Hugo picked at his new apprentice robes. They looked regal, but he found them uncomfortable to move in. He hoped he would get used to them soon. He was sitting in the antechamber of Grandmaster Dandre’s office. He had arrived exactly when he was asked to be there, but apparently the grandmaster’s previous meeting was running long.

A few minutes later the door opened and he saw Dandre saying goodbye to someone. From what he gathered from their conversation, the woman was an attendant for the queen of Paarl. That was impressive. It meant that Hugo’s new master was directly working for royalty.

A few minutes later the receptionist said, “The grandmaster will see you now.”

Hugo swallowed and walked into Grandmaster Dandre’s office. The man himself was sitting behind a large desk, writing something. There were half finished projects on the desk and on the shelves behind him. There were finished runic works lining the walls, including what looked like a small tamoko.

“Xhosa, the newest applicant for my runic shop,” Dandre said, “Before we get started, I wanted to ask you if you are sure about this. Once I grant you the runic domain, there is no going back. You can’t give the domain back, and you have to work for me for eight years before you can even consider a second domain.”

Hugo nodded seriously and said, “Grandmaster Dandre. I am sure. I want to be a runic mage.”

The grandmaster stared at him for a bit before he said, “Alright. Let’s do this thing. Have a seat.” He gestured to the small tamoko in the corner.

Hugo carefully sat down and the grandmaster negligently pressed a rune and walked away. The machine made a high pitched whine and a wave of weakness washed over Hugo. Then the sound stopped. Did something go wrong? Hugo turned towards Dandre.

“Don’t get up yet. You need to wait until the dizziness passes,” he said without looking up.

Was that really it? Was he soulmarked? Hugo pulled up his screen to check.

Xhosa Bandile [Runic Domain]

Strength 21

Dexterity 21

Resilience 9

Regeneration 9

Intelligence 12

Wisdom 12

Charisma 10

Perception 10

Rank 2

45/300 Points

Health 18/18

Mana 2/108

Skills: Mana Dart, Mana Vision, Inscribe, Fabricate, Solidify

Lingua: Choice available

Frequencies: Choice available

Elements: Choice available

Hugo almost laughed with joy. He had the runic domain. The skills and mana pool also showed him that he had the formation and barrier domains too. He had three domains. He lay there and smiled at himself as he waited for his strength to return. That was so easy. It was over in moments and there was no pain. The system really was made for nox.

“Alright, Xhosa. Come on over here. I am going to be honest with you. I only offered you an apprenticeship to annoy that formation grandmaster, Ramaphosa. I expected you to refuse. But you are mine now, so let’s just make the best of it,” Dandre said and handed him a paper, “That is a list of requirements for a minimally competent runic mage. Creating runes is very expensive and time consuming, and I don’t want to waste either on you until you are better. Once you embody those requirements, you can come back to me for some personal education. Until then, you can bug my real apprentices for help.”

Hugo thanked him and walked away, still slightly dazed. Once he was around the corner, he took out the list and read it.

Gain the skill Infuse Gain the skill Mana Dart Gain the skill Mana Sight Activate five runes with one point of mana Learn three different runes Modify a rune to produce a different effect Rank up to eight Unlock two Lingua Intelligence stat to twenty, wisdom to fourteen Remedy three nonfunctional runic slates

Hugo was pleasantly surprised with the list. He had expected the runic master to create an impossible list. His attitude felt like he had wanted to brush Hugo off. This list didn’t seem that hard though.

He already had mana sight and dart. Activating five runes with one point of mana was just a matter of mana manipulation practice. Hugo hadn’t done it before, but he was confident he could. Getting to rank eight would take a few hours on the wall with his crossbow. Assuming they would let him up there.

Unlocking lingua seemed straightforward, and something he would have to do anyway. He would have to ask for advice on which ones to unlock from fellow apprentices. He didn’t know the infuse skill and he hoped he could find a teacher for that one. Same thing for remedying nonfunctional runic slates. He didn’t know what that was, but hopefully his apprentices would be kind.

First thing first though. He needed to head to the wall. Ranking up to eight right away would give him more mana to practice the other items on the list. He decided to head home and create his crossbow. The only question was what element should he choose this time around? Aluminum was useful and cheap, but titanium had shown itself to be useful and tough. He decided against mithril this time around. It just cost too much mana to be useful.

Actually, he should pick an element that would be useful in his rune making. Hugo turned back around. Pre-first thing first. Find an apprentice that could give him some answers.

Hugo looked around the large courtyard. The grandmaster’s compound was large, but this is where all the apprentices were. It was a hive of activity, there were nox rushing back and forth and over a dozen small workshops lined up around the edge. Each workshop was open to the central courtyard so he could see the nox working inside.

The first task was to find someone that looked like they might help him. He decided to try and find someone that looked like they knew what they were doing, but weren’t too old. Someone closer to his age might be more willing to help out. He walked around the courtyard, looking in each workshop.

He suddenly stopped when he saw something he really wasn’t expecting. It was a human. Hugo immediately walked up to him and said, “Hello there. I am a new apprentice today, and I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about how things work around here.”

The human stopped his work and looked down at Hugo. It reminded him that nox were shorter than most humans. The man said “What made you decide to talk to me first?”

Hugo shrugged, “I figured I would be at the bottom of the social rankings, so I didn’t want to bother the ones that looked like they were running the place. I wanted to talk to someone that wouldn’t ignore me.”

“And you came straight for the human? You just assumed that I wouldn’t be running the place? That is both hurtful and accurate,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way,” Hugo started.

“Klaus Iohannis, good to meet you,” he said and stuck out his hand.

“Xhosa Bandile, and I am sorry for insulting you,” Hugo said as he shook his hand.

Klaus waved him off, “No no, I was just teasing you. What normally happens with new apprentices is that they walk up to all the other established apprentices first, and they get ignored. It’s only after they swallow their pride that they come to the human for help. I just wanted to mess with you because you figured it out so quickly.”

Hugo smiled, “I also figured that you must be something special to be a human in a grandmaster nox’s workshop.”

Klaus smiled, “I knew you were a smart one. You are right. I am something special. I created my own rune. No one else has done that for decades, but I did. It bought me an apprenticeship at the best shop in town. I might be the lowest one here, but I am going to jump straight to archmage when I return home.”

“What rune did you invent?”

He shrugged, “I’ll tell you about it in a few years when you can understand how awesome I am.”

Hugo nodded and said, “Sounds fair. So, how does this all work? What am I supposed to do first?”

“Did the grandmaster give you a list? Most of us get a list of tasks to work on during our first year.”

“Yeah, he gave me this and said he wouldn’t talk to me again until I had them all done,” Hugo said as he handed it over, “Some of them seem fairly easy, but I would certainly need help with some of them.”

“Whoo, boy. He must not like you much. This list will take you about two years to get done. Just the mana sight alone takes some nox six months to learn. And you have to have that to do almost any rune work. How does he expect you to rank up to eight if he isn’t going to talk to you and put you on a harvesting tour? And remedying runic plates? It’s almost impossible to fix someone else’s work. I can do it, but I am brilliant. Seriously, does the grandmaster hate you? Did you try to romance his daughter or something?”

Huh. This might be harder than he had expected, Hugo thought. Obviously he already had some of the skills Klaus thought were hard, but maybe he had bitten off more than he could chew by choosing a domain that wasn’t his highest stat.

“No, I didn’t even know he had a daughter. I thought he liked me until you told me otherwise,” Hugo said.

“Well, settle in. You are going to be here a while, much longer than the standard eight years if this list is anything to go by,” Klaus said, “Nothing for it but to just start working on. Come back to me first thing tomorrow morning and I can teach you infuse in exchange for a week’s worth of help on my projects. After that, we can discuss who can teach you mana dart.”

“Thanks so much, I really appreciate it.,” Hugo said. Then he remembered why he came over in the first place, “Oh, yeah I also wanted to ask, I have a few coins my parents gave me to help get me started. What materials should I buy to start me off with my rune making?” It wasn’t the question he really wanted to ask, but he figured the answer would tell him which element he should choose for his domain.

“A few coins won’t get you far with this domain, even if they are gold. Being a runic mage requires a lot of metal and rings to work at even a halfway decent pace. First off, we have to buy an obscene amount of mithril and gold daily. The gold doesn’t cost us too much, but the damn metal guild charges way too much for mithril. It’s insane. It only takes a few points of mana to create, but they act like kings deigning to talk to peasants when they sell it. And we have to just grin and bear it because of their monopoly,” Klaus said.

“Why don’t new formation mages pick mithril and undercut the guild?” Hugo asked.

“It’s a regulated element. If you can make it, you have to join the guild. And the guilds tend to permanently remove rule breakers. So the price always stays high,” Klaus said and shrugged.

An apprentice in the nearby stall overheard their conversation and walked over, “If you think mithril is bad, just wait until you graduate up to unobtainium. There’s only one guy in town that sells it, and he is an ass. Not only does he charge platinums for it, he makes you grovel every time you come over to buy any.”

A third apprentice came over and said, “You guys have it easy. At least there is always metal stock available. I’m the one that has to go buy the mana rings. It’s easy right after the heartbeat, but Acomarians help you if you need to buy mana rings the month before that. There is never enough then, and I have to get into bidding wars every time. Grandmaster Dandre yells at me when I overspend, but he yells at me even more if we don’t have the rings.” She showed her hand full of mana jewelry to emphasize the point.

“That’s a lot of rings. Why do you need so many?” Hugo asked.

Klaus said, “It’s basically a requirement of all high end rune work. It takes most of your mana pool to create a single rune. The only way to create something with two interconnected runes is if you have an enormous mana pool, or mana rings. Most of us have graduated to three runes, so we need a whole fistful of mana stones. Thank the gods that they last more than one use.”

The mana ring girl chimed in, “And we aren’t the only ones that need mana rings. Ritualists, alchemists, and life mages all need a steady supply. And don’t get me started on nobles that buy up stock to mess with me.”

Klaus put his hand on her shoulder and said, “It’s ok Zintle, it’s ok. We have plenty of rings right now, you don’t have to stress this month.” He led her back to her workshop as they talked.

Hugo left the compound with a spring in his step. He was a lot more optimistic about his success now. He was going to choose mithril and have the ability to create runes on demand. He wouldn’t need to use as many mana rings as others because of his crazy high mana pool. Things were looking up.

He headed back home so he could make a crossbow and take a shift up on the wall. He wondered how the nox manned their wall. Was there a casual volunteer process, or did he have to sign up somewhere?