Hugo lay on the infirmary bed and stared at the intangible blue screen in front of him. The implications were... heavy. He was about to say scary, but that wasn’t quite right. Foreboding, maybe.

Florin Baden [Life Domain]

Strength 22

Dexterity 19

Resilience 9

Regeneration 11

Intelligence 24

Wisdom 20

Charisma 12

Perception 10

Rank 2

156/300 Points

Health 10/10

Mana 10/192

Skills: Mana Sight, Inscribe, Fabricate, Solidify, Oblate, Mend

Lingua: Choice available

Frequencies: Choice available

Elements: Choice available

Pact: Disciple of Acomar

Specialties: Choice available

His pact had already been chosen. That implied that the Acomarians existed outside of time and space and his time travel hadn’t undone the promise he had made to them. That was... heavy. He had been considering pacting with Demeter since he was in an agribusiness family. Now he didn’t have that choice.

Still, it wasn’t that big of a deal. He had been planning on re-pacting with the Acomarians at some point, and he would have another pact choice once he ranked up enough. This was fine. He was fine.

To take his mind off of it, he went ahead and made the usual choices for his other domains. Mithril for formation domain. Shields for barrier domain. Isibhozo for runic domain. Next he opened up the choices for the life domain.

The options under specialties were all -ologies. Dermatology, Cardiology, Osteology, Ophthalmology, and many more. He wondered which one was the one for golems. He almost laughed when he saw Otorhinolaryngology. What a long and silly name.

Eventually he felt good enough to sit up. Shortly after that he walked to the front room. His mother was berating the dean.

“Mom, mom it’s ok. I’m fine,” Hugo said.

She ran up to him and hugged him tight. She let go and looked him in the eyes as she wiped away a tear. “My boy, my boy. You are alright,” she said, voice shaking.

“Totally fine. One hundred percent. I’m ok mom, really,” Hugo said.

She turned around and pointed at the dean and said, “You aren’t off the hook. That wasn’t a normal reaction to a tamoko. Your machine needs to be tuned, or someone might die next time.”

“Of course Lady Baden. I will have it done right away and report back to you as soon as I can,” Dean Artjom said. He obviously had experience dealing with irate parents.

“Come on, mom. Let’s go,” Hugo said. He wanted to leave before she yelled at the dean any more. He had to work with him to save the wheel, so he wanted a good relationship.

“One thing before you go, young man,” the life mage manning the infirmary said, “I understand you are going to have a tutor train you in the life saving arts. You must wait until the tutor is there before you use your new spell. Do not experiment with mend. It can harm just as much as it helps. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I promise not to use mend until my tutor says it is ok,” Hugo said.

He then escorted his mother out. She was still rattled from when she thought her son was in a coma. She didn’t come back to herself until they were back on the train.

“Those second rate mages did get one thing right. You really shouldn’t experiment with your domain. You can kill someone if you don’t get it right,” Ana-Marie said.

“I promised. I really won’t experiment with mend. When is my tutor getting here anyway?” Hugo said.

“I am not sure yet. We are getting someone outside the wheel, someone quality. It just takes time to convince people to come here right after the heartbeat. You might not know this yet, but high ranked people don’t like to be in low mana environments. It’s like your soul is parched and thirsty,” Ana-Marie said.

Hugo nodded along, that made sense. It was probably the reason he never saw really high ranked people around here. Like Marius said a few subjective years ago, there was a soft cap on ranks in the wheel. He wondered how high they got out there. Maybe there really were crazy strong people out there like he read about in his two-copper novels.

He didn’t mind waiting for the life mage tutor. Now that he had his domains back, he could practice his other four domains. He had some ideas for a new suit of armor using runes and the optimize ritual.

As they rode in the mana cart back to their mansion, Ana-Marie said, “You won’t have much to do until planting time. We will leave right after the monster wave crests. You can do whatever you want until then, but you must be home a day before. And try not to embarrass us again, please?”

Hugo just nodded. It was going to take some time for him to lose the reputation Florin had built up. It was frustrating, but there was nothing for it. He was still exhausted from the experience, so he ate and went right to bed.

The next morning he awoke refreshed and ready for the day. Breakfast in bed again. He could get used to this. With nothing better to do today, he decided to wander the mansion. This was his life now, he might as well get used to his home.

The first floor wasn’t much of a surprise. He had seen most of it during the reception. The ballroom, dining room and study were all ornately appointed. He discovered the kitchen, which was huge. It was obviously built to handle parties, not just the four normal residents. The cook asked if he needed anything, but he shook his head.

There were several small rooms on the first floor and the second. They were appointed as guest rooms, but they were fairly small. Hugo wondered if they were just there for the worship of Demeter like Artemis had joked about.

The second floor had his room, his parents room, his sister’s room, and a few guest rooms. The third floor had a library, a dance floor, and an azad room. Hugo was impressed with the magic that went into making a miniature azad game, complete with tiny mana constructs. It must have cost several platinum and ate through mana stones. When he grew bored of playing with it, he wandered back down towards his room.

He passed his sister’s room on the way. Her door was open as he wandered by, and he saw Milana writing away at her desk.

She looked up when she heard him and said, “What do you want, market troll?”

Hugo shrugged, “Just bored, wandering around.”

“Wander somewhere else, some of us have important things to do,” Milana said.

“What are you working on?”

She just swore at him and waved him away.

“Why do you hate me so much?” he said. He genuinely wanted to know. Florin wouldn’t have asked so it was a bit of a risk, but Hugo had to know what he was working with if he wanted to win her over.

Milana slammed down her charcoal pen and stomped over to him, “You damn well know why. It should be me! I’m the first born, I’m the smartest, I’m a great mage, I’m not a disgrace like you. Why should you get to lead the company just because you were born a man?”

Hugo paused a bit and thought about it. He said, “I agree with you.”

She seemed surprised at that and said, “What?”

“Oh come on. Do I seem like the responsible type? The type that enjoys paperwork and negotiating deals for shipments? I don’t want this responsibility. If you want the company, you take it. Just give me a salary or whatever and I won’t bother you,” Hugo said calmly.

Milana took a step back and stared at him. “What are you trying to pull? If you didn’t want to take over the company, why get soulmarked, why get the life domain? Huh?”

Hugo shrugged, “Why wouldn’t I want to be stronger and faster? Just because I can heal someone, doesn’t mean I have to. I want to live my own life, and just have the mage thing as a backup. Everyone knows life mages make the most money.”

Milana just swore and him and said, “You are lying.”

“Believe what you want,” Hugo said and walked back to his room. He had been entirely honest with her. If the Baden family could support him without him having to do much, he would love to have his sister in charge. He would much rather spend his days crafting and killing monsters.

Speaking of crafting, he had a full mana pool and nothing else vying for his attention. He got out a large sheet of paper and started sketching out some new designs. He wanted armor that covered everything, but was still light and moveable. A helmet that protected him without limiting his field of vision. Something sleek and beautiful in addition to being functional.

Most armor needed to be bulky in order to fit over the padded gambeson. Hugo wanted to see if he could create something effective that was more form fitting. He sketched out a cuirass and backplate that would fit snugly over a leather undershirt. Then he wrote out the formula for similarly form fitting pauldrons, vambraces, and grieves. He didn’t want anything pinching and pulling on his private parts so he sketched out a segmented skirt.

He was certain he could fabricate everything the way he wanted. The only question was if his idea about the runes would pan out. One of the most recent runes he had learned was the connector rune. He could inscribe one impetus rune and have it connect to all the other pieces of armor. If it worked the way he wanted, he would be protected from all blunt attacks. A durability rune would help against piercing attacks.

Each piece of armor would have to be thin. Very thin. He only had access to mithril right now, and even with his prodigious mana pool, it would take a lot of mana to create something that big out of mithril. Hopefully, the mithril armor would take mithril runes on top of them. He wasn’t quite sure how the mana would react.

If he was successful, he could use the optimize ritual to make the whole thing even better. Hugo smiled. This was going to be fun. By the time he was done designing, it was time for dinner.

It was just Milana and Hugo for dinner today. Their father was out of town and their mother was eating dinner with clients. It was a very quiet meal. Hugo didn’t particularly care for the buckwheat risotto, but the monster ant fritter was fantastic. Delicious ant meat breaded and fried with a garlic cream sauce, Hugo planned on asking for it again.

“Did you mean what you said?” Milana said while they were waiting for dessert.

Hugo looked up in surprise. He didn’t expect her to engage with him for a while. “Yes, I meant every word.”

“How much salary would I have to pay you to leave the agribusiness to me?” Milana said.

“Well, we would have to convince our parents first, but after that, I don’t know. Something I can live on, I guess,” Hugo said. He hadn’t had an exact figure in mind.

“That’s too vague. Your idea of enough to live on might include three courtesans and an endless supply of vodka,” Milana said.

“I am much more reasonable than that. How about a percentage of the company’s profit? That way I am motivated to help you make the business grow, and not do anything that might embarrass the family,” Hugo said.

She just stared at him for a moment before she said, “I didn’t know you knew what the word percentage meant.”

Hugo laughed and threw his spoon at her, “Jerk.”

She ducked out of the way while laughing. “Ok, ok. How about five percent net profits, paid out monthly? They will start once I am fully in control of the company.”

“Net? Net? Get out of here with your net. I will only accept gross. Give me four percent gross profits and we will call it good,” Hugo said.

“Four percent of the gross? Do you have any idea how much money that is? I can’t pay you more than my own salary. How about one percent gross?” Milana said.

They continued to negotiate while they ate dessert, spotted dog. Hugo thought it looked disgusting, but tasted pretty good. Eventually, they had an agreement. Milana insisted on writing out a contract, and both signed it.

They spent the next few hours coming up with a plan. Both of their parents wanted Florin to lead the company, and it was going to be hard to convince them otherwise. It took them a few hours, but eventually, they came up with a plan.

It might get tricky, but Milana was sure it would work. It was going to be an exciting next few months.