Dale walked to the door of the house second from the end of the spiral. As he turned the doorknob, he felt a little excitement.

It was rare but the unknown occasionally excited him. He imagined that’s what it was like when rich people went on visits to the poor during ’philanthropic’ visits.

’You never know what you might see.’ He laughed at the thought. Just because Sarah’s dad was a philanthropist didn’t necessarily exclude him from Dale’s prejudice.

It wasn’t all rich people but it was always a rich person.

As he opened the door, he found his luggage already waiting there. "Creepy." He remarked as he closed the door behind him.

During the time in the underground city, he hadn’t seen anybody carrying their luggage around so how was it getting everywhere?

The inside of the house was as clean as it was plain. Very.

Behind the mahogany door he had closed was a simple living room with clear windows to let natural... unnatural light in.

A ceiling fan overhead started to spin as he flicked its switch.

He walked around and nodded.

Dale opened the windows to let fresh air in. The lack of dust inside was clear evidence that people had already lived in the house even before they arrived.

In honesty, he was a little disappointed that he hadn’t had the opportunity to see what his seniors looked like.

He had all the reasons to believe that there was at least one Ascended amongst the ranks of the now-third years.

Dale continued walking around the house while noting everything of interest to him.

The house had many things including a kitchen and bathroom.

He walked into the bathroom and removed the sheaths around his hips, placing his sabers on his bed.

There wasn’t much in the room except the large king-size bed, a wardrobe, and beige curtains. Dale ran his hands over his face.

He opened the wardrobe and looked inside. It contained exactly what he expected, second-year uniforms.

It was exactly like his from the first year except with silver embroidery instead of the more familiar bronze.

Dale raised an eyebrow. Hadn’t he seen this type of tracksuit before?

’Yes, I have. During the task. Trevor, Sarah, and Gary were wearing it.’ He tilted his head as he closed the wardrobe.

Had the military given it to them beforehand or was there another reason why they even had second-year uniforms?

"Now that I think about it, even before it was guaranteed that we’d graduate, their success was pretty much known year-round."

Dale shrugged and moved.

"There is still more of this place to explore? Damn." Needless to say, it was larger than any house that Dale had seen in the slums.

The only place he had seen that actually had homes that dwarfed it was the nation’s capital. Well, that and Grilon City.

It felt good to at least have a measure of privacy in an extremely crowded place.

As he continued to explore, he eventually came across a trap door.

"I’ve never understood the purpose of a trap door. Like why do I need a trap door that I have to manually open? Also, it’s always visible."

If he could see it then the person he was trying to trap most definitely could and unless the person was into that type of thing, they wouldn’t get trapped.

So to him, it was just a door on the floor.

Dale opened it, revealing a flight of stairs that spiralled down into what he could only assume to be the basement.

There was no light on so the place was as dark as it was oppressive.

"Ingenious design. What’s next, a creepy doll?" He sucked his teeth and ignored his bodily instinct to say ’nope’ and close the trap door.

Dale stepped inside half expecting a hand to grab his ankles. "On second thought..." He stepped out and walked into the bedroom.

Grabbing one saber, he quickly returned to the basement and placed his foot inside.

He gripped the handle, letting arcs of lightning coat the surface of the blade. It wasn’t much but at least it provided a rather dim source of illumination.

As he walked down, he slowly stopped feeling like a mysterious voice would whisper his name.

"Why are these stairs so long? Where does it lead to? Hell?" He was even sure that Hell was closer than where the stairs were leading.

Soon, his foot hit even ground and he walked forward.

With the orange light, he could barely see ahead of him but it gave him enough visibility to see the outline of the room.

It was arguably wider than even the rest of the house.

One thing that Dale noticed was the intensity of the energy provided by Eden... it had increased in quantity and quality.

If before he was calm then now he was pretty much drugged.

"This would have done wonders instead of that low-quality thing they sell in the slums... oh well."

It didn’t take long to find the light switch.

As he turned it on, he was immediately bombarded with a wave of awe and regret.

He was in a large underground dojo lined with tile walls and fluorescent lights. There were spaces for all sorts of weapons and various contraptions to help him train.

The regret was simply because of one of the aforementioned contraptions. It was the training Doll he had paid for the previous day.

"I almost drained my wallet because of this damn doll!" It hurt him and his wallet — arguably the latter more — to rent the doll.

Now, he was almost completely broke save for about the 15 credits he had left.

In hindsight, there was no point in crying over spilled milk... or rather wasted credit.

Waste of time and money aside, it was worth being in the top ten. Just being the 9th had provided him with so many boons.

He struggled to imagine what Trevor had in his home. Dale gritted his teeth.

If it came to it, he’d fight to keep his rank.