Hugo watched in wonder as he saw the three staff members rush off into the forest. He didn’t know what was going on, but it was some sort of emergency. He walked over to Rasmus Jr and said, “What’s going on?”

“That light was someone’s emergency signal,” he said, “They went to go save a culling team that got in over their heads. There are only supposed to be low ranked monsters around here, but sometimes dangerous ones wander in.”

They all waited anxiously for the academy staff to return. In the meantime another team returned, the one that Sage Parum had been assigned to help. He walked up to the group of whispering upperclassmen and started talking to them.

“... and we think they are northwest of here,” someone was saying.

“I know they are northwest of here. I saw the emergency signal. I just don’t know how far away they were,” Rasmus Jr said.

Parem nodded and a set of blue armor appeared on his body. He ran forward and leapt. At the height of his jump a set of enormous blue wings and a tail appeared. He quickly disappeared into the distance.

Less than ten minutes later, a group appeared out of the edge of the forest. It was the lost team. Or what was left of them. Five of them were carried on blue platforms, unable to walk. As they got closer, Hugo could see that Sage Parem had given each of them mana bandages to keep them from bleeding out. There was only one student walking with the rescuing teachers. He could tell that all of them were having trouble breathing.

It took Hugo a few tries, but he finally believed his count. There were only six surviving students from this group. And no chaperone. It just didn’t make any sense. Last time around, no one had died. It would have been big news and he was sure that he would have remembered students dying on this first culling trip. It would have been the talk of the school for months.

Had he done something different? What could he have possibly changed that would result in students dying this time around? He couldn’t think of anything. Perhaps some unforeseen interactions between monsters? His team had killed the strix quickly because of his crossbow. Was that somehow to blame, or was something else the root of all this?

No answers came to him as he watched the assembled group swarm the rescued students and start healing them.

Sage Hanna paced back and forth as she watched the various life mages patch up the surviving students. Sage Parem walked up to her and said quietly, “What happened?”

Hugo walked closer to listen in.

“It was an ankheg mother. We think they ran, but one of the students wasn’t fast enough. Melina must have tried to save him. She died before I could get there,” Hanna said, her voice breaking at the end.

Parem put his hand on her shoulder and said, “I am sorry. I know you liked the girl.”

“It isn’t just that. She was noble born. This is going to be a big deal. I think her father has contacts on the board. They might cut funding,” Hanna said.

“We lose students, but it will not be the end of this school. It is tragic and I cry every time, but we lose students sometimes. There hasn’t been three years pass without a tragedy on one of these culling trips. We haven’t lost funding yet,” Parem said calmly.

“We also haven’t lost a noble in years either. The board cares a lot more about nobles than they do common born,” Hanna said.

“All life is sacred,” Parem said angrily.

“Not to them,” Hanna said sadly.

Sage Parem turned away abruptly. As he stalked off, Hugo tried to make himself small. This was his fault, albeit indirectly. That ankheg mother had to be the same one he had run from during his last life.

Now that she said it, his memories of that trip came back. He had joined a group with a light mage as a chaperone. They had hunted mostly small ankheg, insect monsters that lived in toxic gasses. After their hunt was done they had been chased away by an ankheg mother, a giant monster that was much stronger than the forest was supposed to support. Last time around the chaperone had just added that detail to her report.

But that hadn’t happened this time. This time, Hugo’s replacement had been too slow to run from the giant monster. Five people had died today. It hit home how close to death they all were, each time they went out on a culling trip. He knew that this wasn't really his fault but emotionally he felt responsible.

Hugo wished that he could go back, to try this year over again. He could make sure he was on the right team this time, and save their lives. But that wasn’t possible. The ritual that yanked his soul back in time wasn't working right, as evidenced by the fact that he was in the wrong body. He couldn't count on having another chance at this year. He just had to focus on the future and the people he could save from now on.

He tried to focus on something good. Ranking up always put him in a better mood so he pulled up his Acomarian screen and focused on that. Immediately, his dexterity went up by three. Over the next few days he would certainly feel that. He wondered how much his running speed would increase. How high would his dexterity need to be before he could run as fast as Sage Hanna?

Immediately after ranking up, he selected the lowest range of frequencies. The range of 8-200 would allow him to create wards. It wasn’t an urgent choice really, but he wanted to remove the temptation to choose the highest range. He didn’t want the ability to create black bolts. Next, he moved on to his three free stat points.

The plan that Dean Artjom had prepared for him involved upping his strength, resilience, and wisdom by one each. The strength was needed to keep up with his frankly ridiculous dexterity, the resilience would increase his health points and survivability. He had no idea why he was putting points into wisdom though. As far as he knew it was a useless stat. Even in the introductory classes they mentioned that it wouldn’t actually make him wiser. Still, he supposed he could trust the dean with one stat point. Once he was done, he looked over everything.

Cristian Fieraru [Barrier Domain]

Strength (16)

Dexterity (27)

Resilience (9)

Regeneration 13

Intelligence 10

Wisdom (10)

Charisma 11

Perception 11

Rank 8

158/900 Points

Health 12/14

Mana 78/86

Skills: Mana Dart 2, Mana Sight 2, Fabricate 4, Solidify 5

Frequencies: 400-700, 8-200

Elements: Mithril, Choice Available

It looked good. He was happy to see the improvements across the board. His mana pool was getting ridiculous. The enormous size was starting to stress him out. He felt like he should be doing more with it.

And just like that, his temporary good mood was gone. He felt the guilt over the lost students wash over him and he returned to the mana cart to wait for the return journey. Alice found him and sat by him, but neither of them talked.

...

It was raining today. Many of his classmates were happy to see the rare rain. All Hugo could think about was the fact that barrier class was always held in an outdoor stadium. Hugo jogged through the rain, hoping that he would find instructions at the stadium on where else to go. He would hate to spend a miserable class out in the rain.

Instead of a note, he found something that shocked him. It really shouldn’t have, but it did. There was a massive barrier across the entire stadium, and Sage Parem was standing happily underneath.

Was he going to keep that shield up the entire class period? The barrier was enormous, and the constant rain must have put some strain on the sage. He knew from experience that even small impacts would reduce the amount of time he could keep a barrier up. Was the sage just that talented?

“Today we will be discussing mana control,” Sage Parem said and gestured to the barrier above them, “We are lucky to have an excellent example above us. I spent a large amount of mana on the rain shield today. If I didn’t have good mana control, the rain would quickly wear away the shield and we would all soon be wet.”

He walked over to the chalkboard and wrote out “Temperature and Mana” then he said, “Today’s topic is different than mana manipulation. It isn’t about moving mana about your body and creations, it is about controlling the mana after it has left your body.”

Two round shields appeared in front of his body. “Take these two shields. The one on the left, I stopped worrying about after I created it, and the one on the right, I am keeping a tight control on the mana. I am not trying to make it stronger, I am making it colder.” He knocked on the two shields twice, and the one on the left dissipated, and the one on the right held strong. “This colder mana keeps its shape better, makes it stronger, and makes it last longer. It’s just a matter of slowing down the movement of the mana within your construct. The only downside is that it takes more mental effort. That and it is literally colder. Nice in the summer, less fun in the winter. Incidentally, this principle is why barrier mages are so weak to fire, warm mana is softer.”

The sage then led the class through exercises designed to strengthen their constructions. There were varying levels of success even after everyone got the hang of it. Towards the end of the lesson, Sage Parem explained why.

“Making your mana creations colder requires an effort of will. It literally takes willpower. Some of you will find this innately easier than others. That is because the Acomarian system considers your wisdom stat the same as your willpower. If you want to get stronger barriers, you will need to invest in your wisdom stat with your rank ups,” their teacher said.

It was days like this that Hugo really appreciated his education. He could have learned a lot about being a barrier mage out in the wilds with a harvester team. But he never would have figured out that making his mana colder would make it stronger. And who could have guessed the connection between wisdom and barrier strength. Now he was glad that he had trusted the dean and assigned the point there when he ranked up.

It’s a good thing his academy training was helping him be a better mage. Schooling was expensive, he would need a great job after this if he wanted to pay off his loans.

To that end, he was excited to see what he could create with his second element. He already knew that he could make money just by creating mithril, he couldn’t wait to see what possibilities his second element opened up to him.

He went back to the library and started reading.

Now that he knew that he had two domains worth of mana to work with, Hugo could comfortably look at the heavier elements on the 96 elements list. Whether he added a stat point to dexterity or strength, it would still raise his mana pool. He had a lot of mana now, and it would only grow.

The first thing he looked at on the upper end of the spectrum was Neodymium. Apparently, this is the element they made magnets out of. It wasn’t a common element for most applications, but the book he was reading mentioned that it was in use with several different modern inventions. The mana gauge, compass, and cold box all used magnets. It was a tempting choice, particularly since he had a lot of fun in school playing with a magnet and iron filings.

There were several woods and stones on the list, but none of those seemed like a useful choice. He wasn’t even sure why the Acomarians had bothered to put them on the list. If you wanted wood or stone, you could just go harvest them, instead of spending a mage’s valuable mana on the materials.

The next element he researched was the top of the list, number ninety-six. Promethium. It was heavy and had the highest mana adjusted score in the book. Hardly anyone ever chose the element, since it acted like a weak black bolt. The element itself was deadly. Hugo imagined himself wielding a weapon of pure death in the battlefield.

He wasn’t alone in that idea, as the book detailed a very successful warrior in the 3260 civil war who had the element promethium. The man cut through the opposition, killing all that opposed him, even nox generals. But he died in his tent later in the war, apparently from sleeping next to his weapon.

Hugo decided to strike that one from his list. He didn’t want an element that was a danger to himself. Besides, if he really wanted to be an agent of death, he would have chosen black bolts in the first place. Instead, he had chosen wards right after he ranked up to eight.

Eventually, he decided on getting an element that would alloy with Mithril. That way he could get an element that would work well on its own, and with Mithril. That essentially gave him three different materials to fabricate with. He wanted the flexibility and an element he could make a large quantity of.

He later came to regret that choice. Hugo lost his eyebrows and almost his life when he unlocked his second element.