John lazily turned around in the comfortable bed he was sleeping on. How long had it been since he last laid on such a comfortable surface? Ages, surely.
Some person started mumbling a string of incomprehensible words next to him, but he couldn’t be bothered to decipher them. They were probably just there to chase him out, so he should use his time wisely.
Finishing that half-coherent train of thought, he gripped the soft pillow tighter. Someone shook him roughly, but he ignored it to the best of his abilities. Was it time for him to run away? Perhaps he had stayed here too long, wherever he was. He would probably be able to remember if he just opened his eyelids, but it was as if two blocks of granite rested on them.
Then, a massive force catapulted him out of his newfound sanctum. His eyes ripped open with a speed he couldn’t have imagined a few moments ago, and he saw the world spinning for a brief moment before hitting the carpeted ground with dull thud.
Surprisingly, the pain that he expected didn’t come.
Instead, he blankly stared at the orange ceiling above him as an aged figure stepped into his line of sight. As a familiar pair of amber eyes stared at him, his most recent memories rushed into his head like a tsunami.
He gulped. Just what had happened for him to fall unconscious? Was that normal or did he do something wrong?
“Erm, mister?” he began, “Did something happen?”
The old man put a thick hand on his cleanly shaven chin. His eyes shone with an odd glint as he scanned John’s body from the bottom to the top. After some time had passed like that, he finally opened his mouth with a smile, “Yes, I guess something did happen. To be exact, you happened.”
John quirked an eyebrow at the old man’s strange words. “Would you care to elaborate?”
“No. Since it seems like you’re fine my job is done.” The teacher’s eyes drifted towards the dark brown door. He marched towards it in a fashion that reminded John of an old veteran, stopping just short of pushing the handle down. “That will be all for today. I have already instructed someone to teach you what you need to know, so you don’t have to worry about falling behind the others.”
He opened the door, swiftly stepping through it.
John slowly let his eyes survey the room he was in, noting the many shelves and beds lined up in it. On the far end, there was a big window that let one see the scenery outside where dozens of small groups could be seen. They seemed to be either training or playing around in the vast area that the Golden Gate occupied.
The walls and ceiling were painted in a warm orange, somehow complementing the white beds and brown shelves located in the room.
Overall, it gave off quite the clean impression, not unlike that of an infirmary. Since there were no people in the room, he guessed that it was fortunately not used often. Although the question of where the nurse was arose, John guessed that he or she probably had something to do right now.
Now that John was alone again, he stood up and plopped onto the flawlessly white bed he had fallen off of. Embracing the pillow, he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.
“Brat! You have guts, that’s something I have to admit,” a gruff voice hissed from behind him.
John slowly opened his eyes, wondering how someone could have gotten so close to him without his notice. After all, the door had not opened in this short period of time, and he hadn’t found any signs of anyone else staying in this room during his cursory glance.
“How long has it been since the last time a little kid like you has dared to sleep in my infirmary? Far too long, I guess, since even a snotty little brat like you dares to do so,” the voice continued. John heard some rustling, and the next time the voice spoke it was right above his ear, “I suggest you fuck off before I send you flying, brat.” A warm breath tickled his ear, but he wasn’t in the mood to laugh.
John slowly nodded and got off the bed with the fastest speed he could muster. Whilst doing so, he came to face the owner of the gruff voice. It was a dainty young woman, barely around her 30s. A pair of ravenous blue eyes staring at him like a predator stood in stark contrast to her kindly, round face. As she crossed her arms in front of her chest, her hazel hair cascaded down her shoulders like a small waterfall.
“What’cha staring at, huh? Have you never seen a nurse before?” She quirked an eyebrow at him, gesturing for him to hurry up.
John, still shocked at the disparity between the voice and the body it came from, hurriedly walked out of the room. Realizing that he had no clue in regards to which direction he should go to, he absentmindedly stared at the empty but spacious hallway he found himself in.
He scratched his head. As he had no intentions of returning to the infirmary, he had no choice but to walk into a random direction in hopes of meeting someone who could tell him just where he was.
As he strolled through the hallway, he couldn’t help but marvel at the strange uniformity of his surroundings. The walls were perfectly even, and even the windows were placed at intervals that illuminated the hallway perfectly, with not even one blemish on them.
He ran a finger over the glass, watching as he left visible oily marks on it. The wooden frames holding the window together were well polished, completely unlike the planks used at the inn he stayed at.
He wasn’t sure if that was normal back in those ancient times, but he had to admit that he found it fairly impressive considering the tools that the people here had at their disposal. Or maybe he was just looking down on them too much.
As he was staring through the window, he noticed that, no matter where he looked, a truly titanic shadow of what he presumed to be a wall was faintly visible. By his admittedly unreliable estimation, he guessed it to be around the height of a twenty to thirty story house – something which should be utterly impossible for this time. The sheer amount of resources necessary to build such a wall of such colossal proportions would be mind boggling, even if it only surrounded the city he was in.
Ever since he came here, more and more seemingly impossible things had appeared in front of him. The somewhat yellow outline of the city wall, though, was even more outrageous than the golden fence and bricks he had encountered before.
‘Where the hell did they get the material for it from? And why doesn’t this damned thing crumble under its own weight?’ The more John looked at it, the more confused he became. It probably had something to do with that strange substance called aether, but he couldn’t discern how it would be able to accomplish this.
Deciding that he seriously needed to start gathering information as soon as possible, he continued walking.
A few minutes later, he finally reached a large hall, where he saw a few middle-aged men and women laze about in comfortable couches. As soon as he stepped into it, their conversations stopped and two dozen heads whipped around to face him.
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Feeling the pressure they emitted, John had trouble breathing normally. ‘What the hell is wrong with this place? Why are all the grownups here so damn scary?!’ Fortunately, the pressure vanished as quickly as it appeared when they saw his childish appearance.
One of the women, a tall and muscular lady dressed in a plain grey tunic, walked over to him. She bowed down until she was only slightly bigger than John, who had to desperately restrain himself from staring directly into her cleavage. “Hello there. My name’s Franziska, what’s yours?” she inquired gently, as if he were a small animal she was afraid to scare.
John, seeing that she was quite friendly, instantly relaxed. He smiled at her as childishly as he could manage. “John,” he responded.
“Are you lost?”
“Yes, I have gotten lost whilst searching for the student dorms. My room number is 111. Would you be so kind as to show me the way?”
Franziska’s smile stiffened at his words. She had come forward to help him out of curiosity since he was attracting all the aether in the surroundings, but it seemed like she had met quite the strange one. No kid his age would speak like this. In fact, the way he spoke was more refined even when compared to some adults she knew. To top it off, even his mannerisms didn’t fit. He didn’t have the boundless vitality that normal warrior children had. If she had to be honest it creeped her out, but he seemed genuinely lost.
‘Judging by his room number, he must be one of the new recruits. Thankfully I know where that is,’ she thought to herself. “Of course. But you know what, I’ll escort you there!” she replied in a similarly childish tone.
John internally cringed at her actions, but cheerfully nodded nonetheless. He was sure that he wasn’t pulling the child act off very well, but she was even worse.
“Guys, I’m gonna escort him back. I’ll be back in a jiffy,” she informed the other people lounging on the couches before walking into one of the many hallways connected to the room.
John followed her slow, unhurried gait as he ignored the interested gazes of the people around him. Having caught up to her, he joined her and tried to adjust his pace to hers. Being a child had many disadvantages, and one he could never cease being annoyed at were the small legs.
“So,” she started after they had walked for quite a distance, “I guess you are new here?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I guess you don’t know what Aethereal Auras are?”
“No, but it probably has something to do with aether, right?”
Franziska sighed. It seemed like he really had awakened just recently, otherwise he’d already know the basics. She had never even heard of such a unique aura before, not to mention the ramifications of such a special constitution. After all, a constant attraction of aether could be quite fatal if one tried to hide. Not to mention that absorbing too much of the aether in your surroundings would drive the person in question crazy.
She stared at the skinny face of the small child next to her. He was probably a street rat that had been turned in not too long ago, so it was only reasonable that he didn’t know too much about warriors in general.
“Okay then. Let big sis teach you!” She beamed at him. Having always looked up to her teacher, it was her dream to be able to be able to bear the honour of teaching the next generation. Normally, it would take years of specialized patience training to even be let near a class of recruits, but now she was able to get a taste of what it was like, even if it was with a weird kid.
“You see, once you pass a certain stage you’ll be able to sense the aether around you. There are a variety of ways to do so like seeing or hearing-“
“Wait, you can actually hear aether? How is that supposed to work?” John interjected, eliciting a casual slap to the back of his head that almost blew him off his feet.
“I am talking now. Who allowed you to interrupt me?” Franziska reprimanded him with the sternest voice she could muster.
John simply placed a hand on the spot he was hit on and suppressed the swelling tears to the best of his ability. She was insanely strong. That casual slap had almost caused him to cry, which was already shameful enough in of itself. ‘Damn this childish body of mine!’ He wasn’t sure whether or not she intended for her blow to hurt that much, but he now sure had a newfound respect for her inhuman power.
Thinking about the question that she knew he would ask, she placed a finger on her chin in deep thought. “Well, I don’t think that’s something you can describe in words. It would probably be as useful to you as describing what colours look like to a blind person. There’s just no way you’d be able to understand it. It’s different for everyone, really. Some hear auras as melodies whilst others can smell it from hundreds of metres away.”
“But I’m able to feel aether if I concentrate anyway, so what’s the big deal about being able to sense them?”
“Your aether senses are far more useful. Just think about it: Where would you find the time to sit down and concentrate for a few minutes in a chaotic battlefield? Aether senses can be activated quite quickly and don’t take too much concentration. Furthermore, they can help you in performing magic when you get used to them. But I guess this doesn’t really matter to you right now. You should be quite far away from even thinking of something like magic.”
“Magic? What do you mean with that?”
Franziska contemplated whether she should answer that question, but decided not to. In her bliss at finally being able to teach someone, she had forgotten that randomly teaching children was heavily frowned upon, not to mention that she could be heavily punished if word ever got out.
She shuddered at the consequences. “No, I think that was more than enough for today. Since I think you’re quite a smart kid, why not think about it yourself?”
John let those words sink in. He would eventually be able to perform magic, whatever that was, anyway. Going by what all kinds of novels told him, it had to have something to do with bending or even breaking the laws of nature. The methods of doing so, however, were completely beyond him.
There were more possibilities than he cared to count, and it wouldn’t do him any good if he went through them one by one, anyway. Furthermore, he still had no clue in regards to how one manipulated aether. Although he had apparently awakened, it didn’t seem like he would instinctively gain control of that mysterious substance.
Before he could ask her about methods of aether manipulation, he noticed that they had already arrived in the student’s dorm.
The moment the students lingering in the hallway spotted them, all the conversations quickly died down. Every single student he saw tried to look as inconspicuous and busy as possible, most even scurrying away into other hallways.
The thing that truly shocked John, however, was that the rooms of men and women seemed to be next to each other. Did they really not care about the risk of teen pregnancies or did these things just not happen here? Judging by the fearful expressions on the faces of the students he observed he judged it was the latter.
“Well, I think this is as far as I will accompany you. As you can see, my very presence frightens the children,” Franziska, who had stopped, told him. “If you ever need further assistance just ask for me and I will be more than glad to help you out.”
John hesitated whether he should ask her, but decided not to. For now, at least. He could contact her at any time, after all. Plus, she seemed really hurried. ‘She probably still has lots of things to do. I should bother her at a later time.’
“Thank you for all your help,” John sincerely thanked her. He did know that Franziska was most likely just doing her job, but that didn’t change his good impression of her. She didn’t seem to be a bad person, as far as he had discerned.
“Excuse me, are you John?” a boy shouted from behind him. It was the lone black haired boy from his class.
“I am? What do you want? I’ve got something to do right now just so you know.”
“Well, our teacher has instructed me to share the information he imparted to us in the last few days. He told me to wait for you here, and so I did.” A pair of twinkling blue eyes stared at Franziska incredulously, but the boy’s lips stayed in a thin line.
“Well, since it seems like you’ve already got someone capable watching over you, I’ll be on my way. Like I said, you can go look for me anytime!” Franziska gently told both despite the sentence obviously being directed at John.
The two boys bade her goodbye once more, one still openly staring at her and another one futilely trying to figure out how to best draw every last bit of information from her the next time they met.
When she rounded a corner, John finally turned to face the now smirking child. “I hope this will be worthwhile,” he muttered under his breath as he closed in on his room. The black-haired boy followed him.
“Oh, believe me it will. After all, you’ve been out cold for an entire week. I’ve already been worried that you’ve died, but it seems like you’re even healthier than before.”
John stopped.
“Wait, what? You’re telling me that I’ve been in a coma for a week!” John shouted loud enough for all the people in the hallway to hear him. He felt a few curious stares bore at the back of his head, but right now he had more important things to care about.
‘Damn that old man! I knew he was hiding something from me!’ John cursed internally as he realized that his teacher had deliberately hidden information from him.
“Well, yeah. Anyway, I’d prefer discussing this in private. I don’t really like the attention we’re getting.”
John nodded and pulled the keys to his room out of his pocket. He had fortunately not lost them. “Then let’s go into my room. I think we have a lot of things to discuss.”