As Jasper pushed the door open, the smell of a bunch of teen boys smacked him in the face. 8 twin sized beds were spread around a large room. Next to each bed were two colored chests that seemed to store each tamers belongings.
Jasper could tell which bed owner was messy and which wasn't easily. 3 guys Jaspers age were lounged about on their beds. They looked at Jasper with curiosity. "Are you the new roomie?" One of them stood and held out a hand.
"Yeah. It's nice to meet you, I'm Jasper." Jasper said as he took the boys hand.
He was a smaller guy who had a friendly face. "I'm Hitch. Did you transfer rooms, or did you just get here? Late admittances aren't common." He commented.
A boy who sat on his bed with a book spoke up. "He's obviously new. Didn't you see the orientation packet on the bed?" He pushed up his glasses as he looked to Jasper. "I'm Oliver. Please don't touch my things, and I won't touch yours." He said before returning to the book. His voice was a little higher pitched and robotlike.
Jasper nodded in understanding as he turned to the last first year. He had dark hair that fell over his forehead and had serious, dark eyes. He nodded at Jasper. "I'm Pike. Stay out of my things and I'm sure we'll get along fine." He wore a combat outfit and seemed to have recently gotten back from something intense.
"Nice to meet you." Jasper smiled and turned to his bed. The two large chests next to his bed were an orange and a dark blue. He set his backpack down and began pulling things out of it and putting it in the blue chest.
Since his backpack stored more than it looked like it could, he ended up filling the whole chest with things he was okay with taking out of his bag. He still kept the basics for survival in his bag in case this academy demanded it. A backpack was one of a spirit tamers biggest tools.
He lay his sword and spear under the bed and grabbed the papers on top. After rifling through them for a few minutes he understood more about the system in the clan. He had a schedule of lectures that he had the option to attend. There were two lectures a day for five days that varied between an hour and a half to three hours.
The weekends were meant for Weekly Challenges that would test all the first years in a well crafted environment. On every fourth weekend the weekly challenge was replaced with a monthly challenge. There wasn't a lot of specific information but Jasper got the idea that it was grander and more challenging than the weekly challenges.
As Jasper flipped through the booklet he saw the point system Aryas group had been talking to him about. Attending lectures yielded 10 points each while weekly challenges were known to give about 500-1000 points to the average person. One thing that repeatedly showed up was something called Dome.
From the description it sounded like a man made spirit wilderness. The idea was something that many large clans did to offer their members a chance to train against spirits, without heavily risking their lives in the wild. It essentially was a large section of walled in environment that was planted with a bunch of different powerful spirits.
The spirits eventually settle down and create these things called dense spirit energy zones. When a stronger spirit finds itself with little prey, it may begin to find a safe place, and enrich the environment with spiritual energy of its affinity. They merge with the environment in an almost hibernation like state.
Once in this mode, they act like spirit energy generators. They release their energy into the air and slowly change the dominant affinity in the area. As more and more energy builds up, spirits are born. Once it's a true dense energy zone, the hibernating spirit lowers its energy output, and starts absorbing energy that weaker spirits are naturally putting out into the environment.
These dense energy zones can be encountered anywhere in the wild, or they can be created in a walled in environment. This would allow tamers to strengthen themselves while being close to the clan for any help.
The facility was upkept by hundreds of older members who worked around the clock to make sure the hibernating spirits stayed hibernating. Dome was a critical part of how the first years would develop. Jasper looked up as two more guys entered the room.
They laughed and talked loudly. Pike sat in the corner bed and spoke up. "We've got a new roommate." He said.
The two guys looked at Jasper. "Oh hey, what's up." One of them waved and set his things next to his bed.
"Nothing much, I just got here. I'm almost through this packet. I'm Jasper."
"I'm Nate, and this Trey." The guy who first talked to him said.
Trey walked up to Jasper and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you." He said. Jasper nodded and reciprocated. They chatted with Jasper a little before tending to their own things. He finished the packet and had a pretty decent understanding of what this clan looked like.
There was something's he wanted to check out so he was prepared. He stood up and left the room. There weren't a lot of hours left in the day but he still had enough time to check some things out.
As he walked past a group of girls standing in his hall, they stopped him. "I haven't seen you on this floor before." One of them said. They immediately began scrutinizing him.
"I'm new. I just moved into 704." Jasper explained.
They backed off a little and smiled. "Welcome to floor 7. We're in 707. You seemed like you were going somewhere. See you around." One of them said to him. They quickly focused back on their conversation.
Jasper slipped out of the hall and began going down the steps. Once outside he began exploring the surroundings. He first went to the buildings where each of his lectures would take place for the week. The buildings all had different styles depending on when they were built.
The older ones were less streamlined for size and had smaller classrooms that fit only 30 or so students. He planned on attending his lectures instead of skipping them.
That was one lesson he learned growing up. His fathers instructors were a specially crafted learning plan that all of his siblings went through. Their teachings are what made Jasper who he is today.
Learning was a powerful tool that Jasper leveraged with maximum efficiency. He left the academia section of the compound and walked an hour to Dome. The large walls appeared past a horizon of buildings. The entrance closest to him had huge steel gates that rose up with the walls.
It was being lowered as Jasper approached. On the other side a large group of tamers walked through the open gateway. A lot of them seemed as though they just came from the wilderness. There were injuries on most of them and it seemed like they'd been in there a while.
As Jasper walked toward them, he overheard some gossip from some first years. "Is that Ivy and her group? They went inside a day or two ago." A girl said.
"They've been getting stronger recently. But the top groups are still doing more numbers than them." A kid said. Jasper looked up and saw the group of first years entering the Dome preparation area. Merchant resided here.
Merchant is what the clan called a hyper intelligent spirit that is owned by one of the higher ups. It had the ability to assess and give a value to a spirit related item. It also managed an advanced storage system that allowed it to summon any item it placed inside its chest.
Jasper was interested in finding out what this spirit looked like. It was able to create lesser clones of itself that had access to the same storage systems. Its spirit level was not public information.
Jasper watched a person walk up to a stall and enter it. The plastic screens between stalls blurred their things as they began to sell things to the merchant. But in the other stalls Jasper saw a snail like being with arms manipulating paperwork.
Occasionally it stashed a paper into its storage system, which took form as a chest-like shell that its body was curled up inside. When it opened the top of its trunk, only darkness could be seen within. The papers disappeared inside.
Sometimes, they pulled papers out as well. Jasper realized they were passing eachother papers through its own body. Merchant had a synchronized, super mind that could operate many clones with impossible efficiency.
Its skin was grey and slimy looking and its two high resting eyes were a little off putting. It's what Jasper would be giving his spoils in Dome to. It will assign a value to his offerings, and give him clan currency. This places him higher on the leaderboard, as the amount of clan currency someone has is their rank.
They can increase their currency in large amounts in something called a Weekly Challenge. Jasper sensed a lot of currency gathering will be by trading with Merchant.
As Jasper turned to look at the leaderboard he heard a group of footsteps trudge up behind him. "Let's see our hard earned progress." A beautiful voice said aloud. The group that the first years had called Ivy's group stood next to him.
They looked up at the giant leaderboard. One of the guys in it scratched his dirty head as he caught a glimpse of Jasper. "Yo, isn't this the Lord's son?"