It had been three days since he last ate a mana stone. He still felt fine. He was considerably less concerned about his future now. If he could go a week or even a month between needing mana stones, it wouldn't even be much of an inconvience. He should be able to easily afford that many stones. It was the possibility of needing one every day that had scared him. He supposed the opposite was possible as well, he might not need to eat another one, maybe the first one was just to stabilize him or something.

Either way, it was time to earn some money. He needed to get back to the standard of living he was used to. Hugo had finally finished fabricating his magnum opus, the in-line crossbow. Despite his higher mana pool, it still took him some time to regenerate the lost mana.

Two days ago, he had caved and put ten points into regeneration. It helped him refill his mana pool. He guessed that his regeneration would jump up by ten points when he gained the life domain at rank sixty-four. Until then, he was glad for the higher regeneration.

The remaining two free stat points went into charisma. He no longer thought of the stat as inherently evil. It was just a tool in his arsenal. He needed to be convincing, and this was just what he needed. He planned on putting a few more points into it later after he ranked up more.

Hugo finally saw the man he had been waiting for. The man should have been on the wall fifteen minutes ago. The privilege of rank, he guessed.

“Hello captain. Could I talk with you for a moment while you walk up?” Hugo said.

The sentinel captain glanced at Hugo and said, “If this is about volunteering, you will need to talk to the attendant at the desk. I won’t contradict her, no matter who your parents are.”

Hugo chuckled and said, “No, this has nothing to do with that. I wanted to talk to you specifically about this crossbow.” He gestured to the weapon in his hand. He followed the captain as he walked up the winding stairs.

“Crossbow? Is that what your little contraption is supposed to be? A crossbow?” the captain said, “I can’t say I know much about their design, but I can tell you they aren’t supposed to break like that.”

Hugo laughed politely and said, “No, no. This crossbow is perfectly functional. Let me show you.” They had reached the top of the wall by then. Hugo flipped the trigger guard off and sighted down the weapon. He saw a triceratops seven hundred yards away and sent two bolts flying towards it.

The captain seemed astonished as both bolts hit the monster and exploded a moment later.

Congratulations

You have been ranked up to rank nine. You have been granted two free points.

Congratulations

You have been ranked up to rank ten. You have been granted two free points.

Hugo stifled a groan. Those automatic rank ups were already getting old. At least he didn’t have to assign the points right away. He turned to the captain and said, “I would like to sell this design to a few of the formation stores in town. I bet it would be a bestseller. Why don’t you try it out and tell me what you think?” He handed the weapon over.

The sentinel captain looked it over for a bit and slowly cocked it. He carefully sighted down the stock and killed a bog monster four hundred feet away. Then he raised it up and shot three more times, hitting an ettin eight hundred yards away. The monster survived the hits, but the crossbow was out of ammo at that point.

“You know, I happen to have a brother in the business,” the captain said.

“I do know,” Hugo said, “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. You can recognize the value in something like this.” He held up the diagrams for the crossbow. “How about you introduce me to your brother and help me in my negotiations?”

“Why would I help you instead of my brother?” he said.

Hugo pointed at the crossbow, “That’s yours now. No strings attached. Although I was hoping you would help me out of the goodness of your heart.”

The captain laughed and slapped Hugo on his back. “Let’s go talk to my brother.”

A few hours and three visits to formation mages later, Hugo was considerably more rich. In addition to the testimonial from a sentinel captain, he had written out the equations using the formula for steel, something most formation mages had in their repertoire. The fact that it was still more than a week before the height of the surge was also a huge plus. All told, he had made four platinum and twenty gold.

Next stop, Blue Lion Academy. Hugo checked the mana clock as he walked through the city square. Perfect. He would get there just as classes were being let out for the day. Hugo had to bribe the guard to be allowed to see the dean today, but the gold he paid the man felt like nothing to him at this point.

The guard asked him to wait just inside the front gates while he ran to talk to the dean’s secretary. While he was waiting for the guard to get back he saw a few people he wanted to talk to. He waved as he said, “Hugo Rebane, over here!”

Rebane had been talking with Oscar and was startled to see Hugo. Warily he walked over, only recognizing him as he got closer.

“Hello Mr. Rebane, excellent to see you,” Hugo said affably.

“What are you doing here? Are you going to be a mage too?” Rebane said.

“No, no. I am already a mage. I just came to talk to a few people on campus. Including you. I truly appreciate the coppers you gave me a few days ago. I know exactly how hard that must have been. So, I wanted to pay you back,” Hugo said and held out his hand. When Rebane was ready, he dropped three gold into his palm.

“Wha? But... this...This is too much,” Rebane said in shock.

“Nah, you gave me everything you had, I just gave you what I could easily afford. Have you decided on what domain you want to choose yet?” Hugo said. He was curious if meeting him had changed anything.

“No, not yet. I was thinking formation or barrier. Kinda leaning towards formation,” Rebane said. He looked back towards Oskar who was still waiting for him.

“Good man. I think you will really like it,” Hugo said and handed over another gold, “Hire a math tutor day one. You will become a great formation mage, but you will need help with the fundamentals.” Hugo grabbed three more gold and passed it over to an increasingly surprised Rebane. “That’s for Sofia’s family. They are hurting right now. Can I trust you to get it to her soon? Tell her she doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to now.”

Rebane mutely nodded and tucked away the gold. There were several other things Hugo wanted to tell him about. He decided not to. Rebane needed to learn some things on his own.

As Hugo walked away, he saw someone else he knew, standing near the front gates. Apparently strangers visiting was interesting enough to have gawkers. He waved and said, “Lenna, come over here.”

Lenna was shocked that Hugo knew her name. She slowly walked over, bringing Alice along with her for moral support.

“Hey Lenna, good to see you. You don’t know me, but I know you. I am a time traveler. I know your idea for armor, and I know it will work. In fact I am going to talk to the dean soon, to convince him to help you rank up and produce the armor,” Hugo said.

Lenna took a step back, “I don’t know who you are or what you think you know...”

“Oh don’t worry. You don’t have to believe me now. Just take this,” Hugo said and handed over ten gold, “I know you will be successful, I just wanted to show my support and get my order in early.”

She looked at the gold in her hands in shock. Hugo saw the guard walking back now, and he started walking to meet him.

“I don’t even have a domain yet,” Lenna said as Hugo walked away.

“I believe in you,” Hugo said with a jaunty wave.

He smiled to himself. He had only gotten this money today and he was already burning through the gold. Money just wasn’t as important to him as it used to be. The guard escorted him to the dean’s office and the receptionist let him in right away.

“Hello young man, I understand you would like to talk to me. I assume we are talking about a late entry. Normally we refuse those requests, but it is only a few days after the beginning of the year. Please take a seat,” the dean said.

“I won’t be staying long enough to sit today. I just have a few quick messages for you,” Hugo said. He didn’t want to chance getting stuck in the dean’s trap chairs. He didn’t want to know how the lead would affect him.

The dean sat back and said, “Well, alright then. Go ahead.”

“My name is Hugo Ersatz. I am a time traveler. I know you won’t believe me when I say that, so I want to give you a bit of proof first. In about a week, shortly before the monster wave crests, enemy agents will come to sabotage the walls. They will disable the control runes. At least two Deva agents have infiltrated most of the cities on the wheel. If you talk to your contacts in sentinel command, they will beef up security and stop this attack in time,” Hugo said.

“You are right, I don’t believe you,” the dean said.

“That’s ok. I will send Mia in here later, she is more convincing. Also, not that urgent, but I promised to mention it. A new student of yours, Lenna Koppel, has an idea for a revolutionary new armor. You need to support her and send her on additional harvesting trips so she can rank up faster and build the armor sooner. We can talk more about that next time I visit,” Hugo said, “See you in about two weeks.” Hugo waved goodbye and left before the dean could stop him.

It was too bad that Hugo hadn’t seen Mia today. He wanted to talk to her about his weird new body. Maybe in one of her crazy loops she had seen something like it. He would have to ask her about it next time he visited. While he was here today, he wrote her a quick note.

Hey Mia,

Alexandru is at it again. This is my sixth life. Please talk to the dean and convince him that you are a former time traveler. He needs to talk to sentinel command and head off a sabotage to the city walls by spies. This year is going to be wild. I will come by the academy in about two weeks and I can tell you all about it.

Hugo Ersatz

It was weird, writing his new last name. Ersatz. It seemed like it meant something, but he wasn’t sure what. As he left the academy, he thought about what he wanted to do next. Now that he had told them about the sabotages, he kind of had the week off. No one needed anything from him right now.

His first step was to take a train to Tallinn and find a nice inn. He felt guilty about his earlier overspending, so he didn’t choose the most expensive inn, just a nice one. In his room, he started fabricating a new crossbow. He had dinner delivered as he continued to fabricate and wait for his mana pool to recover.

One of the times he was waiting, he looked in a mirror for the first time in this body. He had been subconsciously avoiding it, but it was time. He was tall with long black hair. A look down revealed a trim and muscular physique. His face was handsome and approachable. He couldn’t ask for a better body to be stuck with. The body looked familiar, but he was sure he hadn’t seen it before. He went to bed with a smile on his face.

The next morning, he was exhausted after fabricating a single gear. He could barely sit up in bed. It was time for a mana stone. He popped one into his mouth. It quickly revitalized him and woke him up completely. He felt so much better. He would need to get more soon. He only had one stone left now.

Four days. He lasted four days between mana stones. With 384 days in the year, that meant he was going to have to eat ... several mana stones. He had to sit down and write out the problem before he figured out it was ninety-six stones. He certainly missed his intelligence stats. He used to be able to do that in his head.

Ninety-six stones. That was a lot. He didn’t think he had earned that many stones over all of his lives. He rolled the mana stone around in his mouth as he thought about it. He might have to get a career as a sentinel just to stay alive. Well, that might be overstating things. He had enough money on him right now to buy that many stones. He would just have to have his finances figured out so he wouldn’t run out of stones.

To that end, he went back to fabricating. He noticed something very strange as he continued to work on his crossbow. Something was off.