Terrarium (I) - Into the Heart

Far above the densely populated Vatican City was a giant, mechanical orb. The orb, also known as the flying city of Heart, hovered steadily over the center of Vatican City.

The Heart looked to be a giant eyeball, its iris pointing directly down. Rain steadily fell from the iris of the Heart, as if it were eternally crying.

Once per month, the bullet train ascended from the train station in Vatican City for a few hours before descending down from the Heart.

As of a few hours ago, the bullet train had ascended for the aspiring challengers.

***

Bell felt a gentle rain pepper her face and hair, the inside of the flying city looked almost like an inverted planet. No, it was an inverted planet!

There was some sort of glowing orb at the core of the Heart, but was obscured by thick clouds sending rain and thunder to the ground along the wall.

The entire city was separated into sections; there were farms and barns far above everything else, a ring of buildings that bisected the Heart into two main sections, and a large city area beside what Bell assumed was a ginormous marble coliseum.

'There has to be at least two hundred thousand people living here.' Bell thought, mesmerized by the view.

The bullet train continued to ascend further and further towards the veil of clouds, but just as Bell thought they were going to touch the clouds, the train veered off-course. She then saw that the train was actually heading towards the giant city-like area.

The city-area looked to emulate one of the districts down in Vatican City below. There were towering office buildings, apartment complexes, and a railway looping around the entirety of The Heart.

As the bullet train descended further towards a large train station in the city-area, Bell saw various people working in office cubicles through the windows in the buildings. 

The smell of petrichor filled Bell's nose and the sounds of cars, chatter, and rainfall soon overpowered the sound of the loud chugging that the bullet train emitted.

Then, they entered the train station, and Bell turned to head back to the hatch that she had come from.

"See you later." Bell waved.

The boy looked up and replied, "See ya."

'I really need to learn his name.' Bell thought as she descended the ladder.

They had entered the train station, and Bell assumed that there would be an announcement for such an event.

She was right.

[Greetings students! We have arrived at the Heart's grand lift train station! Meet with your nearest instructor within the next ten minutes, please!]

Bell began heading down the staircase after the ladder retracted and the hatch closed. On her way to her room, Bell saw Mona head towards the cafeteria with a leather handheld suitcase.

Bell quickly entered her room and put her books into the luggage case that Bell had to drag around, quickly after, she zipped the luggage case up. With a grunt, Bell pulled the luggage case out of under the bed and up onto its wheels in one swoop.

She walked to and opened the door, swiftly heading down the stairs near the cafeteria.

"Goodbye, cafeteria..." Bell muttered with a tear in her eye as she passed through the large room.

She descended the staircase and entered the packed room. It was much, much more densely packed than in the early morning, as everyone had brought their suit and luggage cases.

'Oh my gods...' Bell thought to herself. 'How am I going to get through here?'

Bell looked around for her friends, finding most of them gathered near the couches where they sat in the morning.

'Dear Lady of the Azure Moon, please grant me a safe passage...' Bell prayed as she began to enter the crowd.

She had to squeeze through a bit of the crowd and lifted her luggage case to avoid bumping into other people's luggage cases.

After nearly three minutes of grueling progress, Bell finally reached her friends. From the ambience of the room, it didn't look like all of the students were in the lounge yet.

"Oh, hey Bell!" Michael greeted Bell after noticing her.

The rest of the gang all exchanged greetings with Bell, and soon after Hilia, who was late. She had received a bit of a vocal beatdown for being so late, despite the four Eriksons being in rooms next to each other.

"I was sleeping, okay?!" Hilia managed to finally speak in between the various jokes made about her nasty cowlick and her general sleepy demeanor.

Bell looked slightly wistful as she thought, 'What a gift... to be able to sleep whenever you want...'

Bell's nightmare curse kept her up until at least a few hours passed, so she rarely got the chance to get a proper nap. Hell, it was rarer for her to get a full night's rest than to get the chance to take a nap.

Teacher Brutus had managed to find his way to the billboard that he so often gave his announcements nearby.

Bell noticed this and turned her body to face Teacher Brutus. From the ceasing conversations all around the lounge, it looked like other students were also catching on.

Teacher Brutus spoke aloud.

"Good morning again, students! It's now ten in the morning, so we're a bit ahead of schedule. I'm sure that you got everything you had brought, with nothing left in your rooms, because they're going to be destroyed. Anyway, we'll be transferring to the Heart's train system and look around, I'll be explaining everything as we go."

He looked around, scanning for all fifty of the students, after his quick glance around the room, he continued.

"We'll be arriving at the Terrarium in thirty minutes, after we get there, we'll be skipping the forge to head to the dorms first. You'll have around twenty or so minutes to get everything unloaded, we'll reconvene to head to the forge afterwords. After the forge, we'll have an hour break where you can sit around and dawdle or to head to the cafeteria."

Teacher Brutus then summoned a strange piece of parchment, and if Bell didn't know better, which she didn't, she would have assumed that it was a medieval message.

"This is your contract, you'll be signing this during the Welcoming Ceremony, where one will be automatically sent to all of you. Since you haven't signed one, you don't have access to all of the facilities of the Terrarium, so you really won't have anything to do in the Terrarium until around one in the afternoon."

He then dismissed the paper as he continued his explanation, he had started to pace around what little walking room he had.

"After you get everything set up with your contract, getting your luggage unloaded, and being in the Terrarium, you'll be able to sign up for your classes. I'm going to give you a fair warning now, though; it's going to take a very long time."

Teacher Brutus then checked his watch before looking back up at the crowd and further announced.

"You may be asking 'Why didn't we sign up for classes before getting to the Terrarium?' And I'll answer that question for you! It's because each of the classes available for first years contain classified information going up even to the names of the classes."

He looked to be finishing up his second set of announcements for the morning. 

"Now that everything's been properly explained, let's head out. I'll lead us to the other platform, don't fall behind."

He started in the direction of the hallway, and most of the students in his path made way for the teacher to get out of the lounge. Soon after he entered the hallway to the exit, the students in the room started to funnel out.

After about two minutes of waiting, it was finally time for Bell's group to head into the hallway, slowly funneling into the hallway. Unfortunately, everyone had to be cautious of one another's luggage, so the pace of the group was slowed.

Eventually, after what felt like an hour, they had made it out of the train and onto the platform.

The cool air and smell of petrichor gently soothed Bell's mind and body. The entire bullet train was docked in the train station. After looking around for a small bit, Bell saw that there were five other groups of students filing out of the train.

After all of the students had unloaded from the train, with their respective teachers leading the large groups, the bullet train blew a horn and began motion.

It didn't take long for the bullet train to build speed, and was soon out of eyesight, but still within earshot. Bell heard the chugging of the bullet train slowly get drained out by the rain and other sounds of the city.

On the platform opposite where the students were standing, there was an older train model. It was made of wood and metal, as if it were pulled from several centuries ago. 

'Wow... we're going to ride a piece of history!' Bell excitedly thought. 

Everything from here on out would be entirely new territory for Bellona Finley.

After about two minutes of navigating, the around two-hundred-and-sixty people entered the older train, and with a toot of its horn, they set off.

The inside of the archaic train was simple, with rows of seats neatly lined up next to one another. However, there was one modern tool, and that was the overhead storage boxes, Bell had put her luggage case in one before sitting around waiting for something interesting to happen.

The view slowly changed from downtown city to outside suburbs, then shifted to wetland and irrigated fields of crop. As they traversed the Heart, Teacher Brutus was explaining various topics.

He spoke of the various types of crops and animals gathered and butchered for food to sustain the Heart's citizens. Then, he spoke of the energy source of the Heart, which was a topic that greatly interested Bell.

"The Heart is fueled by the constant rain within it, there's a miniature sun, but due to a few important people constantly keeping various machines active, we're able to get rain. That rain then heads into the hydroelectric power plants, where it fuels the rest of the Heart."

A student raised his hand.

"Yes?" Teacher Brutus asked, pointing to the boy.

He cleared his throat before asking Teacher Brutus, "Does this electricity power the machines that keep the rain pouring?"

Teacher Brutus smiled and explained, "Yes, and before any smartass says, 'Bu-but mister teacher! Energy self-sustainability is impossible!' You are right, and that's why the energy generated only loses ten megawatts per month, and we can gather that energy through other means."

He then continued to say, "Some big-brained smarty-pants people managed to get the energy loss so low through their huge-brain magic, and I'm not going to question their methods. Between you all and me, their high science magic doodad terminology confuses me, and I'd rather just teach people how to hunt monsters."

Teacher Brutus paused for a moment before saying, "I forgot to mention, I'm the beginner beast-hunting teacher, you should all sign up for my class after you sign your contracts."

He then went on to talk about some other topic that Bell didn't care about, so she simply spaced out while looking out the window until something interesting happened.

It didn't even take five minutes before something interesting happened. Well, it started to happen gradually, but the closer that the train got to a large tube that extended high into the "sky," a deep, dull, and rhythmic thumping started to reverberate through the ground.

Teacher Brutus waited for a small bit before explaining the strange phenomenon.

"Alright, class, I'm sure that you can feel that as well. You may be wondering, 'Teacher Brutus, what is that feeling?' And I'm going to answer that!"

He pushed imaginary glasses up and flashed the stupidest smile that accentuated his top teeth.

"That is the heartbeat of the Heart! And the reason that the Heart needs a heartbeat is because the area that we're currently standing on isn't the Heart! The miniature sun in our little 'sky' is!"

He pointed directly up looked down dramatically, spreading his feet from each other slightly. Bell thought that she had seen that pose before, maybe some sort of musician? She forgets.

"The reason it needs a heartbeat is because we've managed to find a way to harvest energy coming off of it! Where do you think the clouds came from? Us? No, we tricked the Heart into doing that on its own and tricked it into raining for us to generate electricity forever!"

He continued with a half-enthused smile. 

"The details are lost to me, so I can't really explain it, but we can supply energy into the Heart using that giant piston! We used to have more, long ago, but that just ended up with us flooding this area a few times too many."

With that, Teacher Brutus sat back down and the train slowly, but surely passed by the epicenter of the heartbeat.

Bell found it slightly terrifying that humanity found a flying sun and started harvesting energy from it. But what could she do?

'I'm sure I'll figure it out one day.' Bell steeled herself before immediately entering a state of absent-mindedness while looking out of the window.

The scenery changed a few more times from suburb to city to forest to farm. Bell wondered what most of them meant, but wasn't listening to Teacher Brutus specifically explain each of the terrains.

She sighed, 'Oh, if only someone or something could explain it to me... Oh yeah! I have the pathfinder!'

Bell would ask the pathfinder what each of the terrains... biomes? were, and what their purpose within the Terrarium was. She had assumed that the entirety of the Heart was reserved specifically for the Terrarium.

'After all, it looks like its reserved for the terrarium!' Bell reasoned.

But it looked like their time had come to enter the Terrarium itself. The scenery shifted in the window from farmland and suburbs to a giant wall for a short moment before turning into a giant campus. 

There were paved paths, dozens upon dozens of neatly ordered buildings with pretty architecture.

'Wait, is this that giant coliseum I saw earlier?' Bell thought to herself.

The area around them looked similar.

Large marble walls separated the ground area from the first "step" and more large marble walls separated the first "step" to the second. There were five layers in total, excluding the ground area that they were on.

As the train slowly reached the train station in what Bell only assumed was Terrarium proper, students from around the area started to gather around.

Soon, the group found themselves outside of the train and on the platform of a train station. Most of the students had umbrellas on them, which was when Bell realized something.

'Oh no, I didn't prepare for this type of weather.'

Bell had a raincoat, sure, but she wasn't keen on the state of its matters. The poor thing had been worn out over the course of a few years. Bell had hand-stitched a few holes that had appeared, and patched up several others.

In short, the thing wouldn't handle the constant downpour that the Heart, and by extension, the Terrarium, suffered.

Soon, however, Bell found herself in that rain, with the other two-hundred-and-fifty students. Only a few looked to be prepared, wearing new and durable looking rain coats. Bell already felt a several holes in the material fail to prevent the rain from getting her hoodie slightly wet.

'Oh no.' Bell thought.

Teacher Brutus led the group to a large staircase, no, a giant staircase that connected the various layers of the Terrarium to one another. 

'Oh no...' Bell thought once again.

The fearless leader of theirs led the huge group of students and other teachers up four layers before taking a left and leading them along the ring.

Soon, they reached a small cluster of buildings. From the buildings that they had passed on their way, it looked like each of the groups was simply replicating one another.

Apartment complexes made of luxurious materials, there were other buildings in the immediate vicinity, and there were paths along the middle-most area with a railing. Bell wondered what the extra buildings were, luckily, their fearless leader, Teacher Brutus, was there to explain.

"We have six housing buildings, three for girls, three for boys. These buildings haven't been inhabited in a long while, so you can make yourself at home, nobody is in there. Also, there are two people per suite, they're also a bit spacious, so if you're a collector, then you'll have space."

He pointed at a few buildings in the area around them.

"Anyway, we have a local forge for the few of you who are probably going to choose a class that requires forging as a class in the fall term. Then there's a pharmacy with a few emergency rooms, just in case there's an emergency."

Teacher Brutus then finished with:

"If you want to get to the cafeteria, then you'll have to head around the layer, it's a huge building, there's no way you're going to miss it. Alright! That's all from me, at noon, you're going to head to the arena in the middle of the bottom layer, you also can't miss it."

Before he actually finished his last announcement to the group, he pointed down to the middle of the Terrarium.

Bell found that Teacher Brutus hadn't been lying, she couldn't miss it if she wanted to. There was a giant marble coliseum standing in the middle of the bottom layer, where Bell assumed most classes would be located. 

She then groaned, 'I'm going to have to walk all the way down and up these stairs every day, aren't I?'

Mona, who had been close behind, looked at Bell with curiosity before realizing the same grim truth.

Mona then looked between the buildings they would soon inhabit and the giant coliseum. 

"By the gods." She muttered.

The Eriksons were a bit further behind in the crowd, and the two Solace brothers were elsewhere in the crowd.

Bell was tempted to look around, but she was even more tempted to head into the dorms and unpack. 

'I need a change of clothes.' Bell thought. 'And an umbrella... or a better raincoat.'

Bell simply chose a building and entered it with the other female students. Mona was close behind, and Bell only assumed that they were going to be roommates.

Because the duo was one of the first to enter the building, they got one of the better choices in terms of rooms. It was close to an exit, as well as being on the first floor. The hallway was cozy, despite the complexes exterior look. 

The inside was warm, the carpets were soft and the room, oh, the room!

Bell opened the door to find a living room, a small kitchen and dining room, and two bedrooms separated by a bathroom.

Teacher Brutus hadn't been lying about the spaciousness of the rooms. In the living room alone, there were three shelves, a television stand, and a coffee table surrounded by two couches!

'This might be more spacious than the house!' Bell exclaimed in her mind with a smile. 'I'm going to send a video home, that's for sure.'

Bell dragged her luggage case into one of the two bedrooms, quickly unloading her dirty laundry into a portable hamper she had packed. Then, she unloaded her remaining clean laundry into the dresser shelves. She hung her shirts and hoodies, then prepared the single bed with her sheets.

Within twenty minutes, she had fully unloaded her luggage case of clothing and bedding, which just left her journal and books. Bell put her writing supplies on the desk before changing into a set of clothing that was more water-resistant.

Soon, she was in the living room of her shared suite with Mona. Bell was sitting down in wait for the strange girl, Bell wanted to head to the cafeteria and grab something to eat before they went to the Welcoming Ceremony.

As she sat in the wonderfully comfortable couch, Bell tapped the cuff bracelet twice and asked for the time.

[It is currently 11:15 A.M. on Wednesday, August 5, 2499]

Bell smiled at the information presented to her. 

'How wonderful!' Bell smiled, her smile, as well as the rest of her expression, slowly morphed into deep thinking. 'I wonder if I'll be able to text the others.'

Just as she was about to ask the pathfinder, Aoi, Mona stepped out of her closed door.

Mona had changed from casual clothing into something more water-resistant as well, but she wielded an umbrella.

That gave Bell an idea.

"Hey, Mona." Bell said in a questioning tone.

"Yeah?" Mona replied with a questioning look.

Bell stood up and took a few steps forward.

She pointed down and asked, "Can I borrow this for a few seconds?"

Mona shrugged, extending her hand forward for Bell to take the umbrella. Bell took the umbrella from Mona's hand before holding it for a few moments, examining the thing. 

It had a simple floral pattern with a solid color background. It almost looked like a Hawaiian shirt from an overly expensive shop. Either way, Bell continued to examine it. 

The material of its handle, the extension mechanism, the materials of the mechanism as well as the umbrella's fabric. After another few moments passed, Bell passed the umbrella back to Mona.

"Thanks." Bell said.

Mona looked slightly confused and said in a questioning tone, "You're welcome?"

Bell then activated Creation for a moment, just long enough to create the umbrella perfectly. This was Bell's master plan, to copy and create an umbrella.

After she had unlocked her two abilities, Bell hadn't had the time to properly practice them. She hadn't had the time to practice Ruination properly for fairly obvious reasons... Bell couldn't just run around her house and burn everything to nothingness!

The reason that Bell couldn't practice Creation, though, was a different story. Bell had actually practiced mimicking and creating a few items in her family house before her family placed a ban on it. Their garage had filled up almost to the brim within a few weeks of her ascension.

Bell practiced the mechanism on the umbrella she had created to find that it had worked perfectly. Which was a good thing, seeing as how Bell had barely been able to even create simple constructs without fail in the early days of her using Creation.

Now, she was able to replicate and create simple contraptions!

Bell smiled at the sight.

"Come on! We're going to miss lunch!" Bell said energetically and headed towards the door.

Mona followed and replied, "I mean, it's only eleven twenty, so we're not going to miss much of lunch."

Bell turned to face Mona as she opened the door, "The more time we have to eat, the better. That's what my dad says all the time. I, personally, agree with that saying."

Mona smiled a bit wider and looked to struggle not to laugh.

Bell entered the hallway and asked, "What's so funny?"

Mona returned her expression to normalcy and replied, "Nothing, nothing at all. Don't worry about it."

Bell shrugged and spun the hooked handle of the umbrella on her finger. Bell still looked in awe at the umbrellas opening and closing mechanism.

'I'm so awesome.' Bell praised herself, humming her own songs of praise.

Mona seemed equally as happy as she followed Bell. The two exited the dorm and put their umbrellas to work, where Bell's started to show its poor craftmanship.

The rain didn't pass through the material, but the umbrella started to look a little worse for wear. Mona's, on the other hand, looked to be perfectly fine. 

'That's fine, I'll just make a little stockpile of broken creations under the bed later on.' Bell thought with a smile. 'Hopefully, I won't have to keep adding things to a pile like that.'

In about three minutes of walking around at a brisk pace, the duo reached the cafeteria. Upon entering, it was even better than the one on the bullet train.

The only reason was that the selection of foods was much, much larger. The foods also smelled slightly better, like the chefs on the bullet train were limited in their selection of meats and spices.

Bell grabbed a plate and quickly loaded it up to the brim with various foods. Some were made with materials gathered from Domains, some were gathered from the fields and farms nearby. Either way, food was on Bell's plate, tasty food.

"Bell! Mona!" A voice rang out just above the chattering crowds of the other first-year students.

Bell and Mona looked around the crowded tables for the source of the voice. It took the voice calling their names once more for the two to pinpoint the source.

Torm and Jude were calling them over to a table that they sat at.

Bella and Mona quickly made their way around the crowds and tables to the table that the Solace brothers sat at. Upon reaching the table, the duo was met by a few new faces.

Soon after getting acquainted with a girl, Aramine Park, and her friend, Magnus Berg, the six started to eat their meals and share friendly conversation with one another.