That night Hugo went to his dorm room right after dinner. Instead of studying like he was used to, he started creating new designs. It wasn’t that different from studying. He sketched out the design, worked out the math, and tried to create something new. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes he went back to the math. Thankfully he had passed the point where his creations exploded when the design was imperfect. He thanked Sage Marta after every failed design. Her mana manipulation class was helping him avoid injury from the failed designs. He worked late into the night, only stopping when he was interrupted by a little blue screen.

Level Up!

Fabricate has advanced to level six.

Hugo smiled. There were some advantages to diligently trying out new designs. He decided he had created enough and set them aside. He would drop them off to be sold in the morning.

A week later, Hugo walked over to the commissary. He was excited to check and see what had sold. Over the last few nights he had created and dropped off a variety of products. The student employee said that they would take his stuff off the shelf if it didn’t sell right away. But that is what he wanted anyway. He planned on trying out lots of different ideas, hoping to hit on a bestseller. If he continually used up his spare mana to create something that sold well, then he wouldn’t have to work as long after he graduated.

He checked the shelves to see what had been sold. His two handheld mirrors were still there, apparently no one wanted a basic mirror. He had created four collapsible cups, and only two were left on the shelf. That was nice, they must have sold. All the cutlery was still there, so that was a failed product line. Which is too bad, he knew that upper classmen went on overnight culling trips. He had thought lots of people would want lightweight utensils for their camping kit.

It was time to try something different for the next go around. Perhaps a nice comb or other beauty products. Or maybe something for fun. Dice would be easy to make. He thought about the possibilities as he slowly walked away.

Before he left the store, he had a sudden realization. He had only seen three of his products up on the shelf. Had they taken his potion bottles off the shelf? That was annoying. Creating the design for the screw top was tough. He had to redo the polynomial slope three times on the bottle lip just to get it right.

He decided to talk to the cashier about it. Just because he made six of them and that took up a lot of shelf space, didn’t mean that they couldn’t keep two or three of them up for sale.

The cashier spoke first, “Hey, are you the bottle guy?”

“That’s me. I didn’t see them up there...” Hugo said, unsure how forceful he should be about the issue. He needed to have a good working relationship with them.

“Can you make more?”

“What?”

“The bottles sold out in an hour. Four different people have come by to ask about them,” the cashier said.

“Um, yeah. I can make more. How many do you think I should make?”

“As many as you can. Just bring them by when you finish them. Apparently it’s one of the few bottles that don’t make the vodka taste like shit.”

“Really? I thought people used glass for that?”

“They did. But one of the good ones graduated, we only have one bottle maker left. She can’t keep up with demand. And this isn’t exactly something that we can order from outside the academy, you understand?”

Hugo nodded. Even though there was a party almost every night around here, the students weren’t actually allowed to drink. Apparently the administration turned a blind eye when students bought the materials to make homemade spirits, but buying alcohol bottles was apparently one step too far.

“I get it. I can make more. I am still first year, so it won’t be a lot per day, but I can certainly make more,” Hugo said. He walked to the door, eager to get started. Then he paused at the door, “Do you think I should charge more?”

“Oh yeah. Particularly since they won’t shatter like the glass ones will. We can talk when you come back tomorrow.”

Hugo’s smile lasted all the way through breakfast. It wasn’t until athletics class that he was brought back to earth. After more weapons training, they went back to the obstacle course.

Hanna was being vicious with the beanbags today. Hugo felt himself getting frustrated that he couldn’t get further. At this point, he was reliably reaching the yellow section of the track, only falling towards the end, or in the red section. His extra strength and dexterity had made the formally impossible sections possible. What made him mad was that this new section of the track was still crowded.

As expected the formation and barrier domain students were able to advance due to their extra stats. But the rest of the first year students advanced too. Alchemy students were taking daily potions before they ran the course. Runic people wore stat enhancing clothing they had sewn. Ritualists were temporarily stronger than any other student, due to a ritual that a new student completed every day. Life students were able to just empower themselves for short bursts. The only ones without a domain that made them stronger were the Light students. But for some reason, they seemed to fall a lot less than any other student, and they never got pushed off by accident.

Hugo had expected to lead the pack by this point in the year, but he was firmly in the middle. The obstacle course used to be his one strength, but now he wasn’t great at any class. It was a blow to his ego.

As he fell into the water for the second time that day, Hugo had an epiphany. Everyone else was using their domain to match his stats. Why wasn’t he using his domain too? Now that he thought about it, there were several places where he could make things easier for himself. Chains and claws came to mind first.

He looked around for Lenna and Oskar to tell them about his great idea. To his chagrin, he saw Lenna tackling the warped wall with a spider silk rope. She already had this idea evidently. He wondered just how far behind the curve he was.

Hugo walked up to Oskar after athletics and said, “I can’t believe I just thought of this, but I haven’t used my domain yet in the obstacle course. I gotta think of something to create.”

“Seriously?” Oskar said, “I thought you were just challenging yourself. You are the only one that hasn’t used their domain in some way.” He showed Hugo his iron half gauntlets. They had claws sticking out of the palms.

“By the eight,” Hugo said, “How did I miss that everyone but me was doing this? Talk about tunnel vision.”

“And all this time I thought you were just trying to prove yourself. You always get to the yellow section, and I didn’t even leave the green without my gauntlets,” Oskar said, impressed with Hugo’s skills and stupidity.

He started testing his ideas to overcome the obstacle courses. He couldn’t couldn’t create something from scratch since Hanna wouldn’t let him sit and write out calculations. But he could combine designs he had practiced before. He ended up with a chain attached to his arm with a grappling hook on the end. Aluminum might be too weak for a sword, but it was perfect for applications like this. It was lightweight, but it could still hold its shape and support his body weight. He found himself getting to the red section every time he tried for the rest of class. He still couldn’t complete the course, but he didn’t feel bad about that.

So far only one student had managed to complete the course, someone named Elise. He thought she was cheating, really. Apparently she had taken the barrier domain skill that let her walk on air. She used it to bridge some of the bigger gaps, or to bypass some of the swinging obstacles. None of the other barrier students could replicate her feat, which is part of the reason he thought she was cheating. The other reason it didn’t seem fair was that she beat the course before he did. He was great at running obstacle courses, it should be him up there, slacking off while the rest of them were pelted by sand bags.

The next formation class served to improve his spirits a bit. It was time to turn in their weapon designs and try them out.

He had been working on his weapon design for a while, trying out different designs. His first attempt at a spear had gone horribly wrong, the shaft bending on the first strike. The second time he made a spear he made it thicker and solid. He used up his full mana pool. It bent on the third strike. After that he went to the library for inspiration. He eventually found a weapon design that he liked and he was excited to see what Rasmus would think.

They met outside, near the archery and weapons fields. There was a sand pit full of training dummies in the weapon square. Rasmus started with the aspiring swordsmen, having them show their expertise up against the dummies. Despite his warning, a few students tried to use them without training and were quickly caught out. They were sent to the tables off to the side. He had them make axes instead of swords. That way they could have the cutting edge they wanted, and still be effective without much training.

Then it was the rest of the class’s turn. Those that choose maces, war hammers, and spears were given the go ahead to create their weapons right away, and Rasmus had the rest of the class come up to him one at a time.

Lenna came back to the table with a frown on her face.

“What? He didn’t approve of your design?” Hugo said.

She shook her head, “No he did. But he said a bow string was not enough. I have to make a net now, one with weighted edges. I was planning on making it anyway, but now I have a deadline.”

Hugo commiserated with her until it was his turn.

“It’s a crossbow design,” Hugo said as he handed his paper over, “According to the book I got the design from, it has a twelve hundred pound draw weight. I know crossbows are slow, but I figure the extra power is a good trade off.”

Rasmus nodded, “A crossbow is an acceptable weapon choice. However, I can see two major problems here. You don’t have a stirrup on the front here. If you add one, it will make reloading much faster. Speaking of which, that is your second problem. I don’t see a reloading hook. Even with your soulmarked strength, you won’t be able to reload this by hand. I recommend a belt and claw.”

“That’s what this is for,” Hugo pulled something from his bag, “I already made it to test the design. It’s called a goats foot lever. The curve here and the articulation there makes it so much easier to reload. I can fire once every four seconds or so.”

“Sounds like you have already test built it. Where is it?” Rasmus said and looked around.

“I did make one, but it broke. I was hoping you could look over the design and give me some pointers on how to make it stronger,” Hugo said.

“I hope you didn’t make an aluminum string,” Sage Rasmus said warningly.

“No, I bought a string from the commissary that was rated for crossbows,” Hugo said.

Rasmus nodded and looked at the design closer. He pointed to a spot near the top of the riser. “Did it break here?” Hugo nodded and Rasmus continued, “Aluminum is lighter and weaker than the metal this design calls for. If you thicken up the limbs right here you will be fine. It might increase your draw weight, but your goat’s foot should help with that.”

Rasmus sketched out the extra limb width and the stirrup up front. When he handed it back he said, “Once you have it built, report to the archery range for a course on bow safety. Ranged people end up in the back of the formation, but we don’t want any friendly fire, alright?”

Hugo nodded seriously and walked over to the tables to work on his design. As he walked away he overheard Rasmus cursing. He turned back to hear the teacher say, “That isn’t a mace, that is a bat! Come on! Don’t make me fail you for being terminally stupid.”

Chuckling to himself, Hugo turned and focused on his own work. He went over the math again and slowly pushed his mana into the design. It took most of his mana pool. Once he had the crossbow in hand, he made a few solid aluminum quarrels to go with it. Luckily for him, aluminum was an excellent metal for crossbow quarrels. It was also decent for regular arrows and he had made a dozen to sell in the commissary as well.

The bow safety course was much more serious than he had been expecting. Instead of a course full of good practices, the instructor did his best to put the fear of the eight into them. He told stories of death from moments of inattention that left most of the students green at the gills. By the end of the class he had everyone convinced that they needed to follow every single safety guideline or all of their friends would die horribly.

Only after the safety course were they able to go out to the archery range. Hugo attached a quiver to his belt and filled it with ten quarrels. He tucked the stock up against his shoulder and sighted down the stock. The target was twenty yards downrange and he focused on the bullseye. To his surprise, he hit it. He tried again, and hit the bullseye again. Each shot penetrated to the metal fletchings.

Even though he had practiced with the other crossbow before he broke it, it still surprised him how quickly he was picking up the skill. He guessed that it was the extra dexterity from being soulmarked. It helped him move his body just the way he wanted to, making aiming much easier. Part of it might just be that crossbows were easier to pick up for a novice than a normal bow.

Next he practiced shooting the rest of his quarrels as fast as he could. His accuracy suffered, but he was still able to get all eight into the target circle. He guessed that he was still about one shot every four seconds.

While he was waiting for the other students to finish shooting, he had an idea. Could he create a quarrel that would appear in the correct slot? That way he could speed up his firing rate a bit. He had used up most of his mana pool creating the crossbow, but he still had enough left for two more quarrels.

The newly created quarrel bounced off the crossbow slot on the first try and fell to the floor. Same with the second try. He just couldn’t control where the item was created with enough accuracy to make it happen. He would just have to practice to get his firing speed up. He skipped cryptozoology today so he could stay and practice. He would just read the book later.

It was the first time he had skipped the class, but this seemed more important. This was the weapon he would be using to kill monsters and defend himself. It was important that he practiced his skills. Besides, it was fun.