After retrieving Aiden’s sack of gold that he had carelessly forgotten in the carriage, he and Nilger proceeded to the student dorms. A boy of about 17 years of age was sitting behind the reception counter at the dorm.

“Fresher named Aiden. He’ll be sharing a room with me under Professor Balmer’s orders.” Nilger spoke in a straight-to-the-point tone.

After finishing with the formalities, Aiden entered Nilger’s room. The room was unsurprisingly simple with the bare minimum of furniture and 2 beds. A thin sliding wooden door expose a separate branching room where a long mat had been laid and candles had been lit up along its edge with the smell of incense drifting in the air.

“The concentration of spiritual energy here is abnormally high.” Aiden inadvertently remarked.

Nilger heard this and smiled, “It’s a dedicated room for cultivation. All dorm rooms have one integrated into them. The environment helps students cultivate faster; further, the denser mana allows one to build up momentum to break through any barriers they face in their cultivation.”

“This is free to use?”, Aiden asked perking up.

Nilger laughed, “Yeah yeah, it’s free to use whenever you want.”

Aiden just muttered a short thanks and happily went and sat down cross-legged.

Nilger was bewildered, “Um…you are going to cultivate now? Won’t you be sleeping?”

“Oh… uuuuh…..I just wanted to try out something. I’ll sleep soon.”, he said with pleading eyes.

“Well…..ok…if you say so”, Nilger said still sceptical as to the authenticity of his words.

Turning to head back to wash up, he thought ‘He sure is dedicated to cultivation.’

Soon, the night passed and morning came. Nilger woke up to find Aiden’s bed empty. ‘So he really didn’t sleep, did he?’

Sliding open the door to the cultivation room, as expected, he found Aiden sitting in the very same posture he had been in, the previous night.

Aiden sensed his presence and slowly opened his eyes, “This room really is awesome. I had been facing a bottleneck in my cultivation in the intermediate stage and I’ve successfully broken through to consummation now. Phew.”, he smiled as he got up.

“You are talking about the 3rd dan of the Foundation realm, right? Weren’t you already at its consummation?”

“Of course not. Didn’t I say yesterday that I was just a 3rd dan intermediate-stage cultivator?”

“Aiden………you were at 3rd dan consummation yesterday. Even the cultivation measuring device checked it. It can’t be wro…………nvm. If you don’t wanna say it straight, I won’t force you. Anyways, breakfast is in about half an hour, Get washed up by then. We have core development classes after that. And when they are over, I can take you around to the different departments to see if you are interested in joining any. I’ll be outside so come over after you’re done.” Nilger said and walked out.

Aiden was confused. Why was Nilger saying he had been at the consummation stage since yesterday? Even the device had detected it wrong. “Weird” he just said and left the topic. ‘It won’t do me much good thinking about it anyway.’

“Denzel you’ve been awfully quiet as of late. What happened?”, Aiden asked as he washed his face and hands.

“There’s not much that needs my input at the moment so why should I waste my energy.”, he replied in a lazy tone.

“Hey, what do you want? Like what goal do you have that you really want to achieve?”, Aiden asked curiously as he walked out of the room and followed behind Nilger.

“Goals? My current goal is to raise your power to a satisfactory stage so that I can regain my memories.”, Denzel replied giving a yawn at the end., “What about you? Sure your only goal can’t be to pay off that stupid debt you put yourself in?”

Aiden chuckled, “Can’t you read my thoughts?”

“I can read your thoughts, not access everything you know like pulling books from a library.”, Denzel gave a humph.

“Well,” Aiden said while looking up at the sky with his hands in his pocket, “I wanna clear that debt first and then think of other things. Once I’m free from that, I think I’d wanna go and explore the world. See new places; travel to unknown lands. There are a lot of things I’ve heard of from Matilda but never gotten a chance to see in real life. You said dragons, demons and angels all of them exist. I wanna see them all too.”, Aiden spoke in his mind as his eyes sparkled.

“Well well well, ain’t ya a carefree kid. Dragons, demons and angels are extremely powerful creatures. You’ll have to train for years if you wanna reach a level where you can approach them without being turned to ash by their breath. And don’t forget you’re gonna be a slave for life if you don’t collect the money soon.”, Denzel added with a smirk.

“Humph. Spoilsport”, Aiden said just before Nilgers voice sounded, “We are here. The outer dining pavilion. You can have meals here any time of the day. The common meal is free of cost for all students. But you’ll just have to pay a bit extra if you want something special or different.”

The dining pavilion was an extremely large hall. Two long food counters ran along either side of the hall, serving identical items. There were neatly laid rows of tables in the middle. All in all, it was big enough to fit a small army in.

After having their meals, as they proceeded to the core development classrooms, Nilger spoke, “Oh right, I had almost forgotten to add that since you are in 3rd dan consummation, you’ll be attending the classes for the 4th dan of the foundational realm. I’ll be heading to a different classroom but you don’t have to worry. The teacher of that class has been informed about your enrollment in the class.”

“Ok then. Thanks, Nilger.”, Aiden said as they stopped in front of a class.

“Well see ya later”, Nilger spoke and walked away.

Taking a deep breath Aiden was about to walk in when he heard a voice behind him. “Nuh-uh. You shouldn’t enter before the teacher if you’re a new student. It can lead to a lot of trouble young man.”

It was a sweet feminine voice and Aiden turned around to find a young woman, probably in her twenties, in a long-sleeved floor-length purple gown. Golden filigree on the bodice hugged her curves to just below the hips and then flared out into a full skirt.

She was smiling sweetly at Aiden and was holding two books at the waist with her right hand, while her left hand rested gently at her side.

“Um……..I’m sorry I don’t know you missss…er…”

“Samantha. I’m the lecturer for the mana development class for the fourth dan. You must be Aiden right?”, she spoke as she took another look at the signboard above the door that read “MD-4”

“Oh nice to meet you, Miss Samantha. I’ll be in your care.”, said Aiden giving a slight courteous bow.

“That’s Professor Samantha for you. And well, don’t expect too many friends here the first time. You are an odd one out of the others since everyone here will be a few years older than you. Just sit back and try to enjoy the lecture. If you make any friends, all well and good; if you don’t, then you’ll be saving a lot of time, still well and good.”, she said with the same smile and walked in with Aiden following close behind her.

“She smiles sweetly but speaks the bitter truth. Ah, a good blend of yin and yang indeed. Better than a thousand hollow words, is one that brings peace. And better than a thousand sweet lies is a statement that slaps you with the truth.”, Denzel spoke, almost muttering to himself.

“Yin and yang?”, Aiden got curious.

“You ask too many questions kid. I’ll explain it to you when the time comes.”, Denzel said lazily.

“Humph alright then, keep your secrets.”, Aiden said in his mind just as Miss Samantha began addressing the whole class.

Looking around, Aiden found that almost 95% of the class looked 3 or 4 years older than him while only 2 of them, one a girl and the other a boy, seemed as if they might be a bit younger than the rest of them.

“Well good morning lads and lasses. A new kid will be joining us today, his name is Aiden. Richard, don’t think of starting a fight with him.” A blonde-haired boy sitting in the back row made a dissatisfied grunt-like noise. Alice dear, please use common sense and don’t play with the boy. He’s twelve.” A girl sitting in the front with dishevelled Auburn hair who had been biting her lips, gave a sad pout, “Now Aiden, why don’t you introduce yourself to the class?”

As she said these words, the attention of the entire class turned to him. And for the first time ever, Aiden realised : 

He had stage fear.