Perhaps it was because he was nervous because of his upcoming trip to be soulburnt. Perhaps it was because he was built that way. Either way, he had nightmares again.

He didn’t remember the details, something about golems and blood, runes and explosions. He woke up gasping, sweat dripping. It took some time for his heart to stop racing and his thoughts to slow down. He meditated for a bit, which helped him keep a calm demeanor until the trip to be soulburnt.

While he was waiting for his class’s turn on the tamoko, Hugo decided to rank up and spend his points. He had gained some more points yesterday with his first stint up on the city walls. This would be the last time that he was able to spend both stat points, instead of his soulburnt domain assigning one for him. He made his selection, ranked up to two, and pushed his stat screen away.

Right on time as always, Sage Marta entered the meeting room. She unlocked the door with a key and a wave of her hands. Hugo wondered if he would be able to unlock this door himself. The lockpicking training the foxes gave him should work. It was mostly a matter of proper mana control. Still, he decided to follow the laws from here on out. She motioned the group into the room. The tamoko sat in the middle of the room with low benches along the walls.

“Alright!” Marta yelled as she clapped her hands, “Everyone here should have already gone through aptitude testing and talked with the dean about your domain choice. Today we are using this machine here, the tamoko, to soulburn the barrier domain into you. I am going to read off your name and I want you to step forward and say yes. This is your domain for the rest of your life, I don’t want anyone in here that isn’t supposed to take the barrier domain.”

Hugo had decided to risk it and go for the barrier domain. He wanted to shoot for greatness. He was a little worried about picking a different domain than the one he was already soulburnt with, but he figured it would be fine. What made up his mind was the name that popped up when he accessed the system. If the Acomarian system considered him to be Cristian, then it probably would be fine. He even wondered if the tamoko actually affected his real self. Maybe it wasn’t burning his soul, but just carving channels into his soul core.

One by one they were called forward to stand near the tamoko. The machine looked like a torture device more than anything, at least to Hugo. Restraints lined the armrests and leg areas, with a padded headband attached to the top of the chair. Above the headband was a pellucid, the control unit. Large metal rings surrounded the chair, with glowing mana shards placed throughout. Hugo looked over the various aspected shards, from fire shards to ice shards and he recognized an acid shard towards the back. He couldn’t help but think of how much it was all worth.

He was briefly distracted when Daniela’s name was called. His head jerked up and he confirmed his suspicions. It was the same girl that had flirted with him on the first day. She had defied her mother and chosen a domain she wanted. His face flushed. He was doing what other people recommended after he told her that he did whatever he wanted.

Once everyone on her list was accounted for, Marta spoke to the group again, “Everyone is going to take their turn in the machine. The straps might look a little scary, but they are just there to stop you from hurting yourself. The procedure is painful, but you can take it. The academy has faith in you.”

Hugo raised his hand, “Can I please go first?”

“Oh? A volunteer? I was going to go alphabetical, but I suppose you can go first if you want to,” Marta said.

“Yes please,” he said. He was already dreading the pain and he wanted to get it over as soon as possible. He also wanted to avoid small talk with Daniela while they waited.

Marta nodded to Hugo and quickly strapped him into the machine. Once the leather was stuffed into his mouth, he tried to prepare himself. If his guess about the machine working on his soul core, then it would probably help if he circulated his mana within his core.

It didn’t help.

As soon as the machine activated, Hugo felt excruciating pain. All semblance of mental fortitude was gone and he was left with pain. Everything was pain. Everything. It wasn’t that his body hurt, he was no longer receiving input from his body. The pain was piercing deep into his very being.

Time disappeared, all that was left was pain.

Although it didn’t seem possible, at some point, the pain lessened. He felt his body again. He was gently led to the bench on the side of the wall. He was almost insensate from the pain. He barely noticed as the rest of the class was soulburnt. He flinched every time the tamoko started up.

Once class was over, Hugo stumbled back to his dorm room. Hugo laid down on his own bed and cried. It still hurt so much. Soulburnt was right. He felt like an ineffable part of himself was seared, flaking away in waves of pain. He was starting to think that letting himself get soulburnt again was a mistake.

If it had hurt this much last time around, he must have forgotten. His memories of the soulburning a year ago weren’t clear, but this just hurt so much right now. He thought that this was worse today. If he had gone through this much pain the first time around, he wouldn’t have agreed to the procedure again.

He knew, he knew, that humans couldn’t get two domains like the nox. He was starting to think that it was a mistake to even try. What had happened to the other humans that had attempted two soulburnings from when they were testing the tamoko? He was starting to wonder if they had died after the procedure.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. If he was going to die from damage to his soul, he would rather die in his sleep than writhing in agony. Thankfully the process took a toll on his physical body as well and he was able to fall asleep before too long.

The pain was mostly faded by the next morning. A certain amount of soul weariness remained, but he felt human again. He felt the same today as he did after his procedure from a year ago. He started to wonder if it really did hurt that much, or if he had just been overreacting last night. Maybe he had psyched himself out and made the whole thing worse on himself. When he pulled up his stat screen, he saw the barrier domain, just as he was expecting.

Cristian Fieraru [Barrier Domain]

Strength (14)

Dexterity 20

Resilience 8

Regeneration (12)

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 11

Rank 2

67/300 Points

Health 11/11

Mana 42/68

Skills: Mana Dart 2, Fabricate, Solidify

He did see a few things he wasn’t expecting. He saw that he had the fabricate skill again. Not that the skill would do much good without an element. The realization dawned on him. That must be what had happened to the humans that tried to undergo a second session in the tamoko. Only the second domain stuck. They would undergo the pain twice, but only end up with one magic domain.

Hugo was tempted to mess with his solidify skill, but held off. He knew he would go over that in class today. Hugo wondered if he would have to pick a specialty, like the formation domain did. If so, he was certainly going to choose the one that would let him walk on air. He wanted to fly. What he wouldn’t give to see Sage Hanna’s face when he beat all five obstacle courses on his first try.

The mana pool seemed awfully high to him. It was so high that it hadn’t even filled itself overnight. When he had the formation domain his pool was twice his strength, pretty simple. This was more than that for some reason. He wondered what other factors were contributing to the total being so high. It was basically triple his dexterity stat. Was that an effect of having a high dexterity before he gained his domain? It didn’t quite fit, but it was the only thing he could think of.

He tried moving his mana around to see what it would feel like to have a bigger mana pool. It didn’t seem all that different to Hugo. It was bigger than yesterday, of course. But it still behaved as it normally did. A thought occurred to him. Now that his mana pool was bigger, could he unlock Mana Sight again? He would love to impress Sage Marta by already having it unlocked by the time she had a class on unlocking it.

He slowly moved his mana back and forth, from his eyes to his brain and back. Oskar was laying on the bed across the room from him and so he closed his eyes and tried to sense the soul core of his roommate. It wouldn’t be as easy as when Sage Marta had the mana orb, but it should be possible. He knew exactly what the skill felt like, so he should be able to replicate it.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, he felt like he could sense a floating orb across the room.

Skill Gained!

Through special actions you have unlocked the skill Mana Sight.

“Yes!” Hugo shouted. He had done it, two basic skills unlocked before he even had a single mana manipulation class. This would be a great way to attract attention as some sort of wonder kid. The best of the best always got the most resources, and this would be a great way to convince others that he was worthy of extra training and resources. He was already thinking about the perfect moment to reveal that he had the skill.

Oskar sat up rubbing his eyes, “What are you shouting about this early in the morning?”

Whoops.

Feeling bad that he had woken up Oskar early, Hugo said, “I’m sorry about that. Let me buy you breakfast, it will make you feel better.” His roommate had gained his domain days ago. The tamoko was used to soulburn half of the first year class at a time. Oskar just wasn’t a morning person.

“Breakfast is already paid for, you morning rat,” Oskar said.

“Well then, let’s go down to the cafeteria and I will bring breakfast to the table to make up for my rudeness.”

“I don’t want to be awake, breakfast isn’t going to fix that,” Oskar said. He still got ready to go though. On the walk over, he continued, “How come you don’t have a headache? Is the soul burning easier on barrier mages? I had a headache for a whole day after mine.”

“No, it isn’t easier. I have a splitting headache too. But it was so much worse earlier, that only having a headache now is a relief.”

Oskar mumbled, but came along anyway. True to his word, Hugo got breakfast for the both of them, and they ate in silence. When breakfast was done, Hugo decided to go back to bed. He still had a lingering headache and he knew that there wouldn’t be anything important taught this morning. He said goodbye to Oskar and shuffled off to his dorm room.

Around lunch, Oskar came back to the dorm room to change and frowned when he saw Hugo still in bed. He said, “How are you feeling, Hugo? Any better yet?”

“Doing just fine.”

“Me too,” Oskar said, “You really should have come to classes today.”

“Nah, they know half of us just got soulburnt yesterday. Today was probably just running laps in athletics and quiet meditation in mana class, right?” Hugo ‘guessed.’

With a pout, Oskar said, “Something like that.”

Hugo hopped up and said, “Well, I am ready for lunch and classes now. Today is my first day of barrier classes.”

Actually excited for class for once, Hugo quickly ate lunch and headed off to his first lesson. Unlike the previous few days, he was actually going to learn something new today. To hear a lecture that he hadn’t heard before. He was almost giddy with excitement.

At first, he wasn’t sure he was in the right place. The directions brought him to the azad field. It was an open air stadium instead of a classroom. There were stone benches terraced in a large oval around a central stage. Thousands could fit in the stadium, and this class was supposedly for just a few dozen. There were a few people sitting on the front row, so he walked up to them.

“Hey, do you guys know where the barrier class is? I was told it was here but...” Hugo trailed off at the end.

A man sat up from where he had been lounging. He said, “This is the place. Class will start in a bit.” Then he laid back down.

As the man spoke, Hugo realized that he was wearing the same robes that his other teachers wore. He must be the sage leading the class. Hugo was a bit embarrassed that he hadn’t seen him before. The chatter of the other students helped him forget his embarrassment.

The embarrassment almost came right back when Daniela came into the stadium. His eyes tracked her, but she didn’t seem to notice him. She sat near a few friends on the other end of class.

Ten minutes later, and after the class was fully assembled, the sage got up and walked to the front of the class. With a dramatic flourish, he threw up a barrier across the entire stadium. The sun filtered through the barrier, making the whole place blue tinged. He also decked himself out in full armor, head to toe like a king’s guard. The man radiated power and strength.

The class instantly went quiet in surprise. He snapped his fingers and it all disappeared. His voice boomed across the stadium, “I am Sage Parem, and welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.”