Bishop Orwald was sitting on his padded chair in his study, reading a delightful book on magic theory by The First Magister Marven Dallock while enjoying a nice cup of tea, specially imported from the Great West, beyond the Obsidian Mountains.

That was, until his peace was interrupted by a loud knocking on his door.

Making memory, he distinctly recalled asking not to be disturbed today, since he wanted to enjoy some peace after all the stressing paperwork that inevitably popped up before every single Tournament of Grace.

'It better be something important.' Orwald made a mental note to punish whoever dared to interrupting otherwise.

"Come in." He said, making sure to make his annoyance show in his voice.

A young man, dressed in the telltale outfit for the staff in charge of the Tournament, appeared behind the now open door.

He bowed apologetically and said, a bit panicked, "Sir Bishop, I'm sorry for disturbing your rest, but there is something you must see. May I be allowed inside?"

Orwald gestured for him to come forth, and the man shuffled his was towards his desk, where he handed Orwald a recording crystal.

It was quite the lofty commodity as not only was the material expensive and the price of an enchanter good enough to make it more so, but it could only record one scene of fixed length.

The Bishop took it and supplied it a stream of his mana, not bothering to keep it steady as the enchantment will regulate the input by itself.

The scowl on his face was replaced with an expresion of incredulity when he saw what was recorded.

The recording was dim, but the nonstop lightning bolts all falling on the same spot more than made up for it. The man that was being repeatedly hit by them seemed to be wearing a metal helmet behind his wooden mask, as Orwald could barely make out what looked like burnt metal through a hole in his hood on the top of his head. That would partly explain the copious amount of lightning, although not even a full body armor would attract electricity that much.

But that was the least important of his questions... why would he wear metal to the Tournament of Grace? Scratch that, how in all justice could he be standing after what had to be at least 200 bolts!? Was he really only level 10?

In any case, if this had happened, regardless of the cause, the populace would think he was a heretic and was being punished by Him. He hoped the man didn't pass the second round, since it was impossible to rig it due to its nature, but if he did, they might have to blend one of their Hidden Hammers within the third round to take him out.

The people would not like it if he won, and there was no way he was risking a rebellion when he'd barely convinced the archbishop to allow him to manage Illisium.

If he made it to the third round, he could only blame his bad luck.

----------------------------------------

'Finally, I can relax...'

I allowed myself to fall onto the fairly fluffy bed, which was the best I had seen since the world got fucked over, meaning it wasn't much, and tried to sort out my thoughts.

I had asked some things to the few that were willing to talk to me, and discovered that the Proof of Faith was nothing more than a test with three really, really difficult questions related in some way to their god, meaning I had done good in saving my use of [Olden Knowledge] as it allow me to answer at least one of them, two if I was lucky and whatever I asked covered both questions.

'Either way, I'm still still fucked.'

That's right. There was no way for me to answer the remaining question(s), and cheating was out of the question (pun not intended) due to the format of the test.

We would all gather at Charred Hill where some people were setting up several hundred seats fairly far apart, and someone would say the questions from the center of the place. We would be given a paper and a pen (I think it works with magic), and would be given a few minutes to answer.

It would be an entirely different scenario if my soul could exit my core without breaking it and expand my awareness some ten meters, but I couldn't, and even my prodigious vision wouldn't allow me to read full sentences from a small piece of paper several meters away without being obvious about it, as there were would be a few dozen overseers watching us at all times.

Also, I couldn't go out of this room, so going to a library to try to cram as much info as possible was also a no.

This reminded me of my school days, when I used to forget about upcoming exams until the mornings before they took place.

If I had one solace, it was that maybe the test would be delayed until just before midnight, allowing me to use my info-dump twice.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

'At this point, I can only pray for that to happen.'

I spent the day walking in circles, except for the three instances when meals were brought to my room, since I had to throw them out the window far enough that it would reach the woods, with good timing to nobody would see it.

Unfortunately, they called us over to the test venue just after 'dinner', at ten o' clock or so according to my (surprisingly accurate) internal clock.

'No way it'll take us almost two hours to start the test. I might have to start figuring out other ways to get to the a Class Crystal...'

Fortunaly, I had Sever underestimated the hurdles of organising masses and dealing with the many complications of large events.

I was only shown to my seat at what I assumed was between 11:30 and 11:40, and I was one of the earliest to sit down.

People kept slowly filling up row by row of seats, and I was cursing inside my mind at them to get on with it quicker.

It had to be at least 11:55, being conservative, when a bearded man walked to the middle of all the seats, and started clearing his throat.

"Very well. I will now announce the first question you must answer."

Suddenly, I felt a nagging feeling in my mind, one I'd felt many times before. I did not have to think long to realise what it meant.

"Pay attention, for I will not repeat it."

'It's about to be 12, and [Olden Knowledge] is going to reset when I still haven't used it.'

'I can't let that happen. [Olden Knowledge], tell me—

"What was the miracle that our God allowed the 4th Pope, His Holiness Ryan, to cast on the spring of 3672?"

—what important thing did Pope Ryan do on spring, 3672?'

Just as I asked, something clicked in the back of my mind, and I knew [Olden Knowledge] had refreshed.

A big screen appeared before me at the same time, detailing how that Pope cleansed some big battlefield of miasma (which is just dark elemental mana), and made it habitable for some country that was lacking space due to immigration.

After I got over my relief I started writing it all down, and the man in the middle started announcing the other two questions. It seemed like they just gave them all before the test instead of allowing time for each one.

I was pretty confident in my answer for the first one, but the other two questions were:

"What was the year where the most criminals have been punished by the Church of Justice in the last century", and "In how many wars has our church delivered God's justice?"

'Shit, I guess I'll have to ask [Olden Knowledge] the first question and then wing the second one? Or maybe...'

Suddenly, I had a eureka moment. I could maybe engineer my one use of [Olden Knowledge] in a way that gave me answers for both questions. It might have been an obvious course of action for someone smarter, but unfortunately I wasn't intelligent like that.

The problem was that, just as I couldn't ask [Olden Knowledge] questions that were too hard, such as the intricacies of how mana works, I couldn't ask answers that were too broad either, such as telling me the names of everyone in the city, nor double questions, meaning I couldn't just ask something like "In what wars had the Church of Justice participated and what was the year they judged the most wrongdoers?"

This meant I would have to rely a little bit on guesses.

'Wars are the times when control over the populace is the weakest and when taxes are the highest right? That tends to lead to riots and crimes, and that should also mean more criminals to punish, right? Hopefully, this works...

'[Olden Knowledge], Tell me all of the wars in which the Church of Justice participated and their dates!'

'...'

No screen appeared. I was asking for much information of too high grade,

'Come on, please! [Olden Knowledge], Tell me all of the wars in which the Church of Justice participated and the dates of the ones in the last century!'

And a screen appeared.

War of Recognition, 1st Crusade against the Wilds, Independence War of the Luminas Duchy, 2nd Crusade against the Wilds, The Winter Scuffle, Holy Judgement of the Nandas Barony, Conquest of the Wilds, Great War of the Cross and the Hammer, Vanquish of The Horned (4032-4037), Great Flattening of the Impious (4088-4089)

'Thank god. Actually, it feels like I will be misunderstood saying that. It's just a saying, alright!? Anyway, the first question can be answered fairly easily. It's 10, if my skill and these guys have the same requirement for what a war is, since a couple of them sound more like a one-sided massacre.

The problem is the second question though. I'm willing to bet it's one of the years of the Great Flattening or whatever, but which one?'

In the end, my extensive deliberation led me to beleive it was the first year, 4088, because... well, just because there were more people to punish when you hadn't punished any yet.

I wrote the last answer down and started clumsily twiddling with the magic pen, and after a while, the guy who gave us the questions told us time was up, and the helpers started checking the answers. I felt a pulse of mana from somewhere far off reach my pen, and by the looks of it everyone else's too, and the small ink-creating rune inside the pen turned off.

I would be able to turn it back on if I figured out how it worked, but there were probably some magic-sensitive helpers that would notice and count it as a violation of rules or some bull. I was sure of it.

Finally one of the staff got around to checking my answers. My heart would be beating fast I'd I had one. She went over the first one with no trouble, nodded at the answer of the second one...

And paused to look quizzically at the third.

I froze.

Looking down, I could see I had botched the last 8 in 4088 due to nervousness and my poor dexterity with this body, and it looked nothing like an 8. If anything, it looked like a poorly made—

"Sorry sir, what is this last number?"

I didn't dare turn to look at her.

I don't know why, but I blurted out the first thing I though of.

"It's a 9, ma'am."

Instantly, I wanted to slap myself.

'Idiot! You wrote an 8! Why did you have to go say that just because you thought it looked more similar to a 9?'

But what she said next, well, let's just say 'surprise' wasn't enough to describe what I felt.

"Good job. Here's your card,"

She took a rectangular plate with a very intricate mana signature from her bandolier, pressed it against a magical device she had on her other hand, which beeped, imprinting a number on the card, and gave me it.

"Here, don't lose it. You'll need it to enter the Proof of Valor tomorrow."

And she left to correct another test.

I slumped back in my seat, facing towards the sky, and physically sighed.

It wasn't pretty, but I had pulled through.