“Over here.” Luar lead them to a spot where there were a bunch of circle patterns on the grass. There were more than a few dozen of them buried in the ground.

“All around the academy you will find these circle areas, they are called sky stations and the circles in the ground are called skyboards.”

Luar went over to one and sat on top of it. “It’s best to sit down so you don’t fall off. If you fall off you will probably die.”

“….”

They each found a skyboard, sat down and crossed their legs. Their pose looked similar to a monk lost in meditation. At this moment someone’s skyboard flew out of the ground. The skyboard looked like a spinning top once its body was revealed. The bottom half of the skyboard was made of some type of blue flame, similar to what powered the skybus. It ascended high into the air before zooming into the distance. The hole it flew out from healed over and then disappeared.

Seeing this, their eyes lit up in excitement. “How do we make these fly?” Aruna pressed down and bobbed her head happily as she watched the skyboard vanish into the distance.

“It’s simple, just say the name of the location you want to go to and it will fly you there. It’s a one way trip so once you hop off, it will fly back here and you will have to find another sky station if you want to go somewhere else.”

Aruna nodded her head and asked, “Where are we going?”

Luar pulled out her card and tapped it on the surface of the circle, “It cost $200 per kilometer of travel, the office we are going to is 5 km away so you will have to pay $1000 to get there.”

The trio nodded their heads and swiped their own cards on the circle too.

Luar put her card away and then said, “Examination Hall.”

Her skyboard slowly flew up into the sky and then zoomed into the distance. Lucifer looked over at the other two and said, “Alright, did you hear what she said?”

They nodded their heads, “Good, but remember to be wary. They are all members of the UCA so if you can avoid it, then don’t talk about your backgrounds. Let’s go, Examination Hall!”

Lucifs skyboard flew up, followed by Aruna and Ambrosia as they flew into the distance. The skyboards were very peculiar, they were flying at least 50 km per hour but the wind resistance wasn’t very strong and they felt very comfortable.

Lucif grabbed an apple he had in his pocket and dropped it off the side to see if it would really fall. It fell slowly at first. Like some barrier was preventing it from falling at gravitational speed but after it made it passed that barrier it fell at normal speed plummeting towards the ground.

Whoosh, Splash

It splattered into pieces once it made contact with the ground. A cold sweat slid down the side of Lucifs head. ‘Tsk, I really will die if I fall off.’

After 5 or 6 minutes they arrived in front of a big hall. Its design was quite unique, looking almost like a giant pizza layered on top of a pizza on top of another pizza. There were 9 layers in total and each layer was 5 or 6 meters high.

A hall may not be the right word to describe it, it was more like a pagoda but it looked similar to a beehive shaped pizza because each layer was smaller than the last.

The skyboard flew down and hovered on the ground. Luar already disembarked from her skyboard and was waiting for them in front of the Examination Hall.

They walked inside following Luars lead. As they entered they felt a sense of weightlessness overwhelm them, like they were now many times lighter than before.

The examination hall wasn’t what they were expecting. Lucif was expecting the building to be 9 different stories but it really was just a giant hall. The entire inside of the building was hollow right to the roof.

In the center of the roof was a miniature golden sun that seemed to burn with fire. The sun wasn’t bright but an orange yellow and it seemed to boil like lava. Around the sun orbited 32 planets. It was the 32 planets in this solar system. He wasn’t sure if this was real or a projection, but it looked incredibly real. It even had miniature sun spots and solar flares bursting from time to time.

‘This really takes fancy chandeliers to a whole new level.’ He muttered to himself.

The floor was made of some sort of glass but beneath it you could see a swirling galaxy and it too looked incredibly realistic. With the added feeling of weightlessness it felt like you were a God overseeing the entire Milky Way!

The various pizza like layers that were seen from the outside were completely flat on the inside. The entire building seemed like the inside of a giant cone and each of the 9 layers rotated in different directions making it seem like the inside of a kaleidoscope except there were no patterns. Instead, on the sides there were different mirrors and lights that seemed to create something like a dancing aurora, similar to the ones seen at the North and South Pole.

Sometimes the lights would turn into sprites that would giggle before dissipating into lights again. In the background, there was soft and beautiful music playing and the lights seemed to dance along to this beat.

“It’s so beautiful.” Everyone marveled at the sight.

“Yeah, most buildings aren’t this gorgeous but this building was designed by the famous collective Wolfgang Pablo. It’s the first building parents and students see so they hired the best living artists alive to design it. First impressions are important after all.”

Just as she spoke a square opened up in the middle of a wall. It was the fourth layer of the hall and a young man jumped down from the hole. It was a drop of 24 meters, a crazy height that could kill any silly dare devil.

“No, don’t!” Ambrosia screamed but her screams fell on deaf ears as the boy fell to the ground. What happened next left her gasping for air as she tried to pick her mouth up off the ground. It also made Lucif and Aruna gasp because the young man didn’t fall down and splatter across the ground like they were expecting. Instead he floated down peacefully and landed on the ground before striking a pose and walking out the door.

“H..how?” Ambrosia asked with a wide mouth.

“They installed a gravity control system in here. It’s the same system in the skybus and skyboards. But they are incredibly expensive to build and kind of annoying if you are trying to do anything else besides float around.”

“Then why did they build it like this?” Lucif asked.

“Why? Because why not? This is not only a top institute in the Parafire solar system but a legitimate 10k school with a ranking in the lower eight thousands. For what other reason would they create this magnificent piece of art? They did it because they could. It’s a simple show of power. With this they can flaunt their social status and power. Even though tuition here is largely subsidized by the UCA because it’s a new colony, that doesn’t mean the entrance exam is weak like those in the 10 mil schools. It is incredibly hard, so the average student here can be considered a top tier genius in other institutions. This school is only full of elites, the absolute best of the best and it has only been established for 20 years.” She raised her fist in pride as she smiled in triumph.

But Lucif had the complete opposite expression, “Entrance exam? What entrance exam?!”