The date with Daniela had gotten a little more complicated. The riese prophecy predicted a revolt against the nox, and he couldn’t tell if it was related to the exploding mountain, or if it was an unrelated catastrophe.

“Wait. If everyone knows about this prophecy and the riese are planning on it, doesn’t that just make it a planned insurrection? The last one of those didn’t go very well. The nox put it down pretty harshly,” Hugo said.

“Yes and no. Everyone assumes that there will be an insurrection of some sort, but as far as I know, there is no one planning on it. The general consensus is that the riese will wait for someone else to act, and then just kinda join in once the revolt has started,” Daniela said with a shrug.

“That seems like an unstable mana shard, waiting to explode,” Hugo said.

“Yeah, well, there is a reason dad sent me to a city far away for my education. One less person to worry about when the shard goes off,” she said.

“Well, I am glad that your dad decided to send you here so I could meet you,” Hugo said.

“Me too,” she said with a giggle.

While they were talking, they arrived at the girl’s dorm building. Hugo stopped a little ways away from the door. He said, “I had a lot of fun tonight.”

“It was a blast, I am glad you won the bet,” Daniela said. She tucked her hair behind her ear, but didn’t make a move towards the door.

Hugo raised his arms for a hug, and she slipped right into them. He smiled over her shoulder, as wide as his face would allow. As the hug ended, he didn’t pull away. He looked her in the eyes and leaned forward.

She leaned forward too. Both of them stopped and started a few times before their lips finally met. The kiss was sweet and short. Hugo’s heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Thanks for the date, Hugo,” Daniela said.

“Yeah, we should do this again sometime,” Hugo said, his head still swimming.

“It’s a bet,” she said and skipped to the dorm entrance.

Hugo considered skipping back to the boys dorm, but he held himself back. He had to look cool in case she was watching.

Laying in bed that night, Hugo wondered if he had finally gotten things right with a girlfriend. It had only been one date, but things were promising. She was different from the other girls. After that mess with Lenna and Sofia’s betrayal before that, he felt like he was due for a good relationship.

That reminded him. He promised himself he would send Sofia’s family money once he had enough. His winnings from azad certainly qualified. He felt a little silly sending her money after he remembered how she did him wrong. But he knew she was just trying to look out for her family and he respected that. He sent her the money he could easily spare. He included a letter that encouraged her to stop spying on Kristofer for his father. It was the most he could do for her, and he wished her well.

...

He saw Daniela again just the next day in barrier class. She waved to him as she walked into the stadium and Hugo waved back. She was so cute. He had hoped that she would come sit with him, but she kept walking down to the front of the class. She sat with her friends, and they glanced back at him and giggled.

It took an effort of will, but Hugo decided that was a good thing. He had to tell his brain over and over again that giggling meant that they liked him, not that they were making fun of him. It was tough, and he was glad when class started so he could focus on less embarrassing subjects.

“Shapes! Today we will be doing interesting shapes and configurations with your barriers,” Sage Parem said. He created an array of objects as an example, a chair, a toy train, a stuffed monster. “I know what some of you are thinking, we have already been doing shapes for a while. And that isn’t quite true. You have been reforming the default shape that your barrier domain has instinctively given you, a flat plane. You will find that cylinders and cones are actually quite difficult. And once don’t get me started on spheres. I expect it will take a week or two of practice with making spheres before you are able to make one perfectly round.”

Hugo tilted his head in confusion. He was pretty sure he already knew how to create shapes out of his barrier element. He made a small club, out of sight of the other students. It worked just fine, and it was a cylindrical shape. He had made them a while ago too, it wasn’t like it was all that hard. Next he created a small ball in his hands. The sage was right, the barrier didn’t want to create a perfectly round sphere, it wanted to keep the top and bottom open. It was like the barrier wanted to stay a sheet and he was just bending into shape.

Sage Parem continued his lecture, but Hugo was lost in his own world. He recycled both creations and tried again. Lumpy sphere again. This was frustrating. He knew from his experience with his formation domain that spheres were very simple. It was just 4ℼr². One of the simplest equations he had to memorize for his fabrication skill. With that formula in mind, he created a sphere with his barrier domain.

It worked! A perfect sphere hovered above his hand.

The question was, why had that worked? Sage Parem had never taught them any formulas and calculations. He had insisted that the barrier domain didn’t need any math and worked off of instinct. Which may be true for other people. He bet that their instincts were just discovering the right configurations without all the math. That might be easier in the short run, but Hugo knew that he would be able to create almost anything he wanted without a lot of practice. He just needed to write up the correct formula and apply it to his barrier domain.

Sage Rasmus and Sage Parem acted like their domains were very different, but they weren’t really. One made permanent objects, and one made temporary objects. There were some important implications to this comparison. Hugo could use a mixture of instinct and math to create things from both domains. He could be faster and more accurate with both domains with this approach.

As the sage continued his lecture up front, Hugo was in the back of the stadium, creating balls and columns out of blue mana. A sudden inspiration came. He hadn’t been able to create useful barrier armor before. He could probably do so now. He grabbed his bag and took out his writing supplies. It would be incredibly useful to have an on-demand helmet, so he started writing out the needed formula.

“By the gods, you are so insufferable,” a voice said and brought him back to the stadium.

Hugo looked up to see Elise. He frowned. She was getting insufferable herself. How could a bit of math possibly offend her? It seemed like everything he did made her mad. The fact that he knew she had a crush on him only made it worse, not better. Shouldn't you be nice to people you liked?

“Sage Parem says that spheres are so difficult that it will take weeks of practice before we could create one. Then when he starts practice time, you create a sphere and pretend to do your homework. That is so arrogant. Do you really think you are that much better than us?” Elise hissed out.

A glance to the side showed what she was so worked up about. He had forgotten to recycle his last sphere, he had left it hanging in the air by his side. His frustration with her turned into embarrassment. He could see why she was upset with him. It really did look like he was showing off. He immediately recycled his sphere. A glance around showed that most of the class hadn’t seen it, just the two people near the back with Hugo.

“Sorry about that. I wasn’t trying to show off. I just got distracted,” Hugo said.

“Distracted? Come on. I know you are trying to play it cool, but you can’t sell me three day old fish,” Elise said with her arms folded.

Hugo looked down at his paper then back up to her. It was weird, knowing that she liked him now. She was trying to get his attention in the worst way possible. He leaned back, considering. “Do you want to know how I did it?”

“What?”

“There is a trick to it. I’m not talented, I just came at it from a different angle. Do you want me to teach you how I did it?” Hugo said. He still wasn’t interested in dating her, but he figured he could afford to be nice. Plus, he wanted to see if his method would work for her too, or if it was only useful for him with his two domains. He would teach Daniela how to do it if it worked with Elise.

The warring emotions were plain to see on her face. She was frustrated with him, but she was also driven to excel. After a few long moments, she sat down next to him and said, “Fine. Fine. I will listen to what you have to say, just don’t waste my time.”

Carefully keeping a smile off his face, Hugo got out a new sheet of paper. He drew as he talked, “I used math to guide my mental imagery. Sage Parem’s method will work if you can’t stand math, but I think this way is faster.” He paused to see that she was paying rapt attention, “I am sure you remember the way to calculate the circumference of a circle is 2ℼr. Pretty simple equation, pi is 3.14 by the way. Anyway, the surface of a sphere is 4ℼr², only a little more complicated. Let’s assume you want to make a sphere with a radius of 2 inches. You throw that into the equation, do a little mental math and you come out with 50.27 volumetric inches. Just a little fourteen year old math. You with me so far?”

She stared at the paper for a moment before saying, “Yes, I vaguely remember learning all of this.”

“Right. So I believe that the mana needs a guide. The Acomarian system can control mana with amazing precision, but we need to tell it what to do. If you keep this equation in your head, the whole equation and not just the answer, then that will help the system understand what you want,” Hugo said. He put his finger on the equation and created a four inch wide sphere hovering directly above it.

“Are you sure? Sage Parem specifically said we don’t have to do math,” Elise said.

Hugo recycled the sphere and said, “Look, you just saw that it worked. You saw that. I don’t know why he didn’t teach it this way, maybe he hates math. All I know is that this works.” He sat back and didn’t say anything more. Either she would learn from this or she wouldn’t. His conscience was clear either way.

She stared at the paper and said nothing. Hugo looked around the stadium and watched as the rest of his class practiced making a cylinder. Most of them were having trouble. The majority were able to make a curved sheet, but few were able to curve it all the way into a cylinder.

Finally, Elise seemed to make up her mind. She put her finger on the equation and pushed mana through her skill. A construct slowly appeared through her use of solidify. It wavered in place and then shattered into blue dust.

“Keep going, you almost had it,” Hugo said, “Remember, you need to keep the whole equation in your head at the same time, all the steps plus the answer.”

She frowned and tried again. This time her solidify worked, but it created a wobbly spheroid. She immediately recycled it. She paused and stared at the paper for a while before trying a third time.

This time it worked. A four inch sphere appeared above her hand, perfectly round.

“You did it,” Hugo said and punched her shoulder gently. She really was rather talented at barrier magic.

“I did it,” she whispered. She brought her hand up so she could stare intently at the sphere. “It can’t be that easy.”

Hugo laughed, “It is that easy, you just did it. Lots of things are easier when you know the trick.”

She recycled the mana construct and looked around to see if anyone had seen her. No one had, they were absorbed in their own practice. She stood up and was about to walk off before she stopped herself. “Thank you for showing me. I want to go talk to Sage Parem about this. There is no way he doesn’t know. I want to find out why he doesn’t teach it this way.”

That was a good question. Hugo stood up to follow her. Now that he knew that this method would work for anyone, he was curious why it wasn’t standard practice. Together they walked up to the stage in the middle of the stadium. As they walked, Daniela saw them and joined them as they went up to talk to Sage Parem. She gave Elise an odd look but said nothing. Hugo realized it was possible that she knew that Elise had a crush on him.

Oh good, Hugo thought to himself. This is going to end well, no doubt about that.

His left eye twitched.