FALLEN ORACLE

**Chapter 1: The Forsaken (3)**

After a moment of silence, Morin paced deeper into the office. He pulled back a curtain, revealing a wall covered in portraits.Chen Yi knew what this was. They called it the Ascension Wall. Every portrait on it belonged to someone who had ascended from Rongqi Academy.People learned high-level magic through Divine Communion. The best among them earned the chance to ascend to the upper realm, where the gods lived—and become gods themselves.The founder of Rongqi Academy, the Great God Yan Yan, was one such ascendant. He'd ascended about two thousand years ago, then descended fifteen hundred years later to found the academy.The lesson was clear. Yan Yan had been mortal once. After his ascension, he didn't just gain extraordinary magic—he gained eternal life. So every mage on the continent dreamed of ascending."This is Radik." Headmaster Morin pointed to one of the portraits. "He was my classmate. From our school days, my grades were better than his. My research outshone his. He had his Divine Communion later than I did. I always won our duels. And yet, fifty years ago, *he* ascended. And I'm still here."Normally, the humble, kind headmaster would never say something like this in front of a student."Radik and I made a promise," the old man continued, emboldened by the drink. "If one of us ever got the chance to ascend, he would descend again to visit his old friend. And tell him what the divine realm was really like."As he said this, the nearly hundred-year-old white-bearded man's eyes were full of loneliness.Radik, it seemed, had never descended.Maybe the wonders of the upper realm had made him forget his promise to an old friend.Or maybe fifty years felt like the blink of an eye to a god, even if it felt like a lifetime to a mortal.The truth was, apart from Rongqi Academy's founder Yan Yan, history had no record of any ascendant ever descending.Maybe after becoming gods, they found this small world—which had once confined their potential—beneath their notice."So your luck isn't so great either, Headmaster," Chen Yi said.Morin steadied himself. "No. For fifty years, I've been wondering if I did something wrong.""Looking back now, when I was in my thirties, the god who taught me magic—Kaeln the Light-Gatherer—once asked me, during Divine Communion, to go to the city of Rothxia.""But I've always hated war and violence. So I didn't do as he asked."Sixty years ago, the Duchy of Haisen and the Kingdom of Klem had fought a brutal war in Rothxia. A mage as powerful as young Morin would have been welcomed by both sides."Maybe from the moment I disobeyed a god's will, that god abandoned me." Morin continued his analysis. "But the Great God Kaeln was merciful. He kept communing with me until twenty years ago."As he spoke, the headmaster walked to the bookshelf, took down his own spellbook, and opened it to the last page. "And that's how I got this."Chen Yi stared at the mysterious symbols spanning several pages. His eyes lit up. "Is this...?""Yes. Thunderstrike."Thunderstrike was an advanced wondrous-rank spell. Arguably the most powerful elemental magic on the entire continent.Even though Chen Yi couldn't understand its meaning, the sheer complexity of the symbols—just as art—struck him with awe."It took me over three years, across nine separate Divine Communions, to learn this spell from the Great God Kaeln." Pride in the headmaster's voice quickly turned to sorrow."Maybe I learned it too slowly. After that, the gods gave up on me completely."The headmaster downed the rest of his liquor in one gulp. Then he said:"Chen Yi, you're still young. You may still have a chance. If you ever receive Divine Communion, promise me one thing: *do what the gods tell you.*"Chen Yi wasn't sure what to make of that. He nodded mechanically.If under the law of chaos everyone just had to rely on luck, maybe "obedience" was part of luck too.