After speaking with Guide Luria, Aurora walked up the stairs to the third floor, while passing a few students from Orlea that were reading and talking to each other.

– Okay. Where to, now? – Aurora said to herself, while looking at four corridors that led to completely different directions.

She walked towards the nearest one, right in front of the stairs, but it was full of Baos who stopped talking between them just to look at her like she was some strange and disgusting creature.

– Why are they looking at me like that? Aren’t they supposed to be super nice and stuff? I am not staying here. – she thought, while awkwardly smiling at them and taking a few steps back.

She was completely lost and the only feeling that occupied her head at the time was the one that makes you run without looking back. You can call it terror, or need of survival, but she only felt like running away from the Academy.

But something inside her was tying her to the school and making her stay and forget about escaping. And it wasn’t Guide Luria’s words, or her mother’s wish of her, coming to the Academy just like the rest of the family has for generations. It was something else... something inside her.

And of all a sudden, she felt it. She felt something behind her and it sent shivers down her spine as if it were a small ice cube that lowered her body temperature and disabled her movements. So she turned around, and saw an empty corridor, the one in the very south of the floor, and started walking, like some kind of giant magnet was pulling her. The students’ voices started to become a hypnotizing white noise that only helped to sooth the pulling.

Aurora walked, and walked, until the only thing between this magnetic energy and her, was a door. A small, wooden door with carvings on it. She used her right hand to reach for the doorknob, and after trying to open the door, she noticed that... it was locked. And all of a sudden, the pulling was gone too. The whole thing felt just like a dream and she found herself in the end of a dark corridor in the third floor of Aelhollow Academy.

– What the...? – she thought, while letting go of the doorknob and walking back to the main third floor and looking at all the paintings that used to embellish that place when the area was in its active years.

She got out the south corridor and noticed a group heading east, so she followed them while trying not to make eye contact with anybody after her encounter with the Gaiakin a few moments ago. And she found herself in front of the “Admission’s Office and Al’kin Quiz Comiteé”. Or at least that was what the sign, beside the arched wooden doors, said.

Aurora entered the office only to find herself at the start of a very wide and really long room, with a couple of students sitting on chairs, on both sides of the room, leaving a sort of walkway in the middle and looking like they were waiting for something to happen. She then noticed that, at the end of the room, there was a wooden desk with a grumpy old man behind it, wearing an indigo robe and looking at every student that came up to him with something alike despise. She walked up to him, but said nothing, as she didn’t know exactly what to say.

– Are you going to stay there, staring in silence, forever? – he said. – because it’s nearly been ten seconds and I’m already tired of you. –

She for sure didn’t expect such a rude response from him, but somehow understood his way of expressing himself.

– What if I do? You’ll give me some clichéd lesson while turning me into a frog? I, for one, don’t want to be here. But I have to. So please do not make things more difficult for me. – she replied, with a confidence that wasn’t there before, at least not since she arrived at the school.

– What has taken over me? – she immediately thought, after replying. And for the look in the old man’s face, he was thinking something alike.

And just before he could say anything back to Aurora, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Just the touch of it made her feel secure and unstoppable, like the confidence boost she just gained a few moments ago was there to stay forever.

– It’s okay, Solomon. I’ve got this. Please, open the gate now. – said Luria, while smiling at the grumpy man.

– G-Guide Luria, I’m just... I’m sorry, I... Thank you. – replied Aurora, while lowering her head.

– Do not worry, dear. I’m sure Mr. Guhndavaar doesn’t mind at all. After all, it’s not everyday a student dares to face him. – she replied. – Now, Solomon. Please let us in. –

Mr. Guhndavaar looked at them both and nodded, and as a ring of yellow sparks appeared and started spinning around them, they started to vanish and left nothing but an empty space.

The grumpy old man then closed his eyes and slightly smiled with a corner of his mouth. And after returning to his characteristic resting hate face, he called the next student in line.