“Hello, Rey. It’s has been quite some time since we went to the Wunderkind Banquet,” Said Elizabeth with a smile on her face. Her happy expression then into a sad one, “If it wasn’t for my immense workload, I would’ve love to spend some time with you and Eli together. Is he in the room right now?” The smoke-white haired boy was sitting on the couch, which was why she couldn’t see the brunette doing some homework at his own table.

“Yes.” He took a glance at the brunette and saw him already removing himself from his seat. The boy plopped down on the couch beside his friend and entered into Elizabeth’s view, “Hello Elizabeth~” He waved his hand shortly at the screen with a big smile. Elizabeth grinned back.

“Nice to see you again, Eli. How are you doing? Is my recommendation a big help to you?” “I, um, I’m doing great! Your recommendation really helped me! The professors were all very nice to me and I learned a lot of things!” He totally nailed his performance. He felt really nervous when talking to her again, but the acting class he took, to help him interact more naturally with strangers and also because it was his secret hobby, had prepared him for this moment.

“Good to hear that you’re having a great time. I wanted to check on you but I didn’t have time until now. On the contrary, Rey’s actions weren't that hard to keep track of, considering Arthur has rather became ‘obsessed’ with you. Excellent work on your first case as a ‘sidekick’ with your assigned Solver mentor, by the way. To think you could string up two seemingly unrelated cases into one, you really are something, Rey.”

“Thank you for your praise.” “You’re welcome. Now, onto the reason I called you. Every year, the Student Council would organize a one-day trip around the grand city of Speir, Astral, for newcomers. Since any student who is younger than the age of fifteen cannot go into the city without the company of person at least two years older than them, this is a fantastic chance for those who didn’t live in the city to know more about it. Of course, we can’t have all the newcomers go on this trip, otherwise, it would turn into a disaster, which is why there is an extremely limited quota for those who wants to go. Since I am the Vice President of the Student Council, naturally I could reserve two spots for my two lovely juniors if I wanted to, which I did.”

Both of their Circulums let out a notification sound as soon as she stopped speaking. They check their inboxes and found a virtual ticket inside, “So, do you both want to go to the trip? Or do I need to withdraw those tickets back?” Eli seemed to have made his decision already. Rey, on the other hand, was still hesitating whether or not to spend the entire day doing something that might not worth his time. Seeing that both of them are distracted for the moment, Elizabeth blinked once in less than a tenth of a second.

“Rey, you need to know that you should relax yourself every now and then. I understand you do not wish to waste your time, but trust me, the trip is definitely worth every single minute of it. It is a great opportunity to understand more about the place you now live in. Perhaps you could even learn a few new things.” Rey let out a soft sigh and finally nodded. He was getting a little bit bored to do nothing but studying for the past week.

“Great! Tomorrow morning, the two of you will board the 8.00 train with a special sign on it, which the ticket also bears. The expenses of your meals will be paid by the Academy, so remember to enjoy the food of whatever Section you stopped at. Maybe even buy a souvenir or two. And now, I have a request for the both of you. Think of it as an indirect payment for the tickets.”

“Could the both of you record your entire experience of the trip? I’ve never gone to the trip before, nor do I have friends that do. I really am curious to see what sort of things that would happen during your journey. That, and another reason. There is something, in particular, I wanted to see, I’m confident both of you will recognize it when you two board the train.”

Remember to enjoy your time with Rey tomorrow. “Remember to enjoy your day tomorrow!” She ‘winked’ at them before ending the call. Eli was stunned. He totally didn’t expect Elizabeth would say that to him telepathically. He couldn’t help but blush slightly. Although, he was a little bit relief to hear that too. He thought she also gave him the ticket, despite the fact he lives in the city, was because she somehow knew about his secret.

It’s not like it’s a real secret, it’s just something he didn’t want others to know about. Nevertheless, he has been looking forward to spending some time with Rey and this is the perfect chance. He needed to thank Elizabeth later.

Rey wanted to ask about the sudden blush and the reason why he would want to go on a city tour even though he lives here, but the boy just kept those questions to himself. He started to think about what sort of things he needed to bring to the trip tomorrow.

The morning was quite cold; he could see Eli and a few others rubbing their hands together. He insisted they should wait for the train outside the dorm five minutes before it arrives even though Elizabeth gave them VIP tickets. It was because the entire lobby was full of students also waiting to board the train and he does not look forward to swimming through the crowd at the last minute. However, the real reason for his actions was because he was trained to be anywhere he should be at least five minutes early.

He took a glance at the other individuals waiting outside the building alongside his group. He saw a few dwarves, humans, different Demis, two good-looking goblins, three ghouls, a group of korrigans, and one elf. He thought elves hate being an early bird is a misconception, but only a single elf who woke up early in this elf-population dominant city seems like a pretty solid evidence to say elves would only get up long after the sun does. There were more waiting beside them, but Rey didn’t bother to see their faces.

Five minutes before 8, he saw a tiny speck at a distance making its way straight towards them. Initially, he wondered why did the train came from the direction of the Sea Region and not from anywhere else, then he realize it was because it needs to pick up other students that didn’t live in the dorm. Only those who had excellent results during the entrance test for the Academy were allowed to live in the dorm. As for the students who didn’t ace the test, they had to find empty rooms located in several residential areas in each Section. And if they were extremely unlucky, they had to find a place to live in the Sea Region.

The reason Rey didn’t realize this immediately was due to the fact that he didn’t really pay any attention to anything related to the Academy before he got in. He took the entrance test for the Academy is because that’s what the other kids in his age do. Only when he was informed that he got accepted into the Academy and was granted permission to live in the dorm he started to research more about his future school.

When the train finally arrived, Eli was a little confused. He imagined the train to be incredibly long and everyone has to push each other to board it. But, the reality was that the train was only about the size of a regular carriage. He recognized the drawing on the side of the train below the windows, it was the same sign on their tickets. Rey beckoned Eli to enter the first door together with him while a few other people entered the train through the remaining four doors.

The interior of the train was quite simple. In between the five doors, there was a long bench, attached to the wall, on each side of the train, which could only fit five people. The floor was grey, but the walls, the ceiling, and the benches were all painted in relaxing colours such as blue and green. The windows were really large and were only separated by the doors, connected from the top of the bench’s backrest to a small part of the ceiling. There was an additional room at the end of the carriage. It was separated from the rest of the train by a metal wall with a sliding door in the middle. It’s most likely to be a resting room for the five older students, who were wearing Student Council ‘activity shirt’, standing beside each door.

When the duo (and the Kitsune on Rey’s shoulder) stepped into the carriage, they saw ten people were already on the train, all of them sitting on different benches, except for the two familiar faces.

Jack stood up upon noticing one of the boys he met during the banquet with the intention to greet him, but no matter how hard he tried he can’t recall Rey’s name. He ended up standing there like an idiot, his mouth opened but no words came out and his face resembles that of a desperate man.

“It’s Reynard.” Said he as he slumped down on the empty spot left to Jack. “Reynard! Right.” He slowly sat back down, with his head aimed at the impassive boy, “Just Rey will do.” His posterior once again, this time with a sense of awkwardness, found itself comfortably on the bench, “Okay…Rey.” After a few seconds, he attempted to explain himself.

“I didn’t mean to forget your name. It’s just, we’ve only seen each other for a short span of time during the banquet and we didn’t meet again at all after that. I’m not great at remembering names either, so...I guess I’m saying that I am sorry, for forgetting your name.”

“Apology accepted, Jack.” The train began to fill with noises as all of the empty seats were slowly taken. There were six people squeezing each other on the opposite bench and it was fairly obvious that all of them were all friends, which meant that there would be an empty seat on this bench. Rey was glad that Eli didn’t need to sit beside someone he doesn’t know; he was certain that the non-human wouldn’t enjoy the trip as much if he did.

“Sooo, uh, Rey, did you buy the VIP tickets? Or did Miss Elizabeth gave you and….your friend the tickets?” Dammit, Jack scolded himself in his head, Shouldn’t have asked that question. Now I’ve embarrassed myself again.

“She gave it to us, and, My dear friend here is Elliot, but he prefers to be called Eli,” Rey wrapped his hand over Eli’s shoulder, “And my Kitsune here is Hinoko,” He scratched her head, causing her to let out a satisfied growl, “Don’t forget their names.” Then he removed his hand from the other boy’s shoulder as he blushed.

“I won’t. I promise. Emily,” He used his elbow to nudge the girl beside him, “You should say hello.” The girl in question peeked at the duo with an unemotional face. She has a pair of big, adorable, navy blue eyes; her silky, purple hair was long, and her entire forehead was covered by her bangs; her face in overall resembles a cute, endearing doll. Her near-black blue, long sleeve t-shirt dress (the lower end of the ‘dress’ was identical to those anime wavy skirts), grey/blue tiny tie and stocking, and a pair of black, seemingly cartoonish boots on her thin and small body could make almost any male want to pounce on her. Even Eli had the thought of asking her if he could pet her and was trying his hard to resist the temptation.

When she laid back at her seat without doing what Jack told her to, he sighed and put up an apologetic smile, “It seems she’s not in the mood to talk right now. So, err, your tickets were given by the Vice President, huh? As you would’ve guess, my ticket and Emily’s were given by Damien. I told him I don’t need it, someone else might want to have it more than I do, but he was a stubborn person and he quite literally force the tickets onto me. So, now I’m here with Emily.” He’s not sure why he told Rey about this because the youngster doesn’t seem to care about what he said.

“Dear students, our trip will soon begin, please step away from the doors. Thank you.” As the doors closed after the announcement, the duo activated their Circulum and began recording. When the train started propelling itself forward, Rey answered Jack’s question before he could think one out, “Elizabeth asked us to record our journey on the train.” He was genuinely surprised, but he didn’t ask how the boy did it. It was weird, yes, but when compared to his time in his hometown, it was nothing. Jack was more interested in how he didn’t feel any inertia when the train moved. The technology in Speir is indeed impressive.

“Good morning, my fellow students!” A person burst out from the separated room. When Rey raised up his head to see who was the owner of that smoky voice, he told himself he should’ve known why Elizabeth wanted them to film their trip.

There was a subtle pause between Damien’s last sentence and the next. He managed to hold back his astonishment at the moment of revelation and continued speaking with an enthusiastic grin on his face, “My name is Damien Teufel. Usually, I am the President of the Student Council, but today, I am your tour guide.” A few students instantly started chattering about why one of the most important man in the Academy was here entertaining them.

“Some of you might wonder ‘Why in the world we have the President of the Student Council be our tour guide for today?’ Well, if you do have the question in your mind right now, my answer is, I’m bored.” Then, a wider grin and a wink. A few students chuckled, even those way back at the other end. The train was equipped with hologram projectors, which was why there are two more Damiens in the train, one in the middle and one at the other end. The projectors made sure the three Damiens were absolutely identical with each other except for the fleshy body to ensure all the students have the same, perfect experience. Words came out from the dragon daemon’s mouth once the chuckles died down.

“Alright, in all seriousness, I always wanted to have the experience of being a tour guide. It seems fun, so I appointed myself to do this job. Now, before we start, there are a few things all of you should know. Number one, if any of you have any questions you want to ask or if there is any emergency, the attendants here will provide the help you need. I would ask all of you to remember their names, but they have name tags on them, so...” This time, not only the younger students were amused, the older ones found their president’s performance quite hilarious.

“They will also be responsible for your safety during the time we spend outside this train. So, please, please stay by their side and don’t go wandering off by yourself, or with your friends. We don’t want that. You might be in danger if you do, and we don’t want to waste our time finding those who got lost like a crazy parent.” Eli was really impressed by Damien. He never would've thought the scary and super serious person he met on the banquet could be this funny. The way he spoke, the tone and hand gestures he used when he was talking, it made Eli wondered if the both of them were actually the same person at all.

“Now that we got that out of the way, let me tell all of you a story. A long time ago, and I mean a really long time ago, Speir was inhabited by different countries of different races. These countries constantly wage war with each other for various reasons. But,” he lifted up his forefinger, “there was one country that didn’t go to war with anyone. In fact, this country, a trading country, was the reason why the entire Speir is now under the rule of our current government. This city we live in, right now, was once the kingdom that united this world. Pretty awesome, right?” His finger was withdrawn.

“Some time after they had established the government we have today, they decided to renovate their new capital. What they did, in the end, was separate the city into eight Sections. There were a few major reasons to why they did it, but we’re not going to talk about this right now. If you really want to know, I would recommend you to take Prof. Jensen’s history class. That man is amazing at teaching.”

“So, the point is, the city was split into eight big Sections, and each of the Sections has a theme which corresponds to the eight worlds at eight Cardinal Directions. They numbered the Sections from one to eight, beginning at the northernmost Section, then continued in clockwise and ends at the northwest section. The Section we are currently in is Section 5, AKA the Land of Pleasure, AKA Freude.”

“I assume all of you are familiar with the Seven Sins? Sloth, Gluttony, Pride, Lust, Greed, Wrath, and Envy. This Section is built upon the idea of these sins as its theme should correspond with Hel. But, of course, this Section has more than just that. It is also the place where most psychologists, sociologists, philosophers and economists gather. After all, in this place, you can see the purest form of humanoids’ desires and interactions. It might be a bit demeaning to say this, but the truth is always painful.” Damien’s face turned serious for a moment before reverting back to his joyous expression.

“Freude have seven Sectors which have one of the Seven Sins as its theme.

In the Lust Sector, you will find brothels all over the streets, stores which sell sex related items and a few research centers to either explore more methods to allow an individual have more diverse ways to satisfy their mate during an intercourse or invent new items which will make their experience even more…spicy, if you get what I mean.

If you’re a hardworking individual and you want to relax after a rough day at your job, you can visit the Sloth Sector. You can find various services there which will help you loosen yourself up, physically and mentally.

Everybody experience wrath before, right? When you’re angry, you might want to find something to punch, especially at your friend if he owes you 2000 Crowns and he still hasn’t paid you back the money even though it has been over two years. In this case, you can visit the Wrath Sector to let go of that anger building inside you.

Ever imagine yourself as the legendary hero in your bedtime story? Where you slay the villain and everyone else is willing to worship you like a god until you die? If that’s the case, look no further from the Envy Sector. There, you can have the experience of living as anyone you look up to or as someone you wish to be, or perhaps you can even live a life you never thought you could have.

I dare say the most well-known Sin out of the seven is Greed. In the Greed Sector, you may find yourself inside the most popular casino in the entire world, or even the entire realm! You will encounter many chances to instantly struck gold there, but be warned, the risk you take might be larger than you think. And if you made a bad decision at the wrong place, at the wrong time, the consequences can be deadly.

Remember what I said about the psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and economists? All of them are inside the Pride Sector. The other reason why they’re here and not in the other Sections was due to a statement, many centuries ago. It goes something like this, ‘Because they thought if they study how we and our society functions, if they understand everything about us, then they are above us. They are better than us. They will be so swallowed up by their pride that it will eventually become their downfall.’”

“Okay, I admit that last bit was quite heavy. But, let’s move on to the final area, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I humbly present you--” The train stopped as he holds off the rest of his sentence, then he waited a full second before raising his hand and let the doors at the right side slid open the moment he snapped his finger, “The Gluttony Sector. A place where you can taste almost all edible or drinkable items that ever existed, including the latest cuisines as well. Shall we go out and take a look for yourself?”

All of the students, most of them with an excited expression, followed their nearest temporary guardian out of the train and onto the near-transparent elevator. The view after stepping out of the train was spectacular. The buildings on each side of the street were decorated beautifully according to what they are selling. There was a seemingly endless line of food stalls at the center of the empty road. The elevator slowly descends.

Rey, instead of looking at the direction everybody was gawking, stared at whatever’s below the multiple high train tracks. He saw a bunch of people sitting on the benches placed against the two opposing pillars. There were electronic boards on the walls showing the time of each arriving train and their destinations. He noticed a group of people standing up and walked into the elevator behind them. The elevator ascended to the space between two train tracks and all of the people inside it board the train which just arrived.

After all of them reached the ground, the attendants gathered the students into a big group while Damien briskly walked towards the front. All of the youngsters stared at the attendants standing still in front of them as Damien, standing in the middle of those five, spoke, “Right now, we are standing in the middle of the most important street in the Gluttony Sector. It has been here even before the Sector itself existed.”

“Due to our tight schedule, we can’t have all of you exploring the entire street to find a place to eat your breakfast. So, you can only go to any of the food stalls or buildings between here and the largest food stall over there. See that? The one with lots of flags on top of it? That’s the one. We will gather back here after twenty minutes*. Don’t be late, okay? All of you may leave now.” The large group split up into smaller groups, each led by an older student. When one of the attendants was calling the four of them to join his group, Damien told the vampire that he will handle these four.

“Alright your four, let’s go.” His voice went back to the serious tone Rey heard during the banquet a little. Damien lead the way, Jack and Emily sauntered beside him, Rey and Eli followed right behind them. A few seconds after looking around at their surrounding, Jack asked, “Damien, this is a road right? Why aren’t there any vehicles on the road?” Rey was glad the boy asked this question as he was also curious about this. He had a pretty good guess, yes, but he wanted to hear it from someone who knew. He’d only been to the city twice during his entire childhood, and he didn’t bother to try and recall the details of those memories.

“The vehicles were all in another dimension, akin to the Mirror Dimension we have in the Academy. It was a safety measure, the government built these roads, then they created multiple dimensions based on this one and attached a magic software to any vehicles, which will allow them to enter any of those dimensions. This way, accidents and traffic jams can be avoided.”

“Wow. That’s amazing. I doubt this world will ever cease to amaze me. Hey, can we go take a look at that stall?” He pointed his finger at the food stall ran by two Onis. He looked to his back at Rey and Eli, seeking for their approval. Both of them nodded; they didn’t have any idea what to eat anyway. Jack smiled in delight and they made their way towards the rather large stall.

There were tables and chairs placed in front of the stall for the customers while the chefs prepared the food behind their stall. Only one table was occupied by two people, the others were still empty. They chose the table closest to the stall because it was an elongated table bench which can fit six people on both sides. The duo and the fox sat on one side while the other three, with Jack in the middle, at the other.

They read the menu, and it was apparent that the owners of this stall were experts in making ramen. In front each of them was a touchpad which functions as a menu where you can just place your order and a cash register which will deduct the Crowns in their Circulum.But of course, Damien would be the one paying. After they had decided what types of ramen they wanted to eat and ordered it, Jack shot a question at Rey.

“Didn’t you say you were supposed to film your journey? I don’t see you doing any recording.” To this question, Rey replies, “There is an app which records everything within the range of ten meters[Can zoom in in detail within 10 meters], 360 degrees, automatically.” “Huh, I guess it was a good thing I asked then. I didn’t know there’s an app that can do this. I should probably check it out later...”

“So,” Damien’s voice came out abruptly, “Did Elizabeth gave the both of you VIP tickets in exchange for the recording of your time during the trip?” The duo nodded, but Eli did it awkwardly, “*Sigh, I should’ve seen this coming. The moment I saw you both, the first thought that entered my mind was ‘how can I not predicted that Elizabeth would send you two to find ways making fun of me’. But, it seems like I don’t need to worry about that at all.” As soon as he stopped speaking, their food floated to their table and landed in front of them.

After they finished their breakfast, there was still some time left, so they decided to went into one of the souvenir shops. On the way there, Rey asked, “Where’s your sword? Did you put it in your PDS?” He looked at the PDS hovering on top of Jack’s shoulders, beside his yellow coloured gem earring.

“No. I wanted to have my sword on my back at every moment, but Damien told me I would draw a lot of attention. So, he taught me a special trick to store my sword in a way that I can summon it anytime I want.” After he made sure the daemon in front didn’t hear what he said, he lifted his arm, his hand facing the sky, and with a twitch of his wrist, the sword appeared. When his hand lets go of the handle, it vanished into thin air.

“Impressive.” Said Rey. In the end, both he and Jack didn’t buy anything from the souvenir shop, but they did buy the supposedly one of the top ten meat buns across the street under Damien’s recommendation. Eli bought some sweets from the shop whilst Emily bought a lollipop. All of the students were back on the train right on time and they were off to their second destination.

“My fellow students! Did you enjoy your breakfast?” The tour guide asked loudly and enthusiastically, “Yes!” the young passengers replied with full of energy, “Fantastic! Now all of you have seen what the Gluttony Sector can offer, we will now continue towards the next Sector, the Sloth Sector!”

In this Sector, the train stopped in the inside of a huge complex at the base level. The environment was very relaxing; soothing music, cool air, and decorations with the intent to ease up people’s stress. Those who manage the complex did their best to let their customers feel like they were free from their worries. Due to the time constraint, the trip’s participants were only allowed to explore certain parts of the complex and the stores inside it. Eli bought a pillow which would give him a better sleeping experience, Rey had his eye on a lucid dream inducer, and Jack brought home a nightmare eraser. He didn’t let anyone seeing him put that thing into his PDS, not even Emily.

The next Sector they went to is the Envy Sector. All of the shops there either had large virtual reality machines for customers to live the life of a specific virtual character or selling them at a high price. Some virtual experiences require the ‘player’ to stay in the virtual world for a long period of time whereas some resemble arcade games. Most of the youngsters chose to play those games and all of them had a thrilling and a one-of-a-kind experience, except for Rey. When he saw the Memory Reliving Machine, his heart urged him to walk into the machine. He used the entirety of his rational mind to deny the seduction and subtly escaped into the street to catch his breath.

After Envy, they went to the Wrath Sector. To summarize the Sector in the simplest way, one could just say that it is one massive playground of destruction. Everything there was designed to let people release their inner rage. Of course, the more destruction a service allows you to do, the more it costs, which was why the students practically just went to another arcade in another Sector. However, unlike the one in the Envy Sector where everything they do only has an effect on whatever’s on the screen, this one allows them to play it in a more physical sense.

The next Sector bored a lot of the train’s passenger. In the Sector of Pride, there wasn’t anything special or unique. Many probably would consider this Sector as the ‘normal’ part of the entire Section. Although, there are three museums dedicated to the history of psychology, sociology, and philosophy. They were all free to visit because the students had the VIP tickets. Eli was particularly interested in the displays in the psychology museum while Rey spent his time carefully so he could see what all three museums have to show. Later, when the duo went back to the train, Jack told the two of them that aside from the museums and the research centers, the other thing which stood out from the other Sectors were the attitudes of the employees of the shops they went. Those employees treated them like they were serving a deity.

Pretty much all the boys and girls acted in a more reserved manner when they arrived at the Lust Sector. They wanted to explore the stores and shops but they don’t want to be the first. No one was going to look at them differently if they went first, but they still felt a bit uneasy. There was only one person who acted first and went into a store which sells sex toys, and that person was---Eli. It was Eli, not Rey, not anyone else. He just casually walked into the stores and glanced at the items sold in the store like he was no stranger to all of this stuff. When he noticed the others were looking at him, he wanted to zap out of the store. But then Rey joined him as to not let his friend felt embarrassed. After that, both the boys and girls tried to browse the shops around them as normal as they could.

During their stay in the store, Rey overheard something interesting. Two girls, a dwarf and an elf, were whispering to each other.

“Hey, I just remember I wanted to tell you about something.”

“What is it?”

“Last night, I had the most erotic dream ever. I couldn’t remember the details, but I think I had sex with a boy in my dreams.”

“You too? I thought I was the only one. But in my dream, the boy and I also have sexual intercourse, but with our genders swapped much later.”

“Huh, that’s weird. So, we have a succubus in our dorm?”

“I’m not sure. Succubi are dream demons, but incubi are not. And why would a succubus visit us girls anyway? This is really strange.”

“Maybe the ‘succubus’ was born with an incubus father and succubus mother! That’ll explain it!”

“No, it won’t, you dummy. That will never happen because both succubus and incubus have a strong, natural repulsion with each other. They were biologically impossible to fall in love.”

“But we live in Speir, the place where impossibles are possibles. There might be a chance for this to happen. If not, how do you explain what happened?”

“Well, it’s not like I care that much. It was a pleasant dream, after all. But, if the management caught wind of this, whoever’s entering our dream might be punished.”

“Aww. I hope no one would report this. I wanna have a second round.”

“Ugh, seriously?” The girls stopped talking. Rey thought maybe he could do some research to see if it really is possible for a succubus and incubus to fall in love.

Finally, they went to their last stop in this Section. The crowd in the Greed Sector was massive. Not just any kind of massive, pretty much every inch of ground in this Sector was occupied by somebody. This is the only Sector all of them had to stick with each other because if one of them got lost in the sea of people, it would take hours to find him or her back. Nevertheless, the casino they went opened up their eyes. All the people there were either wearing extremely expensive clothing and betting with crazy amounts of money or begging security employees not to throw them out yet because they felt the Goddess of Luck would bless them in their next game.

“Now that we had explored every Sector in this Section, I have one more question for all of you before we head towards the next one. Did all of you enjoyed your time in Freude?!” “YES!” “Excellent! Now, allow me to briefly introduce to you the Industrial Section, Erde!” He waved his hand and the ceiling became invisible. The students ‘Woah’ in unison when they witnessed multiple tall and large neighbouring buildings.

“Originally, Erde was a gathering place for professionals which expert in fields of study related to earth. For example, geology and hydrology. This is because the theme of Erde corresponds to Razerus, a world mostly inhabited by the most vicious elementals you can ever imagine, which is why this section also handles the legal tradings of elementals. Due to the presence of these elementals, they shaped the environment around them in a way that it would produce immensely powerful minerals. Many would ship in minerals from not only Razerus to this place with every intention to sell it to the highest bidder. These minerals were also studied by scientists as well.”

“However, the government figured that stuff takes up only a small space in the wide Section, so they introduced the manufacturing industry along with chemistry researches into Erde. Of course, the factories you see here are but a tiny percentage of all the factories exist in Speir. The rest of them are located in a few districts in the Residential Region. You can consider most of the factories here as ‘experimental factories’ as new items were created here to test out the quality and were refined over time so that it could be made in large quantity in the same pristine condition.”

The locations they visited in this Section wasn’t nearly as exciting or interesting as the previous one. They briefly visited a few factories then spent the rest of their time in a museum. It displays every conceivable type of minerals in high-security glass boxes and shows the products smiths would make from them. The only thing interested Rey and Jack in this Section was Damien’s explanation when they visited a factory which produces meat.

“This is the meat factory. Whoever lives within the borders of the Inner Region will know that the meat we eat every day no longer originates from any living beings. But for those who don’t, this might sound really, really weird. You see, in the past, there has always been a group of people protesting that we shouldn’t eat meat. Their argument was that since we can obtain all the nutrients our body needs from plants, so why do we need to cause unnecessary harm to other less intelligent living beings? They were ‘vegans’ and they have always been a minority, that is, until the birth of the Web.”

“Their numbers began to grow and they’ve started criticizing individuals who eat meat very harshly. Some even went to the extremes by calling out certain races who needs to eat meat in order to survive. Of course, those against them have their own arguments, saying that ‘it has always been this way from the beginning’ or ‘this is the circle of life’. As you can tell, those aren’t compelling arguments. Time passed, the situation got worse. Those vegans started to make ridiculous claims such as announcing a few types of plants can give you certain benefits even if there are no scientific proof. They would go such lengths to force pro-meat societies to not eat any more flesh from living beings. Luckily, the scientists finally had a breakthrough.”

“Although magic can create something from nothing, it was not an easy task to achieve. During that time, scientists had managed to invent a 3D-printer, a device which would consume its unique raw material and transform it into pretty much anything imaginable, as long as it is inorganic. Without a doubt, they wanted to use this achievement to take technology another step further. Finally, during the height of the ‘Vegan War’, yes they used this lame name to refer to this episode of history, scientists had invented a new 3D-printer which could print organic items. And the raw material used to print things? A specifically engineered chemical compound which could be manufactured in large scale with low costs and will deal absolutely no harm to any organic life. It was a miracle.”

“It wasn’t hard to picture what happened next. All professions related to killing animals or beasts and process their meat became obsolete within a day. This also includes jobs which require people to grow and harvest edible plants. The pro-meat societies were overjoyed, they no longer need to handle the pressure from vegans. Ironically, a lot of those vegans began eating meat because their main reason for not eating it has vanished. Now, only a tiny portion of the residents in this world still maintain their ‘green’ diet.”

“As a side note, the 3D-printer, even today, still have some flaws and incapabilities, so a lot of jobs which everyone thought would vanish persisted. Another thing is that the people of Outer Regions still continued their old way of life. They still bred animals or beasts in their farms and eat their meat. If any of you want to know why, you can join a history discussion group in the Academy to find out the answer.” They visited a few other factories before returning to the train.

“I can see all of you had your enthusiasm drained from your body. Except for a couple of you. But, I’m confident that the next Section will lift up all of your spirits. The next Section we’re going will provide you any equipment you need to survive in other worlds and the people there will teach you any skills you need to live another day in the wild. Welcome, to the Section of warriors, Yuusha no Tochi!” The train crossed the Section border and arrived at a new one. The buildings which the train passed by were all intimidating, grand, and ferocious-looking.

“Yuusha no Tochi, The Land of Hero in elven tongue, is a place where one can acquire everything they need to endure even the harshest situations. This Section’s theme corresponds to the world once wholly consumed by a never-ending war, Tenebrae. It was said that the hero who finally brought peace to that world once spend a long period of time here, in this Section, to train himself so he would be strong enough to destroy any opponent who steps in his way. Many inhabitants of this realm, after they heard the legend of this brave hero, assembled to see what sorts of training did this hero undergo. After a few centuries, Yuusha no Tochi, which I will refer to as YuunoTo for the sake of simplicity, had thrived and became a renown location for those who wish to become stronger.”

“The headquarters of the Blacksmith Guild is located here. They can provide services such as making custom weapons or armors for any individual. Then there are stores which sell premade weapons, armors, military grade surviving tools, survival apparatus, tactical gadgets, and a whole lotta other stuff. There are also various centers that teach people how to recognize different things in the wild and utilize them to help you survive another day, train people how to climb dangerous landscapes or escape from different kinds of beasts or understand the signs of natural dangers. Dojos exist too. They are sparsely scattered around the Section. No matter, if it's a karate dojo, a kendo dojo, a mystical art of defence dojo, all of them, can be found right here.”

The attendants were just as excited as the boys and girls. They first went to the local museum built by the Blacksmith Guild. The collection in the museum was incredible; the Guild hired adventurers to scour all the world to collect and restore lost weapons, ancient armors, tools used by famous individuals, and much more. The museum also held an exhibition on that day displaying all the latest weapons and armors, whether it’s made from the most advanced technology or from various materials imbued with magical properties.

The exhibition displayed battle equipment for both sexes, which was why a huge part of the girls was as absorbed by the pristine, intrinsic items as pretty much all of the boys. Rey was particularly engrossed by the various models of different categories of guns in the museum displays and in the exhibition, especially middle range and long range ones. Jack was, it goes without saying, obsessed with all kinds of swords, some even wielded by heroes, in that place and scrutinized every single one of them. Emily, on the other hand, was attracted by the shiny, hulking armors and the sexy, stylish ones, like those seen in a fantasy harem manga. As for Eli, he just ambled around, paying not much attention to one specific item.

The next place they went was a central store for all things survival. Specially designed tent to repel vicious predators, an automated drone to easily catch any medium-sized animals or beast, mountain scaling equipment which would put an earth elemental to shame and much more stuff like this is available in the store. They didn’t hang out there for long. A few students did buy some stuff though, including Jack.

Then they went to the dojo Sector. It doesn’t just have martial arts dojo, it also has standard military training, training centers for all kinds of weapons and tons of unique battle styles anyone can learn. The students can watch whatever’s happening in the buildings, but they must not interrupt the people inside in any way. Rey carefully observed the techniques used by the masters of Wing Chun, Eli stuck with the larger group and went into a building which the people inside taught them a few self-defence tricks whilst Emily followed Jack into a training center to seek information about the many schools of swordsmanship.

“As all of you know, Source, or Mana, is the single most important entity on our planet. It is the reason why we are alive and everything around us works. Not only that, Source have the property to alter our perceived reality. Many studied this mysterious life force and utilize it to accomplish many impossible feats, which is why the next Section we are heading is the prestigious Sanctum of Mana, formally known as Anima.”

The design of the structures which the train passes by was a mix of modern and ancient. One building stood out the most was the one in the middle of the Section, which was still quite far away from the train. The building was titanic, its architecture older than anything in this city and its sign, with the words ‘Magic Association’ in archaic language on it, was big and clear and anyone in the Section can see it.

“Anima’s theme corresponds to the world of Arcadia, home to the light elves and all things magic. Just for disclosure, magic is also a word to represent everything that is related to any field of study concerning Mana. Now, some facts you need to know about Arcadia. Light elves are amongst the most Mana sensitive species in the realm. Their ability to control magic rivals that of a dragon’s. Since they weren’t as uncaring about the world as the scaly beasts, they did everything they could to learn more about Mana. They merely study it and experiment with it, they care not about the consequences of their action while quenching their thirst for knowledge. Eventually, they noticed what they did and began finding ways to save their world. And that is when they stumbled upon Spier.”

“At that time, Speir hasn’t had much intelligent life such as humanoids residing it, but there were still plenty of scholars and adventurers there. The light elves sent there to search for a way to cure their land found a mysterious individual which agreed to help them only if they would share their knowledge and populate Speir with intelligent beings. The elves signed a deal with the individual and so the prehistoric version of Anima was born.”

“Section 8 used to also function as a library for keeping records of all the things that happened in Speir from the moment the light elves set up their outpost here. Then, when the Academy was built, all of it was transferred to the library inside the building. Now, Anima solely focused on researching how to utilize Mana or Source even further through pre-established fields of studies and invent new magical items, apparatus, furniture, and many other things.” He activated his Circulum and glanced at the digital clock before continuing.

“Would you look at the time. I’m sure some of you are already craving for food to fill up your empty stomachs. The train will make its first stop in Anima in front of a famous restaurant. Not only the food they serve there is absolutely savoury, the way they prepare it will surely entertain you all. When we reach there, all of you will follow me to our reserved seats and we shall have our meal. And please, don’t cause any commotion.”

The train halted in front of a flashy, ten story building. Red was its theme as it practically covers the entire structure and a huge holographic orange/yellow/red sign was seen plastered on the windows of the top few floors. All the passengers stepped out from the train and followed Damien’s lead. When the doors slid back up, the train magically vanished and, a few seconds after that, another longer one took its place.

The group went straight to the elevators across the rowdy dining hall. It took a couple of turns for all of them to be on the same floor, but it wasn’t time-consuming as it only took one second for the elevator to reach the fifth floor from the first. While inside the elevator, Rey saw a button which allowed customers to go to a ‘toilet floor’. Damien succinctly explained that once you pressed that flat button and walked through the door, it will automatically scan a person’s gender and sends them to the appropriate bathroom.

The entire floor was practically a large, individual room. As the duo stepped out of the elevator, they saw that there was an elongated counter, with unique chairs in front, along each side of the walls, although there was an empty space in front of the elevator and the emergency stairway beside it, and a stupidly huge round counter at the center of the floor. Behind the counters were chefs and ingredients for the food they would serve. They made use of the sunlight by reflecting it in a way that would brighten up the floor and gave it a special atmosphere.

The tour guide directed the young students to take a sit at the round counter whilst ensuring none of their actions was bothering the other customers. All of them sat close to other students which they spent time within the same group. The second all of the trip’s participants found a place to put their butts on, Damien began introducing what this restaurant has to offer (all of them can hear Damien’s voice clearly through a small device attached to the attendants).

✵End of Chapter 9✵

*[One second in this world is two times longer than a second in our world]