The grandmaster smiled when he saw Hugo, “Xhosa, my lad. Have a seat. I must admit. It took you longer than I expected to give up. That list I gave you was always impossible, but it shows great character that you stuck with it for five months. I have also been given regular updates on your contributions to my shop, and I am pleased with your work. I wanted to try something new with you, to see how much self guided apprentices could accomplish.” He held out a sheet of paper and said, “Here is your real list. Let’s go through the list together and develop a learning plan for you. It will mean a lot more education for you and less scut work for the other apprentices. I hope you will appreciate that.”

Hugo took the paper and glanced over it. The requirements were laughably easy. No rank minimums, no mana sight, he only had to learn one rune, and rectifying tablets wasn’t even on there. It just reinforced the fact that the grandmaster was a massive jerk. He set the paper back on the desk and said, “We won’t need to discuss that list. I completed your original list.”

“Oh ho ho. No need to lie at this point, dear lad. Like I said, the first list was just a test in perseverance,” Grandmaster Dandre said.

Hugo handed his first list over and said, “I learned infuse, mana dart, and mana sight. I can activate five different runes with a single point of mana. I know eight different runes, and I can produce different sized flames with the fire rune. I am rank eighteen and I have unlocked two lingua and have the choice for a third. My intelligence is twenty-eight and my wisdom eighteen. Just yesterday, I remedied three clay tablets. I guessed that this would be surprising, so I brought proof. I left it in the antechamber, would you like me to bring it in?”

“What?” the grandmaster said, dazed. He caught up with the question and said, “Uh, yes, bring in your proof.”

Hugo went back to the antechamber and brought everything in. He started with the runestones he had made, fire, ignition, gust, cold, and light. He showed off his second fire rune to show he could adjust the effects of the runes. Then he showed his knife with the sharpness rune and his mana ring with the pool rune. A shield with the impetus rune was next. Mia had taught him the monster stopping rune and he was happy to show it off.

Finally, he brought out the three clay tablets that other apprentices had messed up on, and showed the grandmaster where he had corrected broken runes and made them function. Mia had given him excellent advice on how to find and fix errors.

The grandmaster grabbed Hugo’s shield, his eyes glowing with mana sight. As he activated the rune, he said, “This, this... No first year apprentice has ever been able to do this much. Your letters are a little shaky but obviously it still works. I can’t believe my eyes.”

Hugo nodded, expecting as much. It was probably hard for him to believe because he was stuck on the idea that Hugo was still a rank two. As a rank eighteen with training from human and nox runists, this was all possible.

“How did you even rank up that high? And this knife is high quality. I thought you came from a poor family,” he said as he tested the sharpness rune.

“Let’s just say my family is often underestimated,” Hugo said with a smile.

Eventually, the grandmaster asked him to do some rune work in front of him. Hugo inscribed an ignition rune for him in his office. All his practice for the crossbow bolts meant that he could produce one in less than five minutes. He handed the completed rune over and that finally seemed to convince him.

“Well, this changes things. You have the knowledge of a fourth year, the rank of an eighth year, and the penmanship of a first year. I will have to put together a different plan for you all together.”

Over the next few days, the grandmaster created a series of exercises to fill in the gaps in his self made education. His first task was to make smaller runes. When Hugo failed miserably at that task, the grandmaster took it back a step.

Frustratingly, there was a trick to creating runic letters that no one had taught Hugo. Grandmaster Dandre showed him that he could manipulate the placement of the mithril by using mana manipulation when the inscribe skill was active. Once Hugo got the hang of it, his letters were much much better. He had to break himself of the bad habits he had gained over the last few months. It took him a week of practice before it felt natural.

Once he could make small runes, the grandmaster showed him how to connect the pool rune with his fire rune and an activation rune. This way he could have an on demand flamethrower that wouldn’t empty itself upon activation.

Two weeks later, Hugo felt comfortable enough to ask a question, “I was wondering if you could teach me a specific rune.” It was Mia’s idea, one of the few runes she didn’t know. She suggested it when he told her about his trip to Deva.

“Which one?” the grandmaster said, distractedly. Hugo only got a few minutes of education a day, the grandmaster worked on paperwork while his apprentice practiced.

“I am not sure exactly. What rune should I use if I want to come and go without being seen?”

Dandre raised an eyebrow, “Why would you want to do that?”

Hugo shrugged nonchalantly, “My sister has this thing, she always wants to make me late. She is young and doesn’t like when I leave. I don’t want to fight with her, I would rather just slip out in the mornings.”

“Well, the correct rune for that situation would be a disregard rune. That’s under the ichi lingua. Have you unlocked that one?”

“No, but I could. I still have my third choice available.”

The grandmaster shook his head, “I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s the lingua that mostly uses shadow magic. Not much demand for those type of runes. Usually, people just hire a shadow master if that type of thing is needed. Ichi runes are very mana inefficient as well. I have a book here somewhere with ichi runes, and it lists the usefulness times in seconds, not minutes.”

“Could I look at the book anyway? I am curious.”

Grandmaster Dandre considered it for a moment and said. “Sure. It’s about time that we choose your third lingua anyway.” He got up and chose six thin books from his shelves. “Read these all today, and we can discuss your options tomorrow.”

Hugo nodded and got to work. Interestingly, the six lingua weren’t just runes from different domains. There was one for shadow and another for light, but the other four lingua were unrelated. Although there was overlap in functionality, each inscribing language had its own focus. One lingua was the set they used on the walls and it seemed to be all about reinforcing materials and redirecting force. Another one was all about making existing runes more effective, and amplifying small effects. He found the time rune in the next book, and he promised himself to ask about it later. It was the part of the ritual that kept sending him back in time after all.

Hugo was mostly interested in the shadow runes though. Despite their high mana use, these were the runes that he would need if he was going to infiltrate a secret organization. Even after seeing a sample of runes from the other lingua, he knew that this one would be the most useful. He mentally selected it as he pretended to read the last book.

The new letters came to him faster this time. He was noticing that pattern more and more. The more domains and skills he learned, the faster he was able to pick up new ones. It was like his soul was getting better at using mana. Either that or his nox body was just better at using the system.

Carefully, he copied down the disregard rune in his notes. The grandmaster was working on paperwork and didn’t even notice Hugo get out the charcoal pencil. Once he had it down, Hugo went back to the books and read through them again.

The next day, they discussed the different lingua that Hugo could choose. He felt a little awkward pretending that he hadn’t already chosen one. The grandmaster recommended he didn't learn the ntlanu lingua, since that is the one that worked on cloth and his shop only worked on solid objects.

“There are just so many good choices, you know?” Hugo said.

Grandmaster Dandre nodded, “It’s almost impossible to choose, really. Runic masters can do pretty much anything that the other domains can do.”

“All the domains? Can you create something out of nothing like the formation domain?”

“Yes, runes that create material are called incorporators. You push mana in and get a substance out. It isn’t as good as having a formation master on hand because you can’t shape it. I know a sculptor that uses runes to create moonstone that he carves into rings. That’s almost as good as being a formation master and he didn’t even have to gain the domain to use it.”

“What about life masters? Are there healing runes?”

“It should be possible, but no one has cracked that one yet. I have made limited golems though, and that’s from the life domain. Runes tap into the same magic that all of the other domains use, ours is just more constricted.”

“Constricted?”

“Yes,” Dandre said, his eyes lighting up, “Runes have to be told exactly what you want them to do before you start. Other domains have the flexibility of changing things on the fly, but that is their only advantage. I expect within a few hundred years we will have all of the other domains fully figured out and we will be able to use runes for everything. It really is the best domain.”

Hugo spent the next few days trying to figure out the connection between runes and his other domains. He would love to be able to make Mia a runestone that could create mithril for her.

After he activated mana sight, he stared at his arms and hands as he fabricated some mithril. The mana moved very quickly but he thought he recognized something. The shapes the mana formed looked a little like runes, just ones that he didn’t recognize.

He had a little more success when he was attempting to copy the barrier domain magic. He didn’t recognize these runes either, but he felt like he could recreate the general shape of the magic. He felt like he almost had it, but so far all of his designs were failures.

He had asked the grandmaster for advice on creating a new rune. Dandre seemed to think that Hugo was a prodigy, and had given him some advice on power flows. He could see the man light up when he talked about runes and then his eyes dim when he went back to paperwork.

It must be rough, having a passion for crafting runes, but having to deal with paperwork all day instead. That would never be Hugo. Regardless of where he ended up after the wheel was saved, he would never settle in an office. He needed action, his hands busy or moving about.

He was going to have plenty of action soon enough. He was meeting with Colonel Mandisa tomorrow afternoon to discuss their plans for getting Hugo into Deva.

“Thank you for your education today. I would like to ask your permission to attend a meeting with the sentinels tomorrow.”

“Are you trying to get out of your penmanship practice?”

“A sentinel wanted to discuss my future after my apprenticeship and asked me to join him at their headquarters,“ Hugo half-lied. In a few days, sentinel command would buy out his apprenticeship. Telling the grandmaster about this meeting was prep work for that day.

“That’s fine. Just don’t create any runes for him. Without a certification, you could get thrown in jail for counterfeiting. We can discuss your future with me in two days. Ask the receptionist to put it on my calendar.”

Hugo nodded. He returned the books and tucked away his notebook. He felt like he was being sneaky, but really, the grandmaster planned on teaching him runes from one of these books once he chose one. He just didn’t know that Hugo had already chosen his lingua.

The next day, Hugo met the colonel at their usual place, a local restaurant called Steers. They served monster meat to rich nox that believed it would help them recover mana and gain magical power. As far as Hugo knew, that wasn’t true. But they had private rooms, and hedge mages wouldn’t see him visiting the sentinel complex on a regular basis.

Colonel Mandisa had already ordered for them both by the time Hugo got there. It was a bit annoying that the colonel always ended up with the most expensive thing on the menu and Hugo got the cheapest. It wasn’t important though.

After the waiter left, Hugo said, “One thing I have been wondering about is why Deva military is working with hedge mages. Have the sentinels been able to learn anything new about that connection? It just doesn’t make sense to me. The hedge mages are humans that hate nox down to the core of their organization. Most people in Deva are Octarians, they love nox, don’t they?”

“We wouldn’t be sending you to Deva if they wouldn’t accept you,” the colonel said.

“So why are they working together? And don’t say money. Ideologically, they are too far apart to happily work together for a few gold,” Hugo said. It had been bothering him for a while and he wanted to know.

“You don’t need to know all of that, you just need to know your mission,” Colonel Mandisa said.

Hugo put a hand on his forehead and said, “Ok, yes. We are doing that cell thing where everyone is need-to-know. But here is the thing; I need to know. If we don’t succeed this time I will go back in time and I need to be able to tell them what we messed up so we can do something different next time.”

“I don’t like the fact that you are already planning on us failing. It’s important to have a good attitude. I will tell you everything we know after you return from your mission,” the colonel said and angrily tore into his dino steak.

Hugo nodded. He would just send a letter directly to the general later. There was obviously something important there, and he needed to know it. No point in angering the colonel though. “Alright, so what is the plan? You said last time that you were working on getting me ID papers. Did they come through?”

Deva was the only city on the wheel that had border control. When he arrived at the train station, he would have to go through a stringent check. He needed convincing identification that showed him as a local.

“The papers came in, but there is a problem with them. They aren’t as authentic as we hoped, they won’t pass the checks at the main train station. We are pivoting to a new plan. The checks at the north gate are much more lax. We are inserting you into a harvester team just returning from their trip into the wilds.”

“I don’t like that we are changing plans at the last minute. It seems risky. Why don’t we just try again with a different forger? We need convincing paperwork if I am going to get into the military,” Hugo said and took a bite of his strix wing.

“It’s already been decided. This is the plan,” he said firmly.

Hugo took a big breath and let it out. “Colonel. I appreciate that you have already come up with a back up plan after the first one had problems. This new plan seems like it has a lot more failure points than the last one. We know the papers aren’t good and you want to use them anyway. I haven’t researched the harvester process in Deva so I might expose myself with a mistake. It seems risky to trust a whole team of harvesters to keep my secret, no matter how much we pay them. With all of these possible failure points, don’t you think it would be better to reassess?”

The colonel frowned, “First off, I am insulted that you think so little of us. We are a group of professional adults, don’t you think we thought of those issues already?”

Hugo didn’t say what he was thinking.

The colonel continued, “There is a recent defector, a harvester that lost his whole team, and we are using him to get you in. You will be bandaged up, so the ID won’t matter as much. There is only one guy that will know your secret and he is on our side. He is also being paid handsomely. This will work, trust me.”

Hugo didn’t trust him. That answered some of his concerns, but not all of them. Reluctantly, he admitted it was probably as good as he was going to get. Sentinels didn’t have a history of infiltrating other countries. It was this or nothing.

“Alright, fine. I will go along with your plan,” Hugo said. His deciding factor was the knowledge that Deva didn’t kill their prisoners of war. They kept them as bargaining chips. If Hugo got caught in the colonel’s plan, he could just try again after the shimmer veins exploded.

Hugo said, “Will this harvester be an asset once I am in? Who will I be working with? I know I am not the only one you are sending in.”

“You will be on your own. The general is sending in a few of her own spies, but no one is going to have any contact with the other agents in the field. This way none of you can betray the others.”

“When am I leaving?”

“In seven days. You will be taking an airship and jumping into the forest outside the city. The pilot will give you a packet with your ID and instructions. I requisitioned a few runes and included them as well. The packet will also contain the final payment for the harvester. Just make sure you give him that after he gets you inside the walls,” the colonel said.

He didn’t like this plan. Withholding payment for the harvester showed that they didn’t really trust the man. He would go along with their scheme, but keep his eyes out and his secrets close to his chest. Hugo thanked the colonel and walked out. If he was leaving soon, it was time to enact the plan he had been working on to take care of Lenna’s family mana cores.