The Story So Far (Patreon)

This is a post of the novel: The Mage of Shimmer Mountain chapters 1-20, so you can get caught up if you haven't already read it on Royal Road.

Chapter 1: Shimmer Mountain Ascent

Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence.

Hugo had been sure he could easily make the hike, but the mountain had convinced him otherwise by the end of the second day. At this point he wished he could leave the procession and go back home. The only thing that stopped him is that he knew he wouldn't survive the return trip alone. He had to stay with the group.

He hadn't planned on being here in the first place. For the last three years he had been training to be a shimmer corpsman. He should have gotten in on admissions' day. If Kristofer hadn't messed everything up, he would be a squire in the corps right now. Instead, he was trying to make his fallback work.

His back-up plan sucked.

They were on their fifth day of traveling, the fourth one after the monorail, and they still had another one to go. Hugo was in the best shape of his life, but the pace up the mountain was grueling. He was grateful that the soulmarked guides kept the beasts away, but he was sure that they had forgotten what it was like to be a normal human. They kept a grueling pace that made him genuinely worried that he would get left behind if he didn't give it his all. This was the first time he had made a trip alone, and he wished he had prepared more.

Everything was up, up, up. His legs were long past sore, now his arms and back were sore from using a walking stick to keep climbing. He longed to just sit down and rest, but he knew better than that. The guides wouldn't stop for anyone, it was his job to keep up with the group. Of the twenty-four hundred hopefuls, they had already lost sixteen.

Hugo hoped that some of them had made it back down the mountain to the monorail station, but he had to admit to himself that it wasn't likely. This mountain was always crawling with mana monsters, and it got worse with the mountain heartbeat. The young men and women that sat down to rest were probably killed not long after they were out of sight.

He shook his head and focused on better thoughts. The mountain scenery really was beautiful. There wasn't any greenery, but it had a kind of stark beauty. He listened to the chatter of the people around him and the ubiquitous crunch of gravel. The fresh mountain air was better than home, even on a good day. The heartbeat of the mountain was coming, and he was going to be soulmarked. Good things were coming. He would unlock a great magic domain when he was back home. He would be set up for a great career as a mage.

It would take him a while to get as powerful as the shimmer corpsmen were on their first day, but plenty of soulmarked eventually got stronger than the captain of the guard. Hugo had his sights set on surpassing the power of the man that rejected him.

He just needed to keep walking, and not get left behind. Hugo looked over to Marion to make sure he was keeping up too. Thin as a beanpole with muscles to match, Marion had every excuse to fall behind, but so far he had kept up with the group.

Hugo had met Marion right after he had gotten off the monorail, and they had become fast friends after that. Many people made the journey to the top of the mountain with their parents or as part of a group. It was safer that way. Hugo and Marion were the exceptions, two young men on their own.

They met when both of them rushed to help a young woman who had fallen. She spurned their help and attention, but the young men soon found they had a lot in common besides helping strangers. Over the last few days they had become good friends. They were already promising to send each other pulsenotes to keep in touch after they returned home to their respective cities.

Hugo liked him a lot, but he doubted that their friendship would last. It wasn't just that they would be returning to different cities after the heartbeat, it was Marion's parents. They were strict Octarians. Not only would they hate Hugo just because he came from Reval, they would hate anyone that climbed the mountain to get soulmarked during the mountain's heartbeat. Octarians believed in doing things the old-fashioned way and repeatedly killing beasts until you got lucky and your soul got marked.

Still, the friendship was fun while it lasted. "Marion, eight degrees to your left."

Marion looked up from where he was trudging along and turned to his left, "What?"

"Up just a bit," Hugo said.

Marion smiled, "Heh, nice." They appreciated the view of a young woman with rather tight pants before she walked behind the bend and was lost in the crowd again. Both of the young men were enjoying the exposure to different cultures and different social mores.

They walked in comfortable silence for the next few hours until they got to the next way station. As silent as you could get with hundreds of people gasping for breath around you.

Hugo appreciated that Marion was willing to walk with him in the first place. Most people didn’t want to associate themselves with a stranger, let alone one with a scar on his face and brown threadbare clothes. Hugo could tell that his new friend came from money. His blue tunic with yellow trim showed that he was much better off than Hugo was.

As they sat down to dinner, Hugo turned to Marion and said, "So, you never told me. Why are you heading up the mountain for the heartbeat?"

Marion scoffed, "To get soulmarked of course. I want to be a powerful battle mage, and that starts with getting soulmarked."

"Duh. I meant why are you doing it this way? Most people from Deva aren't exactly fans, you know," Hugo said.

Marion looked away.

Hugo backpedaled, "Oh, sorry. You don't have to answer that."

"No, it is fine, I will tell you," Marion said with a sigh. "It is all about percentages."

"Percentages?"

"The normal way doesn't have a good success rate, you know. Plenty of first timers die on their first hunt. And some souls don't mark. No matter how many hunts they go on."

"Yeah, they have a special name for them, right?"

"Forsaken, the lowest class in Deva, below laborers even. They say gods frown on them. They live worse than destitute. Anyway. Only sixty-four percent of those that hunt come back soulmarked. The rest either die or come back forsaken. That is why plenty of Octarians never go out on their first hunt, they can't stand the idea that they might be revealed as forsaken."

"Well, I for one, am not worried about being forsaken. I am sure we will both get marked tomorrow," Hugo said.

Marion laughed, "Of course you aren't afraid. Ninety two percent of everyone that climbs this mountain for the heart beat is successful. Practically everyone comes back soulmarked."

"Really? That high? I knew the chances were good, but I didn't know..." Hugo trailed off.

"Yes. That is why I am here, I want a guarantee. I told my parents I was going on a hunt, and I came up here instead. I think a few more from my city are doing the same. We all pretend not to see each other here."

"Don't they wonder about the timing? The heart only beats on New Year's, you know," Hugo said.

Marion shrugged, "My parents will not, they barely pay attention to me as it is. Some neighbors may suspect. But suspicions can be ignored and forgotten. What matters is that you came back with magic. Being branded forsaken is never forgotten."

"Whoa. I always thought this was serious for me, but it is a whole other level for you guys. If I didn't get soulmarked, it really wouldn't be the end of the world. I could just get a job at the docks, or as a craftsman. My dad always said I was pretty good at metalwork. I am just climbing today because I wanted more from my life."

"And so am I. My stakes are higher, but our goals are the same."

Hugo laughed, "Listen to you, sounding all old and learned. You are seventeen years old, just like me. Don't act like you are an adult yet."

"Nox are adults at sixteen," Marion said.

"Yes, but we are human, not Nox. It's easy to remember if you count your number of arms. One, Two. Human. See? It's just that easy," Hugo said.

Marion laughed and pushed him away. He said, “Riese have two arms, how do you know I am not a riese?”

“Ha, you wish. You are a bit too short to be a riese, and way too skinny. I think we can safely assume you are a human, and not an adult yet. But let me know if you suddenly develop a strong affinity for plants and nature and we can revisit the riese thing.”

With a grin, Marion puffed up his chest and started walking around like he had suddenly grown muscles. He said, “Hmmm. I can sense that there are no plants around here. And I think my hair is starting to turn white too.”

Hugo just laughed and ignored him.

Despite how difficult the journey had been so far, Hugo found himself in a good mood. He was getting closer and closer to his goal. The top of the mountain represented more than just access to magic. For him at least.

Hugo had been born into a well off family, but the last several years had been rough. His father had died, and left them a lot of debt. His mother had moved them to the narrows, the poor part of town in Reval. Since he hadn’t wanted to join the gang there, things had gotten even tougher for him. He had a disfiguring scar on his face from a run in with the fox gang.

For years, all he could think about was escaping the narrows. His first plan had been to join the shimmer corps. The local police were the only ones that the fox gang feared. He wanted out, and to have power over his own life. But that plan fell through and now he was on his backup plan.

If he was honest with himself, climbing the mountain was a better plan. More freedom and more power came to the soulmarked, plus a chance at greatness. All he had to do was survive the trip.

Chapter 2 : Quiet before the storm

The next morning broke and Hugo crawled out of his bedroll. It had sprinkled in the night and it was still blissfully cool. He luxuriated in the quiet morning. There were a few mountain guides up preparing breakfast, but that was it. The last few days had been rough, physically and mentally. It was nice to get some quiet time.

It was easier to remember that this trip would be worth it when he was well rested. By the end of today he would have a spot on the ritual circle at the top of the mountain. He almost couldn't wait for the heartbeat of the mountain to come and his chance for his own soulmark. Everything followed from that mark, it would unlock his stats so he could grow in power. Once he was strong enough, he could get a magic domain. With that domain would come financial security, he would never want for a job. He could be a harvester, mage, crafter, bodyguard, and many others. No matter what magic domain he unlocked, people would pay good money for him to work for them. This was his turning point, the point where everything started to get better.

By the time that the smell of toasted mushrooms and tarrack started wafting down the mountain, more of the camp started waking. Hugo returned to his bedroll and nudged his companion awake. Marion arose, bleary-eyed, and was led by Hugo to breakfast.

They were halfway through breakfast before Marion finally woke up. He tried to chat up his female neighbors, but they were immune to his charms.

Eventually Marion turned his attention back to Hugo and asked, "So, newfound buddy, we haven't talked about domains and builds. What are you going for?"

Hugo shrugged, "It's not like we can choose anything we want. Aptitudes, right? But I have always thought of myself as a warrior."

"Ok, you want to beat people up, but I am asking how you want to do that?"

"What do you mean?"

"There is no such thing as a warrior domain, which of the eight real domains are you going for? You know, formation, barrier, light, blah, blah, blah."

Hugo shrugged his shoulders as he chewed. He swallowed and said, "I dunno. I haven't put a lot of thought into it."

"What? Didn’t you ever pay attention in school? How haven't you thought about it by now?"

"Hey now, I was great in school, got all ones last semester," Hugo said. He looked down the mountain, "It's just that I didn't think soulmarking would apply to me. Up until a month ago I had different plans."

Marion nodded, "Ok, yeah. I guess it must suck to have your plans change at the last moment. But this is important stuff. This is who you will be for the rest of your life."

Hugo nodded along, but Marion didn't need any input from him to keep going.

"You said you wanted to be a warrior, right?" Marion said, "But there are a lot of ways to get there. You can be a defender, using the barrier domain to create powerful magic armor. You could be a rune smith, creating elemental swords to take down any foe. Or you could be a one man army, leading a crew of golems into battle with the life domain. Your choice of domain doesn't determine your career choice, you decide how you are going to use it. For example, everyone says that rangers use the light domain, but the best ranger, Elrond the Red, used formation to create endless arrows. There are good options in most of the magic domains, no matter what you want to do. The only one I don't want to get is light magic. Those guys are weird. I am hoping more for formation or life magic. The one opens up a lot of choices, and the other keeps you alive long enough to make choices. Even after you have your domain, you have to choose the right build. Stats matter more than people think. Aaand you aren't even paying attention anymore. I guess you are just going to wing it?"

Hugo smiled and nodded. Marion threw up his hands and left the table. Hugo wanted to care, but he also knew that aptitude had more influence in your domain choice than attitude did. He grabbed his bowl and took it to go get washed. He went back to the bedrolls and cleaned up their camp, rolling up Marion's for him too.

With a sigh, Hugo sat back down and waited for the rest of the camp to get ready to go. The conversation this morning was a bit frustrating. He knew he had to make a choice soon, it just wasn't one that he wanted to make. He had spent the last several years with one path in mind, no choices to be made.

Now he had several important choices to make in the next few days, and even after those choices were made, he still had to make his own way in life. He felt listless. There wasn't one right choice anymore. No ideal choice in any given situation.

Marion wanted Hugo to plan for the future, to set goals. But how could he set goals when he didn't know what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go. He was only here because Sofia felt bad for him and used her connections to get him a trip to the mountain.

Every city had a limited number of passes each year, he was lucky she was able to get one for him. Regardless of what domain his soulmark granted him, it would make him more powerful. Sofia must have liked him more than he thought. Either that or she was in on the betrayal and this was her way of assuaging her guilt.

He shook his head, he knew her better than that. Just because his anxiety said that everyone hated him, doesn't mean that he has to listen to it. Things were going to turn out alright.

The gods must have heard him being positive because they sent Florin his way. The horrid boy and his parents were walking in his section of the procession today. Hugo nudged Marion to get his attention. If they walked faster for a few minutes they would get out of his range.

But it was too late.

"Huge and Mary! Funny running into you two again. Not that I expect either of you to be able to run. I still can't believe Mary can walk, to be honest," Florin said.

"It's Marion," he said quietly.

"Are you sure? You were kind of quiet there. Are you sure about your name? Cus I really think that Mary fits better," he said. Florin's parents were following close behind, but they ignored his antics.

"Lay off him," Hugo said.

"Oh and the boyfriend comes to her rescue once again," Florin said. "Keep quiet, Huge. Mary can defend herself if she wants to. I just think she doesn't want to. She wants to be your girlfriend, she was just born with the wrong parts."

"Shut up Florin. You know that isn't true. It's not like it would be an insult even if it were," Hugo said.

"Don't tell me to shut up!" Florin yelled.

"Florin, not so loud," his mother said softly. "You know your father has a high perception. Please don't make us regret coming along any more than we already do."

The aforementioned father looked at his son disdainfully and continued walking.

Florin immediately quieted and leaned closer to the two boys. "I am going to get you for that," he whispered.

"You are the only one yelling. Worry about yourself," Hugo said quietly.

They could tell that Florin wanted to continue the argument, but glanced at his father and kept quiet. He spent the next few hours staring daggers at Hugo and Marion.

Hugo didn't know why the rich boy bothered. Florin was putting in an awful lot of effort to bully two kids that he would likely never see again. None of the three boys lived in the same city, and it didn't seem worth the effort to hate a stranger that much.

The insults Florin hurled were so dumb too. Huge did sound similar to Hugo, but it wasn't offensive to him. He never worried about being fat. Sure, he was stocky, but a lot of that was muscle. He was proud of the weight he had put on recently, because it meant he was that much stronger. He was a little surprised that Florin didn't insult his facial scar.

That is one thing that Hugo was self conscious about, the thin scar going from left of his eye down to his neck was unsightly. It showed that he was poor enough that he couldn’t afford a healing potion or a visit from a life mage.

Florin's other insult was little better. Calling his friend Mary seemed to bother him a bit, but it wasn't like Marion was effeminate at all. He was just this tall, rail thin guy. Both insults were just so asinine.

Eventually Hugo and Marion managed to extricate themselves from the situation. They drifted to the side of the group of people hiking up the mountain. They were walking in a column about fifteen wide, and the soulmarked guides made up the outside of the column. Hugo was pleased to see his favorite guide walking on the outer edge. Like the rest of the guides, she wore a red vest with golden buttons, but otherwise wore her own clothes.

He didn't know the guide's name, and that was part of the reason he liked her. She didn't talk any more than she absolutely had to. There was none of the inane chatter there was with the other guides. Hugo liked walking near her and not talking.

Halfway through an enjoyable hour of companionable silence, they were interrupted by the guide having to do her job.

They were passing a small ravine when something burst out of it. All black and moving fast, the creature hopped out of the ravine and ran at the line of people. The quiet guide manifested two obsidian daggers, one in each hand. Before the creature could get close, she threw a dagger at it, as fast as an arrow.

Hugo didn't even recognize the shape until it was almost upon them. It was a shimmer insect, an enormous monster created of magic. Seven feet tall and twice that long, the monster churned forward, all six legs pumping. The guide's dagger hit the monster's neck precisely and embedded deep with a squelch. It tumbled to the ground with a spray of gravel. Less than a moment later, it was dead. The magic it was made of quickly unraveled, only leaving behind a burst of blue. The light blue sparkles quickly dissipated.

As soon as the magic was gone, two more shimmer insects took their place. They must have been sneaking through the brush in the ravine, hidden until now. The guide shot out two more obsidian daggers. One monster was instantly turned into a cloud of drifting sparkles, the other insect just lost a few legs and kept coming. She frowned and threw another dagger to finish this one off. The sound of chittering filtered in from the ravine.

"Swarm!" the normally quiet guide yelled. A few red vests leapt over the crowd to join her in staring at the ravine.

It took Hugo a bit to see what she was yelling about. A swarm of the enormous insects were clamoring up the ravine, all attempts at stealth gone. More than twenty monsters leapt out of the brush and headed their way. A few people screamed and rushed up the path.

One of the new guards manifested an enormous blue shield in front of the ravine. Thirty feet wide and half that tall, the semi-translucent shield blunted the insect charge. Before the monsters could go around, he dismissed the shield. Instead, he gave himself light blue armor and two long swords.

A stream of daggers flew into the swarm while the new guard jumped into the fray. Another of the guards stepped up to use his power. Runes flared across his clothing, and he leapt all the way over the attacking insects. He attacked them from behind, each hit with a gloved hand or foot dissipating the monsters into clouds of blue. In less than a minute, there wasn't a single monster left standing. A slight tang filled the air, a remnant of the monster's mana tickling his nose.

Hugo continued walking, looking back at the aftermath of the battle. The attack hadn't scared him, he had gotten used to it by now. He was just wondering what kind of loot the monsters had dropped. That many monsters must have dropped something interesting.

It was usually just a manastone, especially for monsters this low ranked. But Hugo had heard of fantastic loot occasionally dropping. Manashards were possible, or rarely an aspected shard. If Hugo somehow lucked into a grand firecryst, he could pay off everything he owed Sofia for the pass, plus enough left over to pay for four years of the academy. Unlikely of course, but a man could dream.

He glanced up when he heard the omnipresent crunch of gravel going quieter. Then he saw it. A few hundred yards in front of him was the end of the mountain path. It almost made him cry, the end was finally in sight.

Author note:

I know it is hard to trust a new author on RR, but I have reason to believe that you will like this story. I have published three novels on Amazon at this point, all with good reviews. I have a huge chunk of this story already written, so it won’t disappear anytime soon. Go ahead and click that follow button and enjoy the consistent new chapters. I will do everything I can to give you a story worthy of that trust.

Chapter 3: Soulmarked for Greatness

It felt almost anticlimactic when they finally arrived. The mountain trail led to a small plateau. It was like someone cut off the top of the mountain and inscribed a blue pattern across most of the flat stone. Near the trailhead there were stone seats for the escorts. The majority of the mountain top was an enchanted circle, one enormous ritual with branching runes starting in the middle and leading out towards the edges. He had heard it looked like lightning had struck the middle and forked out from there. But Hugo thought it looked organic, like trees growing from one spot, branching and branching further as it neared the edges.

It was vast, the circle taking up more room than his entire school campus had at home. Unlike the dirt path they had walked to get here, this was a perfectly well maintained edifice. Marble and gold made up the flawless surface that looked like it had just been cleaned.

Hugo turned around and looked down the mountain, towards his home city. Too far to see, he still knew where it was. He was a bit sad that he would be missing new years and the heart beat festival. It was the funnest night of the year, full of merriment and intrigue. He loved the festival with its decorations, bright lights, and song. Two heartbeats ago he had his first kiss under a floating lantern. His family would be celebrating without him right now, and later tonight his friends would be out carousing as well. He hoped that they would miss him as much as he missed them, but Hugo was starting to wonder if they would.

It would be another few hours before the heartbeat, but the mountain wardens started getting everyone into place now anyway. All twelve hundred of the assembled hopefuls were assigned a random receiving spot on the spellform. Each year the heartbeat would fill most of the hopefuls with magic, making them ascendants. Most, but not all. A random section of the outer edge of the circle would fail to light up each year. Not all that hope, acend.

Receiving spots in the center always lit up, and only a few random spots on the edges remained unlit. To counteract this inherent imbalance in desirable spots, everyone that joined the expedition up the mountain received a random number and spot on the enchanted circle. It was a perfectly fair system that rewarded the rich and poor alike.

As with most fair systems the rich and powerful had circumvented it long ago. The center of the design quickly filled with the scions of the eight cities, their uniformly rich garb mocking the idea of equality.

Hugo wasn’t surprised to find himself on the outer circle. It didn’t worry him either. Every part of the outer ritual circle worked equally well. It was just random who would get ascended today, and as Marion pointed out, the odds were still good. He was glad to see his friend, only two spots away. They had a shouted conversation for a bit. The nox and riese standing in between the two friends didn’t appreciate that, so they stopped.

Taking a closer look at his neighbor, Hugo realized he needed to get out more. He was standing next to a riese, and as common as they were, he hadn’t had any as friends. Not that he could go up to one and ask him to be his friend. He doubted anyone wanted to be a token riese friend.

He had plenty of human friends from his neighborhood. A few nox friends, but that was hardly surprising. Like they said, this was a nox world, we are all just living in it. It was hard not to make some friends of the most populous species in the land.

There was still plenty of time before the heartbeat came, and Hugo grew bored even before everyone got to their assigned spot. On every side, there was someone his same age, but none of them wanted to talk. It was a bit inconvenient since they all had to stand six feet apart, but still. He wished that someone would be interested in talking instead of just standing there and stressing. He could hear conversations on other parts of the ritual, but the people around him resisted his efforts to start a dialogue.

He crouched down and examined the runes he was assigned to stand on. A line came in from the ritual center, then circled the spot he was to stand on. Inside the circle were eight runes, or at least the beginnings of one. It looked like the rest of the runes were buried underneath the stone surface. Hugo wondered if he would be able to see the rest of the runes after he was soulmarked. He had heard that they could all see mana. He assumed that the metal was a mana conductor, and if it wasn’t already infused, it would be soon when the heartbeat happened.

Time passed and more and more teenagers grew as bored as Hugo and sat down on their assigned circle. The sun had set, the guides had gotten out lanterns. Lights dotted the plateau, circling the ritual. They were all waiting on the mountain to do its thing. The shimmer that flowed up the mountain’s veins provided the power for this ritual. It was the whole reason that they were all here today, the heartbeat only happened once a year. He didn’t think about it much but he knew the mountain was a living being of some sort. Perhaps the most boring animal in existence, as far as he knew it didn’t do anything other than beating its heart once a year.

In the fall the mana would slowly leak from the mountain, causing the monster surge. Then its veins, or ley lines as they were sometimes called, would slowly convert ambient mana into shimmer. When enough shimmer was produced, that would get pumped up the mountain.

Hugo wasn’t quite sure what the difference between mana and shimmer was, but he was told that there was a difference, and it was an important one. Maybe he would learn about it after he attended the academy.

The two emotions of boredom and anxiety warred with each other in Hugo. There was nothing to do here and he wished that he could be doing anything else but sit here waiting. At the same time, he kept glancing at the sky and worrying that the heartbeat was late. Perhaps he wouldn’t come this year. The first time in history, and it would be the one to deprive him. He had almost convinced himself that he was cursed and it would never happen when he heard someone yelling.

“Shimmer coming!” a soulmarked guide yelled from the edge of the plateau.

The hopefuls scrambled to their feet, ensuring that they were standing in the middle of their assigned circle. It wouldn't be long now. A light blue glow surrounded the plateau, quickly growing in intensity. Once it surpassed the brightness of the lanterns, the center of the ritual circle lit up. A column of bright light pierced the sky.

The metal of the ritual started glowing. The teenagers closest to the center took on a glow of their own. Then the next layer out, and the next layer. Faster and faster, the glow covered people like a wave.

The wave started flickering as it reached the outer edges. The girl standing in front of Hugo didn’t light up. The mana entered her ritual circle, but instead of making her glow, she started to vibrate. A high pitched keening escaped her lips, followed by blood. She coughed once, then fell to the ground, dead. Her section of the ritual stayed dark. An acrid, coppery smell filled the air.

The people in the center of the ritual stopped glowing. Then the next layer out dimmed, then the next. Soon the only light was the lanterns the guides had lit. It was over.

Hugo didn’t get soulmarked.

A person was dead, and her death broke the flow of mana. Hugo wasn’t soulmarked. And he would never get another chance. He stood there in shock, even as people started filing out of the ritual circle. They met up with their parents and escorts, and started down the mountain. Right after the heartbeat was the worst time to be on the mountain, and they needed to get going right away.

Yet, Hugo stood, unmoving.

This had been his last chance at greatness. The shimmer guard didn’t want him. The mountain rejected him. He knew he wouldn’t survive long as a harvester. There were no other options. He was going to have to go back home. He would have to tell his mother she was right. Sofia would be so upset.

A pair of guides in their red vests walked up to the girl in front of Hugo. They had a stretcher that they loaded the body onto and covered her with a blanket. He realized that they had prepared for this. Someone had mentioned a danger in the process, that some people died. But he had assumed that was from the monsters, not from the ritual itself. It was chilling to learn the truth.

A different red vest came by, collecting the few hopefuls that hadn’t gotten soulmarked. He guided the hopeless to the side with a promise of an explanation. He had to push Hugo gently before he moved. Once in motion though, Hugo walked over to the crowd of disappointed teenagers and waited for someone to make sense of this. There were a few parents on the outskirts, consoling their children. Most of the people on the outer edges didn’t have escorts though, they were on their own.

“Alright, everyone. You didn’t get soulmarked. It isn’t the end of the world. Three fourths of everyone in the city never rank up, and they lead happy lives. The mayor of Reval isn’t soulmarked and he is a happy fellow. You get a chance to lead a happy life too. And if you don’t want that happy life, the harvesters are always accepting recruits.

“We need to move fast, now that the heartbeat is over. Make sure your bags are strapped tight, and your footwear is in good condition. We took four days going up, but we are going to make it down the mountain in just two days. We head out in half an hour, as soon as the newly soulmarked are out of our way,” the man in red said.

The teeangers looked at each other in confusion. That was it? This was their explanation. They didn’t get soulmarked and they were just supposed to be happy about it? It was the world's worst consolation speech followed by a reminder that their lives were in danger the longer they were on the mountain.

A new man stepped up to the crowd before they could disperse and said, “Please don’t go quite yet, there is another option. You all have another chance at being soulmarked tonight.” Everyone turned to look at the newcomer. He was a tall and skinny man, with the brown and gold trimmed robes of a ritualist.

The red vested guide frowned and yelled to the crowd, “This man produces results, but know that he kills more than he saves. What happens next is on your own heads.” He turned and walked away.

Chapter 4 : Alternate Methods

“Bah, don’t listen to him, he is jealous,” the ritualist said, “My name is Alexandru and I help repair and maintain the ritual of awakening. As you have all seen, the best time to be soulmarked is the first go around. But there will be another peak, a much smaller burst of mana in about an hour. I have constructed a secondary ritual circle over there,” he gestured to the other side of the plateau, “And can contain enough power to soulmark one or two people. You have another chance to be soulmarked. Your dreams can still come true. It can happen tonight.”

The crowd suddenly buzzed as they all discussed this new information. Some hugged strangers, some cried, and others expressed doubt.

The ritualist held up his hands, “But my rude college was right, this secondary ritual comes with considerable risk. Unlike the primary pulse, this ritual often has a resonance death. Sometimes no one dies, but more often than not, one person dies as one is soulmarked. Most are completely unaffected, and you are right back where you started. And this would cost an additional silver, since your guide fees do not cover this second ritual. If you are still interested, follow me over to the secondary site and we can discuss it further.”

At the mention of more death, most of the crowd left right away, heading for the trailhead. These were sensible people. If they had been fine with a high chance of death, they would have signed up with the harvesters in the first place.

Some stayed though, and Hugo realized that Marion was one of them. He walked up to his friend and said, “Can you believe it? Almost everyone got soulmarked but the both of us have rotten luck.”

“Yeah. Rotten luck,” Marion said, looking past him.

Hugo followed his line of sight to see the ritualist walking away, “You aren’t thinking of doing that, are you?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure,” Marion said, looking down.

“This is a bad idea. Most people just waste their money, the rest die. What if you are the one to die?” Hugo said.

“If I am dead, then I don’t have any more worries, right?” Marion said with a smile. “Honestly though, I feel like this is a good idea, like the universe is giving me a second chance.”

“I might consider it myself, if I had the money,” Hugo said, “But you shouldn’t. I know your parents are in the military, but you don’t have to follow in their footsteps. Choose a safer life, go be a merchant or something. Just because your parents want you to be a soulmarked warrior, doesn’t mean you have to do what they say. Choose your own destiny, don’t get killed following someone else’s dream.”

“I don’t really have another choice. My parents think I have been out on hunts for a month now. If I return without being soulmarked, they will think I am Forsaken,” Marion said. “My mother might be ok with that, but my father would disown me. He is a sergeant in the army and a deacon of the Octarian church. He wouldn’t have any choice but to cast me out as Forsaken. I have to do this ritual, otherwise I will be stuck as less than a laborer for the rest of my life.”

“Hey! That’s the life I am going back to,” Hugo said, “It won’t be that bad.” His voice fell at the end. He was trying to cheer up Marion, but he ended up depressing himself. His dad died as a laborer. His dad had been skilled and brilliant, but he died working on the docks and left a destitute wife and son.

Marion seemed to catch on to his mood and said, “I can... I can pay for you too. If you want.”

“Thanks, but no. I am already in debt from this trip. As much as I would like another roll of the dice, I don’t think I could pay you back,” Hugo said.

“No, don’t worry about it. If I am the one to get soulmarked, I will be able to afford a silver, no problem. If you end up being the one to get soulmarked, you will be able to pay me back,” Marion said.

“And if neither of us gets soulmarked? Then you are just out of the money,” Hugo said.

“Trust me. Money is the least of my worries right now,” Marion said.

The two of them joined a small group trekking across the large ritual circle to end up at the small secondary ritual. Hugo recognised one other person walking towards the circle. That jerk Florin was following his parents over. There were a total of twenty four people walking over. Four sets of parents, and sixteen almost adults. Three riese, two nox, and the rest human. They took their turn paying Alexandru. Before long everyone had paid and they stood around, staring at the metal ritual embedded in stone.

It was small. Only twenty receiving spots on the ritual circle. That number made Hugo even more worried. It meant that this had been built by a human, not a nox like the main ritual circle. Nox were obsessed with symmetry and anything they made was divisible by eight.

The system of magic in this world was made for the nox, it just worked better for them. Hugo was a bit worried that he was trusting his life to a human. He wasn’t the only one worried.

Florin’s mother walked up to the ritualist as he was preparing and said, “Are you sure about this? I use runic magic myself, and I recognize all the runes you have here. They don’t make a lot of sense.” She pointed to a section of runes, “For example, those runes are time runes, why would this ritual need time runes?”

“What an excellent question. I am glad to be talking to someone that knows so much that she can recognise complex runes at a glance,” Alexandru said with a smile, “To answer your question, those are time runes, and they have a purpose. The process of being soulmarked takes time, time we don’t have. This secondary spike is much shorter than the main one. So, that section of runes right there stretches out the time for the participants. For us it will be but a moment, but they will have plenty of soul time to incorporate the mark.”

This seemed to assuage her doubts, and she slipped him a few more silvers and whispered something into his ears. The ritualist nodded and glanced at Florin. Well, Hugo knew who was getting a good spot. But this time, he was going to get a good spot himself. He muscled himself and Marion to the front of the line and placed himself within the inner ring. The ritualist just smiled at them and ignored Hugo and Marion.

Hugo noticed that Alexandru told Florin to strap on a sword. This made no sense at all. They were going to stand still for a ritual, not battle monsters. Still, he got his dagger out of his bag and tucked it into his waistband. Maybe the metal would act as a conductor for the mana or something. Marion was standing by him this time and Hugo told him to do the same. Marion didn’t have a dagger, but he slipped his eating utensils into his pocket.

The smaller ritual circle looked a lot different from the big one that covered the rest of the plateau. Hugo didn’t know anything about the runes like Florin’s mom, but he noticed that the radial symmetry was off. There was a big circle in the middle of the ritual, chock full of runes. Golden lines spread out to eight outer circles. Those circles had lines that spread out even further, but instead of going to sixteen outer circles, they only attached to twelve more circles in the final layer. He bet the nox hated using this one. A look around only found two nox out of the sixteen standing there.

He rolled his eyes at the meager nox representation in this cast-off group.It was frustrating, but not too surprising. Although nox were plentiful, they were also the dominant species. Preferential treatment for them was pretty much the world’s default state. After Hugo awakened his magic, he wanted to lord it over them, just to show them that they didn’t win at everything. He wouldn’t of course. Who knew if these nox were well connected.

He couldn’t decide if he wanted to lord it over Marion or not. His new friend seemed like he could take some good natured ribbing, but then again he would have just lost his chance at a power he had saved up for years for. Maybe Hugo should try to comfort his friend instead.

This was all just positive thinking, of course. The possibility that he wouldn’t be walking away with a magical power didn’t bear thinking of. This was his plan C, plan D didn’t exist because plan C was going to work.

Marion started talking to the boy to his right, but Hugo didn’t feel like shouting loud enough to join their conversation. Remembering his earlier resolution to make more friends, he turned to his left and said to the riese standing there, “Hello, my name is Hugo, what is your name?”

She glanced at him before turning back to stare forward. “Lina,” she said, stoically.

Hugo glanced back at the other riese people in the crowd, “Are those your parents?”

She didn’t turn to look and said, “Yes.”

“I’m from Reval, where are you from?” Hugo said.

She huffed and turned to face him, “I’m from Ettel. Do people from Reval not usually take a hint? I’m trying to center myself.”

“Why try and center yourself? We have no control over this process. And yes, people from Reval are usually very blunt,” Hugo said.

Lina stared at him for a bit then said, “I am trying to center myself because if I don’t I am going to scream. This may not be serious for you, but I have to get soulmarked by this ritual. My life depends on it.”

Hugo nodded, it felt like that to him too. At the same time, hearing it from someone else made him realize that it wasn’t true. There were other jobs, other paths for his future even if this one didn’t succeed. “That isn’t really true, is it? Your parents aren’t going to kill you if you don’t get soulmarked?”

“Well, no. But you should take this seriously,” she said.

“Taking this seriously won’t increase my chances, the ritual will decide if I am successful or not,” Hugo said.

She glanced at Hugo and said, “Maybe. Still, I am determined to be soulmarked today. Every time we try, there is a chance that someone dies. I won’t let that happen to me.”

That reminded Hugo of the boy that had burnt to death ahead of him. That could have been him, and this second ritual supposedly had a greater chance of death. He shivered. No need for a plan D if that happened. He let the conversation lapse. He really should leave. The risk wasn’t worth it. But still, anyone that grew up in the Narrows was at least a little bit suicidal. He stayed put.

More waiting. It seemed like that is all he did today. Wait. Now that the sun had gone done, there was no way for him to tell the time accurately. For him anyway. He looked up to the skys. He was a city boy and none of those stars meant anything to him. It was pretty though.

The start of the ritual caught him by surprise. Hugo started as the center circle flared to life. Just like the other one, a column of bright light shot up into the sky. But unlike the other ritual, this light was yellow and didn’t spread out. It just glowed, and nothing else happened. Hugo looked around. Everyone looked a little fuzzy. A nox boy yelled to the ritualist, but got no response.

Chapter 5 : Soul Tempo

Everyone turned to see that the ritualist was frozen in time. In fact, everyone outside the ritual circle was frozen in time. The ritualist, the several sets of parents, a few guides in red vests. This must be the time magic that he had talked about. The only movement was from the sixteen teenagers standing in the circle. It was eerily quiet.

Florin stepped forward. Or he split in two? There was one Florin walking around, and the other one was frozen in place. Hugo thought that the ambulatory Florin looked a little transparent. It was like he was a reflection in a window, a faint echo of the real boy.

With a leap of logic, Hugo assumed that it was Florin’s soul walking around. Everyone’s bodies were stuck in normal time, but their souls were sped up. Hugo stepped forward too, and marveled as he looked through his hand. Marion joined him and laughed as he put his hand through his body’s head.

More people followed his example, trying out their new freedoms. Two boys verified that their souls could interact, running into each other and bouncing off, laughing. Lina stood there, poking at her soul body. The two nox just stood there, frowning.

Florin’s soul drew his sword as he walked towards the nox standing near him. He yelled out, “There can be only one!” Then he stabbed the nox’s soul, piercing it all the way through. Blue light poured from the wound and was absorbed into Florin. Soon the nox’s soul was gone.

The circle erupted into chaos. Almost everyone screamed in terror. Many ran away, only to find invisible walls around the edge of the circle. Hugo drew his dagger and backed up in terror. A few people seemed to expect this turn of events though, and immediately attacked the people standing near them. A dark haired human grabbed a girl from behind, pulling her to the ground and stabbing her.

Lina used her riese height to cross the distance quickly and attack Hugo. Her huge hands wrapped around his throat as she brought him to the ground. Hugo stabbed into her side, over and over again. Bright blue light flowed from where he stabbed, but Lina just bore down on him harder.

Hugo wasn’t feeling faint though. Apparently souls didn’t need to breathe. He kept stabbing at her, working his way up to her neck. Lina pulled back and slammed his head to the ground. That had an immediate effect on Hugo, making him feel bruised all over. He renewed his defense, stabbing at her. The injuries slowed Lina down, but didn’t stop her. Hugo was almost knocked out when she slammed him down again.

Just as Lina pulled Hugo up again for another slam, Marion came out of nowhere with a utensil in each hand. With a fork he stabbed at her eye. She flinched back, into the path of his other hand. He stabbed his knife deep into her soul skull. That was enough to finish Lina off, and she burst into blue light. Both boys absorbed the light. They stood up, unsteady. Hugo noticed he was feeling slightly stronger.

The two of them looked up to see Florin finishing off another boy. Another blue light was absorbed. He scanned around, looking for more victims. Eight teenagers had sensibly run from the violence and were huddled up against the edge of the ritual. Four had just dissolved, leaving four teenagers in the middle of the ritual.

The dark haired boy and Florin were off to the right, and Marion stood with Hugo closer to the middle. The two friends stepped back, a panicked look on their faces. Florin and the other boy stalked forward. It was terrifying to see them walking forward, stepping through the frozen bodies.

Marion grabbed Hugo’s arm and was about to run when Florin did the unexpected. He turned and stabbed at his ally. The dark haired youth ducked to the side, turning the blow into a glancing one. He tried to counter attack with his duel daggers, but Florin had the range advantage. He played with the boy, dancing out of the way of his knives and stabbing him back each time.

It was only a matter of time. Hugo knew that Florin was going to destroy his ally soon, and then he would turn on the rest of them. With his sword and obvious skill, Florin would be unstoppable. If they didn’t stop him now, they never would. Hugo pulled from Marion’s grip and said softly, “Now. We have to get him now.”

Hugo ran forward, not looking back to see if Marion was following. He leapt up stabbing down with his knife and both hands. He was aiming for Florin’s head, but missed when he lunged forward. Florin finished off the dark haired boy at the same time as Hugo’s attack landed. His knife bit deep into Florin’s shoulder, and incapasitated that arm.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t his sword arm. Florin whirled around swiping out with his sword. Hugo was barely able to get his dagger in the way of the sword, but he lost the knife in the exchange. Hugo leapt back from the wildly swinging boy.

“Bastard!” yelled Florin.

Hugo jumped back again, keeping one eye on Florin, the other looking for his lost dagger. He couldn’t see the dagger anywhere. Maybe it didn’t exist anymore now that it wasn’t attached to his soul. He did see Marion sneaking up on Florin though.

“You suck at this, you coward!” yelled Hugo, trying to create a distraction for Marion.

His friend took the opportunity, stabbing a fork and knife into Florin’s head at the same time. But Florin wasn’t caught unawares, he was already stabbing back with his sword, catching Marion right in the chest.

Marion ignored the strike and continued his attack. Both boys' souls burst into blue light. The light was quickly absorbed into Hugo. He stood there, shocked at the sudden loss of his friend.

Strangely, Hugo didn’t feel sad. Nothing felt real in this weird ritual plane. He did feel stronger though, perhaps the ritual was granting him power from the symbolic victories. He looked around, seeing the other eight still standing at the edge of the circle, and the yellow column of light.

A few boys had regained their courage, seeing that Hugo was unarmed. They started stalking towards Hugo. He backed up, not wanting to get into another fight, especially unarmed. He reached out and touched the column of light.

A yellow flash signified the end of the ritual.

...

Hugo slowly got to his feet. He must have fallen over as the ritual ended. A few people from the outskirts were stirring. A blue screen popped up in the center of his vision. It was partly translucent but he could easily read the message.

Congratulations

Your soul has been marked for greatness and you have been granted access to the Acamarian system. You are granted access to the mana of the world, use it wisely. May your legacy be long and grand.

He read it but didn’t really comprehend it. Hugo was busy staring past the message at the ground in front of him.

They were all dead.

All the people who had died in the spirit world were dead in the real world too. The riese Lina was lying motionless on the ground to his right, her parents crying over her body. The nox parents on the other side of the circle were repeatedly slapping the motionless nox boy. They seemed unwilling to admit that he was dead. Florin’s parents were arguing with the ritualist, shouting that they had been cheated. He kept retreating in the face of their fury.

Perhaps the most tragic were the ones that had no one to mourn them. A dark skinned boy lay ignored in between parents grieving for their own children. A girl with long braids lay face up, dead eyes staring at the edge of the ritual circle. His friend of a few days, Marion, lay face down on the cold stone. Hugo lurched into motion when he saw that his friend’s body was in danger of being trampled by Florin’s parents. He stood over the body, forcing the argument to go around him.

He shook his head, realizing what had happened. The ritualist had killed these people. “You!” Hugo yelled as he pointed at Alexandru, “You knew this would happen. You killed these people. It wasn’t an accident, the power didn’t randomly kill them. You wanted people to die, didn’t you!” Hugo was shaking by the end.

Everyone looked at him strangely, even Florin’s parents who had just been yelling at the ritualist. His outburst had strangely moved the attention to him instead of Alexandru. Hugo looked to the other eight that had stood on the circle with them. Didn’t they feel anything? They had just watched seven people die, why weren’t they as furious as he was. But no one backed him up. When Hugo looked back, the ritualist was gone.

Without anyone to focus their anger at, the people in the clearing grew quiet. The soft sounds of sobbing were the only things heard over the sound of the wind.

Two soulmarked guides started clearing away the bodies. They had prepared for this eventuality even if the body count was only expected to be one or two from such a small ritual. Stretchers came out, and each body was stripped and placed on a funeral pyre with the other bodies from an hour ago. As soon as the last body was on the pile of logs, they lit it all on fire.

A women in a red vest came up to Hugo and said, “You were with the tall, skinny kid, right?”

“What? Uh, yeah. Marion was my friend,” Hugo said.

She shoved Marion’s bag into his hands and walked on. Hugo watched her leave, not sure what to do with the bag. Should he return this to Marion’s family? Let them know how he had died?

But he had no idea who they were. He had talked with Marion for days and had never learned his last name. He knew all about Marion’s little sister, the funny things his mom did, and how strict his father was, but he had never learned their last name or even what part of town they lived in.

“Five minutes! We are leaving in five minutes!” a woman in a red vest yelled. The pyre had just been lit and already they were planning on leaving. How heartless were these people? Then Hugo remembered the reason for their urgency. The monster surge would be coming soon.

This brought focus to his thoughts, he needed to get ready now. He couldn’t afford to get left behind. He quickly emptied Marion’s bag. There was a book and some letters that he stuffed in his own bag. He tossed aside Marion’s sleeping roll and toiletries. He grabbed a bag of random bits and bobs, along with his coin purse and put them into his own bag.

What was left was an extra change of clothing, a utensil set, a long knife, and several pairs of socks. He dropped it to the ground, there was nothing worthwhile left. Despite the fact that his friend had been richer than he was, he had purchased substandard equipment for this trip.

Hugo shouldered his bag and turned to say goodbye to his friend in the pyre. He felt like he should make the goodbye poetic and honor him. Nothing fitting came to mind though, and he just said, “Goodbye my friend. Your absence makes the world dimmer. You will be missed.”

Then he turned and hurried to the trail head. There would be a time for grief, but it wasn’t tonight. There was a small group assembled at the edge of the plateau. It was made up of the teenagers that didn’t get soulmarked, their parents, and several mountain guides in red vests. They had stayed behind to clean up after the large group and light the funeral pyres. A mountain guide finished locking up a storage shed and then ran over to the rest of the group.

They needed to go now, the mountaintop would soon be overrun. The heartbeat meant that mana had been sucked out of the countryside. The only source of mana now was the top of the mountain. They needed to be gone before a whole countryside worth of monsters arrived here, searching for their lifeblood.

Author Note:

Here is a little factoid for you. No one is named randomly. All of the names come from specific cultures. For example, all of the people Hugo grew up with have Estonian names, all of the people Alexandru grew up with have Romanian names, and all of the Nox have Xhosa names. And there is a reason for all of that, of course.

Chapter 6: Race for your life

“Alright guides, time to earn your keep,” a man in a blue vest yelled, “Pikes up front, shields to the sides, ranged behind. Let’s see if we can catch up with the main group a little quicker this year, yeah? Everyone else, listen up. We don’t stop for nothing. Doesn’t matter what comes up on us, doesn’t matter who falls behind. We don’t stop. We will be running all night, and we won’t rest until we are safe in the stronghold halfway down the mountain. I don’t care who you are, we aren’t stopping for anyone, not until we are in that stronghold.”

They passed out lanterns and formed up. Hugo thought it was interesting that the unmarked in the middle of the group got the lanterns. The only soulmarked guide that kept a lantern was the leader in blue, who walked up front with the leading edge of their phalanx. He saw long pikes materialize out of nowhere and get passed along the front. Once they were all ready, the group took off at a jog.

Slightly more than two hundred people jogged down the trail, the soulmarked protecting the normal in the middle of the pack. They were almost immediately beset by monsters. Eleven overlarge insects leapt out and attacked the group. Five monsters attacked from the front and three attacked each side. The monsters attacked senselessly, practically falling all over each other to get at the people. Each one was over seven feet tall. There were a few different forms, four legged monsters with scythe hands like praying mantises, six legged armored monsters like beetles, and segmented monsters with hundreds of legs. Each one was similar to a real life insect, but the form was enlarged and mutated to make it more deadly.

The soulmarked didn’t even break their stride.

As one, the soulmarked in front stabbed forward with their long spears. Three monsters were instantly turned into light blue sparkles. Two of the larger monsters were just impaled. Instead of finishing them off, the mountain guides used the spears to toss them off to the side.

Once the insects hit the sides of the phalanx, they were bounced back. A few of the defenders manifested a small transparent blue shield directly in front of the attacking insects. The monsters hadn’t expected the sudden appearance of the shields, and tumbled to the ground. Soulmarked holding physical shields stepped forward to bash the monsters back.

From the rear of the formation came small blue bolts, targeting and destroying the downed monsters. The final monster was shot with a large crossbow quarrel that dissipated the huge beetle.

A few normal people cried out when the monsters attacked, but other than that, their reaction was muted. This wasn’t the first time they had been attacked on this trip, but tensions were high. They knew things would get worse.

They jogged down the switchbacks, slower when it got steep, and running when the path was easy. Hour after hour passed, and they continued to be attacked by groups of monsters. The guides handled these ones just as easily as the others. No one was scratched, let alone seriously hurt.

The next turn revealed a long straight stretch of the mountain path. Hugo couldn’t see the other end, but he knew from his earlier trip that this was a long, mostly flat valley. It is where they had camped last night. They had traveled down in four hours what took the entire previous day of hiking up.

The man in blue held his lantern high and spoke just loud enough to be heard, “We can walk for a bit, take a drink, eat a light snack. Don’t stop, don’t fall behind.”

Everyone slowed to a walk, taking out bottles and water pouches to slake their thirst. Hugo could hear a few people gasping for breath, spilling water as they tried to recover from their hours-long jog. It was then that Hugo finally felt the impact of being soulmarked. He might not be any stronger or faster yet, but every soulmarked could recover faster, and this jog hadn’t depleted him.

It was real. He had been soulmarked. He was going to be powerful, just like he had always wanted. He felt conflicted though. He was not sure if he should be happy he had survived, or upset at the cost. It was only now, when he felt out of immediate danger, that he really thought about that situation. It made him sick to his stomach.

Seven people had died, and from their actions, it seemed like some of them knew what was going on before the ritual started and they entered soul space. Florin had yelled something about being the only one. Then the three of them had attacked and killed the other teenagers. They knew what was going on and they jumped straight to killing. The ritual must require a death to power up the survivors.

He had read about this kind of thing. It was foul twisting of life magic, sometimes called necromancy. He hadn’t expected something out of his two copper novels to actually happen to him in real life. He looked around for the ritualist again. Hugo had to bring him to justice. But he wasn’t here. Maybe he had run ahead or found another way off the mountain after Hugo had made that scene.

Another thought occurred to him. Two of the three murderers had rich parents. Did they pay extra to the ritualist to ensure success? The ritualist must have then let them in on the secret. At least one death was required to power up the ritual and soulmark the victors. The whole realization felt abhorrent.

Hugo was going to be able to realize his dreams, but it came at the tragic loss of seven other lives. Well, four of them were tragic. The other three were murderers and got what they deserved. Hugo briefly wondered if he should feel guilty for his part in all this. He had fought Lina and Florin and even though he hadn’t been the one to lay the final blow, he killed them all the same. Should he feel guilty for that?

No, he had only killed in self defense. He wouldn’t have even done that if he had realized what was going on. The only real guilt he felt was surviving when Marion had died. No one would be happy to see Hugo return home, but Marion was leaving behind a grieving family.

He didn’t want to think about that, and instead focused on the trek. He had to be alert in case of attack. The mountain guides couldn’t protect him from everything. There were flying monsters, and stealthy monsters, either of which could slip past the defenders.

As soon as they were out of the valley, they continued their jog down the trail. The switchbacks were steep and soon even Hugo was feeling the pain in his feet and shins. He wished that they could stop instead of just walking to rest. But they couldn’t afford to spend any more time on the mountain. The monster surge would only get worse from here.

The monster attacks continued, at least one per hour. As they got lower on the mountain, more varieties started cropping up. Dire wolves appeared out of the dark, their black coats allowing them to sneak up close before they attacked. The velociraptors attempted to sneak up as well, but they were quickly killed. The python monsters were perhaps the most dangerous, if only because they managed to trip up some of the red vested guides. But those monsters were killed or incapacitated like all the rest. They didn’t even bother to injure the stone turtles, they just jogged a little faster past them.

Some of the girls took turns being carried by a generous escort, too exhausted to keep jogging at pace. Hugo could tell that some of the boys wanted a break too, but they were too proud to ask to be carried. He kept an eye on them, resolving to help anyone that fell.

They kept moving through the entire night. Every so often the man in the blue vest would offer soft words of encouragement. He would tell them to be strong, that they were getting close. He lied. Their destination was miles away. They did take a brief pause shortly after the sun rose, but then they were moving again.

Hugo started keeping an eye out for the stronghold when it was midmorning. He knew it had to be close by, he recognized the schist field they had just passed. There were a few distinctive boulders strewn about, and he started seeing more dirt and less stone.

The man in the blue vest called for a halt shortly before they got to a grove of trees. He had a quick whispered conversation with the guides in the front of the group. Hugo didn’t know why they were stopping, especially when they were so close to safety. Then it hit him, there was no vegetation on this mountain. None. Those trees hadn’t been there when they climbed the mountain, and so they couldn’t be trees.

Now that he knew to look at them carefully, he tried to see the monster shapes in the tree camouflage. He couldn’t. The illusion was perfect, this whole grove looked real. If it wasn’t for the fact that he knew the trees had to be monsters, he would think the man in blue was scared of what was hiding in the forest, not the forest itself.

The man in the blue vest had walked to the back of the formation and was arguing with a woman there.

“You have to throw it, it’s our only chance.”

“It works up to rank fourty. Do you know how much it costs?”

“I will ask the commander to reimburse you when we get back.”

“You know he will only give me half of what it is worth.”

“Look. Look at that. You can see what I see. If you don’t throw it, we will all die. And you can’t spend your gold if you are dead.”

“... Fine,” she said. She reached into her bag and pulled out a large flask with a green liquid in it. She loaded it into a slingshot apparatus on her forearm and pointed it at the grove of trees. Without hesitation, she shot the flask. It soared through the air, landing in the middle of the grove and bursting. A green mist billowed out, covering most of the forest in less than a second.

Suddenly the illusion dropped and the forest disappeared. Instead of trees, there were enormous spiders. Instead of tree trunks, there were spider legs with blades on the end. Instead of a leafy canopy, there were spider bodies with huge fangs.

As soon as the illusion broke, the monsters sprang into action. The two spiders on the far left were the fastest. They quickly skittered over to the group. Blue shields appeared in the air, but they weren’t fast enough. A red vest got skewered right through his midsection. The spider tried to lift him away, but the two guides to the side of him pulled him off the leg blade and kept him grounded. Blood gushed from the wound. A parent with the black robes of the life domain shouldered his way to the front to try and heal him.

Hugo couldn’t see if they were able to save him, but he could see the blade spiders continuing to attack. They stabbed at the blue barrier, a staccato rhythm that quickly cracked through shield after shield, turning them into swirling mana. With the barrier gone, the two spiders attacked in earnest. Some attacks were turned away with physical shields, but the spiders attacked so quickly that dozens of wounds seemed to just appear on the guides.

The guides tried to counter attack, sending out arrows and flying daggers. But all of the attacks just plinked off the spider’s tough exoskeleton. One spider backed up, annoyed by the daggers to the face. But the other blade spider leapt over the soulmarked guides and stabbed down at the normals huddled in the middle. Two teenagers were impaled through the head, instantly dead. Everyone in the middle screamed and tried to run away.

The spider’s success also hampered it. The corpses were slowing the monster down. A guide with runic armor took the chance to leap onto its rear leg. A man with a barrier domain joined him. The two armored defenders climbed up the spider legs, breaking joints as they went.

With a screech, the spider tried to turn and attack, but the defenders hung on tight. The wild flailing soon made the monster stumble to the ground. As soon as the body touched the road, several guides stuck their blades deep into the monster’s body. It burst into heavy swirling mana. Once the mana cleared, they could see that it left behind a black manacryst.

While this monster was getting killed, the other spider had regained its senses and attacked again. New blue barrier held it off, but those shields were quickly broken through. This monster didn’t make the same mistake as the other. Instead of jumping into the middle of the people, it swept its legs from side to side. This bowled over five guides and made the rest jump back. The monster was about to jump.

Sticky blobs hit the monster’s body, covering several leg joints. Within seconds, the yellow blobs turned into crystals, severely hampering the spider’s movement. Hugo looked past the monster to see what had attacked it. A new group of soulmarked guides had appeared, one of them continuing to lob yellow blobs at the monster. Long, sharp barrier took advantage of the monsters new immobility. In less than ten seconds, another black manacryst appeared.

Hugo knew there were more than just two monsters in that grove of trees, and he looked around for them. Eventually he found them where they had started.

The effects of the potion could still be seen. There had been eight colossal spiders in that illusionary grove, and six of them were under the effects of the green mist. It slowed them down, to a snail's pace. The monsters were trying to attack the people in front of them, but they still hadn’t made it a hundred yards.

“Quickly!” blue vest yelled, “The potion won’t last forever. Everyone, attack now!”

Following his command, all of the guides rushed forward, attacking the blade spiders. They were just as tough as before, but now that the monsters were practically unmoving, each shot hit a joint or other sensitive spot. In short order, six more monsters were reduced to mana crystals.

“Thanks,” the man in the blue vest said to the new arrivals, “Your timing couldn’t have been better.”

“It wasn’t luck, we have a few light magic practitioners, they saw you coming,” she said.

“I always forget about those guys, they just fade into the background, you know?” the leader said. Then he turned to the group and yelled, “It’s not far, everyone sprint back!”

Thankfully, he wasn’t lying this time around. In less than ten minutes they were to their destination. Low slung walls surrounded the stronghold halfway up the mountain. The walls were there mostly as a demarcation, they were too low to keep monsters away.

Instead of tall walls for protection, this stronghold had been carved deep into the mountain side. Their small group ran through the round entrance. It was wide enough for eight of them to walk in side by side, but Hugo knew from experience that they would slide a thick stone door into place right after they were inside. They were safe in here.

A series of caves spread out from where they had entered, with enough room for over three thousand people. The main entrance led to a central chamber where breakfast would be served in the morning. After that was a long tunnel, with several communal sleeping quarters branching off from the main corridor. The tall ceilings helped keep the claustrophobia away.

As the latest arrivals, they had to walk all the way to the back of the caves before they got to their assigned spot. Hugo tiredly tossed his bag on the stone floor. He almost wished that he had kept Marion’s bedroll so he would be a little more comfortable on the hard stone. But even with hindsight, he knew it wasn’t worth the extra weight.

At least the most dangerous part of the journey was over now. There might be more monsters attacking them tomorrow, but they were with the main group. Several high ranked guides would keep them all safe.

Hugo started to walk out of the room in search of water when he was suddenly grabbed from behind. Someone picked him up and threw him up against the wall.

“Did you kill my son?” Florin’s mom yelled.

Chapter 7: Shimmer Train

“What? No, I didn’t kill your son,” he said.

Florin’s mom was holding Hugo up against the wall by his shirt. She lifted him up and slammed him against the wall again. “Don’t lie to me, you scum. You are the only one that came out alive from that ritual.”

“Lots of us survived,” Hugo said. He didn’t look her in the face, she was too terrifying right now.

She reached up and slapped him, “You are the only one that was soulmarked. Don’t think I can’t tell. Mana doesn’t lie.”

Hugo had thought that, actually. He hadn’t told anyone that he had been successfully soulmarked, so he assumed that no one knew. There must be something different about him now.

The riese father came up and said, “Calm down, it wasn’t his fault. It was that damn Alexandru.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. I am going to get to the bottom of this,” she snapped back. The riese just raised his hands and stepped away.

He had attempted to wiggle out of her hold while she was distracted, but her grip was like iron. She must be very high ranked. Time to come completely clean. He said, “Alright, I will tell you the whole thing. When the ritual started, time stopped and we were all sent to a soul plane.” He could tell she wasn’t surprised and so he continued, “The first thing your son did was kill the nox. Then he killed the dark haired guy with the daggers. He must have gotten cocky then, because he didn’t take my friend Marion seriously. They killed each other in the end. I escaped through the yellow light.”

“What about my daughter?” the riese said.

“Lina?” Hugo said and looked the riese father in the eye, “She tried to kill me. Someone must have told her that is what she was supposed to do in order to be soulmarked. She immidiately jumped and tried to murder me. She didn’t succeed.”

The father turned away. He wasn’t sure if he was ashamed that he was complicit in attempted murder or just grieving his daughter.

Gaining some confidence from the fact that the whole room was listening in, he turned back to Florin’s mother and said, “I didn’t kill your son, even though he murdered two other kids on the say so of that quack ritualist. Or was it you that passed on the instructions to kill everyone?”

She dropped him and said, “Shut up and you won’t share my son’s fate.” She walked away without a second look.

Hugo stood there shaking for a while. He had let his mouth get ahead of himself. What had he been thinking, mouthing off to the parents that had just lost their children? He looked around the room.

He didn’t know if this was over or not. Was she still mad at him for surviving, or had she accepted the truth? Nothing she did would bring her son back. Despite the fact that a room full of more than forty people overheard the whole conversation, no one came to his rescue. No one said anything. He laid down and tried to sleep. They would have to run again soon, and he needed some rest.

He didn’t sleep well. He kept thinking about how Florin’s parents were sleeping in the same chamber as he was. The cave system had felt comforting on the trip up the mountain, but now it felt oppressive. He felt like the whole mountain above was pressing in on him. When he did get to sleep, he had nightmares. He had visions of Florin’s parents strapping him down and lecturing him while the corpses of the other hopefuls looked on.

As soon as the smells of lunch reached his section of caves, Hugo was up and in line. He just wanted to get out of here. There were plenty of lines and the lunch was quickly served and everyone got ready to go. They had skipped breakfast because of how late they got to the stronghold. The company ate quickly and they were on the road before too long.

The run down the mountain was much less terrifying in the light. They could see the monsters coming, making defense and attack much easier. The waves of insects came faster and more frequently, but were always dealt with quickly. Hugo was briefly worried when they passed a scree field full of velociraptors, but the chicken-like monsters lost their speed advantage because of the rocky terrain. Once the first of them started falling, it was all over.

Interestingly enough, they traveled much faster today than they had last night. Despite the fact that last night had terror induced running, today was faster. Most of the company was soulmarked now, and they could maintain a run for longer and recover faster during their short breaks. The unmarked ended up being carried on the second half of the journey.

Shortly before the sun set, they were at the base of the mountain. But so were the monsters. Driven by instinct and the need for mana, monsters had been flocking towards the mountain top since the heartbeat. Hundreds of dire wolves were attacking alongside insects, pythons, and perytons.

Spread out in a defensive formation were all of the mountain guides. They held the monsters off while their charges ran for the trains. The trains were protected by high walls, but they didn’t need to be manned yet because of the tempting people running around unprotected.

Hugo was almost to the train when a suuruss attacked. The high-ranked monster looked like an enormous worm, crawling across the ground on thousands of tentacles. It didn’t attack so much as flail wildly and absorb whatever got impaled by its many black tentacles. All of the highest ranked guides broke off to attack this new threat. Hugo couldn’t see well in the crush of people, but he craned his head to see the fight.

Dozens of bottles flew through the air, eating away at the monster’s flesh as they landed. Scores of blue barriers sliced off hundreds of tentacles. When the monster drew close, the formation experts quickly created metal domes to hide under. They were slowly whittling down the monster’s health, but they were battling it’s regeneration too. Where legs were chopped off, new ones quickly regrew. The acid potions fought against regrowing skin.

Eventually, the high ranked guides lured the suuruss to a hastily erected ritual circle. Once the monster touched the center of the circle, a bright light shot up, piercing the worm straight through. It burst into dark blue light, the sparkles so dense that they washed over the crowd of people like a wave. Hugo saw something fall from the middle of the beast, he guessed that it was a mana core.

Hugo heard a soft ding and looked around to see what had made that unusual sound. Nothing but people and monsters as far as he could tell. Then he realized that it must be the rank up sound. He must have gotten enough points to rank up. He couldn’t wait to open his stat sheet and use the rank up to get stronger. He just had to figure out how to do that.

Even with the death of the enormous beast, the monster hoard didn’t let up. Everyone jogged to the front of the line so they could get on their trains home. No one was shoving, but there was plenty of accidental bumping as they could see their salvation so close.

At the head of the line there was a red vested guide yelling directions. There were two trains, one going north and one going south. It was easy to tell which was which, but panic made people stupid. The guide had to continually yell north or south as he pointed to each train.

Hugo got stuffed into the southbound train with the rest of the newly marked. Most of them took their seats and stared out the window nervously at the ever encroaching monster tide. They were probably nervous because most of the mountain guides wouldn’t be accompanying them on their return trip. Most mountain guides stayed behind once their charges were aboard. They would stay and kill monsters for the mana, many of them would rank up from the constant fighting. It meant that their return trip would be sparsely protected.

Hugo didn’t worry though. He felt safe now, he was on the train. Smart people had invented this and they had surely made it able to withstand a few monster attacks. Before long, they were on their way south.

Trains always felt like the quintessentially modern invention to Hugo. His school teachers talked about pulsenotes or pellucids being more important to society, but he didn’t agree. Of course teachers would like pellucids more, they were teachers. But trains, and especially shimmer trains, they were a big part of what made the future. There would be no pulsenotes without the shimmer path the trains ran on. Pellucids were mostly made in Tembisa, which was four stops away from his hometown. It would be an impossible distance without the trains. He wouldn’t have glow lights in his crappy apartment if they didn’t have access to the cheap lights from Tallinn.

It all came back to trains. Shimmer trains, mostly. He had never been far enough from the mountain that he saw trains that didn’t run on the veins of the mountain, but he had heard they still existed out there.

The train he was on now was a shimmer train, of course. Sixteen train cars were linked together and hovering over the mountain’s vein. It was one of the biggest trains around, capable of holding more than a thousand people. Powered entirely by mana cores, the train would speed them back to civilization. The combination of the mana core and the shimmer in the mountain’s veins meant that the whole contraption could travel at a good pace. The farther away from the city they were, the less danger they were in.

Hugo was traveling south to Tallinn, then he would take a train west to his hometown of Reval. Most of the cities surrounding shimmer mountain consider themselves part of a wheel. Eight cities, each equidistant around the shimmering mountain, like a wheel on a map.

That was a bad comparison, according to Hugo. Perhaps because he grew up in the coastal city of Reval, he always thought of the eight like a blue octopus. The mountain was the head, and the lines of power leading to each city were clearly arms, not spokes. Who ever heard of a wheel with curvy spokes?

He sighed, maybe he was just distracting himself. There was no danger here, and he felt the grief creeping in. He had lost his friend, Marion. He had only known him for a few days, but the loss still hurt. He stared out the window. Time passed. He wanted to cry out, to rage at the injustice of it all. His friend didn’t deserve to die, and he wanted to do something to fix it.

There was nothing to be done. Shortly after he had gotten on the train, he had told the mountain guides what had happened in the ritual. They wrote down his sworn statement. The man in the blue vest had suspected it, and thanked him for his report. Now that he had proof, he could act. They promised to arrest the ritualist as soon as he was found. No one had seen the man since shortly after the ritual. But dead or gone, one thing was clear, there would be no second ritual next year.

Perhaps what bothered Hugo the most was that this had been going on for five years. Four other teenagers had killed to get soulmarked, and then just walked away, scot free. Their parents had paid the ritualist to help them kill for power, and nothing was going to happen to them.

He shook his head. There was no point in raging against the way the world worked. No point in wishing it was otherwise. The nails that stick up get hammered down. Revolution happened in his two copper novels, but not in real life.

Hugo wanted to distract himself, so he got out his bag. His seatmate grumbled, but Hugo ignored him. He looked through the things he had taken from Marion’s bag. Maybe there would be a clue about where he had lived, a letter from his parents or something. He pulled out a pamphlet on the shimmer mountain trek. He crumpled that and stuffed it back in the bag. The next few things were notes sent to Marion. They were both from the same girl. They seemed innocuous, one was a request for class notes, and the other was an invitation to a birthday party. Perhaps some unrequited love there. The last piece of paper was a pulsenote form. On the formal grid paper was a letter to Marion’s parents. It had a copper slipped into the pouch at the bottom, so it obviously hadn’t been sent yet.

Dear Mom,

If you are reading this, I am dead. I must have died out on the hunt father arranged with Ana-Maria. Know that I loved you all, and I am sorry I couldn't return. Please have Mihaela clean out my room and dispose of everything as she sees fit.

Love, Marion.

Hugo winced. Pulsenotes had to be short to stay under a copper, but seeing it put so bluntly and abrupt like that... Marion’s mother was going to be heartbroken. Reading between the lines, he was blaming his father for his death. No love lost there, apparently. Mihaela was going to have a rough time, cleaning out her brother’s things for the last time. Hugo wondered why he didn’t want his mother to do it.

Regardless, this is what he was looking for. The form was complete, addressed and prepaid, all he had to do was drop this off when the train arrived in town. He almost wanted to hand deliver it, to break the news to his family gently. But that would just lead to questions that he knew that Marion didn’t want answered.

He tucked the letter back away.

Staring out the window, he saw the countryside drift by. This close to the mountain, it was still barren. The yearly monster surges stripped any vegetation that attempted to grow. He could see the monsters out there now, dagger-spiders striding alongside trolls and dire wolves. He also saw several monsters he didn’t have a name for. He thought about it, and he didn’t want to learn their names. He was a city boy through and through, this trip had shown him that.

Not that he was likely to get his wish. He was soulmarked now. He was going to have to go out into the wilds on a regular basis to get stronger and train his skills. Speaking of which, he was pretty sure that he had been around enough monster killings over the last few days. He should be able to get stronger right now. He just needed to check his stats screen.

He knew that there wasn’t a command word that would pull up the screen. It was more of a mental thing. He always saw soulmarked people’s eyes go unfocused when they accessed their screens, so he tried that.

Twenty minutes later his eyes hurt and he still couldn’t access his screen. He wished he could ask someone about it, but he had no one. Maybe they would teach him if he got accepted into the academy, but he wanted to do it now. Someone in his train section would know, there were plenty of soulmarked escorts and parents about. He looked around, trying to find someone friendly looking.

There were a few rows of nox, certainly not them. They didn’t like to talk to strangers. A few stern looking fathers, riese and human, were both rejected. It would be too stressful to talk to them. A few rows up he saw a grandma talking to her granddaughter. If this was back home, Hugo wouldn’t have the courage to walk up to strangers like this. Luckily, there was no way he was going to see any of these people again. He took a deep breath and walked over to the kind looking lady.

Crouching down, he said, “Excuse me, so sorry to bother you. I just have one quick question I hope you can help me out with.”

The grandma gave him a suspicious look and said, “Yes? What is it?”

“I was just soulmarked, obviously,” Hugo waved his arm vaguely, “And I was wondering, how do I access my stat screen?”

She laughed politely and said, “Is that all?” She turned to her granddaughter to make sure she was paying attention too, “All you have to do is think about it. You don’t have to say anything, just think about your name and your stats. For example, my name is Hideguard, so I think ‘Hildegard Stats’ and a little blue screen pops up that only I can see.”

“Thank you so much. I knew it was something easy, but I don’t have anyone with me on this trip,” Hugo said.

She patted his arm and said, “Of course, dear. We are all in this together.”

Hugo nodded and sat back down on his seat. He wondered what kind of weird culture that old woman grew up in that she would say a thing like that. It was every man for himself, ever since he was born. He had more important things to worry about, like finally seeing his stat screen. Her advice didn’t work. He thought Hugo Stats, but nothing happened. He wondered if she was playing a trick on him, but he didn’t have anything better to do, so he kept trying.

When Hugo finally got the screen to appear, he was surprised and lost it before he could read anything. Thankfully it was easy to pull up again. The trick was having the right mindset. The blue screen looked slightly different from what he had seen in the two copper novels he liked to read. The eight stats were there, but where was the spot for accolades and god’s blessings? This wasn’t nearly long enough. He expected some sort of snark from the system, and this seemed so ... utilitarian.

Hugo Rebane [Domainless]

Strength 11

Dexterity 10

Resilience 9

Regeneration 11

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 8

Rank 0

210/100 Points

Health 11/11

Mana 1/1

Skills: None

Once he got over his disillusionment, he actually read the information on the small screen. Not bad. Not good either, but not bad. Ten was the average for a newly marked, and he didn’t have any stats that strayed too far from that number. They say if your number is five or lower you are particularly untallented in that area. Mom’s friend Marius said that he had a fifteen in dexterity when he was soulmarked. That is how he knew that he would eventually awaken the barrier domain.

With eleven on three different stats and a few tens, Hugo had plenty of choices on which domain he would end up awakening. One thing was sure, his perception number wasn’t doing him any favors. He wouldn’t get soulburnt into that domain. He couldn’t remember which one perception went with. It was either the light domain or the alchemist one. Which was too bad. He didn’t want the light domain, he didn’t want to be a fink for a living. But he would like to be an alchemist. Most of the alchemists he knew had their own shops. That could be fun, to be your own boss. He could make a lot of money and close the shop whenever he wanted.

Or not, now that he knew his perception was too low to consider the alchemy domain.

He shook his head, no use worrying about the one profession that he couldn’t get. He should focus on what he could do. He should be able to rank up, actually. He had absorbed enough mana on the run down the mountain that he should be able to rank up. Just being present as monsters were deconstructed into their base mana meant that he absorbed a small amount. The passive absorption was a nice bonus to being zero ranked. His body was empty of mana until he got to rank one. Now all he had to do was use those mana points and rank up.

That was another thing he didn’t know how to do.

Focusing, he tried to use his points to rank up. Predictably, it didn’t work. Just as he was considering bugging that grandma again, something distracted him. It distracted the whole train car in fact.

Everyone was talking excitedly and pointing out the right window. Hugo was stuck on the left side of the train, but he ducked down to see what they were pointing at. It was an airship, headed directly towards their train.

Chapter 8: Complications

About a mile ahead and to the right was a wicked looking airship. Unlike the inter-city shuttles, this airship looked like it had been cobbled together out of spare parts. Lots of sharp parts. Sticking out of the main envelope and in most directions, were sharp protrusions. The only spot clear was the mana engines. Smaller than most, this one looked like it could only hold ten to fifteen passengers. Hugo couldn’t tell from this distance, but he thought he saw movement on the outside of the airship.

It wasn’t hard to guess its intended destination, the airship was barely above the level of the shimmer veins and headed straight for where the train would be in a few moments.

“It’s train jackers,” whispered the parent in the seat across from him.

It was the first words the man had said since he had sat down, and it shocked Hugo. It felt like when he put his hands up against a runed door. The sharp shock jolted through Hugo, the realization of danger almost painful. He wouldn't mind giving up all his money, as pitiful an amount as that was. But the real worry was that the train jackers would kill him if he made the wrong move.

They were in the second from the front train car. Hugo had heard that train jackers sometimes just killed people right off, just to show they meant business.

The train started to slow.

A few of the girls cried out. Their families soon joined them. They had hoped that the train would speed up instead of slowing down. They couldn’t hope to escape the nimble airship, but a speeding train would mean that the train jackers would enter from the back of the train, instead of the front near their own train car.

“Why are they robbing us?” a short girl asked her neighbor, “We don’t have any money on us, we paid before we left Tallinn. It’s not like the guides are rich.”

“Yeah they are, you dolt. The guides picked up hundreds of mana shards and crysts on our way up and down the mountain. There is at least a platinum worth on this train right now,” her neighbor rudely replied.

“Oh yeah.”

The train quickly came to a stop and the airship had to turn to get to the front car. As it got closer, Hugo was able to get a better look at the airship through the press of bodies. The ship was obviously cobbled together. The mana engines weren’t even glowing the same color, one red, one blue. He couldn’t see the other two, but he bet they were castoffs from other ships too. Now that it was closer, he could see why the ship seemed so sharp. It was studded with guns. Some harpoons and some cannons, a few mounted long guns too. There were also a few that didn’t look like any guns he had ever seen. Hugo wasn’t sure, but the blue glow made him guess that some of them ran on shimmer. This was a ship meant for combat, hard and fast. There didn’t look to be much defense, it was all offense.

Most everyone was standing up at this point, not that there was anywhere to go. They couldn’t leave the train, or the monsters would get them. All parts of the train were going to be searched by the criminals, running to the back would do no good.

A young man decided to run to the back anyway. He got up and ran down the aisle, pushing people to the side as he went. Just as the kid got to the back, someone burst through the connecting door going the other direction.

It was a red vested guide. And judging by how the boy bounced off the guide, she was high ranked with plenty of strength and constitution. She ignored the boy and shoved her way to the front of the car. Then she stationed herself to the side of the front door, where it led to the next train car. People started yelling at her, asking her to do something, but she just turned and covered her mouth with a clenched fist. Most shut up after that. The ones that continued to talk to her were quickly shushed by their neighbors.

Another couple of guides entered the car, to men this time. One joined the woman at the front of the car, and the other stayed at the back. The two red vests at the front positioned themselves flush with the car walls just on either side of the door. They looked ready to ambush anyone who walked through. The woman had created a few lengths of chain and the man drew a few strange looking daggers from the sheaths at his waist.

The other man stayed at the end of the train car, just standing directly in front of the door he had entered through. He held his hands in front of him and stared at the door on the other end of the train car.

A horrible screech of metal and shattering glass heralded the arrival of the airship. A few screams came from the front train car, but everyone in Hugo’s car remained quiet. An acrid smell wafted through the air, faint but unmistakable. Someone had shot a shimmer caster.

They heard the other train door slide open, and someone walk onto the short connecting corridor. The people on the train ducked low, hiding behind their seats. The train construction was new and shiny, but now it felt flimsy. Just as the door to their car started sliding open, the guide on the opposite end of the car drew attention by yelling and throwing up a barrier.

The distraction worked, the jackers focused on the man, firing shimmer casters at him as soon as the door was open. Two shots were deflected, bouncing into the crowd and causing them to cry out. The third and forth shot splashed onto the blue barrier and started melting holes into it.

Three train jackers started walking into the room, continuing to fire at the guard. As soon as they were in range, the two guards to the sides reached out and grabbed at the jackers. The woman guard created loops of glowing chains, quickly wrapping up a jacker and pulling him to the side. The shimmer caster fell to the floor. The other guard took the same moment to whip his hands out and throw another jacker up against the wall. In the same moment, he used small daggers to slice along the jackers arms, making him drop his ax. The cuts were deep, and made the jacker unable to lift his arms. If he wasn’t treated soon, he would bleed out. The mountain guide pushed his foot into the jacker’s chest to keep him down. Both guards ignored the downed jackers and turned back to the door.

The third train jacker jumped back and out of the way. He yelled to the jackers behind him, making room so he could retreat. The barrier domain man used the distraction to dismiss his blue shield and race up to support his fellow guides.

He ducked out of the line of fire and yelled to the train jackers in the other car, “We got two of your guys and you didn’t touch us. Face it, you can’t do this job. Turn around and fly away and we won’t shoot you while you go.”

“We ain’t going nowhere! You got some mana cores onboard, and we ain’t leaving without them,” a voice from the other train car yelled.

He looked at the other guides in shock. Then he sighed and said, “Yeah, we got one mana core, but we also have a rank fifty-two runist on the train. Maybe you have heard of the Blue Devil?”

There was a pause, then came, “You’re lying. Nobody that big misses out on a heartbeat surge.”

“Nope, not lying. And you better be gone before he gets up here. He was just guarding the safe in case you lot decided to attack there first,” he said. There was a sound of a distant explosion. “Oop, sounds like your friends made a bad decision. Your time will be up soon. You better not wait around until he gets here.”

They didn’t get an answer.

As the unseen train jackers made up their mind, Hugo peeked out at the train jackers on the floor. He thought they looked strangely scruffy to be on this crew. No armor, just badly sewn leather jackets. They didn’t have nice looking porcelain masks like most gangs, just a bandana with eye holes. Maybe they were just expendable grunts the criminals sent ahead into the unknown. But if they were expendable, why did one of them have a shimmer caster? When Hugo was training to join the shimmer corps, he was told that a single gun was worth two gold.

Another explosion sounded on the other end of the train. That must have been enough to convince the remaining train jackers to leave, sounds of them rushing away filled the other car. There were a tense few moments as the airship engines spooled up again. There was another screech of metal, sending up fresh cries from the people in the front train car. In short order, the airship was up and in the air again. Two of the guides raced to the back of the train to see if their coworker needed any help. The remaining woman tied up the injured guy and pushed them both into the corner.

Hugo ducked down, keeping an eye on the airship. There were far too many guns on that thing for him to feel safe until it was out of range. He was distracted from his vigil by yells from the car in front of him.

“We need a healer up here! A healer or a doctor! We have people bleeding up here,” someone yelled.

Two escorts stood from where they had stayed hidden during the attack. They both rushed up to the front train car. Hugo wanted to follow them. He didn’t have any medical knowledge, but he just wanted to know what had happened up there, how much the airship had torn up the roof. He didn’t get up though. He would only get in the way.

The crowd which had been quiet all this time, now burst into conversation. Everyone was talking to their neighbors. The volume in the car quickly rose.

It wasn’t long before three guides passed through their carriage, heading to the front. This time, Hugo couldn’t help himself, and followed them. They had stopped at the entrance to the front carriage, so he was only able to listen in.

All three were looking at something he couldn’t see and swearing.

“This is bad.”

“I don’t know. It looks like it was just the roof and walls that got damaged, the engine seems fine.”

“That looks fine to you? Half the housing is missing.”

“As long as we go half speed, we should be fine.”

“How are you so sure? They killed our engineer.”

“Well, since the alternative is to stay here and get torn apart by monsters, I think we should be fine as long as we go half speed.”

There was another round of swearing.

Hugo peeked around the red vests. There was an enormous hole in the roof, and one of the walls was just missing. This was the engine compartment, and the shimmer engine took up half of the compartment. The one guide was right, the engine housing was torn up pretty bad, but the engine itself looked fine to him. The people in the front compartment didn’t look fine though. They had paid extra to have the nicer seats away from the rabble, and most of them seemed injured from the conflict with the train jackers. A few looked dead.

After a longer conversation, the mountain guides decided to start up the engine and listen to it as they slowly increased the speed. They all agreed that it was a terrible idea to start up the engine. But staying here, even on a shimmer vein, was a terrible idea right after the mountain’s heartbeat.

Hugo dashed back to his seat when he saw that they were going to start up the engine. It wasn’t until the train was floating forward again that he realized he was being dumb. If the engine had exploded, a few extra feet of distance wouldn’t have made any sense.

Luckily for everyone on the train, the engine didn’t explode, even when they pushed it a little faster. It wasn’t long before they saw the runic walls of Tallinn. Hugo was supposed to catch a connecting train from there back to his hometown of Reval. The business with the attempted train jacking made him late though. He had to wait another two hours for a train going the right way. He dropped off Marion’s letter. It hurt to think about, so he distracted himself.

He sat at the train station, bag at his feet, and looked past the city walls. The mountain, the whole reason for his trip, didn’t really have a name. Everyone called it shimmer mountain, but that was just as descriptive as calling it sandstone mountain. It wasn’t a proper name.

As far as Hugo knew, shimmer mountain was unique in the world. It was a natural phenomenon that collected and refined mana into shimmer, something that wasn’t found elsewhere. It is what made modern life and the shimmer corps possible. The factories and vehicles in town ran off shimmer. The corpsmen had casters and abilities that worked here and nowhere else.

The rest of the world used manashards, only found when monsters were killed. Harvesters were soulmarked people with the jobs of killing monsters and collecting their shards. But that was dangerous work, and so manashards were in low supply.

Shimmer corps and harvesters had an uneasy relationship in the eight cities of The Wheel. Elsewhere, the high ranked harvesters reigned supreme, but things were different here. The corpsmen used shimmer to enforce their edicts, leveling the playing field between an unranked guard and a rank twenty four adventurer.

Corpsmen sped around the city in shimmer powered carts, had shimmer powered casters, and the officers even had armor made of the shining blue stuff. Shimmer made them deadly and strong. The guards weren’t invincible, they could and had been killed by harvesters. But the reverse was also true, plenty of harvesters had been put in their place by a lowly guard enforcing the law.

Things may be different elsewhere, but shimmer was the great equalizer here.

The first thing Hugo did when he got into Reval was go and see his mother. It didn’t feel like he was heading home, even though that is where he lived. It was definitely his mother’s apartment, not his.

Tired and dirty, Hugo put his mental blinders on and started the long trudge to the other side of the city. He had only had a few hours of sleep in between hours and hours of running, and it was catching up with him. He stumbled into someone, a nox, and she pushed him away, making him fall to the ground.

The nox swore and kicked at him. Hugo rolled out of the way, coming up and flipping the nox off. He didn’t trust himself to say anything though. It was clear from the nox’s clothing that she was one of the city's top merchants.

“Go back to where you came from, guttersnipe!” the nox said as she walked away.

“I was born here you unbalanced tarrok,” Hugo said, unable to keep from insulting her.

She didn’t seem to want to deal with him though, she just flipped him off with three hands. He knew that the odd number was supposed to be extra insulting, but he just scoffed.

He wasn’t insulted by her telling him to go back to where he was born, he just thought she was dumb for using an archaic insult. Sure, humans didn’t come from this world, but almost everyone in this city was born here. He was fairly sure that even his great grandfather was born here.

Everyone told him that humans came from Earth. It never felt like a real place to Hugo though. Those stories always felt like fairy tales to him. There was always something fantastical, something unreal, about those stories. And they always had a moral. Don’t trust strangers or someone like Columbus will kill your whole family. Respect your elders or the Nazis will take over your city. Don’t overreach or you will end up like the Romans.

Real life didn’t have morals. Sometimes it doesn’t turn out well in the end. Sometimes no one saved you from danger. Sometimes the bad guy won. Maybe most of the time.

It was time to go back to real life, to his mother.

Chapter 9: Apartment isn’t Where the Heart is

It was dark out now. The spring weather meant that the night was quickly growing chill. A brightly lit shop on his left tempted him to enter and warm up.

Deciding to spurge a bit, Hugo stopped off at his favorite patisserie. Like most nox businesses, it was open very late. The proprietor, an older nox with spots on his scalp, greeted him warmly by name. Hugo wished he could return the favor, but he had forgotten the man’s name and it was well past the time when he could ask for it. Instead he smiled and gave him a generic greeting with a ritual hand wave.

Hands together and then sharply apart, and a slight flutter. Hugo did his best to keep his movements symmetrical, nox really cared about that. The shopkeep returned the gesture, his four hands making the greeting much better than Hugo did. Still, Hugo could tell his own attempt was appreciated.

Hugo got himself a few pepper steak pies for a copper. He eyed the honey crisples, but decided not to pay the extra coppers for the expensive desert. The two hand pies were enough for tonight. They were flakey and warm, spicy and chewy. He had them eaten before he even walked a block.

The trip to his part of town was slightly depressing. The shimmer train station was in the nicest part of town. Next to the noble section, where all the nicest shops were. Further downhill was the city center and merchant quarter where he had bought his dinner. The majority of the city was below that, people that considered themselves poor, but didn’t really understand the word. Hugo’s Mom rented an apartment in the truly poor part of town, the narrows. It was a thin strip of land on the southern part of town.

It was called the narrows because they were in a narrow strip of land between the walls and the rest of the city. The original design for the town didn’t have anyone living here, it was supposed to be a safety buffer in case the walls ever fell in a monster surge. But over the years the town’s population grew, but no one wanted to expand the walls. So the poorest of the poor found themselves right up against the walls, in shoddily built apartment buildings.

He kept passing through areas of light and dark. He had long since left the part of town with street lamps, but occasionally the light from the houses or apartments was enough to see the street by. He was fairly close to home when a masked man stepped out into the road in front of Hugo.

“Rebane! My kin. So nice to see you again,” the man in the fox mask said.

Hugo frowned, it was a man he recognised telling a joke that had long since stopped being funny. He was joking about Hugo’s last name, apparently it meant fox in a language no one spoke anymore. This was the fox gang territory and he probably wanted a payment just for walking by. Hugo didn’t want to associate with the gangster, but he needed to play nice. At least until he got a little stronger.

“Hello fox, how pleasant to see you,” Hugo said insincerely.

“Long time no see, Rebane. Why is that? Have you been avoiding me?” the masked man said.

“Of course not. How could I avoid the foxes? They have eyes everywhere. I have just been out of town,” Hugo said and fished around in his pockets.

“Out of town for the mountain’s heartbeat, makes a man think,” the gangster said.

“You keep on thinking, tell me how it goes,” Hugo said and pushed a few coppers into his hand. Hugo patted his shoulder and stepped past him.

The fox mask looked down at the coppers in his hand. Hugo had been a little cheeky with that answer, but he had paid his toll as he should. The gangster shrugged and stepped back into the shadows.

The rest of the walk home was mostly in the dark. Luckily the stars were bright tonight. He thought he saw a rat as he got to his block and threw a stone at it. The animal hissed at him but didn’t run away. It was probably a spy for the fox gang. They said that the leader was a shadow mage, and he could take over the minds of animals. It was the reason that pets weren’t allowed in the city.

Hugo found himself subconsciously holding his breath as he entered the narrows propper. The shimmer fog was light today, but it was practically everpresent. They said that the offgas from shimmer production was harmless, but Hugo didn’t believe that.

The city powered itself from the magical shimmer veins running up to the mountain, but the process that turned shimmer into power cores produced a low lying fog. It didn’t escape his notice that only the poorest of the poor had to put up with the fog, and no one lived on the ground floor in the narrows. His mother always complained about not having an apartment on a higher floor, in fact.

Finally, he was home. As soon as Hugo walked in the apartment, he slid the backpack off his shoulders. He was so glad to be rid of that thing. He walked around, tapping the glow lights to get them to shine again. Then he yelled out, “I’m home mom.”

He didn’t know if she was still up, but he didn’t want her to think he was a robber or something.

She walked out of her room with a big smile, “My son! I am so glad to see you. I was so worried.” She came up to him and gave him a big hug. She grabbed his face and said, “When you didn’t come home on time, I was so worried.”

Hugo gently extricated himself and said, “I’m fine mom. I even got soulmarked.” He gave her a half smile. His mom wasn’t normally this nice, it made him nervous.

“That’s wonderful,” she said, perhaps a bit too loud, considering the time of night. “You have to tell me all about it.”

“Perhaps tomorrow mom. I am so beat,” Hugo said.

“Of course, of course. You can tell me all about it in the morning. My friend Marius will be so happy to hear you got soulmarked. I have to know though, did you bring me any souvenirs from your trip? Perhaps a mana stone?” she said with a smile.

She said it like she was joking, but he knew she really wasn’t.

“No mom. I didn’t kill any monsters. And the mountain guides aren’t going to just hand out manastones like that,” Hugo said.

Her face fell, but she quickly recovered and said, “Well, then you will just have to get me a souvenir from your next trip when you are a harvester.”

Hugo gave her a small pity laugh. He knew she wasn’t really joking and actually expected him to give her whatever he earned. He looked past his mother and glanced around the apartment. He hated it here. It wasn’t just that the apartment was dingy and in ill repair. It was stifling.

All of the narrows was like that. Full of people without hope, without the ability to choose anything better. He had seen countless neighbors move into the narrows, intending to make some money and move back out. Then over weeks and months, the light in their eyes would die. They would accept the fact that they couldn’t escape, and they would give up.

That wouldn’t be him. Hugo knew how lucky he was. Not only did he have connections with richer people that his neighbors would never have, he was soulmarked now. That opened up a world of possibilities.

He knew that his mother wanted to ride out on his coattails, but all she had ever done was belittle him and his friends. She never wanted him to befriend Sofia, and actually stole from her at one point. He shook his head. He was going to focus on making money, but not for his Mom. For himself.

He could go with the original plan and become a harvester like dad’s friend Marion. But that life was full of danger, and always two steps away from the narrows anyway. Hugo wanted to shoot higher. He craved true freedom. He wanted a job that would give him enough money to actually choose what he wanted to do with his life.

He needed to be a mage. They had true freedom. Their talents were in demand no matter where you went, and their status in society was almost as great as the nobles.

There was only one mage academy in town, Blue Lion Academy, and it was supposed to be one of the best around. They said it was very expensive, but maybe he could get a scholarship or a loan or something. He had to at least try.

“I don’t know mom. I was thinking of maybe becoming a mage instead. Being a harvester is dangerous work,” Hugo said.

“We can’t afford the academy, you know that. Our budget is hedge mage or harvester. That is it.”

“Hedge mages are illegal. Shimmer corpsmen kill hedge mages. Why would you even suggest that as a choice?”

“Which is why I said you should be a harvester. It takes a little longer to get your domain, but you can earn money while you do it.”

“I think I can make more money long term if I go to the academy instead.”

“That isn’t important right now. Right now you need some sleep, and we can talk in the morning,” she said.

Nodding, Hugo grabbed his bag and took it back to his room. He stripped and plopped down on his bed. He chuckled when he realized that his bed was just as nice as the last one he slept on. The one in a cave on the mountain. It didn’t matter though. He was exhausted.

Sleep didn’t come.

Perhaps because he was overtired, he just couldn’t sleep. The events of the last two days just kept repeating over and over in his head. The ritual, Marion’s death, the train jacking. As soon as he got one thought out of his head, another intrusive thought popped in.

To distract himself, Hugo opened up his stat screen. Nothing had changed. He noticed that he had more than enough points to rank up once. He focused on the points. He wondered how he was supposed to initiate the rank up. Then his screen changed before his eyes.

Hugo Rebane [Domainless]

Strength 11

Dexterity 10

Resilience 9

Regeneration 11

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 8

Rank 1

110/200 Points

Health 11/11

Mana 1/1

Skills: None

He had ranked up. Well, that was easy. A lot easier than figuring out how to access the screen in the first place. Shortly after the rank up was effective, a new screen popped up in his view.

Improvement Points Awarded

You have been awarded two (2) improvement points. Select where you would like the points to go.

He wanted to wait until he chose his domain to allocate his stats points, so he dismissed the screen. It went away, then appeared again. This time it wouldn’t move.

Oh, shit. He had to decide right now. Maybe that is why leveling up wasn’t automatic. You shouldn’t do it until you are ready to add a point onto your stats. Maybe he should just add the points into wisdom so he didn’t make a mistake like this again.

No, he didn’t want to waste a stat point on a whim. He knew strength and dexterity were the main stats for formation and barrier domains. Regeneration was for life magic, but the rest of the domains were jumbled together in his panicked brain. Then he remembered one more fact. Charisma was related to the shadow domain, but that wasn’t much help here, he couldn’t pick that domain.

The box blinked and showed:

Improvement Points Awarded

You have been awarded two (2) improvement points. Select where you would like the points to go.

Following a short interval, unspent points will be allocated for you.

Oh shit. He had to decide right now.

Chapter 10: Bittersweet Reunion

The box had said his points would be assigned after a short interval. How long was a short interval? He shook his head, he had to assume it was any moment. He didn’t want the system to decide for him. Two points, and he couldn’t let them be wasted. He knew he would want extra strength and dexterity no matter what domain he picked. He quickly selected those two stats and waited for the sudden rush of power.

Nothing happened.

He looked at his stat screen again.

Hugo Rebane [Domainless]

Strength (12)

Dexterity (11)

Resilience 9

Regeneration 11

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 8

Rank 1

110/200 Points

Health 11/11

Mana 1/1

Skills: None

The improvement points were there, but he didn’t feel any different. The numbers had those brackets around them, maybe there was another step he had to take before they were effective? He tried selecting them again, but nothing happened. He tried everything, but his stat screen was once again unresponsive. This damn system. It didn’t tell him anything and it was so obtuse.

This just solidified his decision to go to the academy. It was expensive, but now that he was soulmarked, it was an investment into his future. Before, he would never have a chance to repay their exorbitant fees, but now he knew that he would be able to pay them off in a few years.

Testing day was tomorrow. He decided to talk to the academy admissions group about their tuition. He didn’t know if he was supposed to get a loan from the bank, or if they did their own financing. He drifted off to sleep shortly after making that decision.

...

The next morning, he woke to the smell of honey crispels. It was a nice distraction from the nightmare he was having, monsters were attacking and blue barriers flashed. In the dream he was convinced that the monsters were going to break in and eat everyone. As he awoke, he realized that the trip up and down the mountain had an impact on him that would take some time to deal with.

He washed up and put on his best tunic. Coming out of his room, he saw breakfast laid out on their small dining room table.

“Did... did you make breakfast for me?” Hugo asked.

His mother scoffed, “I can’t make crispels, you know that. I went and got these from that place you like down the street.”

“That is awfully nice of you,” Hugo said suspiciously.

“What? Can’t a mother do something nice for her son?”

“No, no. I am grateful. You went and bought my favorite. Thank you, I mean it,” said Hugo. He grabbed a small honey crispel from the stack and took a big bite. He had to fight to keep a grimace off his face. They were day-olds.

Still, they were his favorites, even when they weren’t fresh. And his mother did take the time to go all the way down to the shop. He ate half of the stack, doing his best to enjoy it.

“You are looking nice, what are your plans for the day?” she said.

“I was thinking of applying to the academy. It will take me longer to make money that way, but I will make more in the end.”

She frowned, “Really? You know we can’t afford that.”

“I will get a loan or something.”

“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

“Live your life? Whatever mothers are supposed to do after their sons move away from home.”

“And what am I going to do with that extra bedroom while you are away with those sanctimonious nobles? Four years is a long time.”

“Whatever you want, you can get another renter, or move or whatever. Look. I know I have been helping out recently, but I am an adult now. I can’t keep giving you money. I have to live my own life.”

“So you get some fancy rich friends and you leave your mother in the lurch like that? I can’t make ends meet without your help, and you know that.”

“You know I don’t have any rich friends. Not anymore. We are both just going to have to figure out how to live on our own without help.”

“I raised you to be respectful, I sacrificed...”

Hugo interrupted, “Mom. Let’s not do this again. Arguing won’t change my mind. I will see you tonight.” Hugo got up and left, intentionally not taking a crispel to go.

Reval is a large city, and Hugo had a ways to go to get to the nice part of town. He had plenty of time to calm down from the conversation with his mother before he reached his destination. Sadly, he had plenty of experience with calming down after arguing with her. He plodded along, slowly getting to nicer parts of town.

Shortly after he left the narrows, he came to an intersection with a small cart on the corner. There were a group of hedge mages on the corner, plying their trade. Just the sight of them made him uncomfortable. He glanced to the side streets, considering whether or not to go the long way around.

His dad had always told him to avoid hedge mages at all costs. It was good advice. Hedge mages created magical effects without the system. They created their magic by bending the raw magic of the world. Their effects were always lesser than a full mage, but they had more flexibility for it. They couldn’t create a barrier, but they could create a manabolt and a manatrap. Their healing relied on speeding up natural recovery instead of an instant heal. There services were of course less expensive than that of a full mage. The cheaper heal also had a chance of killing someone if they were unlucky. It was always a risk to ask for their help.

The true danger of associating with hedge mages was that the government hated them. There were rumors about exactly why they were hated so much, but no one really knew exactly why. All they knew for sure was that shimmer corps were allowed to kill hedge mages whenever they wanted. If they saw magic being performed by a non-mage, they just started killing indiscriminately. No one wanted to be around when that happened.

Hedge mages had some way of staying ahead of the corps, they weren’t all dead yet after all. But Hugo didn’t want to be around the one day that the hedgies slipped up and everyone died. He took a side street and avoided them altogether. He wasn’t a mage yet, he still needed to be careful.

Hugo made a point to refocus his attention as he got to the city square. It was a market day, so the square was full of booths selling produce and crafts. There was so much to see and do.

His eventual goal was on the other side of the square, but Hugo was planning on picking up some treats from the market there. Something nice for his mother. But also something that would be stale by the time he gave it to her. He smiled when he saw a stall selling fritters. Perfect.

Paying for the fried treat was surprisingly tough. He was so used to scrimping and saving every last copper that giving them up was hard. He could afford it though. After he had sent off Marion’s letter, he realized that he had more pocket change than he had ever had in his life. He promised himself that he would pay back Marion’s family as soon as he could. Maybe he would visit them in person after he graduated.

A sight near the central fountain made him stop in his tracks. It was Sofia. Normally he would have ran up to her, to tell her the good news. She was the one that gave him the pass to attend the ritual after all. Even though their friendship was probably over, she had done that for him at least.

But she was standing near Kristofer. Not just standing near, she was leaning on, laughing with, hugging Kristofer.

Hugo was angry and his chest hurt. She said it was a coincidence. When that boy got a spot on the shimmer corps and he didn’t... She commiserated with Hugo. She spent the night with him. She got him the pass.

And now she was hugging Kristofer.

Hugo stood stock still with a pain in his chest. He was surprised at how much it hurt. He wasn’t dumb, he saw this coming, but still. It hurt.

After a bit, he turned and started walking. He was going to go all the way around the city square. He didn’t want to talk to her. He especially didn’t want to talk to him. That boy was so dense he probably thought they were still friends.

“Hey, Hugo, wait up,” a voice called out.

He swore to himself and slowly turned around. At least it was only Sofia. He wasn’t sure if he could deal with Kristofer right now.

“Hello Sofia. Or should I say Squire Sofia?” Hugo said.

She ignored the dig and said, “I am so glad I saw you, I wasn’t sure if you were back yet.”

“I saw you too, but I didn’t want to interrupt,” Hugo said. He looked past her, trying to see Kristofer.

“Oh,” she said softly, “You saw that.”

“No need to explain, I understand completely,” he said.

“No you don’t. There are things going on that you don’t understand at all,” she retorted.

“Really? This isn’t what it looks like? Then please explain it to me,” Hugo said hotly.

She looked away, “I can’t. It’s complicated.”

“Of course it is,” said Hugo as he folded his arms.

“I didn’t want to talk about that anyway. I was coming over to congratulate you. You are soulmarked, right?”

“Yeah, I am soulmarked. I almost wasn’t. The first time didn’t work. A guy died right in front of me. I had a friend pay for a second ritual. That friend died too. And I almost died on the way down the mountain too. It was a rough few days, but yes, I got soulmarked.”

“I am happy for you. Really, I am,” Sofia said earnestly.

Hugo didn’t want to look at her right now. Mostly because he wanted to stay mad at her, and she was so good looking it was distracting. Her long curly blond hair, her bountiful assets, her sweet smell, it was all working against him right now.

“Listen, there is no easy way to bring this up, but about the money for the pass. I know you didn’t suddenly get rich, but my parents wanted to let you know we need the money as soon as you can get it. I am not going to go all baron on you, but I thought you should know, and make a plan to pay us back,” she said, getting softer at the end.

There’s that anger again. He felt it burning bright and said, “So after you betray me, steal my spot and give it to that lunkhead, you still want me to pay for the privilege?”

“Hey! That pass cost my parents a lot of money. They were upset enough when I joined the corps instead of using it.”

“It’s not my fault that you aren’t brave enough to talk to them, that’s on you. You are the one wasting your parent’s money, not me.”

“That pass cost ninety silver. I know you think we are rich, but we aren’t. Not really. We can’t afford to just give that much money away,” she said hotly.

He looked past Sofia to see Kristofer. He had seen them talking and was walking over. Hugo said quietly, “You can, and you did.”

“Kristofer! Good to see you,” Hugo said loudly as he drew near.

“Hey, Hugo. I wasn’t sure if you would be glad to see me.”

“Nonsense. That bit with the corps wasn’t your fault, was it?”

“No?” Kristofer said.

“Of course not. Anyway, Sofia was just telling me the good news. You know how kind and generous she is, but this just means the world to me,” Hugo said with a smile.

“What did she say?” Kristofer said and turned to Sofia.

“She forgave the debt I owed her. It cost almost a full gold for that pass up shimmer mountain, and she just forgave the whole thing. Isn’t she just unbelievably kind?” Hugo said as he stared Sofia in the eyes.

Now she would have to either agree with Hugo, or look like a miser. Kristofer had told him once that he was always on the lookout for gold diggers, since his father was a duke. Hugo almost wished that she would disagree with him, just so it would tank the relationship and she would be as unhappy as he was.

“That’s so generous,” Kristofer said and gave her a hug.

“Yes, well, I wasn’t going to use the pass since I got into my first choice. I figured that I could just gift it to him, since he is my friend and your friend,” Sofia said awkwardly.

“Like I said, she is just so kind,” Hugo said, “A real heart of gold. She is a one of a kind gal, someone you never want to let go. If I wasn’t headed towards the academy for the next four years, you would have some competition, my friend.”

“You got accepted?” Sofia said.

“Going there now, wish me luck,” Hugo said with a smile. He left, heading for the academy. He kept smiling as he walked away, although it took on a vindictive quality as he got further away. Sofia would have to explain to her parents why Hugo wouldn’t be paying them back. Her parents were well off, but the cost of the pass would still sting. It didn’t make up for a broken heart, but it was better than nothing.

His smile slipped as he walked the cobblestone streets to the walled off campus of the Blue Lion Academy. He felt terrible. Getting his revenge on Sofia made him feel worse, not better. He shook his head, he needed to focus on figuring out testing day and his next steps.

Hugo didn’t know anyone who had attended the academy, but as he understood it, testing day was mostly a formality. They tested to see if you had decent stats and checked your grades. If you were good enough they admitted you into the academy. Fairly simple.

Which is why he was more than a little confused to see all the pomp and circumstance. Outside of the southern entrance into the academy was a temporary stage with a raised dais. Surrounding that stage were all the potential students and their friends and family. Off to the side a band was playing and there were a few food vendors working the crowd. He had been misinformed.

Chapter 11: Blue Lion Academy Admissions

Looking down at his best tunic, he felt very underdressed. It was the nicest thing he owned, but he was still the least formal one in the crowd. Gold and silver lace were popular, and a few even had actual runes sewn in. If he had known that admissions day would be an event, maybe he would have asked his mom for something nicer. After a brief consideration, he realized that his mother would never buy him a dress tunic. He had to be fine with what he had.

He stood at the edges of the crowd and watched the goings on. Most of the crowd was just standing around, talking. But every so often a young person would go out on stage and have their stats displayed for all to see. If any one of their stats were particularly good, a cry would go out in the crowd.

It confused him at first. He didn’t know how they were showing the stats. Displays of light like that were illusions, work of the shadow domain. No one practiced that here. He walked through the crowd to get closer. It wasn’t until he was very close that he saw the illusion was entirely mechanical.

There was a pane of glass suspended above the dais. Behind that was a man with a transparent status card. He would quickly swap out the numbers when someone walked up, and then use a mana shard to create enough light to project it onto the glass above the prospective student.

It seemed like a lot of effort to go to for a little bit of theatrics. He wondered why they bothered. But then again, he wondered about a lot of things that the ruling class did.

Hugo walked up to the front of the crowd and saw a few official looking people. He walked up to the closest one and said, “Excuse me? I would like to apply to the school, what is the admissions process?”

“Have you already submitted your packet?” he said.

“Packet?” Hugo said.

He pointed to a tent off to the side of the campus and said, “Go over to that tent and tell them you need to start from scratch.”

Hugo walked over to the tent off to the side. It didn’t take long for him to regret his decision to apply. He had to fill out form after form. A form to apply, a form to verify his grades from Reval general school, a short essay on why he wanted to apply. He kept writing the year wrong, and had to cross it out and write the correct year, 3464, on over half of the forms. It was hours before he was done.

Finally, with a finished packet in hand, he walked up to the entrance of the academy again and handed it over to a faculty member. They didn’t even check to see if he had completed everything correctly. They just directed him to the light domain steward on duty.

The experience with the steward felt awkward. She asked if he wanted his numbers displayed on the stage (no thank you). Then she put her hand on his shoulder and looked at something only she could see right above his head. Then she read off all of Hugo’s stats to her assistant, who wrote them down on the outside of his admissions packet.

Once she was done, she said, “Congratulations, you are provisionally accepted to Blue Lion Academy. This acceptance is dependent on corroborating your packet, and payment verification.”

“About that. Who can I talk to about payment?” Hugo asked nervously.

She just pointed him to another tent, wordlessly. There certainly were a lot of tents out today. Once he got to the front of that line he found himself tongue tied talking to the accountant there.

“I don’t... I mean, I can’t pay the tuition. Is there another option besides paying upfront?” Hugo said. He didn’t know why he was suddenly so nervous. Maybe because his goal was so close now.

The man narrowed his eyes at Hugo and said, “I hope you realize we are not running a charity here. Just because you were soulmarked, does not get you a free education. If you want something for nothing, then maybe see if a harvester crew wants you to join them.”

The accountant’s gruff manner brought out Hugo’s confidence for some reason and he retorted, “I was planning on paying. Quality education isn’t free. I was planning on looking into getting a loan, is that something the academy offers? What do people normally do?”

“Normally, they can afford their tuition. Go talk to my apprentice about other options,” he said and waved towards the back of the tent.

Following his directions, Hugo found a small desk with a young man sitting behind it. Stacks of papers were set up on either side of him.

“Hello, that man sent me back here. Can you help me with getting information on loans or?” Hugo said.

“You have come to the right place, go ahead and sit down,” the young man said. As soon as Hugo was sitting on the rickety chair, he continued, “Blue Lion Academy doesn't do loans. What they do instead is an indentureship program after graduation. You sign a contract to work for the academy full time for a few years as a way to pay for your schooling.”

“How long would I be committing for?”

“Depends on your domain. Life domain folks can usually be done in about three years. Barrier domain graduates often take six years to pay off their debt. It all depends on what job you qualify for after graduation. It gives you incentive to train hard during your four years of schooling, so you can quickly pay the academy back,” he said and handed over the contract.

Hugo could tell that the young man was expecting him to glance over the contract and sign it. But this was his life for the next several years, he was going to read every word. It did detail education, food, and lodging during the four years at the academy. That was nice. If he incurred extra expenses it would be added to his total debt.

It never said how long he would have to be indentured to the academy though. It just kept saying until the debt was paid, but not how fast the indentureship would pay off the debt. It also talked about interest rates, which weren’t very clear to Hugo.

“Is there any way to narrow down the terms for the indentureship after I graduate from the academy? This is all way too vague.”

The young man sighed and took another paper out of the stack as he said, “I guess you will be wanting the rider too.” While Hugo read this extra piece of paper he tapped his foot impatiently.

This “rider” was much more clear. It detailed a total debt load and how much a year of work each job would take off from his total. It also went into the standards for food and lodging during the indentureship, something that hadn’t been mentioned before. Doing the math made him realize that the shortest an indentureship could be was four years not three. And there were some jobs that paid so little that they would take twenty years to pay off the academy debt. Indentureship was legalized slavery, he was wary of getting into a contract that would have him without freedom for longer than he had been alive.

Still, it wasn’t like he had a better option. A bank would probably want payments right away and he wouldn’t be earning anything during his schooling. He turned to the impatient apprentice and said, “Are there any other papers I should be asking for?”

The young man rolled his eyes and said, “No, there are only the two. You have everything.”

Hugo nodded and signed both. “Can I get a copy of them for my records?”

“Yes, yes,” he said and handed over the papers.

“So, what’s next?” Hugo said.

“Just be here tomorrow morning at the ninth bell. You will be assigned a dorm room and given a set of academy uniforms,” he said.

...

Hugo showed up to the academy at a quarter past the eighth bell. He was carrying everything he owned, stuffed into the same bag he used for the trip up the mountain. The conversations with his mother had not gone well. She hadn’t appreciated the fritter enough to ignore the fact that he wasn’t going to give her money anymore. He just wasn’t going to earn his own money for the next eight years or so. He had left this morning without eating breakfast.

When he arrived, there was already a line at the gate. In fact, it looked like they had already started letting people in. He wondered if the apprentice from yesterday had lied about the time to make Hugo look bad. The joke was on him though, Hugo’s terrible home life had saved him embarrassment.

Once he got to the front of the line, Hugo was tested again by a light domain staffer, to make sure his numbers matched what they had recorded yesterday. Then he was let inside the academy walls.

This is where he would spend the majority of the next four years of his life. He was awed by the architecture. It was just as grand as the best neighborhoods in the city. Straight lines and columns. Round buildings and ornate carvings.

Hugo was surprised at how big it was. There were six multi-story buildings in sight and he knew there were more. And yet, the campus wasn’t crowded at all. There were lush greens and trees between every building with a solid stone walkway connecting all of the buildings. It was extravagant, particularly since it took up space in the expensive part of town. He was starting to realize how much the mage education in this city was prioritized. Maybe the expensive tuition really was worth it.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the quiet. The walls muffled the sounds of the city around them. The subdued atmosphere made him almost feel reverent.

The next few hours were full of waiting in various lines. Wait in this line for new boots. Wait in this line for well worn books. Wait in this line for writing supplies. Wait in this line for a set of tunics. This line was for smallclothes and pants. This line was for a school schedule.

Happily, there wasn’t a line for dorm assignments; that had already been determined the day before. Hugo found himself on the top floor of an apartment building, with a room at the far end of the hall. The dorm room felt luxurious to Hugo.

There were just two beds in the room, which was larger than his mom’s whole apartment. He took the bed nearest the door since he had never been a fan of heights and didn’t want to be by the window. Each bed had a large locking trunk at the foot of the bed, and Hugo tossed his backpack inside. Then he hung up his clothes in the nearby closet. He marveled at the carvings on the wooden closet, so ornate. It almost didn’t feel real. There was a small kitchen area with a faucet and a hot plate. There were some cupboards above and below.

What shocked him the most was that the room had its own bathroom. He was used to sharing one with the whole floor, and this room had its own. It was a little small, with a toilet and shower and nothing else. He couldn’t figure out how to use the shower, so he assumed it needed mana. He was excited to figure out how to use it.

The faucet in the kitchenette didn’t need mana, so he used it to freshen up and get dressed into the school uniform. The pants fit well, but the tunic was too large. He would have to see about getting it tailored. It was mostly white with a thick blue trim. The blue was the same blue as the Blue Lion Academy flag, it must be the school color.

According to the schedule, he didn’t have to be anywhere for another two hours, so he sat down at the desk. He only had the one book, which seemed lonely at the large desk. He spread out his school supplies to make the desk look occupied. He wasn’t looking forward to writing with a quill and ink again. He had a long habit of staining his hands when he used them. He was marginally more tidy with a charcoal pen, he would have to see if he could buy one.

Before he could crack open the book, someone burst into the room. It was another young man, slightly taller and skinnier than Hugo himself. He had curly black hair and the patchy start of a beard. He had several bags slung over his shoulder, and he walked into the room with a kind of nervous energy.

“Hello roommate! I’m Oskar, nice to meet you,” he held out his hand to shake, then said, “Let me put down my stuff first. Oh, I see you left me the bed by the window. How very considerate of you. That gets you extra roommate points for sure.” He plopped down everything onto his bed as he kept talking, “My dad told me about these rooms, but I didn’t believe him. This is the Blue Lion Academy, the only academy for mages in the whole town. There is no way. No way, I said that the dorms are that crappy. I stand corrected though. This is a dump.” He wandered over to the bathroom and peeked in, continuing to talk, “And talk about small. It is just big enough to stand in. You can pee into the toilet from the shower, for goodness sake. But we aren’t here for that, are we? Here to get the best education. All the best people have come from here, I am just excited to be here among all the future greats. I plan on being one of those greats myself. I bet you will be great too, what did you say your name was?”

Hugo laughed, “I haven’t said anything yet. My name is Hugo. I am happy to be here too.”

Oskar stopped for the first time and sheepishly smiled, “Sorry about that, I tend to talk a lot when I am nervous.”

“Don’t be nervous on my account, I am a nobody. I don’t think there is anyone poorer in the whole school,” Hugo said with a smile.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Oskar said, “Not that you're poor, that’s too bad. I am just glad that you aren’t nobility. Now I don’t have to pretend.”

Hugo laughed.

“So, what are you in for?” Oskar said, “Do you already know what domain you want, what you want to do after school?”

“No, not really. I know I want to be able to make a lot of money. I guess that is true of everyone,” Hugo said.

“Ha. You wish. About half of the people going to this school don’t have to make money at all,” Oskar said, “Nobles or well connected people don’t need to stress about their education. They have a spot reserved for them when they get out.”

“I wish I had that. But still. I am happy to be here,” Hugo said, “I grew up in the narrows. No matter what I do here, it will be better than where I grew up.”

“Oh for sure. I grew up midtown, and even for me, being a mage will open up all kinds of opportunities. As long as I graduate that is. That student debt can kill you if you don’t get a good paying job afterwards.”

“You still had to get a loan for school? I would have expected someone from midtown to be able to afford it.”

“I wish. My older brother got full ride, but I get the joy of paying off my tuition myself. Luckily, they gave me a break on that since my parents went here, otherwise I would be stuck paying the loan back for twenty years or more.”

“I hope it won’t take me twenty years to pay off my debt,” Hugo said.

Oskar’s eyes went wide, “Oh, sorry. I wasn’t trying to...”

Hugo waved his hands, dismissing the concern. “I just gotta get a good job afterwards, and then it will be fine.”

They had a longer conversation where they got to know each other. Oskar was from a minor merchant family, and planned on taking over the family business at some point. Hugo told his roommate all about himself too. They hit it off well, glad to have a reasonable person as a roommate.

When the time came, they walked together towards the auditorium. They entered into a large room, the main stage was set below ground level, the rest of the room sloping down to that level. Row after row of seats filled the room, most already occupied. There was a dull roar of conversations.

Hugo looked around. This was it. His first class in a magical academy. He couldn’t wait to see what it would be like.

Chapter 12: A Proper Education Begins With

Hugo took a seat near Oskar, towards the top of the room. He guessed there were about two hundred students here. They sat and chatted while they waited for class to start.

“It’s ok if you don’t want to talk about it, but I was wondering about your scar,” Oskar said.

Hugo reached up to touch the scar on his face. It went from in front of his ear to his neck. He said, “Yeah, I think about it sometimes too. Is it too long? They say girls like scars, but I think they like small scars, not big disfiguring scars.”

“You aren’t disfigured,” Oskar said and rolled his eyes.

“Sure, sure. I know you are right. But I haven’t had much luck with the ladies and I wanted to blame something else, alright?”

Oskar stopped himself from replying when he looked down. A short woman with brown hair walked to the center of the stage. The auditorium quickly quieted down as she approached the lectern.

“Welcome to the Blue Lion Academy. My name is Marta Edge. I expect you all to show proper respect and address me as Sage Marta. I will be your teacher for the next week before you are all soulburnt into your new domain. After you have your new magic, you will be taught by one of the specialist mages for that domain. Some of you will see me again since I teach a mana control class during the regular school year.

“I get the same few questions every year, so I figure I will answer them now. To answer your first question, no. You cannot get a better dorm room. I know what your next instinct is, and thank you for the money. You still can’t get a better dorm room.”

There was scattered laughter at the proclamation. Everyone gave a knowing smile, bribes and throwing around influence were the normal ways of getting things done. Especially for the general makeup of this academy. Because of the way shimmer mountain passes were handed out, two thirds of the students came from rich families. Of course they would want a better room than the cramped quarters they had all been assigned.

Marta didn’t laugh, she just continued, “The dean is on the city council, and unless your parents are on the city council too, there will be no preferential treatment. Many of you are used to being the big fish in a small pond. Welcome to the ocean, boys and girls. You are all little fish, don’t piss off the barracudas. Every single one of your teachers is a master of their craft, and they are all more important than you are. If you get one of them mad, you will be expelled, regardless of who your parents are. Give us your respect or you will live to regret it.

“On to more pleasant topics. The sports fanatics will be glad to hear we have our own Azad court here, just past the solarium. Our two tournaments are always well attended. The cafeteria is out this door and to your left, near the academy walls. If you want to nourish your mind instead of your body, our library is on the opposite end of campus.

“Physical education will start tomorrow morning, bright and early at the 8th bell. You will report to Sebastian in the field directly in front of this building, wearing your running clothes. I am going to make this easy on you, attendance is a test. If you miss the physical education classes or my lectures in the afternoon, you will be expelled and your tuition will not be returned. Please be on time to both.”

...

As he usually did, Hugo woke with the sun. He stretched and smiled. That habit came from needing to get off to work early each morning. Based on the sun, Hugo guessed that it was half past the sixth bell right now. Normally he would be grabbing some hardtack and heading off to work. Today he just lay in bed, feeling luxurious.

A half hour later, he got dressed. He considered waking Oskar up for breakfast, but he wasn’t sure if his roommate would appreciate that or not. He decided to let him sleep. There was still an hour before they needed to be at athletics anyway. He might get up on his own shortly.

Hugo found his way to the cafeteria. It was a nice and airy building, with both indoor and outdoor seating. He was pleased to find that payment was as simple as showing his student badge and them writing the number down. He ate a scrumptious breakfast of oatmeal and sausages. He added a few fruits to be healthy. The cafeteria quickly filled up, but he didn’t see his roommate. Maybe he was on the other end of the cafeteria, it was plenty big enough for him to miss someone.

He decided to bring Oskar some breakfast just in case. He chose some granola and fruit, and added the cost to his tab. That way it could be a snack for later if his friend had already eaten.

The thought occurred to him that there were probably lots of easy ways for a student to run up their tab. If he bought lots of extra food, or bought things from the commissary, he might find himself adding an extra year of indentureship to his debt.

When he returned to his room, he found Oskar still sleeping. He woke his roommate and gave him breakfast. He also made a point of saying it was a one-time thing. Oskar offered to pay him back, but he wasn’t quite awake yet so Hugo didn’t count on it.

Then he changed into sports clothes. He had been issued shirts and shorts for the first class of the day, in the typical school blue and white. He put them on and frowned. He was going to be a little chilly in this light outfit. Maybe it would have been perfect in the middle of summer, but it was the tail end of winter right now. He wondered if he would need to buy a jacket.

“Are you ready yet?” Oskar said.

“Me? Aren’t you the one that slept in for an hour?” Hugo said.

“What are you talking about? I am dressed and ready to go, and I already ate. Let’s go,” Oskar said with a smile.

They walked out together and found the field where their class was supposed to meet. On their way, they saw several upperclassmen walking about in sport clothes as well. Apparently, athletics was a class you never really stopped taking.

The physical education instructor arrived right on time, just as the bells were ringing. The faculty certainly had a thing about punctuality. She was tall with short hair, and had a long brown robe with academy blue trim.

“Alright folks. I am going to call roll, speak up when you hear your name,” she said, not even introducing herself.

Hugo noticed he was able to tell his classmates apart by the way they answered their name. The ones that were used to public school were quick to shout ‘here’. But the ones that were used to a private tutor took a half second longer to answer. Hugo took special note of one of the latter students. She was a statuesque girl with long curly brown hair. Hugo made sure to remember the name ‘Lenna’ when she answered her name. He was instantly infatuated with her. She had a kind of effortless grace that made him think of a cat stalking its prey.

The teacher clapped her hands when the roll call was done and said, “Alright, only one missing. That is a good start to the class. Now that I have memorized all your names, I will give you mine. I am Sage Hanna, and I will be your athletics teacher for the next two years. You heard that right, two years. I will help you keep your bodies in fighting shape, and help you adjust to the many rank ups you will experience at the Academy.

“I am here to help you out, please remember that. I expect all of you to give it your best. I will notice if you don’t. You won’t be able to transfer to a different teacher, and this class is required for graduation. With that in mind, I would like you all to make a quick jog around the track. I will lead you for this first lap, stay with the pack.”

Hanna led them in a jog around the campus, following a paved track that made a large loop around the entire campus. The track was wide and had gentle curves as it passed around buildings, through grassy fields, and around small groves of trees.

Hugo had been doing a lot of running before this, training to be a shimmer corpsman. The jog didn’t seem all that tough to him, but several other classmates disagreed. They were gasping and wheezing by the time they finished the loop. He wondered how they had made the trip down shimmer mountain if they were this out of shape. Maybe they had gotten carried.

“Alright, we took that one slow, just so everyone could get used to the track. Now we are going to do another lap. I will start out in the back this time. Anyone who finishes the lap after me will have to take a remedial athletics class after dinner for a week. Go!”

The students startled at the unexpected start to the lap, but at least twenty of them were ready for this and took off as fast as they could. Hugo was among them. This kind of weeding out race was something he had already experienced, and he was expecting it. The lap around the campus was more than a mile long, but he immediately ran at his top speed.

He fully expected the instructor to start out slow and then pick up to unfair speeds halfway through. He wasn’t going to be caught by her mind games though. An extra class sounded like a terrible idea, so he was going to do his best to avoid it.

Of the twenty or so students that were at the front of the pack, many of them couldn’t keep up the fast pace. Particularly when they hit the three quarters mark, some just couldn’t run that fast anymore. Hugo was loving it though. He had run like this before, but never with the added stats of being soulmarked. It was almost fun.

Ten students finished the lap almost together. They had run hard the whole way. They looked back and didn’t see many of their classmates. There was a general sense of accomplishment among them. The rest of their classmates were still racing against the instructor, but they had won.

Hugo loved how quickly he recovered from the run, he was able to talk as classmates started filing in. The remaining runners out of the two hundred first years slowly started trickling in.

He turned towards the attractive girl from earlier and said, “How much do you want to bet that more than half of the other students don’t beat the teacher?”

She smiled and shook her head, “No bet. I saw her frown on the first lap, she wasn’t happy. I would be surprised if fifty classmates make the cut, let alone one hundred.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me, how did these people make it up and down the mountain? We all got soulmarked on the same trip, right? We were running pretty fast on the way down, how did those slowpokes not get eaten?” he said.

“Potions,” she said with a frown, “Plenty of them don’t do the training they should, and so they supplement with speed and stamina potions. Now that they are at the academy without their parents resources, their laziness is showing.”

“Huh, I had no idea.”

“It says something about your character that you didn’t know about the shortcuts.”

“Or just the size of my wallet.”

She laughed politely.

“I’m Hugo by the way,” he said with a smile.

“Lenna. Pleased to meet you.”

They were interrupted by the instructor, Hanna, arriving. She looked over the group that had already arrived. Lenna was right; there were only forty of the two hundred students that had been able to beat the instructor on her second lap around the campus.

“Pitiful, fewer and fewer every year,” Hanna mumbled to herself.

Shortly after, Oskar fell gasping to the grass in front of Hugo’s feet.

“And this eloquent fellow is my roommate, Oskar,” Hugo said to Lenna, “He is normally much more talkative.”

Oskar got enough breath to swear at Hugo, then he went back to gasping. It wasn’t long before he recovered and stood up. “That wasn’t fair. I was ahead of her at first. I was just trying to pace myself. Not like you lot that ran all out from the get go. How come you two didn’t collapse halfway through?”

“I have literally been training for years,” Hugo said with a shrug.

“What? How did you know mages needed to run a lot? No one told me,” Oskar said indignantly.

“No one told me either. I was actually training to be in the shimmer corps. I didn’t get in so I came here instead,” Hugo said.

“Being a mage was your back-up plan? You have your priorities mixed up, man,” Oskar laughed. He turned to Lenna and asked, “And what about you, are you a shimmer reject too?”

She laughed and said, “No no. I have always wanted to be a mage. My mother has the formation domain, and I wanted to be like her since I was little. She told me to stay fit.”

“My dad has the formation domain too. Maybe they know each other? His name is Mihai. We own a sewing machine factory in town,” Oskar asked.

“I doubt my mother would know him. We aren’t from here. My parents are still in my hometown, Paarl,” she said.

“That’s a whole other country. What are you doing all the way over here?”

Lenna shrugged, “It’s only two stops away, not that far. Still on the wheel.”

“Yeah, but why did they send you here?” Oskar said, bewildered.

“Politics. My parents are doing stuff that the local nox don’t like. They wouldn’t admit me to the Paarl academy so my family sent me here. Apparently this academy is better than Tallinn, at least for formation,” she said.

“My dad said the same thing, but I am trying to avoid formation myself. He wants to make me into a copy of himself, and I am not really into that. And since I can introduce myself now, my name is Oskar Simm. What’s your name?”

“Lenna.” She seemed like she was going to say more, but Hanna interrupted.

“Today is your first day,” Hanna yelled to the class, “So I will forgive some of you for walking. But this was the last time any of you walk when I said to run. I better not see you walking the campus loop again. Otherwise I will give the new healers a chance to practice their craft. Don’t test me.” That last part came out as a growl.

She led the class to the physical education building and waited until everyone filed in to continue, “This is the obstacle course. We will typically spend half of our daily lessons here. Today will be a little bit longer since it is still the first week of classes, but normal classes will only be two hours.”

Hugo stifled back a groan. It was only the ninth bell, if this class was longer than normal, how long would they be in here for?

Chapter 13 : Obstacle Course of Doom

Hugo had done well during the run, but he was a bit worried because Sage Hanna said today was going to be a longer day. He was already tired.

There was an obstacle course spanning the entire room, which was enormous. It was three stories tall, and twice that wide. What made him less stressed was that it was somewhat familiar. The shimmer corps entrance exam had an obstacle course too. Now that he saw this room, he realized that he had practiced on a lesser copy of the real thing.

Hanna started off by doing a run through the courses to show them the correct path. There were five different courses that could be run at the same time. She ran over boulders, across thin ledges, up ropes and down spinning logs.

It wasn’t until she was running the second course that Hugo noticed a problem. The second half of the courses were impossible. Jumps that were way too far, lifting blocks that were far too heavy, hanging on by just two fingers. Maybe their instructor could do it because she was so high leveled, but there was no way anyone in this room could complete a single course.

After she had finished the last course, Hanna said, “Alright everyone, make five lines. We are going to run all of the courses at once. You will notice that every course has three sections, green, yellow, red. If you fall off in the green section, walk to the beginning of the course and get back in line. If you can make it to the yellow section of any course, you can take a break for the rest of the class.”

She sent them running onto the course, with only a few seconds in between each other. It was a cluster. There were students falling off the course in the first ten feet, students accidentally being pushed off by those in front, a constant line of failure. Hanna was sending the students in fast enough that no one was waiting in line for long.

Even though Hugo was experienced, even he couldn’t get to the end of the green section. He got knocked off of a ledge before he could see what needed doing. Things only got worse from there. Just getting past the halfway point of the green section required a wall climb and a jump to catch yourself on your fingertips.

Slowing down wasn’t allowed either. Hanna seemed to have eyes on the back of her head and would throw small bags of sand at slackers. They weren’t heavy enough to injure, but they sure hurt.

About a half hour later, Hugo found himself at the edge of his capacities. He was alone on this section of the track, no one else was able to figure out the timing of the swing circles yet. But he just couldn’t figure out how to run up this curved wall and catch the edge above. He wasn’t sure if it was impossible with his current strength stat, or if there was some trick he didn’t understand.

A few frustrating minutes later, Hugo was convinced this was as far as he could go. The jump was just too high. Then a girl ran past him, not slowing as she ran up the wall. She jumped at the last possible second, and caught the wall. Hugo stood and stared. She had done it, why couldn’t he?

A sandbag to the back of his head convinced him to try again. Maybe if he ran faster and jumped at the last possible second? He ran as fast as he could at the wall, only to stutter at the last second. The height of the wall kept messing with him. He could plow through his fear of heights, but they messed with his instincts anyway. This stutter caused him to stumble and fall off the course completely.

At least falling off the course didn’t hurt, there were piles of soft woodchips below the obstacle track. He could see that there were ponds of water below the yellow and red sections of the track. Certainly made one wary of taking risks on those sections. It didn’t look like they cleaned that water often.

Every so often, Hanna would give them all a short break and have them switch tracks. Hugo never was able to break into the yellow section of the track, but the girl from earlier was able to get there. She was enjoying her well deserved break, only slightly waterlogged.

Two years. Hugo was going to have two years of running these obstacle courses. He shivered. Hopefully the extra stats he would soon be getting would be useful.

After entirely too long, their class was finally over. They dragged themselves back to their dorm rooms and showered and changed. Hugo was both happy and sad to discover that the showers didn’t require mana to work. He had just been too stupid to figure them out earlier.

After lunch they went back to the auditorium for their next class.

Marta walked up in front of the class and said, “Today’s lesson will be on Acamar. Those with a high intelligence stat will recognise that name. We soulmarked all use the Acamarian system, it said so in your welcome to the system. Understanding who they were and why they created this system of magic will help you understand how best to use it.

“First off, everything we know about them is fragmentary and incomplete. Don’t believe anyone that tells you that they know everything there is to know about the system. The Acamarian system architects have long since left this world, millennia ago.

“The Acamarians were, or perhaps are, immortal beings that wielded powerful magics. It is important to note that they weren’t gods. They were powerful beings to be sure, archwizards at the very least, but they did not know all, and their system of magic was imperfect at first. Ancient nox records show that the system went through several iterations before it became what we use today. The reason that the distinction is important is that the system is not infallible. If you ignore your teachers, and try untested magics, you might create an error. An error almost always results in your death, and the deaths of those around you. Do not experiment with magic.

“The other main fact that is important to learn about the Acamarian system is that it was designed solely for nox. Every aspect of the system, from the eight stats to the eight domains of magic were designed for nox and nox alone. Humans weren’t a part of this world when the system was built and tested. We are only able to use the system through a series of cheats, rituals that burn our souls into the proper shapes. We can do almost everything that they can, but a nox will always have an advantage when using the system. It’s their world, we are just part of it.

“Another salient fact is that the higher stat points are achieved solely via magic. If you put a hundred points in strength, you will get stronger. But you won’t grow any new muscles. If you are then hit with a shimmer caster or other magic disruptor, you will be back down to where you started. It’s one of the reasons continued physical education is important.

“Now, open your books and we will start going through the stats one by one,” Marta said and gestured for them to comply.

Hugo had to force himself to pay attention to the next section of the lesson. It was mind-numbingly boring but he couldn’t take the chance that they wouldn’t go over something new. He hadn’t been planning on even attending the academy, he wasn’t prepared like the rest of the class. Just because he thought he knew everything about the stats, doesn’t mean that he actually did.

An hour later, Hugo realized that he could have just slept through the lesson. It was all obvious, even an illiterate child would understand. Adding points to the strength stat would slowly make you stronger. Adding points to dexterity would make you faster and more nimble. Perception let you see and hear better, what a shock.

He had to admit that his assumptions about the wisdom and intelligence stats were slightly off. They didn’t really make you smarter, but the ability to remember more and process information faster was close enough to being smarter for Hugo.

Marta did gloss over charisma though, only telling students not to put any points into the stat. Hugo agreed with that recommendation anyway. He was going to get ahead on the merits of his own natural charm, not some artificial system making him likable. The only people he heard were adding points to charisma were gangsters and he didn’t want to be associated with them anymore.

What Hugo really wanted to know more about was the eight magic domains. But just as they were getting to that section in their books, the teacher ended the lesson and had them pass their books back into the front.

Next was History class. Sage Ioana was the teacher, but there wasn’t a lot of history teaching the first day. They spent the whole class period talking about class rules and procedures. After the first ten minutes, Hugo thought that they would be done, but she kept going. On and on. It wasn’t until forty minutes were up that she stopped going over the class rules.

Hugo sat up, finally ready to learn something. He hadn’t learned much history in his public education classes before this. They hadn’t considered it important for day laborers and farmers to learn history. Consequently, he was actually kind of excited for this class.

His hopes were dashed though. Sage Ioana spent the rest of their first day testing the students on the class rules and regulations. By the end of that first class period, she had the whole class speaking in unison.

The last class of the day was the Cryptozoology class. Better known as the monster class. Hugo wasn’t sure if it was the subject matter or the book that earned the class its nickname. The book was thick and weighed a ton. Each page had a detailed monster description, and most had an illustration. Hugo hadn’t known that there were that many different monsters in the world, but apparently there were. He was hopeful that the class would be about monster theory instead of rote regurgitation of facts. Memorizing that whole book would be impossible.

The teacher was already sitting at her desk when the students filed in. Hugo guessed that she was older than his mother. She didn’t look up from the two copper novel she was reading. The classroom was small, only about forty desks fit in the room, each desk with a monster book on it.

When the hour bell tolled outside, she slowly got up and shuffled to the front of the classroom. She said, “My name is Laisk. I will not be taking attendance. Your task this year is to memorize the book in front of you. I don’t care how you do it. At the end of the year, I will be administering a test. Pass the test, pass the class.

A few hands shot up, students already had questions.

“I will not be answering questions. We are going to read Markel’s Cryptozoology Textbook cover to cover in this class. That is all. Open your book to page one. You, in front. Start reading.”

It took the startled student a few moments of staring before she caught on and opened her book to the first page. She started reading, “Acid Ant. Like its cousins the acid ant resembles a terrestrial insect. Typically six to nine feet tall, acid ants have all the offensive abilities of the normal ant. The monster gets its namesake from the fact that it spits acid. The acid is secreted from the mandibles, not the center of the mouth. This means ...”

The students took turns reading from the book for the next hour. Hugo was honestly impressed. She had taken what should have been the most exciting class ever and turned it into a mind numbingly boring one. And to top it all off, she mentioned that she didn’t take attendance. She was practically begging them to skip class.

Hugo didn’t trust it. He assumed that it must be some sort of test, a test to see if students would attend even when it didn’t seem like there was any reason to be here. It was the last class of the day for the rest of the year, he promised himself he wouldn’t miss a class. He also promised himself that he would bring paper along next time so he could doodle during class.

Chapter 14: Mages vs Harvesters

Hugo woke from another nightmare. A depressingly common occurrence. This time it was about that riese, Lina, she was in a grove of trees with chanting people. They wanted to hurt her for some reason and he was supposed to help her. He shook his head as he got up. He knew he had only acted in self defense, but his subconscious mind obviously didn’t agree. He tried to forget about it and focused on doing well in Hanna’s class.

Hugo and Oskar got to the auditorium early for Marta’s lesson. Everyone had an hour break for lunch, but they didn’t need that much time. Hugo saw someone he recognised already there, and walked up to her.

“Hey Lenna,” Hugo said.

“Hi, um... Don’t tell me. I know this one... Hugo!” Lenna said with a smile. “And your shadow is Oskar, right?”

“Right,” said Hugo.

“Hey, I am no one’s shadow,” Oskar said, as he stepped out from behind Hugo.

“Sure, sure,” Lenna said. She turned to Hugo and said, “I hope today’s lesson isn’t as boring as yesterday’s.”

“I know, I didn’t learn anything yesterday. In here or cryptozoology,” Hugo said, “I hope Marta will go over something interesting today. Like maybe some secrets about the eight domains. No one ever talks about the shadow domain.”

“I doubt they will talk about it here,” Oskar said.

“Why not? It’s part of the system,” said Hugo.

“Because they don’t want another Red Baron. Can you imagine the fit our parents would throw if they found out the academy was teaching us how to be shadow mages?” Lenna said.

Oskar barked out a laugh. He said, “I don’t want to be a shadow mage. Murder isn’t for me. I just want to learn all the secrets, you know? Like how does the captain of the guard walk on air? Can formation mages really create anything? Can light domain people really read my mind?”

Lenna laughed, “You mean you don’t already know?”

“Oh yeah, as if you do?” Hugo said with a smile.

“I know some of those. They aren’t really a secret,” Oskar said, “Light mages can’t read your mind, only your stats. Formation mages can only create some things, they have to specialize.”

“All high ranked barrier mages can walk on air, it must just be a skill they get,” Lenna added.

“Oh. I guess I am the only one out of the loop,” Hugo said.

Lenna shrugged.

Marta came into the lecture hall, closing the doors behind her. The students quickly sat down and stopped their conversations. The only sound was the tapping of her shoes as she walked down the concrete steps. She looked down every row, taking stock of who was already seated. She plopped a folio of papers onto the lectern along with a charcoal pen.

“Congratulations on making it to my class on time today. Your attendance has been noted. Today we will be discussing the difference between harvesters and mages. Both use the Acamarian system to work their magics, but they have very different mindsets and methods. Since we are training you to be a mage, and not a harvester, the distinction is important.

“A harvester is little better than a laborer, someone who uses their magic to get a job done, day in and day out. Innovation is discouraged and they always strive for ever greater efficiency. Don’t assume that I mean to disparage harvesters. They have a very important role in society, they keep monster populations in check and provide the majority of manashards needed to keep modern life powered up. The lights in this room, for example, are powered by mana shards that harvesters collected.

“Mages, on the other hand, use their brain to solve problems, not their brawn. Incremental innovation is the order of the day for mages. They don’t just practice their magics, they examine them, they research them. Mages come up with new ways to use their domain, pushing scientific advancement forward. They are not content to know that something works, they must know why it works.

She paused her speech as someone slipped into the room. She gave the tardy young man a stern look and wrote something down on her folio. Then she continued, “A good example of the difference between harvesters and mages can be found in the life domain. A beginning harvester will get the skill [Heal] and a beginning mage will get the same skill. Through years of practice, that harvester will gain skill and be able to heal quicker, and use less mana. Decades later, that harvester will be a great healer. The mage will study the body, he will learn about ligaments and humors. He will improve his ability to heal, but he won’t stop there. Through study and research, he learns that the same life magic can animate more than just bodies. Decades later, the life mage will be a great healer as well. But he will also have created dozens of golems, fought in many wars, and generally made life better for everyone around him.

“Young men and women, it is time to start thinking like mages. Many of you took the monorail to get to the Blue Lion Academy. It was harvesters that powered that machine, but mages that created it. Your task over the next four years is to learn enough about your domain so that you can contribute to the advancement of modern life. Your fourth year will be devoted to completing your thesis, a way for you to add to the knowledge of this great university. That task starts today. Learn everything about your chosen domain, then think about that next step. Don’t ever stop thinking,” Marta said as she ended the lecture.

Oskar had the giggles as they filed out of the lecture hall together, “Don’t ever stop thinking,” he said in an imitation of Marta’s voice. “If we stopped thinking, we would be dead. So ridiculous.”

Lenna huffed, “Well, I thought it was inspirational. I am going to create something wonderful for my thesis. Then my family will sell that idea and we will make plats.”

“We haven’t even been soulburnt yet. How can you be thinking of a thesis when we don’t even have a domain yet?” Oskar said.

“I already know what domain I am getting. I am going with formation. It is the same domain as my mom, and I already have a plan,” said Lenna.

“What’s your idea for your thesis?” said Hugo.

“Well, I don’t really want to talk about specifics yet. But just trust me, it is going to be great,” Lenna said.

“I am sure it will,” said Hugo.

“Whatever,” said Oskar.

“Do you even know what domain you want?” Lenna demanded of Oskar.

“No. I am not supposed to know yet. I have a meeting with the dean today to talk it over,” said Oskar.

“You are supposed to know which domains you want,” Lenna said, “The dean is going to give you advice, not hold your hand.”

“Well, I already know I don’t want shadow, rune, or ritual domains, that only leaves five domains,” said Oskar.

Lenna just rolled her eyes.

“I have my appointment today too. I can walk over with you,” Hugo said. Then he turned to Lenna, “See you at dinner?”

“No, I am having dinner with my dormmates. Someone ordered tarak for the whole block and I won’t miss that. You can tell me all about your domain choices before athletics tomorrow,” Lenna said.

“Ug, no. I will be asleep until the last possible moment,” Oskar said, “I will tell you about it after.”

Hugo and Oskar slowly walked towards the middle of campus where they were going to meet with the dean. Their appointments weren’t for another half hour. Hugo appreciated the architecture of the administration building. It was called the senate house and it had thoroughly human architecture. Instead of the utilitarian squares and rectangles found everywhere that nox built, the senate house was different. It was a round building with stone columns leading to three progressively smaller tiers. Their destination was the top tier.

Once they reached their destination and confirmed where the deans office was, they walked back out to the edge of the third floor. Looking out through the columns they could see the whole campus. It was simultaneously too big and too small. On the one hand, Hugo would spend the majority of his next four years here. It felt so limiting. At the same time though, there were dozens of buildings on campus. They had respected teachers and an enormous library. There was so much to learn here. He looked in the distance to see the monorail and a shimmer corpsman flying beneath it. Part of him still wanted that life. But this life had opportunities the other life never would.

“How do you even choose a domain?” Oskar said, “It’s the one you are stuck with for the rest of your life. What if you choose wrong? Pick something, and then two years later, you think oi, I hate this. Then you are stuck with something you hate for the rest of your life.”

“My dad had a domain before, you know, everything happened. He said that everyone loves their domain at first. And then everyone hates their domain, and wishes they had another. It’s like that saying, the paint is always brighter in someone else’s house, you know? I think you are going to hate your domain in two years, because everyone does. Adults always complain about their jobs. At least the ones who have to work for a living. That’s you and me. We are going to hate our domains, for sure. We just gotta choose the domain that we hate the least.”

Shortly after that, it was Oskar’s turn to see the dean. He didn’t even look up as he walked out of the room, lost in thought. Then it was Hugo’s turn.

Hugo walked into Dean Artjom’s office and passed over the piece of paper with his stats written on it. Rumor was that the dean was an archmage, that he had used the academies’ tamoko to soulburn all the classes onto himself. If that was true, the dean would be able to just look at Hugo and see his numbers. He wasn’t sure if that was true or not. On the one hand, if the dean could do it, why would he keep it secret? On the other hand, something had to make the dean worthy of his position, why not this?

Either way, the sheet of paper the dean was glancing over looked just like his own stats. No need for a light domain when it was laid bare for all to see.

Hugo Rebane [Domainless]

Strength 12

Dexterity 11

Resilience 9

Regeneration 11

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 8

Rank 1

110/200 Points

Health 11/11

Mana 1/1

Skills: None

As he looked over his own stat screen, he noticed the brackets were gone now. He wondered when that had happened. It was tough to tell if he felt stronger and more dexterous now. Maybe? Or maybe it was just the power of suggestion. He should have tested himself before and after.

“Well, it seems to me that you have three good choices here. You could go with formation, barrier, or life domains. Have you thought about which one appeals to you the most?” Artjom said.

“I have put a lot of thought into it, but I haven’t been able to decide yet. I need to make money after this, and life domain has plenty of good paying opportunities. But I am not sure if I am the healing, nurturing type,” said Hugo.

“How are you with pain?” the dean said seriously.

“Pain?” Hugo asked.

“Life domain practitioners spend most of their day in pain. Every drop of life magic comes from their own bodies. That is a pain that you never get accustomed to.”

“I am not that good at pain, honestly.”

“Of the two remaining, formation domain offer better employment opportunities. Barrier domain soulmarked usually end up working guard duty of some sort, either up on the wall or at a private residence. The formation domain has a wider application, you would be able to find employment in a variety of crafting professions.”

“I think I would enjoy being a formation expert, Dean Artjom. It would be fun to create something from nothing. As long as it doesn’t involve pain.”

“No pain. Not directly at least. There is a lot of math involved in the formation discipline. How are you with math?”

“I always got ones in math class. I am confident in that area.”

“Well then, I believe you have your answer, young man.”

“Thank you so much, Dean Artjom, I appreciate the advice.”

“Glad to help. It is something that other faculty could be doing, but I enjoy guiding the new generation of students in my academy.”

After he left the admin building, Hugo felt the world open up. He had a domain now. He would use his magic to create something from nothing. He could create something out of thin air, a sword or a fork, whatever the situation warranted. With this power to create, he would never be weak, caught unawares, or worst of all, poor. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

Chapter 15 : Soulburnt Magic Domain

Hugo was delighted to see that both Oskar and Lenna were here today. They were going to take the formation domain too. Lenna had always wanted to be a formation expert, and Oskar must have been convinced when he talked with Hugo about it. They were all happy to see each other, but a little nervous too. The process was said to be quite painful. Hugo wasn’t convinced though. He suspected it was just one of those things they said to new students as a joke. It wasn’t like pain was a magical component.

They were in a stone building in the center of campus. Milling about were the rest of the prospective formation students. Hugo paid them no mind. Even though he would be spending much of the next four years with them, he didn’t feel like introducing himself just yet. He was staring at the locked door to his right. He knew that behind the oak door in front of them was the main reason this academy existed. The tomoko.

Right on time as always, Marta entered the meeting room. She unlocked the door with a key and a wave of her hands. Hugo would have to ask her about that hand wave afterwards. She motioned the group into the room. There was a large machine in the middle of the room with low benches along the walls.

“Alright!” Marta yelled as she clapped her hands, “Everyone here should have already gone through aptitude testing and talked with the Dean about your domain choice. Today we are using this machine here, the tamoko, to soulburn the formation domain into you. I am going to read off your name and I want you to step forward and say yes. This is your domain for the rest of your life, I don’t want anyone in here that doesn’t want the formation domain.”

One by one they were called forward to stand near the tamoko. The machine looked like a mash up between a reclining chair and a tourture device. Restraints lined the armrests and leg areas, with a padded headband attached to the top of the chair. Above the headband was a pellucid, the control unit. Large metal rings surrounded the chair, with glowing manashards placed throughout. Hugo was interested to see several different variations, from fireshards to iceshards and even a green one that he assumed was a poisonshard.

Once everyone on her list was accounted for, Marta spoke to the group again, “Everyone is going to take their turn in the machine. The straps might look a little scary, but they are just there to stop you from hurting yourself. The procedure is painful, but you can take it. The academy has faith in you.”

She called a name from her list and a tall lanky boy was strapped into the machine. Once he was fully strapped in, she stuffed a leather tube into his mouth. She stepped outside of the rings and checked all the settings on the tamoko. Then, without warning, she flipped a switch on the pellucid and the machine hummed to life. A high pitched piercing sound filled the room.

The boy immediately started screaming.

His anguished cries were loud in the stone room, almost deafening even with the leather muffling it. His eyes were wide, unblinking for the entire procedure. After what felt like twenty minutes but was closer to two, and the machine shut itself off. The sound went from a high pitch down to a low hum and then faded away.

Marta went over and unstrapped him, showing uncharacteristic caring and kindness. Once the boy was situated on the bench against the wall, she turned towards the group.

Oskar backed up, almost walking into Lenna. She pushed him forward again, and Oskar stumbled forward.

“Oh? A volunteer? I was going to go alphabetical, but I suppose you can go next if you want to,” Marta said.

“Uh no. No thank you. That looked like it hurt, like really hurt,” Oskar said and backed up again.

“It does. It hurts so bad that you will have nightmares for the rest of your life. This isn’t soul tickling, this is soul burning. A precise magical rune is being tattooed onto the very fiber of your being. Of course it is going to hurt,” Marta said.

“Isn’t there.... Isn’t there a less painful option?” Oskar said, eyeing the contraption.

“Of course there is. How do you think people got their domains before the tamoko was invented? Head out that door and join a harvester crew. It will only take you five years or so to get your domain. Some even say you have better mana control after gaining your domain the traditional way. But then you have just wasted five years of your life. The rest of the class will have graduated from the academy by then, already making money in their first job. So go ahead, take your time, do it the old fashioned way. I will see you in five years, if you survive in the wilds that long without a domain.

“No one is forcing you to do this. Being soulburnt is a privilege only afforded to those in this academy. Every one of our students gains the domain they wanted, soul runes perfectly aligned to their chosen domain. You should be grateful for the chance to enter the tamoko, not acting like a scared little boy,” Marta said.

Oskar looked offended at the insult. He opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out. He stepped forward and back. Hugo knew that he was working himself up.

“I volunteer,” said Hugo. He walked to the tamoko and nodded to Marta. He wanted to give Oskar the chance to calm down before he said something he regretted. Plus, Hugo just wanted to get this over for himself. That really did look painful. He didn’t want to stress about the procedure any more than he had to.

Marta gave Oskar a one eyed stare, but didn’t say anything. She nodded back to Hugo and quickly strapped him into the machine. Once the leather was stuffed into his mouth, he tried to prepare himself. His father had taught him centering techniques, mental exercises that were supposed to help him control mana easier. It helped him achieve a calmer mental state, and chased away his fears.

It wasn’t enough.

As soon as the machine activated, Hugo felt excruciating pain. All semblance of mental fortitude was gone and he was left with pain. Everything was pain. Everything. It wasn’t that his body hurt, he was no longer receiving input from his body. The pain was piercing deep into his very being. Parts of himself were being burnt, sloughed off into the ether. Bits of his ineffable self were being consumed by a fire without a source. He felt his sense of identity dying in the unending assault of pain.

A few moments after he was sure that he was no longer himself, the procedure ended. Marta stepped up and helped Hugo out of the machine. He was gently led to the bench on the side of the wall.

The memory of that pain, just the memory, was painful in and of itself. Hugo tried to think of something else, to distract himself from the horror. He couldn’t. He was just there, sitting with the psychological impact of the procedure. The rest of the room faded away, and he wasn’t sure what happened over the course of the next hour. He flinched every time the tamoko started up again.

Eventually, Marta stood in the center of the room and addressed the formation domain students surrounding her. She said, “Congratulations, the worst day of your life is over. Everyone was successful and you have all gained the formation domain. Do not try and use your new domain. Just go directly to your dorm room and go to sleep. I know it isn’t even dinner time yet, but trust me. Go to bed. You will feel better in the morning.”

Hugo stood up and wandered out of the room with the rest of the class. He saw Oskar walking woodenly ahead of him, and grabbed his arm. Without a word, he guided his roommate back to their dorm.

They lay in their beds, unmoving, for hours. They briefly discussed going down to the cafeteria for dinner before deciding against it. They both went to bed early. The psychic pain was just too much to do anything.

Hugo had nightmares all night long. Visions of runes flashed across his vision, then morphed into weapons that turned around and stabbed him. Then he was on the mountain again. Marion was there, being chased by a hoard of golems. Hugo wanted to protect his friend, but he slipped through his fingers.

The next morning Hugo still had a bit of a headache, but he got out of bed right away. He didn’t want to think of his dreams anymore. He just as soon would have forgotten the whole last day and the trauma it brought. After a large breakfast, Hugo started to feel better.

This morning Oskar actually got down to the cafeteria before breakfast was over. They didn’t talk to each other. Which is actually what Hugo wanted. He was still processing everything. He wasn’t alone in that mentality. Their athletics and mana classes were much more subdued than normal.

It wasn’t until after lunch that Hugo felt mostly human again. He got to his formation class a little early and was glad to see a friendly face.

Hugo walked up to Lenna to say hi. She was talking to a short girl near the back of the classroom, so he just waited until they were done with their conversation.

“Hello Hugo,” Lenna said, “Good to see you. This is my new friend, Alice. She was just telling me this wonderful joke.”

“Nice to meet you, Hugo,” Alice said, then she turned back to Lenna and said, “So the Duchess of Tallinn got what she wanted. A life size statue of herself. She even had it painted to be as realistic as possible. And do you know what she said when she saw it for the first time?”

“No, what?”

“I am beside myself with joy,” Alice said then giggled at her own joke.

Hugo smiled and Lenna chuckled.

“I have another one,” Alice said, “Why did the Duke of Reval behead all of those revolting peasants last year?”

She didn’t wait for an answer and just blurted out the punchline, “Because he thought they were getting a-head of themselves.”

Lenna chuckled again but Hugo frowned deeply.

“Oh what? Don’t like puns?” Alice asked Hugo.

“Not those kind,” Hugo said.

“I will admit sometimes my jokes are bad. Pun-ishingly bad,” Alice laughed.

“As a peasant myself, I am not fond of hearing about them getting beheaded,” Hugo said and walked away angrily. He found a seat near the front of the classroom and fumed.

The fact that she thought it was funny to joke about death was just too much for Hugo. The duke really had sentenced people to death last year. He didn’t know them personally, but they had come from his part of town. Alice just thought it was funny because she never had any interaction with the poor of the city. Hugo didn’t really consider himself a peasant, but he was as close as you could get. He vowed to himself to help out others from his neighborhood once he made enough money.

Lenna plopped herself down on the desk next to him, “You are too sensitive, it was just a joke. She feels really bad.”

Hugo thought about it for a bit. He knew he was right, but he didn’t want to be a jerk about it. He waffled his hand back and forth, “Maybe. The joke wasn’t funny but I guess I didn’t have to make her feel bad about it. Should I go say sorry?”

“Nah, she just wants to forget about it,” Lenna said. “But you should laugh the next time she tells a joke.”

“Sure. As long as it isn’t making fun of me,” Hugo said.

Lenna shook her head, “Especially if it is a joke at your expense. Nobles aren’t the only ones that take themselves too seriously. Everyone should just loosen up.”

Their instructor came into the room then, and everyone quickly sat down and stopped their conversations. He had an armload of papers and set them on his desk. He took a moment to organize his desk before turning to the silent students.

“Welcome to the first year formation domain class. If you aren’t in the right room, now is the time to leave,” He waited a moment and then continued, “I am Sage Rasmus and I will be your teacher for the rest of the school year. I am a rank forty-nine formation mage and I have been teaching at Blue Lion Academy for the last six years. In addition to your class I teach the fourth year class. If you don’t get yourself expelled, I will teach you all again in four years, and help you craft your thesis proposal,” he said and gestured to the papers on the desk.

“I expect the utmost respect from each of you and I will return that respect. Each of you has already earned a measure of respect simply by choosing the formation domain. It is by far the best domain. By the end of the year you will be able to create a wide variety of objects and solve endless problems. Formation mages are the foundation of modern life, essential in every industry. Even the best harvesters have the formation domain.

“But of course, there is a reason people choose other domains. This one is one of the hardest, the math alone has driven students to tears, let alone the complex interactions that occur when you add multiple elements to your design.

“You will have to work hard. I will be there to support you, but I expect every one of you to work harder than you ever had before. If you do, you can expect great things.”

He held his hands in front of him and created a metal object with a flourish. They didn’t understand what it was until it started to glow. It was a fancy mana lamp.

“Wonderful things,” Rasmus continued with a smile. “But first we need to assess general skill levels. I am going to pass out an assessment. This is just to get an idea of your base knowledge, it is not a test. No need to get worried.

He passed out tests, each one on a half sheet of paper. It didn’t look too intimidating to Hugo. He got out a charcoal pen and started filling out the assessment. There were a total of ten questions, all of them related to math in some way. Hugo was able to answer six of them, but the other four used completely foreign terms. He suspected that he would be able to answer all ten questions by the end of his first year as a formation student.

After class was over, Hugo hung around to ask the teacher something. “Excuse me, Rasmus?”

The teacher didn’t look up from the paper he was reading, he just said, “Yes?”

“I was wondering if there is an optimal build for formation mages. Like a guide for assigning stat points. I wasn’t expecting the question when I ranked up the first time, and I wanted to plan ahead for the next points. Is there a recommended way to assign the points?” asked Hugo.

Rasmus looked up and said, “The school doesn’t much care, one way or another. Since we soulburnt you with formation, your domain will put a point into strength with each rank up. Your other point is up to you. A lot of people balance out the extra strength with dexterity. It is also a good idea to upgrade your two R’s, Resilience and regeneration will keep you alive when you get hit.

“Doubling up on strength is probably a bad idea. It will allow you to gain access to elements sooner, but I won’t teach you to use them any sooner. You would just have to get used to the extra strength and wait for your class to rank up so you can all learn together. Eventually you are going to want a point into almost every stat. If you go deep into dexterity, you have to put a point in intelligence, otherwise you won’t be able to use it quickly. If you want to create something precise, you need points in perception, otherwise everything will turn out crude. It’s all connected,” Rasmus said and interlaced his fingers. He continued, “But really, do whatever you want, your build is your own. Just as long as you don’t throw it all into charisma, no one cares,” Rasmus said.

“Oh, that’s right,” Hugo said, “I have been meaning to ask about that. Why do people hate charisma so much? Why would anyone care if I wanted to be a little more likeable?”

Rasmus frowned, “I thought you were one of the smart ones. Did you already put a point into charisma?”

“No, no. I was just wondering, honest. My charisma is fine, I don’t need more of it,” Hugo said.

After a beat, Rasmus said, “Alright. But just so you know, I am going to have the light domain teacher keep an eye on you. You should have learned this in Marta’s intro class, but I might as well tell you again so you don’t do something stupid. Charisma is a bad stat used by bad people. We don’t even teach shadow magic at the school because of it.

“Charisma works by affecting your perception of people. They seem a little nicer and more trustworthy with every point they add to themselves. It is a minor form of mind control. Can you just imagine the power of someone at rank thirty with all the points invested into charisma? They can convince you to hand over the deed to your house right after they had their way with your wife. And you would thank them for it. If it wasn’t for the light domain, people with high charisma would rule the world,” Rasmus said.

“Is it really that bad? I heard that gangsters usually invest a few points into it, but it’s not like they rule the city,” Hugo said.

“Well, there is one flaw in charisma. It only works while you are close to someone. If you cheat someone, they will realize it as soon as you walk away. As soon as the compulsion is gone, they will get mad and won’t believe another word you say. That and the light mages we keep around the city limit the effectiveness of the stat. So you would never get away with using it. Don’t even try.”

Hugo had more questions, but he sensed that Rasmus was done with the conversation so he just said, “Ok, thanks. I won’t ever put points into charisma, don’t worry.”

Rasmus made a noncommittal noise and turned back to his papers.

Author note:

At this point, you have read 15 chapters, over 33000 words, about 120 pages. It is still early in the story, but I think that is enough to create an opinion. I bet there are plenty of people that would love to hear your opinion on the novel so far. If you click on that fiction page button up at the top, you can scroll down and leave a review. Or you can just click here.

People want to know what you have to say!

Chapter 16: Choose Your Elements

“Today we are taking advantage of the survival effect,” Rasmus said. He had to yell a bit to be heard over the sound of wind rushing over the top of the walls.

The formation class was standing on the top of the city walls, listening to why they were here. Hugo was trying his best to pay attention, but it was tough. Not because of the wind, Rasmus was talking plenty loud enough to be heard.

They were so high up.

He had to keep reminding himself that the walls were sturdy, they didn’t even move in this strong wind. Just because they were four stories high, didn’t mean that he was in any danger. The walls were thick, the battlements were tall. He was safe.

Still. It was just so high up.

“...which is a direct result of the mana pressure differential. The mana seeks to equalize, and as a newly soulmarked, you have a very low mana density. Basically, you are here to be present as monsters are killed. The survival effect cuts off around rank four, but we are only going to stay atop the walls until everyone hits rank two. Listen to your notifications and head on down to the base of the wall once you have enough points,” Rasmus said. He made sure everyone was paying attention and he continued. “The math behind this effect is interesting because it does not seem logical at first. But surprisingly it is consistent and predictable...”

Standing at the back of the group of thirty-five students, Hugo had to strain to hear his teacher occasionally. He was considering adding a point to perception when he ranked up. Oskar was on his left, not even pretending to pay attention. He kept glancing past the teacher to the land outside the walls.

Which, admittedly, was more interesting than a lecture on math they won’t need to use. They saw lumbering owlbears being shot down, they heard the screeches of centipedes attacking the base of the wall, and every so often a strix would be shot out of the sky.

Alice was standing on his right and gently elbowed him. He turned back to Rasmus and tried to focus. But her intent was just the opposite.

“Hey,” she whispered, “Did you hear about this new invention that allows you to see through walls?”

“Really?” Hugo said, allowing himself to be distracted.

“Yeah. They call them windows,” she whispered.

Hugo couldn’t help himself and laughed softly.

“Hugo! Please pay attention,” Rasmus barked out.

“Sorry Sage Rasmus,” he mumbled.

He pulled up his stat screen to check and see how long he would have to be up on this wall. Not too much longer. He had already gotten a head start by surviving the trip down the mountain. He did find himself feeling a little better about standing so high up. The battlements and railings really did make him feel safer. Not quite comfortable, but not panic stricken anymore.

A soft chime sounded that only he could hear. Double checking his points, he saw that he had enough to rank up and he quickly headed down the wall. He wasn’t the first down here, but he didn’t have any friends at the base of the wall yet. He stood by himself and pulled up his screen.

The formation domain had already put one point into his strength. Interestingly enough, that also automatically raised his mana score. Now he just had to choose a spot for his other stat point.

He was tempted to raise his perception. It was his lowest stat and he knew that it would be handy to prevent monsters from sneaking up on him. But it wasn’t a stat he would need right now. Rasmus had said that dexterity would help him balance out his strength, so he put his point into that.

Hugo Rebane [Formation Domain]

Strength (13)

Dexterity (12)

Resilience 9

Regeneration 11

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 8

Rank 2

8/300 Points

Health 11/11

Mana 3/(26)

Skills: Fabricate

Elements: Choice Available

Hugo saw the brackets around the numbers again. Now he knew that he would slowly gain strength and dexterity until the number was accurate. The brackets would disappear at that point. He was glad to see the Fabricate skill pop up like it should. The ‘choice available’ on the new Elements line called to him. He really wanted to see the options, but quickly closed the screen before he got tempted. Rasmus said they would cover that in class tomorrow.

Alice walked over to him just then. She turned back to the wall and said, “I always hate stairs.”

“Why is that?”

“I feel like they are always up to something. Or trying to let me down. One of the two,” she said while squinting at the stairs.

Hugo groaned and tilted his head back, “Really? Really? How many of these terrible jokes do you have?”

Her eyes sparkled and she said, “Endless!”

Thankfully, the rest of the class joined them and Hugo was spared more puns.

...

The next day in their formation class, Rasmus launched right into his lecture as soon as he walked in.

“Now, with your advancement to level two, you should have gotten the chance to choose one of the ninety-six elements. Once you make your choice, you will be able to create things out of that element. You are able to choose an element at two, eight, sixteen, thirty-two and sixty-four. This is an important choice.

“By the end of your first year, I expect all of you to be at rank twelve. And before you leave the academy in four years, you will pass rank twenty four. It will be several more years before you hit thirty-two. I don’t need to tell you how rare it is to hit rank sixty-four.

“This means that your choice here, your new element, is of vital importance. Four elements. That is all that you are likely to have for the rest of your life. If you choose elements that work well together, you will be a useful and valued member of society. If you choose poorly, then not even the docks will want you.

“This brings me to this pamphlet,” Rasmus said and held up the stack of pamphlets on his desk, “Listed in these pages are all ninety-six elements available to the formation domain. There are actually more than that number of elements in the world, there are some things that you cannot create, no matter what element you choose.

“I can see you thinking, ‘What elements aren’t included? What are the limits of the formation domain?’ Which is of course an excellent question. A question so good that it is your first homework assignment. What elements are unworkable by formation mages, and why?”

He paused while his students scribbled down that question. Then he continued, “Your next homework assignment is to choose three elements, three complimentary elements that will allow you to create almost anything you will want for the rest of your life. This is just a homework assignment, not a binding contract. But I want you to treat it like it was a permanent decision. Tomorrow you will come to me and discuss your choices. If I approve, you will select a single element from your list and unlock it.

“If anyone is sufficiently idiotic that I reject all your choices, you will receive a failing grade on this assignment and I will choose for you,” Rasmus said and looked Oskar straight in the eyes.

Hugo shivered. He certainly didn’t want Rasmus to choose his elements, that man didn’t think of anyone’s best interests except his own. As the teacher passed out the pamphlets, Hugo took one and quickly started scanning down the list. Some of these he recognised, some of them he didn’t.

“As you look down the list, you will see that some elements you expected to see aren’t on there. For example, steel is nowhere to be found. That is because it is a combination of the element iron and carbon. Any formation expert you see running around with steel armor must have at least those two elements. As long as we are talking about armor, let’s also mention the element leather, so those breastplates can be attached to the user. That is three elements right there, iron, carbon, and leather. That is a fair combination for someone who only plans on fighting on the wall.

“I hope you don’t think you can get away with that combination though. Mages of the Blue Lion Academy aren’t simple guards. We expect better of you. We want mages that will be useful in a variety of fields throughout society. Think about what you will be doing after you leave these hallowed halls, and devise a combination of elements that will help you in that job.

“Choose elements that work well alone, and together. For example, the elements of leather and glass are very useful in isolation, but you cannot combine them. On the other hand, aluminum and niobium are somewhat useful alone, but create a very useful alloy when combined. That alloy is used to create mana lamps by the way.

“I will be ending the lesson early today, so that you will have time to read up on your elements. I am also excusing you from your cryptozoology class so you can focus on this assignment. Choose wisely, and have at least a page of notes about your chosen elements for class tomorrow. And don’t forget to answer the first question as well. Class dismissed.”

Hugo stared at his pamphlet in shock. This was going to take him all night. He had to research all ninety-six elements and choose three that would work well together. Not only was the assignment difficult, it was extremely important. It is like he was choosing the trajectory of the rest of his life. He would have to work for the academy for the six years after graduation, but they would certainly stick him in a profession suited to his elements. He was choosing his job with this one class assignment.

“Come on, Hugo,” Oskar said, interrupting his thoughts, “I want to get out of here. We have time off, let’s go have fun. I bet no one is on the court at this hour. We can get a game of azad going.”

“What? No. We have to pick our elements,” Hugo said, standing up and walking out with him. Lenna had walked out with them and nodded along with Hugo.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. We can do that after, it won’t take long. Come on, azad awaits. Underclassmen never get a chance to use the court, we gotta take advantage. I know you said you don’t know how to play, but trust me, the best way to learn is to play,” Oskar said. He smiled broadly and spread his arms out in the sun. “This is going to be so fun.”

Hugo smiled along before he caught himself, “No, of course not. I need to pick my elements, we need to pick our elements. This is super important.”

“This may be the most important decision of our lives,” Lenna said. Hugo nodded along.

Oskar shrugged, “Yeah, maybe. We are really only picking one element, not all three. Rasmus just wants us to do busy work. I can write out my notes later. I guess I will just pick the three my dad has. He is a pretty good formation mage.” He pointed towards the center of campus and said, “I am going to play azad, and you should come with me. All work and no play will burn you out. You have to have a balance in your life.”

“Some of us can’t afford to be balanced,” Hugo said, “I have to succeed. I don’t have any father willing to hand me his company when I graduate.”

Oskar waved his hand dismissively, “This is important for me too. I won’t be able to take over father’s company for at least a decade. I just know the importance of balance. Fun is an important part of life.”

“Yes, balance. You need to put in the work first, then play after. Right now it is work time,” Hugo said.

It wasn’t long before Oskar grew frustrated with Hugo and just left him to go play. Hugo was too stressed about his element choice to worry about their friendship right now, and just turned to go to the library. Lenna walked with him.

Hugo suddenly felt awkward, walking with Lenna alone. He turned to her and said, “That guy. What a character.”

“He is everything that is wrong with this academy. He knows nothing, he will learn nothing, but he has a guaranteed job at the end of his time here. There are hundreds of them here,” Lenna said and waved her hand around. “They are just putting in their time, obstacles for the rest of us that actually want to learn. Need to learn.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” Hugo joked. He kind of agreed with her, but he wasn’t going to say anything explicitly bad about his roommate.

She just gave him a look and kept walking towards the library.

“Oh, alright. Well, do you want to study together? You know... For the assignment?” Hugo said. He found himself wincing at his own awkwardness towards the end.

“No thanks. I have had my three elements sorted for a while. I am just going to the library to research the answer to Sage Rasmus’s first question,” Lenna said with a shrug.

“Oh yeah, sure. You have wanted to take the formation domain for years, right?” Hugo said.

“Right. I didn’t just randomly choose my life career, I have been working towards it for years,” Lenna said and looked back the way Oskar had gone. She seemed to realize that Hugo had done the same thing and said, “Not that you made a bad choice, formation is the best domain. I just won’t be much help to you in your search since I have decided.”

“What three did you decide on?” said Hugo.

“Nope. I won’t tell you mine. This is a very personal decision. I don’t want to influence your choice,” Lenna said as they walked into the library.

Hugo followed her in, mostly because this was his first time visiting the building. There were three stories, with a single large staircase in the middle of the building. Huge columns supported each floor, bookshelves built into the supports. A quick glance showed that the books mostly had the same colors, brown on the first floor, blue on the next, and green on the top floor. Lenna didn’t even pause as she entered, walking around the staircase and to the back of the first floor. Row after row of full bookshelves filled the room, with basic wooden tables interspersed throughout the stacks.

She paused briefly to read the label on the stack in front of her, only now noticing that Hugo was still following here. She huffed and turned and walked back to the staircase. On the back side of the staircase was a librarian sitting behind a round desk.

“Hello madam. Can you please help my friend here out? He is an alright sort, but this is his first time visiting the library,” Lenna said.

The kind librarian gave him directions and wrote out the names of the books he should start with. Paper in hand, Hugo wandered around the library, eventually finding himself in the right section. He found a few of his classmates already there. He grabbed a book from the section of elemental primers and sat down to read it.

The first thing he learned was that only some of the ninety-six on his list were actually elements. The rest of them were more complex building blocks of matter, but still able to be created by formation magic. For example, glass was made of several different ingredients in the real world, but the formation domain was able to create it as if it was a single element.

There were a lot of metals on this list, and the rest of them seemed a bit random. Three kinds of woods. Glass and crystals. Even after reading the description, he didn’t know why the Acamarians added nylon to the list.

Just as he really started getting into his book, he was interrupted. It was Lenna, she tossed an open book onto his desk.

“Hey, I found our answer. To the first question, at least,” said Lenna.

Hugo glanced down at the open book. It was a summary of all the elements formation magic couldn’t create. Nothing that was a gas, which made sense. No poisonous metals, which was a relief. And no lead, since it didn’t conduct mana. Then he realized he had just sat there reading for a bit while she just stood there. He said, “Thanks. That means a lot. It will make my day a lot easier.”

Lenna tapped her notes along the table and said, “Sure thing. It wasn’t hard to show you after I found the answer. Good luck on your search.”

She wandered off after he thanked her again. Hugo wondered if she liked him in that way. So far, she just seemed friendly, but he couldn’t tell if there was something more. Then he wondered why she would even want to like him. He hadn’t really done anything interesting around her yet. He shook his head. That wasn’t important right now.

The next few hours were spent reading about each of his available choices. Some choices had whole chapters devoted to them, like iron and its many alloys. Other choices had a single paragraph.

Potassium is soft and white metal with a silvery luster, has a low melting point, and is a good conductor of heat and mana. Potassium imparts a lavender color to a flame, and its vapor is green.

Bismuth is the heaviest known metal. Silver colored with a pink tinged hue. Similar melting point as lead, but will weakly conduct mana. No known uses.

His stomach grumbled and reminded him that it was dinner time. He slumped back in his chair. He had no more idea now about what he should choose than when he started.

Looking around for classmates, he saw that he was practically the only one left in this section of the library. Dinner must have been a higher priority for them than homework. Hugo didn’t understand. Were all of them as prepared as Lenna, or just as carefree as Oskar?

Either way, he was alone now.

He walked up to the information desk and said, “Hello. Thank you for your advice earlier, I read those books. Can I ask you some more questions?”

“A polite young boy like you? Of course you can. Ask away,” she said.

Realizing he had failed to ask earlier, he said, “First off, what is your name? I want to give you the respect you deserve.”

She smiled, “You can call me Rahne. I hope that wasn’t your only question.”

“No, no, I have more questions, Rahne. I was hoping you could point me in the direction of a book that would help me choose my profession. Like, pick these three elements if you want to be a train engineer, or pick these three if you want to be a safemaker,” said Hugo.

“There are books like that, but I wouldn’t recommend reading any of them if you want a modern career. Many of the recent inventions don’t have books written about them. Anything shimmertech, from trains to corpsmen, won’t be in a book. Your best bet is go out and talk to someone that is already doing what you want to do. Ask them what they chose for their elements, or maybe what they had wished they had picked.”

Hugo frowned. That was good advice, but he couldn’t follow it. He had no connections with anyone like that. Maybe if he had more warning on this assignment, he could finagle some connections, but it was too late for that now. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Thanks anyway.”

Rahne gave him a pitying look. Connections mattered a lot in these circles. She said, “I do have one bit of advice you can follow. Many young students miss the mana expenses and flub their first choices. You aren’t going to have enough mana to work with any of the heavy metals until at least level twenty. Don’t pick anything that has a mana adjusted score of ten or above.”

Nodding, Hugo said, “Thanks. I was wondering what that number was for. Everyone lists it, but they never talk about it in practical terms like that. Now all I have to do is start over from scratch.” He gave her a lopsided smile.

“Don’t worry. You can do this. You really only have to choose one element today, you can change your other two as you gain more experience.”

Hugo dragged himself back to the wooden desk and his pile of notes. He took out his sheet of interesting elements and scratched out Titanium, Beskar, Platinum, and Igolide. As awesome as those metals were, they had a mana adjusted score of above twenty. He could only create a thimble-full of them right now. Maybe he would revisit his list after he graduated and had more mana.

Knowing now that he didn’t want to choose anything with a score over ten limited his choices considerably, more than thirty elements had a high score. Of course, plenty of the lower scored elements weren’t a good choice either. There were four types of wood on the list, but he didn’t want to choose any of them. A mundane craftsman could carve anything you could want, there was no reason to waste a choice on them.

He eventually narrowed his choices down to fifteen that he thought would be useful to have, but didn’t stretch his mana reserves too much. He looked up from his list. It was time to go back to his room. Reading more books wouldn’t help him at this point, he needed to sleep on it.

Chapter 17: Elemental Practice

Sage Rasmus was angry.

“This is pitiful. You want your three choices to be Duranium, Promethium, and Adamantium? Not only do none of those metals alloy with each other, but even with double your current mana, you can’t create more than an ounce of any one of these,” Rasmus said, getting more and more angry. “You fail your first assignment, so I will choose your three elements for you. You are getting iron, zinc, and ceramic. The perfect three for the sewer technician you will undoubtedly end up as.”

Hugo winced at the diatribe, just glad that it wasn’t directed at him. He held his page of notes and looked over them one more time.

The next student got his first few choices approved right away, but Hugo’s ears perked up when he heard them discussing the third choice.

“You know you have to get a permit for platinum, right? Have you already discussed that with your parents?”

With a nod the student said, “The duke promised to pay for the permit as long as my grades were good by the time the choice came up.”

That was interesting, he hadn’t known that some element choices were restricted. It was probably because platinum was used in making money. He knew there were a few other domains involved too. If he had to guess, certain runic and ritual magics required a permit as well.

Hugo organized his notes when he saw Lenna walk up, he was up right after her.

Lenna handed over her neatly written notes and said, “I know the choices are a bit unorthodox, but the research shows that they should be able to create amazing armor.”

Rasmus didn’t read her notes and just said, “Yes, I talked to your mother about the possibilities during last year’s conference. But have you thought about what happens before then? Any one of these will be incredibly weak and you will have to survive three cullings before you get what you are going for here.”

“Yes, I have thought about it. I have purchased a few things to help me out in the interim.”

Nodding, Rasmus said, “Alright. I just wanted to make sure you knew what to expect. All three choices are approved. I hope this gamble pays off for you.”

Then it was Hugo’s turn.

Passing over his notes, Hugo said, “I decided that I would rather go into construction than attack or defense. So I guess that is why I choose some weaker metals. I mean, they aren’t weak, they are just...”

“Focus Hugo,” Rasmus said, looking at the notes he had been handed.

“I want to choose Aluminum, magnesium, and glass. Aluminum is useful in a few situations, but when it is alloyed with magnesium it becomes very strong. It is the combination that they use to create train bodies, industrial roofing, and small ship hulls.”

Rasmus was nodding along. Hugo didn’t mention the main reason he wanted to choose this combination of elements, because he knew it made up the pressure vessels for shimmer casters. If he couldn’t be a shimmer corpsman, maybe he could still have their armaments.

Continuing, Hugo said, “And my final choice is glass, the soda glass version since it is the clear one used for windows.”

After he finished glancing over Hugo’s notes, Rasmus said, “Your first two choices seem well thought out. But the last choice seems like an afterthought. You are approved to select aluminum for your first choice. But I want you to continue to research your third element. Try and choose something that synergizes better with your first two choices, or something that gives you options you didn’t have before. Plenty of mundane craftsmen can create adequate windows, it isn’t a role you need to fill with magic.”

Hugo nodded and mentally pulled up his stat screen. Selecting the choice on his stat screen was getting easier and easier, and in short order he had his selection made.

Hugo Rebane [Formation Domain]

Strength 13

Dexterity 12

Resilience 9

Regeneration 11

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 8

Rank 2

52/300 Points

Health 11/11

Mana 26/26

Skills: Fabricate 1

Elements: Aluminum

As he got up and walked back to his friends, he smiled. He had mana, he had an element. He was well on his way to being a mage. Real power was just a few years away. He couldn’t wait to try it out.

Oskar clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Welcome to the club. I started out with iron, what did you choose?”

“Aluminum. I know it’s weak on its own, but I am eventually going to make train parts,” Hugo said.

With a barked laugh, Oskar said, “That’s not weak, Lenna’s element is weak.”

“What did you choose?” said Hugo, turning to her.

She grumbled and pushed Oskar away, “I started with spider silk. I have a plan.”

Oskar just laughed again and said, “Yeah, you might have a plan, but not a weapon! You are going to be the weakest one out there on culling days.”

Hugo thought about it then shrugged, “I don’t know about that. I bet spider silk is pretty versatile. It has a low adjusted mana score, I bet she can create a lot of it pretty quickly. Quickly forming sticky ropes would be pretty useful, right?”

“Right,” Lenna said with a smile, “And my next few choices may seem weak on their own, but combined they will be very powerful.”

“What are your other two choices?” said Hugo.

She looked away, “I can’t tell you.”

Oskar looked affronted, “Why not? I told you my three. Iron, carbon, and titanium.”

“I can’t tell you because I am trying something new out. I worked with my mother to design something new. If it works, then everyone will be racing to choose these three elements. I need to have a competitive advantage for as long as possible.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Hugo said.

“Then I will be able to make very fancy ropes,” Lenna said. “I’m just kidding. It would suck if it didn’t work, but my mom promised to get me to rank twenty-four right after academy so I can choose a fourth element right away.”

Hugo looked away to hide his frown. He knew how she was going to get to rank twenty-four, by false ranking. She was going to go out on monster hunts with higher ranked people, just being present while high ranked monsters were killed. She would get her rank, but none of the skills and good habits that normally came along with the higher ranks. His dad and Marius had often disparaged false rankers. Hugo didn’t want Lenna to know what he thought of the practice. He didn’t want to talk to Oskar about it either, he was feeling hypocritical enough as it was after his trip up the mountain.

Rasmus stood and clapped his hands, “Alright, that is the last of them. Everyone is level two, has unlocked an element, and has enough mana to start experimenting. Let’s get into things, shall we? Everyone take a seat at a crafting station. One person to a station, no doubling up.”

They had spent the class in the crafting room, but now that they were actually going to use them, Hugo took a look at what they consisted of. Much like a student’s regular desk, it had a small table with a chair attached. Hugo sat down at an unoccupied station near Oskar and looked it over. Instead of a wooden top, it had a glass inlay, so he could see the storage chamber inside.

“Alright, everyone go ahead and stick both your hands into the holes at the base,” Rasmus said. He started walking around the room to ensure everyone was following directions.

Hugo leaned to the side and saw the two holes facing the seat. Once he put his hands through the holes, he could see his hands through the glass. The wood inside the box was heavily lacquered and smooth. He looked up at Rasmus as he continued.

“Let’s start with something easy. Do we have a suggestion from the class?” said Rasmus. A few ideas were shouted out, a sword, a helmet, a dagger. “Let’s do that one, a dagger. Everyone is going to use their element to create a four inch dagger. It should have a small hilt and a handle that fits your hand. Don’t start yet, just think about what it would look like.” He paused and looked at a few raised hands. He sighed and said, “Yes, even you two Lenna and Mia, you can still make a dagger with your elements even though they aren’t solid at room temperature. This is just practice.”

Rasmus walked to the classroom door and peeked out. He walked back to the center of the classroom and said, “Now that everyone has had a chance to envision your short dagger, I want you to activate your fabricate skill. It’s the only skill you have at the moment, it should be easy. After that you will be able to pull a string of mana from your soul core and push it into the space between your hands. Think of your dagger as a cup and you are pouring it full of mana, slowly filling out its shape.”

Hugo followed the instructions. First he activated his fabricate skill and envisioned a dagger. Then he pulled a few drops of mana from his soul core and pushed it into the shape he imagined in his mind. Twin streams of mana traveled through his left arm. He wasn’t moving it, the skill was.

As the mana left his hand, a silver dagger quickly started taking shape. Or rather aluminum, he corrected himself. Starting at the tip and slowly building out, Hugo had to keep dipping into the well of his core for more mana. He was about a third of the way done with his dagger when a pop sounded from a few desks away.

The heavy-set boy at that desk started screaming, and pulled his hands out of the crafting desk. They were covered in lacerations and bleeding. He had failed to correctly create his dagger.

The idea of failure spread like a wave, and a series of pops spread across the classroom. More and more students cried out in pain, holding their bleeding hands in front of them. Some tried to give up before they failed, but that just created a failure anyway and the result was the same.

Hugo tried to ignore their cries of pain. He knew he could do this. Just because most failed didn’t mean that he would. He was down to the hilt now, and it started spreading wide. Then it popped just like the rest. All of the mana in his creation exploded at once and quickly dissipated. His hands were quickly covered in shallow cuts.

He took them out of the crafting box and looked around the classroom as his hands slowly oozed blood. No one was seriously hurt, but you wouldn’t know that from listening to them. Most of his fellow classmates were crying out like they lost an arm and were in danger of bleeding out. Hugo was not impressed. He had worse from his fight in first grade, these people needed to toughen up.

Lenna was one of the few not crying at all, and Hugo nodded to her in respect. A closer look at her hands showed that she hadn’t been cut from when her creation exploded. Not so impressive after all.

“Alright, quiet down,” Rasmus said evenly. When this didn’t have the desired effect, he yelled, “Shut up! You are fine, no one was seriously injured. That is what the crafting station is for.” He walked to the back of the room and opened the door wide.

“Just as you were able to practice your skill for the first time today, so will the life domain students. I am fairly certain they will be successful where you failed,” Rasmus said.

Twenty students walked into the room. They had a black armband on to denote that they were life students, and each one wore gloves. They walked up to the bleeding students and started healing them. They stretched out their hands and a soft red glow enveloped the bleeding student’s hands. Without touching, the life domain students healed lacerated hands, one after another.

Since there were twenty life domain students and thirty-five injured formation domain students, half of the class had to wait their turn. But within ten minutes, everyone was healed. The life domain teacher thanked Rasmus for the chance to practice and led his students out the door. The life students were considerably more run down than when they had first entered the room. Some had to be helped out.

“Now,” Rasmus said and clapped his hands, “Can anyone tell me why you all failed so miserably?”

“It’s really hard?” one student answered.

“Because you didn’t teach us the right way to do it?” Lenna said.

“Because you set us up to fail?” another student offered.

Normally a teacher of the academy was afforded more respect than this, but the students were understandably upset with their teacher right now.

He smiled and continued, “You failed so this could be a learning experience for you. First off, the number one rule of formation is not to experiment with new physical designs on your own. You have seen the results of failures. It is a harsh lesson to learn this way, and I apologize that it had to be so painful. Trust me when I say I had to teach it this way, too many kids ignore the warnings until they can feel the results of failure for themselves.

“A longer answer about why you failed is that as new students you are lacking in two key areas. Math and mana manipulation. If you had a firm design in mind, with all the polynomial slopes calculated out, then your creation wouldn’t have burst. In addition, if you had a firmer control of your mana, when it failed you would have been able to reabsorb it, instead of it exploding.

“Over the next three days we will be having a refresher on polynomial slopes and derivatives in my afternoon classes. You will practice your mana manipulation in Marta’s morning classes.”

There was a general groaning at the mention of math, but no one seemed to mind more classes with Marta. Her teaching style wasn’t quite as extreme as Rasmus.

He walked up to the chalkboard and started scratching out an equation. He just kept writing. Three rows later he finally stopped. “This is the correct equation to create a dagger. Pretty simple math, to be honest.” He pointed out a few spots on the equation and said, “Right here is where you input the frequency of your element, or elements. And over here is where you adjust for your mana input amplitude. It is different for everyone. If we had solved this equation for everyone before we had started, maybe a third of you would have succeeded. But then today’s lesson wouldn’t have been as effective.”

Hugo frowned. He would have liked to at least have had a chance at avoiding the pain. He imagined most of his classmates were thinking the same thing.

“Now, last thing. Cleaning out your blood. No one is allowed to leave without first cleaning out your own station. The tops lift off. Cleaning rags and solution are in the wings. Clean out your crafting station thoroughly, I don’t want to see a drop of blood left,” Rasmus said.

Hugo quickly lifted the lid to his crafting desk and walked over to grab some cleaning solution in a bucket and a rag. In short order his desk was clean. He knew why it had been so heavily lacquered now. So that the blood wouldn’t stain it. Once his station was spotless, he wandered over to where Oskar was still working on cleaning his crafting desk. He was just smearing it around. Apparently his upbringing involved more cleaning than his roommate’s.

A few boys called Rasmus over to inspect their desks so they could leave for the day. Hugo thought he recognized lord whats-his-face’s son as one of the two.

Their teacher looked over the desks and said, “They look spotless.” The boys beamed. Rasmus continued, “But of course they do, these stations weren’t used. Your desks were over there. You two dolts thought I wasn’t paying attention to where you were sitting and tried to pass off one of the unused desks as your own. Just because I have the formation domain, doesn’t mean I don’t have enough wisdom to have a flawless memory. Get your rags and be glad that I don’t feel like punishing anyone today.”

With long honed instincts, Hugo faded into the background as the two boys angrily stomped on by. He knew better than to provide an easy outlet for their anger. Hugo had no plans on developing a rivalry with the well connected students. As far as they were concerned, he didn’t exist. The nobles were still working on their desks when Hugo and his friends left.

“Simple math, he says. Like it is easy to calculate polynomial slopes on the fly,” Oskar said as they were walking out.

“I have always been good with math, so I am not worried about it,” Lenna said.

“What are polynomial slopes anyway?” asked Hugo.

“Those are the ones that have amplitude and attitude like the one Rasmus did on the board,” Lenna said.

“I have never seen that kind of equations before,” Hugo said.

“Oh yeah, I wish,” Oskar said. When he realized that Hugo wasn’t joking, his face turned grim. “Oh man, you are stuffed. It took me three months to learn it, you aren't going to pick it up in three days.”

Hugo turned to Lenna, wondering what she thought.

“Um, yeah. It took me a few months to get the hang of when my tutor brought it up. It isn’t easy. But you said you did good in your school right? Maybe you will pick it up easily.”

Hugo had a sinking feeling.

He couldn’t concentrate at all during cryptozoology. He kept circling back to the math problems Rasmus had given them. He had been excellent in math during school, but this seemed so foreign to him.

Eventually he brought his wandering attention back to the class. They had moved on from ants, thankfully. A glance down at his neighbor's book showed that they were reading the selection on axe beaks.

“...although flightless, the axe beak still has wings. In addition to the danger from its clawed feet and eponymous beak, the wings have a claw each. The only safe way to attack is from a distance. Naturally, this isn’t an option for most, so the next few paragraphs are devoted to the accepted close combat strategies...”

Author note:

What do you think of those choices? Is Hugo an idiot for choosing Aluminum, or secretly brilliant?

By the way, this is why Lenna chose spider silk: https://www.businessinsider.com/military-scientists-want-to-use-spider-silk-for-body-armor-parachutes-2018-8

Now you know her secret! Shh, don’t tell anyone.

Chapter 18: Complex Calculations

“Good morning everyone,”  Sage Marta said and sat down on a chair in the front of the room. “You may have noticed that this class seems much smaller than the other classes you had with me before. That is because there are three of these mana manipulation classes for first years. We wanted to keep the class sizes small enough so you could each get individual attention.” She leaned forward and said quietly, “You lot lucked out, I am the best mana teacher by far. I am the only one with mana sight, so I can see when you are getting it right. Just don’t tell the other students, they would get jealous.”

Hugo looked around. Besides the thirty five formation students he recognised from his class, there were an additional forty or so other students. He wondered if they were formation students too, or if this class was a mixed one.

“Now, let’s talk about why this class is important for you,” she continued in a normal voice. “Does anyone know what mana adjusted score means?”

Lenna raised her hand.

“Yes, go ahead,” said Sage Marta.

“It is a common score, the measurement of how much mana it takes to create a one kilo block of a certain material,” Lenna said.

“Technically correct, but missing the key detail we will be focusing on today. If we take two formation mages, one good at his job and another terrible, they will use different amounts of mana. One will create that iron bar only using eight mana, and the other will have to use fifteen mana to create the same size bar. That is why we use the adjusted score, it’s an average between minimally skilled practitioners. Once you get better at this, most of you will be able to beat the mana adjusted score you find in books.”

Lenna frowned and sat back in her chair. Hugo ignored her and focused on the lesson.

“And how do you get better? With practice in mana manipulation. This class will help you be more efficient in creating your elements, or barrier as the case may be.”

Hugo nodded, now he knew which class had been joined with his, the barrier domain students.

“Our first exercise will be to get your mana moving. Each of you has a well of mana, just below your lungs in your soul core. It may be intangible, but your mana has a home, it likes to stay in your core. Your job today is to get it moving throughout your body. You won’t be able to get your whole core’s worth of mana to move at first. Just grab as much as you can, and start moving it about without using your skills.”

Hugo focused on the spot where he thought his core was. Nothing happened at first. When he found it a few minutes later a shiver ran through his body. It felt weird, like he was scratching the inside of his eardrum. He was touching something that he had no frame of reference for.

He tried to grab a bit of mana, but he couldn’t. It just slipped through his metaphorical fingers. Marta was walking through the classroom, congratulating students when she saw that they had moved some of their mana around. Hugo frowned, and tried harder.

It didn’t work.

A half hour passed without any movement of his mana. He was so frustrated. He could easily move his mana about when he used fabricate, but not now. He could sense it, feel it in some weird way, but he couldn’t convince his mana to move. Eventually he gave up trying to move it and just mentally shouted at his mana, calling it bad names.

The internal swear words seemed to do the trick. Mana splashed out of his core before slowly oozing back into place. Hugo stopped. Would he have to have a litany of swear words going through his head to properly manipulate his mana? He didn’t want that.

He focused on the different aspects of how he got the mana to move. He tried each one out individually. It wasn’t the anger, it wasn’t the swear words. It was his raw intent. He had been forming mental hands to grab the mana, but the trick was to try and move his mana without an intermediary. He just willed it to move and it moved.

He was one of the last in the class to get it, but he was still inordinately proud when Sage Marta praised him for it.

Once everyone was able to move their mana throughout their body without using a skill, the sage came back to the front of the class. “Now that we can move our mana, it allows us to move on to a mage’s fallback. The mana dart. Now, before you get all excited, this will probably take you a week or so to get right. The first step is to move your mana to your hand. Pick your dominant hand.”

She touched her stomach and moved her finger across and up her side, over her armpit and to her hand, “You want your mana to follow this path. It is more efficient than going up and over. Let’s all practice that movement for a bit, around the side, up the armpit and to your hand. Once your mana falls back to your core, do it all again.”

The classroom of seventy five students sat in their seats quietly, holding their arm out to the side. After a few minutes there was a small puff of blue light off to the side.

“Oh how nice, looks like we have a prodigy over here. Good job, Saskia. So everyone knows what she just did, Saskia was moving her mana so fast that she expelled it out of her hand. That little flash of blue light was her mana. I won’t ask any of you to try and repeat that just yet. We want to work on moving smaller amounts of mana first. Saskia probably just spent about eight points of mana in that one move and we can’t practice long at that rate.”

They all looked over and Saskia nodded.

Hugo went back to focusing on his mana. He found that the more he moved the mana along the same path in his body, the easier it got. And the faster too. He didn’t try and push the mana faster though, he needed every drop of mana for formation class after lunch. The more he practiced, the more natural it felt.

...

After a quick review on how to avoid heavy metal poisoning (don’t inhale gaseous metal you moron) Sage Rasmus put a new equation up on the board.

“Raise your hand when you have solved your equation, and I will come check your work. Once I am satisfied that it is error free, you can begin,” Rasmus said and sat behind his desk.

Hugo stared up at the equation on the board. He knew that this was math, he could recognize that much. But he didn’t know anything beyond that. He started by copying the equation down on his paper, then looking into his pamphlet for the amplitude number for aluminum. He wrote it down in place of the variable. Then he just stared at his paper. He had nothing. Despite Rasmus just showing them how to do this, none of it made sense.

Lenna raised her hand, the first one in the classroom to do so. Rasmus walked over, impressed at her speed.

“This is a beautiful equation, but this isn’t an equation for a bracelet. Certainly not a mana focusing bracelet,” Rasmus said.

“Yes, I know. It is for a lasso, I wrote it up last night. I figured that would be more useful for me than a focusing bracelet, considering my element,” Lenna replied.

The sage was silent for a moment while he read through her equation. “Tell you what, you try this idea out. If it works, you can create your own designs during class. If it doesn’t, you will follow my suggested plans for two months. Even if it doesn’t make sense to create a dagger out of spider silk, you do it without complaint. Deal?”

“Deal,” Lenna said confidently. Once Sage Rasmus had walked away, Lenna went over her equation again. She must have found an error and wrote down something extra on her paper.

Hugo hadn’t written anything extra on his paper. He just didn’t know what to do. He took a big breath and brought his paper up to Sage Rasmus’s desk. “Sorry to bother you. But I have never done a polynomial slope before. I tried to pay attention when you were explaining it, but I just don’t get it.”

“You have never done one before? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I thought I could figure it out,” Hugo said.

“This isn’t something you are going to pick up in a day. Go hire a tutor, you are going to need one. For today, let me solve this equation for you,” Sage Rasmus pulled the paper out of his hands and quickly scribbled out the answer. It was sixteen digits long. “The magic works much better when you understand the math yourself, so this is a one time thing. That said, a focusing bracelet is simple enough, just go slow and you will be fine.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

“You are welcome, just get yourself that tutor.”

He nodded and walked back to his crafting station. In some ways, life was simpler when you were very poor. Hugo didn’t have to count up his available funds and carefully interview various tutors to find the best fit. He had no funds, and a tutor just wasn’t an option. He would just have to figure it out on his own.

Shortly after he sat down, he heard Lenna swearing to herself. Hugo looked over, and he was confused at first. She had created a great looking lasso. It was tightly woven spider silk, in the shape of a thick rope. Then she picked it up and Hugo understood.

It was all stuck together. Several coils of rope had been glued together into one unusable lump. She had correctly calculated the form for a lasso, but had forgotten that spider silk is sticky. With a frustrated sigh, she got out a piece of paper so she could calculate out the design for a bracelet.

With a small smile on his lips, Hugo went back to his own work. He didn’t quite understand the math Sage Rasmus had done on his paper, but he knew how to make a bracelet. It is just a little oval. The curving edges might be difficult, so he focused hard on the intended shape.

He failed the first time.

The second try took the last of his mana, but not only did he succeed, he was awarded with a little blue screen.

Level Up!

Fabricate has advanced to level two.

That was nice. Apparently the successful creation was enough to level up his skill. As far as he understood it, the higher the skill, the faster and easier it would be for him to create things.

He examined his creation. It was a slightly lumpy bracelet, one with far to many curves and whirls to wear comfortably. Checking his finished product against the design on the board, he determined it was close enough.

He moved his hand around. Supposedly this would let him focus his mana better, so he could shoot out a mana dart, even as a level two. Normally that is something that would require rank eight, but this thing was supposed to skip that requirement.

Sage Marta’s class this morning was supposed to help him circulate his mana well enough to use this device. Sadly, he couldn’t test it out yet. He would have to wait a few hours for his mana to regenerate. It felt like forever. The sage said that proper meditation could improve on a persons natural mana replenishment rate. But that was a skill that took most people years to develop, so he was stuck with his slow mana replenishment for now. His rate was based off a combination of his wisdom and regeneration stats, which didn’t add up to much yet.

After another boring session of reading about monsters, Hugo decided it was time to do something about his missing math skills. The academy had a huge library, there was certain to be a few books about polynomial slopes.

When he got to the library, he realized that he didn’t know where to start. He was glad he had been here before, and walked around the grand staircase to talk to the attendant at the information desk. He was happy to see someone he recognised.

“Hello Rahne, good to see you. I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of some math books.”

She laughed quietly, “Math is a big subject. You are going to have to narrow it down a bit.”

“Do you know anything about how formation mages use polynomial slopes to create their elements?”
“Can’t say that I do.”

“Neither do I. Do you know where I should start?”

“I am not sure. There are a few places you could try. Up front near the doors on the left there is a section of remedial math books. But those are usually for ritualists that are bad at calculating their final designs. If that isn’t what you are looking for, then I would suggest looking on stack eighteen in the formation section. That’s where the M’s are, there might be a math book or two in there for you.”

Hugo thanked her and walked to the front of the library. There were several math books of varying difficulties on the shelves there. It took him a half hour to determine that they weren’t what he wanted. He understood all the math in these books.

He walked back to the formation section of the library and started hunting through the books there. Stack eighteen had nothing, but a few more trips to the information desk eventually yielded a useful tome.

It was a large book that explained all of the mathematical concepts in formation. Apparently there were several new concepts that Hugo would need to learn about, not just polynomial slopes. He was going to have to learn about derivation of invariant rings, semi-meromorphic homomorphisms, and contra-negative substitutions.

With a sigh, he checked the book out and took it back to his room to study. He grabbed a snack on the way and started working through the book. It was slow going. The author made generous assumptions of the reader’s skill level, and Hugo had trouble parsing the meanings of several terms. He took the book to bed, knowing that it was going to be a long night if he was going to half-way understand this.

Oskar knocked on Hugo’s bed frame to get his attention. “Hey, put that down. It is time to go to the party,” he said.

Hugo looked up from where he was studying, “I can’t. Rasmus said that I need to understand this math myself, otherwise my creations will never form correctly.”

Squatting down, Oskar said, “I let you miss the first few parties because you were just getting used to the academy. But you need to go to this one. You need to go to most of the parties.”

“I don’t need to go to a party. I need to study,” Hugo said.

“That’s where you are wrong. You really do need to go to the parties. Your social life depends on it.”

“I might have to kill my social life if I am going to graduate from the academy. You all have had a lot of training that I never got. I am just trying to catch up here.”

“This is more important, trust me. You are right about most of the nobles already knowing all the math. They have had excellent tutors, and never had to work a day in their life. Let me ask you this, why are they here? Why didn’t they just get another tutor to teach them formation?”

“I don’t know, maybe there aren’t a lot of good formation teachers out there,” Hugo said.

Oskar shook his head, “They are all here because this is where you make friends with the important people. Our city is run by their parents. If you want a job in a train yard, you talk to the Rajad family. If you want a job rune crafting the city walls, you talk to the Seinad family. And how do you get an introduction to those families? You start by making friends at these parties.”

“So you are saying the hiring decisions are made in these parties? What about merit? What happened to the most qualified person getting the job?”

Oskar stood up, “What kind of academy do you think this is? After we are done here, we will all be qualified. They don’t produce crappy mages here, that's the harvesters outside the city. Every one of us will be able to fill a position posted. The one that is going to get that position is the one that everyone likes. Someone that is fun at parties is also great at leading a cadre. These parties matter.”

Hugo set down his book, “Alright. You convinced me. I’ll come. Maybe I can just make an appearance and finish this later.”

“Great idea. Just come, socialize with everyone, and you can go back to your studying when everyone gets drunk.”

Hugo smiled and swapped out his uniform tunic for something a little more stylish. It might be good to have a little break anyway. Then he could come back to the math more focused.

Author note:

If you haven’t already hit that follow button, you really should. You made it this far, you might as well go all the way.

Chapter 19: Party Aftermath

The light stabbed into his eyes and Hugo groaned and rolled over.

“Drink the potion I left on your nightstand, it will help, I promise,” Oskar said.

“Uggg, not so loud,” Hugo said softly. He cracked one eye open and saw a small blue potion bottle on his nightstand. With considerable effort, he reached over and downed the whole thing. It was disgusting. Why couldn’t alchemists make anything taste good? He rolled back over and curled up into a ball.

About ten minutes later Hugo was feeling good enough to talk, “What time is it?”

“It’s half past ten. You missed breakfast and most of athletics, but we can still make Marta’s class,” Oskar said.

Hugo didn’t even want to think about getting up, but he knew he had to. He slowly maneuvered himself to a sitting position. “What happened?”

“I really am sorry about last night. I never should have forced you to come along. I didn’t know you were scared of heights. It was a bad idea to bring you along, especially since you aren’t used to drinking vaimud. I really should have thought of that, I am so sorry.”

“Is that what happened? I got drunk at the party? This hurts so much,” Hugo said with his head in his hands.

“You don’t remember?” Oskar said hesitantly.

“No, I don’t even remember where the party was,” moaned Hugo.

Oskar handed him a large glass of water, “The party was at the clock tower. We move it around, but we always have it somewhere up high. It is usually pretty fun. But you didn’t have fun. You don’t like heights, apparently? And you drank a lot to make up for that. Kinda your fault really.”

Oskar shook his head, “But what they did to you wasn’t your fault, and I am sorry I didn’t stop them.”

“What did they do?” Hugo said.

“It is better that you don’t remember, I guess. Let’s just say, they weren’t very nice. I won’t make you go to any more parties,” said Oskar.

Hugo swore and looked up at him, “That bad?”

Looking away, Oskar said, “Yeah.”

Hugo knew he should press for details, but he just wasn’t feeling up for it yet.

Marta’s mana class went slowly. Hugo could tell that she was frustrated with him whenever she glanced his way, but she didn’t say anything. Faint memories of last night came back to him, but he didn’t remember much. He was feeling back to normal by the end of the class though. He was thankful for the potion Oskar gave him. Without it, he was sure that he wouldn’t have been able to even attend class.

During lunch, Hugo had his notes out and was trying to solve the equation between bites. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the answer, Oskar had solved it for him so he had the result. The problem was he didn’t really understand the math. According to Rasmus, until he actually understood the math, he wouldn’t be able to properly guide his mana in the creation process.

A tray plopped down in front of him and took him out of his revere. It was Lenna.

“It was awful what they did to you last night,” she said.

Hugo groaned, “You were there too?”

“No, I was at an azad after party. I heard about it this morning,” she said.

A louder groan escaped his lips, “Does everyone know about what happened?”

She shrugged, “I am not really a gossip, and I heard about it. So, probably?”

“I don’t even remember what happened, not really,” Hugo said.

“Nothing?”

“I remember bits and pieces, flashes mostly. Oskar was there, but he doesn’t want to tell me the whole story,” Hugo said. He was starting to remember what happened last night, and it wasn’t pretty.

Oskar shrugged, “It was my fault he came to the party, I feel bad. I don’t want to make him relive it if he doesn’t have to.”

Taking a carrot from her tray, Lenna threw it at Oskar’s head and said, “Tell us anyway.”

“Ok, fine,” Oskar said while he rubbed his forehead, “I’ll give you the short version. Hugo and I went to the party last night. I guess Hugo is afraid of heights, so he drank too much.”

“Oh, so this whole thing is his fault?” Lenna said.

“No. But that’s just how it started. Hugo went around the party, too scared to talk to anyone. He saw Alice, and ran over to her because he knew her. Then he tripped and spilled his drink on her.”

“That part I did not know,” said Lenna.

Oskar nodded, “Yeah. And she was upset with him, but I think she was just going to go back to her room and change, but then her boyfriend came up and shoved Hugo. Do you know Mattias? That’s her boyfriend.”

“Yeah, I have met him, he is kind of snooty. Thinks he is a big deal. Is that how this started, they got in a fight?” Lenna asked.

“I wish. If they had a fair fight, then maybe this would blow over,” Oskar said sadly.

Hugo felt all over, he didn’t feel bruised. He didn’t remember a fight last night. He did remember feeling terrified, so maybe he ran away. He asked, “So, what did happen?”

“You trounced him. You were stinking drunk and you beat him down in six seconds flat. I thought it was kind of funny.”

Lenna looked at him funny. Hugo shrugged, “I grew up poor. Of course I can fight.”

“Anyway, then he went and got his brother. His brother is a third year, and he must have heard that you were scared of heights. He didn’t say nothing, he just picked you up and threw you out the window.”

“Out of the clocktower window? That is four stories up,” Hugo said.

“It is. And you were screaming bloody murder as you flew out the window. Martin, that’s the brother’s name, threw out a barrier and caught you. Then he dismissed it, and you fell again. He kept dropping and catching you. I think your brain broke, because you didn’t stop crying. Pissed yourself too. Everyone at the party thought it was hilarious.”

“Really?” Hugo said. He remembered enough to corroborate what he had said, but still.

“Yeah. It wasn’t a good look for you. I think you gotta just skip parties for a while, maybe they will forget about last night. Maybe we can give you a new haircut, start fresh later?”

“No thanks. I think that is just a sign that I should avoid parties from here on out,” Hugo said.

“You should forget about them,” Lenna said, “It doesn’t matter what those jerks think anyway.”

“It kind of does. Hugo and I need networks in the city. We do have to stay popular if we want to be able to work in this city,” Oskar said.

“Don’t you have a job waiting for you when you graduate?” said Lenna.

“Yes, but businesses don’t operate in isolation. I need connections, suppliers and transportation, all that kind of stuff starts here, in this academy.”

Hugo went back to lunch and mumbled between bites, “Let’s just forget about it for now, I will figure out something later.”

After lunch they went to Rasmus’s class early as usual. Oskar pointed out Mattias talking to Alice. They both stopped and stared as the three of them walked into the room and sat down. Alice and Mattias walked up to them. Hugo’s heart beat faster. He wasn’t going to like whatever they had to say.

Hoping to derail the conversation, Hugo spoke first, “Hey, Alice. Sorry about spilling my drink on you last night. I feel bad about that.”

Alice seemed exasperated, “That... that isn’t. I didn’t want to talk about that.”

“Still, I am sorry,” Hugo interjected.

“Why did you suckerpunch my boyfriend,” she said exasperated. “That was just dirty of you. Who does that? Are you some skeevy criminal or something?”

“He’s not a criminal,” Oskar said, “Mattias pushed first! He was just defending himself.”

“He was just defending me! Hugo is the one that went all vicious, trying to kill Mattias!” Alice yelled.

Hugo could almost feel how the rest of the conversation would go. As long as he kept defending himself, they would get madder and madder at him. Mattias would probably threaten to sick his brother on him. He didn’t want it to end that way.

“Alice,” Hugo said and then paused.

After a bit, she spit out, “What?”

“What would it take to make up for this? Should I apologize to Mattias?” he said calmly.

“For starters!”

Hugo stood up and held out his hand to Mattias, “I am sorry about last night. I shouldn’t have hit you. You were just being a good boyfriend. Please forgive me.”

Mattias stared at the outstretched hand for a bit then he shook it briefly. “Whatever, sure. They say god cares for idiots and drunks, and you were both last night,” he said.

Hugo nodded. He turned back to Alice and said, “Are we good? Or is there more that I could do?”

Alice just stood there. This wasn’t the way she thought this would go.

“Maybe I should be forced to listen to more of your terrible jokes?” Hugo said with a smile.

A snigger escaped her lips before she caught herself. “We will think of something,” Alice said and grabbed Mattias’s hand and left.

After they walked away, Oskar said, “I can’t believe you just rolled over like that. Only a sheep lets himself be sheared. I never could have debased myself like that.”

“It helps that I don’t remember much of last night. I feel like I am apologizing for someone else,” Hugo said and shrugged.

“It was the right choice, even if it hurt,” Lenna said. “Mattias’s family is big in the city. If you want your precious connections, you can’t afford to have them mad at you.”

Hugo smiled at Lenna, glad to have the confirmation of his actions. It did feel a little weird to apologize when he knew that they were the ones in the wrong. All he did was defend himself, and his brother tortured him as everyone laughed. He still felt a spike of anger when he thought about it. But his father didn’t raise a fool. Making enemies wouldn’t help here.

Rasmus walked in shortly after that, about fifteen minutes late. He got out a few papers and shuffled through them before addressing the class. “Sorry to be late, students. You don’t know yet, but that is a rare occurrence indeed. But it couldn’t be helped though, I had to repair some of the defenses after the attempted robbery this morning.”

Robbery? Hugo hadn’t heard anything like that. He leaned over to Oskar and whispered, “What happened?”

Oskar waited until Rasmus was writing something on the board to respond. He whispered, “Someone tried to steal the academy mana core before the sun rose this morning.”

Hugo sat back in shock. The mana core provided the power for most of the academy, running everything from lights to heating and cooling. Even the enchantments on the walls were powered by the huge core.

“What happened?” Hugo said.

“What do you think happened? The thief got splatted,” Oskar whispered back.

Hugo nodded. Everyone knew that mana cores were heavily guarded. And a mana core protected by the city’s foremost mages? Doubly so. It wasn’t surprising that the thief had been killed by the defenses. It was surprising that they had even tried. Hugo did his best to concentrate on the math, trying to remember what he had learned from the book yesterday.

“Hugo, please stay after,” Rasmus said right after the end of the lesson.

His heart fell. He knew what this was going to be about.

“I thought I told you to get a tutor?” Rasmus said with a stern look.

“A tutor was never an option for me. I just don’t have the money,” Hugo said honestly, “But I did get a few books from the library and started working through them.”

“Which obviously wasn’t enough. You did just as poorly today as you did yesterday and the day before. We are creating a simple hyperbolic paraboloid here. This was supposed to be easy practice. If you even halfway understood what you were doing, you would have perfected the form,” said Rasmus. He sighed, “We do expel untalented students, you understand that, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Hugo said.

“Don’t sir me. This isn’t the corps. Call me Sage.”

“Yes, Sage Rasmus,” Hugo said, abashed. He felt even more ashamed at the mixup.

“Hugo. I need to get you up to a minimum standard. I won’t have anyone in my class unable to complete a simple equation. I want you here in this classroom every morning to study the math we will be working on during the afternoon class.

“I have time during the breakfast hour, so I expect you to get up early and bring breakfast for the both of us, arriving in this room at the seventh bell. Not a moment later. As far as payment goes... There isn’t a lot you have that I want. Except I suppose your time. I will have you clean the classroom every day after your class. And every day just before lunch I want you to swing by the classroom. The older students sometimes create finished products that I will have you transport to the academy walls. You are dismissed.”

“Thank you, thanks so much,” Hugo said. Rasmus was being generous. The cost of a tutor was well above the worth of Hugo’s labor in the classroom. It was hard to adjust to the possibility, but it seemed like Rasmus was actually being nice.

Author note:

How many of you expected Mattias to be a “young arrogant master”? I kind of wanted to avoid that trope altogether. Fun fact, Reval was founded by transmigrated Estonians, and this chapter has several Estonian sayings. I don’t know the language, I just think they’re neat.

Chapter 20 : Reval City Battlements

The next day’s afternoon’s formation class had been canceled, they were told they should take a nap instead. Hugo didn’t even try. He was too excited. Their class was taking a night shift up on the wall. They were helping the sentinels again. But this time was going to be different. Instead of a few hours on a slow day, they were going to take a six hour shift at the height of the monster surge. Monster attacks on the city walls had been building ever since the heartbeat, and tonight they would crest. The attacks would quickly slow down after tonight.

On an ideal night, Hugo would help supply the ballista and catapults with ammo, and gain a few ranks just by being on the walls while monsters were killed. It was a safe job, far out of reach from even the biggest monsters. But he hoped for a little danger instead. He had been successful with the focusing bracelet, and now he wanted to try and kill a monster with a mana dart.

It was really a stupid wish. If the monsters ever got inside his range, he would be in serious trouble. His life would be at risk. But still. He wanted to go out there, to kill the big monsters that threatened even the city.

It was probably for the best that he wasn’t going to get his wish.

Their formation class took a trip to the walls just before dusk. The sights and sounds of the city were familiar and foreign at the same time. They clacked along the cobblestones in the manacart, hawkers yelling out on most street corners. Traffic announced itself with beeps and honks. It was the sounds he grew up with. But it felt strange somehow. The short time at Blue Lion Academy had gotten him used to quiet. Being thrust into the city again felt like he no longer belonged.

As they drove along, Hugo saw a few hedge mages on a street corner. Their outfits were distinctive, a blue sash mimicking the blue of the academy robes. But their . A student in a different manacart shot a manadart out and knocked over their rickety stand. The hedgies yelled and shook their fists, but the manacarts were quickly beyond them.

Hugo frowned. He knew that the hedge mages were doing something illegal, with their shoddy products and putting people’s lives at risk with their substandard healing. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that his fellow student was in the wrong there, not the hedgies.

Perhaps that was a leftover feeling from being raised in the narrows. The authorities were rarely in the narrows to save someone, the shimmer corps came into the neighborhood to beat someone down. He was so used to siding with his neighbors, his sympathy was automatically drawn to the downtrodden, the underdog. He would have to get over that if he wanted to fit in among serious mages.

Hugo and Oskar were deployed to a different section of the walls this time. They were stationed on the south-west side this time. Hugo was just glad that he wasn’t stationed anywhere near his mom’s apartment. That would have been embarrassing to be manning the wall and look down to see his mother waving at him. He wanted to distance himself from his life in the narrows as much as possible.

They heard the sounds of heavy fighting as they climbed the steps. Sentinels yelling out orders, people running back and forth along the wall. They heard five ballista shots on the way up. The sounds of battle were actually welcome though. It kept Hugo’s mind off the fact that they were walking four stories up.

“Oh thank the gods,” an academy student said as she saw Hugo. “You must be my replacement. I need to get off these walls before they come crashing down.” She didn’t wait for a response, just scampering down the stairs.

A chuckle came from behind them, “Don’t believe them. The walls may wobble a bit but they have never come down. They are all heavily runed.”

They turned to see a sentinel. His uniform showed he was higher ranked, but Hugo couldn’t remember what his rank was called. “Hello, I guess we are their replacements? I am Hugo and this is Oskar.”

“Good to see you both. I am Commander Kalev. I am in charge of southwest 3, that’s the name of our section of the wall. I hope you are up for a long night. The beasts have been particularly thick this year. We haven’t had a break in the attacks in quite some time. Start by passing out drinks every sentinel on our section, then add fifty bolts to every ballista. Once you are done with that, come back to me and I will assign you to a station,” he said and turned and ran off the wall.

Kalev walked on air, hovering above the hoards of attacking monsters. He was heading towards one of the biggest ones, a suuruss. The enormous monster worm covered in tentacles had burst out of the ground a few hundred yards in front of the wall. It looked big enough to just crawl over the forty foot high walls. Probably why Kalev went out to attack it instead of waiting for the monster to get closer.

The sentinel commander covered himself in mana armor and dropped out of the sky. A blue sword appeared in his hand, and he stabbed it into the beast as he landed. The monster didn’t seem to notice. It was still slowly making its way towards the wall, using the wiggily tentacles like thousands of legs. With a flick of his wrist, Kalev dismissed the sword and created something new. It was a long thin blade of mana, slightly wider than the monster itself. He positioned the thin blade directly in front of the massive worm. The eyeless monster wiggled itself onto the blade. A long, deep cut opened up the monster, more than twenty feet long before it realized it had been cut. It reared up in pain, only tearing a bigger cut in itself. This caused it to thrash in pain even more, eventually doing enough damage to the barrier domain’s blade to dispel it.

The suuruss had almost decapitated itself with its flailing, but it still wasn’t dead. It started regenerating before their eyes. Ballista bolts started firing. Some of them exploded in the monster and some of them ate away at it, like acid.

Oskar shook Hugo out of his reverie. They had to trust that sentinels could handle it. They needed to get to work. They jogged back down the stairs and grabbed mugs of weak mead. Then they walked back up the tall stairs, four mugs in each hand. Hugo wasn’t exactly tired from the running up and down yet, but he knew he would be by the end of the night. Now would be a good time for his bottles, then they wouldn’t have to run up and down so many times.

Thankfully the ballista bolts didn’t need to be hand carried. Hugo stood up top and cranked while Oskar loaded the stacks of bolts onto the pulley system. Hundreds of bolts were slowly pulled up the slanted wall.

This time, Hugo could tell that he was stronger. It wasn’t much, but he could tell that moving around the bundles of fifty bolts was easier than it would have been before he got soulmarked.

There were a total of ten ballista on their section of the wall, and after they had refilled them all, they reported back to commander Kalev. Oskar was assigned to help a mage man one of the ballistas. Hugo was assigned to help a runic harvester on the battlements in between two of the ballista.

The walls shook as Hugo walked up to the harvester and he missed the man’s name as he stumbled.

“Whoa there, little man,” he said as he caught Hugo’s arm to steady him. “The walls have been doing that all day, don’t worry about it.”

Hugo did worry about it. But he wasn’t going to tell him that. Not after he called him ‘little man’ He pulled his arm away and said, “So, what am I supposed to do for you?”

“You see those?” he said and pointed to bags of small stones, “Those bits there are my ammo. You will get me the right kind when I ask for it.” He pointed to a bag as he named them off, “The biggest bag is Explosive, then there is Lightning, Scattershot, and Blank. Be careful with all of them, the damn stones aren’t cheap.”

The harvester picked up his weapon and turned back to look over the wall. He held a crossbow, but it looked very different. Instead of a bowstring, it had a much wider band attached. It had a handle hanging free below it. The rest of it seemed normal, he had the wooden stock pressed up against his shoulder and his hand was on the trigger.

Hugo stood near the bags of stones for a bit, but when nothing happened, he tried to look over the wall. The battlement was in the way, but he could still see through the gaps, out to the field below. The land was bare for several hundred feet all around the city. The walls were built on bedrock and that gave way to gravel and dirt farther out. Short grasses were even further out, and he could just barely make out the forest at the edge of his vision.

Almost all of it was crawling with monsters. Most of them weren’t nearly as large as the suuruss from earlier. The majority were about as tall as a man, with some smaller and a few larger. Trolls lumbered among dire wolves. Goliath beetles walked among acid ants. Slimes hopped over ichdel. Velociraptors weaved in between all of them. Each and every monster was making a bee-line for the city. Hugo didn’t understand why they weren’t panicking and firing nonstop.

The harvester shot out a stone and a distant pop sounded. He used the handle on the bottom of his crossbow to recock it and held out his hand to Hugo without looking. He said, “Explosive.”

Hugo handed one over and the man shot again. They repeated this twice more and then it was back to waiting. Hugo grabbed another explosive so he would be ready for the next round.

“It looks scary, but it is actually very organized,” the harvester said without looking back, “Everyone is assigned a section of the ground outside. The ballista take on the larger monsters, the ones taller than the markers. Anything shorter than that, we shoot after they pass the first round of markers.

Hugo leaned to the side to get a better look through the battlements. Out on the ground in front of the walls were several stone markers. They were about six feet high and each one had a small fire going on top. Hugo wondered how they kept that going all night. They couldn’t use mana, otherwise the monsters would be attracted to it.

Time passed and Hugo slowly got used to it up on the walls. A ding sounded in his ears. One rank down, one to go.

The constant roar of the monsters and attacks of the defenders slowly faded into the background. It didn’t feel as oppressive anymore. During lulls he took peeks out the battlements onto the killing fields below. He noticed that no monster got closer than a hundred feet to the walls. The sentinels had this under control.

The walls shook again.

With wide eyes, Hugo reached out and grabbed the wall to steady himself. They didn’t stop shaking. Hugo could hear something huge attacking the walls further south, but it was hidden by the wall. He grabbed on tighter.

“Don’t worry. The walls have been shaking all day, they aren’t going to fall now.”

The walls disagreed. They chose that moment to collapse. About a hundred yards from where Hugo stood, the top of the city wall fell into the city. The heavy masonry crushed the storage building below. Two ballista followed, their operators screaming as they fell.

The monster wasn’t done yet, an enormous head rammed up against the wall again. More of the wall fell. The southern section was half as tall as it once was now, and even more of the top edge had fallen. Enough of the heavy stone blocks had fallen that they destroyed an apartment building that abbuted the wall.

Hugo stood transfixed, unable to process that the wall really had fallen. Then the monster’s enormous head poked through the gap in the wall and roared. The ground shook with the vibrations, and he realized he had to get off the wall. It wasn’t safe anymore.

He turned and started running for the stairs.

“Stop!” the harvester said, “We need to hold off the monsters. Besides, it isn’t safe down there. Stay here.” He pointed down to the lowest part of the gap.

Although the wall was still over fifteen feet tall, some monsters could jump that high. Velocirapters and acid ants were just barely able to make it through, scrambling up and over.

“Feed me explosives and don’t let up,” he said and cocked his crossbow and fired. He held out a hand to Hugo.

Steeling himself, Hugo reached into the bag and grabbed a handful of runed stones. He handed them over as quick as he could. The harvester ignored the huge beast and focused on the little ones streaming through the gap. In moments, twenty shots were fired and fifteen beasts killed. But still more monsters came.

“This isn’t going to work,” the runist said to himself. Then he turned to Hugo, “Gimme five blanks.”

Hugo raced over and grabbed the blank stones. The runist took a moment to inscribe them with his magic. While he worked, Hugo looked around.

The monster was a lizard type with a huge spine on its back. It had been distracted from the wall by now, a few barrier sentinels harrying it. But the two legged lizard looked like it was winning, it kept knocking the soulmarked men out of the sky. Ballista bolts kept hitting the monster, slowly adding damage.

The harvester was ready now, handing Hugo the other four runed stones. Then in quick succession, he fired all five stones at the bottom of the gap in the wall. Shortly after the impact, the stones swelled up to cover the gap in foam that quickly hardened. Altogether it was enough to add another five feet to the wall.

That extra height was enough to spoil the jumps of the velociraptors. A few lightning stones knocked the acid ants off the wall before they could dissolve the foam.

An ethereal wind accompanied a flash of blue. Hugo glanced up to see that the giant lizard had been killed. He turned back to his task, continuing to feed him ammo.

He felt almost useless, his entire job was to save the harvester a few steps and make it so he didn’t have to look away. But still, those seconds saved added up. The runist was able to make quick work of the monsters on this side of the wall. At least the ones that were still nearby. Screams in the city indicated that there were monsters out of sight.

Light blue sparkles announced the appearance of a squad of shimmer corps. They flew in using the intercity tracks, and floated to the ground near the breach. The sentinel commander sent them off into the city to chase down the monsters that had made it through. Hugo turned his attention back to the wall.

The ants didn’t stay down for long, they were already climbing back up. And to make matters worse, the hoard of monsters saw a weakness and all headed towards it. One of the goliath beetles reached the wall, and started slamming its enormous horn into it. The wall shook with each impact. Ballista bolts glanced off its carapace.

As the beetle hit the wall the fourth time, two things happened. It knocked a bigger section of the wall down. Now it was only ten feet tall at the lowest part. And at the same time, an acid potion hit the beetle and quickly killed it.

In the bigger gap that the beetle made poured another group of monsters. Some ants and velociraptors came through, accompanied by a pack of dire wolves. The wolves peeled off to the side, with the ants and velociraptors heading straight into the city.

They didn’t get far before they were stopped. The shimmer corps had returned and set up a defensive bulwark that blocked off the street directly in front of the breach. Most of the monsters ran straight at them, only to be torn to shreds by shimmer casters. They could have gone around, but they were drawn by their instincts to attack the people right in front of them.

The harvester shot down as fast as he could, killing a monster with every shot. He focused on the monsters on the edges, herding the rest towards the shimmer corps. Some of the other people on the walls had turned inside and were helping thin the numbers as well.

A scraping sound made Hugo turn around and look down. Dire wolves were heading up the stairs towards the defenders on the wall. “Monsters are coming up the walls,” he yelled.

“Take care of it yourself, I am busy,” the runist yelled as he continued to shoot.

Complaining wouldn’t do any good, so he walked to the stairs and looked down. They were halfway up the walls now. He looked down at his hand. This is what that bracelet was for, to make it easier for him to shoot mana darts.

He pointed his hand at the monsters scrambling up the stairs and willed a chunk of mana to make its way to his hand. It was working but it felt like forever. As his mana passed the bracelet on his wrist, it suddenly sped up and started twisting. It exited his hand with a small puff of blue, and turned into a visible ball of mana. That raced down the wall, colliding with the face of the lead dire wolf. It hit just as the group of wolves were halfway up the wall.

The monster yipped and jumped back, knocking itself off the wall. It fell two stories to the ground. Then it picked itself back up and ran to join the other wolves. It didn’t even seem injured.

Hugo willed a larger chunk of mana up his arm and pointed his hand at the new lead wolf. Although the resulting mana dart was larger this time, it was less effective. The shot hit the monster on its shoulder and it was able to ignore the strike and continued climbing the stairs. He tried again, desperate.

This time the shot hit the monster on the snout and shocked it to falling off the stairs, plummeting three stories this time. The fall didn’t kill the wolf, but it didn’t get back up either. Hugo smiled. If he could just do that a few more times, he would have the stairs clear.

A bit of math proved that wouldn’t work.

The more powerful mana darts took four points of mana, and he had already used ten points so far and only injured one wolf out of about seven of them. He was left with sixteen points of mana and six monsters. He had to try something different.

He looked down at his other hand. He still had a few explosion runes in his grip. He took one out and inspected it. Could he activate it even if he didn’t have the rune domain? Only one way to find out.

He slipped off the mana bracelet and put a runed stone in his dominant hand. He assumed that there was a small delay before it exploded, but he knew he had to throw it away as soon as it activated. With an effort of will, he pushed a small amount of mana into his hands and then into the stone.

It was sailing through the air before he was even sure if he had activated it. The runed stone hit the lead monster and exploded with a flash of light. Three monsters tumbled off the stairs. Hugo barked out a laugh as two dings sounded in his ears. The explosion was so big that it even took out some of the stairs.

A different sentinel ran up and looked down at the approaching monsters, “What are you doing? Don’t destroy the stairs.” He pointed his hands at the approaching monsters and double fisted a volley of mana darts. In seconds all of the monsters were dead.

“Ok, but where were you earlier?” Hugo said indignant, “I had to do something, otherwise they would have killed us.”

“Whatever. Don’t destroy the wall anymore than it already is,” he said and ran off without waiting for an answer.

Hugo walked back to his assigned harvester and said, “Wolves are dead.”

“I heard,” he said with a wry voice.

They focused on the gap in the wall for another five minutes before a pair of domain sentinels arrived. They stationed themselves on opposite ends of the breach and poured their mana into a barrier. Their combined efforts created a blue wall across the missing section.

Things slowed down after that. Monsters still attacked, but they didn’t try to breach the glowing blue section. Every hour or so, the barrier sentinels had to be replaced.

Shortly after the first shift change, Hugo was reassigned. They needed him and many of the other students to do some grunt work. There were still people alive in the collapsed apartment building and the students were tasked with unburying them.

It was backbreaking work. Their soulburnt status hadn’t had time to augment their bodies much, so they struggled. Hugo could lift about twenty percent more than he used to be able to, but that still wasn’t much. He used most of his remaining mana to create a crowbar. Which bent the second time he used it.

They worked long into the night. Light Mages directed their work, leading them to those still trapped. Once they saved one person, a life mage swung by, healed, and went back up to the wall. The work resumed.

Shortly before dawn, Hugo sat down on a piece of rubble. Oskar had gone back to the dorms, but Hugo stayed longer to help find people. Now he was beyond exhausted. When the sentinel commanders met fifteen feet away from him, he knew he should get up. But he was just too tired. He listened in as they talked.

“What kind of spinosaur was that? It had to be earth aspected to get through the walls, right? Can we use the earth mana core to quickly repair the walls? My cadre has a few talented ritualists, they could probably do it.”

“No, I saw what it dropped, it didn’t have an aspect. And it was a grandcryst, not a mana core.”

“Really? That means it had to be lower than rank sixty-four. How did that get through our walls?”

“The walls had to be faulty, it’s the only answer. I just can’t believe the inspectors would be this lax. I mean even during the summer they are usually so meticulous. Let alone right before a monster surge.”

“No, that isn’t it. This wasn’t a faulty rune. I accompanied the inspectors on their rounds last week. These runes were fine. No chipping, no nothing. And then a few days ago, Marc went missing. He was one of the inspectors. I just thought he got a new job and didn’t want to tell us. That plus the walls mysteriously failing points to one thing.”

“Sabotage.”

As if saying the word aloud made them realize where they were, the three of them looked around and decided to continue their conversion elsewhere.

Author note:

Why did the sentinels use ballista instead of options like catapults or trebuchets? After all, trebuchets can hurl a 90 kg projectile over 300 meters. The sentinels used ballista because they are better for precision aiming, including aiming downward. They need a heavy weapon that can quickly target and hit approaching monsters, and hit exactly what they were aiming at. Ballista are better for that.

Now, on the other hand, if the monsters wanted to break the walls down without a suuruss, they would certainly want to use a trebuchet. Luckily for the people in this story, there are no known instances of monster-made trebuchets.