Silence rippled over the hall, punctuated only by the gentle scratch of Jamie's chalk on the board. His question, "Any questions?" hung in the air.

From the shadowed rear of the chamber, a hand rose, lean and graceful as a willow branch. All eyes turned. The boy's features bore the unmistakable heritage of elves: slender, fine-boned, with pointed ears half-shadowed by a soft fall of hair, its tint the subtle green.

He spoke quietly. "Prince? But there isn't a prince among us here."

Jamie's eyes kindled as he smiled, pleased at the question and the challenge. He let his gaze sweep the sea of expectant faces, some open and eager, some frowning with noble skepticism.

"You dwell in an empire that shifts with every heartbeat," Jamie began, his voice carrying the weight of both warning and promise. "Just yesterday, I beheld a wonder. A paper sold on the street with news from around the world; we bought it for the very first time. From this moment onward, information will flow like a river, shaping both our city and the very bones of the Empire. Perhaps even changing our world."

A murmur fluttered through the ranks. Two voices offered quiet, uneasy truths.

"There's war in the east—"

"Demons, stealing into human flesh—"

Their words slid through the silence, met by nods from students wearing the practical garb of the city's merchant clans. Meanwhile, the children of nobility, regal in their silks and brocades, seemed uncomfortable with the conversation. A prince, after all, was not a thing easily invoked nor lightly bestowed.

Jamie pressed on, refusing to grant them comfort in tradition. "That is why I am not here to drill you in the mechanics of expeditions or the decorum of guild etiquette. Such things you will learn in time, out there," he said, raising a hand to gesture toward the city's distant, murmuring sprawl. "My task is to make princes of you."

He let the word stand, bold and proud before he strode back to the chalkboard and drew three crisp points, each their own pillar beneath the greater word he had already written.

"In the Empire, a prince is a peerless noble by birth. But cast your gaze beyond the borderlands, and the word takes on a different shape. A prince may be the greatest of generals, rising through daring and cunning. A merchant, commanding empires of silver. A visionary, a rebel, who lights the torch that leads a people to freedom or conquest."

He turned, searching the crowd, marking both those who leaned forward and those who shrank from the fire of change.

"And what does every prince, no matter their birth or ambition, require most?" He let the question settle, his chalk ticking against the board in three deliberate strokes. "To conquer, to expand, and to maintain power".

"Those, my students, are the true lessons I offer you. Not titles, nor privileges, or inherited names. But the nature of power and the means to wield it."

For a moment, the room was silent, save for the ghost-cat's tail flicking softly atop its desk.

"This lesson, above all, is for those who trust that the world shall always remain as it is," Jamie intoned, his voice ringing with conviction. "Who strides from triumph to triumph, never bothering to glance at the ground before the next step. To you, I say this: your days are numbered. Someone, somewhere, will appear to seize what you hold, just as surely as morning follows night."

A sharp, proud hand shot up from the noble ranks. A youth clad in velvet and silver, with the insignia of a great house glimmering on his breast. He did not wait for permission, his words spilling out with the silk and venom. "Forgive me, professor, but we possess wealth, titles, and soon, rare classes befitting our birth. Once such powers are claimed, they cannot be taken from us." The irony lay in his tone.

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Jamie fixed him with a level stare. "You believe this, but your faith is mere gambling. A prince, true or self-made, is an agent of action, of transformation." He turned back to the chalkboard, marking it with a flourish as if drawing a ward against complacency. "If fortune governs half our fate, the other half is carved by virtue. Not virtue as in gentleness or goodness, but in skill, in courage, in the relentless will to shape one's destiny."

A shiver passed among the students. Jamie caught the spark of something fierce and hungry in the eyes of the merchant youngs and Lower Quarter students. A tide of awe and hope, as if a locked gate had swung open inside their chests. Even among the nobles, ripples of surprise creased brows used to certainty rather than possibility.

"You presume your power is divine and unassailable, bestowed by the gods themselves," Jamie continued, voice low, each syllable a blade. "Yet power is built upon luck. Should your class be ordinary, should the fields yield famine, should war break against our gates, your coins will vanish like salt in the rain, and your titles will carry the weight of dung."

He swept his gaze back to the proud youth, softening just enough to invite understanding rather than humiliation. "And beyond this, you forget that others may surpass you. The gods may be the only way to obtain experience, and they do favor the rare and the daring, but you discount the fortunes of those you deem cursed by chance. They too may find a path, though thorns and dangers mark it, to rise."

A cold ripple swept through the ranks of noble-born students as Jamie's words faded. Many sneered openly, masked in practiced contempt, eyes flashing with the brittle pride of inheritance. For them, the truth Jamie spoke tasted of bitter fate: in this land, one's class was a decree, a destiny carved in stone by the hand of the gods themselves. No act of will or cleverness could break that chain, at least not so far as any of them had ever witnessed.

A trembling anxiety haunted the slighter students, those who clutched the subtle knowledge that those with lesser classes—[Butchers], [Farmers], or [Cooks]—rarely caught the eye of divine favor, earning scraps of experience all their lives. Only the blessed, those chosen as [Knights], [Sorcerers], or rarer, could gamble boldly, strive recklessly, and snatch ever greater rewards. So, the cycle continued.

But Jamie wasn't finished. "Nevertheless, today, I offer proof. Proof that virtue, not just fortune, can break these chains." His eyes flicked towards the shadowed corner where Thomas stood sentinel, unassuming yet steadfast.

He gestured to his companion. "Thomas is a [Farmer], and yet, he has reached Level 3."

A murmur, sharp and incredulous, swept the chamber.

"Impossible!"

"No common class ever levels except in old age—"

"How could a farmer possibly earn experience?"

Jamie could see doubts and disbelief twisting, the dogma of classes gnawing at the noble students' certainty. Yet the truth was plain: The bard's blessing played its part, but no divine gift alone could erase the battles in which Thomas had taken part. Goblin raids beaten back, ceaseless training, wounds endured.

The bard let the silence stretch, the next question blooming like a challenge written in fire. With a sweep of chalk, he wrote upon the board.

Where is your virtue? What have you done to change your destiny?

"And this will be the matter of our lessons," Jamie declared, voice cool with finality. His gaze claimed every uncertain heart. "If you desire to learn, return for the next class. If you cannot see the worth, you may leave now with a perfect grade. I care nothing for the presence of the disinterested."

With the lesson's end, Jamie stepped from the pulpit, leaving the hall adrift with echoes of hard truth. The nobility sat frozen, shaken to their cores by the class. While the others leaned together, whispering sharp and lively as if feeling for the first time that the cage around their fate might be breakable.

At the edge of the room, Thomas wore a look of surprise, caught off guard by being an example—a living testament to the thin edge between destiny and defiance.

Jamie drew closer, already readying his bag for departure. "What did you think?" he asked, voice pitched low so only Thomas could hear.

Thomas looked out over the hall, watching groups argue and debate, the spark of possibility stoking their words. "Impressive and impactful."

"Good." Jamie's eyes gleamed with satisfaction. "Were you watching them? Any worth our attention?"

Thomas nodded, quietly passing Jamie a folded slip containing a scrawled list. "Here are the talents I noticed."

Jamie looked at it, a sly smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Perfect. Now is the time to get some new allies."

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