Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 6

This nation really does love the red and black color scheme…

The entire entrance hall is based around this, with a large, open space filling up the entrance. High up in the air, closer to the back of the room, there is a floating platform where I’m assuming announcements are probably made from. Meanwhile, on either side of the platform, there are two enormous, black and red spiral staircases that lead all the way up through all five floors of the building. Each floor has a long balcony that runs all the way around each of the walls – with the exclusion of the one behind us – along with several hallways leading out of the room.

Interestingly enough, each floor – except the first floor – has a number on the edge of the balcony for the floor, going from one to four.

I look down at the book in my hands before opening it up and searching for the floor layouts. What I end up finding is that the bottom floor is for instructor dorms – for the instructors that are actually living on campus – while the rest of the floors are separated by year. The second floor is for first years, third floor for second years, fourth is for third years, and the top floor is for the fourth years.

“It looks like we need to find a room on the second floor,” I tell Aidan before starting towards the staircase on the right. As I’m walking, I notice several people wearing the same uniforms as us walking around the different balconies, with several of them actually standing at the edge in groups chatting whilst watching us.

The second through fourth year students, I’m guessing.

I turn to look at Aidan before hearing the front doors open again. When I turn to look back at it, I find most of the rest of the students walking through. And – surprisingly enough – I actually find Cyria already walking with some other girl. The girl – who I’m assuming is her roommate – has brown hair, with green eyes and a gentle but quiet demeanor about her.

Figures that she would find someone else that doesn’t talk much.

Anyways, she sees me and Aidan rather quickly and nods before walking over towards us.

I pause in my step to wait for her as Aidan continues going for a few steps. Once he realizes that I’ve stopped, he stops and turns around whilst opening his mouth to speak, only to shut it again as he sees Cyria and the other girl with her walking towards us.

“And who is this?” I ask as soon as I think they are within hearing distance.

Cyria looks at the girl with her before nodding her head and introducing her, “This is Sophia, and she's my roommate.”

I glance at the girl to find her looking between me and Aidan with curiosity. Meanwhile, Aidan does some stupid bow before saying, “Hello, Sophia. My name is Aidan Hawkins. It’s a pleasure to meet you!”

Surprisingly enough, I catch a hint of a smile appearing on the girl’s face before it vanishes just as quickly and she nods her head whilst saying, “It’s a pleasure.”

Her casual response aside, she turns to look at me next with a slight tilt of her head.

“I’m Nathan,” I answer with a slight nod of my head before turning around and continuing my way towards the staircase while calling out, “C’mon Aidan, we still have to find a room.”

I hear Aidan say a quick goodbye to the girls before following after me as the voices of the other new cadets begin to spread through the enormous room. As I walk, I scan the faces of each of the other students of our course and year out of curiosity.

Most of them don’t stand out to me at all, and several of them are already beginning to form groups – if they haven’t already done so.

Although there are two groups that catch my eye, each for opposite reasons. One of them is very much like the group that I had just been in with Aidan, Cyria, and Sophia, with it being a small group of only a few members. Meanwhile, the other group catches my eye strictly due to its large size.

The group has a total of ten people in it! I’m not sure if they knew each other beforehand or not, but I do notice that most of them seem to be fussing over one girl in particular.

A girl who – interestingly enough – doesn’t seem to have much interest in them, despite the way they’re all crowding around her.

Suddenly, the girl turns her head and looks at me, making eye contact with me almost immediately.

Huh, don’t see golden eyes too often…

Her eyes aside, I simply nod my head towards her before turning to look at Aidan, only to find him catching up to me with the other two girls following closely behind him.

Hmm, guess we are technically going to do the same thing.

I turn back towards the stairs as we reach them before climbing up to the second floor. Once we get there, I peer through the closest hallway out of the entrance hall, finding it filled with doors all the way down the hall, each separated by quite a bit of distance.

Uh, is it just me, or is this building larger on the inside than it is on the outside?

Also, considering the distance between the doors, does each door have more than just a single room…?

It looks like I underestimated how luxurious the dormitories would be. Although I do wonder what the low course dormitory rooms look like.

I turn around to look at Aidan, only to find him, Cyria, and Sophia all following behind me.

Are they really just gonna follow us?

In the end, not only do all four of us end up walking together through the halls, but we also pick rooms directly across the hall from each other.

So, I end up interacting with her anyways.

I guess that's fine. It's not much worse than interacting with Aidan due to his specialized affinity.

While specialized affinities aren’t as rare as a level 4 talent, depending on what the affinity is, they can be extremely useful. Although, all a specialized affinity really is, is just someone with a normal affinity for one of the types of magic affinities, except with a particularly strong attunement to a specific type of magic within said affinity. So, in Aidan’s case, he has Wind Affinity, but with a particularly strong attunement to lightning magic.

Anyways, when we open our new room’s door, we find a suite of four rooms inside of it instead of just a single room.

“This is great!” Aidan exclaims with a grin as he walks into the room with me following after while closing the door behind us. The main room itself is pretty big, with a few couches in one corner along with a tv, and a small kitchen in another corner. Lastly, the rest of the space appears to be just social room areas, along with storage.

I walk up to one of the two rooms directly opposite of each other before opening the door on the left and finding a bedroom inside. It’s surprisingly rather simple, with just a bed, a closet, two dressers, a desk, and some sort of screen that is mimicking a window.

“Imma take the room on the right, okay?” I hear Aidan call out from the other side of the suite.

“Sure,” I mutter before leaving the room that will be mine now and walking towards the last of the three doors. When I open it, I find a bathroom on the other side, equipped with a shower, a bathtub, sink, and a lock on the door.

I look around the red and black themed suite for a few minutes before starting towards my room while calling out, “I’m going to start deciding on what classes I want to take!”

Aidan’s voice sounds out from his room a few seconds later, “Right, I should do that too!”

I chuckle slightly at that before closing my room’s door behind me and approaching my new bed with the class guide in hand. The bed – just like everything else in this entire building – is a mixture of black and red, and it is king sized for some reason.

That aside for now, I sit down on the bed and open up the book on my lap.

Time to see what classes are offered here.