Within Proselyte at Ersatz University, in a dust-filled room behind a desk coated in runic scrolls, was an elderly man. If one were to count a person''s wrinkles as they would the rings of a tree to determine age, then this man could compete with the oldest of sequoia; however, this man was not so old; in reality, he could only compete with the moderate sequoias. The elderly man''s long drooping nose delicately balanced his thin glasses at the very tip of its bridge. His beard was as grey as his cloak and nearly as long; tragically, the beard''s length only accentuated the thinning of the hair upon his head.


    The elderly man lit his pipe as he leaned back on his zealously flamboyant chair. The chair''s back was nearly taller than the man while standing, and its velvet cushioning was pinned to an equally intricate and expensive wood frame with complicated, detailed carvings depicting primordial beings carving themselves into the very woodwork in which they were etched. Nearly every item in this room looked as if a priceless extravagance fit only for a king, whether it be a trinket or a simple shelf, well, mostly everything.


    Delicately resting atop an intricately ornamented glass cabinet lay a broken crossbow, its aged wood splintered and cracked dry from years of neglect. Above the crossbow was a massive painting embosomed upon a golden frame of a beautiful and regal young woman. Under the massive art ornament was a jewel-encrusted nameplate labelling the piece as Forgo Miff.


    The elderly man took a puff of his pipe. The pipe itself was also precisely detailed and carried the same level of nobility as the rest of the flamboyant trinkets in the elder''s room. It had a long stem that drooped from the elder''s lips to its stocky and rounded base. The base of the pipe''s stummel was broad and smooth, but the pipe thinned and became more rugged and rough as it approached the bowl of the pipe in which a large stream of smoke started to fill the room.


    The elder sighed deeply and lazily raised his eyes to stare over to the other man in the room. This other man was also battling with greying hair and weakening knees, but the elder couldn''t help but see him as anything other than a child.


    The ''child'' continued to tirade the elder with his tired and hoarse voice." There has been an increase in reports of sightings of the White Witch and her band of brutish hellions. The activity has gotten far more drastic lately as well. I''ve even heard reports claiming she was seen speaking with that Calamity Kid. If that is true, and those two are colluding then that adds the literal obliteration of two major cities and the collapse of an entire country to the already extensive list of crimes to that godforsaken… well, God-killer! If things continue to escalate as they are, then we will rapidly be approaching war! To make matters worse, that hotheaded Hero of New Heirisson conquest of yours is saying that he will personally hunt her and her posse down on his own."


    The elder could not help but tense up in his previously relaxed position at the sounds of those last words. Trying to hold back a frustrated groan, he puffed again at his pipe and let a strong mist envelope the room. The mist seemed to dull the room''s candlelight as well as the senses. The elder could feel his muscles relax, and he responded to the agitated child. "You can''t have a war against one person… or six." The elder began with a few shakes of his head. "And you CANNOT let Doyen go on a quest to hunt her down. Just keep him at home for a little longer. How hard can it be to make a man enjoy his retirement? Doesn''t he have a family to take care of? We can''t act against the White Witch quite yet. As much as she is a pain, she is also the only thing that''s been keeping the mokoi busy and away from us. Although if that rumour with the Calamity Kid is true, then that changes things."


    The elder took another deep drag of his pipe. "Take one of my mansion estates in Golden Country and donate it to Doyen. Tell him it''s a gift from me and have him and his family vacation there. As for the White Witch… get some people to look in on her relation to the destruction of Scree, Abut, and the Country of Smiling Skies. I''d like to actually confirm this Calamity Kid relation before we commit to panic. While you''re at it, increase the Calamity Kid''s bounty by another two hundred thousand. The number is practically meaningless by this point, but maybe circulating new posters will get the attention of some skilled adventurers. Maybe we can entice the clotted forest mercenaries and get them to do something useful for once."


    "I don''t think I could convince the Hero of New Heirisson conquest to go on vacation with his family even if I brought an army with me."


    The elder failed to stifle a laugh at the mention of Doyen''s pompous title and equally childish behaviour. The elder retorted, nearly begging, "Just find a way to get that kid to sit down for a few more weeks. He''ll get his entertainment soon."


    The child responded, "I''ll figure something out." Their voice betrayed the uncertainty in that statement.


    "Thank you." The child gave a slight bow to the elder before turning around and leaving.


    Finally left to his own devices, the elder could finally get back to his work, or so he thought. Nearly as soon as his office doors had swung closed, it seemed that they immediately swung upon letting enter a young man with a muscular build and heavy dark bags under his eyes. His clothes were dishevelled, his shirt was partly untucked from his pants, and his vest seemed to decide which buttons to be buttoned at random. His hair was obviously lazily drenched in water as a last-minute attempt to quell the beast that it had become. However, the attempt was clearly a failure as different clumps licked and reached out in every direction.


    The elder exclaimed, reeling back from the mess of a human before him. "My goodness, Espy, you look awful!" The thick haze of pipe smoke slammed into Espy and sent him into a retching coughing fit as he fought to keep the stinging chemicals out of his lungs.


    The elder simply blew out another stream of smoke to consume the poor Espy and spoke again. "What are they doing to you over there?" The elder managed a small chortle with his last sentence.


    "What? Oh, sorry, I''ve been running around a lot these past few days. There''s been a lot to do, but I''m nearly done now. The Tournament Corporation has been keeping me busy." Espy managed a weak smile. He was visibly strained, exhaustion bearing down under his eyes and over his shoulders. It was clear that his fatigue was more than just physical; he must have had a lot on his mind. "I hope I''m not interrupting anything too important."


    The elder looked down at the sheet upon his desk, a task which he had started days ago yet whose constant interruptions had led to him barely having even started. "No, no, nothing important. I''ve just been going over some University applications." He tapped on the sheet before him, "You know this applicant did have a very memorable interview, but unfortunately, not quite the right kind of memorable."


    Espy laughed, "Poor girl, she the stage fright kind?"


    The elder simply smiled, "Something like that."


    Espy''s humour quickly vanished as he slapped his palm to his forehead, "Oh crap! I still need to submit the One-armed Dragon''s dietary plan to Empedocles! I need to do that when I get back."


    The elder managed a thin grin before quickly hiding it. Unlike the incessant barrages of disastrous news that all the adults in his life would throw at him, he always enjoyed hearing from one of his two favourite students. But he was a famed professor, and he couldn''t let show that he had a soft side for the energetic rascals.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    He let out another plume of mist. The mist seemed to take hold of Espy, seeping through his pores and into every muscle, massaging them and causing his whole posture to relax. "Sorry, just have a lot on my mind. It is super exciting to be working for the Tournament Corporation during the year of The Tournament, but it is also really stressful. I just wanted to hand in my assignment on theoretical cabalistic abrogation early because I won''t be here when it''s due."


    "Thank you, Espy. I can always count on you to give me a good read." The elder winked as he took the heavy packet of papyrus.


    "Thank you, sir." Espy began turning towards the door before stopping and looking back at his professor. "You were in the fifth Tournament last century, right?"


    "Well, mentioning how many years it has been was unnecessary; you''ll hurt my old ears. But yes, I was in the fifth Tournament. Those were exciting times." The elder took another heavy drag from his pipe as he fondly thought back to his younger years.


    "Your Tournament title was... The Apprentice?"


    The elder burst out a quick bark of laughter, An entertained cheer illuminating his wrinkled visage. "Yes, that''s right; it has been a little while since I''ve heard anyone refer to me as an apprentice of any sort though." The elder took the time to analyze the young man before him. Espy was a smart boy; he most certainly already knew all this information, but he seemed to be absorbing all of the elders'' answers and mulling over every detail of them.


    "What were the arenas like?"


    The strange question took the elder aback a little, but he enjoyed speaking with Espy and was curious as to what the boy was trying to get at. "They were fairly large-"


    "no, I mean the private areas for the contestants. How were the Directors? Did they ever ask you strange questions? Did they make you take a test?" Despite the baffling questions, Espy showed no signs of comedy on his face. This question seemed to press dearly on the kid''s mind.


    "Well, I never visited all of the arenas, nor did I even meet all of the Directors of the arenas I did go to. But the Directors never made me take any test."


    "Did you take tests?"


    The elder was a little more hesitant to answer this question. He understood that Espy was now a part of the Tournament Corporation, but he was still young, and his student. He did not need to know everything. "No, I did not."


    "Did someone else?" The elder took a heavy drag of his pipe. He took his time to truly savour the taste and all of the soothing sensations brought upon with it. After slowly letting the fumes out from his nostrils, he took a second drag. Once again, he held the relieving cloud within him for as long as he could before slacking his jaw and allowing the hefty fumes to fall to the floor and blanket the room before slowly rising. The smoke covered so much of the room it was beginning to obscure the two from seeing each other. "Espy… I have a class I need to teach now."


    Espy stood still, staring blankly at the elder while waiting for him to continue before he realized what was happening. "O-oh, of course. Surely you are very busy. Sorry for taking up so much of your time."


    "No, no. It''s of no hindrance. I always enjoy speaking with you Espy. It''s just that I have my duties to attend to."


    "Of course, of course. I will see myself out first then." Espy then gave a deep bow before exiting. As the door opened, all of the collected smoke in the room suddenly flooded out, once again clearing the room so that one could see and breathe again.


    After a few minutes of collecting all his materials and papers, the elder extinguished his pipe before setting for his classroom.


    Upon arriving to the classroom, despite not being late, the class was already filled with hundreds of students, many of whom were forced to stand. The elder let out a tired sigh and spoke as he dropped his heavy stack of parchments and materials onto the podium at the front of the room "Anyone who is not in this class, leave. Let the students actually taking the course sit first. Once class starts, then you can come back." As the professor finished his sentence, the classroom ruptured in a cacophony of noise, and all the students stood and began shuffling about.


    An ocean of people slowly stumbled out the doors while a few others desperately tried to push against the current through the crowds to finally get their deserved seats. Two students, a boy and a girl, near the back of the room, grabbed their books and utensils and began climbing over the aisles of seats towards the front of the class before sitting down roughly in the center of the room. Once the noise died down, only thirteen people were left in the room, including the elder himself. The twelve remaining students seemed dwarfed by the grandiose lecture hall size. The twelve students were all spread out far apart. They were all quietly and diligently flicking through their booklets to get to the most recent page of which they had incoherently scribbled upon. Or at least most of the students were, all except for those two students sat next to each other in the center of the room giggling stupidly to themselves. It was the same two who had been crawling over the desks moments earlier.


    The elder fruitlessly ruffled through his notes in a pathetic attempt to reorganize them and spoke to the two rowdy teens. "Ms. Impel, that includes you."


    As Ms. Impel stood up, the boy beside her took her by the wrist and complained. "Ah, come on, Ken." The boy continued with his familiar whining, "The whole class is here… or almost. Can''t you just let her stay? She''ll just wait for the bell, then come back in."


    The elder retorted apathetically. "I can''t give her any preferential treatment."


    "But you can give me preferential treatment?" The boy asked, hopeful. The elder paused for an unnerving amount of time. Ms. Impel was still frozen in a position partly raised from her seat. One of the doors from the back of the room swung open, and a short student with thick glasses hurriedly scurried in. He seemed to pause briefly in surprise that the room was so empty but then quickly regained himself and sat down somewhere near the front of the room. The elder let out a deep sigh before giving a defeated look to the boy in the center of the class. "I didn''t hear that… and I''ve told you before to call me Professor Ream. I can''t have anyone thinking that I tolerate you." The students unanimously resounded in understanding laughter as an enormous smile grew chin to chin on the boy''s face, and Ms. Impel sat back in her seat.


    "Now, at the end of our last lecture, one of you asked me about why mercurial essence was not a part of the expanded aether model but incalescent fire was. I would like to clarify this for the whole class because there is a significant difference between the two. While they both initiate a flux through essence, incalescent fire creates a rotational field of essence. This tells us that incalescent fire is a form of fire because only extremely concentrated fire can create rotational essence fields. Because there is this clear relationship to fire, we can feel comfortable adding incalescent fire to the expanded aether model even if we don''t fully understand the specifics of how it works. Mercurial essence, on the other hand, has not been observed to have any kind of connection to any of the elements as of yet, so we can''t help but-"


    A large bell rang to announce the beginning of class, and the room suddenly exploded in a roar of rushing feet and conversing people as excited students flooded in to be able to hear a lecture from this esteemed elder. In fact, it was not just students who filled the room but other professors and even some hobbyist nobles who came to hear this elder teach.


    The class continued on with only the sound of the elder''s voice and the scratching of pen on papyrus filling the room to be occasionally interrupted by the question of one of the students. Only the students actually taking the class asked questions. While the elder''s explanations were well-spoken and helped everyone intuitively understand the concepts, the actual arithmetic and runic architecture were far too complicated for anyone else to understand enough to be able to pose meaningful questions.


    The lecture had gone on for about two hours, and the elder was writing complex runes onto one of the blackboards when suddenly, a loud chime resounded through the room. The elder turned away from the blackboard to look at the crowd and locate the cause of the piercing sound.


    Between the elder and the rest of the class, just a few feet ahead of the elder across the podium, there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with two limbs. The limbs were extended out, one pointing towards the audience, the other towards the elder. Each arm held onto a glowing parchment. The elder approached the parchment facing him: it read.


    <table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 67.78%; background-color: rgba(255, 213, 171, 1); border-color: rgba(235, 164, 57, 1); border-style: ridge" border="1">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">You have been invited to</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">The Tournament</td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%; text-align: center">You are The Sage</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>