"What's going on?" asked Oliver, of an overweight, middle-aged man in fine red robes and a saggy satin hat.

"Maester Pietri's giving his lecture again," responded the man, craning his neck for a better view of the man in the bottom of the amphitheater.

Oliver mimicked him. The man was standing on a raised dais at the bottom, speaking in a stentorian stage voice that carried well. He was engaged in answering a question from one of the other people in the amphitheater. Oliver couldn't make sense of his response – he caught a few snippets of technical jargon couching the few terms he thought he knew. Something about a distinction between the elements of aether and air.

"Maester Pietri?" he asked the man after a pause, groping for context.

"You know — the visiting elementalist from Corlais?"

The man glanced at Oliver with a confused expression. Upon taking in his appearance, the man's lip curled in distaste and he took a step forward, removing himself from the conversation without another word.

"Of course I know the elementalist from Corlais," Oliver muttered to himself, sidestepping the man and moving forward through the crowd to reach the side of the bowl, where he found a better view and attracted more than a few odd looks.

It seemed the university was open enough that people could simply walk in unchallenged — typical of the more academic institutions — but there existed social mores against irregulars doing so that were strong enough that security measures were unnecessary.

And there was a marked difference in dress within the grounds of the university as well, evidence of some sort of class or caste-based system. Well, it wouldn't exactly be unheard of.

Below, the conversation was growing more heated, Maester Pietri and the same audience member engaging in rapid-fire questions and responses.

"—and without aether having a similar property, how can you account for the displacement?"

"As I established out at the beginning of this discourse, even if one were to assume that aether is possessed of such accidents, the displacement is not sufficiently accounted for." said the Maester dismissively, waving the question off.

There was a pause. Another audience member made reply, this time a woman. "And what of the more natural explanation, that aether is a miscategorization of a more fundamental element?"

"Are you proposing a modification to Ratz's elemental theory?" asked the maester, sounding intrigued, yet doubtful. Oliver noted that he did not dismiss any of the questions leveled at him, but seemed to regard them all equally. An egalitarian, then.

"It's stood unchallenged for nearly forty years," the woman responded, "I say it's time we return to the fundamental principles from which Ratz derived his theory."

"It's been tried before," the first commenter interjected in disgust. "Any analysis which can demonstrate a fallacy in Ratz' theory is by necessity sufficiently convoluted that it cannot be logically challenged. Just look at Coine."

"Don't be ridiculous," said the woman. "Coine proves my point. He's unnecessarily convoluted because he doesn't really understand the theory to begin with."

At this apparently heinous accusation the crowd erupted into heated argument. Oliver's initial intrigue had by now fallen considerably; clearly, whatever was being discussed was a rather abstract academic matter, and not something he could benefit from, at least not in the short term. But he filed it away for future reference.

Aether. Air. Elemental theory. Well, it didn't sound like modern physics. There was something here, something he could use.

He shoved his way out of the crush — the academics, when riled, were no less pushy than the tavern crowd — and made his way to the building the attendant had directed him.

The administration office was a more humble affair, the ornate marble and carvings without giving way to plaster walls and wood flooring within. There was an enclosed desk at the front and a hallway beside which had a number of small offices off of it.

The man at the desk, balding and thin, looked up from his work as Oliver entered the building.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm looking for the chief custodian?" Oliver said.

"His office is three doors down on the right. I think he should be in," said the man, blinking watery eyes.

"Thanks," said Oliver, and passed on by.

The chief custodian turned out to be a rather severe looking man, probably ex-military, with a salt and pepper crew cut, bulging muscles visible even beneath his loose robe, and a parade drill voice he deployed indiscriminately. He liked Oliver on sight.

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It turned out to be a short discussion. Yes, they needed help. Had Oliver seen the listing? No. Did he have any references? No. What experience did he have with lawn care? Significant? Excellent. When could he start? Immediately? Very good. Pay? A guilden a week. Other questions? No. He'd see Oliver tomorrow, then.

It was quite possibly the least formal interview Oliver had ever partaken of, an irony that did not elude him. But he'd had a sense he'd be scoring as soon as he saw the chief custodian. Chief Custodian Karn, first name unknown, took his job far, far too seriously, and appreciated Oliver's "general disposition, son".

—

With the depressingly mundane stuff out of the way, Oliver left the university office with a new job and a light step, pleased by the unlikely success he'd met with thus far.

His next play was riskier. He needed mana, and now that he'd familiarized himself with the basic layout of the city, he was ready to start asking stupid questions.

Starting with: was it possible to get somebody else's mana? While they were still alive? What about converting energy, like fire, back into mana? Was it a two-way street?

Was it possible to increase your own mana regeneration rate?

He'd first thought to ask somebody at the college, but his first encounter with a university student had been slightly less than ideal, so he was a little wary of repeating the process.

Oliver's ruminations were interrupted as he saw a man standing by the amphitheater. It was the person who'd been giving the lecture, the egalitarian Maester Pietri.

Unable to resist despite his earlier resolution, Oliver found himself drawn to the man, who was deep in conversation with another scholarly figure, who as he drew near turned out to be a woman dressed in sky blue robes, of middling years and stern appearance.

They stood close to one another, holding conversation in hushed tones. As one, they turned to look at him when he approached, their quiet conversation concluding as they both looked to him in question.

"Maester Pietri," said Oliver, tongue running ahead of his thoughts – there was something here he needed, something that would give him an advantage. He'd latched onto it earlier, but hadn't quite identified it yet. Following his instincts, he said "An excellent lecture, a most excellent lecture."

"Thank you, sir…?" trailed off Maester Pietri, looking quizzically at him.

"Ah, Taelford," said Oliver, the false name springing to his lips. "Thuris Taelford."

"Well, thank you for the kind words, Taelford. I'm afraid the reception has been a bit, well," — and he gestured about the mostly empty amphitheater — "lacking."

"Well, it was a unique proposition," said Oliver agreeably, drawing on his memory of the conflicted reception of the man's lecture. "Yet, I believe it has promise."

"Is that so?" As before, as Oliver's recollection made him out to be, Maester Pietri was intrigued, clearly giving him the benefit of the doubt. And he was clearly pleased by the interest Oliver was showing, current garb notwithstanding.

Oliver glanced around, making a show of minor discomfort, suspicion even. The woman was examining him openly, but they'd attracted no other attention.

"Yes," said Oliver. "It's a definite move in the right direction. We must at this juncture consider alternatives to Ratz' theory of the elements."

"Ah?" the Maester said, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Well, to be honest, I'm not sure how far you've taken this idea over in Corlais," — Oliver had no idea what or where Corlais was, beyond that it was where this Maester was from — perhaps another university? He was merely making things up on the fly as he went, confident in the superiority of modern physics and that he might make good his escape at any time. "But here in Celeia we've been working on a theory of our own."

"Do tell," said the Maester in a tone of patient intrigue, a teacher humoring a student.

"Well," said Oliver, adopting a socratic, rhetorical tone. "Consider this. What are the elements Ratz speaks of?"

The Maester bit off a half-confused, half-embarrassed chuckle. "The elements?—" he cut himself off with a glance at the woman standing beside them quietly, "Ratz classifies them as five. Earth, air, fire, water, and aether."

"Right, exactly," said Oliver, trying not to let his relief show. "Earth, air, water," — he said, thoughts falling into place, so this was what he'd picked up on, "these are tangible. You can measure them, weigh them, feel them. Yes?"

"Right, of course," said the Maester, beginning to look intrigued again. "Wait. Air cannot be measured. It's simply a void of other elements."

"Hold that thought," said Oliver. "What if I suggested that the other two — fire and aether — were of a different class entirely? That instead of elements, they were something else, something more akin to mana?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow," said the Maester, frowning. "Mana has nothing to do with the elements."

Was he barking up the wrong tree? Perhaps he'd misunderstood. Oliver pressed on regardless. "I'm speaking of an energy, a force. A potential. In the same way that mana is potential change, there exist other potential forces, which manifest as… excitements of the, er, true elements."

"Excitements of the true elements," repeated the Maester dubiously.

"Yes, precisely," said Oliver, resisting the urge to wipe his sweaty palms on his trousers. "The existing classifications fall short of explaining this."

The woman broke in. "No, they don't," she said, frowning. "The four elements can be converted into one another by means of aether." She wasn't quite dismissing him yet, but her tone was souring. He had maybe one chance.

Oliver paused. That threw him for a loop. Through magic it was possible to simply convert from one form of matter to another? He frowned, thinking. After wracking his brain for a brief moment, the answer came to him.

"Yes, but only at great expense of mana." he asserted confidently, pulse racing. If he was wrong, this conversation was over. But if he was right… this could be his way in.

The theory was simple. He'd realized it back on the mountain after escaping the harpies. If mana was a form of potential energy, one that could be applied via the will, then surely different applications of it would cost varying amounts of mana. The more efficiently it could be applied, the more could be achieved with less.

For example, if these wizards conceptualized the creation of fire as being the wholesale destruction of matter and generation of electromagnetic radiation in its place, then it stood to reason that it would be vastly more expensive than merely exciting the constituent atoms of an existing substrate.

There was a pause.

"It's true that it can sometimes be costly to convert from one element to another," the woman allowed finally. "But I hardly see that as the basis upon which to establish a set of elements. You propose, what, three elements and two energies?"

"No," said Oliver, smiling. He had them now. "I propose a hundred and eighteen elements, and six different forms of energy."