Gleichber(2)

From his relentless running around, Leo had garnered the attention of half the first year students.

Many eyes were focused on him and some teachers and staff members started to look at him too.

Students started talking under their breath.

-"Woah, someone already visualized by themselves."

-"He must be an Orange grade at least, right."

-"He's probably a rich heir that had his parents help him."

Lots of people speculated on how this anonymous student was able to use his traits already.

It was rare to see someone manage to use his traits, without external help, this soon.

The crowd started to chatter more and more until a resonating voice growled from the mic on the podium, in the middle of the field.

-"I would appreciate if you could all lower the volume."

The chit chat stopped and the voices calmed down.

-"Thank you. I will start this class by presenting myself. My name is Rupert Medow, I am the counselor and dean of the first years."

The man had grey-ish hair, a well maintained beard, accompanied by a pair of glasses hanging by a thread of golden colored silk. He looked to be in his sixties.

-"You may have heard rumors of today's topic, some true, some false, but I'm sure that you will all be having fun today."

The dean then clapped his hands and a giant screen appeared out of thin air.

Said screen projected a simple, easy to understand presentation.

-"Today, I will show you, little ones, how to go to the rumored Gleichber."

The whole field was filled with students discussing the dean's last sentence.

The Gleichber was another world, many thought that it didn't exist for real, since only Falheim students and staff went to this world. They thought it was a publicity stunt of some sort but it started to get less attention from the public since it had been over thirty years since it's supposed discovery.

He took a pause to let the gasp of awe and surprise fade down. People were shocked, their mouth almost touching their feets while others, like Leo, were jumping from the burst of joy mixed with surprise.

-"It's really Gleichber, I told you guys!" He had a huge grin glued to his face.

Alphonse looked away, not wanting to admit defeat.

-"Whatever."

He ignored Leo's remark, out of spite.

-"Now, now, calm down. First, I would like it if, all of you could take out your phones." The dean's words were followed by the students, like God's words for a religious man.

In the span of ten seconds, everyone had their phone out, waiting for the next step. They were all eager to find out what's next.

-"If I remember correctly, you should all have three applications installed on it, one being called G-project. If you click on it, a menu should appear."

He took another pause to let everyone click on it.

The menu was composed of four buttons.

'Transfer', who made the user go to the other world.

'Mana', which displayed how much mana was stored and how much time could be spent there.

'Inventory', which was a literal inventory of the stuff you had brought back from the Gleichber.

And, finally, a more simplistic 'Quit' button, who made the app close.

-"This application is the gate to the famed Gleichber. Our team of mana engineers managed to create the link between our universe and the Gleichber, also known as the equivalent exchange world, thirty three years ago. It is one of the reasons Falheim is as big as it is today."

Some students were frantically clicking on the 'Transfer' button in their menu, but nothing happened.

-"Oh, don't waste your time clicking the button, you need a special something to access it. As I just told you, this world is also known as the equivalent exchange world and it's for a good reason. You can transfer to the world and comeback with a lot of resources and training, without facing any risk." He put an emphasis on the no risk part.

-"You see, this special world works differently from ours. Over there, time goes way faster than here and you cannot die."

The whole crowd looked at the dean with confusion.

-"Let me explain. The Gleichber is a special type of world that absorbs mana to create it's realms and all the things in it, but us, as outsiders, are able to, in layman's terms, trade mana or energy for it's ressources."

While the dean talked, the presentation behind him changed to show the students more detailed images of what he was saying.

After a bit, the presentation stopped on an image of a key.

-"Now to go in this world, you can use your own mana that you have inside of yourself. You will learn later how it all works in your Mana and it's utilities class, but in the meantime, since most of you haven't visualized yet, we will be giving all of you a F tier mana crystal."

Three school workers, who were behind the dean, on the stage, started to wave their hands in the air, after kneeling near a box.

The box opened on its own. Inside, over five hundred crystals could be seen. They then started to fly up and ended up lending in the students hands.

-"These mana crystals will be your go ticket for today, but after that, if you want to go again, you will have to either supply your own mana or buy crystals from the school with the credits you have."

Yet again, looks of confusion could be seen on the students face. This was all new to them.

-"Ah! Sorry, I always forget that you don't know this yet. You youngsters don't read much anymore. You can have all this information in the school app, everything is explained in the information bracket."

-"Anyway! Now that you all have your crystals and your apps opened. Click on the 'Mana' button. This will let your phone absorb the mana you let it absorb. You just have to think about how much you want to let it have. Since it's a magic item by itself, it will know without a problem."

A bunch of students thought about using the crystal and when they did, it disappeared.

Their 'Mana' now showed a ten hours of time to use.

Calvin on the other hand, thought of using his crystal and his own mana, which granted him a bit over 18 hours of time.

-"Now, when you are ready, you can click on 'Transfer' and go over there. You will have all your uniform and what you have on you, so when you want to go back, just click on 'Transfer' again."

A couple of students started to 'pop' into nothingness.

-"Go have fun now!"

The dean looked at them with a big smile while, one by one, every students started to disappear.