I could feel the stress. But Shane, I just...I needed more. The feeling of just becoming more than I was, of gaining so much just from a few words. It's intoxicating. Bit off more than I can chew though, so I don't think I'll be wishing for more skills for a while. This one will be more than enough to play with for quite a while anyway." He gave an easy shrug. "All's well that ends well anyway man. I'm fine, and we learned some very cool stuff. I can teach you inventing."

I rolled my eyes. "You're an impulsive ass. Learning something cool means nothing if I have to wipe your liquefied brains off my face after your fool head explodes from being stuffed too full of random junk." He scoffed a bit but didn't argue, so I knew he was taking me seriously. Still, danger aside he was right, we had learned some interesting things, and when he recovered a bit and wished for some inventing materials to use we would learn even more. I licked my lips in anticipation, seemed like my power might be even more interesting than I thought.