Second Prestige Chapter 11 : The Element of Choice (Patreon)

“Thanks for staying after,” Parem said.

Hugo shrugged and tried to pretend he wasn’t nervous, “Sure thing. What do you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to talk to you about your stats. I am sure when you went through intake that they told you your dexterity was unusually high,” Parem said.

“Yeah, I think they were personally offended that someone so gifted didn’t come from noble blood,” Hugo said with a smile.

“Gifted is correct,” Parem said, “Gifts come with blessings and curses. I wanted to warn you about both. Your mana at rank two is the same level as someone at rank twelve. This means that you will have an easy time creating barriers as we practice. Your mana pool is about forty, right?”

It was actually at sixty eight right now, but Hugo nodded anyway.

Parem continued, “There is a danger in starting out with such a large mana pool. You won’t naturally become efficient with your mana. Your classmates will practice over and over again this year, trying to eek out every barrier they can with their meager mana pools.

“I wanted to point this out to you, along with a simple solution. Every time I give the class a task, I want you to do twice as much. We create a buckler, you make two. I hit the other shields twice, I hit yours four times. That kind of thing. Does that sound agreeable to you?”

“Perfectly. I appreciate that you are looking out for me,” Hugo said. His assumptions about what the four nobles had said must have been wrong. They didn’t lie or slander him. They might not have been talking about him at all. If they had mentioned him, they just pointed out that Hugo should practice more since he had more mana.

That didn’t bother him at all. He wanted to be a great barrier mage, and honestly appreciated that Sage Parem was assigning him extra work. He decided that he would give himself even more barrier practice. He could do exercises just before bed and use up whatever mana he had left that day.

Then a thought occurred to him and he said, “Would you mind if I always sit in the back and rarely participate in class? I will still do everything you ask, but I don’t want to stand out. The nobles in my class might take offense if I constantly show off in front of them.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment before he nodded, “That would be acceptable. There will be times when your talent will unavoidably shine, but I will allow you to hide it in most situations. As long as I don’t get the impression you are slacking off, you may hang out at the back of class.”

“Thank you Parem. It does not matter if I am the most talented barrier mage if I don’t survive long enough to graduate.”

“That’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“You said you have been a teacher for more than fifteen years. I am sure that most of your students were pleasant. But wouldn’t you say that most classes have at least one horrid student that might be capable of that? Perhaps someone that has more money than sense and could order someone killed?”

Parem reluctantly nodded.

Hugo thanked him and left class for the day. He thought that he had been a little over dramatic himself, but he had decided to take the opportunity. He had secured himself a spot at the back of class for the rest of the year. When the rest of the class was just learning how to manipulate their mana, he wanted to figure out the intricacies of having two classes.

He was blessed with a bizarrely dexterous body and twice as many domains as the normal student. He wanted some space to figure this all out.

The first mystery he decided to tackle was how his mana pool got to be so large. It hadn’t been so big at first. Right after he had been reborn he only had a mana pool of two. It wasn’t until after he had gotten a domain that the pool ballooned to its current size.

Was it an error like Sage Marta had warned about? Gaining two domains certainly wasn’t what the tamako was built to do. Then again, it didn’t feel like an error. She spoke of errors and death in the same sentence. A large mana pool seemed like nothing but beneficial.

He opened his stat screen and looked it over again. He frowned at what the system thought was his name. Cristian Fieraru. Where did the Acomarian system even pull that information from? His soul said he was Hugo, there was nothing unique in this body that should override that. So why did the stat screen still say Cristian?

Cristian Fieraru [Barrier Domain]

Strength 14

Dexterity 20

Resilience 8

Regeneration 12

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 11

Rank 2

40/300 Points

Health 11/11

Mana 47/68

Skills: Mana Dart 2, Mana Sight, Fabricate, Solidify 1

Frequencies: 400-700

Elements: Choice Available

Maybe the Acomarian system couldn’t read his soul at all, it was just displaying the name that had been assigned to this body at birth. But if that were true, then why did he have the skills of two domains? The system clearly was recognizing some part of Hugo that still had the formation domain attached to it. That must be why he could choose an element now. It was weird that the choice didn’t show up at first, but it made a weird sort of sense. Maybe the system checked the body then the soul.

But that didn’t explain his crazy high mana pool. Sixty-eight points of mana. It wasn’t triple his dexterity like he had assumed earlier. He did a quick calculation and hit himself in the head. The system thinking he had two domains did explain his high mana pool. He had exactly twice as much mana as his strength and dexterity stats combined.

It all made sense. He had two domains, and got all the benefits from both. He just needed to make the element choice, and he could probably create an element as well. He laughed at himself. He had agonized about choosing between the two domains, but he got to have his cake and eat it too. He had dual domains, just like a nox.

Now all he had to do was make a decision on what element to choose. Was he going to stick with the choices he made during his last life, or was he going to branch out and choose something new? That was the question. He went back to the library to research the answer again. He quite liked the elements he had chosen last time around, but he wasn’t in the same situation this time. He could choose a heavy element this time, one with a high mana adjusted score. It opened up half of the element list to him.

He walked up to the information desk and said, “Hello again Rahne. Nice to see you. Could you point me in the direction of books on the ninety six elements?”

“Of course. A popular section today. Stack thirteen, section one ninety-six.”

“Thanks so much.”

Before he could walk away, Rahne said, “What is your domain, young man?”

“It’s barrier. Am I not allowed to read books from other domains?” Hugo said.

“No, no. You are allowed to read any book in the library,” she said, “It’s just... sorry. My eyes must be playing tricks on me in my old age.”

“Your eyes? Do you have the light domain?”

“Hmm? Oh yes. I have the light domain. I don’t use it much these days. I must have gotten out of practice. I used to be able to tell people’s domain just by looking at them.”

Hugo thanked her again and walked off. Apparently people with the light domain could see that something was off about him. That certainly was worrying. He had assumed that he would be able to hide the fact that he had two domains. Now he realized that he would need to stay away from anyone with a light domain. Which wasn’t going to be easy.

He had daily athletic classes with all of the first years, including the light students. Assuming what Rahne could do was the same thing a low ranked student could do, he would need to identify and avoid them on a daily basis.

Even if telling people’s domain was something higher ranked people could do, he knew that there was a steward manning the front gates with the light domain. And he didn’t remember exactly, but he was pretty sure that one of the upperclassmen that led his party during culling had the light domain. The one that used a laser on the giant ankheg.

Basically, they were all over. If any one of them was able to figure out that he had two domains ... What would happen?

Would anyone even care that he had two domains? He was sure that they would be interested in him. They would certainly ask him all about how he got two domains. He doubted they would believe him that he died and got sent back in time to a new body. He had trouble believing that himself.

So the question was, what would they think when they discovered he had two domains? They would probably assume something strange happened with the tamako. Either that, or there was something special about him that they could replicate. So, best case they take apart the tamako, worse case they take apart Hugo.

Best to go with plan A and hide the fact that he had two domains.

He got his thoughts back on track and walked over to the correct section of the library. He recognized a few of the introductory books, and scooped them up. Then he flipped to the back of the books, and read about the heavy elements. Apparently, any element with a mana adjusted score over ten was classified as a heavy element.

He hadn’t read about these elements the first time around, but now that his mana pool was so much higher than average, he could realistically choose a heavy element. Heavier elements took way more mana to create, limiting the usefulness of heavy elements as a formations choice. But not for him. He could create in hours something that would take others days to create.

Several useful elements like gold and platinum were on this end of the scale. He recognized the names of duranium and tritanium as the metals famous armors were made of. Many of the metals were entirely foreign to him though, and he carefully read the descriptions of them.

Holmium - primarily used in the creation of artificial lodestones, this heavy metal is also used to color glass a yellow or red color.

Europium - the main ingredient in anti-mage shields. Its ability to absorb mana is unparalleled, making it perfect for absorbing mana bolts. Also known to obscure things from light mage’s sight.

Ytterbium - has two known uses. It can be alloyed with steel to improve some of its mechanical properties and used as a doping agent in large scale runes.

Dysprosium - used in some types of rune making substrates. Unlike mithril, this element cannot conduct high amounts of mana at once. However, it does not tarnish and is used in long lasting applications that won’t receive regular maintenance.

Hugo shut the book and frowned. These elements were so limited. They had one or two uses, but were unsuited to anything else. It seemed like the elements on the high end of the list had no versatility. That is what he really wanted out of his choice, versatility.

He didn’t have his future planned out, even though this was his second time around. The best choice for an element would be one that would serve him well, no matter where he found himself.

Falling back to his original choices was starting to sound appealing. He chose aluminum and magnesium in the first place for their versatility and interesting combinations. He couldn’t have made his exploding crossbow bolts without both elements. It was just too bad that most of the heavy elements weren’t as chemically active as the lighter elements. There were few alloys listed and most annotations said that the alloys were weaker than the pure element.

Maybe there was something in the middle of the pack that would be the answer to his questions. He ended up reading the entire list twice over, before flipping back to a late middle choice. His eyes lit up. It was an element with a high mana adjusted score, but it had great flexibility. He could do so many things with it.

Author’s note:

In case you were wondering, Hugo was reading about real elements. Those four italicized words are their real names. Their description is based on the element’s real properties, with a bit of magic thrown in. 

How about you, what is your favorite magical element from fiction?