A new morning dawned on Castleburg, people went to work as usual, students went to classes and the group went to get their schedule's set up. They walked to the counsellor's office, he will help them pick classes on their abilities and strengths.
They arrived to the office, the man was already waiting for them. "Good morning everyone! My name is Holt, I will help you with the very important decision of what to learn in this university. You might already have an idea what you want to become or you have not a single clue. It doesn't matter we will figure out what the perfect class is for everyone."
'This man is way too energetic for this early in the morning.', Sera was about to ask who should go first, but this very lively man beat her to it.
"I think we should start with the youngest, since she will be the easiest to figure out. what is your name little girl?" He went down on a knee to be at Vicky's eye level, which scared her a bit and she hid behind Bea, who was currently holding her hand. Sera's mood worsened a bit, but she understood the man meant no harm.
"Don't worry about her she will have the same classes as me." Said Bea, she wasn't hiding her distaste either. The man stood up and asked.
"And what kind of classes will you pick? Those might not be the best for her." Bea's smile was frightening, but the man didn't even flinch. 'Huh, must be an Ascended at least, why is he a counselor?'
"I will pick any class that has to do with fighting of course! And my daughter will come with me since she needs to learn how to fight as well." The man made a weird face, then he just sighed and moved on. His job wasn't to make decisions for others, but to help them make their own.
"Okay, then lets move on. You must be Seraphine, I assume you will want fighting classes as well." Sera made an embarrassed face and said, "Actually, I would want any class that has to do with Realms, monsters and their origin, anything related to the Apocalypse."
The man's eyes visible brightened and a smile appeared on his face.
"That is excellent, very few people sees merit in learning about the Realms. What they don't realize is if you know your enemy you have a great advantage over it."
The others said their own decisions and the counselor quickly wrote them down into the system. Hellfire and Faith went the same route a couple of fighting classes and monster killing ways. Clockwork went with a bit of ability training and technology classes. Will went with transformation training and Lucy just did the same as Bea.
After everyone got their schedule, they went their separate ways. Sera only had one class today 'Realm History For Beginners', she was very excited. Spending so long pondering on questions she was finally able to get some answers.
"Of course, we have been exploring Realms since we found out how to go into them and leave them. Currently we have outposts in at least a dozen and that is only Castleburg's. There are other similar sized cities out there with their own footholds in those and other Realms."
Sera was really excited, if she could go into another Realm she could learn more about it! But she was interested in something else, "Scholar, do you know of a Realm that was populated by angels?" He raised his bushy eyebrows and thought for a moment.
"Populated by angels, can't say I have. Why?" Sera sighed before bringing out her wings and spreading them, the man was a bit stumped but wasn't too surprised.
"My first kill as you probably already know was a Horror of the 3rd Tier." Scholar nodded. "But not many people know is the name of that Horror, Archangel of Despair. It was truly frightening, but I read the descriptions and I learned a lot about who the archangel was before falling into Madness. i don't know, I just wanted to learn more about where he came from. The man had a stupid grin on his face.
"Very few have such explorer spirit, especially young people like yourself. We currently have no knowledge of such place, but there are possibly hundreds of Realms out there. Who knows maybe you will be the one to find it!" This brought a small smile to Sera's face and they went to his office.
The office was kind of small, but perfect for two people to have one on one conversations. Scholar was very excited, he instantly grabbed a couple of maps and began showing Sera what they have explored so far. They didn't have names, only number designations and descriptions.
There was one which had no Sun and it was a land of darkness, another was a never ending huge cave system, then one that had lava as rivers and abandoned cities made of metal, etc. All of them had some form of human outpost, but these brought up new questions for Sera.
"I understand that we fought and gotten footholds in those Realms. But how do we enter and exit?"
"Oh, that is pretty simple, well in theory simple. There are special kind of Gates, that can be stabilized, we use those to transport goods and share information. Of course living in a different Realm is not fun at all, they are constantly under attack and sometimes we even have to abandon outposts, but we constantly try to acquire new ones.
Sadly the people in charge don't use these opportunities to learn more, they just want to have resources that they could use for power."
'So that is how they do it. And not doing it for the good of mankind, but for resources. I mean it was quite obvious, judging by the amount of students interested in Realm History, that it isn't the leadership's main priority.'
They kept talking and Sera learned man important and useful things, but sadly the class had to come to an end. Even then it lasted 2 hours longer, than it was supposed to, but Sera was really hungry, so she went to the cafeteria alone since the others had more classes today.