First Day (II) - Stardust-Coated Teachings

"Alrighty class, since everyone's here, let's get this class on the road." Teacher Brutus announced.

In the front of the class was a large flatscreen television. Teacher Brutus pushed a button on the lower right corner and the screen came to life. Immediately afterward, he made his way to a teachers desk before operating a computer

"I'm going to get this set up as I teach." He announced to no reaction from the other students. "Before I start, though, you should all head to the Main Office sometime today and request official uniforms. If you didn't get a training weapon from the forge yesterday, I highly recommend that you do so as well." 

Soon, Teacher Brutus's clicking and typing started to show up on the monitor, a simple browser home screen. Then a tab opened, and then a list of files, he soon opened the one at the top. It was a presentation with the first slide labeled: [Stardust Circulation]

Bell didn't have the slightest clue what Stardust is but knew that Teacher Brutus was going to explain it in just a few moments. That didn't provide solace for her furrowed brows, Bell was still going to try and come up with an idea for what this strange thing was.

She gave up before Teacher Brutus stood up.

Teacher Brutus cleared his throat and announced a question, "Stardust, can anyone tell me what it is?"

After a moment of silence, Hilia raised her hand. 

"Yes, Hilia?" Teacher Brutus asked in invitation.

Hilia began, "Stardust is the essence that fuels the activation of Fragment abilities, right?"

Teacher Brutus responded quickly to Hilia, "You're on the right track, do you know anything else?"

Hilia nodded before continuing, "If you spend too much of it, you can enter a state of Overexpenditure, and that's dangerous."

Teacher Brutus nodded after Hilia stopped.

"I'll take the rest of it from here." He announced.

Then, he tapped the television screen, and the slide shifted. The new screen showed a photo of a small orb made of some strange, glass-like material on a slide of glass. 

Bell then realized something, 'Aw man, I forgot my journal...' 

She probably won't be able to take notes for the rest of the day, seeing as she'll have no chance to run to her room and gather the item.

'I knew I should have grabbed it...' Bell thought.

Teacher Brutus then started explaining:

"The photo on here is of concentrated stardust."

He immediately jumped to another subtopic after announcing what was on the presentation slide.

"Stardust is an energy that Challengers can use; you gain access to this resource upon ascending after your First Trial."

Teacher Brutus changed the slide of the presentation; the new one depicted a cropped image of the condensed stardust in a diagram of a person. The stardust orb was located just above the chest region of the diagram.

"You have a pseudo-stardust-core inside of your heart, but it isn't physical. Whenever you activate a Fragment's ability, you call upon the stardust reserves that you have, and it flows to your brain, where your Fragment is located."

He turned to face a student in the far corner after seemingly noticing something, immediately saying:

"Do not use your Fragment abilities in this class, after gaining enough power, you tend to notice when someone starts to circulate their stardust." 

Teacher Brutus then cleared his throat before continuing:

"If you draw on this power too much, then your body enters a state of Overexpenditure, where you will start to feel ill and will pretty much lose the ability to fight. This state of body is deadly and is actually one of the Trials."

He paused for a moment, looking deep in thought before continuing.

"It is everyone's fourth Trial, right after coming back from the brink of death." Teacher Brutus 

Bell's face slightly dropped in surprise, but she returned to a neutral expression nearly immediately after. 'I finished the Fourth Trial?!' Bell took this moment of silence to raise her hand.

Teacher Brutus pointed towards Bell and said, "Yes, Bellona?"

Bell replied with a nervous tone in her voice, "What happens if someone went through Overexpenditure after only completing one Trial?"

Teacher Brutus seemed to quickly understand the situation and replied to Bell with a smile, "Then, that person would be given access to the rewards to two other trials. The rewards for completing the Fourth trial, but as well as a Hidden Trial." 

Bell's nervousness vanished, having not truly completed the Fourth Trial by accident.

'Wait...' Bell thought, 'Hidden Trial?!'

Teacher Brutus chuckled and said, "Looks like you're quite the thinker, but I'll explain."

He tapped the television screen multiple times before coming to a halt at one. There was a list of ten trials on the screen.

"We know of six 'Main' Trials and four 'Hidden' Trials. The first one is to reach the age of sixteen, the second is to return to normalcy after a complete mental meltdown. The third and fourth trials are to come back from the brink of death and come back from complete Overexpenditure."

After a moment of silence likely provided for students to comprehend and digest the information given to them, Teacher Brutus continued.

"Complete Overexpenditure will feel like your entire body is on fire, and every nerve in your body will feel like it is exposed. So, trust me when I say this, Bellona. You probably didn't undergo Complete Overexpenditure."

Bell nodded and felt a slight amount of relief. Her experience could have been so much worse on the Bullet Train's rooftops.

After finishing explaining that, Teacher Brutus let the room stay in silence, probably letting students come to their own conclusions and waiting for someone to ask a question.

"Now, the fifth trial is to reach the age of twenty-one, which, considering the graduation rate at this Terrarium, is a rare achievement."

Teacher Brutus then paused once more and wiped his face with his palm, then sighed.

"From what we know, only six people alive have finished the Sixth Trial. Apparently, it is to come back from dying. Your body has to die, and you must come back from that somehow."

A silence filled the room, the gravity of what they were signing up started to settle in the students. Bell became aware of the heavy rain tapping against the window, the eternally somber weather in the Terrarium starting to influence her emotions.

'I have to die?' Bell thought. 'I'm really going to die and come back? Just for a Trial?'

She entered a cycle of defeated thoughts.

'I'll never make it.'

'I'm going to fail.'

'I won't be able to do it.'

And many more thoughts like this started to cloud her thoughts. After a few moments, Bell's nature kicked in, and she took it as a challenge.

'Why not? We've already been through a heap of crap before, what's another one?'

After Bell properly retrieved her mental state, Teacher Brutus spoke aloud, breaking the deep silence in the room and gathering the attention of the students. 

"That's why nearly all of humanity has been stuck at the Fifth Trial. Many are unwilling to give up their gains to challenge the Sixth Trial, myself included. I simply cannot give up on teaching students like you ways to defend yourself."

Jude raised his hand, and Teacher Brutus asked Jude to speak.

"Do we know how these six people completed the Trial?" Jude asked.

Teacher Brutus shook his head silently before speaking, "No, they won't, or can't, answer that question.

Jude nodded in understanding before returning to his previous state of spectating and learning through observation.

Teacher Brutus looked back at the screen and announced, "We'll be returning to Stardust, and I'll cover the rest of everything in a short while."

He tapped the screen of the television until the image of the condensed orb of stardust hovered over the heart of a human diagram.

"You naturally regenerate Stardust, and you can use Stardust for many more things outside of simply activating your Fragments abilities."

As a show to prove his point, Teacher Brutus lifted his hand and a similar orb appeared, however, this one was much larger. He looked towards one of the students in the middle of the room and tossed the orb. 

The student caught it, and Bell soon realized that it was Charybdis, and she looked to already be wearing a school uniform. That, or she was very stylish and wanted to look the part of a student in a highly prestigious school.

The short girl examined the orb for a moment before Teacher Brutus commanded, "Shatter it in your hand, you should be able to."

To which Charybdis did with relative ease, a moment after, her eyes went wide and she said, "What did that do?"

Teacher Brutus answered quickly:

"I gave you a bit of my stardust. Condensed Stardust has a use that you'll all learn one day. As you grow, your capacity for Stardust grows as well, the amount needed to condense the Stardust into that size orb is probably double what you can actually hold in your Stardust core."

Charybdis nodded silently, allowing Teacher Brutus to continue:

"Unless it's injected somehow into you, excess Stardust will simply dissipate upon trying to enter your Stardust Core. While it dissipates, it will also flow into your body and flow out, it gives you quite a kick, I must say."

Teacher Brutus then paused for a moment as he thought of what next to teach.

"Also, with Stardust, you'll be able to do this.

He then conjured a pane of glass in front of him, it shimmered blue and looked more like a thin slab of stone. 

"This is the Status Window; you just need to add a bit of concentrated Stardust to your Pathfinder and turn your Pathfinder into a Marble... But after that, summoning the Status Window becomes real easy."

He examined the shimmering thin blue pane before continuing.

"It displays a great deal of information when normal, but when turned into a Marble, you can get so much more details. For example, it shows exactly how long I've been alive, my name, and my physical information; height, weight, illnesses, physical health..."

After a short while of examining the Status Window and picking out what he'd share with the class, he continued:

"It also shows what Trials I've completed, the Marbles I've collected, the Fragments that I'm attuned to, and it shows extensive details on everything about them."

Teacher Brutus then tapped the screen and showed another diagram of the human body.

"I'll be explaining how you can utilize Stardust for a few other things, and a few rules that I'd like to share with you."

He pointed towards the heart of the diagram. 

"This is the heart, it houses your pseudo-Stardust-core..."

Teacher Brutus then pointed at a complex system of dots and lines. 

"And this is everything else. You can choose to circulate your Stardust through your meridians, pressure points, and muscle groups to enhance your body. If you're taking my combat class, I'll be teaching you the core principals in each muscle group."

Teacher Brutus then walked to a spot where all the students can see him clearly.

"I'm going to show you the power of this, firstly, I'm going to stomp on the ground, and then, I'll stomp on it while enhancing myself."

He did as he said, the first stomp on the ground not doing much, despite Bell still almost feeling the vibrations underneath the floor. Teacher Brutus then raised his foot in preparation, and upon gradually reaching the apex of his movement, his leg vanished for a split second before he returned to a normal standing position.

The tiled marble underneath his foot was cracked.

"Mind you, this is the effects of barely using Stardust to enhance myself, and I did it sloppily. Be careful when you use Stardust, especially when to enhance your body, because if you overload your muscles, they can simply be destroyed instead of boosted."

Teacher Brutus smiled before continuing.

"If you're taking my combat class, I will also be explaining the concept of Techniques. But for a quick rundown; a Technique is a set amount of movements made using Stardust to enhance your muscles. They're quite powerful, and the right one's will deal quite a bit of damage if executed properly."

He then frowned and swapped topics.

"But, I want you all to be wary of Techniques sold by shady people, sometimes, they'll sell faulty Techniques made by a fool. These 'Bastard' Techniques will do more harm to your body than good that the Technique does for you or anything else."

Far into the distance, a large bell was heard ringing over the torrential downpour tapping against the windows.

"Well, it looks like class is over for this morning." Teacher Brutus said after the tolling of the bell grew silent. "I'll see you tomorrow, but before you go."

The students were already standing up, but most stayed in place to allow Teacher Brutus his words.

"I'll be explaining how you can utilize Stardust beyond activating Fragment abilities tomorrow. For homework, I want you to try and learn how to feel the flow of Stardust, and it'd be even better if you learned how to force it in another direction."

After a moment, he then said, "Class is dismissed. See you all tomorrow morning... minus those who have my combat class, I'll see you later today."

Bell and the others stood up, and Bell asked her Pathfinder to lead her to the Hunting Class with Teacher Sofia.

"That was a lot." Pyralis said as they collectively passed through the doors heading into the hallway.

Torm, who had been silent during the entirety of the class period nodded and said, "Yeah." But his voice cracked badly as he spoke.

Smiles grew on the faces of the group, and Mona chuckled.

Torm flushed red with embarrassment before he, too, joined in the smiles and chuckles.

They all said their goodbyes at the exit of the building they were in, and Bell had to conjure another umbrella with Creation, as she had forgotten it in Teacher Brutus's room.

'I'm just giving whoever's in that seat next period a gift!' Bell rationalized, yet still looked slightly annoyed at the event. 'Don't forget it next time... Fool.'

Over the course of the next few minutes, Bell reached the building where the Hunting Class was held. As Bell passed through the crowded halls, she saw a strangely large room with a collection of hanging headsets hovering above comfortable looking seats. 

Bell peered into is as she passed through the hallway. It didn't take long to find the next class, seeing as how the label for the room read: 

[Teacher Sofia]

Bell entered the room to find Aramine sitting next to a boy near the windows. Aramine saw Bell and waved her over with a smile.