Simma rolled off from bed, had this mixed feeling, one that felt like he had butterflies in his belly and the other that felt he was being stupid and paranoid.
Well, wasn't he?
He had decided to go check out who had sent that letter despite the risk hanging over it like a shadow. In his head, he carried this noble little notion:
Nothing risky comes without a huge price.
"Of course," he muttered darkly and sarcastic. "So everyone should jump off cliffs now, since it's risky, maybe they'll wind up immortal. Huge price, huge risk… right?"
The sarcasm didn't help much.
Sleep hadn't been kind either. It had been hacked to pieces by his recurring nightmares.
The suited guy, as Simma had nicknamed him, was doing an excellent job of haunting them. And when the suited guy didn't show up, the dragon did… delivering the terror just as perfectly.
"How ironic," he muttered.
Since sleep was now too hard, he decided to just keep awake until dawn.
His eyes burned with drowsiness, but he kept watching the time tick on something he had also given a nicknames just like the suited guy, it was his transparent phone.
He nicknamed it 'parency'
Though it seemed like a lifetime, the first light finally appeared, cracking across the horizon. And Simma quickly hurried and freshened up. He got prepared and quickly left his room, locking it behind him.
The male-wing corridor stretched silent, shadows leaning long against the walls.
He looked around, and making sure no one followed him. He dashed out of the male wing corridor, the letter clenched tight in his hand, hoping he doesn't get lost.
Of course, he did.
Once.
A thick kind of lost too, because somehow, after ten minutes of wandering, he found himself back in the boys' recruit sleeping corridor.
"Damn it," he snapped, beginning the journey over again, But luck hadn't fully abandoned him, for this time, he made his way out of the citadel successfully.
Outside, the air was cool and damp, dawn lingering silently, carried by the cool and chilly breeze. The moon ray still shown dimly over the great city, it ghostly glow making the weather kind of optimistic.
He looked at the letter.
Startled.
The neat writing on it began shifting, words rearranging, letters reshaping, until a map formed right there on the paper.
Though it looked small since the letter was written on a small sheet, Simma understood it.
He was the yellow dot, hovering over a spot labelled Atrium G.C. The G.C. actually meant
'Great City', he thought automatically.
Just then, a small arrow with a faint glow faded into existence in the sheet and showed him to move straight.
'What sorcery is this?' he pondered as he walked through the citadel gates and into the quiet streets of the Great City, which was not as busy as it was the last time he stepped out into it since it was still very early.
Though it seemed scanty, its scantiness was still busy.
He walked through the wide pathway until he reached a place where the road ran three ways, and then he looked at the map which told him to take left. He did and continued through a long winding road flanked at both sides by squashy-looking houses with their normal lawn and flowers.
Humming sounds could still be marked out anytime a car flew past above.
He reached another road that forked into three, but map said keep going straight by its little arrow that pointed straight.
"Graham County," he read, acknowledging the place he was at the time. 'Man, he had walked a long way'. The sun was now gleaming with its golden, glenish glow and people were already out; cars, few bikes, rare horses and all.
Simma kept walking until he took a final turn to the left yet again, and then the writing changed as it wrote,
Eryandor in G.C.
Simma's eyes widened.
He was now standing on the edge of the Great City at Eryandor. This was the town were the lotuses live.
The Lotuses, though still dwelling within the Great City, do not live by its rules. They answer to no council, follow no Sentinel's decree, and pledge allegiance to none but their own order. Their way of life stands apart, ancient, disciplined, and untouched by politics.
They were in three ranks; the white, red and black lotuses.
The only time they involve themselves in citadel affairs is when the city faces imminent peril… or when justice fails."
There town radiated peace and glamour, its air laced with a gentle, lively scent that stirred something warm in the soul. The houses, though bearing the quiet grace of age, held a charm Simma could only describe as comforting. Each one wore a green roof like a crown, and under the golden kiss of the sun, the entire town shimmered with a soft, harmonious glow.
Simma now knows that he is a long way away from the citadel.
At that, his leg throbbed.
'How long have I been walking?' he asked, hoping it will never be for nothing, but that thought gnawed at him and he regretted ever going for this journey when he arrived at a very small house that hardly passed the size of a phone booth.
The map stopped and vanished there with one final word:
knock.
Simma was doing his best to hold his temper now.
'Is this where he was supposedly meant to receive the training?'
What kind of joke was this?
For God's sake, this is said to be the hardest tournament to become an Azren and he was supposed to train in whatever that house was?
He made to turn and leave but he wanted to yell, then he decided to yell at whoever was behind those doors and that had decided to waste his time.
He sacrificed his morning meal for this only to see this rubbish. His anger was now rising and he started turning red.
His breath was now ragged as he knocked.
Then just within a few moments, the door was opened as a mighty-looking man surfaced. At that point another regret hit Simma and his heart sank.
"Oh God," he thought. "I should have just left."
"Hello sir," he greeted, trying his best to sound good and not angry, because looking at the structure in front of him, if he was an Azren, then he might be an Omega or even a White Elder.
The man who stared down at him was dark‑toned, with a thick visible scar slashing across his left eye. His hair was shorn low, but a black beard framed his jaw, making him look mature, dangerous, fearsome and entirely uncompromising.
His structure was the most outstanding, for it was what made Simma shiver at first sight.
He was tall huge and muscular and it showed out in the black kimono he wore, tied to the waist by a red ribbon.
He stared down at Simma and said with a voice so deep that it cut into Simma's marrows,
"Simma, right?"
Simma forced a smile.
His reply came out thinner than he liked, almost feminine in comparison to the man's rumble.
"Yeah," he noted in affirmation.
"Walk,"
The man snapped.
"God, that's literally what I have been doing all morning" Simma pondered,
Of course he didn't say it out loud, but rather he said it to himself, as he followed him into the house, and when he stepped in, his jaw dropped.
The interior was a paradox, a visual contradiction so baffling it scrambled logic and was as if it is magic.
Outside, the building was minuscule. But inside?
It soared.
The ceiling arched impossibly high, vanishing into mist like a cathedral lost in time. Golden light fixtures gleamed from walls adorned in mesmerizing artwork. A soft chill permeated the air. Doors led to endless rooms, corridors, chambers.
The space where Simma stood resembled a cross between a corporate atrium and a grand ceremonial hall, with rooms and chambers climbing upward in a seamless circular pattern, tucked into the very walls like hidden alcoves of mystery.
Golden-hued lights bathed the space in a quiet glow, reflecting the white tiles strongly.
Simma couldn't help but notice it, the place was teeming with women. But not just any women. These ladies were clad in garments so scant and translucent that the entire atmosphere reeked more of a high-end brothel than a combat training center.
'Is this a party of some sort,' he thought.
In the far corner, a long velvet couch curled like a serpent, and lounging languidly upon it was a young man encircled by five barely-clothed women. Each of them wore nothing but an almost transparent loincloth tied across their waists, fabric so sheer it teased more than it hid.
Their breasts were bare, swaying subtly as they leaned into the boy, caressing him with sultry hands and seductive glances, as they giggled .
Simma's throat tightened. The air was thick, stifling, and not just from the incense that curled like ghosts from brass burners overhead. One of the women began walking toward him, hips swaying like the pendulum of a hypnotist's watch.
Her azure eyes gleaming with seductive intent. The two soft mounds on her chest bounced with a provocative soft rhythm, drawing his gaze despite his best efforts.
Simma swallowed, his eyes fixed on her breasts as the lady ran her hand across his chest. A thrill ran through Simma, his eyes feeling wet as he now froze on the spot.
The girl took his hand and placed it on her breast. Simma now blinked rapidly, his breath now seeming hitched, as if the air in the room wasn't enough to sustain him. He felt its coldness and softness.
The pleasure was now much, but...
"No," he said to himself, refusing to squeeze it or do anything that might compromise him. He was about to pull his hand away, but it was too late. The man that had lured him in had already turned and seen him.
He couldn't read minds to know that Simma was about to refuse the lady's advancement, so when he walked up to them he said,
"Anna, let the young man catch his breath."
And with a seductive blink, Anna left Simma and walked away, with a step that always drew eyes to her butt.
"Lesson number two failed. Self-impression matters…" the man said to Simma, grimacing.
"Now walk."
Simma swallowed. He didn't even know when the first lesson took place. In fact, he didn't know that the lesson had already begun.
He tried to explain to the man that he was trying to push her away, but would he believe him? Instead, he asked,
"Sir, what was lesson one?"
The man, without looking at him, answered while still walking as Simma followed him,
"You were late."