Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

He directed his mana to flow along the sides of the seal, causing it to pop off without resistance.

"Well done," Ilsa said with a smile. "Not many students have such a firm grasp on their magic at this stage. I see someone is continuing in Daimen’s footsteps."

Zorian smiled back politely. He mustn’t scowl, he mustn’t scowl…

"Unfortunately, I’m in a bit of a hurry so we’ll have to continue this conversation later," Ilsa said. "Visit me in my office when you get to Cyoria. Now about your electives…"

Ilsa stared at him. He stared back. She glanced towards the two completely filled out tests on her desk and then returned her gaze towards him, this time with a speculative look. Zorian remained silent.

It actually felt good to baffle someone like this, Zorian decided. Apparently Ilsa wasn’t as cold-blooded about improbable skills as Xvim was.

"I must admit, I didn’t quite expect this level of knowledge and shaping skill when I told you to come and see me," Ilsa said thoughtfully. "That second exam I gave you is the one I give to students at the end of their third year, and you only got 2 of the questions wrong. On top of that, you know 10 different variations of the basic three, which is astronomical for a 3rd year student."

She tapped her pen against the table, lost in thought.

"You may be a bit too advanced for what I intend to teach your group this year," Ilsa finally admitted. "My class is mostly there to make sure the students don’t have any obvious holes in their shaping skills and theoretical knowledge, and to teach them a few miscellaneous spells that are of general utility to most mages. You’re way beyond that. What am I going to do with you?"

"Transfer me away from Xvim so you could teach such a promising student?" Zorian tried.

She laughed at him.

"Sorry," she said. "You’re good, but not that good. Besides… you should have it easier than most of Xvim’s vi- err, charges . What with your amazing shaping skills and all."

"You’d be surprised how little difference that makes to him," Zorian sighed.

"Oh come on, mister Kazinski, you didn’t even have a single session with him," Ilsa chided. "I’m sure that whatever rumors you heard were greatly exaggerated."

"Right," said Zorian, unable to keep himself from rolling his eyes. "Can you at least give me a written permit to skip your lectures? You said yourself I have nothing to learn there, anyway."

That wasn’t quite what Zorian was after, but he supposed it was better than nothing. It would give him a bunch of free periods throughout the week, which wasn’t terribly useful while he was inside the time loop (where he could just skip classes if he needed more free time) but would come in handy when and if he got out of it. And besides, a written permit would cut down on Akoja’s whining, if nothing else.

"No," Ilsa said. "I need you in class, if only to motivate the rest of your classmates to try harder. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re not bored during class."

Crap. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked her that…

"In the meantime, I’m going to do you a favor," Ilsa continued. "While I am personally too busy to teach you, I will see if I can find a teacher willing to give you some private instruction. Do you have an area of magic you’re particularly interested in? Personally, I would recommend you look into either divination or alteration, but it’s your choice."

"Spell formulas," Zorian said firmly.

"Oh? Ambitious," noted Ilsa. "It’s a hard subject. Not something your shaping skills can help you with, either."

"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?

"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.