The Acomarian ritual Aria had brought him was called an optimize ritual. The target of the ritual was supposed to be more effective and efficient at what it did. Hammers hit harder, lamps shone brighter, stoves cooked better, that kind of thing. It was supposed to work best on inscribed tools. Since Hugo didn’t have anything like that handy, he placed an exploding bolt on the receiver plate.

Once Aria was back with the mana stones, Hugo cut himself and bled into all of the circuits. He placed a mana stone down. Oblate made the stone soak into the ritual. At first, he wasn’t sure if it had done anything.

Looking down at the bolt, he saw several subtle changes. The arrowhead was longer and sharper pointed. The ignus rune was subtly changed. The fletchings at the end were smaller.

He couldn’t wait to try it out. He almost ran out to the archery range before he remembered that he had cracked the back wall the last time. He made another trip up to the wall.

“Lina! Good to see you. Guess what? I got the first one!” Thao said and happily waved his crossbow.

Hugo nodded to the weapon he designed and said, “How is that working for you?”

“Like a dream. Come on, let me show you,” Thao said and walked up to the edge of the wall. He sighted in through the telescope on top and aimed five hundred yards out from the wall. His first shot hit a troll in the neck, the next three hit it in the face and eyes. The enormous monster didn’t stand a chance. Hugo imagined that the high dexterity of the barrier sentinel made it easier to aim.

“With this baby, I always have first pick of which monsters I want to kill. No one else can kill monsters that far out. Well the ballista can, but whatever. I am just raking in the mana stones. Even bagged me a mana crystal this morning. And that’s just the first day. All of my squad mates want one. Huong will will be busy for the next year making these babies,” Thao said while longingly petting the weapon.

Thao looked back up to Hugo and said, “So, what are you here for today? We don’t leave for the escort trip until tomorrow. Train station, remember?”

“I’m not here for that, just a little more target practice,” Hugo said and waved to his own crossbow.

“Go ahead, letting you practice a week ago has been the best thing for me. Practice as much as you want. You can even keep all the mana stones, I’ll clear it with the captain,” Thao said.

Hugo nodded and sighted out over the wall. He aimed near the stone markers two hundred yards out. He knew how tall they were so it would help him get a sense of scale for the explosion. His shot whistled through the air, exploding twenty feet away from the target. It created a four foot fiery explosion, with flames that clung to the ground briefly before guttering out. It hit right where he was aiming. Nice.

“Slap my grandma. That’s a big explosion. Did you stuff a mana stone in that arrow?”

Hugo smiled, “If you think that’s impressive, watch this.”

This time he loaded the optimized bolt into the crossbow and aimed for the same spot. He loosed it downrange. It streaked across the sky soundlessly. The explosion was white and bright. Hugo thought it might be blinding at night. The radius was ten feet wide. It left behind a shallow crater. Hugo was glad he hadn’t aimed any closer to the stone marker, it would have shattered it.

Thao just stood there open mouthed. After a moment he said, “Do you have any more of those? I might buy them off of you.”

“No, twice over. That was my last one today, and the metal guild won’t let me sell them to you,” Hugo said.

He didn’t really pay much attention to what Thao said after that. He was already thinking about rushing back to his hotel room and optimizing everything he owned. It would be a ridiculous waste of mana stones, but he had the money. He wouldn’t even need to recreate the ritual, it should work great for hundreds of uses.

The next morning Hugo met the sentinels at the train station. Thao introduced him to the squad, four other sentinel privates, two nox men and three human women. Hugo didn’t remember their names because he was still reeling from a realization.

“Lieutenant Thao? How did someone like you end up as a lieutenant?” Hugo said as they sped along in the shimmer train.

The tall woman sitting next to him said, “We wonder that every day.”

“Come on, people. I am a great Lieutenant,” Thao said, “I am respected by my subordinates and peers. I lead with poise and power. My presence helps others work better. I am an asset on any wall anywhere.

One of the nox men said, “Literally none of that is true.”

The other nox said, “He got lucky and ranked up to forty-four and they had to promote him.”

The rest of the team laughed. Thao groused, “Whatever. You guys still have to follow my orders.”

Hugo smiled. They hopped off the train a short while later. They spent the next few hours walking due east over foothills towards a craggy mountain. The occasional dire wolf or rock beetle was dispatched without anyone breaking stride.

One of the nox said, “How are we doing loot distribution? And before you say it, Lieutenant, being able to kill monsters doesn’t count. I want mana stones or cash.”

“I told you, this is a VIP escort. Our dear Lina is the VIP. She might not be a royal, but she will take the royal share and distribute the rest the way she sees fit.”

Hugo was very tempted to tell him he actually was a royal. Instead he said, “I am fine with an even split between the six of us. There will be plenty of stones for everyone.”

“Kill the drake before you sell its skin,” Thao said, referring to the proverb they all heard as children. “We can discuss division of mana stones once there are more than Lina wants to keep. The mountains ahead are full of rock golems, but we have to survive encountering them. The last time we were out culling, we only killed three golems.”

“That’s because you make us sneak around so much,” one of the nox said.

Hugo realized he couldn’t tell the nox apart. They were brothers, maybe twins.

“We can’t take on more than one golem at a time. If we aren't careful, we will pull more than one at once and have to run. A few mana stones is better than none,” Thao said, “And speaking of being careful, everyone slip on the booties and get out your hammers.”

Since rock golems could hear through the stone, they brought along vibration muffling slip on covers. Fur booties. Everyone had hammers as well. Surprisingly, Hugo wasn’t sporting the biggest war hammer. One of the nox was a formation mage, and his extra strength meant that he could wield a hammer taller and heavier than he was. Hugo realized that was other reason for the nox’s heavy armor. It helped him stay put while he swung the hammer around.

Another few hours later, one of the human women signaled for them to stop. She pointed to a boulder in the middle of the valley they were walking down.

Thao sidled up to Hugo and whispered, “That’s a rock golem. You and I are going to stay here and watch them deal with it. I want you to get used to how we fight. We take turns getting the attention of the golems, making sure no one gets hit. Even with your fancy armor, one hit from these things will break bones.”

Hugo was thankful they had brought a light mage along. He never would have guessed that was a golem, not a boulder. He set down his hammer and brought out his crossbow to look through the scope. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw the cracks in the rock that outlined arms and legs.

“Actually could I try out my exploding ammunition?” Hugo said.

Thao looked thoughtful and said, “Yes, but only out here at the edge of the mountain range. The explosion will attract rock golems for miles if you do it where they are thicker. We might not be able to escape if the golems are attacking from all sides.”

Once everyone was prepared for the loud boom, Hugo loaded six of his optimized bolts and shot towards the monster eight hundred yards away. He missed. The crossbow was powerful, but the bolts still arched downward and he hadn’t accounted for that enough. The sentinel privates by his side swore in surprise.

While Hugo reloaded and adjusted his aim, the rock golem slowly stood up. It was huge, at least twenty feet tall. Its head was just a bump near the top of the center rock. Each leg and arm was ten feet long and five feet thick. Hugo quickly sent two more bolts downrange.

These ones both hit. One disintegrated an arm, and the other hit it in the bulbous torso. The explosion cracked the monster in half. It was dead by then, but Hugo’s third bolt was already in the air. It hit the torso and knocked off a spray of stone.

Hugo grinned ear to ear as he heard a few dings. He had gotten enough points to rank up twice. Four arrows, and he was rank eighteen. Sure, those bolts would probably cost forty gold to buy. They were made of exotic metals, runed and optimized. But that didn’t matter. He did all that himself. He was feeling pretty awesome right now.

With the grin still plastered to his face, Hugo followed the sentinels to inspect the damage. Rock golems were blocks of solid stone. He had reduced this one to shattered stone. Even the few bits still whole were spiderwebbed with cracks.

It took a ridiculous amount of self control to keep himself from giggling. His optimized bolts were perfect for hunting rock golems. He only had six more, enough for two or three more monsters, but it would mean a few more easy ranks. He had several more normal bolts, he was making Thao carry them for him. He brought enough that ranking up further wasn’t going to be a problem. He would run out of tier three monsters before he ran out of bolts.

The light mage wasn’t as happy. She frowned and said, “This guy had a mana stone. But I don’t see one anymore. I think your crazy weapon destroyed it.”

“Whoops. I think it was the last shot that did it. I will hold back next time,” Hugo said. He could tell that the sentinels were mad at him for destroying the profit, but they didn’t say anything.

With nothing left to harvest, they headed up the mountain. They didn’t get far before a rock golem crested a rise above them. It must have heard the explosions earlier and come to investigate. Hugo carefully aimed and loosed an enhanced bolt. The explosion hit the monster in its non-existent genitals and blew off both legs. The rest of the monster rolled down the mountain towards them, knocking off one arm at the elbow.

Hugo didn’t shoot a follow up shot, letting the rest of the team take care of dispatching the monster. Once they saw he put away his crossbow, they raced towards the slowly crawling golem. Without legs, they were able to focus on the remaining two limbs and knock off parts in quick succession. It took them five minutes to wear down the monster until it stopped moving. The formation mage worked with the light mage to get the mana stone out. He looked like a miner, slowly chipping away at the rock in the torso.

The monster actually held a mana crystal, which made Hugo smile even more. Mana crystals were worth a lot. He wouldn’t ever have to worry about money again. After he saved the wheel next lifetime, he was coming back here to get rich.

The next few days were very profitable. They killed three more monsters that day, before heading back to the foothills to sleep. Apparently rock golems destroyed any shelter the sentinels could construct. Even caves weren’t safe from magical monsters made of stone.

Mornings were spent walking up into the mountains. Then a large chunk of the day was spent destroying monsters from a distance, and then they walked back to their camp. By the time they were standing by a shimmer vein, ready to hop on the train, they had amassed nine mana crystals and twenty mana stones. Hugo gave everyone a crystal and three stones, keeping the rest for himself.

On the train, he ranked up. He hadn’t gotten to his goal of thirty two, but he had gotten close. Rank twenty eight. He felt like that was rather impressive. That shot his wisdom up to 44. It was the highest he had ever had a single stat. He decided he was going to try and bring it up as high as he could. He had 12 free stats and he wanted to put them all into wisdom. Then he reconsidered. Remembering that unbalanced stats caused problems, he put half into intelligence. The resulting mana pool made him giggle.

Lina of the Brambled Wood [Ritual Domain]

Strength 21

Dexterity 20

Resilience 13

Regeneration 9

Intelligence (30)

Wisdom (50)

Charisma 13

Perception 13

Rank 28

54/1700 Points

Health 35/35

Mana 182/(242)

Skills: Mana Sight, Mana Dart, Inscribe 4, Fabricate 7, Solidify, Oblate

Lingua: Isibhozo, Zintathu, Choice available

Frequencies: 400-700, 1016-1032, 8-200

Elements: Mithril, Orange Osage, Titanium

Pact: Disciple of Acomar, Choice available

That was a higher mana pool than a rank one hundred and twenty would have. Even in stories he hadn’t heard of anyone with a mana pool that big. He wanted to think of something awesome to do with that much magical power.

The next day, he wrote up some calculations. They were for his barrier domain, so they weren’t strictly needed, but for something this big, he wanted insurance. Decked out in his armor again, he walked from his hotel to the city square.

Like most of the other cities, this one had regular market days where the residents came to buy fresh produce from temporary stalls. Today wasn’t a market day, which was good for his plans. There were people walking though the square, others relaxing by the fountain, and a few street performers scattered around the square.

Hugo chose his spot carefully and started the plan. First was a set of spiral stairs. He raced up them, two stories tall before he stopped. He recycled the mana from the stairs as he ran up them. It would be awkward if anyone followed him up there.

Next he got out his notes and reviewed them one more time. Carefully, he sent massive amounts of mana flowing through his channels, creating one construct after another. Each one was anchored to his body. They moved when he moved.

First were his legs. They looked like enormous armored legs, but were just one solid construct. The torso covered himself with a few slits for better vision. Next came the enormous arms and an empty helmet. When he was done, there was an enormous mana knight standing in the middle of the square. The top of the mana helmet was taller than the majority of the buildings in the city, and could be seen for miles and miles.

Dozens of people stood in shock, staring at his enormous form. A few people ran away in terror. Hugo’s head started to hurt a bit. This was more mana and constructs than he had ever done before. He leaned forward and yelled into the cone placed in front of himself.

“I am Hugo the Huge! See my might and tremble!” Hugo yelled. He waved his enormous arms for emphasis.

Many more people screamed in terror and ran. Hugo really wanted to stomp after them, but he didn’t have the mana control to make that many moving parts yet. Still, he was very proud of himself. This was ridiculously funny and stupid. “You can run but not hide. I am the Hugo!”

He giggled to himself. He bent his legs and jumped as far forward as he could. The enormous mana knight hopped forward with stiff legs. He moved forward fifteen feet. It was an impressive jump for a human, but probably looked ridiculous on the mana man. Hugo laughed some more. It was a lot more fun than he expected.

No one was left in the city square after a few minutes and he grew bored. He was about to recycle everything when he saw someone running his way. It was a barrier mage, taking huge strides as he ran through the air straight at him.

Hugo held his hand up in the universal sign for stop. The man didn’t stop. He just kept on running. A sword went right though the construct’s head, shattering it into bits of mana. Hugo swore and recycled everything. This man was taking his joke way too seriously.

He fell through the air, two stories down. He oriented his body and bent his knees. A fall from this height was nothing to his high ranked riese body. Before he hit the ground, a large blue vice appeared and caught him.

Thinking quickly, he looked up at the sentinel floating above him and said, “Thank you for rescuing me. He had me trapped in that thing. It was so scary. I think he flew away that way.” Hugo pointed to the left.

The sentinel hovered there, uncertain. He came here to stop a threat, and Hugo wasn’t acting dangerously. The man also hadn’t seen anyone else, so he wasn’t sure what was going on.

“Put me down, you need to get after him,” Hugo said calmly, “He was controlling the whole thing from the western entrance to the city square. He flew off as soon as you broke the head. If you hurry, you can still catch him.”

The sentinel made up his mind and dropped Hugo. He ran off, bounding through the air. As soon as he was out of sight, Hugo raced to an alley nearby. He stripped off his armor, fluffed up his dress, and did his hair differently. It might be enough to look different from above. He ran away until he joined a crowd and slowed to a walk.

He laughed to himself. That was close. He hadn’t expected anyone to respond so quickly. He had been planning on leaving the square before the shimmer corps arrived. The sentinel was a surprise.

Either way, it had been fun. He didn’t plan on repeating the escapade. When he got back to the hotel, he found a package waiting for him. It was a packet of paper, along with a note.

Lina,

I sincerely hope these rituals are useful to you, because they put me in danger. I discovered too late that Acomarian rituals are taboo for a reason. The government overlooks the possession of the forbidden rituals. If they suspect you are trying to use them, that changes. They cannot abide anyone actively using Acomarian rituals. Be careful of who you let know you have pacted with the makers of our system. Be safe, I hope to never see you again.

Commissioner Binh

That was slightly unexpected. He wondered why pacting with the Acomarians was forbidden. It had something to do with shimmer mountain, the governments didn’t want it to do its thing. He just didn’t know what that thing was.

He pulled out the stack of papers, curious to see what type of rituals would have gotten the government so upset.