Sensing that the room's inhabitant was awake, the constant ringing ended and the wall's consistent pulsing slowly ended as the energy veins returned to their original state. The room quickly went back to being dimly lit up by the energy veins inscribed on the walls.
Even though Fen was rudely awoken by the sudden blaring he didn't feel angry or anything. His reaction was quite the opposite actually; he felt glad that he was pulled out of his 'dream' and was back in his room. At least here he could control his body how he liked. Though, Fen was a little disappointed that he wasn't able to see the source of those strange noises.
Shaking his head to clear his cloudy mind, Fen pushed himself out of bed and put on the black and silver Opfer uniform he was given the day before. He didn't know why he was being woken up like this but it was better to at least be wearing the uniform in the case that something happened.
When he opened the door he saw Amelia stepping out from the room opposite him. It didn't look like she slept much; she had large bags under her eyes, and her normally smooth red hair was disheveled and tangled up. Fen inwardly felt a surge of pain just looking at the state of her appearance.
Back when Fen was alone, one of his only friends was his little sister Alex.
Thanks to Fen's personality as a loner, the older sibling doted on Alex. It was through their relationship that he became accustomed with handling hair and other beauty products as he helped her develop her abilities to take care of herself. An unexpected benefit that arose from Fen's help was that his abilities to care for the looks of others (Including himself) skyrocketed, allowing him to see when makeup was being used as well as when they most definitely should be used.
Because of that, seeing such unkempt hair made his instincts twitch from the barely constrained need to fix it.
Lips twitching, Fen greeted her.
"Didn't sleep much last night? You look terrible."
While that wasn't the nicest thing to say Fen wasn't in the best state of mine currently. He had the same nightmare last night, so although his body was well-rested, his mind was tired, so being slightly rude was understandable. Unfortunately, Amelia did not know about his circumstances.
Eyes narrowing, she snarked back at him.
"You don't look so good yourself, jerk. What kind of person just wakes up and starts insulting people? At least have some sort of cooldown period, jeez..."
The other doors in the hallway opened at that moment and thankfully stopped Fen from digging a deeper hole for his grave with further remarks.
"Oh good, everyone else is awake. Anyone know what's happening?" Qin asked the group, the others shaking their heads in response. Eyes narrowing in thought, the youth wondered if the wake-up alarm was genuinely a daily occurrence or if something else was going on.
This was only the second day in the Program so the Opfer knew nothing about anything. Nevermind being the proverbial frog in a well, the frog was encased in concrete and was ignorant about everything including it's own existence.
Shrugging his shoulders, Fen and others headed to the Squad's main room, hoping to gain some answers.
To the surprise of all of them the previously empty interface that nearly took up an entire wall of the room was filled with words and pictures, all flying across the screen. They organized themselves in front of the group, before presenting a thick layered list. However, before Fen could get a closer look at what was written on the massive interface the letters censored themselves, and were greyed out before he could even take a step closer.
"Guess that's available now..." He mumbled to himself.
Qin heard him, and added on with a comment.
"I don't think that's the Shop, there's too much...stuff. Guess we'll find out what its for later."
"Yeah, and there's no way the Narrator would be able to describe all that stuff without losing his mind," said Amelia, snickering.
At that time, the big interface flickered again, before the previously greyed out items disappeared entirely from the screen. In replacement Archon Ellora's face appeared, but a small mark at the bottom showed it was a prerecorded message like before.
[Hello my beloved Opfer! Hopefully you all enjoyed your rest, however short it was, because time waits for no one! Especially me, haha, getting older every day....] The Archon's smile cracked slightly before amending itself.
[Anyways, I don't think I'm the first to tell you guys this, but... you stink. Every single one of you. Take a bath or something, honestly, how could you forget about running water?] All of them were too insulted by her words to realize that there was no way that she could know how they smelled and that this was just a way to reveal another function within the Squad room.
At that moment another section of the wall glowed, the inscribed veins on the wall shifting until another cubic formation was revealed. That section crumbled away, revealing a pristine black bathroom.
Amelia whispered to herself, her gaze constantly shifting from her skin to her hand, which was grasping at a strand of her red hair.
"...Did we really forget about that?"
Qin and Fen, for their part as younger men, discreetly coughed into their arms to smell themselves, and quickly found the answer to her question. Gray was oblivious, and Fen was almost certain the young teen smelled like roses, or at least he did compared to the rest of them.
[Your clothes were made to constantly clean themselves using the abundant Mana coursing through the facility, but they're probably fighting a losing battle right now. After you shower if you purchased a Lesson, show your mark to the interface next to the exit.] Archon Ellora pointed towards their bedrooms, but the interface created itself in the opposite direction where the exit actually was, but that was probably a technical issue.
[From there, following the flashing inscriptions on the walls you'll be able to find Training Halls with an instructor inside who will, obviously, instruct all of you.]
[Please try to learn something. I don't know any of you, but I won't be able to if you die in the first Task. Not that I want to talk to any of you specifically, but I might pull some of you with me to test some stuff...] Licking her lips, the familiar blue flash of electricity sparking across her body.
A cold shiver went down all of their spines, even Gray. They all saw how gleeful the Archon looked when electrocuting candidates inside of the amphitheater, and were aware of the large amount of crazy dwelling inside of the otherwise charming woman.
[But I digress. Now, take a shower, I beg of you.]
With that, the video flickered off the interface, but instead of turning blank the censored material inside remained, rapidly moving across the screen. A couple images went across the interface as well, but the quality was so degraded as a result from the censoring that they might as well be pictures of vegetables for them.
At least then they wouldn't be left disappointed.
"So, who wants to be the first one?" Qin asked the group, turning away from the interface.
However, Fen and Amelia were a couple steps ahead of the rest, making a silent agreement as they both made a mad dash for the two showers inside the bathroom. Thankfully, they were both private showers with their own rooms on separate sides of the room, giving the both of them more than enough privacy to not worry about being embarrassed.
Fen smelled the worst among the group and was well aware of that fact, and being a clean person that bit of knowledge was very detrimental to the small amount of sanity that Fen was desperately clinging onto. So in order to retain that small bit of self-respect being the first one inside the showers was a must, and Qin, Amelia, and Gray could be damned.
Although he hadn't known them for long and wasn't entirely sure of whether or not he should trust them, the tiny voice in the back of his head whispered that he shouldn't. Because Fen knew the origin of that voice and that it came from before he was with Miko, he decided not to listen. After all, they didn't really do anything wrong to him; under the circumstances they had a bad introduction but who wouldn't after being basically kidnapped?
Surprisingly, the water that came out of the shower was quite warm for being in the middle of the literal abyss. Probably the benefits of magic; it was definitely one that he would be thankful for. It still didn't make up for being kidnapped and taken to the Program, but it was a start. For now, he would accept what he was given and take everything else that he needed.
After seeing that the Foundation had prepared everything that he might need for using the bathroom, Fen enjoyed the warm and refreshing shower. He stepped out much earlier than Amelia, which was understandable considering the length of her hair; longer hair required more time to wash and clean.
Qin was talking to Gray when Fen stepped out of the shower room.
"Do you not have any shame?!" Qin stood up and stomped over to him, a vein pulsing on his head.
"What? First come first served, right? Or do you not have any siblings?" His eyebrows raised in response to Qin pressing his face close to him. Any closer and he suspected that Amelia might get the wrong idea if she saw them. Although she seemed angry because she glared all the time Fen suspected that there was another side to her. He'd seen glances of it from time to time, but that side of her never showed itself long enough for him to be sure.
Qin almost choked on the words about to come out of his mouth when he heard the lack of guilt from Fen.
He shrugged, walking away to take a seat in the Squad room table with Gray, who was designated the last one to shower through seniority. His lack of a need to shower also played some role in that 'decision'.
'Should I wait for Amelia to finish before I leave? I don't actually know when the Lesson starts...'
Curious to see if he could find out more about his Lesson, he signed into the Shop, trying to see if there was any more information listed underneath Vitality Manipulation. Much to his surprise, there was. Raisen had left a note underneath the Lesson, which he assumed was unlocked after he purchased. He must've not seen it because he left from the old man's Training Hall so quickly; he didn't trust Raisen enough to not spontaneously burst.
Thankfully, he saw it now.
[Shop]
[Candidate 178-3001: Fen Altairus]
[Points: 141]
[Current Purchasing Level: Opfer]
[Introduction into Vitality Manipulation (Lesson) (Purchased) ]
[Instructor: Raisen York]
[This practice is completely bogus... ]
[Lesson Note: After morning alarm- Haha, they probably pissed themselves after the alarm went off. Oh wait, isn't the alarm just a buzz or something? Eh, anyways. After the alarm, the small sapling on your wrist will grow when I need you. You should be able to feel when that happens, but just keep on an eye on it; I don't much trust the Mages that designed the system that much. Some of them are reliable but the rest... not so much. End narration.]
"..."
Fen was speechless. His standards for Raisen were extremely low after first meeting him, but somehow they decreased further. If there was anything that could redeem that crazy old man in Fen's mind, he didn't know what.
He signed out of the Shop, resigning himself to enduring Raisen's Lesson. Hopefully, he would be able to learn something, or his abilities as a Vitul would appear, or something.
Leaning back on the chair, he sighed heavily.
Before Qin stepped into the shower room he told him to check the interface about his Lesson to see if there was any more information about the times, informing Gray too. Checking is wrist, Fen saw that the golden sapling was still the same size, so he made some time to stay and tell Amelia as well.
He could just leave now and have the others tell her, but that would mean spending more time than absolutely necessary with Raisen. Therefore, the choice was practically already made for him.
Sitting down on the stone chair was uncomfortable after long periods of time and his lower back was already complaining from the stress. Fen stood up and went back to what was quickly becoming his favorite past-time when he had some time to spare: reading the various narrations in the Shop.
After looking through the interface, Fen had noticed another subsection that had eluded his notice before, which showed information about the Narrator.
The character was quickly becoming an irreplaceable character in his heart, one who's suffering made him feel happy deep inside and slightly made up for the crappy descriptions in the main section of the Shop.
The narration about his various journeys and adventures were so detailed that he occasionally lost himself in the stories. Sometimes he felt that they were real; they were so detailed. Now that he knew about magic, it was possible that they were, although some of the stories were a bit too lucrative. For example, there was the part about the Narrator fighting a bunch of vampires:
[Shop]
[Candidate 178-3001: Fen Altairus]
[About the Narrator]
[Narration 26]
[When I was off-world to find myself a beautiful wife, because unfortunately all of the women here are human, I was soon caught up in an elaborate scheme meant to destabilize the world I was visiting. The planet's name was Trigor or something, and I got kidnapped right after exiting the Rift! Extremely rude. Anyways, I was bored at the time with nothing else to do, so I went along with the kidnapping and was brought to some ancient city underground. That was the first clue that I was stepping into some serious shit, but I ignored it. No species that builds their cities underground is a good species. Well, I guess most species of Dwarves are pretty alright, but some of them are cannibals, probably from being cooped up underground for so long.]
[I guess the blood running down the walls was also a pretty good sign that I should employ the sacred strategy of GTFO, but I'll admit I wasn't really in the best state of mind... I was kind of hoping that wherever I was being taken, there was some beautiful Queen that I could snag away and make into my bride. Not my brightest moment, probably did my thinking with the wrong head.]
[But, I was pretty confident in my own skills. Worst case scenario, I just blast my way out with a (hopefully) sexy woman strapped to my back. Alas, reality sucks most of the time. I was dragged into the city to become a sacrifice... to a bunch of ugly male vampires! Revolting! Disgusting! Where's the females?! *Cough*. So. I left that planet, and never returned. Made sure to mark it as a sausage planet, never to be explored or thought about again. Of course, before I left I made sure to destroy their plot to revive some ancient evil or whatever.]
"Haaa." This was what he meant. Some of the stories were extremely funny, some super ridiculous, and some that followed cheesy movie plotlines. Most of them had the Narrator suffer through some event which made him happy.
For the Foundation, this was their goal with using a personality such as the Narrator. Casual and vulgar though he is, he was the perfect subject to save the Opfer from falling into a depression; they could follow the stories of a funny narrator throughout their stay if they enjoyed reading. If they didn't, too bad, they'd have to learn to like it. Reading the narrator's stories provided small bits of knowledge about the Universe as he traveled, which could prove invaluable to the various Guardian Candidates.
And employing the Narrator was quite cheap; he was extremely lustful, having almost as much libido inside his body as raw talent, so providing the man with money to spend who knows where was enough to buy his temporary loyalty.