Once Sylvester stepped through the gate, he was greeted with the sight of a large open space that looked to be a plaza.

Trees spanned as far as the eye can see planting themselves on the sides of the open space. Patches of grass growing on purposely placed gaps on the floor that was paved with a material that looked like limestone tiles, but gave off a hint of radiance.

There was a rather large pond in the middle of the plaza that housed a stone statue of a large open book floating in mid air that was spewing water upward as if mimicking rays of light.

“Isn’t that a little too heavy handed?” Sylvester thought to himself as he thought that the imagery was a little too on the nose. Everyone with a cognitive function can recognize what this was meant to symbolize.

Sylvester then looked up at the sky and was taken aback with what he saw. Up above him were colossal bronze structures hanging overhead, floating on the skyline and looming over the earth beneath.

These structures formed what appears to be a large clock-like structure that had five hands instead of three. Two circles divided the formation into two parts, the first separating the three innermost hands from the fourth, and another to separate it from the fifth.

Lastly, the entire structure is enclosed by a larger, all encompassing circle that closed it all off.

Numbers can be seen engraved on the titanic round objects. The innermost one had the numbers one to twelve all colored black like a regular clock, and the hands inside it behaved like how you would expect.

The outermost circle also had the same configuration of twelve numbers and black coloring. The middle circle however had numbers that ran from one to thirty one. For some reason, the number thirty one is colored red standing out from the rest.

Similarly, the hand that faced these numbers had the letter S engraved in it, also colored in red.

Strangely enough, the object does not cast a shadow and despite the sun is still high up in the sky which made Sylvester realize another strange aspect to all of this. He has been looking up for quite a while now and his eyes don’t seem to hurt one bit.

“Hmm, that’s strange.” He thought to himself as his eyes darted towards the sun as if on auto pilot. Yet, the pain didn’t come. Immediately however, he realized he was being stupid.

“Why the hell did I look at the sun? What’s wrong with me?” He scolded himself inwardly. Focusing his attention back to the gargantuan clock overhead.

After a short while, Sylvester realized what it was trying to convey so to confirm it he pulled out his phone from his pocket. Upon opening it he saw that he still had a phone signal for some reason, he even had his data on and a billion notifications.

“Oh shit, I forgot to turn my data off.” He then hurriedly tinkered his phone, then he suddenly stopped.

“Wait a minute, why do I have a phone signal and data?” At this point Sylvester’s questions started piling up.

“You would think a magic school would cut themselves off completely. Eh, I guess modern times are different.” Shrugging it off he checked out his home screen and looked at the date and time.

“Sunday, May 31st, 20XX.” and with that, he confirmed his little hypothesis. The clock-like structure in the sky told the time, day, and date.

“Huh. I’m impressed. I was expecting just a large clock tower at the center but this is way beyond what I was expecting.” He said to himself, expressing his feelings of amusement.

Suddenly Sylvester felt a small but noticeable mana spike from behind that caused his body to tense up by reflex. He then slowly looked back and sure enough, just like the elevator from earlier the giant gate from which he entered had vanished and all that was behind him was a large extension of the plaza.

The place was filled with awestruck onlookers, people who were aimlessly wandering around taking in the view and breathing in the atmosphere while some looked at the sky, flabbergasted at what their eyes were seeing.

This was the first time Sylvester has seen so many mages, or rather, mages in training gathered in one spot. He smiled happily, feeling a deep sense of belonging.

Taking in the surroundings with a deep breath, Sylvester prepared to move forward when suddenly the empty space on his right began to ripple like water. Before he could react a hooded figure emerged from the distortion in space.

The mysterious visitor wore a long light blue one piece dress with what looks to be something similar to a chasuble or even a stole layered on top of it, all secured by a brown belt wrapped around the waist. The stranger also wore a large, red outer cloak with the hood completely hiding the wearer’s face.

A sudden gust of wind suddenly blew over where Sylvester and the mysterious visitor were standing causing him to reel and cover his face, shutting his eyelids to shield his eyes from the intrusive gale. Within a short moment the wind has already passed allowing Sylvester to open his eyes once more, only to be entranced by a mesmerizing sight.

The stranger’s hood was flipped over, revealing the person underneath; a woman with pale white skin that glistened under the sun.

Her hair a lustrous silver color fashioned into braids that were arranged into two buns that hung on the lower back of her head touching the neck. but what captured Sylvester’s attention and curiosity the most were her eyes.

They were of an unnatural almost fiery crimson that only stood out in contrast to her pale skin and silver hair.

The woman, as if feeling the inquisitive gaze, turned her head towards and for a moment, sky blue met crimson red. She paid him no heed and simply raised back her hood, hiding her face once more.

As if on cue, ripples formed in front of the crimson eyed woman and just like before, three figures appeared on the scene as well.

Two, very tall and imposing men escorting a familiar looking woman. The three of them donned rather corporate looking attires, while the two men wore sunglasses that completely hid their eyes.

“Wait a minute. It’s the woman engraved on the gate!” Sylvester thought to himself and for some reason she still looked familiar to him. It was starting to frustrate him that his brain just won’t cooperate over something so menial. In the end he gave up.

“Greetings! Young mistress.” The woman said with a tone of respect towards the hooded visitor.

“Please follow me, the headmaster wants to meet you as soon as possible.” The woman politely requested, to which the woman simply nodded in response without saying a word. With a wave of her hand the space behind the group began to ripple and distort again. One by one they disappeared into the air leaving no trace.

Rudely enough, none of them seemed to care about Sylvester watching on the sidelines. In fact, they acted as if he wasn’t even there, but he didn’t care. For there was something else floating in his mind.

He grew up in a world of magic, where what is considered mysterious and oftentimes fictional, is an everyday reality. Yet there was something about that woman and it’s not just because of her peculiar features like the silver hair or the crimson eyes.

Sylvester couldn’t quite describe it and he doesn’t really understand why but there was only one way he could describe that short encounter; otherwordly.

He felt a jolt of adrenaline, of excitement rushing throughout his body. If he had any less control over himself he would start jumping with joy over the fact that this academy was everything that he had hoped it to be. He could hardly wait to unravel the mysteries and secrets that lay hidden under the gaze of the great clock in the sky.

Sylvester began walking forward, but suddenly stopped a few steps later. He looked back at the spot where the hooded figure once stood. Amidst his excitement, he remembered something he noticed about the woman that bugged him when their eyes met. He began to walk forward again only asking a question in his mind.

“I wonder, why do her eyes look so sad?”