Dorm Room

Lance had already gobbled down his food but he was still hungry. Seeing him eyeing their plates, Entsy pushed his mostly untouched plate to Lance. Lance happily accepted the food and finished it, finally becoming full for the first time on the IE station.

Seeing this, Darius stood up, starting to lead them out.

"Lets get to our dorms. Training starts tomorrow. It seems me and Entsy have advanced classes while you are on the basics. The instructors here are top notch but also very strict, so don't fool around and train properly."

The trio exited in the opposite direction they had entered from. This was another huge room with the expanse of space as the roof. Because the roof was made of glass, it gave the illusion that they were standing on a huge open field on Earth. From a room, Lance felt as if he had stepped out onto a mountain range. As far as the eye could see, there were forested mountains. Some were smaller and some were larger, but the whole landscape was an assortment of such mountains. Lance turned back to see where they had come from, and received a fright as he saw the door hovering on the ground with landscapes behind it. He wanted to see if it was just the door standing on the ground magically, but as he bent back to view the door from the other side, a "CLUNK" sound was heard as he had bashed his head on an unseen wall.

He heard the two snickering behind him and turned around to see Darius and Entsy holding back the urge to laugh. As they saw his accusing face, they couldn't hold it in any more and burst out laughing.

"Gets me every time. The door is set in a huge mirror like material, and using image technologies the illusion that the door is standing in the air is caused. Hey, don't look at me like that. This is a tradition in IE. Even I was laughed at when I first came here."

Lance walked to Darius and kicked him in his leg, only to clutch his own leg in pain. It felt like hitting a rock.

"Ok, enough fun and games. Lets get to our dorm. You must be eager to start cultivation.", said Darius as he started walking towards a particular mountain.

The trio had stepped into a grassy plain with pathways leading to various mountains and they were now headed to one particular mountain which seemed smaller than the rest.

It took a half-hour to just enter the forest at the foot of the mountain. Lance felt as if he were entering a whole new world. The air here was crisp and each breath filled him with vitality. The trees were huge and towering. It would require 10 people to surround one tree, and each was also over a hundred feet tall. As Lance looked up, there seemed to be houses in the trees, some round and some square but all of them were made out of wood. There was a particular house which was huge but as the whole floor was just wood from the outside, it just occupied a certain area of the sky. Each and every house blended into the atmosphere and it would be hard to distinguish them unless one were looking closely.

There was a pleasant ambient lighting with occasional pockets of sunlight that sneaked in. Passing these areas of sunlight made Lance feel as if he were being microwaved, as it almost burnt his skin. He avoided them from then on.

After another half-hour of walking, they came to a certain tree in the forest. It must be noted that although the trees were huge, the number of them weren't very high. A 50 feet area might only have 2 or 3 trees spaced apart, but the various shrubs and roots on the ground along with the grass gave on the strong feeling that they were back on earth in an unexplored forest.

Darius bent towards the tree and a head-sized eye automatically opened in the originally normal bark of the tree. After a moment in which it seemed Darius's eye was scanned, a lift opened up in the tree. A little bark fell off but the door of the lift were also covered by bark on the surface.

Lance followed the two into an industrial lift which could fit 20 people inside. There were no buttons, and the lift automatically stopped after a few seconds.

Lance was amazed to step into a modern furnished condo. There was a huge hall with a TV, a kitchen almost as big as the hall and three bedrooms. One side of the house was filled with windows overlooking the lush greenery outside.

"We opted for this model as we thought you would be most comfortable in it. We can change it later as you like.", said Darius as he walked in.

"Welcome to our dorm. From now on, we are a team. Remember, our progress is your progress and your failure is also our failure. So, you better work hard and catch up with us soon. Both of us have high hopes for you, and we will do our best to help you.", stated Darius, walking into the center of the hall and stretching out his hand in the air, palm facing downwards.

Entsy put his arm on Darius's, looking expectantly at Lance.

Lance felt touched. He didn't know how it was, but he felt closer to these two than almost all of his friends back on earth.

He walked forward and also placed his hand on theirs.

They looked into each others eyes, ready to face all difficulties. Together they would stand, and together they would walk.