A Tour Of The Metorium

Soon we move away from the topic of Wranths to more mundane things. She mentions a training center and I ask her what that is.

"It's where we train and try to master our powers. Wait, you've been here for like a month and yet you don't know where the training center is?"

I shrug and mumble something about practicing.

She shakes her head slightly. "What are you doing after this?"

I shrug, normally I would have gone home but Hugo wanted me to come to the bookshop at six so I had a lot of free time on my hands. I had been planning to find a quiet place to practice what I learned today but I am open to ideas.

"Okay," she says. "After this, I'm going to give you a tour of the Metorium."

"The Metorium's quite big."

"So?"

"I have somewhere to be by six."

She shrugs. "Okay. How does a partial tour sound?"

"No problem."

Once we are done eating she begins the tour. As I follow her around I am continually struck by how much resemblance the Metorium has to a city. There are shops selling different enchanted items, food, and other things. Places for entertainment like the Arena or the Theatre, where illusionists train their abilities before a willing audience. There are also the Courts, extremely large compounds where Masters train their apprentices. According to Lathia there are twenty Courts, seven of them being run by Masters of the seven major Trumps.

"What are the seven major trumps?" I ask her.

"Grand Scale Telekinesis or GST, True Body, Yin and Yang -they are just two sides of the same coin so I don't know why they separate them-, Avatar, Elemental, and Super. You'll learn more about them before the year ends, the Master you choose to Apprentice under usually has to correspond to your major Trump."

I ask a few more questions as we move before we finally get to the last part of our tour, the training center. I look at the four-story behemoth in front of me in awe. When she had mentioned the training center I had expected something akin to a small gym not the gargantuan building in front of me.

We walk into the building and my senses are immediately overwhelmed as my skin begins to tingle. The building is charged with Uua.

Lathia notices my hesitation. "Don't worry, it only feels like that because of the amount of magic people use here every day, you'll get used to it."

I nod and follow her into the building. She begins to point out the various sections to me. I see people training strength, speed, and even different types of spells. In some sections, there are some people dueling each other, though they don't seem to take the fights too seriously.

I spot two Pre-protectors who look like they are about to duel and slow to a stop. One of them is counting down.

"Three…two…one…."

They are not as fast or powerful as the Protectors I watched in the Arena but they are no less impressive. The taller one immediately suppresses the shorter one who doesn't seem too worried. All of a sudden the shorter one reaches out with a finger and taps the taller one. The taller one freezes as the shorter one smiles and makes a fist.

I turn on second sight, immediately becoming surprised by the amount of Uua gathered around that fist. The shorter one punches, and the fist hits the taller one… and goes through him, hitting nothing but cloth. Ripples appear in the air behind the shorter one as a head and an arm appears. The head belongs to the taller one and the arm holds a knife pointed at the neck of the shorter one.

"I win." the taller one says smugly as his clothes fly over to him and cover him before the rest of his body appears.

The two begin to talk excitedly as I turn to Lathia, a slight frown on my face. "Was he naked right now?"

She nods and says, almost as if it explains everything. "He's probably training to be an Illusionist." I turn to look at the taller one with different eyes. I doubt I could ever have the courage to go naked in public, even if the rest of my body is invisible. I mean the Laens have second sight, what if they had something stronger than that that could see me even if I was invisible.

We leave the two alone as Lathia familiarizes me with the rest of the floors. Finally, we get to the last floor.

"And here we are, the final floor, the Floor of Challenges."

"Why is it called that?"

"Because this floor is full of challenges. You can test your strength, speed, reflexes, and basically everything here. The only catch is that you have to be at least a Protector."

I am not too interested in the Floor of Challenges as I cannot attempt any of the challenges yet so we soon leave the floor. After that, she shows me places she thinks I might use on the other floors. By the time she is done it is time for me to leave.

"I'll give you the rest of the tour later, maybe tomorrow if you are free," Lathia says as we leave the training center.

"Sure. Bye." I say as I wave. After that, we go our separate ways.

Not too long after I walk out of the portal in the bookshop. I walk into the bookshop and spot Hugo sitting behind the counter. He is not as spaced out as he was this morning.

"Good evening." I greet and he nods back at me.

"You're here," he says. "You don't have to do anything much, just dust the shelves, make sure all the books are in the right places, and just clean the place up."

After that, he shows me where the cleaning supplies are and gives me the inventory of the books before going back to his seat behind the counter. I begin to work while he seats there and watches me quietly.

I work quickly and quietly. The work isn't too hard and soon I find my mind drifting as I get lost in the rhythm of working.

"How is school going?" Hugo asks suddenly. It takes me a moment to realize he is talking about Laen school.

"It's okay," I reply.

He nods and says nothing else. Once I am done with all the work he calls me over to discuss my salary. It isn't too bad, quite good in fact, considering the fact that I will probably work for less than an hour each day and after that he allows me to leave.

I go straight home and lock myself in my room before beginning my daily practice session.