Decision [1].
Kair looked at her receding back which was quickly obscured by the quartz walls, speechless.
These were quite the rarity, at least for the time being.
The thing is, Amanda had lied to him. Well, it didn't cause him any harm, but still. What she had presented him wasn't just an 'above average' storage space, it was rather like a potentially infinitely storage space!
These were called 'conduit' devices.
Conduit devices made it easier for one to channel their mana and create a dimensional space based on their own capabilities. Though they were still a prototype, they also were a generational leap from those average 'fixed' storage devices, of which he already had one courtesy of Miles which was issued by the government.
For people with a lot of potential, such storage spaces would become like cheat-codes in the future, after the patented formulae were officially released to the markets.
If Kair wanted to create, let's say, a cubic meter of space, the mana consumption would be negligible as the rate at which mana replenished itself automatically would cancel out the rate of consumption.
If he, however, wanted something in the range of a cubic kilometer of space.. it was safe to say that he wouldn't be able to sustain such a thing, not even for a second. In the future however, this wouldn't be impossible for him. Hell, one of the major powerhouses of humanity could currently even create storage spaces the size of the earth!
Of course, Kair knew all this since it was his idea in the first place. He had developed the idea, so of course he'd know how valuable such a thing was.
This, of course, begged the question; why did Amanda give this to him? Many people, whole colonies even, would kill for such a wondrous piece of technology. Why did she leave it in his hands?
After deliberating for a while, Kair came to a conclusion.
'Whatever the reason... it doesn't matter.'
How would Kair be able to guess Amanda's intentions? Though he had written her, he couldn't exactly perceive her every current thought. Not only that, but she wasn't an extremely important character in the novel either, even dying in the fourth volume due to a catastrophic Nox attack. So, in summary, Kair's best guess was that she just really, really liked Starlie. That, however, didn't justify handing such a valuable thing to Kair on what seemed like a whim.
So, he decided to just ignore the gesture and treat it with kindness and gratitude.
Only later would Kair come to realize that Amanda was a far deeper character than he had originally described her to be.
Turning back around, Kair started making his way towards the center of Cilica City. All things considered, Cilica City was quite small. At least, that's what it seemed like on the surface.
Walking through the streets of Cilica City was like a surreal experience. It was like every sci-fi movie ever, but now it was seemingly turned into reality. Each building was at least three stories tall, yet extremely large. Luxurious balconies extended from the blocks, each apartment seeming like the most expensive penthouse one could've afforded back in the 21st century.
Lines of pulsating blue zipped through the streets, racing back and forth creating a unique atmosphere.
However, by far, the most interesting thing to observe here were the people themselves.
Due to mana, evolution had basically had broken its chains of reasoning. Evolution only occurred when there was a need for it. With mana, though, evolution was evocable forcefully.
Thus, many people started developing traits unique to themselves. Some decided to try making their bodies inherently stronger. Some decided to make their bodies thinner and lighter, sacrificing robustness for agility and speed. Some even decided to grow themselves multiple limbs in order to assist with tasks which would require more than one hand.
As mentioned though, mankind wasn't exactly wholly logical existence. I mean, think about it; what use did humans have for a tail? What use did they have for... claws?
As it turns out, quite a lot, actually! Humanity had delved into multiple branches of evolution. One of said branches was the 'beastial' branch. This branch revolved around mimicking the beasts which roamed earth nowadays. Some decided to grow tails, claws and sharpen their ears, faintly resembling something between a cat and a human.
These days, it was quite a vulnerability for human civilization to live above land.
Animals, or more accurately described as 'beasts', were naturally more powerful than humans. So, humanity decided to shift its settlements underground in order to make survival and life in general a whole lot easier. The larger part of the non-humanoid population lived above ground, so it was relatively 'easy' for humanity to find shelter underneath the almost safe covering of the earth.
So, Most cities had shifted their main settlements underground. Cilica City, as a matter of fact, was among the first cities to have ever undergone such a wide-scale relocation. It was also abnormally large, almost a hundred times larger underground than its appearance above ground.
Only the five most prominent and powerful megacities were exempt from this rule; Leviathan City, Crystal City, Serpent City, Basilisk City and lastly, Drakon City.
Each of the cities were home to the 5 most prestigious and important academies of humanity, being named respective to their cities.
Leviathan Academy, Crystal Academy, Serpent Academy, Basilisk Academy and, last but not least, Drakon Academy. Every academy specialized in all three branches. Namely defense, offense and strategy. Those were their strong-suits.
As for, the naming of these cities?
'We don't talk about that.'
Kiara, our main character, had opted to enroll herself into Drakon Academy, specifically the offensive branch. With her prowess, she couldn't help but get excited. At almost 18 years old. she had already gained the ability to slay a fourth grade Nox! That was usually something only second years or third years of these prestigious academies could achieve, their ages ranging anywhere from 20-30 years.
Being absurdly powerful, Kiara was motivated, more than she had ever been. The crux of her motivation was that her parents' disappearance was shrouded in mystery.
A few years ago, after a long night of wandering the outskirts of Cilica City, she had returned home to find her parents gone.
That wasn't even the weirdest thing. What had really made the situation worse was that there was no sign of... anything. No scuffle, no residue mana, no nothing! It was as if they had never existed in the first place. As if their presence had been snuffed out instantaneously, leaving nothing but their memories behind.
This was actually a big part of the reason that Kiara had set her goal to find her parents. It had to be noted that her parents were actually quite the powerful couple. Having graduated from the hunter stages with a measured potential of C-ranked slayers, they had had a bright future laid out in front of them.
So, the only realistic way was for either a paragon of humanity to have descended and taken care of her parents personally, which was wholly unrealistic, or they had left of their own accord. After all, there weren't many people strong enough to remove her parents without their consent; there would have been signs.
Choosing to believe in the latter possibility that her parents had left on their own, she had been determined to track them back down and confront them. Actually, she didn't really know what exactly she'd do when she found them, but she would leave that to the 'future her'.
Setting all the backstory aside, Kair was now engulfed in thought.
'Should I follow the same path that Kiara will take?'
Kair had to note that back in the hospital was the first time he had ever used mana. Comparing himself to residents of this world that had been practically born breathing mana was too much of an overestimation, wasn't it?
'Besides, I don't know when the acceptance tests for the academies even begin!'
Kair, when writing his novel, had thought that starting the story before an academy arc would require too much world-building. So, being extra lazy, he had decided to begin the novel directly as Kiara was accepted into Drakon Academy and went on from there.
If he hadn't mistaken the date, he still had about a month and a half till Kiara's birthday. In his novel, he'd written that she was accepted shortly after her birthday. So, to be safe, Kair had to be in Drakon City by the start of the new year, or else he'd be in for some trouble.
Clapping his hands, Kair had set himself his first big goal.
'January... hmm, I can make this work. First, I need money.'
There were two means of travel.
A teleportation pad which would, as the name suggests, teleport one to their desired destination given that there were a corresponding pad there too. The other option was to rent a transportation vehicle which could take someone to any destination regardless of terrain. Though this would take a couple of days whereas the teleportation pad was nigh instant, people still did prefer this mode of transportation for the fun of it.
However, both options were massive downsides to Kair. If he wanted to travel to Drakon Academy, there wasn't a clearly cheaper option. Both would cost him about 1500 Crowns, or C for short. This was the currency that was used on this earth, globally.
However, right now Kair had a grand total of 0 C to his name. Since his stay in the hospital was mainly attributed to the Nox attack, it was free.
'God, am I happy that I didn't include hospital fees for these situations.'
However, how was Kair supposed to actually earn money now?
'I could enroll in a sub-organization as a hunter... wait, I'd need to be a qualified hunter for that, so that's already off the table.'
The governments all over the world had devised a power-scaling system in order to gauge the estimated strength the individuals on earth could reach. Following a traditional grading system, they ranked every individual from rank F to rank A. Each rank had three subdivisions, taken F-, F and F+ as an example.
However, due to humanity's rapid evolution, it was quickly discerned that only these ranks weren't nearly enough to calculate every individual's prowess. This was the start of the creation of 'stages'.
There were four stages. Citizen, Hunter and slayer. The 'Citizen' stage was self-explanatory. They were your average people with a very basic mana capacity and basic manipulation abilities.
There weren't any ranks in the citizen stage. I mean, C+ ranked Citizen? Really?
The next stage was the hunter stage. There were only two ways for someone to become a hunter, one of which was through enrolling and being accepted into one of the top 100 ranked academies in the world.
When someone was accepted into one of those academies, they would immediately be granted the 'F- Hunter' status. This was the lowest rank in the hunter category, only a step above the citizen category.
Students of these academies would then have to, throughout their 5 years at the academies, accumulate merits, which would then be used to push their rank as high as they could.
After their 5 year period was over, they would be evaluated and an estimated potential for the student would be determined. Let's say if a student was able to increase his rank from an F- Hunter to a C+ Hunter, one could assume that the student would one day be able to become a D- ranked slayer, for example. Of course, the evaluations were varied.
After all, the rank wasn't necessarily proportional to strength. A student could be absurdly powerful yet lack the brains to properly use the power. In this case, the student's future potential would still be graded much higher than similarly ranked student who was more intellectual and a strategic hunter rather than a brute-force one.
The army didn't need more strategists; they already had the best there was.
The other way to achieve a professional hunter status, was by reaching an age of 20 and then applying for an evaluation at a local hunting union. There, their combat abilities would be measured. If they were deemed adequate, they'd be granted a hunter status in correlation with their strength. From there on, they could work their way forward, the same way the students could.
The next level however, was a prestigious level. Not many could hope to attain such strength and recognition, not in their entire lives. Only about one in ten hunters had the potential to become a slayer. At least, that's what the media pedalled.
They were called, the 'Slayers'.