Zenith of Sorcery

Interlude 1

Crystal Mountain

Crystal Mountain Academy had a long tradition of digging deep into the mountain upon which their academy sat, creating an extensive network of tunnels and underground facilities. The place was hard to navigate even for native adepts, and all but impossible to infiltrate by outsiders. Once upon a time this underground complex had been a true underground city, sheltering adepts from attacks by dragons and other powerful magical creatures, which used to assault adeptal strongholds quite often and viewed Crystal mountain Academy with particular ire and greed. However, dragons had become relatively rare in modern times, thanks to being hunted frequently by orcs, and so much of the academy was moved to the surface for more pleasant living and greater convenience. These days, the underground section of the academy was mostly used for special training facilities, as well as secure vaults holding the academy’s more sensitive resources.

In the deepest, most secluded meditation chamber, forbidden from use to anyone except the leader of the Crystal Mountain Academy, there was a man. He sat in the center of the chamber, his eyes closed, taking deep breaths at regular intervals. He was shirtless and barefooted, tall, bearded, and extremely muscular. Any outsider who saw him would likely assume he was one of Crystal Mountain’s warrior adepts, but he was in fact a mage. Crystal Mountain placed greater emphasis on physical fitness than other Great Academies, and their mages were known to be able to take a lot of punishment before being brought down, but even by their standards, this man was out of the ordinary.

The chamber was roughly spherical, and the walls were absolutely covered in multicolored crystals of all sorts. These crystals glowed faintly, and anyone paying close attention would notice the light strengthened and dimmed in a rhythmic manner, synchronized with the man’s breathing. As he inhaled, the crystals lit up. As he exhaled, they dimmed again.

Suddenly, the man’s large, bushy eyebrows twitched, and his breathing stopped. The crystals surrounding him flickered for a moment, and the sound of hurried footsteps echoed from outside the chamber.

The heavy stone door isolating the chamber from the rest of the Crystal Mountain’s underground complex suddenly swung open with a loud, ear-piercing screech and another man rushed into the room. The man was also bearded and relatively fit, but dressed in luxurious finery and not nearly as young. He was in fact quite old, and the fact he was still this healthy and fit in his advanced years was quite impressive in its own way.

“Headmaster Hishur! Headmaster Hishur! You must hear this! We-“

“I told you I was not to be disturbed,” Hishur interrupted, his voice harsh and full of annoyance. His eyes remained closed, and his pose did not change. Other than the movement of his lips, his body remained as still as a stone statue.