With the meeting finished, the group was escorted back to the main building by one of the younger students, who had a bit of wisdom to share with them.
“Breakfast is a half hour before full dawn. So, as soon as it starts to get light outside, the bells will ring, and everyone will be up and beginning their day. I don’t know when you will be picked up to return to your Academy, but if they’re sending you on the train, it’s about an hour after dawn, as it arrives just after breakfast.” The boy informed them.
“So what you’re saying is ‘don’t stay up too late’?” Karl asked.
“Exactly. Many of us have considered sleeping in when we don’t have morning chores, but those bells make it impossible. A few of you might manage, but we’re all so well conditioned now that it is impossible.” The boy explained.
One of the warriors smiled at the younger boy. “Were they afraid that we wouldn’t be able to find our way back? The building is right there.”
That made the student laugh. “Oh, it’s not for this part. You see, the inside of the main floor was designed during an age of strife, and it is designed to confuse breaching enemies. If you’re not familiar with the layout, it can be nearly impossible to end up anywhere but the main halls.”
The warrior chuckled. “Which is great for students. Since that’s where the food is.”
“Precisely. It’s why we didn’t bother to give you a tour. Because it just encourages people to get lost in the corridors, and then we have to go find them. Though the building is only a few hundred metres wide, the main floor has over four kilometres of winding hallways.
I suspect that the area between the kitchen and the student dorms is actually a labyrinth with fake doors, but I can’t prove it. There is no properly drawn map of the building, since we all grew up here, except for the Serum Clerics.
But they start out with magic and rank, so they never live this far back in the Seminary. Plus, they automatically know the whole set of holy books for their patron, like memorized word for word, which is completely unfair.”
Karl could only imagine the hours that a student expected to be an expert on theology when there were Six Major Gods, plus the Chromatic Divine Dragons, and the Beast Gods, and who knew how many others that nobody followed anymore.
Karl barely remembered the basics of the World Dragon’s teachings, since they followed it here in the Golden Dragon Nation. But the clerics knew them all.
As the boy had said, the corridor was definitely suspicious, and Karl realized quickly that it was not straight, nor was it level. It seemed that way at first, but by the time that they had walked for a full minute, Karl was certain that they were no longer on the same level as they had been.
Rae had an excellent sense of spatial awareness to help her locate anything that had disturbed her web, and some of that had passed to Karl.
They took a series of twisting turns, until even their guide seemed slightly uncertain of the next one to take. But there were windows now, and they were on the second floor, facing the inner courtyard, so they were very close to his room.
“My room is to the right.” Karl whispered, startling their guide into stumbling into the grey stone wall.
“Are you certain?” He asked.
“Once we’re around that corner, we will be able to see it. I remember it from earlier.” Karl explained.
“This is the guest area, and I don’t get here often. At least not from that side. I swear that one day I will have this entire place memorized.” The boy muttered under his breath.
But he led them around the corner, and the first thing they saw was Overlord Drake, sipping coffee and looking out the window.
With suppressed laughter in his voice, the muscular warrior greeted them as if welcoming them to his own home. “Ah, good evening, I was wondering when you would be along. If you’d just come around to the front instead, you would have been here five minutes ago.”
“It’s like we went on a small adventure instead. Good evening Overlord.” Karl greeted him in return.
“There will be a bus here to pick you all up tomorrow after breakfast, bright and early in the morning. I suggested the helicopter, but they said it’s needed for actual work, and that it isn’t a shuttle service to bring healthy students back from missions.”
The friendly tone of his words made the young Elites much more comfortable around the incredibly powerful warrior, but the young Cleric wasn’t used to such a fraternal camaraderie. If someone here smiled at you like that, they were trying to comfort you before they gave you bad news, like extra chore rotations. If they were giving you good news, they would keep a straight face and try to downplay it.
That was just how the clergy culture was, Stoic to keep up their image, but secretly celebrating on the inside. Even the ones that decided that the clergy wasn’t for them and left the Seminary Academy when they were old enough to work regular jobs tended to keep the same simple tastes and expressionless default setting.
“Where are you off to next? Somewhere more exciting than a hidden Holy Relic in its dormant mode?” Karl asked.
Drake shook his head. “I am headed back to the Capital. I just happened to be in the area when the call went out. But I wish you all luck with your studies, and a good result on the end of semester promotion exams.
Though, if you’re doing well enough, you might convince your Professor to give you a chance to do the promotion during the midterms next month.”
Then he walked away with a smile on his face as all the Common Rank students began to panic at the thought of trying to pass the Awakened exams in just over a month.
Karl was honestly impressed. The Overlord had an impeccable sense of timing, and that smooth exit before the students could ask any more questions was flawless. Even if it had been phrased as a casual remark, it was perhaps the best prank he had seen played on the students yet.