«I’m certain,» Zorian confirmed. Spell formulas had fascinated him ever since he started to learn magic, so there was no way he was wasting this kind of opportunity.
«Very well,» Ilsa shrugged. «I don’t foresee any problems, in that case. I’m sure miss Boole will be ecstatic to have such a talented and determined student.»
‘Miss Boole’? As in, Nora Boole, the orange-haired maniac that expected them to read 12 books within a week and gave them 60-question ‘progress tests’ every other lecture? Zorian resisted the urge to sigh. Why couldn’t he have a normal mentor for once?
Chapter 011
Limiters
«Why is your test longer than mine?» Benisek whispered to him hurriedly. «Did I lose a page or something?»
«You didn’t,» Zorian whispered back. «Nora is just testing me because… well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you later.»
Zorian sighed and continued pondering the advanced spell formula questions in front of him. As if the original 60 question test hadn’t been enough! Worse, Nora took a page out of Ilsa’s book and decided to test him on knowledge that he technically shouldn’t even have, because the additional questions had nothing to do with second year curriculum. Thankfully, he had actually read all 12 of her ‘recommended’ books over the course of several previous restarts, so he wasn’t completely stumped while looking at the piece of paper in front of him.
Still, the additional questions were encouraging, since they suggested Nora was taking him a lot more seriously than she usually did when he asked for some advanced instructions out of her. In the handful of restarts he had tried, the results were underwhelming — while enthusiastic about her subject, Nora Boole never seemed to believe he was as advanced as he claimed. All of his teachers were like that, as far as he could tell from his initial attempts, with Kyron being the biggest exception. Though now that he thought about it, that probably had more to do with the ease with which his proficiency with the magic missile spell could be demonstrated, rather than Kyron’s inclination to believe his claims. In any case, the sheer speed with which things were happening gave him hope — it was only yesterday that he and Ilsa had talked in her office, and already Nora was testing him. That was absurdly fast, since teachers liked to take their time about things like this. Zorian had expected the entire process to take a week, at least. Apparently he had left an even bigger impression on Ilsa than he thought he had.
Good. It was nice to have a confirmation that he was actually going somewhere, rather than just wasting his time.
A few minutes later his peace was once again broken by Benisek. He gritted his teeth as the boy started to pester him for answers. Zorian had always found Benisek to be somewhat annoying, despite him being Zorian’s best friend (or at least the closest thing to it), but Zorian found himself steadily losing his patience with the boy as restart after restart went by. It wasn’t really fair to Benisek — the chubby boy was behaving no worse than his usual fare — but the time loop made Benisek’s antics annoyingly repetitive. He quickly scribbled answers to a handful of questions on a piece of paper and thrust it at Benisek. Benisek looked like he would say something to him in his not-whisper (Benisek whispered far too loudly for it to be called a real whisper), but Zorian silenced him with a quick glare.
As annoying as Benisek might be, Zorian wasn’t ready to give up on him just yet. Whether that resolve would hold throughout the entire time loop remained to be seen, however.
«All right, time’s up. Pencils down, everyone,» Nora said, earning her a wave of protests from the student body. «Except for mister Kazinski, that is. He can keep working on that special second test I gave him.»
Zorian cursed internally as all eyes momentarily shifted towards him. She just had to tell that in front of the whole class, didn’t she? He made a note to himself to watch what he said in front of Nora, since discretion obviously wasn’t her strong suit.
Akoja hurriedly collected all the tests, lingering slightly longer near his desk so she could see what his ‘special’ test was all about. After that, the class continued as normal. It was the exact same thing he had already listened to countless times before in the previous restarts, so he did his best to block it out and continue solving the test. Even with his massively unfair advantage, the test was rather hard. Spell formula in general involved a lot of mathematics and geometry, as the very name of the discipline hinted at, and that automatically made it hard for a lot of people… him included.
Eventually the class came to an end, and Nora asked him to stay behind while everyone else filed out of the classroom. She immediately started to look over his tests when the last of his classmates left, and Zorian watched her intently for a reaction.
Unlike Xvim, or even Ilsa, Nora Boole was a very expressive woman. By the time she had reached the end of the first test, he could see she was pleasantly surprised. She damn well should be, considering it was 100 % correct. When she started inspecting the second test, though, her face quickly morphed first into shock, and then barely restrained glee. Evidently she liked what she saw. Finally, she set the test aside and met his eyes, giving him a penetrating gaze that actually caused Zorian to flinch a little. She reminded him of Zach and Kirithishli, because she seemed to radiate a similar sort of… vibrancy, for the lack of a better word. It was always a bit uncomfortable being around people like that, especially when they were focused solely on him like Nora currently was.
«Well…» she began. «I didn’t expect that. Do you know why I gave you the second test?»
«Uh, no,» said Zorian. «To scare me off?»
«Exactly!» Nora exclaimed. «Exactly!»
Zorian blinked, unable to believe she actually admitted that to his face.
«Spell formulas require bravery! They require passion!» continued Nora animatedly. Funny. Everyone else said they required patience and meticulousness. «They require determination! Anyone who is scared off by this little thing here,» she waved the second test in front of his face, «will surely give up when we delve into the truly difficult parts of the discipline. I had to make sure you wouldn’t bail out on me somewhere along the line.»
Zorian was starting to feel a little unnerved by Nora’s outburst. Was he signing up for spell formula tutoring or cult membership?
«Of course, I didn’t actually expect you to solve any of the questions correctly,» Nora said. «I just wanted to see if you’d leave it completely blank. Not that I’m complaining, far from it! Let’s see…»
She went back to her desk and pulled out a stack of papers out of a drawer. She frowned as she leafed through them, apparently unhappy about their contents, before finally setting them aside with a sigh. After an entire minute of silence, she glanced towards him and shook her head, as if suddenly remembering he was still there.
«Tell me, what are spell formulas?» she asked him. «And I don’t want to hear a textbook definition. I want to hear it in your words.»
Zorian opened his mouth for a moment and then quickly snapped it shut as he considered what to say.
«Come on,» Nora encouraged. «Bravery, remember? Besides, I just want to know your opinion. There is no right answer.»
Hah. There might be no right answer, but Zorian knew from experience that there was always a wrong answer. Always. But he supposed that, in this particular instance, silence was the wrongest answer of them all.
«It’s the practice of using geometric shapes and various sigils to modify spells, usually in order to strengthen wards or amplify spellcasting,» said Zorian.