First off, Hugo went ahead and ranked up as far as he could. It was a heady feeling, ranking up so high from just rank two. Last time around he had taken most of the year to get this far, not one trip on the wall. Too bad weaker monsters wouldn’t help him rank up anymore so he couldn’t really do that again. Giant ants wouldn’t help him advance, he would have to go after tier two prey, like owlbears or purple worms.

He considered the question the Acomarian system was asking him. Where did he want those extra points to go? He had ranked up ten times and he was rank twelve now. That automatically bumped his intelligence up to twenty two, so he didn’t need to touch that. His paper from the grandmaster said he needed to bump his wisdom up to fourteen, but he decided sixteen was better. He wanted the extra wisdom, even if it wouldn't actually make him more wise. It would help with mana regeneration and comprehension.

That left him with six points. It seemed like conflict was likely, so he could just put three points in resilience and three in regeneration.

On the other hand, maybe it would be better just to carry around healing potions and put the stat points into something else. Like maybe perception. He needed answers about the upcoming attacks, what better way to get them than to increase his perception? Instead of talking to hedge mages directly, maybe he could just sneak around and listen to them.

He wouldn’t have to worry about hedge magic or shadow magic if they never even knew he was there. He could just listen in on their plans from across the street. That decided him. He was going to add a few points to perception.

After he finished allocating his points, he looked his stats over.

Xhosa Bandile [Runic Domain]

Strength 21

Dexterity 21

Resilience (12)

Regeneration (10)

Intelligence (22)

Wisdom (16)

Charisma 10

Perception (12)

Rank 12

445/1300 Points

Health 18/(53)

Mana 108/(128)

Skills: Mana Dart, Mana Vision 3, Inscribe, Fabricate 8, Solidify 6

Lingua: Isibhozo, Choice available

Frequencies: 400-700, Choice available

Elements: Mithril, Choice available

He nodded to himself. He ended up spreading out his points this time around. He felt good about the distribution though. He needed to be well rounded if he wanted to be effective. Even with the spread, he had ten ranks of points added to himself. This wasn’t a small improvement, he was definitely going to feel the improvements once they became effective.

There were still three choices left, one more lingua, frequency, and element. He decided to hold off on them for now. He hadn’t decided yet if he wanted his element to be more useful in runecrafting or in spying and combat. He could ask Klaus about a second lingua today though. The man had just walked in, and Hugo asked him about it.

“Look at you, trying to run before you can crawl,” Klaus said with a laugh. “You haven’t even created a single rune yet and you already want to pick another? Patience, my friend, patience.”

“That’s an excellent point. I do need to start runecrafting. How do I start?”

Klaus laughed even louder, “I tell you to be patient and you jump right into runecrafting? Tell you what, I will show you some books later so you can see how hard it really is. Maybe that will convince you to take it easy.”

He handed Hugo a stack of runed lights and asked him to polish and infuse them. They needed an initial charge before they were sold. Hugo grew introspective as he worked. Klaus was right, he was impatient. He had done what he could to help stop the breeches in the walls and there wasn’t anything he needed to rush off and do right now. The next important event was months away. So why was he trying to race ahead now?

The smart thing would be to take it slow and learn the basics of runic work as it came up. He felt like racing around like a tailless rat. As he thought about it, he began to understand why he felt that way. He knew that the explosion was coming and he needed to save the cities, but he didn’t know what the next step was. He had no leads, no clear path forward for the next steps. Even the small task of warning Lenna’s family seemed insurmountable because he didn’t know where they lived. He knew the sources of the problems, but not how to fix them.

He did his best to give himself a break. The monster surge would crest soon and he would arrange a meeting with everyone afterwards. Until then he decided he wouldn’t stress about anything but being a good apprentice and good son.

With his mind refocused, he realized there was a good way to practice right there in front of him. He had twelve light fixtures that were rune activated. He could practice his mana manipulation until he was able to activate five of them with one point of mana.

In between polishing and infusing them, Hugo practiced activating them. He quickly worked his way up to four lights with one point of mana, but getting the fifth proved to be a hurdle. He didn’t let it bother him though. He had time. Paarl wasn’t built in a day.

When there was an hour left in the day, Klaus came over and said, “Thanks for all your hard work today, I appreciate it.” He handed Hugo a thin book, “Take a look at page three and tell me if it looks familiar.”

Hugo flipped to the right page and examined it. It was a rune, and he was quickly able to recognize the component letters that made it up. “It’s a light rune. Same as the ones I have been working on all day. It looks a little different though. Simpler, maybe?”

“Good catch. You might have a talent for this after all. It is a light rune and it is the basic version of the rune. The ones you were working on had a power reservoir and off switch added to it. The rune on the page there requires the user’s mana to stay lit, and you can’t turn it off, it just runs out,” Klaus said.

Hugo grabbed a light from the pile and compared the two runes. He had to activate his mana sight to see the rune better, but he quickly saw the difference between the two runes. He found that he was able to recognize each letter in the rune, and he got hints about its orientation.

“You still with me?” Klaus said.

Hugo looked up and said, “Yes, sorry. I got distracted.”

“I know it looks complicated right now, but it gets easier as you are more familiar with each rune. Having a higher intelligence helps you access your domain easier, and wisdom will help you recognize patterns faster. When you eventually rank up, make sure to put some points into both,” Klaus said and motioned for the book back.

“Actually, can I keep it? I would love to study it,” Hugo said.

Klaus rubbed the back of his head, “Sorry, no. Everyone gets a personalized book from the grandmaster and we aren’t supposed to share it with others. Technically I wasn’t supposed to show it to you in the first place.”

Hugo held onto the book with two hands and threw the other two hands in the air, “How am I supposed to learn then! If I don’t even have access to books, how am I supposed to get the grandmaster’s list done?”

Klaus gently took the book back and said, “Well, it does seem like Dandre made things really difficult for you. Some things may seem impossible at first but over time solutions may present themselves.”

Hugo sat back. That was entirely unhelpful. Well, it was slightly helpful. He was implying that Hugo wasn’t going to get any formalized schooling, and he needed to cobble together an education on his own. He could also see how he was supposed to do that. Just like Klaus got a week’s worth of work out of him for teaching him a skill, Hugo was probably expected to barter his help for advice and learning from the rest of the apprentices.

He knew all that, of course. But being told so bluntly that the grandmaster intentionally made things hard for him was disheartening. And it would take so very long. Tomorrow was eighthday, perhaps he could come up with his own plan for speeding things up.

...

“Yes, just this one,” Hugo said and handed the shopkeep a small coldbox. He planned on studying the simple rune inside and seeing if he could copy the design. He had planned on getting a light, but all of the stores in town that sold them were closed today. Nox took eighthday more seriously than he had expected. Even leaving the house today made his grandmother frown, but she didn’t have any specific objections.

“That will be eighty silver,” the shopkeep said. He ran a shop for harvesters, and their inconsistent schedules were the only reason the store was open today.

Hugo made a point of not wincing as he handed the money over. He could easily make and sell more mithril. He wondered if there were any harvesters that had enough mana to choose mithril. They wouldn’t be able to sell the stuff in town, but there had to be a black market somewhere around here. The nox pretended that they had no social ills, but he knew that they had just as much crime in their cities as human ones.

Thanking the man, Hugo took the coldbox and returned home. Once there, he sequestered himself in his room and took apart the contraption to take a look at the rune inside. While he was disassembling it, he noticed that the maker’s mark was a familiar one. He had seen it on runed works back in Reval. He wondered who the maker was. Was it a nox or human runist selling in both cities?

The question was irrelevant, and he focused on the rune again. Even with the coldbox fully disassembled, he still couldn’t directly see the rune. It was embedded in a slab of quartz. He could only see it if he activated the rune and used mana sight. The slab quickly cooled down and he had to take his hand away before it froze. His disassembling had disconnected the mana storage device, so the rune quickly disappeared from his sight.

Walking downstairs, Hugo asked his mother for supplies. He was going to need some paper and sketch this out if he wanted to be able to copy it. His heart nearly broke when his mother asked him to not waste paper. The oblique reference to his family’s financial state reminded him that he hadn’t paid his mother back for the train tickets.

He hurried back upstairs and grabbed fifty silver. It was most of his remaining money. He put them in the same bag his mother had given him the copper. As he slipped the bag into her hand he quietly said, “I told you I would be able to pay you back. Things are looking up.”

Grandmother was watching them, so she didn’t dare answer him. He just smiled and walked back up to his room.

It took him more than an hour to transcribe the rune. It was complicated and he had to keep switching the hand he was using to activate the rune so it would show up in his mana sight. He was fairly certain that his increased intelligence was key. He had to do so much with glimpses of the rune and the increased processing power that a twenty-two intelligence gave him was the only thing making it possible. Eventually, he had the main rune down. He didn’t recognize the letters that connected the main rune to the rest of the coldbox. He imagined they had something to do with mana storage and activation.

The resulting drawing was chaotic and confusing. He was trying to transcribe a 3D object on a 2D paper. He ended up having to label every letter so he knew what he was looking at. Still, it gave him somewhere to start his practice.

He had been studying the inscribing pens at his apprenticeship and recreated his own out of mithril, along with a thin rod to use in the rune. Then he grabbed a chunk of quartz he had found in the garden outside. It was larger than the ones he had been practicing infusing, so he figured it would be good for his first rune.

Activating his inscribe skill for the first time was a surreal experience. As soon as he pushed mana into the skill, he felt his focus pulled into the quartz rock in his hand. The mithril slowly started flowing into the rock, spreading out in a blob from where he had his attention focused.

Quickly, he adjusted his focus and drew a line across the stone. He had moved too quickly though, and the line broke. Frustrated, he deactivated the skill and started again.

This time he moved his focus slowly and steadily across the stone, attempting the first letter of the sixteen letter rune. When he was complete, he deactivated the skill and examined it. It was a mess. The letter took up most of the quartz rock, created a stress fracture on one end, and was misshapen. He set the quartz aside and flopped into bed. Getting this right was going to take a lot of practice.

The next day at the grandmaster’s compound, Klaus passed him on to a different apprentice to help for a week.

Hugo approached her and bowed formally. He said, “Hello, Zintle. Klaus recommended I talk to you about guidance in exchange for helping you out with various tasks.”

She gave a short greeting in return and said, “I have a lot of work I need to get done in the next two weeks and I hope you can help me meet my deadlines. Here is my offer. You do your best to help out and the quality of your help will determine the quality of my advice at the end of two weeks.”

That seemed rather unfair. There wasn’t anything to prevent her from just using his help for two solid weeks and then giving him terrible advice. Then again, he could basically help whoever he wanted at this point. He didn’t have to help her ever again if he didn’t consider the deal fair in the end. He nodded in agreement and got to work.

The next few days passed quickly. Zintle had him working hard, constant tasks big and small. She even had him running around town and buying additional supplies. That was his favorite part of her tasks. He liked learning more about his new hometown and bartering with suppliers.

While he was running around the city, he found out where Lenna’s family lived. He was putting together a plan to make sure their mana cores didn't fall into the wrong hands. To that end, he started making friends in that neighborhood. A beggar here, a shopkeep there, each friend knew him by a different name.

Fourthday was the height of the monster surge and he spent it at home with his family. Apparently the day was a quasi-holiday. They didn’t really do much, but everyone was expected to be at home. As soon as the sun set they locked all the doors and shuttered all the windows. Then the family gathered in the sitting room and quietly talked and played games. Nobomi thought it was hilarious that Hugo was bad at all of them.

Two days after the surge, a letter was waiting for Hugo when he got home from work.

Xhosa,

Thank you for your warning. Your message saved many lives. Please meet us at sentinel headquarters in Reval the afternoon of the 35th. We would like to discuss a coordinated approach to the attacks you mentioned in your letter.

Colonel Sebastian