-Now playing 2 hours of Moria/LOTR& Ambience- Dwarven Music with Cavern Ambience.-
The dimly lit cavern was filled with hand-carved stone buildings that appeared to be hundreds of years old, yet either by their expert craftsmen ship or the sturdy stone materials the buildings were carved from, everything looked immaculate.
[Hey…Brancie,…you sure we didn’t choose Middle Earth to reincarnate into?] Cynrik asked, barely able to keep his feet moving due to shock and awe.
[At this point, Cyn, I have no fucking clue, but it’s…its… it’s beautiful.] Brance said, wiping a single tear from the corner of his eye.
Standing next to the brothers, Benny was wide-eyed and looking in every direction, unable to find a spot for his line of sight to rest.
[This brings back to how big of a nerd our Headmaster must be at heart, I mean, just look at this place. If I didn’t know better, I would have believed we were at a clean and un-demolished Mines of Moria if it had been repurposed into a massive housing facility for students.
Instead of being bathed in darkness as one would expect from the interior of a mountain, it was bright as sunset within, thanks to hundreds of thousands of small glowing stones and what appeared to be some kind of magical street lamps.
Luckily, the crowd of similarly aged children surrounding Cynrik and company were equally as mystified and had all stopped, or else it would have been slightly chaotic of a traffic jam.
Coming back to his senses after what seemed like an hour, Cynrik pulled up the map of Mount Kaer’s Cavern Dorms on his Watcet before tapping Benny and Brance on the shoulder and cutting through the crowd of thousands of students.
[We still have a way to go; it seems like everything is set up in a layered grid pattern, with the outer layers being for low-ranked students and the Inner for higher. According to our Dorm number, we got one of the 4 SS-Rank dorms housed in the dead center of the cavern.] Cynrik explained as he traversed the clean paved stone roads.
The outer area dorms had a similar aesthetic to a regular suburban neighborhood; the stone streets were lined with identical modular apartments ranging from three to four stories. The literature Cynrik had located on the Academies website informed him that each of these apartment buildings held six six-person dorm rooms per floor, meaning that the largest ones could house 24 homes, with 144 students packed in like sardines.
Adding that number to the seemingly never-ending rows of identical buildings was enough math to make anyone’s head spin, and this was just in the first ring of the outer layer. The further in you went, the more unique the buildings became, and subsequently, the less amount of students housed within.
With the cavern expanding for over two miles into the mountain, it was relatively easy to get a decent picture of how many first, and second-year students were enrolled in the Academy.
As the group walked along with the stone-paved roads, Brance would take a peek into the dorms as students would locate theirs and enter, hoping to get a good look at furniture or room layouts from the front door, but soon found out he was limited to what he could actually see. The worst part was that, similarly to the stone huts they had come across inside the Egress, all the stone buildings were constructed from a type of rock that reflected Mana particles and made it impossible to spy inside with [Mana Sight].
[Tsk, did you notice yet, Cyn?] Brance said while massaging his temples to curb his headache.
[Un, the moment we walked in, why are you always so slow to the uptake with shit like this, Brancie?]
[Eh? I’m not slow; you are only quick to notice because your freak brain only works appropriately when multitasking. I, on the other hand, am N.O.R.M.A.L, so fuck off.] Narrowing his eyes in an attempt to bore holes into the back of Cynrik’s head with the disdain he was experiencing, Brance quipped.
[Che, watch your step; the stone stairs are a bit slippery.] Ignoring Brance’s taunts, Cynrik stepped onto the narrow, flat stairway leading up about five feet and walked into the next portion of the outer layer.
[This makes the 4th and final segment of the outer layer. Up next is the Inner, followed by Central and then the Core. Hurry up; I’ve only got 25 minutes till curfew.] Cynrik picked up his pace making the other two catch up.
[Why are you so worried? It’s not like the Headmaster is gunna turn your Watcet into a shock collar or something if you’re late. Where is my gungho rule-breaking brother at?] Smirking at how hurried Cynrik seemed, Brance took it upon himself to continue abusing him verbally.
[Psh, that Cynrik fell down a flight of stairs a ways back, and we left him behind. But, of course, that fool would have lost even more privileges if allowed to live, so I hit him with a couple of fireballs on the way for good measure.] Without missing a beat, Cynrik didn’t let his younger brother’s taunts get to him and instead joined in on making fun of himself.
But when Brance heard Cynrik’s reply, his mouth dropped open in confusion, and he shook his head left and right slowly.
[It never ceases to amaze me how you can talk about yourself in the third person in such an insane manner so easily. But, whatever, how much longer till we get there?]
[There are only three sections of the Inner layer, two for the central, and lastly, only one in the Core. Honestly, aside from missing dozens of feet tall walls, this place would remind me of one of those ancient circular cities. I mean, if those cities had electricity and running water and were built inside a massive mountain.] Cynrik said as he began briskly jogging through the Inner layer.
It didn’t take long for Cynrik, Brance, and Benny to navigate through the winding stone roads of the Inner layer and make their way into the much nicer and vastly more lavish Central Layer. With fewer buildings and even fewer students around, Cynrik found himself stopping at the guard stations posted between each section and scanning his Watcet with the guard before being allowed to continue further.
This was something he had yet to come across until they left the Inner Layer. Seeing that security was getting tighter the deeper into the cavern they went didn’t sit well with him, as a curfew restrained him, but Brance found it hilarious.
This meant that if Cynrik were, for some reason, late coming home and broke his curfew, he would still have to report to numerous Guards who would either dish out a form of punishment or scold him. The social interaction with these uniformed adults would be future nightmare fuel for Cynrik, and Brance was having a blast nagging him.
By the time they passed the guard station for the Core Layer, Cynrik and the others had stopped their brisk jogging and ended up sprinting full out, in the end, narrowly making it into the Core Layer with only two minutes to spare.
“Huff, Fucking bullshit man, huff. That’s the last time we cut it this close.” Cynrik barely spat out between ragged breaths. He was winded because instead of being able to run in a straight line, the winding roads, and obstacles they housed, forced Cynrik to move as if he was in a forest.
“What kind of bullshit rule disallows running on the rooftops. Like there are so many, and it’s perfect for parkour. Huff.” Straightening his back and walking forward to a lavish-looking stone house with 04 written on it, Cynrik stepped up to the door and tapped his Watcet on a small platform that looked like a doorbell and heard a loud click representing the door had been unlocked.
When he opened the door and stepped inside, all the inactive lights dimly brightened up, and a soft A.I. voice welcomed him home by name, warning him there was less than a minute left until his curfew was in effect. The same happened to Brance and Benny when they stepped inside.
However, they didn’t get the second phrase, urking Cynrik for a moment before he let it go and toured the borderline mansion of a stone dorm. From the interior alone, one would never believe the house was made entirely of stone as the walls were painted a decent shade of light blue, and plush carpet lined the floor of every room except the kitchen, which was tile.
“Damn, this place is pretty nice; even the furniture looks expensive,” Brance said, examining the living room with four three-seater couches and a coffee table. Across the room was a large holotv that could be viewed with ease from just about every angle.
Benny had already left the brothers alone in the living room and run off to pick which room would be his new bedroom. Since there were four identically sized bedrooms, it didn’t matter to the brothers which the boy chose, so they let him have his solo adventure.
“You can stay here; im going to check out the training room. All the literature says every Dorm is equipped with a state-of-the-art one, and since this is an SS-Rank dorm, ours should be pretty good.” Cynrik glanced at Brance, who already had his pants off and was lazing on one of the couches in his boxer shorts.
“You do you, my happy ass ain’t moving from this spot,” Brance said with closed eyes.
“Tsk, 11 years on Vinestra and 27 on Earth, and you still haven’t broken the habit of throwing your pants off the second you get home.” Crossing his arms and clicking his tongue, Cynrik walked off to examine the training room, but he was slightly disappointed when he arrived.
Unlike what he was praying for, there was no gravity machine; instead, there were dozens of weight training devices such as things to lift or add tension to your body.
Kicking off his shoes, Cynrik walked onto the padded flooring and observed the ample open space, equivalent to the training room back in the Pinhurst Mansion, only without a boxing ring, and was eventually satisfied with what he was seeing.
‘This isn’t so bad; not every place can be like the HBTC; oh well, I guess I should get in a short workout before showering and unloading my stuff into my bedroom.’ So Cynrik thought before going back to practicing the Futae no Kiwami.
(((We did it, guys; we finally hit chapter 200. For me, this is a huge milestone, as every other story I’ve set out to tell has fallen immensely short of this number. So, to break the mold, when I began planning this series a couple of years ago, I crafted an intricate web of a plot outline with enough content to sustain a minimum of 10 volumes. So, here we are, partway through the much anticipated World Building/Academy Arc, and I’m pleased to say we haven’t even scratched the surface of 20 percent of my plot outline.)))
(((I hope I have been able to put to words a compelling tale, even if the MCs are all still children 200 chapters in. One of the biggest things I’ve noticed is the massive drop-off in Cynrik Hate, which pleases me greatly as he is a flawed character with an immense amount of mental health trauma to unpack over time.)))
(((So from the bottom of my tiny little decrepit heart, Thank you for sticking around, especially those I see frequent the comments. My interaction with each of you regulars, who call me out on mistakes, either Grammatical, spelling or plot, keeps me growing as an author.)))
HERE’S TO ANOTHER 200 CHAPTERS HOBEY HO! –ScotchTy (Author-San)
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong, Fam. P.S. Check out the discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg