His mana wasn’t going down. As he fabricated each piece of the complex crossbow, his mana pool would dip down, and then just bounce back up. He felt a little tingle on his tongue as that happened.

That was convenient. His mana pool was being constantly refilled by the mana stone in his mouth. His mind immediately went to the possibilities. Could he just keep popping mana stones in his mouth in battle? Having a huge mana pool was powerful, but having a never ending source of mana was overpowered.

The mana stone in his mouth was quickly used up as he fabricated two crossbows and a pile of bolts. He wondered if he would need another mana stone sooner because some of it had gone to his mana pool. He started keeping track of when he had eaten a mana stone. He hoped that the data would give him an insight into his condition.

His next stop was the local metal guild. He wanted to keep everything legal during his final life. He had no desire to be on the run from their hunters again. He was going to have enough stress as it was when he attacked the Deva military base.

“Please take a seat, Mr. Ersatz,” the attendant said.

Hugo nodded and straightened his silver outfit. He hadn’t changed in the last four days. Whatever magics had created his outfit must have included self cleaning. He looked and smelled as fresh as day one. He made a mental note to buy more clothing like this. He loved how it felt, he just wanted something in a more modern style.

“The director will see you now,” the attendant said and led Hugo back to his office.

The room was nice, better than the office in Tembisa he had visited before. Hugo shook the human woman’s hand before he sat down. The chair was all metal construction, but it had the same amount of give as a feather cushion. Hugo bounced a bit in the seat.

The director laughed and said, “Everyone does that. Honestly, I have been thinking of switching them out for regular chairs so people can concentrate on me instead of the furniture.”

“Sorry about that, director. It is wonderful to meet you,” Hugo said. “I would like to discuss getting permission to sell mithril, and a permit to buy lead.”

The director nodded and said, “Do you have references? Both metals are highly regulated.”

“No, but I heard that I can take an oath to skip that requirement,” Hugo said.

She tipped her hand back and forth, “We much prefer references. Sometimes we make exceptions for promising formation mages, but that is the exception instead of the rule.”

Hugo frowned, “So you won’t be able to grant me a guild token?”

“Well, I suppose we can give you permission to sell mithril today. You will have to come back with a referral to buy lead. That’s an exceedingly dangerous metal, young man,” the director said.

Hugo nodded and took out ten gold. He would have to ask Dean Artjom for a referral when he talked to him next time.

“Hold on there, oath first. Mage Sewalt will assist us there,” the director said and called for her attendant. The attendant went across the hallway and fetched a mage stationed there. Hugo wondered why the woman hadn’t walked ten feet herself. The rich and powerful were a little ridiculous.

“Hey director. You were right, the shipments headed towards Mthatha were off. 89% instead of 92%,” the mage said.

“Hello Mage Sewalt,” the director said primly, “This is Hugo Ersatz. He would like to join our guild today. He has no references. Please administer the oath.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever. We need to talk about fines afterwards though. Hugo, raise your right hand and repeat after me,” Mage Sewalt said. His eyes started glowing yellow.

Hugo repeated the oath after him. He thought it was interesting that they employed a light mage instead of a shadow one for important oaths like this.

After the oath was done, the director looked at Mage Sewalt. The mage was still looking at Hugo, eyes still glowing. After a few beats the director said, “Well, Sewalt, what’s your verdict?”

“I am not sure,” Mage Sewalt said, “I mean, yes, he thinks he is telling the truth. But...”

“I look different, don’t I?” Hugo said, “I got hit by a broken ritual, weird stuff. What do you see?”

The mage’s eyes glowed even brighter for a moment before cutting out completely. He said, “I haven’t seen anything like it. You have a suffused mortal coil with a reflective substrate. Your refractive index should be above one, but it looks like you don’t even have one. The intent waves should be contained to your channels, but they wash across your whole body. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Hugo didn’t understand any of that. He was about to ask for clarification when the director interrupted.

“Is it pertinent?” the director said, “Should we still grant him membership?”

“Oh yeah, of course. He is easier to read than most. Totally an honest guy. Weird, but honest.” Mage Sewalt said. He wandered off, still talking to himself about wave interference.

“Sorry about that,” the director said and passed over the guild badge.

Hugo absentmindedly took the badge and left, still thinking about what the mage had said. Not that he had understood any of it. The man’s ramblings had still hammered something home. He wasn’t human. He had known that, but the last few days had gone smoothly. This was yet another reminder that he didn’t know what he was.

The next three days were spent as a salesman, hawking his crossbow design. He toured the wheel, selling it to anyone that would buy it. He figured that the design would get out eventually, he might as well be the one that profited from it. He got two platinum from Tembisa fabricators, one from Mthada, four from Paarl. No one in Ettel or Fontein wanted to buy a metal weapon. He didn’t even try to enter Deva. After selling all of his designs and one of his crossbows, he had amassed a total of eleven platinum and sixty gold. It was the most he had ever legitimately earned.

He had to take his final mana stone the next morning. That confirmed that his body was using mana to survive. If he used the stone to top off his mana pool, he would have to take his next stone sooner. Luckily he had a plan that night to ensure his supply. He took a nap during the day and showed up that night for a shift up on the Tallinn wall.

He made sure to have a large selection of mithril bolts available. He signed up for a night shift with a new attendant, but made sure to track down the captain from earlier. He wanted the man to know he was fulfilling his promise.

“Hello captain, remember me?” Hugo said with a smile.

“Yes, silver boy. Looks like you have a new toy,” the sentinel captain said.

“Yep, it’s a crossbow. I am a formation mage, made this myself. I sold the design recently. You will probably start seeing some of these pop up soon,” Hugo said.

The captain nodded and said, “That’s nice. Anyway, since you fulfilled your promise, I can put you on an easy section of the wall tonight.”

“Actually, I was wondering if I could get a difficult section. I need to earn myself some more stones, and I have plenty of ammunition today,” Hugo said.

The captain thought about it for a bit and then said, “Sure, Lieutenant Dima has been complaining about already running low on potions. I will send you over to his section, E4. He is handling the section on his own right now, so he will appreciate the company if nothing else.”

Hugo nodded and headed over to the correct section of the wall. He felt like an old hand at this point. He had volunteered on various walls dozens of times by now. What he saw outside of section E4 made him change his mind. He was still new at this.

The flickering fires outside the walls showed something strange. There was a low lying miasma cloud outside the walls in that section. It covered about four hundred yards in front of the wall. It reminded him of the poisonous cloud that mother ankheg produced, but this was different. Instead of a dense green, there was a thin purple gas on the ground. As Hugo walked up, a pair of stone gray grimlocks walked into the field. They immediately roared in pain and fell writhing to the ground. They were dead within moments. It was the most powerful poison Hugo had ever seen.

There was a single sentinel on that section of the wall, the only other people around were the men manning the ballista on either side of his section. Hugo nervously walked up to the man and said, “Hello, Lieutenant Dima, I was assigned to help you out today.” Hugo held up his crossbow to show how he would be doing it.

The sentinel turned and looked at Hugo and said, “Are you any good?”

Hugo shrugged and said, “I am alright. My crossbow here has pretty good range.” He looked into the distance and said, “Let me show you.”

There were a trio of river lizards just entering the light of the bounty fires. Hugo drew a bead on the closest one and waited until it was about six hundred yards away. He loosed a bolt and then quickly switched targets and shot at the other two monsters. Just as the final bolt was leaving his crossbow, the first one hit.

The water lizards were twice the size of a man, covered in a magical layer of water. They were mostly immune to blunt and fire attacks. The mithril tip of Hugo’s bolts was enough to get through its protection. The first two water lizards died one after another. The third monster sent a jet of water at Hugo’s projectile and knocked it off course. Hugo tisked and sent his remaining three bolts at the monster, as fast as possible. The first bolt was deflected again, but the other two pierced deep into the monster, sending a cloud of mana into the sky. Hugo missed having his exploding bolts. He didn't have the runic domain needed to make them, so he was stuck with standard bolts.

“Not half bad, kid. How often can you do that?” the lieutenant said.

Hugo lifted his bag of bolts and said, “I have ninety bolts in here. I can make about twenty more during our shift.”

“Well alright then. Seems like the captain finally sent me someone useful. Glad to have you, kid. My amaranth field can take care of all of the low tier monsters. If you can snipe the higher tier bogies, we will be golden,” Dima said with a smile.

That was perfect for Hugo, he wanted to continue ranking up and he wouldn’t get any points from the low tiered riff raff. They settled into a rhythm where Hugo would kill anything big and the small stuff was disintegrated by Dima’s poison field.

It wasn’t long before Hugo ranked up to sixteen.

Hugo Ersatz [Formation, Barrier, Runic Domain]

Strength 21

Dexterity 21

Resilience 10

Regeneration 20

Intelligence 20

Wisdom 12

Charisma 12

Perception 10

Rank 16

13/1700 Points

Health 20/20

Mana 84/124

Skills: Mana Sight 3, Inscribe, Fabricate 8, Solidify 6

Lingua: Isibhozo, Zintathu, Ntandathu, Zine

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

Elements: Mithril, Titanium, Porcelain, Spider Silk

Free Points: 20

As expected, he gained his runic domain back. He had plenty of free points now, but didn’t know where he wanted to put them yet. Gaining his domains back was already giving him plenty of stats. He remembered something about having the right stats as you hit rank sixty-four. He would have to talk to Dean Artjom about that again. He decided to hold off on assigning them until he had talked to the dean.

A few hours into his shift Hugo said, “Lieutenant Dima, I have been wondering. I was told that alchemists weren’t that common on the wheel because most recipes require monster parts that we don’t have.”

“That’s partly true. There are few high ranked alchemists like myself. The potions you have seen me toss all require monster blood which is scarce around here. It’s expensive to be an alchemist of my caliber. Still, there are plenty of low ranked alchemists on the wheel. Somebody has to make the shitty health potions and rejuvenation creams that the nobles love so much,” Dima said.

“If it’s so expensive, why are you still here? Wouldn’t it be easier to move outside the wheel?” Hugo said. He saw a twenty foot tall cyclops stumble into the light and he fired all six bolts at it. He reloaded as Dima answered.

“I like it here. I grew up here, my family is here. I think part of it is the fish and pond thing,” Dima said and tossed a potion down to refresh his poison field.

Hugo shot three more bolts before the cyclops finally went down.

Congratulations

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

Hugo dismissed the notification and said, “Fish and pond? I don’t know that one.”

“Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond, or a little fish in a big pond? I like being respected around here. If I left the wheel, I would be an average alchemist, nothing special,” Dima said.

Hugo nodded along. He had never heard that expression, but it made a certain kind of sense. He said, “Big pond for me. I have explored this pond enough, it’s getting a bit boring.”

“Plenty of kids say that, but it’s expensive out there. I bet you will be back home within a few years,” Dima said.

Hugo shrugged, “We will see.”

The rest of their shift was a quiet one. Hugo didn’t need to fabricate more bolts, his existing stash was enough. He ranked up to twenty-one by the end of the night. Hugo repeated the experience the following night, and ranked up an additional three more times. He decided to save his points for now. The following morning he collected his earnings from the shifts up on the wall, fourteen mana stones. It was a slightly disappointing haul.

The Rebane kid would have been ecstatic about that many mana stones. Hugo needed more than ninety of them just to survive the year, so he felt differently. He needed more. Way more. Hugo decided to volunteer every day until the end of the monster surge.

By the end of the monster surge, Hugo was all the way up to rank twenty-six. He was disappointed he hadn’t been able to hit rank thirty-two, because he was fairly sure that would get him his ritual domain back. Some sentinels had bought crossbows of his design, and their kills slowed his progress. Still, being paid to rank up wasn’t bad, and he had forty mana stones now.

He sent a pulse note ahead of himself and set up a meeting with the dean for a few days after the monster surge. Mia was invited as well. Hugo got into town early, and spent a few hours writing out everything he could remember for the year. He planned on handing it over to them. Since he couldn’t travel back in time anymore, he needed to put a backup in place in case he died. Kind of a macabre thought, but people wrote wills all the time.

“Hello Hugo, please come in, take a seat,” Dean Artjom said. Mia was already sitting down in the other chair. She nodded to him as he walked in.

“As long as you promise not to activate the lead bands in your chair,” Hugo said with a smile. He still sat down, knowing that the dean would trust him more now that he had helped stop a sabotage to the walls.

“I wanted to start off by saying thank you for warning us about the Deva spies. We were able to catch all eighteen spies with the cooperation between the sentinels and shimmer corps,” Dean Artjom said.

“Oh, whoops, I guess I forgot to tell you not to trust the shimmer corps” Hugo said, “Not really a problem this time, but will be for my next prediction.”

“Why shouldn’t we trust the shimmer corps? They are the main peacekeeping force in the city. The only reason we even involved the sentinels was because it was their walls,” Artjom said.

“Right, right. Let me give you the long version of the events and get you both up to speed,” Hugo said. He sat back and gave them a recap of the last five years of his life. Even skipping irrelevant details, it still took some time. Hugo enjoyed their shock when he demonstrated his two domains.

“That is a lot to take in,” Dean Artjom said, “The time travel is enough on its own, let alone the plot to destroy the wheel. I suspected something strange when you told me your name, Hugo Ersatz, but this is something else.”

Mia interjected, “Yeah, yeah. I already told you all about the time travel, remember? I am much more interested in this last loop. You said you got an all new body?”

“Yeah, from their perspective, it just looked like I appeared out of nowhere. I am not entirely sure what type of body I have, golem or magically enhanced human, or whatever. I need to regularly eat mana stones, so that is new,” Hugo said.

“Fascinating,” Mia said as she stared at him intently. She poked him in the arm and said, “What happens when you take this off?”

“What?” Hugo said.

“You appeared fully clothed, right? So your clothing appeared the same way your body did,” Mia said, “If you take the loincloth off an orc, it will dissolve into mana. A golem’s clothes wouldn’t dissolve, neither would a regular human’s. What happens to your clothes?”

“I am not an orc. I am a real person,” Hugo said, somewhat offended by the implication.

“Of course, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I was just curious. You have changed your clothes by now, right?” Mia said.