It was a cloudy day in New Haven City. Only a few scattered rays of sunshine could find their way towards the ground. Even fewer got past the many high-rise buildings in the city center. At least in the spacious education district, this dawn looked a bit more friendly.
Still, this couldn't really lift Kayleen's mood, as she stood up early to prepare for her day. "2213, open the bedroom lids a bit!", told Kayleen the AI responsible for her dorm room, while suppressing a big yawn. The unwillingness to get out of the warm embrace of her bed could still be seen in her eyes.
"At your command." A robotic voice cam from the small high tech looking bracelet on her arm. A cute looking bunny appeared on it's display, asking with a wink:" Do you want to order breakfast, Kayleen?"
"Not now."
Completely without sound the southern wall of Kayleen's room slowly turned transparent. The young student walked towards the window, looking outside. Her room had a pretty good view on one of the bigger parks in New Haven City's education district.
The cloudy weather couldn't take much away from the beauty of those carefully arranged flowers and exotic trees, bordering state-of-the-art training grounds and multiple different sports fields. In the distance a majestic building made from white stone, skillfully decorated with just the right amount of artistic reliefs could be seen. A slight blue shimmer underscored the beauty of this building, representing the only visible part of the forcefield shielding this building from harm.
In Kayleen's mind precautions such as this still seemed necessary despite their Rising Force World being in peace for a while now. As the main hall of New Haven Academy, this building was after all an important symbol as well as the gathering place for many young elites. Many of those could already be seen reading and training, conversing with friends or finding someone to copy some last-minute homework.
"Luckily," said Kayleen while turning towards a corner of her room where a rustling sound could be heard. "Those windows are one sided, so we can enjoy this view in peace. Right Fluffy?"
Fluffy was the black-horn dog beast Kayleen got from her father on her 16th birthday, right before leaving home for New Haven Academy. As a high-class tier 1 beast it wouldn't be considered strong, but it can still easily protect Kayleen in such a safe environment where some drunks fighting on the street would already be among the more dangerous things happening.
Over the two years they knew each other now, Fluffy already had an important place in Kayleen's heart. She liked to call it her "little" dog, even though it was as big as her shoulders, looking really threatening with its strong black horn.
Fluffly stood up from the ground and looked at Kayleen making her way towards it with the first smile of the day on her face. She forcefully patted its flanks and spoke: "Ok Fluffy you know the drill. Let's go on a run first, then find some breakfast on the way home. I'm with you in a moment. While I change my clothes you can already start your shrinking process."
Fluffly was still considered a young beast and couldn't understand to much of what Kayleen mentioned. It was trained to know what to do when hearing the command for shrinking though. This was a basic ability many beasts where able to learn from their bloodlines, especially if their true bodies tended to grow really big. Getting those beasts used to shrinking and even doing it on command needs a good trainer though.
After coming out of the small adjacent bathroom, now dressed in sports clothes, Kayleen waved at Fluffy and made her way through her living room out into the dorm's hallway. A few boys were lingering around in front of an open door a bit to the right of Kayleen's room. The room's owner, Richard, could be considered an old acquaintance of Kayleen's, as they went to the same high school. Even though she didn't know any of the other boys, Kayleen still nodded at them with a knowing look in her eyes. From those tired faces everybody could tell that a small party has been held the night before in Richard's dorm. Even though alcohol wasn't prohibited in the academy, but professors still had the right to through you out of class, if you show obvious lapses in concentration.
As she was walking along the hallway towards an elevator, the boys couldn't help but through glances at the young woman. An 18-year-old woman in sports clothing was simply irresistible for their still slightly hazy minds. Suddenly the boys felt a cold shiver running down their spines. They jolted awake and turned their heads a bit towards the ground. When they met eyes with the "little" dog, which left the room after Kayleen, they decided to slowly back of into Richard's room, closing the door after themselves. Kayleen's protective beast already had its own small reputation.
"Come, Fluffy! Don't mind them. They are harmless.", came Kayleen's shout from in front of the elevator. When she left her room, the dorm's AI already noticed and sent a free elevator to her floor. Fluffy hurried after her and they comfortably reached the first floor and left the building. Kayleen took a deep breath of fresh air and slowly jogged towards the education district's northern gate with Fluffy in tow. After a short check of her bracelet, which also functions as an ID, Kayleen was free to leave the district towards New Haven City.
Academy students had relatively high freedom as long as they pass their mandatory tests. With Kayleen's grades and her strength as a rank 8 body refinement realm rookie, she was considered an elite at New Haven Academy and will be carefully nurtured. This was to be expected though, as she inherited her father's talent and trained since an early age. Even though her father was very strict with her, he also let her know, that he was immense proud of her and her mindset to not take anything for granted. Like this Kayleen was always motivated to work hard every day and make something out of herself in the new world.
Kayleen threw a quick glance towards the mysterious monument standing behind the New Haven Academy's, or NHA for short, main hall, before turning around and heading towards the bus station in front of the academy's gate. She didn't have to wait for long before a big vehicle arrived. It looked a bit like an antique ship, but with four wings, covered in transparent ripples. These manabuses where the standard means of transportation for most people, as long as they weren't strong enough yet to fly by themselves. Kayleen knew that to most normal people manabuses and their like looked like a marvel of mana-engineering, but the mana-circuits needed to build them weren't actually to complicated. Even though mana-engineering wasn't Kayleen's strongpoint, she should still have most of the knowledge needed to build something on the level of a bus already.
After the bus landed and Kayleen got onto it with Fluffy, which wouldn't be any problem and would even be for free with her identity as a NHA student, the girl took a quiet place for herself and leaned back a bit. It only took a short while until the bus reached the southern forest, where Kayleen came to jog and let Fluffy run free every morning. This forest was still considered part of New Haven City. Even though NHA student had a lot of freedom, they were after all part of the military and could not leave the city as they wished.
"Ok Fluffy, you can run around but don't distance yourself to far from me.", Kayleen told her little dog while stretching next to the forest path. Fluffy rubbed Kayleen's leg with his head, before slowly reversing the shrinking ability and trotting towards the forest entrance. Kayleen smiled and also started jogging behind the beast. Kayleen followed her usual path through the forest, which would lead her in a half circle, so would end in New Haven City again and not go deeper into the forest.
After a while of running, Kayleen noticed that the forest seemed a bit different today. She slowly started to feel a bit unease. Somehow the surroundings seemed quieter and some sort of aura could be felt. At the same time this aura was slowly retreating in a certain direction deeper into the forest. Halfway through her run, Kayleen tried to stand still and see if she can feel something in the environmental mana. Even though she couldn't make out anything concrete and her uneasiness slowly subsided, Kayleen still decided to call Fluffy to run alongside her. Just when she opened her mouth to shout for Fluffy, she heard her "little dog" growling not far from her followed by three short bellows.