Chapter 36 - 35: The Magic Balloon

Chapter 36: Chapter 35: The Magic Balloon

Chapter 35: The Magic Balloon

Biiig Beeen! An alarm sounded across the reception station and pulled Noah out of sleep.

He opened his eyes. Morning light had crept through the window and settled on the edge of the bed.

"Morning already?"

He got up, splashed water on his face, grabbed his Academy card, and left.

Complaints trailed after the students coming out of the other buildings on their way to the courtyard.

"These beds are worse than our servants’ rooms."

"There was a bug in the blanket."

"One more night here would’ve killed me."

No surprise there. Most of them had grown up in noble houses. Shared rooms and cheap beds weren’t something they were used to, and even the mixed-blood ones had mostly lived far better than common humans.

The room wasn’t ideal, but he’d slept in worse conditions.

The station looked different. Staff moved through the buildings, and crates were being hauled off; some of the tents and structures were coming down as students filed out with their bags.

"Gather up! All new students to the main courtyard! Don’t wander off!"

The voice came from the middle of the station, but it reached every corner with an unnatural clarity.

Noah tipped his head.

"A spell to carry the voice."

He went with the rest toward the courtyard, and there he caught sight of Ethan coming from another part of the residences, bag over his shoulder, a bad night’s sleep written all over his face.

Ethan came over.

"Morning."

"Morning."

He rubbed his ear and looked toward the staff member whose voice was still bouncing around the area.

"They could’ve made it less annoying."

Noah said nothing.

The Jolnach boy was already there. Standing off to one side, apart from everyone. He had nothing but a small bag on him, and a few of the Academy staff still handled him with a certain care.

Ethan gave him a glance, then looked away.

Noah said:

"How far’s the Academy from here?"

"By land?"

Ethan thought about it.

"Weeks, if we’re lucky. Some of the inner passes the caravans don’t even use."

Noah looked at the mountains around the station. Peak after peak, running off into the distance, and no clear road anywhere that a big caravan could take.

"So we go using carriage?"

"Carriage?" a voice said.

The Jolnach descendant stood a little way off.

"If they meant to send us by land, they wouldn’t have built the station from the first."

He passed them and went on toward the front of the courtyard.

Ethan raised an eyebrow.

"At least we can be sure you’re not mute..."

The staff had started waving students back from the center of the courtyard.

Then a low sound, far off.

At first he took it for thunder in the mountains. But it didn’t stop.

One of the students looked up and pointed at the sky.

"What the hell ...?"

Every head turned to the horizon.

Huge white shape came out from behind one of the peaks, drifting slowly through the air. The closer it got, the clearer it became. slung beneath an enormous bag of air, metal running along its flanks and runes that caught the light every so often.

The talk in the courtyard died. Then it came back louder.

"It’s flying!"

"A ship?"

"How..."

Even Ethan stared at it a while before he managed:

"Never seen one up close."

Noah kept quiet.

He’d seen things fly in his past life, so flight itself wasn’t what got him. It was the way this world had done it. No engines, nothing he could read at a glance. Parts of the hull were covered in fine runes, and the stuff the body was built from didn’t look like ordinary wood.

He let it go.

He didn’t know what the runes did, and there was no reason to run his mana sense over a device that size with Academy staff standing all around him.

The Magic Balloon came in until its shadow swallowed half the courtyard, then it started down, settling outside the station. A heavy sound rolled out from under it when it touched ground. A wide door opened in the side.

Men and women in Academy robes stepped out, and the station staff went forward to meet them.

After a short exchange, the voice rose again.

"Get your things! Registered students only. Keep your cards on you and don’t fall behind!"

The whole courtyard moved as one.

Noah didn’t have much. He took his bag, checked his card and the last of his Magic Crystals were still on him, and went back to the gathering point.

Ethan had beaten him there.

"Got everything?"

"Yes."

"Good. I’m not spending another day here because someone left his bag behind."

The rows edged forward toward the Magic Balloon.

The nearer Noah got, the more its size sank in.

The Magic Balloon’s frame seemed far too heavy to bear anything.

Noah moved forward as he saw an employee at the entrance checking the arrivals’ IDs.

"Your Card..!"

Noah handed the card over.

The man ran a small piece of metal above it, and a faint light woke on the rune at the back.

"First row, left aisle."

He passed it back.

Ethan’s turn sent him to a different corridor, wherever his place was, while some of the mixed-blood students got funneled off to a section with shared rooms.

The Jolnach boy never joined the line. One of the Academy staff came for him in person and took him in through a side entrance.

Ethan caught it before they parted and muttered:

"Exceptions again."

Noah went in.

The narrow corridor had a gray floor that wasn’t stone or wood. He tapped it with his shoe. It made a hard, solid sound.

"Not wood."

He walked on. The doors had numbers, and small lamps above them.

He found his room and opened the door.

Small. But better than last night. At least he has a clean bed fixed to the wall and a small cabinet with a table that can barely fit one person.

Noah put down his bag and went outside when he heard a voice like a loudspeaker: "Stay in your assigned seats during takeoff."Do not attempt to enter outer spaces ,rest areas are marked on the maps in the corridor."

"if you fall, we will not come back to save you."

The place was quiet

Was it a joke? Noah wasn’t sure.

A few minutes later the hull shuddered under his feet, and a light weightless came over him. His hand went to the edge of the table when he looked out the window.

The ground was dropping away.

The temporary buildings shrank bit by bit. Then the courtyard and the roads folded in on themselves, and soon the station was just a scatter of dots among the mountains.

Noah stood at the window. Since leaving Lupton he’d crossed mountain roads, fought assassins and Ogres, hidden his strength from mages, seen for the first time how the real world dealt with talent and blood.

But now there was nothing left between him and the Academy except this one ride.

The Magic Balloon pulled away from the station and turned toward the deep of the mountains.