This was going to be a tough choice. Did he play along and allow himself to be pushed into the life domain? Or did he fight against his father and get the light domain?

He knew which one he should choose. He should pick the light domain. It’s the number one tool against the mind altering shadow domain. Marshal Botha might have the backing of Deva’s military, but it was the man himself that presented the most danger. His shadow magic was powerful enough that he could overwhelm anyone sent after him. It didn’t matter if you were a high ranked barrier mage, able to shrug off hits from spinosaurs, the Black Marshal could stop you in your tracks.

On the other hand, he would be dooming himself to a miserable life if he did that. He knew that he would one day be a high ranked mage, and high perception was a blessing and a curse. It would make him a better crafter and hunter, but worse at civilized life. Life in a city was busy, loud, and smelly. Sebastian must have a terrible time whenever he left this mansion.

Going with the flow and letting himself get the life domain wasn’t an easy choice despite its advantages. It was a useful domain. Some would say it was the only indispensable one. People needed healing. Life mages ran hospitals and produced golems. They were the key to civilization.

The only downside was the pain. Hugo had been told that life mages never got used to the pain they had when they used their domain. Constant pain whenever he wanted to heal or create golems. He shivered. He wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to constantly give himself pain just to practice his domain.

While he was thinking about it, he followed his father down to the dining room on the ground floor. His mother was already sitting down to eat, and he was surprised to see someone else there as well. A young woman was sitting across from her. She was a little older than Hugo, immaculately dressed in black, and staring daggers at Hugo.

Who was she?

Hugo sat at the only chair left and glanced across the table at her. She stared grimly back at him. She must really hate him. Hugo had heard siblings were like that, not that he had much experience with that himself. She was eating with the family so it seemed likely she was his sister.

Ignoring her, Hugo looked down at dinner. It was flame boar meat with black currant sauce. There were mashed potatoes and roasted chestnuts on the side. It was delicious. His maybe sister kept glaring daggers at him the whole meal, but he didn’t know what to do about that.

Dessert was a shock. It was one of his favorite treats, kohuke. The cheese curds dipped in chocolate weren’t popular in Ettel or Paarl so it had been a while since he had one. They were just as delicious as he remembered. That means this body had good taste buds. Thank the gods.

He pushed his plate away and the girl across the table looked like she finally had enough of Hugo.

“Did the black strix finally get soulmarked? I hope so, otherwise taking mom and dad from the business for that long would have been a total waste,” she said.

“Yes, I got soulmarked,” Hugo said.

“Finally, something you aren’t a screw up at. Although I suppose it’s hard to mess up walking around and standing in place,” she said.

Ana-Marie and Sebastian looked a little uncomfortable at that. The initial soulmarking hadn’t worked, so in a way, Florin had messed up standing in place.

The probable sister caught that and said, “Wait. Did he mess up? He did, didn’t he? You want him to lead the agribusiness and this market troll messes everything up, including standing in place? Why do you put up with this?” she said.

Ana-Marie sighed and said, “Don’t call your brother a market troll.”

His confirmed sister threw up her hands and said, “Why not? This moron isn’t good for anything. I can’t believe you want to put him in charge instead of me. I’m the one who did good in school. I earned my soulmarking. I am a fantastic light mage. I should be the head, not him.”

Sebastian tapped his glass lightly. The sound made her flinch and he said, “Let’s not get into this again. I have made my decision.”

“It’s because of my domain, isn’t it? Look, I can’t change that now, and besides, you made it work. It’s not like you are going to get Florin to agree to be a life mage. He hates pain. Come on, tell them what you told me. That you would sooner run away than be a life mage.”

Everyone turned to him and Hugo said, “I don’t want to discuss it.”

“I don’t want to discuss it?” she said in a mocking voice, “Since when have you learned to speak properly?”

“Milana, calm down. Your frustrations come from society, not your brother’s actions,” Sebastian said.

His sister was named Milana. How convenient that he knew her name now. The sister in question looked around the table and didn’t find any support. She threw up her hands in frustration and left the table.

Once she was out of the room, Ana-Marie turned to Hugo and said, “Don’t forget that we have a Demeter reception here on eighthday. Your maid will take care of clothing and styling you. This will be your first chance to interact with your contemporaries. Remember your lessons. I don’t need to stress how important this will be for your future.”

Nodding outwardly, Hugo was panicking inwardly. He had no idea what this reception was about, let alone what his role in it should be. He was tempted to blow the whole thing off and leave the city. But unlike last time, there would be long reaching consequences if he did that.

He might not be a royal this time around, but judging by the mansion around him, he might have the influence of one. He needed to play along for now in case he needed their influence and power. He walked back to his room while he thought about his plans for his final life.

Next step was to write out a bunch of letters. First he wrote to his mother, letting her know Hugo was dead. He threw in ten silver in condolences. He would have added more, but strangely, Florin didn’t seem to have a lot of coinage. Maybe he had a secret safe somewhere he hadn’t been able to find yet.

He wrote to Sofia and asked her to stop spying on Kristopher because it would end badly. He promised to send some money when he could.

The letter to Alexandru was short. He just let the man know about the spies that wanted his knowledge and to not trust anyone. Hugo knew from experience that the letter would make him more paranoid than needed, but the idiot kind of deserved it. Maybe he would talk to Alexandru again after this was all over.

Next he wrote a letter to Mia, explaining about the attacks on the walls by Deva spies, the machinations of the hedge mages, and the shimmer vein explosion at the end of the year. He encouraged her to help Lenna with her armor project. He also suggested a meeting with the sentinels in a month.

It was a bit silly to write all this to a random student instead of the sentinel Colonel. Despite that, he knew it was the right choice. Experience had taught him that it was best that he have someone on the inside driving things. Plus, Mia had traveled back in time enough that she was good at convincing people she was telling the truth.

He added Marion’s letter to his family on top of the pile. He wished he could do more than just send on his letter.

Hugo drummed his fingers on the writing desk. There was more, what else did he need to write? He remembered his mom’s friend Marius. He wrote a letter that the grandcryst the man had just earned would get stolen soon.

Once that was done, he mentally reviewed the events of the first few months, trying to decide if there was anything else he could do. On a whim, he wrote a letter to Yasmin. She had been his best friend when he was a riese. He recommended that she talk to the huntmaster and offer to wrangle aphids for him in exchange for the opportunity to hunt.

Hugo wasn’t sure if that would do any good, but it was worth a shot. With that letter written, he had done everything he could for now. Well, except the one thing he had been putting off. He needed to decide which domain he was going to pick for his final one.

Maybe it didn’t have to be light or life mage? He didn’t like either choice, could he convince his parents to let him pick Alchemy or Shadow domains instead? Since they were human, the shadow domain was right out. He didn’t feel drawn to it anyway. Alchemy might be possible, but there was a reason he had never chosen it before.

It was a limited domain. He had heard that it was more powerful outside the wheel, but inside the wheel low level Alchemists weren’t that useful. They mostly just made health and mana potions. He tried to think about other effects he had seen. He remembered the slowing potion that saved them from the giant spiders. That was pretty powerful. But also expensive. Hugo was pretty sure that most alchemy required monster parts. That might be easy to come across outside the wheel, but monsters tended to dissolve into blue dust around here.

So he was back to his original choices. Light or Life. Painful self sacrifice either way. One because the high perception was a curse, the other because using it was literally painful. Without any other considerations, he would obviously choose to be a life mage. Better occasional pain than constant.

But he needed to go up against a shadow mage. Light mages were the only one that could dispel shadow magic. A high wisdom would help him resist the magic, but he didn’t know how high he would need.

A glance out the window showed that it was well after sunset. Time for bed.

The spidersilk pajamas were probably very expensive. They might be worth it though. They were incredibly comfortable. He flopped onto his bed to continue debating. This was his last choice. He needed to make the right one. He would be stuck with this choice for the rest of his life.

That thought helped him make up his mind. One way or another, he would be successful this time. He could bring in sentinel light mages now that he knew who to attack. He was going to choose the life domain.

It opened up so many possibilities, from healing to golems and everything in between. It was the right domain for him. To cement the decision, he went ahead and ranked up and placed all of his points into regeneration. That was only four points since he was rank two, but they were needed to bring his regeneration from seven up to eleven.

Interestingly enough, when he did that, his health pool went up by one. He hadn’t known that before, he had thought that health was solely governed by resilience.

Shortly after he ranked up, a knock sounded on the door.

“Come in,” Hugo said, wondering what this was about. Hopefully it wasn’t his sister here to berate him.

It was actually a maid. The same one that had brought his bags to his room. He noticed now that all of the servants in the mansion were rather attractive. He wondered if that was a requirement for employment. Must clean well and look pretty.

“Hello Lord Florin,” she said hesitantly. She walked in and shut the door behind herself. She frowned and seemed to force herself to walk closer. “I am here to perform my nightly duties,” she said and slowly started to take her clothes off.

Hugo shuttered in revulsion. Florin had been forcing her to have sex with him? That boy had been absolute pond scum.

“No, no, keep your clothes on. I don’t want to force you to have sex with me. I am sorry I ever did that. I have turned over a new leaf and I will never have sex with anyone on the staff,” Hugo said.

She paused as she was reaching for her chest wrap. At first she seemed relieved, but then a look of panic stole across her face. “No! You can’t do that. Please. They would... Please let me stay with you tonight. I promise I will be good. I will let you do whatever you want. I will be enthusiastic, I promise.”

What?

She obviously didn’t want to have sex with him, but was desperate for it all the same. What was going on? He had heard that rich people were freaks, but this was giving him a strange vibe. He almost didn’t want to find out what strange thing these sick people were into.