The two exited the forest after hours of walking, their footsteps muffled on the thick bed of moss and leaves. Ahead, looming out of the morning mist, stood a massive wall. The stone ramparts rose so high above them that the creature craned his neck and still could not glimpse the top. Veins of dark grey and deep blue streaked through the rock, and patches of old ivy clung stubbornly to the cracks. The wall's immense thickness cast a cool, heavy shadow that stretched over the ground, swallowing up sound and colour. The air was tense and quiet except for the distant clang of metal. The creature's heart thrummed with a mixture of awe and fear as he tried to take it all in, but the shadow glanced back at him, eyes sharp. "From now on, don't do anything, let me get us past the guards, and if asked, only speak what's needed," the shadow said, voice low and steady. The creature nodded slowly, anxiety simmering inside him.
The shadow soon went to a nearby caved-in part with a large gate blocking the view beyond. Countless guards stood at the front, clad in segmented silver armor adorned with dark blue insignias, their helmets covering all but stern eyes. Their weapons were strange to the creature: polearms with luminous crystal tips and long-barreled crossbows slung across their backs. As the shadow approached, he retrieved a small card from his pocket and handed it to one of the guards. The card, edged with shimmering glyphs and bearing an official seal, seemed to draw the guard's careful attention as he took it for inspection.
"Sun City, Tempest Town, and a student of the Martial Academy—checks out. You may enter," the guard said as he gave back the card, but the shadow said something, and the guard listened carefully as he handed another card to the man as he looked at the creature and asked "Helix, a diverger race?" and the creature nodded as he remembered what the shadow had told him that when a race is wiped out or members of the race take human form, they are often classified as Diverger races, not because they changed forms, but because there have been countless cases where such people lost control and caused a rampage across various cities due to which they are often kept away from general people.
The shadow walked through the streets as the creature stared in amazement, buildings as tall as the trees stood tall and domineering as people entered and left their premises with ease, and the shadow looked and spoke "Don't look around so much, you are not from here, such acts may seem suspicious to people, try to keep your head steady, you will be here for a long time and all of this will be normal for you later on" and the creature nodded slowly.
After minutes of walking, the two finally reached the centre of the area as the entire surrounding changed completely, large dormitories stood tall with extravagant decorations and the road was made of hard tiles, flower bushes stood like railings along the sides and in the centre a single large fountain stood, its water flowing through crevices in the ground and watered the gardens nearby.
The centre was full of students, both men and women, walking everywhere all of them wearing stylish clothes and some wearing heavy armour as the two crossed the centre zone and stepped into a large building on the side, the interior was also extravagant like the rest of the place and many people gathered around, some gossiping, some laughing while others talked about their missions.
The shadow went first in the front as he stood in front of the counter and an old bearded man looked at him and spoke "It's you. Did you finish the missions?" and the shadow nodded as he took out a multi-coloured lotus from his pouch on his back and the man took the lotus and examined it with a machine before speaking "This is indeed the thing, I will mark it as a success" as he spoke "But you have yet to pay the university, so do you have any missions in mind?"
The shadow shook his head and spoke "Can I submit the same quest multiple times?" and the man spoke "Of course, since it is a known ingredient it will be better to get more of it" and the shadow nodded as he opened his pouch entirely and countless lotus fell as he spoke "Then I would like to submit them all for repeated quests" and the man smiled as he spoke "Of course, it seems like you had quite a harvest, the points would be delivered to you after deducting the amount needed for loans, as for the loan you mentioned, the university has decided to abolish their permission for loaning as we have received multiple complaints about that group, but..."
The shadow asked "What is it?" and the man covered his face as he spoke "You need to pay the necessary amount, but that will bring your total to a net sum of zero points, are you willing to do it?" the shadow was furious as he spoke "Why give them points anyways? They cheated us" but the man sighed and spoke "It's because they are elites, there are a few families backing them so the university is not risking it as not only will it aggro those families, the students may also harbour a grudge against our university due to this and fall down the wrong path" and the shadow was furious and wanted to scream but Helix stopped him and spoke "Don't break this easily, if they are following the laws of the jungle then just become stronger as long as you have a stronger backing than them, those families will cower away and they will be at your mercy"
The man smiled and spoke "Indeed, your friend here is right just train harder and you can bury them with your own hands, the strong prey on the weak in this world so nobody is at a disadvantage" as he spoke "Which city is he from? He looks pretty different and not from our zone" and the shadow slid a card as the man's eyes widened
"My god, you really do hit the jackpot at times, huh? you actually recruited a diverger? well that's fine have him rest in your dormitory for today, i will arrange a test for him tomorrow morning so bring him here on time so that he can receive his own identity card" the man spoke as the shadow nodded and left with Helix and as they left, the entire building was in chaos after they heard this but the man shouted "Quiet, don't talk about it too much, this is the university not the outside, if anyone wants to recruit him you may do it after tomorrow's testing ends till then everyone disperse" and the entire building emptied
To be continued-->