Astra sat on the modular sofa in her living room, her eyes rapidly scanning the pages of the book that she obtained from the study. Covered on its fine leather surface was a minimalist render of the violet moon that read: Dominion of Dreams.
As she finished reading, she saw small air particles that floated aimlessly under the blanket of the blue sun's light rays. Various pieces of furniture were getting touched by shadows where the light couldn't reach, their darkness stretching with every moment passing by.
Taking a deep breath, she closed the book and turned her head to look left—where the balcony was.
The sky was painted a dark blue-light purple hue. The sun had almost dipped below the horizon, causing some buildings to prematurely turn on their neon lights. The trees had casted shadows larger than themselves as they basked in the decreasing sunlight. Like always—vehicles were flying on the sky trails, some going into the aforementioned buildings.
Astra got up, her straightened blonde hair cascading down majestically. The pale blue ball of light followed her as she walked towards the study to place the book where it originally was.
She then went to the bathroom to check herself out using the mirror. She straightened her all-black uniform as she applied gloss to her lips.
After accomplishing this step, she exited the bathroom, and later on, her apartment.
…
Using an elevator, Astra traveled to her designated spot. As the violet barrier slid open, she stepped into a soundless chamber that was bathed in an ambient twilight. The walls were curved—lined with veins of softly glowing script in violet light. It pulsed in shifting languages as it rotated around the room, following the curves. Hard books floated around like stars in space, some resting on floating platforms.
Above, there appeared to be no ceiling as a vault spiraled upwards endlessly into a projection of the violet moon.
At the center of the chamber was a desk of polished obsidian that floated gently. Upon it was nothing but a spiraled book that appeared to move based on subconscious thought. There were strangely no chairs present, only a fog that permeated the chamber.
Upon entering this chamber, Astra felt a sense of familiarity ooze through her, despite her never even thinking about such things in this room. Her thoughts we'd calmed as she stepped deeper into the space. It felt oddly similar to how she first entered the Deli of Dreams.
Because of this, she knew that this was just an effect created by the subconscious powers of this chamber.
She nonchalantly glanced to her side. To her surprise, the pale blue ball of light still stayed with her.
"At the very least, it's connected to my subconscious…" After thinking this, Astra proceeded to lightly grab one of her hair strands and twirl it.
"Interesting…" She muttered as she saw no changes in her vision. Everything had stayed the same.
This meant that Geometrical Vision was rendered inactive here.
Twirling her hair strands once more, she continued to step deeper, her steps still soundless.
Then, Astra's head experienced a mild sensation—as if someone was lightly tapping on it.
She had instinctively known that this was her ethereal intuition. It flared up lightly, and it pointed towards the desk at the center of the chamber!
Astra immediately looked towards the direction her ethereal intuition led her to.
There, a figure stood.
It was a black silhouette, without any definition. It was similar to Astra's previous hallucinations.
Feeling alarmed, she felt a cold sweat ran through her forehead down to her cheeks, but no water came out of her skin.
Then, without any prior sign, the figure's features began to take shape.
However, it was still blurry; unable to be seen properly, like a dream.
A sense of anxious curiosity washed up from Astra's subconscious, causing her to step forward.
One step, two steps…
They were soundless, but still felt.
The moment Astra took the third step, the figure's blur was completely removed from her body. There was no prior sign or indication—clarity had taken over, just like that.
Astra gazed upon the figure, taking in her features.
The first thing that caught Astra's eye was her height. She was tall—almost as tall as James. Then, the next thing that stood out to her was her eye color: one was light purple, and the other was a deep black.
She had the classic black hair, however two strands of hair was adorned by her side as a large ponytail cascaded down her back.
She had young, white and fair skin, and dark glossed lips.
She wore the classic all black Dreamer uniform, with a crescent violet moon located on the breast of her shirt—a purple gleaming star resting under it. A black blazer was adorned over her shirt.
Despite only standing there, she gave quite an imposing, mature, yet beautiful aura.
As if she waited until Astra took in all her features, she spoke up, her mature voice resounding through the chamber.
"Nice to meet you, Dreamer Sera."
"Nice to meet you too," Astra exchanged the pleasantries.
"My name is Kaelyn Nyxen. I'm the Vice-Captain of your group, and the lecturer for your lessons." Kaelyn informed with a smile.
"I've heard quite a lot of things about you from James." Kaelyn added as she picked up the spiraled book from the desk.
"I've heard a thing about you too, Vice-Captain." Astra said in kind.
"That's not surprising. James does have a tendency to talk about his group members." She responded as she flipped through the pages, like she was recalling something.
Astra looked around, curious.
"This is where I'm going to be taking my lessons, right? I also take it that this place isn't exactly real?" She asked questions that were in her mind for sometime, ever since she came inside the chamber.
"Yes and yes," Kaelyn replied, her eyes never leaving the book. "This place is created by a third-dimensional Tier 2 Ethereal Artifact that creates a 'space' for the subconscious of those who want to use it."
"Obviously, it is controlled by the Rank 1 Dreamweavers. If it wasn't, people could be brought into their subconscious directly with no way out. They wouldn't even know a thing…"
"That's scary." Astra eyes creased as she replied.
"Anyway," Kaelyn looked up at Astra as she closed the book. "You know the protocol, right?"
"Yes. I'll be spending four hours each day for weekdays." Astra held her hand up as she lifted one finger for each subject: "It'll be covering the subjects: math, history, politics, science, and languages." She put her hand down. "Then, it will also cover physical training and some fundamental Ethereon knowledge."
"Correct. You do know that these lessons most probably lasts for six months, yes?" Kaelyn replied stoically.
Astra shook her head.
"It is not going to take me longer than a month to finish the course."
Kaelyn's eyes widened. After a second, she chuckled.
"I like the confidence. Given your capabilities, the chance of that happening is quite high."
"It's not confidence…it's more like an analytic prediction." Astra corrected Kaelyn in her head.
Smiling lightly, she later informed:
"Once you are done with the lessons, you will have to go on a few missions with some other Celestials in our group to see if you are able to put the things you learnt into practice. They will be light missions almost devoid of danger, so you don't have to worry. Once you're done with that, you can deal with Phantom-class anomalies on your own."
"At the same time, James will also take you to visit the inside of the Umbral Reliquary."
"The inside of it?" Astra asked. She was almost alarmed as she imagined seeing all of the dangerous Ethereal Artifacts, ritual ingredients, Orbs, and all supernatural items or weapons that may be used by Dreamlanders that was held inside of the vault.
"Yes." Kaelyn replied. "Heh, don't worry too much about it. Every Dreamer will have to visit the inside of the vault. It's completely safe as everything in there is sealed."
"I know, but it still sounds scary…" Astra retorted inwardly.
"In any case, let us begin." Kaelyn appeared to sit on nothing but fog near the lecturer's desk.
Astra copied her movements as she sat opposite Kaelyn, not minding the fact that she was sitting on nothing.
"Let us pray," Kaelyn said softly, her eyes closing as she placed her hands to her chest.
Astra did the same thing.
After praying, Kaelyn began her lecture.
"Our first section will be math." As soon as she said that, faintly glowing words and symbols of violet light appeared on the air.
The information contained basic mathematical operations—the order of operations, basic geometrical shapes, basic algebra and so on.
Astra gazed upon the words and symbols, but she immediately got bored. In that instant, she thought of a solution.
"I already know all of this," Astra said, her voice slow. "In fact, I already know math concepts above Calculus, statistics, abstract math…even number theory."
Kaelyn paused, her mouth still open. She tilted her head to the side, confused.
"Are you being serious?"
"Yes." Astra replied nonchalantly.
"If you don't believe me, you can ask me any mathematics question. I should be able to answer it."
Kaelyn shook her head.
"No, I believe you. The chance of that happening is certainly great, considering how special you are to the Dominion."
Continuing, she asked in a low voice:
"Are you really from Vytheris?"
Astra didn't respond. Her lips only curled upwards.
Kaelyn's eyebrows creased slightly, not out of frustration, but out of a strange mix of awe and confusion.
Inwardly, Astra had explained her reasoning for her actions and her solution.
"I think it should be obvious that my origins are highly suspicious, due to my abnormality and the attention the Dominion puts on me. I don't have to keep acting like I'm a girl from Vytheris, especially if it suits me. Even if they suspect I was among those people who transported, I still would be mostly immune…"
"Heh, it's almost like my status as a Protector makes me protected…"
Kaelyn cleared her throat as she asked another question.
"Ahem. Do you have an extensive knowledge on the other subjects? So we don't have to waste time with them also…"
Astra placed her hand to her chin and said, "I wouldn't say so, except for science. I can only say for certain that there was no need for us to do math or science."
Kaelyn exhaled deeply as she smiled. "Very well. Let's start with history then…"
Words appeared on the air once again, lightly illuminating the surrounding area with historical information.
It was information about the history of Morpheus and the officially named Third Dimension: Dimension of Dreams and Subconsciousness.
It also involved information about the Morphean Kingdom and its founding in the Chaotic Eon, and the wars it had waged against mysterious beings in the Transitional Eon. The artifacts and anomalies that sprouted due to such wars were also mentioned—including the Obelisk that rests in the center of Luna.
The Demigoddess and Her saints were also elaborated on: such as Aclima and Seth. Their actions during the Chaotic Eon was especially highlighted.
However, Astra already knew all of this information.
Through her research in the study, she was already familiar with such history!
The story was the same for politics.
As she 'lectured' Astra, Kaelyn's voice was dry, distinct from the soft and mature sound earlier.
This was because Astra was also familiar with the politics of the Morphean government!
She had already known of the Royal Family, the elections, and the relations the Morphean government has with other governments, such as Sentaia and its minor countries, and Nytheris and its minor countries.
As they went onto languages, Kaelyn fully understood why Astra was so confident. She had fully expected her to at least show some sort of struggle, but she simply breezed through the material!
It was almost like she was teaching a supercomputer!
They started off with the Sentaic language. But that too, was conquered by Astra—she fully understood the basics of the language, and was able to read, speak and write at the same level as an eight year old who has Sentaic as their native language.
As they approached the end of the lesson, all Kaelyn could've done was inwardly laugh at the absurd genius of Astra.
For just a moment, she felt that the shifting, dreamlike world surrounding herself was more normal than the woman in front of her—whose piercing, almost emotionless gaze looked as if she could see through anything.
Kaelyn came inside here expecting to lecture, but she only ended up discussing with the student she was supposed to teach.
With a sigh of both relief and awe, Kaelyn stood up and clasped her hands. With a soft voice that had a sliver of astonishment, she said:
"Well then…let's start with the physical section, shall we?"
Astra only nodded.