I was embarrassingly out of breath when I reached the top of the seemingly endless staircase. But if I had counted right, I’d passed forty floors. Thankfully, the stairs had been mostly deserted, and even the people I walked by paid me no heed; some even came close to running into me. No one seemed to care, and the fact that newcomers were common became more and more apparent to me.
But even if my Tier 2 armor somehow didn’t stick out in a world full of matching black outfits, I still longed for the moment I could finally rip the metal off of me. I’d only taken off the armor two or three times while in the desert after escaping Edrona, but only to try and wipe out my sweat with my dirty tunic. Otherwise, I kept the set on to protect me against any enemies. And especially after the visit from Lady Euridice, I felt a strong desire to keep any protection I could.
Darting my eyes back and forth, studying the top floor designed in an oval shape, I noticed no one around to see what I did next. Sighing in relief, I planted my hands on my wobbly knees and took a second or two to gasp for air. A few flights of stairs shouldn’t have taken it out of me, but my body had had enough. What I desperately needed was a meal and a real bed.
I allowed myself only a moment’s respite before straightening my back and wiping away a drip of sweat that had escaped past my hairline and threatened to fall over the tip of my nose.
“Offices,” I muttered aloud, staring at the six doors circling me on every side.
The woman downstairs had said the headmaster’s offices were all that occupied the top floor of the building. Did this “headmaster” really need so much space? What even was his job? And did it really require so many offices?
“Dex, do you have anything in your database on Headmaster Jaeke Bohin and what he does here?” I asked, wanting to know what I was about to get myself into.
“I do not have anything specific on Headmaster Jaeke Bohin, Rayden, but I do know that Solomon’s Realm Academy has always had headmasters. The headmaster is in charge of the school, and back when Solomon had established the city, the headmaster also, by default, managed the entire city.”
“Like the Priests in Edrona?” I said, stepping closer to one of the doors in front of me. This door boasted a wider girth than the others, with some dark staining splashed along the wooden trim, making it look more aesthetically pleasing.
“It is a similar situation, yes,” Dex said.
“Alright, guess I should talk to the boss of this strange place,” I thought more to myself than to Dex.
Based on only a guess, I assumed the larger door of the six was my best option for finding this man. Maybe it was the entrance to his main office…. If he wasn’t behind this first door, I had to reconcile with the fact that I might have to knock on every one before finding him.
As I raised my fist to rap on the door, a shimmer of gold rippled in front of me, forming a slightly transparent wall that struck my hand.
“Ow!” I cried, retracting my fist from the wall that had magically appeared and stung my hand on impact.
Bold black words floated over the shimmering wall and read,
PLEASE PRESENT YOUR ADMISSION SLIP TO SEE THE HEADMASTER
Blinking away the shock, I lifted the slip in my left hand to the screen.
YOU ARE ADMITTED
The wall wafted away as if blown by an unseen wind. I rubbed my stinging knuckles, afraid to try to knock on the door again. But the appearance of the magic wall boded well for the fact that I’d picked the right door.
With a long exhale, I slowly brought my knuckles up to the wooden door and knocked. Thankfully, nothing but wood met my fist.
“Come in!” a high-pitched and barely masculine voice called from behind the door.
I hesitated, then finally fumbled with the doorknob and twisted it with shaky fingers.
It didn’t take much effort to swing the door open. In fact, I pushed it forward a little too hastily and winced as the wood slammed against the textured maroon-colored wall inside the room. I craned my neck around the agape door and grimaced at the chipped paint that revealed white stone underneath.
“Sorry–”
“Oh, it’s no issue,” the same voice from before said. It came from the opposite end of the room, but I couldn’t see the face that belonged to the voice as the headmaster had buried his face into a stack of papers clutched between extremely calloused hands.
“Happens all the time. That mark was already there,” he finished, gesturing to the chipped paint on the wall.
“Oh, uh, alright,” I said, shifting from foot to foot, unsure what to do.
“Oh, goodness, boy. I said come in, not stand there with a stupid look on your face and let the drafty air from the hall into my cozy office.”
The man threw down his stack of papers and rested pointy elbows atop them. His beady green eyes, enlarged by a pair of oversized spectacles, searched me up and down. He wrinkled his nose as he studied me, but a hint of a smile danced along the corners of his lips.
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Following his prompting, I scurried in and shut the door behind me. The office was cozy. And warm. A furnace-like object loomed in the corner on my right. I didn’t think fire or warm coals burned behind its metal door because I only saw a floating orange and yellow glow with no dancing flames–something magical like the lights hanging from the ceiling on the first floor. But I knew it was used to warm the room because I could feel the heat waves radiating from the device and permeating the air all around me.
And something about the clutter dirtying the office contributed to the headmaster’s self-proclaimed “coziness.” Papers, pens, and small devices that I could only guess were screens of some sort littered the floor and scattered over the few pieces of wooden furniture that matched the tall desk the headmaster sat behind. And his desk was just as cluttered, if not more so. Piles of papers, stacked so high that I feared they’d teeter over and start a storm of flying, paper-made torrents, surrounded the headmaster in untidy lines.
The man who studied me behind his comical spectacles matched the clutter. His dark hair, peppered gray from age, stood up in unruly clumps, and it seemed he’d only shaved half of his face this morning, as his left cheek hid under a shadow of hair and his right cheek shone like the skin of a newborn baby.
The silver streaks in his hair and the wrinkles scoring his eyes suggested the man was at least middle-aged, but I realized I really had no way of determining his actual age. As the headmaster, I’d assume him to be at least a few Tiers above Tier 7, which could make him much older than he looked.
“So, you were able to pass my barrier. You must have been given an admission slip to see me.”
I quirked my head to the side. “Are you talking about this?”
I procured the slip of paper the older woman had given me during my registration with his name and instructions for me to see him.
The headmaster nodded rapidly and waved his hand at me to come closer. I did, holding out the slip of paper to him. Once I barely came close enough, he snatched the slip from my gauntleted hand and perused the words.
“Ah, yes, yes. Very well, then. Let me check my records to see why they sent you up here.”
“But… I was told you were expecting me.”
“Oh, we’ll see about that.”
I frowned. “Uh, what? You don’t know whether you’re expecting me or not?”
The headmaster didn’t answer. A screen similar to the woman’s downstairs rose out from underneath his desk after just a wave of his hand. He tapped fingers along the surface of his desk, pushing aside stacks of papers as he did, which made the urge to hold my breath and anticipate the inevitable fall of papers difficult to suppress. But nothing fell. This man seemed accustomed to his cluttered habits and could navigate his mess better than I’d given him credit for.
“I’m Headmaster Bohin, by the way. But you can just call me by my first name, Jaeke,” he said as he tapped.
My tense fingers relaxed, and I found myself smiling. I shouldn’t have been so nervous to meet this man. He was the only one showing me any kindness, save for the woman downstairs– at least before she’d learned I was a Tier 2.
I bit my lip. Would Jaeke do the same thing? Would he dismiss me once he found out my low Tier? Back on my home planet, Tier 2 was respectable. But I was learning rather quickly that things were very different here–in a lot of ways.
“And you are…?” Jaeke said, narrowed eyes glaring into mine. He’d stopped tapping on the unseen buttons. I hadn’t noticed he’d been waiting for me to respond.
“Oh, uh, Rayden. Rayden Grim.”
He rolled his eyes, but that same ghost of an amused smile from before played on his face. He then continued tapping.
After another few seconds, Jaeke stopped his finger drumming and looked at his glowing screen, and then he looked at me. He looked back and forth from me and to the screen at least three times before taking a sharp inhale of breath and pushing his glasses out of the way to pinch the bridge of his nose. He mindlessly waved his hand again, and the screen returned to its place underneath the desk.
“It is very good you came up here. It seems I have been expecting you.”
My mouth fell open as I tried to conjure up a question that would gain the answer I needed as to whatever he meant by that. Wouldn’t he know if he’d wanted to see me before I came up?
“It seems we are to allow you to compete for a chance to enter the academy.”
“Why?” I wrung my hands, which I’d tucked behind my back.
“Let’s just say someone important wants you here,” Jaeke said, his large smile still intact.
I wanted to push for more information, but something about the steady stare the headmaster gave me said that he wouldn’t say more on the subject. But who would want me here? Did someone know I was a Solomon clone? Maybe Solomon himself put some sort of alert into the city’s systems to allow all his clones a chance to enter the academy program.
Yeah, that’s it! I thought.
“Codex, did Lord Solomon set up a way for all his clones to enter the academy regardless of their Tier?”
No answer. Codex’s responses were starting to get spotty. But I didn’t feel like now was the time to think too much about that.
“So, you’re only a Tier 2?” the headmaster said, eyes back on the screen.
I rubbed the back of my neck and avoided his gaze. “Is it really that bad?”
The headmaster sighed and leaned back into the cushioned headrest of his tall chair. He positioned his hands behind his head, making the loose sleeves of his black robe fall over his shoulders. I noticed just then that he was dressed differently than everybody else in this city. It could have something to do with his being in charge.
“It’s not necessarily bad, per se. Many residents at Solomon’s Realm Academy have never advanced very far. But when it comes to the students…” He clicked his tongue and leaned forward. “We’ve only ever accepted a Tier 2 into the program twice in the last century.”
I swallowed down the groan that rose to my throat. “But, you have accepted Tier 2s before. What do I need to do to make it a third time?” I tried to keep a hopeful tone from leaking through my voice. “You said something about competing.”
Jaeke rested the tips of his fingers on his desk and pushed himself out of his chair. I stepped back, surprised. The man was even shorter than I was. Yes, I’m short. But I had reason to believe that wouldn’t always be the case–I’m the clone of a mighty god who, I know firsthand, was a very tall man.
But the headmaster… He stood about two heads shorter than I and filled out with pudgy rolls in his mid-section, and his shortness only enhanced his roundness. I would have never guessed his weight based only on his sallow cheeks and pointed chin.
“There is one thing you could do,” he mused with a glint in his eye. “You can prove you are adept, even at Tier 2.”
I rolled my shoulders back, daring to allow hope to burn in my chest. “What’s that?”
“Survive a duel against one of our beginner students.”
I frowned. “What do you mean by ‘beginner?’”
“A student in their first year, still a fresh Tier 4.”