The Archmage Became a Mushroom Tamer

Chapter 14 - Eyes on the Mushroom Tamer

Chapter 14 · 1,055 words

The pre-Trial briefing was held in the training courtyard. An open-air space between the eastern and western arena buildings, walled on three sides by stone arcades. Students assembled in their class groups. Combat classes stood in the center, already in training gear, their posture loose and ready. Support classes lined the left arcade. Low-tier students, the few who attended, occupied the right arcade's shadow, half-hidden behind the stone pillars.

Aldric stood at the edge of the low-tier group. Spore was in the storage room. This was a formal session, and bringing a cultivated strain to an assembly would raise questions he wasn't ready to answer.

Instructor Voss took position at the courtyard's center. He was dressed in standard instructor attire, dark coat, academy insignia at the collar, a leather-bound folder under one arm. His expression was professional. Measured. He opened the folder and began reviewing Trial procedures.

"Match assignments will be posted three days before the event. The bracket is seeded by class tier. Combat classes receive priority placement. Support classes fill secondary positions. Non-combat participants will be assigned to the lowest bracket positions."

Non-combat participants. The phrase was technically accurate. Mushroom Tamer was not a combat class. But the word "participants" implied inclusion, and the registration board had accepted his name.

"Standard combat rules apply. Yield, incapacitation, or ring-out determines the match result. Instructors will supervise all matches. Medical support will be available at the courtyard's north exit."

He paused. Turned a page in the folder. Then, without looking up:

"The Trial is designed for students with combat-capable classes."

The courtyard was quiet. The words hung in the air between the stone arcades.

"Perhaps we should clarify whether Mushroom Tamer qualifies before the event." The pause after the word was deliberate. A breath-long silence that let the implication settle. "To avoid... embarrassment."

The room's energy shifted. Combat-class students in the center nodded, some openly, some with the careful neutrality of people who agreed but didn't want to be seen agreeing too eagerly. A few smiled. In the right arcade, the low-tier students went still. The boy who had watched Aldric sign up at the assembly was there, his face unreadable. Someone behind Aldric whispered, too quiet to hear the words, but the tone was clear.

Voss's expression was concerned. He believed he was protecting something important. The Trial's integrity, the class system's coherence, the institutional order that his position depended on. He looked up from the folder and scanned the courtyard. His gaze passed over the combat classes, the support classes, and settled, briefly and deliberately, on the right arcade.

On Aldric.

The look lasted two seconds. Then Voss returned to the procedures.

Aldric's hands were at his sides. His expression was neutral. Inside, three centuries of political navigation sorted through what had just happened. Voss was building a case. The comment was a procedural prelude: establish the question publicly, let it circulate, create the conditions for a formal challenge later. The word "embarrassment" was about the Trial's reputation. Allowing a non-combat class to compete would undermine the event's legitimacy.

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The session ended. Students dispersed in their class groups, the combat classes loud and confident, the support classes quieter, the low-tier students filtering out through the right arcade's narrow exit.

Aldric walked toward the eastern corridor. His route took him past Voss, who was speaking with another instructor near the arcade's corner. The conversation was low-voiced, the other instructor nodding at something Voss had said. As Aldric passed, Voss glanced at him.

The look was assessing. Voss's eyes moved over Aldric's thin frame, his unmarked hands, the faded insignia at his collar. Mushroom Tamer. The class that had no business in a combat arena.

Aldric kept walking. His pace was steady. His expression was neutral.

Three centuries of navigating institutional hierarchies had taught him to read conviction. Voss acted from belief. The instructor genuinely held that the Class system was necessary for social stability, that every person had their assigned place, and that the Advent System's assignments were just because the System itself was just. A Mushroom Tamer entering a combat Trial threatened that entire framework. It suggested the hierarchy could be challenged, that the order thousands of people depended on was less solid than it appeared.

Conviction was harder to counter than cruelty. Belief, when institutionalized, commanded resources no individual could match.

But conviction also had a blind spot.

Voss believed in the System. The System had accepted Aldric's registration. The System's skill descriptions for Mushroom Tamer did not prohibit cultivation-type skills from being applied in any context. They simply didn't describe combat applications because no one had ever tried. If Voss attempted to bar a System-registered participant from a System-sanctioned event, he would be challenging the System's own judgment.

And Voss, who believed the System was just, could not easily argue that the System made mistakes.

Open preparation was the correct response. Hiding would confirm suspicion. It would tell Voss that something irregular was happening, giving him grounds for intervention. By preparing openly, Aldric forced Voss into a bind: allow the participation, or explicitly bar a student from a System-sanctioned event, which would require Voss to argue that the System's own registration was invalid.

The storage room door was warped as always. It didn't latch. Aldric pushed it open and stepped inside.

Spore's cap brightened as he entered. The deep red shifted toward orange at the center, the faint warmth radiating outward. The mushroom sat in its substrate on the work surface, healthy and alert, the binding agent mix dark and cohesive around the stem.

The charcoal notes were where he'd left them. Arena diagrams. Range measurements. Cooldown intervals. The calendar on the wall with the Trial date circled.

He sat on the stool and picked up the charcoal. The tactical plan needed finalization. The substrate deployment sequence needed to be practiced. And Mira's role needed to be defined, not just the what, but the how. Real-time substrate management during combat required a second person operating from the sidelines, making decisions about which patches to deploy and when to replenish Spore's substrate between rounds.

The threat was real. But it was defined. And defined threats could be managed.

He began drawing.

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