Orientation [1]

Today was the day.

Today I'm officially an enrolled Aethra student. I had gotten up at around 5 am this morning to get my things sorted out. Especially since I can have quite a hard time getting out of bed.

'The meeting should be at 10 AM.'

It was currently 8 AM and I had gotten dressed casually. Apparently the academy will offer us our uniforms once we arrive.

'Guess I should head out now.'

I made my way to the door but briefly stopped to check myself in the mirror. My dark hair needed a trim and it was getting long but other than that I was happy with the outcome of getting ready today. I made my way to the Aethra metro station which had opened back up for the year, the academy had their very own metro with state of the art technology powering it. The metro also had the fastest routes to important places in the city in the case of an emergency.

It was a beautiful day in Haneul, the leaves blew and swayed in the air is if they were doing a dance, the clouds covered the sky in clusters only allowing the sun to shine for an occasional brief moment. Whenever the sun got the chance to shine it was beautiful. As I made my way to the station which was only around 5 minutes away from my apartment on foot I ran into crowds of people.

'There's so many parents here sending their kids off.'

Seeing the scene in front of me made me miss my family. A solemn feeling suddenly enveloped my being as I reminisced on the past with my parents and older sister. My parents were off helping the Corps with Kiran's father in order to maintain control of the rifts, and my sister was currently in Zira pursuing her dream as a martial arts instructor.

"Bye dad! I'll see you guys whenever I get a holiday!"

Suddenly from behind me a young man was waving bye to his family but he was also walking backwards. He kept on waving to his family, from what I could see he had a two younger brothers and his parents were waving back. There was one problem with this though.

He didn't stop walking backwards.

Thud-

"Ah excuse me!"

He kept on walking until he bumped into me and as a result he fell over, he seemed like a complete airhead. The boy looked to be the same age as me so he must be a newly enrolled student, he had curly brown hair and eyes that matched the color of his hair.

"You alright?"

I extended my arm towards his direction to help him up.

"Yeah I'm alright sorry about that, didn't mean to run into you."

He grabbed my arm and he had a stronger grip then I would've expected. After regaining his footing he laughed awkwardly while apologizing.

"You an Aethra student too?"

"Hm? Ah yeah I just got accepted as a combat trainee."

He looked proud of himself to say the least.

"What's your name? I'm Keir, Keir Licht."

I reached out in front of me and gestured for a handshake.

"I'm Nathan Chalut, nice to meet you Keir."

As we shook each others hands the metro station announced that the train would be leaving in 1 minute. So we both made our way inside the train and found a booth to sit in for the 10 minute trip to the academy. Traveling through the interior of the train was smooth with students finding their own respective places to sit and groups to talk with, not long after entering the train Nathan and I found an empty booth to sit in.

After sitting for a few minutes Nathan and I had finished up some small talk getting to know each other. He was from one of the Haneul suburbs and his family worked in the management department of of a medical facility run by the Galen Corporation. He also had an interesting weapon choice for training at Aethra.

He chose the bow.

In response to his small talk I told him some things about myself such as what weapon I chose and where I was from. I told him my parents were close friends with the Azar family and helped out their family head Cyrus Azar from time to time with running R.W Corps.

"Woah look at that!"

Grabbing the attention of students in the train was a young girl pointing outside of the window. I was curious and so I turned my head to face the window.

'It's massive.'

The train had made its way above Haneul Bay and we had a clear view of the academy campus. The different academic buildings could be seen reaching high above the island they were situated on top of.

It looked like the very pinnacle of human endeavor.

I could feel my heart wanting to jump out of my chest from the sheer anticipation. The more I observed the school the more my excitement grew, I felt like a child during Christmas Eve. The island campus inched closer the longer I looked towards it, and soon enough we had arrived.

"Welcome to Aethra Academy, where we yearn for the bright sky."

"I'll see you around Keir!"

"Mm see you later."

Bidding farewell to Nathan I made my way onto campus with the large crowd of students. We were all headed to get our uniforms at our dorm rooms before attending the annual orientation where we would get our classes assigned. From what I remember from the information they gave us students when we enrolled there were separate dorms. These dorms would be separated on how much tuition and added amenities were paid for. Ranging from the basic population to the more elite dormitories.

I was relying on Kiran as of now so I wasn't too sure on how much he paid for tuition so I just needed to follow the map on my watch to figure it out. The campus was stunning with a mix of traditional architecture and state of the art technology, it was the perfect environment to nurture the strongest and smartest people of our time.

'Dorms should be this way.'

Walking down a school pathway suddenly my surroundings got significantly quieter. There was still some people around me walking to their dorms but it was significantly less crowded and soon enough I approached a medium sized building. As I took a closer look I could see that the entrance of the building had been accompanied by a zen garden giving off a very calm aura to the building as a whole. Scanning over the building I spotted a sign that read.

'Atlas Building'

I made my way inside of the building and it was extremely high class. The ceiling was three times my height and the interior was decorated in a very minimalist yet opulent manner. It seemed rather empty at the moment though.

'Guess the other students got their uniforms already.'

I followed the halls and went upstairs until I reached my room, I hadn't come across any other students as of yet. Lifting up my thumb I pressed it against the touchpad on the right of the door in order to scan myself in. The door slid open and I stepped in to what would be my home for the year. It was a very pleasing room to be in, the amenities were of high quality and the bed looked to be a queen size.

I approached the bed out of curiosity and found my uniform accompanied by a letter from the school. I picked up the letter and quickly looked over the text written on it.

'Welcome to Aethra Keir Licht, we hope to nurture you into the best version of yourself.'

After going over the text once I tossed the letter behind me with no care at all and looked towards my uniform. It was a black military coat with a black dress shirt, the tie they provided me with was a nice metallic silver in contrast to the black coat and pants.

****

'It fits well.'

The uniform was very sleek and professional, perfect for an institution of such remarkable status. It was currently 9:55 AM and the orientation would start in 5 minutes. I put on my black gloves that came with the uniform and headed towards the stage where it would be held by the Aethra headmaster.

Kalem Withers, The King of Dust.