Shattered Sanity

The following morning, Riven left the fortress of House Argent before the sun had risen, as he began his first official day as a student of the Imperial Academy.

"Hurry, hurry, I heard professor Hall won’t let anyone sit inside his lecture if they’re even a single minute late...."

He heard someone mutter beside him, as the moment he stepped outside, he noticed students emerging from the fortresses of Aureate, Sable and Viridian as well, with the separate groups gradually merging into a single stream heading towards the Academy’s central lecture halls.

Yet despite hundreds of students walking together, there was only one subject Riven repeatedly heard discussed around him.

"You managed to get a ticket?"

"Yeah. Cost me a week’s food rations."

"Who do you think wins? Dawnriver or Ironveil?"

"Man, I can’t believe how relaxed Dawnriver looks, if that was me, I would not have slept a wink last night."

Riven ignored the occasional glances coming his way and continued walking at the same relaxed pace, showing little concern about the exhibition fight awaiting him later that day.

Internally, however, he was about as nervous as a person could possibly be, although he refused to allow even the slightest trace of that nervousness to show through his expression or movements.

’Remember to always move with grace...’

Riven reminded himself, as he maintained his usual measured pace and eventually reached the lecture hall only a couple of minutes before the class was scheduled to begin.

’This place is huge.’

Riven thought, as he stepped inside and looked across the enormous lecture hall.

With all four hundred First Years required to attend the mandatory foundation lecture, the hall was nearly as large as the orientation chamber, while practically every seat within the front several rows had already been occupied by overly enthusiastic students like Circuit.

Unfortunately, having arrived so close to the beginning of class, Riven could only find an empty seat within the eleventh row.

’Circuit should have saved a seat for me... I wanted to sit in the front too.’

Riven thought, as he reluctantly settled into the available seat before turning his attention towards the teaching floor below.

Only a moment later, the professor entered.

A middle-aged man wearing the formal robes of an Imperial Academy professor walked into the lecture hall before placing several books upon the desk positioned at the center of the teaching floor.

Almost immediately, the remaining conversations disappeared.

Riven straightened within his seat.

Unlike many of the noble children surrounding him, practically everything Riven knew about Ascension had come from Garron’s teachings and whatever fragmented knowledge he had acquired afterward.

He understood the foundations.

Aether.

The Soul Vessel.

Elemental affinities.

The basic progression of Ascension.

But beyond those foundations existed an entire world of knowledge that Riven had never been given the opportunity to explore.

And now, sitting inside the greatest Academy within the Valdrak Empire, he was finally going to learn about it, so, for the first time perhaps that morning, thoughts of Gary Ironveil completely disappeared from his mind.

’I bet today’s lecture is going to be good.’

He thought, as his attention remained entirely upon the professor standing below.

He wanted to learn.

He wanted to understand exactly what separated ordinary Ascendants from exceptional ones, what possibilities existed beyond everything Garron had taught him, and just how much of this enormous world remained completely unknown to him.

Professor Lewis Hall slowly surveyed the gathered First Years before finally speaking.

"Good morning, class."

His voice carried throughout the lecture hall.

"My name is Professor Lewis Hall, and I am the man who will be teaching you the fundamental theory behind Ascension."

He began, as he turned and started to write on a small chalkboard, which was automatically duplicated on a much larger white board through some Aether array.

"Today’s lecture will most likely be a quick brush-up on what many of you already know.

But for the few among you who do not come from noble backgrounds and have never been taught these concepts by private tutors, I imagine what we discuss today will be considerably more fascinating.....

Because Ascension is exactly what separates mortal men from you and me."

Professor Hall explained, as he finished writing a single sentence upon the chalkboard.

THE ABSOLUTE LAW OF HEAVEN AND EARTH:

WHATEVER HAS BEEN CREATED MUST EVENTUALLY BE DESTROYED.

WHATEVER ARISES MUST SOMEDAY FALL.

Professor Hall placed the chalk down before turning towards the students with a faint smile.

"A question many students ask me is, Professor Hall, what exactly is Ascension?

And although there are many different ways one could answer that question...

But the explanation I personally prefer is that Ascension is essentially our attempt to defy the absolute law of heaven and earth."

He gestured towards the sentence behind him.

"Whatever is created must eventually be destroyed, and whatever arises must someday fall.

Some call Ascension the pursuit of immortality, because every one of us fears death to some extent, just as every one of us fears eventually being forgotten.

There is an instinct buried somewhere deep within us that craves permanence.

We want to live.

We want what we build to endure.

We want our names, our bloodlines and our accomplishments to survive long after the world should have erased them.

But heaven does not permit permanence."

Professor Hall paused briefly.

"Everything decays.

Bodies grow old, mountains crumble, kingdoms collapse, and even the greatest creations of mankind eventually disappear beneath the passage of time.

While Ascension is our attempt to resist that law."

The lecture hall remained completely silent.

"Through Ascension, we delay what should have been inevitable.

Through Ascension, we strengthen bodies that should have weakened with age, extend lives that should have ended, and learn to control powers that would otherwise never bend to mortal hands.

With every step forward, we attempt to acquire a little more authority over ourselves and the world surrounding us.

Authority that ordinarily belongs only to heaven and earth."

Professor Hall’s smile slowly widened.

"And perhaps, for the impossibly small number who manage to reach the very end of that journey, Ascension eventually stops being an attempt to resist heaven and instead becomes the process through which one joins it.

That is what the True Gods represent.

Individuals who travelled so far along the path of defiance that they eventually became something the ordinary laws governing mortal existence could no longer contain."

Professor Hall allowed those words to settle before continuing.

"But most of us will never reach that point.

Most Ascendants will falter somewhere along the journey.

Some will lack talent.

Some will lack resources.

Some will lack perseverance, opportunity or simply the fortune required to survive long enough to continue climbing... Since the journey towards the absolute peak is nearly impossible."

He turned slightly towards the enormous words displayed behind him.

"And so, for those of us who have not yet reached that destination, our progress in this journey of defiance is measured by how far we have managed to travel, with those measurements being commonly referred to as the various stages of Ascension."

Riven felt goosebumps rise across his skin.

The way Lewis Hall explained Ascension, alongside the unmistakable passion with which he simplified something so enormous into concepts even an inexperienced student could understand, was unlike anything Garron or the other instructors Riven had encountered were capable of.

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