When I say the Flume came to life, I mean it in a literal sense. Right before Aoni's very eyes, he watched the empty center of the stone ring, which was like a window that allowed one to see the other side of the Gym's bleachers begin filling up. Within a few seconds, it was as if you were looking down an endless crystal tunnel.
Once the center was filled and the transfer tunnel was attached to his destination, Aoni suddenly felt weightless, and when looking down, he was surprised to notice that his feet were no longer touching the ground.
"Remember, no Terrian Technology will work on Genovia, so don't panic when your phone won't power on!" The Principal stated, but the ever-increasing humming in Aoni's ears drowned the man's words out.
However, Aoni didn't have the mental capacity to pay the Principal any attention, not that he said anything the Lad was unaware of, but because his body was being drawn into the crystalline tunnel by the mysterious artifact. Before he had a moment to look behind one last time to inquire about what the man had said, Aoni was on his way.
From the outside looking in, the Ash-Blond Lad had been sucked into the Flume and rapidly accelerated like a speeding train; however, from his perspective, it was quite pleasant and very unlike what Aoni had imagined.
While it may appear like the Lad was on a rollercoaster ride, instead, it felt more like drifting along on an innertube down a lazy river. The slight bobbing his body was experiencing was also akin to floating in water.
"Wow…" unable to contain his amazement at the beautiful shining walls around him as they flew by, Aoni exclaimed before easing his posture into a comfortable position.
Unfortunately, there was no telling how long the trip would be, especially since it was his first time traveling to the new Territory; for all Aoni knew, it could be a couple minutes to a few hours.
Luckily, he knew it couldn't be longer than five hours, as the longest transfer recorded had been four hours and 59 minutes, so while Aoni believed it would be kind of awesome to say, "I hold the record for the longest transfer," he was really hoping that wasn't the case.
So, like the Lad had done many times before, whenever his family went on car trips, Aoni passed the time by looking at the sparkling multi-colored crystalline walls as they flew by.
Much to his surprise, they truly appeared to be living organisms, thanks to the way the walls seemed to vibrate and move in time with his breathing.
After around 20 minutes of being amazed at the view, the Lad finally was able to regain his composure and run through the information that had been hammered into his head from a young age.
"So long as the walls are cloudy and colorful, I am not close to my destination; however, as they begin to clear up, I will be drawing near, and when I am about to arrive, I will be able to see through them as if looking out a window."
"Based on how dense the cloudiness of the Flume's walls are, I know that I'm not remotely close to my destination," and so Aoni's float down the winding crystal tunnel began.
Now, some things need to be said about the transfer; for starters, the Flume does two things, the first being getting Travelers from point A to Point B.
However, there is one massive issue that gets overlooked quite often, and that's the fact that there's a time dilation between Terra and Genovia of 72 hours, so One Terrian Day is equivalent to three on Genovia.
Thus, during the transfer between worlds, the Flume accelerates and acclimates travelers to the time differential.
Although Aoni was aware of this, as he'd been prepared for it, the strange thing was this shift in speed was completely unnoticeable.
What Aoni DID feel, though, was a tangible sensation akin to being in the water surrounding him from head to toe. Still, even this was expected, as he knew it to be the heavy density of Energia within the Flume.
"Ah, right, I can't get distracted; however, putting knowledge into practice is a whole different story," suddenly remembering something important and grumbling to himself as Aoni floated along; he leaned back even further until basically lying down flat and closed his eyes.
'Focus on the abnormal,' He thought while slowing his breathing and calming down his torrential thoughts.
'It's like being in an isolation tank, warm, comfortable, relaxing; this is Energia,' Unconsciously, Aoni's head started slowly swaying from side to side, similar to a fish lazily swimming along; only his head was the fishtail in this analogy.
'The moment I stepped into the world of Travelers, I tossed aside being a normal carbon-based lifeform, and my DNA shifted to that of a DNA Energia hybrid. This is part of me now, a normal sensation.' Aoni mused when suddenly, as if something had been unlocked in his mind, the density dropped off, and it felt no different than just existing on Terra.
Unseen to the naked eye, the ambient Energia that Aoni had been concentrating on had penetrated his body on a cellular level, merging with the Lad's DNA and finalizing the Transformation into a Traveler; now, all that remained was setting up a Flume in his Territory to claim his Lordship and Awaken the Dormant TD.
However, what the Ash-Blond Lad didn't realize was that he'd spent almost two hours completing the process. By the time his emerald eyes fluttered open, the cloudiness of the Walls had drastically cleared up, revealing a glass-like appearance and signaling his first Flume trip was coming to an end.
'I wonder where my Territory is located; I hope it is somewhere hospitable yet isolated. The last thing I want is to be surrounded by other lords; hm, 200 miles should be decent, yeah, let's hope for no other Travelers within 200 miles.' Cupping his chin with his right hand, Aoni nodded silently while his eyes never left the crystalline walls.
Finally, after having spent a little over three hours floating in the Flume, the world of Genovia came into view… unfortunately, what reflected through those crystalline walls was quite unpleasant because, as far as Aoni could see…was endless White.