In the mess of getting attacked and killing that mercenary, and the subsequent discussions with the dean and the sentinel command, Hugo had entirely forgotten about Daniela. She was right, he hadn’t even talked to her in days. She must have felt abandoned.

He stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. He said, “I am so sorry. I have had a rough few days and I didn’t mean to make you feel insecure. I like you very much. I am new at this kind of thing, I didn't mean to ignore you. I am sorry.”

Hugo could feel the moment she accepted his apology and relaxed into the hug. A few moments later, Daniela leaned back to look him in the face and said, “What has been going on? Are you alright?”

It felt like she was squeezing his heart. She had just been worried about him. He had to tell her. He said, “I’m alright. It’s just that thing I couldn’t tell you about has gotten more complicated. I don’t think I am in any more danger, but it’s this whole thing. I am not supposed to tell you about it, but I trust you. So remember when...”

Daniela interrupted him with a finger on his lips, “If you aren’t supposed to tell me, don’t tell me. I am curious, really curious, but I trust you. I would rather you do the right thing and keep your promises.”

Hugo looked at her strangely. She really liked him. She wanted him to do the right thing for himself, even if that made things difficult for herself. He pulled her in for another hug and a passionate kiss.

“Thank you for trusting me. Let’s go on a date so you can see how much I care for you,” Hugo said.

Daniela smiled, “That sounds like a wonderful idea. What should we do?”

“Do you like azad? I know there is a quarterfinal match on eightday we could go to. The intercity matches are supposed to be awesome,” Hugo said.

Daniela nodded, “I love azad, I watch it all the time. Are you sure you want to go, though? I never see you there.”

“I am not a super fan, but I like azad. It’s how we got together in the first place, I bet it would be fun to do again. Maybe we can bet on the outcome again,” Hugo said and wiggled his eyebrows.

Daniela smacked his chest and laughed. “It’s a date. You can pick me up from my room, it’s room 212. Sound good?”

“You bet,” Hugo said. He practically skipped to his first class. Crisis averted and fun plans in the future.

...

“Get up, sleepyhead,” a voice said, waking Hugo from his slumber. It was dark out, but as he woke up, he was able to see and recognize who had woken him.

After he stopped swearing at her, he said, “Mia. Why are you waking me up in the middle of the night? How did you even get in here? My door was locked,” said Hugo.

Mia held up a runic cube, “I have been able to get into locked rooms since the sixth loop. It’s not that hard. We need to get going if we are going to make our train. There is a shimmer train departing for Tallinn just before dawn. Get ready, we need to leave.”

Hugo sat up and rubbed his eyes, “Leave for what?”

“For the meeting with Alexandru. The meeting isn’t for hours, but we need to get out of the academy without being seen. Plus, I want to scope out the meeting site,” said Mia.

“Wait, no. Dean Artjom said we shouldn’t go, it might be a trap,” Hugo said.

“The dean is a great guy, but he doesn’t know what I know. I know Alexandru, and I know this isn’t a trap. Trust me on this one. Besides, you won’t be going alone, I will be there with you. I will be your protection and backup. We need to ask him about the shimmer explosions. It’s too important not to meet up with him. The fate of the city is in our hands,” Mia said.

Hugo looked her up and down. He didn’t know what to think. The last time he had snuck out of the academy, he had almost gotten himself killed. On the other hand, he kind of agreed with her.

“Alright, fine. But if it turns out that this is all a trap, and you doom us all, I am totally going to say I told you so,” Hugo grumbled. He quickly got ready, strapping on his hidden weapons. He slipped into his old clothes, the same ones Cristian wore up the mountain. He wanted to be inconspicuous.

Once they were out of the dorm building, Hugo gestured for Mia to lead the way.

She shook her head and said, “Nope. All of my regular ways of getting out of the academy are closed now. The dean made sure of it. He wanted to make sure you were safe and the hedge mages stayed out. You are going to have to make us some stairs.“

Shaking his head, Hugo walked up to the wall. He could still only make two barriers at once. He would have to make large ones so both of them could walk up and over the wall. A quick calculation showed that his mana pool was big enough to make it happen. But he didn’t want to start out a dangerous endeavor low on mana.

Hugo said, “I can only create two barriers at once. I think it would be best if I just carried you.”

She looked at him with one raised eyebrow, “Trying to cop a feel?”

“No, no,” Hugo was quick to respond, “I would never touch you inappropriately. I just want to get there with full mana. It takes a lot to get over the wall. Besides, I have a girlfriend.” As he said it, he realized it was true in his mind. He did consider Daniela his girlfriend. He didn’t want to date anyone else. He would have to talk to her about it after they got back.

Mia stared at him for a moment, as if she could literally see the truth of the matter. Eventually she said, “Alight, I will trust you this once. But if your hand wanders...”

“Don’t worry. It won’t,” Hugo said. A quick check with his mana sight showed that walking over the walls was still a viable strategy.

He picked her up in a princess carry and started making small platforms for himself. With the extra weight he ended up making more platforms than regular, but he was still able to make it up and over for less than a third of his mana pool.

The trip to Tallinn was uneventful. Mia bought the tickets to the train and they boarded together. Mia talked to him about how to recognize a trap, and how she planned on protecting him. Eventually Hugo lay his head against the window and stared at the endless farmland as they zoomed along. There was a reason they called this place the breadbasket.

Shimmer mountain’s heartbeat basically removed monsters from the surrounding countryside for several months at the beginning of the year. It was the perfect time to plant. Monsters were mostly back by the time that harvest time came around, but by then, farmers would pay harvesters to keep their fields safe. Mundane farmers did all of the actual grain harvesting, the soulmarked harvesters were just there to keep the monsters off their back while they did.

The sun had just risen by the time they arrived in their sister city of Tallinn. Mia led the way to the meeting spot, an open area within the town square. Hugo was only too happy to follow her as she set up at a nearby café. They both ordered breakfast and sat back to wait. The actual meeting time wasn’t until midday, so they had plenty of time to wait.

A few hours later, the two of them were sipping on their tea and keeping careful watch on the area. So far they hadn’t seen anyone hanging around suspiciously and the meeting site had several entry points and exits. It probably wasn’t an ambush.

An hour before they were supposed to meet, they saw Alexandru. He was wearing a long cloak with his hood up. He was walking around, pretending to shop, but obviously doing the same thing they were. He was scoping out the area, looking for an ambush himself.

“Come on, let’s go. There is no point in waiting if we are all here now,” Mia said.

“Didn’t he say he wanted to meet me alone?” Hugo said.

“Yes, but he will be fine with me there. He knows me. He probably doesn’t like me all that well, but he isn’t going to run if he sees me there,” Mia said and dropped a few coins on the table to pay.

Together, they slowly walked up to Alexandru. They didn’t want to spook him. As much as they were worried about a trap, the ritualist was clearly worried about being attacked himself.

“Hello, old friend. Do you still wear purple underwear?” Mia said. She turned to Hugo and stage whispered, “That’s how I finally convinced him that I traveled through time, by telling him the color of his underwear.”

Alexandru stopped and stared at her, his eyes flickering to Hugo every so often. He glanced around the market square, checking to see if anyone was after him. Only after he was reassured that no one was after him did he say, “Hello, annoying girl.”

“Oh, don’t be that way. You love me. Besides, I brought you Hugo,” Mia said and gestured to her companion.

“Are you at least more reasonable than her? I want to discuss your case for research purposes, but not at the expense of my sanity,” Alexandru said and pushed his hood off his head.

Hugo laughed, “She can be a bit much, can’t she? I believe I am substantially more reasonable.”

Mia just scowled at the both of them.

“Tell me everything. I want to know how many times you have re-lived this year, how it is reset, everything,” Alexandru said with his eyes wide.

Hugo launched into the full explanation, sparing no detail. As they talked, Mia grew bored and sat down on the edge of a nearby fountain. Alexandru seemed enraptured though, and hung on Hugo’s every word. Eventually he got to the end of the story, where the entire city went up in flames and shimmer.

Alexandru shook his head, “My ritual couldn’t have caused that explosion. It takes power from the veins, not the reverse. Even a massive miscalculation on my part couldn’t produce an explosion. That would require adding a great deal of power to the system. The effect you are describing is called a cascade failure. The shimmer veins overload in one section of the network, and that causes nearby sections to explode as well. You aren’t looking for a series of explosives, just one big one.”

“That makes sense,” Hugo said, “The explosions were one right after another, in a rapid chain down the mountain.”

“It shouldn’t be possible though. There are several redundancies in place to stop cascade failures. I only know about them because I accidentally caused one when I was setting up my ritual. The failure was stopped at the main branch,” Alexandru said.

“You are talking like the mountain was designed, not grown. Everyone knows the mountain is a natural phenomenon,” Hugo said.

Alexandru tapped his chin for a moment and said, “Look over there. Do you see anything unusual about the landscape?”

Hugo glanced over and said, “Looks like shimmer mountain, and flat landscape around it. Nothing unusual.”

“That’s what I used to think too. But then I talked to some fellow scientists from outside the wheel. Now I see it differently. I see a plateau mountain in an area without volcanic activity. A single mountain, not part of a mountain range, or even on a tectonic plate. That mountain isn’t natural.”

Looking back at the mountain, Hugo wasn’t sure he was right. It looked pretty natural to him. Then again, it was the only mountain Hugo had ever seen in person, so maybe he was just used to it.

Alexandru continued, “It’s a construct. The mountain, the veins, all of it is a machine built with a purpose. The yearly heartbeat is the mountain drawing in mana for the internal workings of that machine.”

“So, if it’s a machine, what does it do?” Mia said.

“That’s the question, isn’t it? The greatest mystery of our time. We have run tests, done investigations, but it only deepens the mystery. We do know some things. It had to be created by Acomarians or the early Nox. No one else had the power required to construct something so massive. We learned that mana has two components; ether and shimmer. The machine runs on ether, and the veins of shimmer on the mountain are just a byproduct of the extraction process.”

“That whole mountain is a machine of some sort?” Hugo asked incredulously.

“Probably. We know at least the top half of the mountain is stuffed with machinery. No one has ever gotten inside, but I hope to one day be the first,” Alexandru said, “I was planning on refining the ritual that sent you back in time, but your new body changed my plans.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it’s random. Too many unknown variables are involved in the soulmarking. I would have to spend dozens of years isolating variables for a side project to my main research. The process also creates some enemies for very low rewards. It just isn’t worth it.”

Hugo felt relieved, in a way. It meant that no one else’s life would be ruined like his was. At the same time, he felt offended somehow. As if his condition was beneath Alexandru’s notice.

Both parties had their questions answered at this point, so they wrapped things up. As they were about to leave, Hugo thought of one more thing, “Oh yes, since you were so forthcoming, Alexandru, I figured I would return the favor a bit. In a week, there will be a large earthquake in Reval. It is big enough, it will probably be felt over here too. Not sure what you can do with that, but I figured that a man of your intelligence can gain an advantage from that.”

“An earthquake, are you sure? That would be very bad,” Alexandru said.

“Yeah, I am sure. Eight days from now, shortly after the sun sets. It hits Reval pretty hard, but I think you will be fine here in Tallinn,” Hugo replied.

“Weren’t you paying attention earlier, son? There aren’t any tectonic plates around here. It shouldn't be possible to have earthquakes.”

“I have no idea what tectonic plates are. Why are they needed for earthquakes?”

Alexandru stared at him, frustrated, “They just are, alright? It means that the earthquake you experienced wasn’t natural.”