Leo stood overlooking a mere half of the city, and yet its size was unfathomable. Despite being higher than even the tallest of skyscrapers below, the city stretched beyond even what he could see. Its architecture was beautiful beyond belief; arching and curving, buildings oftentimes several hundred times fancier than they needed to be, because this was the economic powerhouse and capital of the Ander Empire.
While the colossal city was officially one, almost everyone considered them to effectively be two separate cities that sat right next to each other. What he was gazing at now was called ‘Apex’… and it was the lowlier half.
Behind and above him, the true heart of Ander City lay, half of it carved from an absolutely colossal mountain, and the other half built atop. Leo stood atop a small platform sticking out of the side of one of the mountain’s lowest peaks, and when he turned around, he could see a great majority of the mountainous city, unofficially called the ‘Empire’s Soul’.
Because it was; while everyone living in Apex was wealthy, everyone living in the Empire’s Soul was powerful and wealthy beyond belief, whether politically or literally.
The architecture here was completely different from that down below; still elegant and a bit extravagant, but also with less curves and vibrant colors. In their place were sharp corners and deeper, more violent colors.
The Emperor promoted competition wherever possible, even amongst his descendants. In the Empire’s Soul, and to a lesser extent Apex, everything was a constant fight for power, wealth and influence.
Luckily, the common people were mostly free of this, although some of the competitive nature seeped over to the general culture of the Ander Empire as well.
Leo would have preferred to live in Apex, but he was set to live in the Empire’s Soul instead. The legal issues like citizenship and such had already been handled by his parents and the government, meaning that he was already an Ander II citizen, living in the Empire’s Soul, and was set to be going to Cernery, the best academy for awakened in the Ander Empire. They didn’t teach very many conventional things there, though, and so he was also slated to receive a personal tutor to teach him things like math, history and science.
All of the important things had already been handled, and now he, Erich and Maxwell were simply touring Ander City. After gazing out at Apex for a few minutes, Leo returned to the two and finally gave in.
He had already been warned multiple times that his living arrangements were going to be very strange, due to the strange circumstances surrounding him. Most awakened were older, meaning that the extremely powerful academy he was slated to attend starting tomorrow was set up more like a college, which meant that Leo should be living with multiple other people roughly his age- but there was nobody else anywhere near his age, and even if there were, awakened ten years or younger were generally not allowed to attend yet.
But Leo received an exemption, meaning that he was going to be living mostly alone.
Leo was not looking forward to life in Ander City, and had been avoiding even showing up at the dorm room until now, but he finally had to give in and go ‘home’.
Erich and Maxwell led him to a train platform, where they got onto a train that was about to leave and, a few minutes later, it stopped only a minute’s walk away from the entire block’s worth of dorm rooms.
Erich and Maxwell lead him to his room, and handed him the keycard. It was incredibly heavy in Leo’s hands, even though it only weighed as much as a feather. The card was like the axe of an executioner to him, and entering the room would put an end to his old life, even if it had ended ages ago.
“Go on in,” Erich urged him, and Leo realized that he had been paralyzed for a few seconds. He awkwardly slid it into the slot next to the door. It flashed red and made a negative beeping noise.
“Turn it upside down,” Maxwell suggested, and Leo fumbled to do so, so lost in his emotions that he didn’t even find it amusing. This time, it flashed green and made a positive noise, and Leo heard the door click unlocked. He grabbed the handle and pushed the door open, before looking back at the two.
He was a bit unclear on the details, mostly because it would be awkward to ask, in his mind. Were they going to stay with him, or were they going to be staying nearby? Would it be neither, and the two powerful awakened would leave to go and do their own, likely much more important, thing?
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
Leo got his answer soon enough.
“Well… I had a good time teaching you, Leo. We probably won’t meet again very frequently, but if you ever need my help with something and I’m free, I’ll come.” Erich told him. Leo already had his phone number saved on both of his watches, and he nodded, trying not to let his sadness show.
He had only known Erich for a week, and while the man had been very nice and helpful, Leo was still more upset about the fact that he was going to be all alone from now on than the fact that he wasn’t going to be seeing Erich anymore. Perhaps that was selfish, but Leo wasn’t feeling very insightful at the moment- instead, he was just trying to keep himself composed until their farewell was over.
“I won’t be here anymore, either.” Maxwell said simply. “But… ah, Erich, can I speak to him privately?”
“Of course,” Erich said, nodding and patting his shoulder before turning and leaving Leo alone with Maxwell. Subconsciously, Leo tensed, more than a bit afraid of the man.
“I’m... sorry, for everything I put you through. I hate to make excuses, but I hope you understand that it wasn’t… entirely… my fault.” Maxwell said quietly, before quickly turning away and leaving before Leo could even respond.
Leo had no clue what to do with himself and the emotions he was feeling. He felt incredibly out of place as he simply stood in the doorway, but he eventually stepped fully into the room and lightly closed the door behind him.
‘I’m so tired of having mixed opinions on everything,’ Leo thought to himself. Once more, his thoughts on Maxwell’s apology were split; one side mature, and the other childish. Intellectually, Leo acknowledged that Maxwell’s actions had been heavily influenced by the woman that had been messing with his mind. Even now, Leo had no clue what her goal had been, since she had only ever seriously messed with Maxwell’s mind.
The other side couldn’t get over how Maxwell had treated him in the days leading up to Maxwell’s outburst.
It didn’t matter in the end, though. Leo was all on his own now; he’d likely never see Maxwell again, and if he did, it would be very rare.
Ironically, while he didn’t particularly care for Maxwell, that he’d never see any of the people he knew again was the exact reason that tears were currently trailing down his face.
----------------------------------------
Leo sat up from bed the next day dreary eyed and with a heavy feeling suffusing his heart. Leo had called his family in the middle of the night- Ander II and Lavend III had remarkably similar day and night cycles- in order to try and lessen the feeling of loneliness, but it only served to make it worse.
It was probably why he’d been forbidden from calling them for the first couple of days on the ship.
Leo had wanted to go to sleep last night, but his awakened constitution didn’t allow it. His body wasn’t tired at all, even if his mind was emotionally exhausted. The result was that, in the half-hour before he was slated to attend his first lesson, he felt like a zombie as he slowly, tiredly performed the necessities.
He ate his breakfast, because he was finally hungry after having not eaten since that first time on the ship- awakened didn’t need to eat or drink very often, just like they didn’t need to sleep very often-, got dressed, and other such things.
Finally, the time came, and the rattle in his soul as his awatch alerted him to the fact it was time to go helped to jolt his mind back into a better state.
Leo had vowed to never use that function of the awatch again, but Erich and Maxwell had advised him to do the opposite, for this exact purpose. The slight jolt to one’s soul helped them stay attentive.
Leo stepped out of his dorm, and he almost laughed at the fact that he could see and hear what must’ve been a hundred or so people do so at the exact same time. Cernery was huge, after all, and the dorms took up an entire block of the Empire’s Soul.
As he walked down the corridor, Leo navigated his awatch using his soul. He had decided to test the feature that allowed him to fully perceive the device within his soul, and it was very interesting. It felt kind of like how the Technocrats were often depicted living their daily lives in movies, the implants even allowing them to browse their ‘quantum net’ as they slept.
Nobody else could see it, but Leo could perceive its interface through his soul.
He shook his head, ridding himself of his amazement at the very interesting technology, and did what he had intended to do with it from the beginning; check on his schedule.
Leo’s very first class today was the ‘soul basics’ class. Usually, only younger people took the class, because it only went over knowledge that the older students mostly already had, but to Leo, who wasn’t old enough to have been taught any of that yet, and to the younger awakened who had only been taught a little bit of it, it was very valuable. Erich, Maxwell and Leo himself had endeavored their hardest to teach him the fundamentals of the soul, but there was only so much that they could do in a relatively limited amount of time.
The lesson lasted from eight to five minutes before nine, and immediately after that, Leo had ‘Melee Combat’ lessons, lasting from nine to ten. After that, he had an hour-long break, and at one P.M., he had ‘AT’ lessons. Leo had to look up what the abbreviation meant, and discovered that they were ‘affinity testing’. Affinity testing lasted from one to four, and after that, he had a four hour gap of free-time where he’d meet with a tutor to learn the basic stuff.
The schedule, as well as the classes he’d take, had been made by his family and Erich- although it was more accurate to say ‘the government, through Erich’.
Leo also noted that there was room for him to join clubs and even sign up for additional classes, as well as leave others. He’d have to decide what he was and wasn’t going to be taking by the end of the standard month, which was in two standard weeks, and past that, it couldn’t be changed for the most part.