Hugo missed athletics today, sleeping in after the rough night. Stopping saboteurs and almost getting killed really took it out of him. Missing the class would make things rough tomorrow, so he didn’t plan on making it a habit. He got up in time to attend his second class. Getting ready for the day showed that his ribs were still sore, but they were much better than last night. Thank the Acomarians for health points.

History class was diverting. He knew the history by now, but the etiquette lessons afterwards took some attention to navigate properly. During lunch he finally had some time to think.

The other cities needed to be warned. He had an afternoon shift on the wall today, and the walls would fall in the middle of the night tonight. He needed to come up with a solution before then.

Getting a pulse note out to the other cities wouldn’t be too hard. They had an office in the academy with the ability to send pulse notes. He could send something to the sentinels of Ettel, Tallinn, and Paarl and it would be there in minutes. But anything he wrote out would have to be translated into dots and dashes, sent out through the shimmer veins and translated back into words at the destination. There would be too many people who knew about the message for him to remain anonymous.

It took him most of lunch but he finally had a better idea. He jumped up to implement it while he still had time.

Late that afternoon, the monster wave was in full swing. The countryside for a hundred miles around had been depleted of mana when shimmer mountain’s heart beat. That started the annual chain reaction of monsters searching for the mana they needed to survive. The weaker monsters had been dissolved into mana days ago, and the stronger monsters were heading towards the only source of mana left around. The cities.

Hugo jogged along the wall as bolts were fired and magic was slung across the countryside. As a new student, he was here to take advantage of the survival effect, and bump himself up to level four. But he was already at level four, so this whole exercise was a bit of a waste from that perspective.

Far from being bored though, Hugo’s heart was beating a mile a minute. In addition to horrible monsters he still had to enact his plan. It was a bit of a risk but it was the best idea he had.

In his hands was a note he was supposed to send on to central command. It was a regular status update. Monster kills and resupply numbers. Hugo ducked in the corner near a ballista and got out a quill and some paper. He had brought along just enough ink wrapped in wax to write a single note. Carefully, he copied the handwriting of the status update, but wrote his own message. He still signed it with the signature of the section captain.

Sabotage of main control rune on city walls found. Evidence of coordinated efforts with outside forces. Send pulsenote to all allied cities on the wheel to inspect wall control runes with mana sight.

Hugo nodded, that was sufficient warning, and sufficiently vague so they wouldn’t investigate the source of the knowledge too much. They wouldn’t check into the veracity of the note until tomorrow when it was clear that their unknown adversary had visited four of the eight cities. Ideally, the captain who had caught the saboteurs last night would take credit for the message.

He pocketed the quill and original note, and ran off to deliver his fake. He tried to keep his face neutral, but he must have been unsuccessful. Elise looked at him strangely as she took the note, but thankfully didn’t say anything. She just ran off to deliver it.

The rest of the shift was full of anxiety. First he was worried that they would trace his involvement back to him. Later he was worried that they hadn’t passed on the warnings. No one would tell a lowly messenger what was going on either way.

A glance towards the monster horde showed a few large monsters, an allosaurus and a surrass. No giant ants today though. There were some insects though, a swarm of rino beetles were scaling the wall nearby.

Hugo stepped closer. They weren’t supposed to be able to do that. The runes were supposed to project an energy field that prevented monsters from climbing the walls. He ran back to the inner portion of the wall and activated his mana sight. Maybe there were other saboteurs, ones that had

The control rune was still working.

Then why were there monsters climbing the walls? He checked over the mana flow, trying to find the fault. There was none.

A voice came from his left, “Does it look good to you, young man?”

Hugo jerked up his head to see a sentinel. Based on his robes, it was probably a runic domain sentinel. “Yeah. I don’t see any problems. Oh, sorry if I am in your way or anything,” Hugo said and took a step back.

“No, no it’s fine. We can use all the help we can get. Not too many people have mana sight like the two of us.” He said with a chuckle, “Did you hear about the sabotage? I didn’t think that had gotten out.”

“Oh, well. I am a messenger today, so I heard some things.”

“Well, keep it to yourself as much as you can. Not that we can expect to keep it a secret with the other cities involved, but orders are orders,” he said and looked down at the runes with glowing blue eyes.

Relief washed through Hugo, that meant that his message had gotten through, the other cities were warned. Then a thought occurred to him. “I was checking because I saw the rino beetles climbing the wall. They shouldn’t be able to do that, right?”

“Actually, they can. It’s a bit annoying. Come, let me show you,” the runist said and walked to the outer side of the wall. He pointed down, “If you look carefully, you can see that the repulson field is still active. These are cyno beetles, not rino beetles. They have the ability to grasp magical fields. They can climb the walls even when everything is working properly. Quite frustrating.” He held his hand out and shot a mana dart down towards the lead beetle who was about a third of the way up the wall. The shot killed the monster in one hit, instantly turning it into a puff of blue.

A few more shots killed two more beetles. When the third shot missed, he huffed and said, “Well, that’s not my job anyway. I got to go inspect the rest of the wall. I am sure someone has this covered.”

As the runist walked off, Hugo could see that he was right. There were a few harvesters nearby shooting down at the cyno beetles. They had just been waiting for the monsters to get into range.

Hugo decided to take advantage of the situation himself. He had relearned the mana dart skill weeks ago, so he shot down at the approaching monsters. Most of his shots struck home, but the monsters were tough. His fourth hit got lucky, hitting a monster’s leg. The shot was enough to unbalance the beetle and sent it falling to its doom.

He was very proud of himself. A quick check also showed that the kill was enough to get him his next rank up, to five. He smiled and aimed for the next closest monster.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” the nearby harvester said.

Hugo shrunk back, embarrassed. He did have somewhere else to be, and he didn’t need to be stealing the kills of hard working harvesters. He ran off, focusing on the job he should have been doing all along.

...

The next day he was standing with the rest of the first years listening to the speech of Sage Hanna, the athletics teacher. The events with the wall weren't his concern anymore. Oskar had confirmed everything Hugo wanted to know, the academy rumor mill working overtime. No walls had fallen, the warning had gotten there in time. In several cities spies were caught and presumably interrogated. Hugo tried to put it out of his mind, it was the government’s job now.

Hugo tried to focus on the speech. Minutes later he gave up and tuned it out. He was doing that a lot these days. It had been a subjective year ago, but he had heard all of this before. He didn’t need to listen to hardly any of the Sages, with the exception of Sage Parem. It was all a repeat of what he had learned before.

Today’s class with Sage Hanna was particularly boring. She was explaining the obstacle course, something that he had run hundreds of times before. With his current stats, it would be a surprise if he didn’t make it more than halfway through the course with his eyes closed.

This whole course seemed so boring and a hassle. Although, it was clear that his fellow classmates didn’t feel the same way. Many of them looked excited for the challenge.

Looking over, he saw a determined look on Elise’s face. She looked like she was going to beat the course just by staring at it hard enough. She seemed reasonably fit, so she would probably do well. She still hadn’t said thank you for when he saved her life earlier. It annoyed him. Plus there was the fact that she told him that she hated him that first day.

With a start, Hugo realized where he knew Elise from. This tall beauty with blond hair was the same one that dominated the obstacle course last time around. She was the first person to get to the yellow section. She was also the first person to use her domain to get ahead. She learned the secret of walking on air before anyone else did.

With a grin, Hugo realized that he could be that person now. He already knew the course and could easily make it to the next section. If he remembered right, this first day with the obstacle course had the whole class falling into the water. If he could not only show her up, but also demolish the course, it would just make his day.

He had some practice with walking on air already. He could rush through the green section, walk through the yellow section and laugh at Elise’s face when he reached the red section on his first attempt. This was going to be awesome.

A careful look over the course reminded him of every section and how best to beat it. The first few sections were just narrow, anyone with a modicum of balance could walk them. The wooden rope bridge was best done at full speed while no one else was on it. The stagger step jumps were easy when you had confidence. The rings needed to be done slowly, they would spin if you went too fast. The warped wall was the first big obstacle, but Hugo knew that it was all about getting the right speed and placing your feet and hands at the right angles. Then it was a swing and a few jumps and the green section was done.

The yellow section had additional swinging obstacles designed to knock you off of the course. Beating them was just a matter of getting the timing down and having a good sense of movement around yourself. Hugo was pretty sure he could tackle the whole thing today, with the use of his barriers to walk around the most difficult section. He would stop there today, he knew everyone would be super impressed with that performance as it was.

They lined up, the whole first year’s class running the course at once. There were several courses in parallel so it wouldn’t take too long for everyone to have a turn. A glance behind himself made Hugo smile. Elise was lined up just three people behind himself. She would have a front row seat to his glorious victory over the course. If he remembered correctly, she would be able to beat the green course her first time. She would just have to watch in wonder as he beat the yellow section though, she didn’t have the skills to begin to tackle it.

“Keep going, keep going! After you fall, run back and get back in line,” Sage Hanna yelled, “The only place to rest is at the end of the green section.”

Hugo smiled, he wouldn’t be resting there.

He gave the person in front of him a head start, he knew that he would be running the course much faster than most. He ran the narrow sections after they fell. The bridge was behind him before he even thought about it. Stagger steps done, he had to wait for the previous person to fall before he carefully navigated the rings. Now he was on to the warped wall. Elise was the only one there with him. Everyone else had fallen off at this point.

Hugo gave her a small smile as he ran right at the curved wall and climbed up on his first try. He knew it was incredibly difficult to get the timing right and she would be stuck there for a while. His ribs gave him a twinge of pain as he rolled up to the higher level.

He caught a glimpse of her expression before he moved on to the next step. It wasn’t frustration or anger. It was desperation. She had this look of fear and panic that he was getting farther than she was. It confused him.

Why did she care so much? This was just an obstacle course. You didn’t even get graded on how far you got, just how hard you tried. Maybe the fact that Hugo was doing better than her in all the classes was really getting to her. Was she getting pressure from her parents to perform? He didn’t know much about her, he suspected she was nobility, but didn’t know where she fell in the hierarchy.

He could hear her try and fail as he stood there thinking. Grunts of pain and disappointment. He looked forward to the next section. This was the first part of the course that would get you wet if you fell off. The trick was to keep your feet on the middle of the platforms, they would tip you into the water if you stepped on either side.

Elise’s hand’s appeared on the edge of the platform behind him. That hadn’t taken her long. Most people needed several days of effort to get up. As she levered herself up, Hugo looked towards the next obstacle.

Hugo carefully calculated his leap onto the next platform. He fell off the tipping platform and into the water.