Everyone followed the woman and after some minutes they got to a large black bus parked in the stadium's underground parking lot. As expected, it also had the HSA letters painted on one side.
"This bus will be taking you to the accommodations prepared by the HSA. Everyone, please get inside," she said as she opened the bus' side door.
One by one everyone started entering the bus while the woman waited by the bus door. After everyone got in, she closed the door and entered the bus from the driver's side.
Suddenly the bus came to life and lifted from the ground before it started moving toward the parking lot exit.
The trip didn't take long and soon after, they were approaching a familiar building.
"That's the HSA HQ," muttered a boy as they approached the building.
"Are we going to stay here?" asked a girl in disbelief as they trespassed the air limits of the HSA HQ.
Excitement could be felt in the whole bus as all the students watched the building in amazement, which became bigger and bigger as they came closer. Compared to other buildings, the HSA HQ was also wider, occupying at its base an area 5 times bigger than most buildings.
The bus didn't stop as it moved forward, and for a moment, the students thought they would crash against the building until a gate opened on its side, allowing the bus to enter the building. After the bus passed through, the gate closed again, becoming indistinguishable again. In fact, these gates were built in such a way that it was absolutely impossible to find them from the outside unless you knew exactly where they were located.
After passing through the gate, the bus entered a tunnel where different offices could be seen on each side with lots of people going from one side to the other. And soon enough, they got to the center of the building which was a wide space where a lot of hover vehicles could be seen flying around. In fact, the HSA building was a building shaped in a way that it had a larger base that slowly got thinner the more it grew, with an open center that rose from the base.
"I-it's almost like a city," said a girl. Even though the rest of the students didn't say anything, they completely agreed with her.
After a couple of minutes, the bus finally got to a platform where it landed. One by one, the students started getting off the bus, each one looking in amazement at their surroundings.
"I'll lead you to your rooms, please follow me," said the HSA operator after everyone got off the bus.
The HSA had surely spared no expense in the organization of the tournament. The accommodations prepared for the participants were not only very spacious but also incredibly luxurious.
After getting to his room, Seth left his stuff on the floor and threw himself on the bed. It had been quite a few days since he had been able to relax, and he surely wouldn't be able to relax until the end of the tournament so he wanted to take advantage of that little pause.
By finally letting himself relax he was able to finally feel how exhausted he really was, so it didn't take him too long to fall asleep.
He woke up after a few hours, feeling more rested.
'Oh that's right, the guide said that we would find all the information we needed in the ID card's interaction menu,' Seth thought. He took his ID card out and pressed the button that displayed the holographic interaction menu. New options had appeared on it, some related to the tournament and some related to their stay at the HSA HQ.
He decided to check the information about the tournament however everything was still blocked until the next day, so he decided to check the stuff related to the facilities that the HSA had put at their disposal.
'Here it is,' he thought after he found an option called "Map" in the interaction menu. After clicking on it the ID card projected a holo map categorized by floors of the different things that could be found in the area allowed to the participants.
'Pool, gym, training room, dining room, and even a cinema… it's impossible to get bored here' Seth thought as he looked through the holo map. 'Well, for now, let's eat something, I'm starving,' he thought.
He got up and left the room, leaving his katana and duff bag inside of it. It took him only a couple of minutes to get to the dining room where a lot of students from different academies could also be seen. Different groups of students could be seen, most of them made up of people from the same academy, however, some mixed groups could also be seen even though they were very few.
'Let's get some pasta,' he thought as he browsed through the menu until he got to the Italian section.
After getting his food he returned to his room to eat it since he didn't want to take off his mask in public. The food was even better than any restaurant Seth had eaten before and he ate it pretty quickly.
After wandering a little bit more through the facilities he finally went back to his room. He looked through the interaction menu again however no information about the first phase had been posted yet. After turning off the interaction menu he took a bath and tried to sleep. The next day, the first phase would begin.