The first few weeks at the Academy for almost all the students seemed trivial at best in most of the fields that they had to work in. There weren't any hard-pressing things they needed to study for or seek out advice for. Rather, the students had to figure out how to adapt to a new life in this place under Ionia. Even those who had lived in Ionia before came to the realization that Champions Academy was deliberately built far away from the depths of Ionia so that the living environment could be more of a cram-school than a typical college built around a city.

The challenges that Ezreal faced had to do with starting to learn how to re-live his passion in a way that coincided with graduating the Academy. While Ezreal had already taken significant steps to change how he acted thus far, what he didn't realize that every single day he was making decisions that would carry his life in a direction unknown to him. He was called into Ryze's office that later day to finally discuss some of the matters with him that revolved around Ahri.

When Ezreal stepped in, Ryze was laying horizontally across his desk with his book on his face.

Ezreal just inched forward a bit, trying not to make a lot of noise. "Uhh, Professor Ryze?"

Ryze groaned and realized that he had fallen asleep once more. "Two in one day is really unusual for me…Gah, I'm gonna throw out my back one of these days." Ryze lifted the book off his face, threw it on the bookshelf where it landed perfectly fit in the middle where it was taken, and backflipped into his chair. "It's good to finally talk to you once again, Ezreal. How has your second week at the Academy been for you?"

"It's been really exciting! To be honest, I wasn't coming here expecting to have a lot of fun. I thought the fun would come much later down the line."

Ryze started opening up his computer, while saying, "Good, very good. I don't dwell on it too much, but there's a lot of things that go through this old head of mine when I see young people like you going through some seriously arduous tasks."

Ezreal laughed while combing his hair back with his right hand. "Hah, it's been nothing too terrible! I must admit though that Braum has been really pushing me to the absolute edge…for better or worse I suppose."

Ryze kept typing, until he had finally pulled up the things that he wanted. "Alright then, now I want to get to the crux of what I wanted to tell you." Ryze put his folded hands on the desk and looked straight at Ezreal. "I talked to Ahri earlier, and we had a brief discussion on her stay here at the Champions Academy. I seriously want to know directly from you – how do you think she feels about you, Ezreal?"

Ezreal leaned back a bit, and all he could think of was Ahri's lustfully beautiful eyes as she said, 'you're pretty tasty!'

"You know, it didn't come to me until just today but she doesn't like a lot of other people here. I think she has trust issues with humans due to what happened to her at an early age. For some reason, she just really likes me a lot."

Ryze coughed. "So, the reason I'm asking you this is because she told me today that she wanted to leave the Academy."

Ezreal was taken by surprise. "Whoa, you serious?"

"Very." Ryze continued, "She very much implied that you were a major factor in her decision to stay here."

This time, Ezreal leaned back in and reflected on the amount of time that he had spent with Ahri in these short few weeks. "I see."

"I'm not your guardian, so I have no say in the people that you socialize with. But be warned, boy…" Ryze took off his glasses and stared into the depths of Ezreal's soul. "This is not a place for you to mate. Our Academy strives on people cooperating and finding a new life for themselves, not living in a fantasy world with no consequences for your action. I've noticed that your participation in class and your work have significantly declined as you have continued to talk to Ahri."

"But, Sir!"

"ENOUGH!" Ryze slammed his desk as Ezreal tried to backtalk. He put his glasses back on and chilled his temper. "I'm going to have other people watch you and make sure you pay heed to my word. Don't think for just a second that I won't eject you from this Institute if you disobey the rules!"

Ezreal slowly tilted his head downward, and nodded. "Yes Sir, I understand." Ezreal got up from the old wooden chair that he was sitting in and stretched out his arms. "I'll be heading out now then, see you in class tomorrow."

"One more thing." Ryze interrupted him before he left. "Tomorrow is going to be a big day. We will be hosting a Ruins Trial where all the students will be required to travel through an ancient Temple and show off the skills that they have chosen for their profile. I will be watching you and expecting the utmost success, my boy."

"Yep, I got it!" Ezreal hurried out before he could increase Ryze's temper any more. Ryze sighed, and went back to look at his catalogue for all the submissions for profiles. He was glancing over Ahri, who had just submitted hers a bit after Ezreal had left her in the forest. "To think that this girl could change so much just due to some weird kid from Piltover. If I can help her harness and control her power, she would be absolutely unstoppable."

Ezreal had one more class that day, which was his Mastery Class with Caitlyn. Since he had finally completed a Profile, he would start to do a lot more real training. When he got to his room, no one was there but there was a note on the door. Ezreal tore it off, and it read:

'Yo,

I'm gonna be out late tonight, don't wait up.

-Ekko'

"What could he even be doing tonight?! Whatever!" Ezreal was still frustrated from the talks with Ryze. He didn't want to admit it, but he was once more in the wrong on his end of the argument. For the last week, he had been trailing behind in both studies and training routines. The exercises that Caitlyn had given Ezreal were purposefully easy just to see if he would actually do it, but still he neglected it. Ezreal in his mind had just kept thinking of how strong he was and how insignificant all these tasks were, so it never came to him until now that he was growing out of his working habits.

It also came to Ezreal that in losing those habits, he had grown attached to living more of a regular lifestyle. It made him so conflicted, not just due to his feelings for his friends, but since he detested his former self that worked so hard until he wanted to perish at the end of the night.

He decided that it wasn't worth on dwelling for the time being, and went to his Mastery Class.

As soon as he arrived, the door had shut behind him fast and he heard Caitlyn's voice in the distant. "You're late"

"I apologize, just been having an awfully weird afternoon."

Caitlyn didn't know or want to know what he meant. She laid down a couple pieces of paper on his sole desk in the wide room and said, "The Temple Ruins are tomorrow, but I'm sure you already knew this. I've given you a report of it that I made a couple years back for all my students, and a helpful guide that I think you might like."

Ezreal stuffed both papers in his backpack and asked, "Is that all?"

"Not quite; I think you need a little punishment for coming in late."

Ezreal though, 'Why does that always have to sound so wrong?!'

Caitlyn threw down a round bracelet looking device on Ezreal's desk. It was small, but it wrapped perfectly around Ezreal's hand and even recognized his face as soon as he put it on. "What are these?"

"It doesn't currently have an official name, the Institute called it RiftWarp. It allows you to connect with your Champion Profile and test out your abilities. We're not allowed to let students keep these because it's still too early in development but I want to see if you are seriously ready for what lies ahead. You, of all my students, are the cockiest and most self-acclaimed, so I think it's time that you put up or shut up."

Ezreal had tried to tone down his ego for the past week, but hearing what Caitlyn had said just ignited the fire inside of him to just show how strong he really was. "Hah, maybe I can finally make you eat some of those words of yours!"

Caitlyn put on her bracelet and threw her hat in the corner of the room. "My thoughts exactly, Ez. WARP, START!"

Suddenly, the two of them were thrown into a long lane that mirrored what Ezreal grew to know as the Summoners Rift. As he got up on both feet, he just scanned the area in complete awe of what it was like to actually be on even a replica of the Rift. The battleground that he had long yearned for had been right in front of him, with his entire kit at his disposal. He eagerly awaited to be released from this fictional realm and step on the real deal, but this moment was a good substitute. At this point in time, Ezreal did have in mind what he wanted all his abilities to do, but he had no idea how to activate them. For a while, he just tried jumping back and forth to activate his arcane shift, but nothing came of it. Ezreal ran down the singular long lane that he had in front of him to see if he had only a certain field where it worked. He saw Caitlyn in the distance just sitting on a small chair behind her turret.

"Yo, what gives? How do I use any of my abilities?"

Caitlyn laughed for a bit thinking he was joking, and soon realized he was not as he kept rolling around on the ground looking for a secret button that would turn on his skills. "I really hope you aren't this clueless in real life too…" Caitlyn walked over to Ez and nearly faceplanted him with her sniper rifle. "Listen, I'm not wasting any more time. We have already discussed that your abilities are a direct inference of your fighter spirit. You have to reach deep inside of yourself and put forth your energy if you want anything to come out. In the Rift, the best way to categorize this is 'mana'. If you over-exert yourself and use up too much mana, nothing will happen; similarly, if you can't tap into your own power then you lack the will to be able to fight."

Ezreal got back up, and tried his hardest to do as Caitlyn said. Ezreal focused all the energy that he could feel inside his body and sent it into his right hand. It took a few seconds, but it started to resonate slowly and it lit up with a large symbol on the top of Ezreal's fist, with colors as bright and yellow as his thick hair. He could feel as if an invisible bow was being carried in the palm of his hand, and soon it shot out like a beam of light. He flew backwards from the blast and landed on his back. "Gah, geez…I really didn't expect something like that but it felt totally incredible!"

"10 seconds."

Ezreal heard this from Caitlyn, but he was unsure what it meant. It looked as if Caitlyn too was channeling her energy into her gun as her surroundings started lighting up blue.

"5"

"H-Hey, what gives?! I just got this thing to work!"

"3…2…"

Ezreal rolled backwards and started running towards the jungle, but it was narrowly blocked off by some gigantic logs. He tried his best to blast it away with his magic, but it was useless.

"The hunt begins."

'This doesn't look good. I have no choice but to fight up front!' Ezreal turned around and channeled a flux of energy into his bow, and he released a flurry of shots. Caitlyn had sidestepped every single one and returned fire with her sharp accuracy. Every single shot had hit Ezreal, and he could feel like his energy as well as his life was being drained. "Ugh…C-Can't it here…" Ezreal had finally managed to use his energy to teleport behind Caitlyn, but he had stepped right inside Caitlyn's trap.

"Now you're in my sights. Game over." Caitlyn got down on her left knee and widened her rifle's scope so that it zoomed in ever so clearly on her rooted target. A master hunter such as Caitlyn had almost no use for traps in the first place, but it gave her a good enough amount of time to fully release a final large homing bullet. Ezreal watched with despair as Caitlyn's projectile had jolted over to his position.

'If I can just get out of this trap, I can shift again and catch her off guard!' Ezreal yanked at his left leg which was caught in Caitlyn's trap but it started to drag more and more. He lost all sense of feel in both his legs at this point from all the struggling and fell to his side. 'ARGH, LET ME GO! I WON'T DIE OFF THAT EASILY!' Ezreal flailed his entire body around while on the ground, and finally managed to snap out of the trap. He turned his head slightly up to see the projectile just inches away from his face, and felt the force as it crashed into his body and pulverized him.

When he opened his eyes again, Caitlyn was nudging his forehead with her rifle. "Wake up."

"Ngh…What?" Ezreal realized that he was back on the outside soon after. "I lost?"

Caitlyn put away her rifle and went back to her desk. "I really expected more out of you, Ezreal. I really wanted to believe that I could mold you into a formidable Champion and a respectable human being; with your current trajectory, I can't even do either."

Ezreal just took his backpack and left without saying a word. Caitlyn let him go since she had already put him through enough, and she wanted to know just how Ezreal would evolve from this experience. Caitlyn set this up knowing that Ezreal would be beaten hard; hopefully too would his ego take a hit in the process of a terrible defeat, is what Caitlyn thought.

Once Ezreal had exited the building, he punched the door on the outside, softly. "Damn it." Then, he threw down his backpack and slammed with his left even harder, nearly wounding himself. "DAMN IT!"

'I should be so much more stronger than this! I came to impress and all I've done thus far is disappoint. How can I ever expect to get anywhere in this Academy if I keep choking like this?!'

Ezreal grabbed his backpack and started running back to his place. "If I'm not living for this moment, I'm not living at all. Next time, there won't be any doubt of it – I'm a Champion!"