The next morning, they were up and moving as the sun peeked over the horizon. Everyone had slept in their armor, so the only thing they had needed to do was pack away their bedrolls. It felt weird to Hugo, to be up and going so soon after waking up.

Before they went too far, Parisa said, “Hey Ramin. Do you think we should head back now?” and patted her pack meaningfully.

Now that she mentioned it, it did seem weird just walking about with something that expensive unprotected. People would kill for much less.

“No, we are fine. Our little run in with the hydra shouldn’t derail our plans. We still need to help out these two girls with their respective goals. Unless either of you two have some objection to that?

Hugo shook his head. He was happy to stay out here and rank up further.

“We need to find some leaves for the aphids,” Yasmin said, “They can go a few days without eating, but I like to keep them fed daily if possible.”

“What kind of leaves do they eat?” Ramin said.

“They will most leaves. Oak, juniper, and ashjar are their favorite. Those leaves are small though, it would take some time for them to eat enough. If we want to keep moving, young grove leaves will work.”

“Alright, we will stop when we come across the next juvenile grove tree,” Ramin said.

Hugo had a sudden thought. The enormous trees that he lived in were called grove trees, which was normally a term for a group of trees. Maybe that was their name because they were all magically connected, even the ones way out here. Perhaps the riese could tap into that connection, and that was how they nourished themselves. Hugo would just have to connect with his inner riese.

Towards midday, they found a juvenile grove tree. It was only two hundred feet tall, instead of five hundred. Hugo convinced the other two to stay at the base of the tree and keep watch as he went up the tree with Yasmin.

“It’s so great that you have gotten over your fear of heights and insects,” Yasmin said when they were up there.

“Thanks for reminding me,” Hugo said jokingly although he was actually rather stressed to be up here. “I just wanted to get you alone. Remember how I said I don’t remember anything? Getting energy from The Mother is one of those things I forgot. How do I do that?” he whispered.

“Oh, that’s easy, no worries,” Yasmin quietly said, “Even kids can do it. So, first you focus on your connection with The Mother, then you have that firm in your mind, you...”

“What connection to The Mother? I don’t feel anything.”

“Ok, yeah. Lemme back up a step. You know how you always know where The Mother is?” Yasmin said and pointed off to the east.

Hugo thought about it and said, “No? Am I supposed to know where The Mother is at all times?”

“Yes? Maybe you don’t know that’s what it is, but you should always feel a gentile tug in one direction. Close your eyes, open your senses, you should feel it,” Yasmin said.

Getting a better grip on the tree branch, Hugo closed his eyes. It took him a moment to calm down. The fact that he was a hundred and fifty feet in the air with his eyes closed took a bit to get over. Once he had himself centered, he felt around, looking for this extra sense.

There was nothing.

He could feel himself moving on the gently swaying tree branch, he could feel the bark under his fingertips, he could hear the leaves rustling in the wind. But there was no pulling, no sense of something in the distance. With his eyes closed, he wasn’t even sure which direction was north.

“I don’t feel anything,” Hugo said, “Is it something you had to learn as a kid? Maybe it will take me time to relearn it.”

“I don’t know, maybe? It’s always been there, one of the six senses. I didn’t know it was possible to forget how to sense The Mother. I thought people that couldn’t sense The Mother were just disabled, like blind people or whatever. I hope that the soulmarking ritual didn’t make you permanently disabled. I am sure you are right about relearning it though, everything will be fine,” Yasmin said.

Hugo nodded. The way she said disabled made him think that riese weren’t as accommodating to disabled people as humans were. Come to think of it, he had never seen a blind riese or one that needed crutches. Hopefully it was because most riese were healthy and not that they hid their disabled people away.

It was likely that he wouldn’t ever get this sense back. He didn’t even have anything he could improve, there was just nothing there. With that depressing thought in his head, they got back on the aphids and headed down to meet the other two. Soon enough they were on the way to the huntmaster’s secret hunting spot again. Hugo decided he would have to sneak bites of food while they were on the trail and avoid eating at all in their camp. The lie about where he got his nourishment was going to be a real hassle.

To distract himself, he opened up his Acomarian screen and check how high he could rank up. Fifteen. That was impressive. He did help kill a hydra with a mana core though, so maybe he should have been even higher. Either way, he went ahead and ranked up and thought about where to allocate the extra points.

He needed to plan for the far future. It would be great if he was able to save everyone this time around, but he wasn’t counting on it. What points could he add now that would still be available if he had to restart this year?

The pattern so far was that whatever domain he had, those points were raised the next time. He had to formation domain first, and the next life his strength was doubled. When he had the barrier domain, the next life his dexterity started higher. Same thing with runic domain and intelligence. But it wasn’t a one to one ratio. It was always higher but the exact amount seemed random. He couldn’t put fifty points into his wisdom and expect to start the next life with fifty points in wisdom.

Still, that might not be a bad idea for this life. Wisdom helped resist the mind control of shadow magic, maybe he should pump it up. He already had decent stats in other areas, so he could just put a lot of points into wisdom and it wouldn’t be a terrible idea. Then again, he did want more health. And more charisma is always better for a princess slash military infiltrator.

He decided on putting seven extra points into wisdom to bring it up to thirty two. Since it was a multiple of eight, it might just be high enough to give him additional benefits. He put two points into resilience and three into charisma. He checked out the result.

Lina of the Brambled Wood [Ritual Domain]

Strength 21

Dexterity 20

Resilience (12)

Regeneration 9

Intelligence 24

Wisdom (25)

Charisma (13)

Perception 13

Rank 15

1386/1600 Points

Health 20/(30)

Mana 156/(180)

Skills: Mana Sight, Mana Dart, Inscribe, Fabricate 2, Solidify, Oblate

Lingua: Isibhozo, Choice available

Frequencies: 400-700, Choice available

Elements: Mithril, Choice available

Pact: Choice available, Choice available

It was looking good. He still had a few more choices to make though. The lingua was easy, he needed to pick a language he had memorized runes in. He went ahead and chose Zintathu. Since he was going to spend a lot of time out here hunting, he decided to pick the black bolt frequency for his barrier domain.

He almost chose titanium again, he had gotten used to the element and knew that he could make wonderful armor out of it. However, he knew by now that if he walked around in shiny metal armor, the other riese would find it weird at best. He didn’t want to stand out like that so he scrolled through the choices.

Maybe one of the wood options in the elements list. At one point he had thought that the ability to fabricate wood was ridiculous, there was plenty of wood out there that didn’t require a mage to create. That was one of the main benefits to formation mages after all, with practically no metal out there to mine, they were the main source of metal for society.

However, now that he wanted to blend in, he could just choose a hardwood to create anything he needed. The only question was would it be worth it? He was a princess after all, couldn’t he just commission anything he wanted? Should he reserve his choice for an element that he couldn’t easily get ahold of?

On the other hand, as a princess he should be able to get ahold of anything, including metals. It would be easier to just pick a wood and create whatever he wanted on the fly without raising suspicions. Plus, if he discovered he missed titanium, he could choose a third element as soon as he ranked up to sixteen.

His mind set, he selected a wood he had heard was often used for bow and arrows, osage orange. He was tempted to make something out of the wood right away, but he decided to wait until he could experiment unobserved.

The last choice available was for Pact. It was the set of choices for his new ritual domain. He didn’t want to make a decision until he had talked to an expert, but he decided to check out the list anyway.

It wasn’t anything like what he expected. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it wasn’t this. It was a list of all the various gods people prayed to. From Yahweh to Shiva and Ngabantu to The Mother. He was pretty sure that none of these gods were real, but the ritual domain used real magic. The category name seemed to indicate that the gods were real. He guessed that in order to do ritual magic, you chose a god and made a pact to it.

He hoped that he was wrong. He didn’t believe in any of these gods, in fact he actively didn’t want them to be real. If the gods were real, they were cruel. Life was far too harsh for benevolent gods. He had prayed to every single one of them when his father had been injured and... he shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that. He closed his Acomarian screen and looked around the forest.

At some point, they had left the area of the forest that had been depopulated by the tribbles. Their travel was greatly slowed down by the constant monster attacks. Dire wolves, slimes, tumble foxes, compys, they just kept coming. Ramin and Parisa killed them if the monsters attacked without warning, but if they knew they were coming, it was up to Hugo and Yasmin to take them out.

It wasn’t too hard, all of these monsters were tier one. Hugo was able to easily dispatch them. Yasmin less so. She had decent weapons skills, but less than decent combat instincts. Hugo constantly had to defend her back, or attack first when she was frozen with indecision. She seemed to be getting better as time went on, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. It would be a while before she was passible.

They didn’t travel nearly as far the second day as they had the first. By the end of the day, everyone huddled together in the roots of another grove tree. Hugo slapped his hand onto the tree trunk along with everyone else, and pretended to gain nourishment from the connection to The Mother. He made sure to position his body so that no one could see his hand wasn’t glowing.

The next morning, the huntmaster woke them all up with the sun. He said, “We will probably get to our hunting grounds by the end of the day. Thanks again to Yasmin for the fast transport. Lina, have you gained your domain yet? They say that sustained combat is the best way to unlock it.”

“Not yet,” Hugo lied. He planned on revealing his domain just before he found a teacher for it. He already knew that gaining a domain within a year was impressive, if he claimed that he had gained it within two days, they would suspect him of using a tamoko.

“No worries, we will get you that domain, and Yasmin her blessing. I am sure of it. The combat opportunities I have in mind are very intense and almost unending. You will love it,” Ramin said.

Hugo was very sure that he wouldn’t love it.

That night they found another grove tree, and camped up in the canopy. Ramin explained that this area was too dangerous to sleep near the ground, but the monster repellant powers of the grove tree should provide a good place to sleep.

Despite the fact that they weren’t precarious at all, Hugo still slept fitfully, afraid of rolling over in his sleep. When it was time for his watch shift, he was almost grateful.

Two hours after sunrise, they came to their destination. It was a forest of strange looking trees. They were larger than most, but smaller than a grove tree. Ramin proudly showed them the trees, and said, “Happy hunting.”

“Hunting what?” Hugo said.

“Can’t you tell? This is a colony of Greater Thrips. You have fought them before, two years ago, I think? You complained about it last time, but I think you will be grateful this time. This many thrips should provide you with serious combat experience. Parisa and I will only intervene if it looks like you might die,” Ramin said.

Great. Not only did Hugo still not see the monsters that were supposedly right in front of him, he was expected to know how to fight them.