Following the unknown darkness, where the light was nothing common. Flickering gray light moved at great speed across this space.

Far in the distance, there was a towering ship, slowly drifting in this space. It was in terrible shape, where the wood was cracked in many parts, yet the old-looking ship was drifting in space. One of the 5 masts was even ripped to pieces. The sail was in rags, but it still laid wide open across the space. It was a hundred of meters long ship with a dozen or so layers of windows across the wooden body.

That light drifted from that space directly to the deck. It slowly took the shape of the ghostly body of a man. Flickering, windy features and a deadly gaze were on his face. Initially blank, but slowly regained their life. He had no lower body. Just arms and part of the torso.

“Huh? Ohhh…” He looked around him. His mind was still in a shambling of deep sleep and numbness. He was a prisoner of this space for an untold amount of years.

“Come forth! Towards the bottom of this ship.” The ethereal voice of a woman spread to his location from afar.

The man remembered it briefly before he began to unwrap his mind from the shock. He drifted to the lower part of the deck through the opening of the stairs, which led to lower levels. There was a rather enormous hall with corridors to individual rooms. It looked nothing like outside space at all. There were all kinds of pictures on the walls. It depicted the artwork of the old pictures. War scenes, the scenery of vast natural landscapes, and many more with a visible ancient look.

But the man did not even glance at them. He couldn’t care less about anything right now, because he understood that his chance had come. He did not know how many years has passed since his imprisonment. It felt like dozens of thousands of years. Keeping his pace, he reached lower and lower layers. The stairs and walls were in good condition. Any living could walk here just fine, but he was not one.

He slowly reached one glowing hallway where was glittering lighting stones across the walls. One door, in particular, was open.

Ghost flew there without any trouble. He knew there was no danger. It was his instinct and experience of being once, someone powerful to do whatever he wanted. It led to his demise, yet he had a determined face, with no speck of regret. His conviction and beliefs were unshakable.

He reached the door in no time.

Inside, there was a bright, colorful office space. Sofa, chair, table, and shelves of some antique arts.

In the middle was a section of a huge long table where was seated a woman. Unlike the ghostly man, she had a physical body. Life was within her, but her appearance was unnaturally pale. Her face was numb and expressionlessness. She had long black hair and a considerably pretty face, yet it was slacking a bit since she looked bored and blank. It did not change even after the sudden guest in the room.

She looked in his direction the same way as she sat there.

“Good day, prisoner number 36.” She spoke in a monotone voice.

“Is this the reality?” He asked in confusion. His voice was hoarse with a hint of madness.

“No. This is your chance. You will understand it after reading through these documents. All prisoners who have got this chance had to do this. Sit down first.”

A ghostly man floated towards the long table. Sitting down? That was a questionable thing to say to a ghost. The woman was facing his position and across from him were lines of books and scrolls.

“What is this about?” He asked.

Suddenly, a stone tablet appeared across the table. It had all kinds of symbols. A language which was not of mortal words, but nonetheless understandable to this man. It flickered with light and changed throughout the minutes which passed by, before disappearing once more.

“Are you fucking serious?” The man said in a serious, yet angry tone.

“Read the rest of the sub documents.” Women said as she was sitting beside that table as well. Not bothering with this ghost’s problems.

“T-this? You must be kidding me?” The figure was in shock after flipping through the first document.

“There is no other way since you have no choice. You agreed to it as all others Number 36.” Women indifferently said.

“36 my ass!! You think this is something you can order me with?” Figure aggressively said. His eyes seeped with hatred.

“Your mind is in a state of confusion after being brought back from slumber for a thousand years. You should first calmly decide yourself.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“T-thousands? I have been here for only this amount of time? Ridiculous!”

“It is an agreement by the ones who imprisoned you here. If you want your freedom, check everything carefully with an open mind. This could help you change your fate and life itself.”

“Hmph! I swear… After I go back to reality, I will get my revenge for this.”

“Be my guest Number 36.” She said as she put her hand to her mouth and yawned. She went through this numerous times already. 35 times or something like that.

“How this will work? Is this… like… the only choice I have?” The man said after calming down a little.

“Yes. Order of Maxim is not something you can change.”

“Fuck. Maxim? I will die if I won’t comply and die if I fail. This is insane.” Ghost unhappily said.

“Tell it to your sins and people who died by your hands.” Woman nonchalantly added.

“Hmph! As a demonic cultivator, I will always go with my heart. What justice is there if people who want to kill me die by my hands instead?”

“I am not here to question your life choices. Move on like everyone before you.” The woman said with slight irritation.

“Number 36? What happened to other 35 people like me?”

“As far as I know, only 2 succeeded. They accepted their fate and moved on. While some chose to die on the spot and others at least tried. Choices were theirs.”

“THERE is no choice. Die or die? Fuck that.” The man shouted at her in frustration.

“Are you done, Number 36?” The woman said with the same expression as always.

“Fine! I will do it for my sake, not anybody else’s.”

“Good. I wish you a good fate. You will live on this ship from now on. When you aren’t outside, you can worry about your way of teaching materials. Consider it as a choice to better yourself and others.”

“Wait? Materials? You mean the one who was used by the fuckers who imprisoned me here?”

“You did not pay attention to these papers? Huh…” Woman sighed.

“Take everything to your room and just try your best. Not like I or you have a choice.”

Suddenly, the man’s transparent figure was pulled out of the room with invisible energy. The last image that he had seen was the same indifferent expression of that woman.

His vision blurred as he appeared in a room. There was just a bed, chair, and table. The room’s walls were made of old, unknown wood. There was one small window, not like there would be light from it. Instead, there was the ceiling where was a small dot of lighting stone. There was no problem with visibility. The room from earlier had similar stones scattered around it as well.

The man fell confused after a sudden movement. He still felt not that great as his deep consciousness woke up after a long time.

A few minutes later, he glanced at the table where was a bunch of scrolls and books.

Sarey would recognize one of them as the book she found below the bloodied Allan. It had the same brown cover made of unknown leather and chained sides.

“Damn it all.” He cursed and flew towards the chair. As he had no legs, he could only sit in a weird position. His body was in a half state of real and transparent. This did not mean he was dead and was somewhat resurrected, but he could still have some physical feelings, such as grabbing stuff with his hands, vision, and hearing. He couldn’t feel the surrounding temperature and other senses.

“This book? They expect me to become that school’s teacher?” He asked himself as the pages were turning with his fingers.

“Hmmm. I always knew their way of teaching was weird. As well as the number of elites within their forces. Do they teach all of their members by outsiders? This is totally out of the norm.”

After some time of reading the first few pages, the rest of the pages were just scribbled with unknown meaning. It was unreadable.

“What? I can’t read everything? What sort of bull crap is that? Do they expect me to work with this amount of information? I don’t even know who will I meet and when.” He cried in agony. Although, no tears would appear.

Without a choice, he looked at the document scrolls around him and glanced at their content. There were rules and general information about what he would need to know. There were also a lot of restrictions that came with his interaction with the outside, and most of the things that he read were boring parts that went out of his mind as soon as he read them. Rules. He was never keen to care about them.

Hours passed as the ghostly figure was engrossed with the knowledge in these scrolls. Unlike the book, they could be read as he wished, because they were easily readable.

Just like this, dozens of hours passed. It was hard to tell the exact time from this environment. The figure was sometimes confused, visibly angry, lost, and overall, engrossed in the way these rules and how things in-between worked. He wondered if what he just agreed with was an enormous mistake. One thing that he was worried about the most was a single thing. Time. There was a time limit within these rules, which made him very nervous.

“Phew… I mostly understand what is this about. It further made it obvious that they are a bunch of idiots. Hehehhehe.” He started to madly laugh with a mixture of joy and sadness. It was a weird sight. A laughing ghost who couldn’t cry.

After some time in this state, he flew towards the door when he shouted out loud while punching at the door. “Hey! Woman with that boring face! I would like to ask something.”

There was a silence. He tried to do it more times, but no answer came.

Unexpectedly, the ethereal voice sounded from everywhere. It did not sound exactly like the women from before, but not that different. It was more mysterious and powerful.

“What question you ask about? As per the rules. You will have a possible certain number of questions that you can ask within the time limits. Don’t waste it.”

“Oh… I guess there was something about it on one of the scrolls. Anyway, where I could expect to meet the one I shall teach?”

“It is not up to me or you. It is a matter of the Outside. You will meet the one you teach in a short amount of time. Maybe…” The woman's voice said. The last parts sounded rather weird. It was as if she was questioning herself and not answering the question at all.

“Bull-crap! I can definitely say that you know at least something.”

“Then what do you wish to ask about?”

“When will I go Outside for demon’s sake!” He angrily asked.

“I don’t know. That is all for now.” Voice barked and fell silent once more.

“Unbelievable…”