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Return of the Runebound Professor - Chapter 887
🕑 Added 2026-02-16 16:00:29 +0000 UTCThe melee rounds, albeit slowly, came to an end.
Noah passed the time in the room with Lee, Fist, and Brayden — in which they discovered that the rope did indeed allow them to summon more food. That ended coming up quite handy. There were nine more melee rounds after Noah’s. He watched some of them, but found that the fights couldn’t really hold his attention for long. His goals were just different from those of the crowd.
As soon as he’d done his best to scan the groups in his arena for any signs of someone he knew, there was no real reason to keep a close eye on the combatants anymore. None of the really powerful mages were going to be going all out yet. Trying to catalogue everything he saw now would just be overwhelming.
Fortunately, I’ve got Mordred keeping an eye out for anyone really strong. I just hope that he’s had better luck finding anybody relevant than I have. I haven’t seen a single one of my students or the other teachers in the tournament yet. There’s a chance they’re just hiding, of course. That or I just missed them because their faces were covered. A lot of people seem to have the same idea that I did and are wearing masks or cloaks.
But I’ll find out soon enough. I’m confident that everyone will make it past these first few rounds. There are also the other arenas. I suppose I could have just gotten unlucky.
Noah suppressed a terse sigh. His fingers twitched and drummed against the table. The final round of the melees had ended a few minutes ago, and there hadn’t been any more word from Baun. Silence reigned over the arena. That wasn’t because nobody was speaking. The crowds were still there — Noah just couldn’t hear them because of the magical dampening between the audience and the observation rooms.
“What’s going on?” Noah asked. “What’s taking them so long?”
“Calm down,” Fist said with a gruff laugh. “This tournament is massive. There are multiple arenas other than the one we’re using. They’re probably just letting a few extra rounds finish up so everything moves ahead at the exact same pace. There’s nothing to worry about. You got through, you know. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing here.”
“I never had any concerns about that,” Noah said absentmindedly.
“Confident, are we?” Fist arched an eyebrow. “You came to the arguably largest tournament in Obsidia without even the slightest concern that you might lose? Anyone can go down. Even in rounds like these, you never know. A well placed attack can take out even a trained mage if the stars align just right. Surely you’re at least somewhat pleased to have made it this far.”
I’m really not. I couldn’t care less about this tournament. It’s just a means to an end. The absolute last thing I have any desire to do is get wrapped up with the Factions that control Obisidia. That’s definitely a nightmare packed into a can that I have no plans of opening. I just need to find everyone and get out of here.
There was a knock on the door that nearly shook Noah out of his skin and thoughts alike. His eyes flicked back as Lee pulled it open, snagging a tray laden to the brim with all sorts of meat and pies from a waiter. She pulled it into the room, closing the door behind her with her foot, then ambled over to the table and set it down with a loud thud.
“Sorry,” Lee said with a sheepish grin. She grabbed a chocolate-stuffed croissant half the size of her head and inserted the entire thing into her mouth, downing it in a single bite. “I forgot I ordered that.”
“Did you, now?” Fist asked. “That’s impressive.”
“Is it?” Lee asked as she snagged an entire honeyed ham from the plate with one hand. She took a huge bite out of it as she reached out for the rope hanging to her side and gave it a sharp tug. “Why?”
“No reason,” Fist said, eyeing the rope warily as it rattled back into the ceiling, having summoned yet another service request. “Where do you put it all? If I ate like you did, I’m pretty sure I’d blow up and pop like an overfilled bladder.”
“That’s because you’re weak,” Lee said. She gave Fist a comforting pat on the shoulder before offering the other woman the remainder of her ham. “But if you practice more, you’ll get stronger.”
Fist stared at Lee. Then she let out a bark of laughter. “You’re not one to mince words, are you?”
Lee took her ham back. Not accepting an offering within a few seconds as akin to refusing it, and she wasn’t one to waste food. The ham vanished down her gullet. “No.”
“Didn’t think you were, either,” Noah observed. “You’re a lot more talkative than I thought.”
Fist grunted. “I’ve been traveling with Mordred and Ace for so long that there’s not much left to say to them. And they always say the same things back. No point talking when you’ve already had the conversation.”
“Fair enough,” Brayden said. His eyes had never left the arena floor. Out of everyone in the room, he actually seemed the most stressed. “But would you have happened to speak with Mordred yet? He should have had more than enough time to gather some information on who we’re up against in the tournament. Can we hear it yet?”
“He thinks it would be wiser to wait a bit longer so he can filter down the information into something more useful,” Fist said after a moment. “There are a lot of mages that seem strong right now. Hundreds. And not the low hundreds, either. The melees are only going to eliminate the dredges and the unlucky. And there will probably be at least one more round of eliminations before the real fights start. He’s pretty confident you should be fine up until then.”
The log was sound enough. Noah didn’t even want to think about how many people were participating in the tournament. But he had absolutely no idea how long it would be until the next rounds, much less how long it would be until Mordred decided it was time to share the information he’d gathered.
Even if I knew for a fact that the others were participating in the tournament and in the next arena over, it’s not like I could do anything with that information yet. I don’t have a way to contact them. We can’t leave our rooms. But even still, I want to know.
“Can’t he tell us anything?” Brayden asked. His foot tapped against the ground, eyes still on the arena floor. Baun had yet to say anything else. Out of the corner of Noah’s eye, he couldn’t help but notice that the crowd seemed a little thinner than it had been a short while before.
Are they leaving? Is the tournament done for the day?
“He’s suggested just a few of the most interesting ones,” Fist said after another few moments of pause. “To save everyone’s time. Mordred doesn’t believe it worth any of our time to go too deep into this until there’s more information. But the top mages are likely to make it farther, so he’s willing to share that now.”
“Works for me,” Noah said. It was a reasonable offer. He couldn’t expect Mordered to name and describe literally every single mildly interesting mage he’d seen — and Noah really had better things to be doing than sitting around and getting a giant list.
“Particularly any mages that really stand out,” Brayden said. He coughed into his fist. “In one way or another. Especially strange ones. Very strange ones.”
“Why’d you say it like that?” Lee asked through a mouthful of food.
Fist’s eyes narrowed. “That is a good question, Lee. Because Mordred would like to know the answer as well. He said there was one mage that took him entirely off guard, and it was only partially because of her ability. She was one of the strangest mages that he’s ever seen. Is that matching any thoughts?”
Brayden blew out a small breath. Then the corners of his lips curled. “Ah. She made it in one piece. Good. I knew she would, but it’s nice to have confirmation.”
“How do you have confirmation of anything?” Lee asked, her brow furrowed. “Fist hasn’t said a single thing yet.”
“She’s said more than enough,” Brayden said. He looked to Fist. “This strange mage in question — did she start stripping at some point during the fight?”
Fist went quiet for a moment. Then her eyes went wide.
“Before it. Are you saying you’re familiar with her?”
“We traveled together for a few months before splitting off shortly before arriving at Aqua Terra. There were some things she wanted to practice in isolation,” Brayden said. He let out a bark of laughter and shook his head. “But that’s a long story. So, yes. You could say I’m familiar with her. There’s only one mage in all of Obsidia that would go stripping at any point during a fight. It looks like Mordered’s found Bird.”
Comments
Ray Light
She managed to snatch up an incredibly powerful skill through that comedic relief misinterpretation though!
Ben Bass
TYFTC! That was awesome, how Brandon was able to get Bird in one! I still love that her drive to learn was based off of an almost comic relief misinterpretation of Noah's fighting ability/powers.
why doineedto
awww he got it in one....
YaBoiiSloth
Do you think she cares about the cooking method applied to the words? She’s probably already tried to eat em raw but realized she’s not strong enough yet
Jeff
No Fist, don't let Lee know that words can be 'minced'... Next she'll be wondering if they can be diced, grilled or sauteed and before you know it she'll figure out how to literally eat words.
M. Lampi
within a few seconds as akin to refusing it ==> within a few seconds was akin to refusing it
roxyrawrs
*starts chanting Birdred* Hopefully Brayden didn't catch feelings for Bird, I don't want to have to figure out which ship to be on board for.
Slashman1
I did kind of want Moxies fight just to see how crazy we all know it went you should write a side chapter with like short parts of everybody's fight just to give us a idea
Sitsume
Yay! Bird! Looks like Brayden got closer to her than I thought. Hope it is just friendship though. Mostly because I love the idea of Mordred and Bird together. Thank you so much for the chapter!
Nicole Hicks
Good chapter! So good you didn't go into any further depth into the melee rounds and didn't slog on with any more of Noah's scattered group. It would be great to know what's going on with them all in the tournament but with there being so many of them that the melee rounds part of this book would become, for you at least, a huge hassle to create and write. Something tells me your going to continue to tell the story from Noah's and his smaller groups' perspectives, as well as write about what is going on with some of the others that weren't mentioned in the melee rounds yet, during their individual matches. You know, we haven't heard from the divine peanut gallery in a while. Wonder what Renewal thinks about Vivian's silent freak out about her mistakenly thinking that there is an unknown 8th Rank mage with an unknown agenda, that she sensed using the beyond, that is somewhere in Aqua Terra and more specificly possibly watching the tournament. Speaking of the Beyond. When Noah creates a 6th rank rune again and restarts the beginning of the god transformation process for the second time, how will having the Beyond as a part of his soul and all three parts of his separate personalities merged with each other affect that process? Because the first time the god transformation process started he didn't have the Beyond as part of his soul or his three personalities merged yet. At least I don't think he did but I could be misremembering that second part. Either way, there is no way that those two changes to himself that he (possibly) didn't have before won't have an effect on the god transformation process that will start back up again once he creates another 6th rank rune for a second time. Funny thought: Can you imagine what Mordreds reaction would be and the look on his face if he finds out about Grim and what Noah is capable of doing to and with runes? Not to mention if he finds out that Noah knows about, has a way to get into and is taking his group to the Citadel!! I imagine that would be a guaranteed way of ensureing that Mordred would become a permanent part of Noah's group, forever. Whether Noah wanted him to be or not! And I don't think Noah would have to worry about Mordred ever betraying the groups secrets because that would mean not being a part of the group when they go to places, do things and discover stuff that people rarely survive going to, doing and survive discovering. And he gets a front row seat and first class tickets for all three with a greatly reduced possibility of dying along the way. Yeah, he would not give that opportunity up!
Lizy Flore
Moxie is too smart to attract attention so soon. Plus, she changed her appearance, remember ?
Tractor
She and Mordred really are birds of a feather.
Brian Small
I’m surprised Noah isn’t asking if a certain short woman, possibly with red hair, carrying an oversized book was spotted
realitiesincrease
The pace! The pace! 😂
