Chapter 21: Long Journey Home (Patreon)

The next morning, Hugo woke up before the sun as usual. He turned back over and tried to go back to sleep. He was still tired.

But not tired enough evidently, he couldn’t get back to sleep. Giving up on trying to sleep, he pulled up his stat screen. Quickly calculating the number of points he had gained, he saw he had enough to rank up to five. That was a bit of a surprise, since survival points were supposed to cap out at rank four. Killing that dire wolf with the explosive rune must have been enough to bump him up to five.

His strength would automatically go up by three when he ranked up, but what was he going to spend the other points on? Last night had been a nightmare, and it hammered home the fact that he would need to fight monsters soon. The academy might not fight as often as harvesters, but they still routinely went out and killed monsters. It was the only way for him to rank up now.

One or two points in dexterity would be a good idea. His extra strength would need to be tempered by more dexterity. Plus, he needed to be faster. Those monsters were fast, and he needed to match them if he was going to survive a trip outside the city walls.

That idea made him decide on two points to dexterity.

So, that left one point unassigned. Since every point took some time to take effect, it would be stupid to save it for later. He had to make up his mind now. He thought about the skills he would need to be better able to survive. Perception so he could see the monsters coming. Wisdom would help him recover his mana faster, but that wouldn’t be helpful to a formation mage. Most of his mana usage would be beforehand instead of in the moment.

A thought occurred to him. With his inexperience, he would probably get hit at least once. He needed to survive that hit, so he decided on a point in resilience. His mind made up, he mentally clicked on rank up, and quickly distributed his points. The brackets appeared after he had allocated the points.

Hugo Rebane [Formation Domain]

Strength (16)

Dexterity (14)

Resilience (10)

Regeneration 11

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 8

Rank 5

92/600 Points

Health 12/(21)

Mana 26/(32)

Skills: Fabricate 2

Elements: Aluminum

Unlike his other rank ups, he actually felt something when this rank up took effect. A tingling rush passed over his skin, and then the tingling went into his flesh and bones. It didn’t hurt, but the sensation in parts of his body that he wasn’t used to feeling was very disconcerting. He opened his stat screen again to try and see why.

Then he saw that his health score had brackets around it too. It had gained a whole ten points. Would his base health go up by ten points every time he put a point into resilience? That was a massive increase for one point. He was shocked since he had gotten used to the incremental changes from his first two rank ups.

It was times like this that he wished that he had paid better attention in Marta’s introductory classes. He was sure they went over this exact situation, but he couldn’t remember any specifices. He would have to ask Oskar when he woke up.

Scratch that. Oskar was a shitty student. He would ask Lenna.

When he walked up to her before Marta’s class, she was with a group of people talking about last night. There was Mattias and Alice, along with a girl he didn’t know.

“I was on the west wall, I didn’t see it very well,” Alice said.

Mattias stepped forward, “Be glad that you couldn’t see the wall fall, it was terrifying. I was on southwest five. I could practically feel the breath of the spinosaur as it knocked down the wall.”

“Is that what it was? A spinosaur? What rank was it that it took down a city wall?” Lenna asked.

“I think it was less than rank sixty-four. It didn’t drop a mana core,” Hugo jumped in and said.

Alice scoffed and Mattias said, “And how would you know?”

“I was right there, southwest three. Oskar and I were feet away from when the wall fell. It is lucky that we didn’t die. Speaking of which, do we know if any students died?”

Lenna nodded, “Yeah, we lost two. Rune domain students, I didn’t know them.”

“That’s so sad,” Oskar said. He had just joined them.

“Hugo, you said you knew it didn’t drop a mana core, are you sure? It would have been easy to miss,” Lenna said.

Shaking his head he said, “I didn’t miss it. I heard the sentinels talking afterwards. They said it was an unexpected grandcryst. The reason I remember is because the sentinels think it was sabotage. The runist inspector got killed and the runes on that section of the wall failed.”

Oskar swore and Alice stepped back. She gave him the stinkeye, trying to tell if he was lying.

“But why? We aren’t at war,” Lenna said, “Who would want to sabotage Reval?”

“I don’t know,” Hugo said.

“Could it be Deva? They hate the River Coalition,” Oskar said.

“If that was true, they would have attacked Tallinn and Ettel,” Mattias said, “Did anyone hear if they were attacked too?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“If it wasn’t war, maybe it was something else. There was an apartment building that came down when the wall fell. Maybe it was some noble getting revenge,” Oskar said.

“It could be hedge mages, getting revenge,” Lenna said.

“Revenge?” Hugo said.

“Oh? Didn’t you hear? There was a raid last week. Killed twelve hedge mages. They say that is like a tenth of all hedge mages in town,” Lenna said.

“Doesn’t make much sense though. Hedge mages are always trying to make the people like them,” Hugo said. “They want to be legitimate one day, recognized by the corps. Knocking a wall down and endangering the city... that would just make the people hate them all the more.”

“Yeah, and it’s not like hedge mages know anything about runes,” Oskar said.

“Which makes it more likely this an act of war,” Hugo said, “It had to be some high ranked saboteur. Someone had to know exactly how wall runes work, and where to break them without anyone noticing. I bet this was some Deva spy.”

“But then why did only one section of wall fall?” Oskar said, “This was a targeted attack. I bet this is something to do with nobles, they gotta be sending someone some kind of message. Like some council member wasn’t playing ball, and the apartment complex that got crushed housed his niece or something.”

“Oh, quit guessing,” Alice said. “We are students at an academy, not inquisitors. We aren’t going to figure this out just by making wild guesses.”

Oskar frowned, but said nothing. The next day they found out that five of the eight cities of the wheel had a breach in their walls. Paarl even had a whole section of the city fall. But no declaration of war was made and no further incidents happened.

It was all anyone could talk about for a week straight. Oskar and Hugo were particularly interested, feeling invested in finding the culprits since they had been so close when the wall fell. They decided between themselves that it was either Deva or the hedge mages. Hugo was sure that it was war coming. But Oskar had learned that there were similar raids against hedge mages in the other cites as well, so he was convinced the wall breakers came from inside the cities.

Despite their heightened stress and ravenous appetite for news, they didn’t find out anything new. Life slowly went back to normal.

...

Four weeks had passed since the incident with the wall. Hugo was a lot more comfortable at the academy these days. He still needed extra time to complete the polynomial slopes for each new shape the class created, but at least he could complete it. The sessions with Rasmus in the morning were a great help.

The best part about academy life was the steady progress. He had a series of habits, studying math, practicing mana manipulation, finishing homework assignments, and each of those habits was showing fruit. He was slowly but steadily making progress. His Fabricate skill had leveled up to four, and formation class was getting easier.

It was also nice that he had grown into his new stats. The higher health points had come in within a few days and left him with a slightly tougher body. It had taken him a few weeks for him to grow into the higher strength and dexterity. Every day he felt a little stronger, reacted a little quicker, and his stat screen slowly moved from a potential number to a real one. Now that the numbers had lost their brackets, he was much stronger and faster. Athletics class was much easier.

It wasn’t all good news though. Just a few days ago, they had moved on to the letter C in their cryptozoology class. With dawning dread, Hugo quickly calculated the number of days left in the year and the number of pages left in the book. They weren’t going to get through it all. It was about half. That meant that he was going to have the world’s most boring class for two years, not the one year he had guessed. He almost cried.

The next day reminded him of the other thing he had been dreading.

“If you have been paying attention at all, you would know that you have the next two days off because you have been here a full month now,” Hanna said. “Congratulations on surviving fourty-eight days in the academy,” she said, obviously not enthused. “But I am warning you now. Do not return to my class hungover. Your first day back we will be doing intense workouts, and if I see you slacking, I will leave you bruised and bloody for the life students to practice on.”

Hugo thought he was probably one of the only students on campus that wasn’t looking forward to having home leave. At least it didn’t happen often. He would only have to go home at the end of the month. That was eight times a year, including the extra few weeks around new years. He could stand that much complaining from his mother. He hoped she would eventually tire of whining, but he wasn’t going to count on it.

It would have been preferable to just stay on campus, but they wouldn’t allow it. The cafeteria stopped serving meals for those two days and they did a deep clean of the whole campus, including the dorms.

At the last possible moment, Hugo left the academy with a small bag. The sounds of the city buffeted him as soon as he walked out of the gates. He was more sure than ever that the walls around campus had some sort of noise canceling runes embedded in them. It felt like he was leaving an oasis to go fight in an arena.

Mixed metaphors aside, Hugo had to figure out what to do with himself for the next few days. He would love to see if he could find some of his friends in his old neighborhood. But he had to sleep somewhere and he had no money. He better see if he could crash at his mom’s place. He had sent her a letter a few days ago, but she hadn’t responded.

He almost hoped that there wouldn’t be a place for him, that she would have already gotten a new renter. It would be terrible for him of course, but it would make things much easier for his mother.

As he entered his mother’s neighborhood his stomach grumbled. He found himself wishing that she would have a place for him after all. He wanted dinner and a place to sleep, and both would cost money he didn’t have if his mother couldn’t help him out.

The shimmer fog in the narrows was dense today. They must have upped power core production recently. Due to the extra fog, he didn’t notice the boys before they had him surrounded. Two boys with bulging muscles stepped in front of him, and three more stepped up behind him. They were all dressed in dark clothes and had severe expressions on their faces.

“Hello Mr. Fancy Student. What are you doing slumming in my neighborhood?”

Hugo looked down, he was still wearing the school’s tunic. He should have changed before leaving campus. “Your neighborhood? I don’t see any fox masks around here. This isn’t your neighborhood.”

The large boy in front shifted uncomfortably, “Well, we will get our masks soon. And I bet you will help us out with an entry fee, won’t you?”

“I wouldn’t give you a copper even if I had any. Just get out of the way and I won’t hurt you,” Hugo said dismissively. His heart was beating fast, only now realizing that he had gotten out of the habit of always carrying a weapon.

“Ha. I know how much those schools cost. You have to have some serious weight in your pockets to go there. Spread some of that coin our way and we can part as friends.”

“I can’t afford to go to Blue Lion Academy, I am doing an indenture thing instead,” Hugo said. He put his fingers on his temple, “Why am I telling you this? Look. You know I am soulmarked, right? You don’t stand a chance against me.”

The big talker laughed, “Yeah right. There are five of us. If you could stop us, you would have done it already. Just hand over all your money and it doesn't have to get ugly.

Hugo sighed, “Fine. Just because I don’t have any copper, doesn’t mean I can’t give you anything. Let me make something for you boys.” He placed his hands together and started making something out of aluminum. It was one of the first designs he had perfected and he was able to create it in less than ten seconds. Only took a fifth of his mana, too.

Once he was done, he held up the finished product for all of them to see. It was an aluminum knife. He said, “Who wants me to acquaint their face with my creation here?

“... What?”

“I’m going to stab you if you don’t let me pass,” Hugo said. He needed to work on his intimidation.

“Get him!”

Well, that didn’t work at all.

Hugo moved on instinct, ducking under a punch and rolling forward. He had to get out from the middle of these thugs. The roll didn’t take him far enough though. As he jumped up, he found himself right in front of the largest boy. Hugo punched out, hitting him in his throat. That one instantly fell backward, choking. Hugo ignored him. He would be fine because the dagger was in Hugo’s other hand.

The remaining four jumped forward, trying to take advantage of Hugo’s distraction. It didn’t work. Hugo ducked low and swept out with his leg, knocking the legs out from under three of them.

The last standing thug didn’t even glance at his partners as they fell. He just put all of his weight into a downward strike. Hugo didn’t see it coming and was knocked to the ground.

It didn’t take long for Hugo to roll to the side and get back up. The punch had hurt, but he was used to that at this point. Hanna’s sandbag throws were just as punishing. He doubted that the bruise from the punch would even last the night.

He darted forward, swinging his dagger from side to side. He wanted to give himself a little more room. He had underestimated his speed though, long slashes opened up on two of the attackers.

Standing there in shock, Hugo looked at the knife, surprised that aluminum had actually done something. The hesitation cost him though, and the two remaining uninjured thugs tackled him and took him to the ground. Instinct let him keep the knife in his hand, but now he wasn’t in a position to use it.

One thug had his hands wrapped around his waist, keeping him pinned. The other thug used his whole body to tie up his knife hand. That still left Hugo’s other hand free. He took a moment to line up a shot and punched the skinny boy in the temple. He dropped like a sack of potatoes.

His knife hand was still tied up, laying under the unconscious boy. Hugo didn’t have a good angle on the other thug, and he took advantage. The boy avoided his punches and retaliated with an elbow to the gut, leaving Hugo gasping for air.

It took five of them to take down a soulmarked student, but they had done it. Then the last uninjured boy hit him in the privates. The explosion of pain made Hugo double up, flinging the teenagers off him. He could barely think through the pain.

Even before he could come to terms with the low blow, his body was already gearing up for revenge. He kicked out blindly, hitting someone’s legs and making them stumble. Then Hugo rolled and jumped up. He singled out that one thug and stepped into a kick.

The revenge strike hit the other boy in the stomach and sent him flying. Hugo danced over the other boys and lined up for another kick on the same boy. This one caught him in the head and knocked him completely out.

All five of the attackers were down. Two unconscious, two bleeding and scooching away, and the first one he hit was still struggling to breathe. It would probably take a healing potion or two to make sure they all survived the night. Served them right.

Hugo grabbed his bag and walked away. He checked himself for injuries, and they were thankfully just bruises. Once the adrenaline bled off, he walked funny for a few blocks. Luckily his health regeneration helped him feel better towards the end of his walk.