City Pillar (3)

While each floor of every Pillar City had a number and designation, everyone didn't have time to remember each one for every conversation. Instead, different sections were given names for everyone to call them by.

The floors below the ground, no matter how many of them ended up being populated, were all known as the basement, or basement floors. They were mainly for people down on their luck, or for those that simply needed a roof over their heads. Though, anyone who's done work down there knew just how much shit went down under the ground.

From the ground to a couple hundred floors up were the Blues. Not that anyone who lived there would call themselves from that. It was all from the fact that most people who did grunt work for businesses, Delver organizations, and the odd government institution that survived the wars.

Finally, the Clouds. The place everyone wanted to be but didn't have the cash flow to actually make it possible. Entertainment districts, massive housings, and various restaurants are all the things that can be found in the areas as high as this in the City Pillar. And it only got better the higher someone went.

If Jason had to say anything, he would describe it as someone's literal view of prejudiced castes. He wouldn't say that, though. It was precisely this unfairness that let him live so high up in the pillar.

The teen tended to forget about that while inside the confines of the elevator, though. The walls were seamless. Smooth chrome metal that formed a perfect oval room. A few grates near the ceiling were all that was needed to keep the temperature controlled and any air pollutants out.

Without his friend to distract him, Jason was privy to the plethora of whirring gears and wires that echoed within the elevator shaft. He wasn't going to say that he could understand the inner workings from the sound alone, but he knew that the elevators worked with a couple that ran at the same time, forcing him to listen to the loud mechanisms every time he was on one.

Eventually, he reached his stop. He briefly checked his wrist, wincing as the time was easily within the early hours of the morning. Making a mental note to set his next hunt for an overnight thing, the teen soldiered out of the cool interior of the elevator.

The chill in the air immediately sent a shiver up the teen's spine. He quickened his pace as a red line lit up under his feet, setting up a path from the exit of the elevator to a small, glass kiosk. Around him, other people got off their elevators, adjusting their heavy coats and jackets as they filed in behind other glass kiosks.

Jason followed the crowd, ignoring the glances he got from his bloody clothes. In the lower floors like the Blues or Basement, no one really cared to pay attention to a bleeding teen. It was only in the Clouds that people tended to be wary about someone who looked like they had just gone a couple rounds with someone with a knife.

Luckily, the line moved fast, and Jason soon found himself in front of the kiosk. A well-dressed woman with a buttoned down shirt and tight skirt shot him a professional smile.

"Hello sir, can you pull up your housing certificates on your Holo." Her violet eyes looked over his form clinically. "And, should it be necessary, can you provide your Delver license as well."

The brown-haired teen nodded compliantly. Tapping the Holo on his wrist, a couple of lines of information flashed on the tiny screen before a red laser shone out from one of the front ports, hitting the glass kiosk.

The woman's smile grew a little. "Thank you for your compliance, mister Argo. Normally, we won't check newly registered Delvers, but there was a mishap in one of the atmosphere stabilizers on floor 317, so I hope you understand. If you have anything to say, I can forward you to someone who can help you on your matters."

"Uh, no thanks." Jason awkwardly said. He knew Delvers had a bunch of privileges, but the fact that they weren't checked in the Cloud floors was rather unsettling. Especially, since something happened so close to his own home.

"Fantastic." The woman said politely. She gestured behind the kiosk, pointing towards a translucent screen that seemed made out of blue hexagrams. "Your Holo is connected to the barrier. You should be good to go, but if you leave for whatever reason, you need to get it updated. Any questions, mister Argo?"

"No, no thanks." Jason hurried away, pausing in front of the barrier for a second.

His lips twitched a bit before he finally crossed it. If he had to describe the experience, it was a little like he had stepped through a large piece of wet paper. It was one thing that he just couldn't get over despite his awakening as a Delver; foreign mana sources never felt comfortable for anyone. Bring a Delver only made that feeling that much more uncomfortable.

Jason took a few short, staccato breaths as he acclimated to the air. It was a little odd since the floors of the Clouds were regularly cleaned and maintained compared to the Blues. However, it was similar to the rudimentary mana domain the Lyonire had set up. A place where Delvers could not recover their mana without poisoning their own reserves.

Nearby, several people gave him a wide berth, and only a couple stopped to watch him.

"Breathing solely through your nose helps."

Jason cracked an eye open to see a larger, white-haired man give him a nod with quick advice. The teen couldn't offer a couple words or thanks or questions before the older man had already left.

Shrugging, Jason followed the advice, and found himself adjusting faster.

In reality, the whole process took a couple of seconds. He wasn't hyped up on adrenaline to the point where he could ignore some of the discomfort, so it took more time compared to when he went into the Lyonire's similar technique.

With everything done, Jason took off in a brisk jog through the pristine streets of the floor. Compared to the Blues, there was barely anyone out at this time. Sure, there were a couple of people that took to the well lit streets, going on morning jogs at this unholy hour or walking their small, fluffy dogs. Most importantly, the streets weren't absurdly cramped; they were wide enough to fit a family of sixteen if someone tried. Not sure why you would do that, nor how you would find a family that big, but if it needed to be done, it could.

Jason shortly arrived in his own house. Unlike the faceless walls of the Blues, the block was decorated with windows and the entrance wasn't outlined by a simple divot in the wall. It was embellished with intricate pillars that framed a set of metal stairs that led up to a simple, metal door.

The teen shrugged up the stairs before he stopped at the door as a slot opened up on it and a glass hemisphere popped out. Blue letters appeared across the surface of the glass, stringing themselves into the sentence: Please provide a data key from your Holo.

Jason lifted his wrist, easily tapping the specific applications on his Holo. He aimed the front port of it at the glass hemisphere, and then waited for a red laser to shine into it.

A soft click, only audible to his ears, rang from inside the door. A mechanism hissed as the glass hemisphere sunk back into the metal, and the chrome metal split apart in the middle. The two equal pieces of metal slipped left and right, disappearing into the wall with only the quiet shuddering of the gears inside to clue him in.

Jason shot a glance over his shoulder –more out of habit than anything else, and then hurried inside as if he feared the doors would close on him.

The inside of his housing complex wasn't anything special. In fact, Jason would say that most of the improvements happened on the outside more than anything. As if they needed something to set them apart. He knew, from the times he visited his friend's places, how similar the housings were in the Clouds compared to the Blues.

In front of him was a long, narrow hallway. Claustrophobic and uninspired. Gunmetal walls boxed him in from all sides, and a strip of bright light illuminated the entire hallway from above. The hallway was bare from anything. Not that he expected anything other than the odd person who got up at this obscene hour. The only thing that stuck out were the odd glass hemispheres that were placed equally on either side of the hallway, drawing his enhanced vision to just barely catch the seams where he knew doors should be.

Jason briskly walked down the hall, going all the way to the back where a staircase spiraled up to the next floor. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes before he finally got to his home. He unlocked the door easily, and barely hid his flinch at how loud the hiss of the door's gears had been to his ears.

Quickly, he snuck inside, looking left and right at the small apartment he'd called home. The front door opened to the living room; a small space that opened up to a small kitchen to its right. A fur rug lay underneath his feet as he kicked off his dirty shoes, placing them on a rack that lay flush against the wall next to the door.

Unlike the bare metal walls, there were signs of people who tried their hardest to make the room feel lived in. A few holographic pictures shifted on the walls of the small apartment, showcasing different hunts his dad had taken him on or various pictures of his mom and dad together. In the middle of the living room was a well-worn couch filled with pillows, blankets, and as his hearing told him, the sleeping form of his mom.

A spike of guilt drove into the teen's heart as he caught the small program that was displayed from a small metal table that lay in front of the couch. He only caught the title of "Most Prevalent Dangers new Delvers face" as he quietly turned it off. As carefully as he could, Jason pulled the blankets further over his mom's shoulders.

"It's good of you to come home now."

Jason's heart leapt into his throat as he whirled around to the sudden voice behind him. His eyes caught a flash of black and white hair before he calmed down just a tad. Then, his thoughts caught up with him as he realized just how absurd his dad's action was.

"How did you even hide from me?" Jason whispered, moving over to the kitchen and away from the living room. It was pretty barebones as far as most places went, but it did have the essentials and it had a small counter with an opening in the wall that allowed one to see into the living room from the kitchen. "I couldn't even hear your breathing. Or how you even moved in such a silent room. How did you even do that?"

The black and white-haired man smirked at him. "I've been a hunter longer than you've lived, son. Some beasts have better hearing than some Delvers, you know."

Jason rolled his eyes as the man wriggled his eyebrows at him as if to say "figure it out yourself."

"In any case, why were you so late? I figured you would have gotten home faster," Jason's dad asked, tapping a finger on his lips. Then, the man shot him a conspiratorial glance. "Were you out with some of your friends from the Blues or something? I have an idea on where you were in the Hunting Grounds, but I don't think you should have taken that long to get back home if you stayed out…" Jason shuffled uncomfortably under the man's gaze as it stopped primarily on his injuries. "Those don't look like something a Delver can't shrug off."

Jason shook his head hurriedly. "Sorry… I uh, well," as if he couldn't figure out what to say, he quickly tapped on his Holo and opened up the Abyss Stone appointment. "I got a pretty good offer and might have missed one of the maglev trains."

"Oh…" His dad also seemed shocked before his face split in a wide smile. "I guess this is grounds for a celebration."

"Yeah?" Jason smiled happily.

"After your mom decides how she wants to punish you for getting home late."

"Shit."

"Shit, indeed." His dad nodded along with a smile.