A puddle. A pond encased in a ring of even smaller dots. Maybe a drink. A little spot. You'd find the body there.

A little town—

The school campus plaza was like a small, bustling marketplace town. The sounds of laughter and other chatter filled the pathways, with streams of students pooling around. Here, the mouthwatering smell of food was like a delicious promise.

The trio was on a full food safari, hopping from stall to stall. It had started like this: Steven was in full 'order-everything' mode while Zero explained that the food was not free. (Yeah, Steven ordered the food anyway.)

"Taste the Richness of Eastern Cuisine at Our Stall!" One stall read.

"Seeking Qilin Antlers? Look No Further!" Another said.

"Thousand-Year Blue-Silver Grass: Limited Stock, Buy Today!" The third advertised.

Each stall had floating pop-ups for ordering and pickup, which Steven noted was pretty cool. Earlier that morning, he had noticed similar pop-ups around the school for mundane things… to which his AI had been so confused about:

[Dieze: "Adding Braille to a 'VISUAL' tag? For a restroom? Logical ERROR: Isn't Braille a 'TOUCH' thing?" X]

While Mayo and Steven went to order their last snack, Zero sat down on a bench.

"I'm back." Steven announced, holding an ice cream cone with a red bean and vanilla scoop, while Mayo held her own scoop. As the two ate their ice cream, Steven mentioned that he was broke.

"You can earn money by challenging students." Mayo suggested. "If you beat them, you get to keep their money."

"Ah..." Steven replied back. Was that viable for him? According to Dieze…

["Assessment: Successful victories estimated at 1%. Warning: Performance metrics place you in the bottom 1% of well, most categories. Processing... Processing... ERROR: Strength levels too low to measure. LOL.' X]

Could have just said no.

Steven, doing his best to ignore the comment, suggested that they head back to the dorms. The trio shuffled off in the direction of the dormitories.

"We're almost there," Mayo pointed.

Steven looked ahead.

Up ahead, behind the main campus, was the apartment complex. It looked like it had been around since Brooklyn had been in diapers - all old-fashioned and full of character, with buildings wearing their age in a coat of faded brick. The complex was a mishmash of three parts, kind of like a Lego project gone rogue. Two big chunks stuck out, making up the main entrance that screamed 'welcome to your forever home.'

And the greenery? It was like the bushes were auditioning for a part in 'Sleeping beauty,' with their spiky leaves looking all menacing. They framed two gardens that looked like they'd escaped from a fairy tale, only to get trapped by a beige road. The fire escape, a flashy red number, did this tap dance across each floor, which meant some lucky students even got balconies. The rest had to make do with a window. The whole vibe was a mix of cozy and slightly musty, like a Queen's Apartment Building.

It had already started raining as they walked. Now, everything was dripping down. The sky had changed so fast that a moment might have missed it.

Pittering, pattering, tinkering, tattering. On the windows, on the ledges, and in the building's valley, a discordant cacophony of howling gasps and chimes pranced.

Stepping inside the building was like entering a labyrinth. The place was a maze of floors and dozens of rooms. Everyone got their own room – a cozy, not-too-shabby space with a pint-sized bathroom. But to the mini-moguls, heirs of those old-money, mega-mansion families, it felt like living in a cramped shoebox.

How on earth could they fit all their luggage into a 'single-room apartment'? Did people actually live in these… these broom closets?

Some of the richer students wanted to find other accommodations, but unfortunately, the freshmen were required to live on campus. Worse: random room check-ups! Talk about adding salt to an iced-tea…

Entering the massive dorm compound, the glass doors closed, and immediately, the trio felt a cool silence. The glass doors cut down the rain into smaller, fainter taps. In front of them, the superintendent sat behind a wooden counter. He glanced over from his laptop, and introduced himself:

"Welcome, I haven't seen you guys before." The brown-haired guy waved, "I'm the Super: 'Bob'. Are you freshmen?"

"Yeah," Steven introduced, "I'm Steven, he's Zero and that's Mayo."

Zero nodded and Mayo politely waved.

"Okay gentlemen and… gentle-ladies… my, almost didn't notice you there, your ID card serves as your key. Just swipe to open your room. If you lose it, please tell me, and I'll open the door for you. Now, if you're missing anything, please tell me." Bob's eyes darted away. "Anything you shipped from home should have arrived by now, but sometimes, things happen."

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Pigeons.

"There's no curfew today, but don't loiter too late," Bob warned. "All of you have classes tomorrow."

Mayo thanked the Super.

"No problem, glad to help," Bob replied back. "I'm here just to make sure everything is going well. Oh and one last thing…"

The superintendent gestured with a flourish, and in an instant, the trio found themselves miraculously dry. Mayo expressed her thanks, and the three stepped out of the lobby to await the elevator.

They waited, and waited. Their eyes trailed the elevator's path on the display as it darted from floors three to six, then to ten, back down to four, up to five, over to eight, and then to two, before returning to three. Its whimsical journey seemed to include every floor, every conceivable destination—except, of course, the lobby where they stood.

"Should we take the stairs?" Steven suggested, "I mean, my room is on the third floor."

"Same," Mayo said, glancing over to the elevator.

"Mine too," Zero uttered.

"Oh."

"The stairs will be quicker," Zero observed, walking to the stairs.

"Ah," Steven and Mayo followed along.

They entered the stairwell, noting weird patterns on the bricks. Inside, Zero looked up at the flight of stairs, and then lightly jumped up to the third floor. Mayo did the same, and the two looked down at Steven over the banister.

Taking the stairs, right.

Steven stumbled up the stairs.

A couple seconds later, he reached the third floor and saw the white-haired boy glance over.

"You need to learn how to climb the stairs," Zero said, "Otherwise, you're gonna take a couple seconds to walk up the stairs, every time."

[Dieze: 'Stamina + 1']

Overhearing Zero's comment, Mayo helpfully offered to help Steven improve his stair-climbing skills. Reluctantly, Steven invited them to his dorm: 307. They approached the suite, and he wrestled with the slightly heavy apartment door before finally inviting them in. Aside from a solitary cabinet, a bed positioned next to the window, and a few bundles of clothes, the space was bare.

Mayo surveyed the space, then turned to Steven with a practical air. "Before we help you settle in," she said, "I think we should help you learn the basics."

The three sat down, like a trio of pretzels.

"So, I overheard at the gym," Mayo began, leaning back, "You just started that cultivation stuff today, right?"

"I thought you walked away."

"Well no… the thing is," She justified, "I have good hearing? Besides, you give off the aura of… a beginner?"

Steven's eyes widened. "That's great. Will that cause any problems?"

"Lots, but we don't have time to discuss that now," Mayo dismissed, "Look, I'm sure that Zero told you some stuff, but y'know… you and him-"

"Yeah, I get it. We're normies who ain't got cultivation or 'sumthin', right? Which is why I'm wondering how he jumped up that flight of stairs."

Zero shrugged.

"Also, why call it cultivation?" Steven continued, "Isn't it just magic?"

"Not exactly," Mayo explained. "Cultivation is an umbrella term for gathering energy from the environment. It's like tapping into your potential. Magic? Just one way to use that energy."

"So why apply it differently, when magic can do anything?" He asked.

"Magic got its own rules, y'know?" Mayo reasoned. "That's the thing. Magic is bound by limitations: words, spells, trinkets, and tools. Even emotions like…"

"Hunger?"

[Dieze: 'Not an emotion.' X]

"Maybe," Mayo shrugged, "Limitations bestow upon magic much more power! But see, some cultivation methods can be used anywhere, any time, and with no strings attached! Which is why we don't 'just' use magic…"

"...And the other thing is," she continued, her voice dropping to a more serious tone, "Cultivation's not just about following a recipe. It's about what's in your blood. You wouldn't try to raise an 'Icy Serpent' if your constitution was fire-y, would you?"

She paused.

"Oh yeah… Did you hear about this one guy? Some guy who bailed on wizarding school 'cause the magic thing just wasn't clicking. That guy's attending our school." Mayo grinned softly, before her tone dropped and she cleared her throat. "R-ight, the basics."

"Here, hand me your pendant," She instructed.

Steven took it off and handed it to her, but as soon as it landed in her hand, time seemed to halt.

[DO]

Her eyes, previously playful, intensified into a g_lden hue so deep it was like staring into a vault of ancient secrets. The b!rthm_rk on her face began to move, blooming and morphing into patterns that seemed to dance and weave into forg_tten stories.

[NOT]

For one heart-stopping moment…. Steven saw something. The vision was there and gone in an instant.

He looked at her again. Her eyes were completely normal. Steven realized that if anything, now was a good time to pop some anti-hallucination meds. But they were expensive, so it could wait, right?

"Aright, let's start," Mayo said, softly. "I, the past…" She cleared her throat.

"Zero was on the right track. He gave you the proper breathing technique. However, you need to take it a step further and condense that energy within your body. This is the standard method of cultivating: creating cores. In eastern mythology, they called the cores…"

"Da'n," Zero uttered. "Jindan."

The way he spoke added a tonal inflection to the words like he wasn't speaking English anymore.

"Right. They're also called golden cores, but don't get too hung up on the whole 'gold' thing," Mayo said, her tone casual again. "Look, it's like taking a fog of energy, making it rain, and then packing it tight. Locks the energy inside you so it doesn't run off. Handy, right?"

Steven repeated the method from earlier this morning and imagined the energy slowly becoming heavier and denser. The energy that he gathered slowly seemed to form into a cloud.

"You're on the right track." Mayo watched carefully. "There's a bunch of cultivation stages and methods, but these steps are your bread and butter. That's all you need to know for now."

Mayo added. "Also, it's pretty cool that you're getting it that fast. A lot of beginners read cultivation manuals to make the learning curve a bit easier… cause it helps to know which channels to pull the energy through. You got a knack for it. Natural talent, I'd say. For a human, anyway."

Human? Steven raised an eyebrow.

He closed his eyes again. For an hour, it was all he did: gathering energy into his body in a meditative state: breathing in and out. But after an hour, he got bored.

"Can I stop now?" He asked.

"Yeah," Mayo answered, dropping her tablet. Besides her, Zero looked up from his laptop and the notes he was working on. The two of them had been working on the homework assigned while Steven had been breathing in and out.

Zero muttered something.

"Oh yeah. Why not," Mayo agreed, accidentally knocking over her bottle of water.

The spilled water formed…

A puddle. A pond encased in a ring of even smaller dots. Maybe a drink. A little spot. Keep digging, you'll find me there.