Hugo sat down to make a plan to stop the sabotage. Or to be more specific, prevent the walls from collapsing. He knew that they hadn’t been sabotaged yet, but would probably be compromised sometime within the next two days. He needed to let the authorities know soon enough that they could do something about it, but not so soon that it would tip off the saboteurs.

That reminded him, there were multiple saboteurs, his city wasn’t the only one affected. The two cities to the west, and the two to the east had both had breeches in their walls. Paarl had been hit especially bad. He needed to come up with a good plan, lives were depending on him being convincing.

He thought about using the gang connection again, pretending to have some inside information like he did with the train jackers. It was a bad idea though. Even the worst gangs wouldn’t willingly compromise the security of a city they lived in. Whoever was planning this sabotage probably wasn’t a citizen of any of these cities.

So either he had to tell the truth and hope that they would believe him, or he had to convince the sentinels that he really had some source of believable intel. Time travel still sounded loony to him, so that was plan B. He didn’t have a plan A yet though.

Back to basics. What did he know? He knew that the walls had been sabotaged. Specifically the runes on the wall. The actual stone construction was never strong enough to repel monster attacks, it was always the magic of the runes on the wall that held the monsters back. Hugo guessed that there was a ritual powering them too.

Since the walls only fell in one section, it was probably difficult and time consuming to sabotage the whole wall. Either that or there was only one saboteur in the city. And somehow no one had seen it happen, so they had to be sneaky.

Hugo snapped his fingers. They hadn’t actually been that sneaky. The sentinels had mentioned that a runic inspector had died a few days before the walls fell. The saboteurs must have killed him to keep their work undetected. So whatever sabotage happened, it was something non-experts wouldn’t notice, but also something that people with the runic domain could detect.

Could he just tell them to inspect the walls? If the right people found the problem before the monster surge crested, then his job would be done.

There were two problems with that idea. First, he wasn’t sure that he would be believed. Probably not, in fact. He had no evidence to support his claims. The walls had looked fine to the naked eye, so it was unlikely anyone would take him seriously.

The other problem was that if he stopped the sabotage without uncovering the spies, then they would just try something new. His awesome future knowledge would be useless if he changed things too soon.

He needed to catch them in the act.

It shouldn’t be too hard. He knew roughly when they had been sabotaged. It must have happened at night, and it had to be tomorrow night or the night after. He also remembered exactly where it happened, wall section southwest three.

It wouldn’t even be suspicious for him to be there, since students were already volunteering on the wall during the monster surge. He just had to time things right so he could catch them in the act, but also not have any suspicion fall on himself.

The only problem was that he wasn’t allowed out of the academy except on his regularly scheduled shift. The academy security was always tight. They said it was to keep the young mages safe, but Hugo knew the real reason. It was to keep unruly mages in.

Each of the students in this academy had only recently gained a great deal of power. It only made sense to keep them contained as they learned responsibly and how to safely control their power.

As reasonable as the security was, Hugo still needed to get out at night. He just didn’t know how. He fell asleep before he could think of any solutions.

...

The next morning, Hugo started the day by ranking up. He had gained a few ranks worth of points yesterday due to the survival effect, and he needed all the power he could get if he was going to stop whoever was planning on making the walls fall.

He expected two ranks, but he ended up with enough points to rank up three times. Knocking the antlion off the wall must have been enough to get him that final rank. He mentally accepted the rank ups, and his dexterity rose by three points.

That left him with three unassigned stat points. His rank up plan that Dean Artjom had given him told him to put a point in strength, dexterity, and regeneration. But he wasn’t sure if he still wanted to do that. He was considering putting all three into strength.

Extra power might be needed if he was going to deal with adults. Now that he knew that he actually had two domains, putting all of his points into strength would also increase his mana pool. Although, the same would be true if he put all three into dexterity.

Of course, there was also something to be said for faster regeneration. If he ever ended up in a longer engagement, regeneration would be key. Plus, he would be able to create weapons for himself and still have mana later.

It all came down to the fact that he didn’t know what he was dealing with. He could plan around hypotheticals, but any choice he made would really just be a wild guess.

He knew that all his planning wouldn't make a difference anyway. Stat point changes weren’t instant. Each of the points assigned would take some time to actually take effect on his body. He would probably only get the benefits of a single point assigned before tomorrow night. He decided to just follow the dean’s plan and assigned his points that way. He took a look at the result.

Cristian Fieraru [Barrier Domain]

Strength (15)

Dexterity (24)

Resilience 8

Regeneration (13)

Intelligence 10

Wisdom 9

Charisma 11

Perception 11

Rank 5

21/600 Points

Health 11/12

Mana 68/78

Skills: Mana Dart 2, Mana Sight, Fabricate 1, Solidify 2

Frequencies: 400-700

Elements: Mithril

Hopefully some of these points would lose their parentheses soon as he gained their effects. Either way though, it would be nice having a larger mana pool. Even if he had the stats of a young adult, he had the mana pool of an adult mage.

...

Sage Parem stepped up on the stage and said, “Today’s barrier domain term is anchor, or frame of reference. It is an important one to understand. We talked yesterday about how barriers are temporary and static. Once you place the barrier, you cannot change it, and barriers last longer the more mana you invest into them.”

“Now we are moving on to frame of reference. Barriers cannot move from where you place them,” he said. The teacher created a small round shield in front of him and walked around it to show that it stayed in the spot he cast it.

“I know many of you are thinking right now, ‘Of course barriers can move, I have seen them move’,” he said and created a blue buckler attached to his arm. He waved his arm around to show that the barrier could move. “Well, what if I told you that this barrier isn’t moving?”

He paused a moment, perhaps hoping for gasps. The class stayed quiet, just waiting for the lesson to move on.

“Well. The barrier I just created isn’t moving, relative to my arm. I created my little shield here exactly one inch from the surface of my forearm, and it has stayed in that spot the whole time.” He turned his arm to the side so everyone could see the small gap between his arm and the shield. Then he moved his arm around and showed them how the shield stayed put, relative to his arm.

“This is what is called a frame of reference, or an anchor. The barrier spell is using a point on the skin of my arm as an anchor. The mana continually orients itself from that anchor. The barriers you have created up to this point have always used your soul core as its anchor. We are going to do some practice, choosing a new anchor, the ground below you. This way you will be able to create a barrier and walk away from it,” the sage said and demonstrated the technique. “At your skill level, you won’t be able to go far from your construct, but having a stationary shield is very useful in many situations.”

Hugo was only half paying attention. He needed to find a way to get on the wall tonight. Almost negligently, he created a shield with the floor as its anchor. After seeing Elise do it last night, he had spent some of this morning figuring it out for himself. As the other students struggled with the new concept, Hugo tried to come up with solutions.

Walking away from his stationary shield, he talked to a few other people in class. Only half of them had their shift on the wall yesterday. The other half were scheduled for late this afternoon. He was hoping that he would be able to switch shifts with them, and stay out after the shift ended.

No one would switch with him.

Everyone wanted to rank up as soon as possible, so they wouldn’t agree to any deal that he proposed. It didn’t help that even the poorer students were richer than he was. He didn’t have much to negotiate with.

He walked to the back of the class and started practicing along with the rest of them. His mind kept racing along as he formed and recycled shields. Eventually he decided to focus on his barriers instead of worrying. It was something concrete and wholly within his power.

Continuing with his exploration of Elise’s example, Hugo started to change the shape of the barriers he created. It was surprisingly difficult. All of his practice so far had been with the same shape, and altering this one proved difficult.

He considered asking Sage Parem for advice, but the teacher was busy at the moment. Eventually he attempted applying the formulas he had learned in formations class to his mana barriers.

It worked, kind of.

He was able to make a small knife out of blue mana, but strangely the creation used three times the amount of mana it should have. He experimented with the process, and realized that his creation was very mana dense, and it didn’t have to be. The second attempt was better, but incredibly weak. The third time was the charm, he had the shape he wanted without wasting mana.

Elated, he tried out many of the weapon designs he knew. Spears and knives, swords and crossbows. Although the crossbow design was a bit of a waste of mana, since these barrier creations couldn’t bend or flex. He did notice one major flaw in each of the designs, none of the edges were sharp. He wondered if there was something he was missing, or if he just needed more experience and mana control.

He made grieves for his lower legs and set the anchor for his creation as his shins. Then he walked around for a bit, proud that he had kind of figured out mana armor. He wondered how difficult mana shoes would be.

An idea blossomed in his head. This is how barrier mages walked on air! They just created a barrier with the bottom of their feet as the anchor. The barrier foot combo would act like stilts. He could use this trick to get himself over the wall. He didn’t have to switch shifts with anyone, he could just air walk his way out of the academy.

He couldn’t wait to go back to the dorms and try it out. As soon as he was alone, he hopped up on his bed and stuck his feet out. He made a shield two feet away from his right foot. Then he realized he needed to make two shields. One for each foot.

It wasn’t something he had practiced before. He knew it was possible, and apparently something first years learn. But he hadn’t ever tried before now. This experience was teaching him that he needed to think more creatively about how to use his barrier magic. He didn’t have to just wait until he was taught something.

Creating a separate shield wasn’t that hard at first. He just had to think about it and he was done. But maintaining two for any length of time took real effort. When he tried to create three, they all dissolved into mana and he couldn’t recover any of it.

After a bit of practice, he started over with his mana stilt idea. He had two shields, each two feet away from his feet. He carefully stood up.

And promptly fell on his face.

His dexterity was useless, the shields were round and the anchor on his foot just made them precarious. He adjusted both and tried again. He fell again.

This time he slowly reshaped the shields to a stable configuration, one that wouldn’t shift under his feet. It didn’t work. The surface of the shield was very slick, and slid every time he put uneven pressure on his feet.

After he fell for the fourth time, he realized he was doing this all backwards. The anchor shouldn't be his foot. It should be the ground. He didn’t need to make stilts, he needed to make platforms he could walk on.

This time he made a small box with sides that would stop his foot if he slid. He carefully stepped up on it. It cracked as he put his full weight on it. Pushing a bit more mana into the construct solidified it and he was able to stand two feet into the air. He created a second box, and stepped three feet into the air. Recycling the first allowed him to create a third box, and now he was four feet in the air and in danger of hitting his head on the ceiling.

With a huge smile, he recycled the mana for all of them and dropped to the floor. He had it. He could do this. He was going to be able to climb his own mana all the way up and over the walls.

He practiced a bit more before he collapsed onto his bed. He knew he didn’t have the process fully mastered yet, but he needed to conserve his mana. If he wanted the best chance of getting out of the academy tonight, he needed a full mana pool to work with.

The sun was still up but he decided to go to sleep now. He wanted to be able to wake up in the middle of the night when the sabotage was most likely to happen. He drank several glasses of water so he would wake up in the night.