"Welcome back Ascended Dawn."
The words came from a woman wearing a similar uniform to the students but hers seem like a lighter shade of green, with gold running along the cuffs and neck of the jacket, the academy's logo was on the left side of it.
She had blonde hair and green eyes cover with round glasses, but the feature that would immediately pull attention to her was her elf like ears.
A feature that was new to Nox so he couldn't help but stare for a while longer. She seemed to notice but said nothing, after all, this was nothing new to her.
All she was worried about was the one standing before her, Astra Dawn, the hardest part of her job as a secretary in the administration building.
She quickly stood up to attend to Astra.
"Is the old hag in her office?" Astra asked instead of responding to her welcome.
"Y-yes," the woman responded, "but I advise you take the stairs since the elevator is out of order right now."
"I see," Astra nodded, turning towards the direction of the stairs, "thank you, Luna."
With that, she walked away leaving a stunned Luna.
Yes, she had been working here for a while now, but she never expected THE Astra Dawn to know her name..... maybe all the headache was worth it after all?
Nope, not in the least bit.
Nox was behind Astra as they walked towards the stairs. He finally had the chance to take a clear look around.
First thing he noticed was how unnecessarily high the ceiling was.
The floor they were on, looked like some kind of cathedral...one made of glass, with golden light dropping from above.
Even the floors they were walking on had golden lights running along it.
"How much power does this place even need?" Nox couldn't help but comment.
Astra just shrugged, she has never been curious enough to find out so she had no idea.
All she knew was that it used a whole lot.
The two soon arrived at the stairs and Nox froze, were they going up a building or a mountain because what the hell was up with the.…number of steps?
The stairs stretched endlessly upward, spiraling along the inside of the massive glass structure
It wasn't just tall, it was absurdly so.
Nox tilted his head back, trying to see the top, and immediately regretted it. His neck hurt, and the top was nowhere in sight.
"What the hell—" he muttered under his breath. "Are they trying to kill people before they even make it to admissions?"
Astra, already two steps ahead, gave him an evil grin, "cardio's important."
"Yeah, well, so is not dying," Nox shot back, eyeing the stairs like it was a personal enemy.
"Don't be dramatic," she said already taking multiple other steps forward, she clearly was someone who'd done this a hundred times. "You're going to be facing Eclipsed, I'm sure you can handle a few hundred stairs."
With that, she seemed unwilling to hear any of his complaints anymore as she walked upwards quickly, skipping a couple hundred steps on her way.
"Damn it," Nox muttered before taking the first step up, else he risked falling behind.
***
Twenty minutes
That's howlong it took Nox to walk up....no, crawl up the torture of an excuse for stairs.
He slumped against the wall beside the final landing, panting heavily. "Whose idea… was this…?" he managed to let out between breaths. "Do they… hate people… that much?"
Saying he was out of breath would be an understatement. His lungs were desperately holding on to whatever little oxygen they had left in them.
Astra on the other was just standing there waiting for him, she didn't seem the least bit out of breath and she looked like she hadn't even climbed the same stairs Nox just had.
Looking to the side, he saw the elevator come up and with a ding, it let out the same secretary from before...Luna.
She looked at them with apologetic eyes...well more at Nox than Astra since she seemed completely unbothered.
There was a moment of silence for a long while as he looked between the elevator and the stairs.
"…It's working?" he finally asked, his voice filled with disbelief.
Luna adjusted her glasses, giving an awkward smile. "Ah… it seems maintenance fixed it faster than expected."
Astra didn't even blink. "Oh, good to know."
"Good to—?" Nox's voice cracked. "Good to know? You made me climb that entire—" He gestured weakly toward the spiral of stairs behind them. "—that entire monstrosity!"
"Relax," Astra said, "it's just the antics of the old lady, I'm sure she'd have 'seen' you already."
A moment after her words, Nox suddenly felt his body recovering and his exhaustion immediately melted away.
"Hmm?" Luna let out curiously looking at the recovering Nox, "he already has a core?"
The reason for her question was due to how fast he was recovering.
Astra turned to him, her eyes taking a slight glow and she saw exactly why, the kid was doing it again.
He was absorbing SE again and this time, it seemed his body was being greedy as it was taking it in, in insane amounts.
At this rate, it'd only take a few minutes before everything powered by SE started getting affected.
"Is this a mechanism of this floor?" Nox asked as he felt his tiredness melt away, for some weird reason, he was also feeling stronger than before but he had no idea what actually was going on.
Luckily, before anything could go wrong, his body stopped absorbing, seemingly satisfied.
"No," Astra shook her head, "that's all you ...again."
"Me?" Nox asked.
"Yup," Astra nodded, "let's meet the old lady first, she might be able to explain what you are."
"This was," Luna said as she led them down the corridor towards the only door on this floor.
The three stopped at a door that had 'Director' written on it. Luna knocked once before opening and leading them in.
The moment they walked in, a voice welcomed them...or rather, spoke directly to Nox,
"Welcome Little light, I've been expecting you."