Chapter 630 - Greetings

The 11th day comes, and all of us decide to join the trip. Some of us, being students, just go, while the Assistant Professors either request to join it as well or simply quit their jobs and go, while, of course, planning to pay the fine later.

Tess and Maya, being guards, have a bit more difficulty, but they manage to come too.

As we head toward the station, Maya seems like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

“You wouldn't believe how good it felt to tell that little asshole to go and screw off,” she says happily, adjusting a small bag on her back.

Most of us have a similar one, just enough for a few days. We're in informal clothes now, finally out of those annoying uniforms and suits.

“She’s just a young girl, Maya. We all used to be like that,” Tess notes. As usual, she has a different hairstyle, this time straight, with bangs covering her forehead and reaching her eyebrows.

“Some of us are still like that,” Maya shrugs. “I broke her crystal ball. I swear that girl was addicted to it with how much time she spent ‘calling’ people.”

“We should modify it and turn it into a smartphone. It would ruin the younger generation and maybe earn us better rewards,” Dennis smirks.

“Maybe we could add ads to it, too,” Aaron nods seriously.

“That’s straight-up evil.”

“So what, Maya? This is what a high-end school does to people. Entrepreneurship.”

“I wouldn't blame it on the school.”

“Aaron and I are perfect as we are.”

“Sure,” Maya sighs. “But I think I’ll miss this floor. It was nice to have a proper bed, good food. Being able to train here, the Challenges, and even all that knowledge. I’ll miss it.”

Lily slides closer to her side and smiles, “I thought I would get bored faster, but it was weirdly fun. I think I could even become friends with some of the natives.”

“Yes, I noticed you students really slipped into the roles,” Maya ruffles Lily’s hair a bit before turning to me. “I blame you, Nat, for not being able to stay here any longer.”

“Understandable,” I nod.

“If you want to stay here and keep looping for three more years, just say it,” this time it’s Sophie who answers.

And Maya sighs, “I don’t. I’ve seen enough movies to know I’d go crazy. So, where is the airship even going?”

Tess looks at her with what seems like disappointment. “And I thought at least you would know. It flies around the region for three days for some sightseeing. Some kind of firework celebration in the south, a visit to the city near the Academy that students usually go to for shopping, then...”

“Okay, okay. Sometimes you’re way too responsible, Tess. Where’s the sense of adventure? Not knowing where we’ll go or what surprises await?”

I listen to the conversation with amusement, knowing well how much Tess hates surprises. And as expected, poor Maya then starts getting called lazy, irresponsible, childish, and other words, very harsh words.

Meanwhile, Izzy and Sophie walk around visiting small shops along the way. The boys, in a group, are probably doing some unethical and evil things.

I just tag along, holding the sleeping puppy form of Biscuit in my arms, while Lily, who snuck up beside me, starts telling me about some interesting things she learned in the Academy.

Like this, we reach the airship.

The station is a tower-like platform. It’s quite tall and huge. The construction is made of stone, metal, and other durable materials. It holds all these shops and hundreds of people. The tower station has multiple terrace-like platforms, and near each, a flying ship is docked.

These ships are massive. Maybe not cruise-ship-on-Earth massive, but big enough to hold a few hundred people. They are made of smooth white wood and shaped mostly like ships. They’re wide, with no masts. The bottom of the ship has protruding crystals and some inscriptions that are covered, probably patented or something, if I had to guess.

The windows into the hull of the ship are huge, mostly circular, and from what I can see, the rooms inside look cozy.

After giving our identification, we board one of the ships, and everyone heads to their rooms where we wait for the airship to launch.

The ship starts flying without me noticing any shaking. Well, I’m sure I could if I used my kinetic senses, but without them, there’s nothing. It just smoothly lifts up.

It’s so slow. Not to be rude, the airship is probably fast for someone around level 100 or for normal people. But more than anything, it feels like a holiday vessel. A luxurious weekend hotel. Even my room, which I’m sure isn’t the most expensive one, is amazing and nearly as good as what I had at the Academy. Bedroom, small living room, bathroom, it’s not missing anything.

For a moment, I look around and a giggle escapes my mouth. My room here is bigger than the entirety of our old flat on Earth that the four members of the Gwyn family shared together. Just the bed here alone might be worth more than that entire place.

I open the Community, and after reading through a few messages, I head to the place where the excited Maya told all of us to come. When I knock, the doors open, and I step inside to find everyone already there.

The living room I enter is bigger than my entire suite. On one side, there aren’t just one but two windows, both circular and huge, with wide window sills that have been turned into a sitting area. I immediately go over and sit down, surprised by the comfort of the cushioning. The window beside me offers a view of the beautiful countryside below us and the clear sky above. Biscuit, still in my arms, gives a sleepy woof, and I boop his nose until he settles again, then I continue holding him.

Then I learn, as I suspected, that this suite belongs to Lily.

Maybe I should become a healer as well.

In the hallway just outside the room, someone left a tray of untouched pastries with a note that said “for suite 8.” None of us is in suite 8, and we don’t know who is, but after about three seconds of discussion, the tray ends up in Lily´s suite anyway.

“They shouldn’t have left it outside,” Sophie says, already eating one.

“It was probably intentional,” Dennis counters.

“If it was a trap, you’re already dead,” I add.

They eat all of them.

Barely a ten minutes later, something else catches my attention, and I shift my focus back to the conversation.

Lily is wearing a yellow-golden dress that fits her almost perfectly, and as she twirls, it moves as if it is light enough to float in the air. Even so, I notice special stitching placed in just the right spots to prevent it from moving in ways that would be too revealing, like the skirt floating too high.

The way the dress responds to Lily’s movements looks ethereal, as if it belongs to something not of this world. It flows, it glows, it dances, and it breathes with her. Watching her, it feels as though I’m witnessing something divine.

Lily is explaining to the girls around her, who look like a pack of hungry wolves ready to steal the clothes from Lily, how it came to be.

She tells us about how two people led a team of thirty who spent two years collecting the silk for it from some very rare spiders. Then they did the refining, the delicate work, and figured out how to process it and everything else. Thirty people dedicated two full years of their lives to create it, one of the rarest materials there is.

Of course, with certain skills, the process could have gone much faster, but the time and effort invested are what make it pretentious and oh so valuable.

Someone apparently gifted it to her and invited her to join their clan.

Maybe I should become a healer as well.

Sitting on the plush windowsill, I keep looking up while ignoring the conversation that slowly turns into the party, as the entire gang stays here, ignoring the rest of what the airship has to offer. I watch the countryside below us shift and day turn into night, while the lights of the cities disappear, replaced by the shine of the stars over the nature below as the airship slows down.

The conversation turns into a distant hum in the background as I don’t try to listen to the words being said.

I let my mind wander and allow myself to doze off and then fall asleep. Before I’m fully asleep, I feel Biscuit exploit the opportunity to boop my nose a few times with his front right paw.

The loop resets just a few hours later.

Two days after that, the Champion dies, and the warhead disappears during one of my walks around the Academy, where I mark things I want to take with me to the 9th floor.

I walk around for a bit longer before sending the signal, and everyone moves.

***

POV Dennis Dalton

I open the small box, and Lily’s [Disintegration] orb dissolves as I blow onto it. It eats through the way too well defended doors, which I don’t think even Sophie would be able to open quickly enough.

With that done, I channel mana through my body to strengthen it, then kick the door open before my brother, Sophie, and I rush inside.

Vance is in there, in the middle of the small room filled with inscriptions covering the floor, walls, and the thermonuclear warhead he stole a few hours ago, which he is currently drawing on and etching into. All of it something he must have done in just two days.

He tries to move, but his body freezes mid-motion as Sophie steps forward, holding him with her skill. Only his mouth is allowed to move.

“What is a mind mage doing in the Academy?” he asks.

His usual friendliness and easygoing nature are gone. He looks colder than ever before.

“Rather, we should ask why you want to blow up the Academy,” I say. Even now, I keep my guard up while Aaron circles around.

“Dennis, isn’t that pretty obvious?”

“Is the bomb made to target only guys, so all the girls stay for you?” I ask.

This time, he smiles, “As stupid as it is, it’s amusing how much it makes people not want to deal with you or overlook the items I’ve made to spy on the other Candidates. Listen, Dennis, don’t you want to help me? I promise to find you and Aaron outside and repay you. I even think the three of us could be friends.”

“I really think we could be,” I agree with him, "but I’m sorry."

He goes quiet for a while and bites his lip. I can see thoughts flash through his head as he searches for a way out. There is none, not against Sophie, who already starts erasing some of the inscriptions.

“So what was the plan? Blow up the Academy and hope all the Examiners and Candidates die with it?” she asks.

"As if insulted, Vance snorts. 'The Academy? Please. That was never the only target. It sucks I couldn't use these idiots to kill the Champion so he wouldn't try to stop it, but I guess I'll have to take the risk."

From his bitten lip, blood shows on his teeth. He feels so distant now, so much unlike that image he built up, one that would fool even me, no matter how closely I looked.

“I anchored the core detonation to a containment lattice of delay inscriptions and reverse-indexed circuits, synced with a pulse-lock to the Academy’s own warding infrastructure. The device wouldn’t blow, but it would absorb.”

I squint. “Absorb what?”

Vance’s lips twist into something between a smirk and a grimace, “Mana siphoning. Radiation folds in on itself, feeds the array cage. Everything inside stays locked in until I cause a spark, and then...”

His words cut off as a short sword pierces through his back, stabbing his heart and coming out through his chest. Even then, his body doesn’t move. I and Sophie stare in shock at Aaron, who stands behind him.

Vance coughs up blood, “I always knew you were the more fucked-up twin.”

Mana glows in his mouth, and only now do I realize what he’s been doing. There are inscriptions drawn and carved into the inside of his mouth, something he was working on during the conversation, masking the blood by biting his lip.

Before whatever he was doing fully activates, Aaron pulls back the sword and swings it. Vance’s head flies through the air, and the light of mana inside his mouth dies along with the light in his eyes.

Out of nowhere, with a curse mumbled under her breath, Sophie moves quickly and starts layering her web around the thermonuclear warhead.

Only now do I notice a change as the walls begin to light up. Like living beings, more inscriptions crawl across the surface, covering the warhead and the floor.

Some of the inscriptions even crawl from the open mouth of Vance’s severed head, all formed from blood.

“Stop staring and help me before this thing blows up!” Sophie’s shout snaps me back to reality, and I quickly connect to her efforts, hoping it's not too late.

***

POV Nathaniel

I locate Ari in one of the gardens, and not caring about the rules too much, I boost myself with kinetic energy to fly for a short while before landing near her and slowing into a walk.

At first, I think she might ignore me, but then she stops and faces me. Even now, she continues to act and keep up with her schedule.

“Greetings, Assistant Professor Gwyn,” she says.

“Greetings, Examiner Ari.”

***

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