The tradition, Master Slav explained to Tercius and his fellow schoolmates, was for the first time visitors and students to do the whole ascent to the Academy using the stairs.

While his schoolmates went after Master Slav, Tercius did not even pay attention to what the man said.

Once his eyes peeled off from the colossal mountain-like step-Pyramid, Tercius's head swiveled to the Doorway behind them. The Doorway was still filled with hexagonal fields, but now it went from reflective mode to see-through mode. Once Master Slav passed through he closed it using that technique Tercius earlier observed. The hexagonal fields did not have any Mana in them, at least his Mana Sight did not see anything. Yet Tercius knew how the air behaved when Mana passed through it. There was always a shimmer of some kind, similar to when a heatwave passes through the air. There was one such shimmer when the Doorway opened up, and one when it closed down. But his Mana Sight insisted that no Mana was used, neither for opening or closing. It was a conundrum of the utmost kind. How can something be both a 0 and a 1 at the same time?

Tercius saw Master Slav’s Mana pulses both for opening and closing, but as soon as they reached the stone-made Doorway, it was like the stone ate all of the Mana all in a single, infinitely small, instant.

And what are these hexagons made of? Tercius deliberated as his hand gently caressed the smooth and solid surface.

There was another thing about the Doorway, or rather its immediate surroundings, that captured Tercius's attention. All around the Doorway, like a… just like the sun's corona, was a field of see-though hexagons, all of them curved inwardly by just a tiny degree. This grid-like field went around the Doorway about two meters in every direction. Hexagons near the Doorway had a degree of visibility to them, while those at the two-meter mark were basically invisible.

Yet even though they were invisible they were there. He confirmed this with his touch when his hand pushed against the surface. His eyes and Mana Sight could not perceive this… barrier, but his sense of touch could.

"What are you doing?" a voice reached him, startling him out of his thoughts. As his head turned he saw Master Slav’s face leaned quite near him.

Stumbling a bit back, he awkwardly began, "I was just… well…" Tercius composed himself and took a deep breath, then said, "I was trying to make sense of this," He knocked at the invisible surface, and the sound that he heard reminded Tercius of knocking on glass.

"Oh," Master Slav’s piercing blue eyes observed the subject of Tercius’s interest, and then the man released a deep wistful sigh. "It is a marvel, isn’t it?"

"…My Mana sensing skill makes no sense of it, my eyes tell me one thing, my touch another… so yes. I suppose that it is a marvel of a kind, Master."

The man laughed a bit at that. "I can tell you what it is, but I dislike just giving answers. First a question for you. Tell me what do you think the Doorway is? Don’t worry about saying the wrong thing, I am just curious to see what you noticed,"

Tercius had to make a small pause to think, his head swiveling from the snow-covered surface to the Doorway. He looked at the snow on the other side of the Doorway, then this one. The difference was over a meter and a half.

His head went up to the skies, observing there, but he saw nothing.

Starting with some hesitation and gaining traction with each word he explained what he gathered from his observations, "This… Doorway merely let us through a barrier of some kind. The snow on our side is barely ten centimeters, while the outside is near to two meters… that would mean that this barrier possibly covers the whole Pyramid. Considering that I can see the storm outside, yet on our side, nothing but a light breeze exists and, well, the fact that we can breathe, I would guess that it is letting through something but in a diminished capacity. Or maybe there is some other source of air inside this… dome. I don't know, there is too much to guess here,"

"Very good," Master Slav clapped a bit. "You are a tribute to your Master. What about that forest you saw behind the Doorway?"

Tercius mulled a bit then said, "An illusion?"

"No, try again,"

"Well, if it’s not an illusion, then it’s a real forest. But… but… what would mean… that the Pyramid and the forest exist in the same… space," Tercius said, hesitatingly as he threw a skeptical look towards the older man.

His eyes drifted a bit to his fellow schoolmates who were now in a semicircle around him and Master Slav and listening in on the conversation. Tercius saw some bearing confused expressions, others downright glaring at him. He almost snorted at the pair of twins that sent those glares, but he thought better of it and returned his attention to this much more interesting puzzle before him.

"How can two things exist in one space? Let me rephrase that… How can two physical… objects share the same space, simultaneously, without some kind of… interaction? It’s impossible," Tercius finally said. "Isn’t it?"

"Look at it this way," Master Slav said. Moving his hand, where his hand snow flew up into a circular disk. After the first one, another joined him. "Now imagine looking at this from this angle," Master Slav floated the second disk behind the first one until Tercius only was one surface. Then the discs rotated until he saw them standing one atop the other, with just a small space between them.

Tercius stared at the floating presentation, his mind processing what this Master just showed to him, and how it applied to this. After a few moments of blink-less staring, he said, "So… they share the same space, but different… layers of that space? Or something like that…"

Master Slav clapped once more, his handsome face lighting up, "Right you are,"

"And the Doorway is the path to this layer, while this," Tercius said while knocking once more on a translucent hexagram. "Is the layer boundary,"

"Completely true on the first account, while the second… well no one knows. It one of the mysteries Grand-master Tergaron left for us to solve. So far we only know that it uses the principles of space magic and an astounding amount of Mana to power this barrier, but how it was built, how it exactly works… No one knows," the older man said. "But we are working on figuring it out, and that's what matters,"

The part about Mana powering this space was scratching his ears. "Master, I do not see any Mana inside of it,"

The older man was snapped out of some musings of his own by Tercius's words. "Oh, that. Nothing to it. Observe," Letting the snow disks fall, Master Slav extended his arm, palm up. A ball of Mana appeared on his hand. "This is a pulse of Mana, a standard unit of measure. Now, watch closely,"

The pulse in Master Slav's hand shrunk in size, becoming vaguer under his Mana Sight, all the way until it was gone from his sense completely.

"Mana Metamorphosis allows us to make of Mana what we will. If we want it to be invisible, it becomes so, if we will it to move the elements it does so, but, there’s a prerequisite to all of this. You need to know how to do it. That's what we teach here at our Academy." Master Slav said, and a sneeze for the peanut gallery reminded him of his duty. Smiling wryly to the children he said, "I think that this is enough for now, let's get going. Those stairs will not climb themselves, now, will they?"

***

The way up took some time. A lot of stairs led from the ground floor to the first level of the Pyramid. After the stairs, they entered a rather long straight path that led from the outer edge to the stairs for the next level.

"Beyond these walls," Master Slav said, waving his hands grandiosely, indicating the walls to the left and right of them. "On both sides, is The Infinite Garden, a place of many mysteries,"

The walls that surrounded them, some twenty meters in height, were decorated with flowing straight and circular lines, much like the floors in the Library and the underground space Tercius observed. Tercius and Penelope were walking side by side in silence, while some of the surrounding kids glared at him. Penelope seemed intimidated by the scrutiny, so he tried to take her mind off of it.

"What do you think these lines mean?" he said, pointing at the walls.

But it was not Penelope who answered, but rather the answer came from behind him. One of the twins spoke up, with a tone Tercius could not quite place. "These are runes," the boy said, then snorted and the previously unfamiliar tone gained clarity. Disdain.

Feeling amused at the situation, Tercius gave a rather large smile to the boy. "Runes you say? First time I hear of them…"

Another snort, now from the girl twin. Almost identical facial structure, with high cheekbones, their eyes in a warm kind of golden color, and both had dark black hair. The boy, Eunim was his name if memory served Tercius, had his long hair tied, while the girl, Euria, wore it loose around her shoulders. Their voices were also a bit different.

The female twin glared at him with her golden eyes narrowed and hissed, "Don’t make fools of us. How can you not know something basic like that?" The accusation was thick in her voice and the implication clear. You just talked to Master Slav about advanced topics, and now you don’t know something basic. You’re not fooling us.

"Well, just because I know something in an advanced field, doesn't instantly mean that I know everything there is to know," Tercius said completely reasonably. "Please, entertain me and my friend here, and explain it as you would to someone who knows nothing,"

The twins started speaking in concert, then glared at each other. Tercius had to force himself to snuff out a rising snicker.

Two more times it happened in the same way before Tercius and Penelope got their answer. Eunim, with a pleased look on his face, explained, "They are mostly used in enchanting. Mana travels through them and…"

They did not go into details, as some of the stuff was a secret of their family. Their father was an Enchanter, and from a little age, both of them studied the art with him.

The Runes were, apparently the language of Mana, a way to make enchantments, or more specifically, to bind spells to certain objects.

Some of the other kids who had previous touch with magic also spoke up, offering opinions, while those new to such things mostly kept quiet and listened.

The girl with the plant struck Tercius the most. Lomera, he remembered from the introduction. She was the only one who did not speak a word during the long walk they had. Her cloak was worn out, patched over one too many times. What clothes he saw were in an even worse condition. Her red hair was also at some places a bit longer, at others shorter, like she cut it herself. Keeping the wooden pot with the plant near her bosom, Lomera held it like Aurelia was wont to do with a pillow when something frightened her. Her every step forward was made with hesitation, Tercius observed.

Maybe it was because he was reminded of Aurelia, or something else, but he felt the need for her to be included in some way. He was breaking his rule of not bothering people who preferred being left alone, but he was not so sure she wanted it that way.

So he turned his head to her and said, "Lomera, right?"

"…That’s right." The girl said with a small stutter, but that could be from the surprise of the conversation that suddenly came her way.

"I am Tercius, pleased to meet you,"

"…likewise," she said with another small stutter, her eyes avoiding his.

He kept talking to her for some time, eventually trying to include others, but only Penelope took the invitation. All of the other children sent one look at the dirty and disheveled clothes of Lomera and turned the other way. Tercius knew that most children were a reflection of their parents, so he tried to not take it against them. He showed to Lomera his little river lioness, who looked especially cute as she tried to fight away the cold, and that ended up breaking the ice the little malnourished girl had.

With a pleasant conversation, the long walk was over that much sooner. The next staircase took them above the level of the forest, where thick canopies obscured everything below. He only saw branches and leaves, covered by a thin layer of snow, while Master Slav like a tour guide gave them some interesting bits of information.

The stairs lead them to a large open area where small trees, benches, and a fountain greeted Tercius's eyes. The water in the fountain iced over, while the rest of the area was covered in a small layer of snow. There was a certain order to the whole arrangement, Tercius felt. Quite a peaceful setting, evoking a kind of silent welcome to anyone who came this way.

As their group moved through this town, for it was a proper town even by Tercius's old-world standards, people greeted Master Slav and sent greetings to the new arrivals. Everyone they met along the way waved or sent a verbal greeting, and to be honest, Tercius was preparing himself for some kind of shenanigans. No one was this nice to some newcomers, be they kids or otherwise.

Yet his feeling proved wrong, as Master Slav lead them street by street, finally reaching the building that was to be their dormitory. It was a five-story T-shaped building, made of bricks, a material popular for construction in this town. The dormitory had windows stacked in rows and columns on every single available wall surface and considering the numbers, he spotted merely on the visible side, Tercius knew that this building was built with a large number of students in mind.

All the while, the rest of the members of their little group watched in awe the outlandish sights. The buildings these small folks saw were uniform and extremely well made, the parks and gardens well groomed and maintained, there was no sight of any kind of filth one might usually see in an average city. All in all a virtual paradise of order in these kids' eyes. Master Slav lead them into the building where after a few words with a middle-aged woman who seemed to be in charge of their lodgings he left with a smile and a wave.

The woman, to whom they were entrusted, had a scowl on her face as if she found something perpetually offensive. Gazing at them from almost two meters of height, like some kind of a soldier with her hands behinds her back and sizable chest pushed forward, the dark-haired woman addressed them, "You may address me as Mistress Dea. During this next year of your stay, I will be the one in charge of bringing you all to a certain standard in etiquette and behavior. We will start immediately with the introduction to a few basic things. First, the wing for the girls is to the right, the wing for boys is to the left," All the while, the woman pointed to what she meant. "The shared wing is where your meals will be served. That's up those stairs. The only connection between the three wings is through my area…"

Like a Sargent showing his recruits what was where, Mistress Dea led them from area to area, showing them where they ate, slept, washed and where they could spend free time. There were reading rooms and small libraries in abundance. She showed them how to use some enchanted items, and from which to stay away until they learned to manipulate Mana. These mages live as folks do in modern days, Tercius observed, while the world outside lingers in the middle ages.

The puzzling feeling he felt about his thought did not last for long. Everything from the hot water in the bathrooms to the heating in their rooms was powered by Mana. The kitchen area had some appliances that were most certainly Mana powered, and every single light-orb inside the building also ran on Mana. The number of enchanted items just inside this building was staggering, where even the twin enchanters had mouths open wide enough to fit a chicken egg. Where the Mana used for powering all of this came from, Tercius could only guess. Outside of this Pyramid, there was probably no other place where Mana and enchanted items were in such abundance.

Mistress Dea explained to them that three students were placed in one room, and since their group was one of the first to arrive, they could choose both their rooms and roommates. At that part Mistress Dea sent a glare to the small collective that followed closely behind her heels and said, "I would advise you pick promptly, and socialize a bit before you choose. Find someone agreeable with you and then make your choice of roommates. Near the end of the next month, I will place those who are alone to fill in the empty spots. That… usually ends up with a lot of cries for a new room. Let me make something clear now. You may come to me with your problems, but first, make sure they are real problems. What does that mean? Well if you can do it by yourself, while not blowing up this building then it's not a problem of mine. Also, no fights are allowed on the premises. If I hear that there had been a fight of some kind, well... there's a reason I was put in charge of managing this building. When, and it's a when not an if, someone breaks down this rule they will be the first to learn why that is so. For now, everyone can get a room for him or herself, but if anyone wants to choose now, I won't mind,"

Tercius observed that the children were quite overwhelmed with the events of the last few hours, and most gazed at their peers with dazed and tired eyes. The twins, Tercius saw, were hesitant to part each standing quite close to the other. He oddly wondered if this was their first time they would spend time away from the other. His little siblings came to his mind when he thought about this and they refused to leave after.

Currently, their group was in the 'middle ground', as Tercius dubbed the area between the building's wings. Mistress Dea had in mind to have them fed and then shipped off to a room as soon as possible. All of those currently here were early birds, and since they had over a month before any classes started, the woman told them that she was in no hurry to start with a few basic etiquette lessons.

Penelope approached him and said in a whisper, "I don’t know whom to pick as a roommate…"

"Spend some time with them and see who you like…" he whispered back to her. "See if they are loud, or easily angered and such,"

"Do you have someone in mind for your roommates?" Penelope asked, her voice curious.

Tercius thought about it for a bit then said, "Not really, as long as they are not noisy or rage-prone, anyone would do,"

"How about those twins? I don’t mind them," Penelope said.

"I guess they’re all right, but I only know then for a few hours," Tercius said. Something else came to mind, but he hesitated about asking. It did not sit well with him to mix his fingers in other people’s business, but… "Pen, can I suggest you consider Lomera for your third spot,"

Penelope seemed surprised a bit at his words. "You read my mind, that's scary,"

He grinned.

The late afternoon meal was slow, as kids made friends and talked about new things they saw this day. Some even found roommates during this meal, while others took to a few days of solitude before they went in search for their own.