Remembering the rainbow headed headmaster’s reminder, Sylvester took out his ID card and gave it two flicks. Suddenly the information displayed on the ID card disappeared and was replaced by a map that resembled what you would find in a GPS based driving app. The display was highlighting a path for him that was captioned “sleeping quarters.”.

“Huh this is pretty neat, I wonder what other functions this thing has.” He then flicked it twice once more and the ID went back to its normal appearance.

“So cool! Wait a minute, is there even a point to my phone now?” He jokingly asked himself.

Seeing as the “sun” hasn’t gone down yet and the giant clock in the sky showing the time to be only 5:45 in the evening, Sylvester decided to go walk around and explore the campus for a while. He flicked his ID card twice again making it change back into the “GPS app” and decided to test something out.

He then held the card close to his face like he would he were holding his smartphone.

“Where is the library?” He asked.

The highlighted direction on the display then changed and the path was now captioned “Library”.

“Nice. I do have a bit of time to kill, So i’m gonna head on there myself.” He thought to himself and decided to follow the path shown to him on his “ID”.

While on his way to the library he noticed stores that were selling other goods other than food. He went past a few stores that were selling office and school supplies, while others sold clothes, shoes, even bags. Hell he even somehow found a grocery.

“I wonder who or what supplies the goods to these stores.” He asked himself, trying to distract his mind away from the reality of money management.

After a few minutes of walking he ended up in front of a large, yet seemingly generic, Victorian looking structure. It had five towers jotting out of it with the largest one nesting a clock on top. There were multiple stone gargoyles situated on the roof of the building, their gaze seemingly fixed on those who dwell below.

Sylvester then decided to enter the library to give himself a glimpse of what is inside since the projections shown by the headmaster during his introductory talk barely showed anything of worth.

Once he entered the library, he saw two familiar figures standing behind what appears to be the front desk. He immediately recognized who they were.

“Miss Tinri and Nitri!” As if reading his thoughts the two more cheerful twins decided to greet him.

“Nice to see you again mr. Sylvester! I know this is a little early since you literally just got here today, but I hope you are enjoying your stay at Inanis Orbis!” Nitri said in her joyous cheerful tone.

“Miss Nitri and Tinri, you’re here…. again… why?” Sylvester gave them a greeting that sounded more like a rude question.

“Are you implying we shouldn’t be here?” Tinri replied to his greeting with an equally rude question.

“Well uh… no I am not.” Sylvester immediately answered.

“Okay, then I am glad to welcome you to the library.” Tinri said in her usual montone and emotionless tone.

“You don’t sound glad though. Honestly I think I was being a bit rude there.” Sylvester thought in response to Tinri’s conflicting greeting.

Sylvester suddenly felt the urge to ask why they seemed to be in three places at once. He also had this really prophetic feeling that he would be meeting the twins quite often in Inanis Orbis.

He really, really, wanted to ask them but there was a nagging feeling, a tiny little voice inside his head that was preventing him from doing so. Deciding to listen to that little voice, he chose to keep his question to himself.

“Maybe some other time when the mood is right.” He thought.

Deciding against asking for more details, he instead opted to think of another topic for smalltalk.

Nitri leaned her head a few degrees and asked Sylvester, “I assume you are here to check out the library! How very nerd like!” Nitri bluntly declared.

“Wow rude! I didn’t know you guys were into outdated stereotypes.” He joked to himself.

“Let me inform you that this library is home to vast knowledge accumulated through time. You will find some rather interesting books and tomes here! Don’t worry there’s an entertainment section if too you’re not here for educational purposes.” Nitri then continued.

“Entertainment huh? Sweet.” Sylester’s thoughts then flashed to black and white illustrations printed on newsprint bundled into volumes.

“Sadly, not everything will be accessible to you since you’re only an Apprentice for now. I hope you understand.” Tinri then continued and finished the explanation.

“For now huh?” Sylvester replied.

“Well, would you like to enter?” Tinri now interjected.

“It’s okay, I was only walking around and getting myself more familiar with the campus grounds.” Sylvester replied while he scratched the back of his head.

“Would you like us to give you a few directions in your exploration?” Nitri offered.

“Thank you, but I prefer discovering things on my own. Plus I got this thing!” Sylvester politely declined as he showed them his ID.

“if you insist.” Tinri replied in Nitri’s place.

As Sylvester left the library he felt another rumble in his stomach.

Sylvester decided to head to the night market to buy his dinner. It seems that the night comes to Inanis Orbis rather early and it was getting dark, the giant clock in the sky was showing some noticeable changes to compensate. The edges of the hands and the numbers they point to started glowing a faint but noticeable glow, similar to how a glow in dark watch would look in the night.

“It really is just a giant watch in the sky.” Sylvester then chucked to himself as he continued on his walk.

Upon reaching the food market, the delicious aroma of food being cooked entranced him as if he was hit by a powerful seduction spell.

Food is what Sylvester would consider to be one of his few vices. It’s not that he stuffs his face until he could barely walk like a gluttonous pig, it’s more of him wanting to at least try every single food item at least once.

Because of his travels while growing up, his palate has expanded to accommodate many different tastes, from the mundane to the exotic, the average to the luxurious. Right now he was engulfed in a sea of aroma, both new and familiar.

But there is a small problem. His funds are rather limited.

Trying out everything under the sun wasn’t a problem before since they would get to eat for free whenever they managed to solve whatever supernatural phenomenon was bothering a local populace.

They would often get invited into other people’s homes and enjoy a table filled with food or to a luxury hotel. Other than that, his parents ,too, loved exploring for flavors so splurging a bit of cash for food was the norm for him.

But those were things of the past, as in a few hours ago. He began to curse himself for taking too long dealing with hulking ghoul causing them to miss their reservation.

“Oh well, I should be able to hold myself back. I simply need to find the cheapest stall I can find. I need to live frugally! I can do this whooo!” Sylvester lied to himself.

“This is a way to teach us to manage our resources and be more efficient!” Sylvester continued lying to himself.

With a flimsy conviction and a wet paper towel resolve in his heart, he entered the night market ID in hand and as he got closer and closer the enticing smells got even stronger.

Right now Sylvester could see items that he has never seen before. One stall was serving a strange colorful soup that smelled like stock bubbling away for a long time mixed with the fragrant hint of herbs like thyme or rosemary.

Then directly in front of it was a teppanyaki styled stall that had quite the long line, but he could see they were cooking some strange looking cuts of meat that had a different aroma from beef and pork that had a rather profound depth to it.

Sylvester was now being attacked from all sides by these many different aromas and his resistance faltered like a shoddily put together shed caught in the middle of a strong tornado. The intoxicating smell acting like the strong winds ripping through the lazily nailed wooden beams that was holding his sanity intact.

Each sizzle, each crackle, served to erode his laughably weak resolved.

“NO I MUST NOT GIVE I-” and just like that Sylvester went on a solo food adventure.