The Unskillful Thaumaturge

II

"What?" Lillian asked curiously. Leslie, on the other hand, was leaning back against the wall and listening to the news, unimpressed. Lillian had learned through experience that it was impossible to surprise her roommate.

"Yeah," Daria continued, "I can't figure it out."

"What did Brandon say?"

"He didn't see it. He's still at work. I tell you, I would get so frustrated with the tourists..." Daria didn't finish whatever she was going to say. "What other classes do you have today?"

"Quantum," Lillian answered quickly. "You?"

"Developmental," Daria responded. "Want to grab some dinner at the Crave?"

Everyone on campus insisted on calling the Creative Sciences Center by the name of the Crave as a result of the large food court located on the first floor, even students that had classes in the building. Daria's favorite restaurant in the building was the pizza place, so when she mentioned the Crave she was usually referring to pizza.

"Sure," Lillian answered, not mentioning that she had been planning to have dinner there anyway. For a student whose entire meal plan consisted of getting one meal at the Crave and another at the café, she was finally getting used to a fairly regular diet. Leslie nodded along, and Lillian flopped back onto the bed.

☙❧

"We define the convenience C of an elementary thaumaturgical process to be the exponentiation of a constant divided by the difference in energy between the maximum and the input." Dakota wrote an equation on the board as neatly as he could. "Convenience changes based on what the products and reactions of the process are. The constant on top represents proficiency and is incidentally equal to the thaumaturgical efficacy of the thaumaturge in question."

Dakota's students gaped blankly at the board. One girl raised her hand. "Professor... erm, Dakota?"

"Yes, Jennifer?" Dakota turned around and pointed towards her, snapping his fingers like he'd done for Dr. Hests.

"What does this have to do with the application of thaumaturgy?"

Dakota scratched his head through his beanie, wincing. "You're a general thaum major, aren't you, Jennifer?"

"Er, yeah."

"Well, you'll notice that this is Omniscience Theory. It isn't an applications class. Mostly they put the Applications majors in Dr. Hests's Chronothaumaturgical Theory class, because it doesn't have my classes as prerequisites and it's easier, and it's not taught by me. To answer your question, the more everyone learns about thaumaturgy, the better they will be. The human brain is capable of much more thaumaturgy- I mean it's better at thaumaturgy than you ever would have thought before the Thaumatogenesis." He cleared his throat.

"Continuing! There are several problems on convenience on your homework. Please turn in that homework next week on Tuesday. Anyway, it was very nice to meet you all today and I hope to see you again through the rest of the semester!" He picked up an eraser and began attacking the math-coated board in large swipes. Jennifer was the first to take the hint and, flipping shut her notebook, began to walk out of the room. Her classmates quickly followed, filing out the door at a rate which enabled Dakota to correctly infer that they were heading out to get dinner. The last student gave him an unpleasant look, flicking her long, dark hair dismissively in his direction, as he followed his students out the door, headed for the Creative Sciences Center himself.

When he finally arrived, there were long lines for all of the restaurants, except for the grill, which for some reason nobody seemed to like. A trio of girls in the pizza line were chatting away. His eyes were immediately drawn to the face of the white-haired girl, traveling next to the two beside her, a tall dark-skinned girl with glasses and poofy hair and a much younger-looking girl with deep blue eyes and shoulder-cropped red hair. Which one? he thought, habitually adjusting his beanie. His phone buzzed inside his jacket pocket and he fished it out, accepting the call. "Cody?" he asked.