“Tier 4?!” I couldn’t see myself, but I knew I had gone pale. My hands dropped to my sides, and I looked dejectedly at my feet. “Your beginner students are Tier 4?”
The headmaster shrugged and marched over to a short table that held a silver pot and two matching cups with thin handles. Teacups? I’d seen them before, at a Tradesman booth in Edrona at the Markets.
“Sometimes we’ll have a promising Tier 3 and, like I said, twice had some Tier 2s. But typically, our first years start at Tier 4.” He held up the silver pot. “Would you like some tea? It’s peppermint.”
Just another nonsense word I couldn’t understand: “peppermint.” It was starting to get irritating that I had to approach this new world like a newborn child. I made a mental note to ask Codex if we could program him to explain new things to me as I went, kind of like he had on the spaceship. But only if we could figure out a way to do it without him needing to take over my body. I wasn’t keen on experiencing that again.
“No, thank you,” I said, not feeling much like tea at the moment. “But, if I agreed to this duel of yours, what would be the terms?”
The headmaster whistled an unfamiliar, short tune as he poured steaming brownish liquid into one of the teacups. “All we need to see, in order to proceed with your student enrollment, is whether or not you can survive a duel against one of our Tier 4 students for at least 60 seconds.”
I pursed my lips and watched curiously as Jaeke sipped cautiously at his hot tea. He shook his head after one sip and walked over to another short table with silver dishes covered by matching lids.
I had done something similar before, a duel against someone to prove I had advanced to Tier 1. That duel had been against Sarina, my best friend. My heart wrenched at the thought of her. Her lifeless face filled my mind, accompanied by a memory of what it felt like to hold her as she’d gone limp. I shook my head and pushed away any of the negative emotions that bubbled uncomfortably in my stomach.
But in my duel against Sarina, I’d had to prove that Lady Euridice had Marked me after my second Marking Ceremony. Edronans had only ever been allowed one Marking Ceremony–an event reserved when you turn 16 and attend the goddess’s temple for the first time in the hope of receiving her Mark. As we’d all been told, a Mark would allow us to cultivate and advance through the Tiers. Even though tradition allowed only one Marking Ceremony per person, Drayek had convinced the Elders’ Council to allow me a second one. Granted, I never got a blasted Mark. Turns out I’d never needed one. In fact, nobody needs one!
At that time, I’d had to last five minutes against Sarina, but she was only a Tier 1. A Tier 4 was a whole different story. Sure, I only had to last 60 seconds in this duel, but a lot could happen in a fight in even 10 seconds. But… I had killed a Tier 3 Priest! That reassured me, especially when I ignored the fact that I had gotten very lucky.
Jaeke plucked the lids off both the dishes on the second table and scooped spoonful after spoonful of white sugar into his cup. He lifted the other dish, the one shaped like a tiny pitcher, from the table and then poured some sort of white liquid into his tea. The liquid looked creamy and refreshing, and I found my mouth had started watering.
The sooner I agree, the sooner I can eat, I thought hopefully. Maybe if I agreed to these terms, the headmaster would offer me a decent meal and a place to sleep.
But in reality, food isn’t what motivated me. Both Codex and the Lord Solomon AI had told me that this academy helped people learn and advance to Tier 10. I didn’t know exactly what the “academy program” entailed, but I knew for a fact that I could learn more here than I would by myself. Codex had said the sooner you reached Tier 10 while remaining relatively young, the easier it was on your body. And I wanted to get to Tier 10–no, I wanted to get to the Celestial Tiers. For Drayek. If he could still watch me in the afterlife, and I hoped that he could, I wanted to become a god for him. Making him proud took precedence over anything else.
“Fine, I’ll do it,” I finally answered.
“Splendid!” Jaeke did a little hop on the balls of his feet, causing a splash of his tea to crest over his teacup and fall to the wood floor. “We will discuss details tomorrow. I am sure your travels have left you weary. I will call in a member of the staff to take you to a vacant room and provide you with some food and clothes. We at Solomon’s Realm Academy are nothing if not hospitable!”
I don’t think I’d ever felt so much relief as I did after hearing those words in my entire life.
***
I stared at myself in the dormitory’s (dormitory is what that staff member with the green color on his wrists had called the room) full-length mirror with narrowed eyes. The “jumpsuit,” as the scrawny, sickly man had called it, hung on my body loosely, like it was meant for someone three sizes bigger than me. The sleeves and pant legs hung so far over my hands and feet that it was almost like they weren’t there anymore. I looked ridiculous.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Sighing, I pulled the sleeves over my shoulders as high as I could. As I did, my eyes caught sight of the color on the wrists of the sleeve. They’d given me a jumpsuit with dark gray rings, a color I couldn’t remember seeing on anyone in the entire city. Granted, the city and the academy building were massive. There could very well be “gray-sleeved” people about that I just hadn’t seen yet. But I wondered what the gray color meant.
It was evident to me that all the colors designated people into specific groups; I just didn’t know what groups those were yet. I guessed those with green on their sleeves, like the man who had led me to my dormitory, were servants of some sort–workers for the academy. Every person I’d seen cleaning the building had green sleeves.
But Headmaster Bohin had no color on his ensemble whatsoever. In fact, he hadn’t had a jumpsuit on at all. He had long robes colored black all over. I could determine easily that his robes represented his authoritative status, but I had no guesses about anything else.
My reflection looked back at me warily as if my mind begged me to retreat to bed. I stepped closer to the mirror and placed fingers under my eyes, stretching my skin down to reveal the redness around my blue irises. Though my face was now clean thanks to the magic shower down the hall that that staff member had shown me (Who knew you could have water run through pipes to clean you, let alone hot water? I’d be raving about that for years to come.), my face still looked disheveled. My cheeks had sunken in further than they used to, and dark circles surrounded my tired eyes.
I’d definitely lost some weight since my last day in Edrona before it had been destroyed, and I could do with a few more of those amazing showers and a lot more of that pineapple the staff member had brought me just minutes before leaving me to myself. That and all the fish he had piled onto my plate. For a city where I couldn’t buy any food with a Tier 3 core, the people within the actual academy were treating me very well.
I tried not to think about that too much because, knowing myself, I’d end up dwelling on it and never getting any sleep. My tired limbs succeeded in convincing me that rest was more important.
With a yawn, I retreated to the narrow bed tucked away into the far right corner of the dormitory. The room itself didn’t impress with size. It was hardly more than a wooden box that held a simple bed with white covers, a mirror, and a small desk that could barely fit a pen and sheet of paper on its surface. But I had no desire to complain, and I felt not even a sliver of annoyance. I’d been raised in a hovel that housed a place for Drayek and me to sleep and an acting kitchen and dining room. And that had only been three times the size of this dormitory. Just the sight of a bed–small, narrow, lumpy, who cares?!–made me more than happy.
I fell onto the soft white covers–softer than the covers I’d had at home, that’s for sure. I’d never noticed how scratchy my blankets and monster hides had been in Edrona–I’d had nothing to compare them to. But these were cloud-like in comparison. Or, at least, they felt like what I’d imagine clouds to feel like.
I buried myself into the covers with a satisfied chuckle and continued to wrap them around my body until I’d effectively cocooned myself. Just as my head hit the thick pillow–what did they fill it with, feathers?–I felt myself begin to drift off into that state of semi-conscious lightness just before you fall asleep.
“Rayden?”
My eyes flew open and I groaned into the pillow, which muffled any of the sound that came out of my mouth.
“Where have you been, Dex?! You haven’t answered me for hours!”
“I do not know what you mean. I have been here the whole time.”
I wiped the grogginess from my eyes, too tired to argue with him.
“My scans of the city are complete,” Dex said. “At least what I could scan. I was able to connect with some of their electronic systems and learn more. I now know how most of Solomon’s Realm Academy functions and can help explain things to you when prompted.”
I rubbed my eyes. “That’s great news. Thanks.”
I thought the words with a lot of sarcasm, but in reality, it really was great news. Maybe I wouldn’t be scrambling in a world I couldn’t understand anymore.
“Is there any way you could tell me what things are and what they mean as I come across them? Like how you did it on the spaceship? But,” I added hurriedly, “without taking total control over me? I can’t even begin to guess what some of these foods, machines, and even clothing that I’m coming across are.”
“Yes, Rayden. Now that my scans are complete, I can do this for you. I will send definitions and images to your mind whenever you come across something unique to this world–as long as my scans include information on the things you come across. It will be similar to how I automatically translate foreign languages in both writing and speech for you.”
“Great,” I replied, too tired to think too hard about how it would feel to just know instead of feeling absolutely lost. I could think about those things tomorrow. However…
“What do the gray-colored rings mean on my jumpsuit? I assume the variety of colors put people into different categories of some sort.”
“This is correct, Rayden,” Dex chirped back. Though his voice always had a monotone, mechanical quality, I could somehow sense an air of excitement. Was he excited? Could he feel things like that?
“You may have noticed that there are many different colors one can have on these required jumpsuits,” he finished.
“Required?”
“Yes, Rayden. Once registered as a student or resident, one is required to wear a jumpsuit.”
“But I’m not a resident or a student yet. Why’d they give one to me?”
“That’s where the gray on your sleeves comes in,” Dex responded. “Gray is reserved for those who do not have a designated job or title yet. Once you are a student, they will switch your jumpsuit to yellow. If you just become a resident, you will receive blue. And if you are a resident and attain one of the many jobs here, you will receive a different color.”
I nodded with a yawn. “Alright, alright. Makes sense. Can I go to sleep now?”
“Yes, Rayden. I will never keep you from your much-needed rest.”
I rolled my eyes, still unsure if Dex could see me make facial expressions but not caring either way. He’d already interrupted my sleep just minutes before. But it didn’t take long for sleep to come. As soon as I closed my eyes, a deep slumber overtook me.