In the end, Koda never got the feast he was hoping for.
Instead, he stood in front of the massive, seemingly indestructible red gates of the Awakened Academy.
The academy was, in fact, a city within a city!
It was built like a fortress, with a huge wall made of hard alloy, a deep moat and numerous large calibre turrets which were placed in positions to create an air suppression dome.
Nothing was meant to be able to break through its defenses.
So he should be safe for now.
He wasn’t meant to have much time in here, it was the end of November after all, he only had about a month before the winter solstice, which meant he only had a month to prepare himself.
The snow was slowly falling to the ground, it made Koda a bit uncomfortable.
It reminded him of the biting cold of his first nightmare.
But funnily enough, Koda was not the only one at the gates.
There was one other, most likely another new Sleeper.
It was a ridiculously tall, muscular bald dude?
He looked to be around Koda’s age but why did he also seem so much older?
He couldn’t have been a sleeper, right?
Unless his flaw made him look like a man in his prime.
His eyes were golden and shaped like stars, he had sharp black eyebrows and a hateful look on his face.
He was wearing civilian clothes and had nothing on him other than a sheathed short sword at his hip.
Koda raised an eyebrow.
‘Why is this guy holding a weapon?
If it’s a memory why doesn’t he just keep it in his Soul Sea?’ He wondered, until the man noticed his gaze.
His head snapped towards Koda.
His sharp eyebrows got sharper and his gaze was most unkind.
Then Koda noticed something off about the guy.
Every now and then, a bloody wound would appear on his face and then quickly disappear as it regenerated as quickly as it appeared.
Koda looked away, not wanting to get himself into any drama right off the bat.
The bald guy clicked his tongue and returned to looking at the gates.
‘I will stay far away from that guy, he rubs me the wrong way.’ Koda made a mental note as the gates finally began to open.
The giant, ridiculously thick sheet of reinforced metal slowly descended, creating a long bridge.
Koda looked ahead with an uncertain gaze.
But he was still pretty hungry.
The end of the metal bridge hit the special grooves in the ground and stopped moving after a set of loud clicks.
Koda looked forward, curious as to what kind of life was ahead of him.
He had decided to keep both his Flaw and his Aspect a secret, he’d most likely attend the combat course and try to make some allies.
Not too hard, right?
But, for some reason, he felt like these next few weeks were going to be quite rough.
Not as rough as the Starving Village, but still pretty rough.
Everyone there surely knew each other already, right?
He sighed, trying to ignore both those concerns and his hunger.
The scary looking guy seemed carefree, like these concerns didn’t bother him.
It was like his goals were so much more, this wasn’t even a stepping stone in his journey as he stepped onto the bridge.
Koda shivered and followed from a safe distance.
… The Sleeper area of the compound was fairly small and situated in the southern end of the Academy, surrounded by training fields and parks of all sizes.
It was a pretty modern building constructed with reinforced materials.
The same as most buildings here in the Academy, most of it was hidden below the ground, leaving only a few floors above it.
Koda and the tall boy were taken to a large hall where a hundred or so of young men and women, probably Sleepers who had also arrived this late, just like he and the other boy, were all waiting for the beginning of the ceremony.
Most were nervous, some eager and excited.
Everyone was pretty well dressed and had a suitcase, a duffel bag or at least a backpack carrying some of their belongings.
Obviously they had come prepared.
Despite his wealth, Koda didn’t have any belongings anymore.
It also appeared like his ‘loyal’ maids and servants had all bailed on him.
Master Gabriel was the only one who stayed by his side.
At least Koda wasn’t the only one without belongings.
The bald guy next to him only had that sinister looking blade at his hip, nothing else.
But of course, they became an eye catching anomaly, since they had no belongings and both looked rough and out of place, everyone was staring in silence.
‘Well, shit.’ Koda thought awkwardly.
“What are you all staring at?” The boy next to him spoke, his voice was so strong that it made sweat roll down Koda’s back.
As soon as he spoke, every single gaze turned away from the both of them.
Koda couldn’t help but briefly glance at him before gulping.
‘What the hell is his Aspect?
Who the hell is this guy and what Rank is his Aspect?
If it’s so much stronger than mine, what could he have possibly endured in his first nightmare?’ His hunger was briefly interrupted by a sudden haul of questions, but returned in time for him to forget them all.
The silence faded away and everyone began doing one thing.
Everyone started talking Everyone wanted to talk with other Sleepers.
They wanted to discuss their Nightmares, their future journey into the Dream Realm and everything in between.
They wanted to ask questions.
They wanted to be asked questions.
They wanted to discuss things.
Everyone wanted to share.
Koda wasn’t totally adverse to the idea, but he was planning to keep most of his secrets to himself.
“Those are some pretty neat claws.” Koda turned at the voice, it felt somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
When he turned to see the person speaking to him, he froze.
It was a boy, he was about the same height as Koda and they had similar builds, skinny with visible muscles rolling beneath their skin.
The boy was pale.
His hair was a mixture of a metallic grey and a dark brown, strangely unique despite Koda having seen it somewhere before.
While his face shape and features looked somewhat familiar, his otherwise pretty face was marred with a number of scars, as if the boy had engaged in combat with a cohort of swordsmen before he had arrived.
He had a cocky expression, but Koda felt as if it was just his resting face.
The boy had a playful smile on his face that made him look a bit condescending, which was enhanced by his eyes that were curved by the smile.
His eyes looked to be brown on the surface, but they had a tinge of dark red mixed in.
The boy’s pupils were white, unlike the regular black and they seemed to be constantly swirling, moving… rotating.
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