If Hugo understood the train code correctly, then there were fifty-five tier four monsters out there. That was a lot of high ranked monsters heading towards their train. It was one tier below the serpent hydra he had just killed. These monsters would get him over the hump and hit rank thirty-two easily. He was looking forward to having his ritual domain back.

He reached under his seat and pulled out his crossbow. He was fairly proud of this version. In addition to all the regular enhancements, he had runed it with durability. While he was out here beyond the wheel, he planned on finding some runes that would increase the speed of the bolts. Mia said she had heard of the correct rune, but wasn’t aware of a human that knew it.

With the crossbow slung over his shoulder, Hugo followed a few other passengers up to the roof of their train car. The two nox from across the aisle were right ahead of him, each holding a strange contraption in two of their arms. It was something like a runed pot with four handles.

As he climbed up to the roof, Hugo saw a dozen people up and down the train doing the same. The first eight cars were the passenger trains. The train conductor was on the lead car, but he wasn’t doing anything yet. A few people were holding swords and spears but most people had a bow. Even the barrier mage to his left had one. He would have to ask the man how he made his barriers flexible enough to make that work.

A few were loosing arrows into the treeline, others were waiting for the monsters to get closer. Hugo glanced over to where they were shooting and had a brief moment of vertigo. The whole treeline was moving.

Dozens of plant monsters were heading this way. Probably fifty-five of them if Hugo remembered the code correctly. They stood ten feet tall, ten feet wide, and looked like a six armed bush. They were covered in leaves so dense, you couldn’t see the monster beneath them.

The male nox flipped down a pair of goggles and stared at the approaching monsters. Then he turned to the younger nox and said, “Nature magic. Use fire to counter.”

Both of the nox tapped runes on their contraptions, one after another lit up. Hugo watched as they held the four handles and channeled mana into the device. A beam of red light speared out of the pot end. The ground burned as they shifted focus to the lead monster. It screamed as its leaves were burnt to a crisp. Hugo was impressed. They had used runes to concentrate elemental magic into a beam.

He shouldered his crossbow and sighted a pack of monsters that were uninjured. He didn’t want to be accused of kill-stealing. He missed the first shot, not having properly accounted for the movement of the train. The next three bolts hit and exploded on the plant monster’s chest. Hooray for exploding bolts. He watched it burn for a moment to see if it was going to die yet.

Nope. They were more resilient than he expected. He fired the remaining two bolts, which caused the monster to tumble to the ground. It still wasn’t dead yet. Hugo quickly reloaded and sighted down the scope. The young female nox had her beam focused on his monster and it died while he watched. She had just stolen his kill!

Hugo scowled and switched to a different target farther away. Lesson learned, he sent all six bolts towards the same plant monster. This time he was successful, the final shot killing the tier four monster. These things were tough. He had tweaked his exploding bolts for years now, the fact that these monsters could take six of them before dying was impressive. The Acomarian system agreed with him. He got four hundred and fifty points from that one kill.

“Duck!” the nox nearby yelled.

Hugo was already ducking. The riese dangersense bracelet had warned him of danger. A volley of thorns passed directly over his head. The plant monsters were close enough to use their ranged attacks now. Hugo reloaded and jumped up, quickly firing off all six bolts at the approaching monsters.

“Duck,” the nox said.

This time, the bracelet didn’t warn him. It only worked half of the time. He was slow to react and was hit by a dozen thorns. Most of the thorns deflected off of his armor. One sliced through his spider silk coif, and the other embedded itself in his shoulder joint. Both thorns drew blood, but neither injury was serious. Hugo was more concerned that the blood would stain his armor. He removed the thorn from his shoulder and grabbed another six bolts.

After he was loaded up again, he looked for a new target. The monsters were getting close to the train and everyone was attacking now. Even the guy with the sword was sending out a cutting wave of force. One of the archers was actually an alchemist and was sending potions out that killed two monsters at a time. Hugo sighted in on a monster in the back of the pack and let another six bolts fly. It quickly died and he was four hundred and fifty points higher. He only needed one more kill to hit rank thirty-two.

By now most of the monsters were dead. There were only three monsters undamaged. With a new batch of bolts, he loosed at the furthest target. After only two bolts hit, a blur streaked through the air and pulped his target. The remaining four bolts exploded uselessly on the ground. Another kill stealer! Did these people have no sense of fair play or comradery?

He was distracted from his anger when a screen popped up.

Congratulations

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

At least he still hit his goal. He grabbed his quiver and headed back down. He checked his armor for stains and found none. That’s right. His blood was mana now, it had probably just evaporated shortly after it left his body. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He distracted himself by checking his Acomarian screen. Just as he was expecting. He gained his ritual domain back. A jump in wisdom came along with it.

Hugo Ersatz [Formation, Barrier, Runic, Ritual Domain]

Strength 21

Dexterity 21

Resilience 10

Regeneration 20

Intelligence 20

Wisdom 22

Charisma 12

Perception 10

Rank 32

219/3300 Points

Health 12/12

Mana 8/84

Skills: Mana Sight 3, Inscribe 8, Fabricate 10, Solidify 6, Oblate 2

Lingua: Isibhozo, Zintathu, Ntandathu, Zine

Frequencies: 400-700, 1016-1032, 8-200, 800-900

Elements: Mithril, Titanium, Porcelain, Spider Silk

Pact: Ersatz of Acomar

Free Points: 52

The description of his pact had changed a bit. It used to say Disciple of Acomar, now it said Ersatz of Acomar. What did that mean? That word Ersatz kept showing up all over his Acomarian system. Before he could think about it much, another blue screen interrupted him.

Notice

Assign all free points soon. Evolution calculations will begin shortly.

Hugo swore out loud. The evolution was at rank thirty-two, not sixty-four. The dean had told him that if his stats were above a certain threshold, his domain would evolve into a stronger version. Now he remembered that he needed sixty-four points in his main domain stat by rank thirty-two. The recent bump to wisdom must have improved his memory. He had a few moments to assign his free points if he wanted to get a stronger domain. The only question was, which domain should he choose?

He only had enough points to evolve one of his domains. He probably couldn’t choose life, he didn’t have that one back yet. No point in using his one chance on the ritual domain, he rarely used that one.

That still left three domains he used all the time. He wanted to be able to fabricate, solidify, and inscribe better. How could he choose? He swore again.

Panicked about time running out, Hugo just chose his first domain, formation. It was the domain he wanted in the first place, and the one he used the most. He shoved forty-three points into strength and the remaining nine points into dexterity so he didn’t hurt himself with his new muscles. He was still unbalanced. He would have to put at least five more points into dexterity before he was comfortable with using his full strength. Until then he would have to be careful not to go all out in any physical activity.

As soon as he allocated the points, he felt a tingle rush through his body. His muscles became more toned and defined. Usually that kind of change wasn’t visible, but he did just triple his strength stat. He didn’t move from his seat, expecting the evolution to take effect right away.

A minute passed. Apparently, the Acomarian version of soon wasn’t the same as his own. He decided to get used to his new strength by slowly moving each muscle, working through his fingers, arm, torso, legs, etc. He gave each muscle group a slow movement, then a medium speed one. He imagined that Karina and Birgit thought he looked silly.

Congratulations!

Due to your unwavering commitment to your Formation Domain you have been given the chance to evolve. Pick one of the following curated choices. If you do not pick anything within twenty-three minutes your domain will remain unchanged.

As he read it, Hugo’s smile grew on his face. He had done it, he was getting an evolution. He was also happy to see an exact time written on the blue screen, instead of vague words.

Production Mage

Buff:

Choose five different designs to specialize in. These designs will take one second to fabricate the entire object and mana costs will be reduced to twenty-five percent of normal.

Debuff:

Any other design besides these five will be much more difficult and take ten times as much mana to fabricate.

This option was interesting, one second to create something was insane. It normally took him minutes to fabricate something complex. Even a standard bolt was twenty seconds or so, and he had years of practice with that. The reduction in mana meant that Hugo could create hundreds of them at a time. He remembered a two-copper novel where the Formation mage fabricated endless arrows. With this evolution, that would actually be possible.

It wasn’t for him though. Hugo didn’t want to be locked into the same five designs for the rest of his life. He loved trying out new designs. It was an easy choice to disregard production mage and move on.

Utility Mage

Buff:

You are granted designs for several key systems for modern Acomarian life, plumbing, wiring, security, and surveillance. These designs are 50% cheaper to fabricate.

Debuff:

Weapon designs are much more difficult to fabricate and cost five times as much mana.

This one was fascinating. He could learn how to fabricate things that the Acomarians considered modern. They were so far advanced that he yearned to learn even a fraction of what was offered. Plumbing might not be that interesting, but he wanted to know how they dealt with security. Why was creating wires so important to their society? He wondered if surveillance meant glasses and binoculars or if there was something else too.

The debuff section on this one seemed strange to him. How would the Acomarian system know that he was fabricating a weapon? His crossbow was just a collection of cams, gears, and leaf springs. He was sure those parts fell into the utility category. Maybe this would only make swords and arrows more difficult to fabricate? He moved on to the final choice while he thought about it.

Avian Mage

Buff:

Grants designs of four types of airborne devices. Designs geared towards scouting and aerial defense. Comes with three active tethers.

Debuff:

Designs over four feet in length are logarithmically more mana intensive.

This one was the weirdest yet. He wasn’t quite sure what avian meant, but he thought it had something to do with birds. Was this an evolution for bird golems? The restriction on length wasn’t much of a debuff though. He had only ever made long fabrications when he made spears. Now he would just have to make spears in two parts and screw them together. That wasn’t too hard.

Why would the Acomarians devote an entire evolution to flying devices? It would be nice to be able to fabricate mechanical birds, but that didn’t seem that special. He would get his life domain back eventually and he would be able to create golems then. They wouldn’t be able to fly, but he had never felt jealous of airship manufacturers.

A brief review of the three choices had Hugo leaning towards the Utility Mage. He didn’t want the restrictions a Manufacturing Mage would have, and the Avian Mage didn’t seem that useful. He could choose none of them and stay a standard formation mage. He wasn’t going to do that though. There was no way he was going to pass up his one chance for an evolution. He was going to pick one of these three.

He probably would have already picked the Utility mage if it wasn’t for that debuff. It would make weapons difficult and expensive to produce. He fabricated weapons all the time. He just wished he knew if the crossbow parts counted as making a weapon. Each individual part could be used in a pully system instead of a weapon. It all depended on how well the Acomarian system interpreted intent.