NOVEL NEXT Chapter 46: New prep
The next day, early in the morning, Zayn opened his eyes.
He looked around the dark room in confusion. <What the hell, how come I got control of the body so early?>
He heard Xane's cheerful voice inside his head. [Good morning, my soul mate.]
Zayn placed his hand over his mouth. <What the hell, Xane? I almost puked.>
[Geez, you are no fun.]
<How come you're so calm? Dude, you're not in control of the body. Normally, the switch should have taken place during training.>
Xane said in a casual tone, [Well, no point freaking out about all these things. One way or another, all the changes are linked to us entering the projection plane.]
[I do have a feeling that, at the end of all this, we might gain some clarity over our weird situation.]
Zayn got up and nodded. <I hope for the same.>
With that, he touched his ID to check the time. After making sure he woke at his regular time, he rushed to the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, he wore a robe over his second set of clothes.
A couple of his roommates started to complain about the light, but he just ignored them.
As he moved out of the room, he asked Xane, <Should we eat something before going to the castle? >
Xane mentally clicked his tongue. [Nay, no need. I first want to see how effective this new method is.]
Zayn nodded, sharing the same feeling. He wasted no time and started walking to the black castle.
He met a dozen other students along the way who had the same destination.
He was surprised that it was less than a fourth of the number who rushed to the castle yesterday.
It was either that a large number got rejected by their mentor, or their mentor just didn't call them earlier.
He looked around and even spotted a couple of red-haired students. It was good that he was at the back of the group, so they didn't see him.
Otherwise, things might have become messy for him.
Zayn walked to the sixth stair that led to the hall with ten doors.
He saw a bunch of them walking to some of the doors, while others simply opened portals in the hall.
It was interesting to see that students on different paths got different instructions.
Xane said to him, [Come on, let's go. It's time to meet our mentor.]
Zayn touched his ID, and soon enough, a swirling dark portal appeared a few steps ahead of him.
He wasted no time and walked through the portal.
…
As he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see it was still a bit dark in the castle's artificial world.
Xane said in his head, [Well, looks like this world has a slight time variance from outside.]
Zayn looked at the horizon, where low light had already started to appear. It was similar to a sunrise, just with multiple suns in the sky. <Yeah, this world should be around two to three hours behind the real world.>
From the artificial world's time, they were so early that, except for a couple of shop owners who were busy cleaning, the entire plaza was empty.
He looked around and didn't even see Senior Kion.
Just then, another boy in a grey robe teleported next to him. He nodded to the guy as both of them walked to their destination.
As Zayn reached the cemetery, he realized that during the night, this place looked far more sinister.
He walked to the familiar casket and placed his ID on it.
Tick!
The next moment, the casket door slid to the side. To his surprise, he once again heard the mechanical voice from below. "Just walk in."
Xane asked in surprise, [Is this some sort of automatic stuff?]
Zayn shrugged his shoulders and started moving down. <Maybe.>
The moment he jumped into the metal corridor, he once again heard the metallic voice. "Just walk to the end of the corridor."
Xane said in surprise, [Damn, it is automatic.]
Zayn rolled his eyes and started walking toward the office. <Dude, why are you so surprised? Did you already forget that we use our metal IDs? That thing is far more advanced than this automatic voice guide.>
Xane sighed. [Yeah, you're right.]
Not long after, Zayn found Xenor in his office, scribbling something on paper. Zayn bowed to him. "Good morning, sir."
Xenor looked up and nodded. "Good morning, my student."
He looked down at the half-finished paper and then at Zayn. Then he crumpled the paper in disappointment and stood up. "So, you had proper rest, right?"
Zayn nodded. "Yes, sir, and as per your advice, I even ate the special meal at dinner."
Xenor started laughing. "Haha, looks like I got myself a good student."
Xane said in his head, [Hey, I'm starting to feel like this act of us being good students isn't that effective. This mentor of ours doesn't seem to care about that stuff.]
Zayn followed Xenor to the platform and nodded. <Well, it's better that way. I also want to drop this whole 'yes, sir' stuff.>
Unaware of the inner dilemmas going on in his student's head, Xenor smiled and said, "By the way, today you might meet my second student."
Zayn looked at Xenor in surprise. "Sir, you already selected the second student?"
Xenor nodded. "Yeah. With you already here, I don't want to wait the entire week. It's much better if there's no gap between the two of you."
Xane said in his head, [I think he just wants to avoid teaching the same stuff twice.]
Zayn nodded to Xenor and turned his act back on. "Sir, I am excited to meet my peers."
Just then, Zayn saw the metal hall.
Xane shouted a warning, [Don't look at those white lines. I forgot to mention, but those things are trouble.]
Zayn nodded and focused on the empty circle in the center.
He stopped caring about other things and started thinking about all the stuff they had discussed last night.
Xane was the same, as both of them knew that finding the correct world was the first hurdle they had to cross from now on.
It was just that this one hurdle was already bigger than Mount Everest for them.
Xenor noticed his student's determination and chose not to disturb him.
As the platform reached the floor, Xenor handed the hex art to Zayn. "Here, Viyron, try your best."
Zayn took the paper and walked to the circle. He sat down cross-legged.
After taking a few deep breaths, he gripped the hex art while mentally shouting, <Let's do our best, dude.>
[Yeah, same.]
With that, smoke once again started to fill the circle as they blacked out.
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