Astra and Colette had to rebuckle themselves in their seats as their time in zero gravity came to a rough halt. Outside, people dressed in fancy suits came running out of a big station similar to the one on Terra, and they all waved colorful glowsticks to direct where the rocketship should land. It was a sight to see, their coordination—boots stomping on sparkling milky roads—and after a moment they led the Voyager to a wide open glitterfield where the ship could activate its reverse thrusters and descend below in a big landing.

  Soon, a boom shook all throughout the ship, and the captain’s voice echoed out from the metal box. “Boys and girls, we have officially arrived at our destination: Excelsior Academy! For now I’ll have to ask you to remain seated for a bit, just until the service folk outside finish their proceedings. Then after that we’ll start the deboarding process and you kids will be free to get out of here and enjoy the crystal clear weather of Excelsior! Don’t worry about finding your way. Professional guides will be stationed outside to lead you to the academy’s entrance, where further details about the enrollment process and where to take your test will be explained. That’s all from me! Thank you for riding TASA Airlines, and I wish you all the best in becoming official students. Captain Stanley M. Lieber, over and out.”

  After a moment, another green floating thumb gave Astra and Colette the go-ahead to jump out and join the steady procession of kids in the hall as they climbed down the ladder and dipped past the lower lowers. Excitement fluttered in the air from the children’s collective conversations. Some speculated about what the entrance exam could possibly be while others were just focused on trying to stay calm; but as kids inevitably do, their imagination got the better of them, and the more they worried over the test the more stressed they became.

  This entire realm, in all its glittering crystals and celestial wonders, was made solely for the sake of housing Excelsior Academy. The grandness of it and the majesty of what could possibly be their new school… for those still at the tender age of ten years, it was difficult to fathom. But what they did know was what their parents told them. They were told to pass at all costs, for this was the most prestigious institution in all the swirling cosmos. A place where rulers and heroes were born.

  Astra was a bit overwhelmed by it all, his fellow kids and their desperation. Of course the boy wanted to do his best and to fulfill the promise he made with Lady Selene, but these noble children were on a completely different level in regards to pressure, the burden of succeeding.

  He asked Colette whether this was normal, and she replied with a curious tilt of her head.

  “But of course, dearest Astra. For many of the Constellations’ realmsteads and their respective ruling class, those at the very tip top are often former students from Excelsior Academy. Even my esteemed father is an alumni of the school. My lovely butlers and maids told me it is no small exaggeration to say that one cannot enter the succession race for the throne unless they graduate with honors, but since I am an only child and my father’s beloved princess he said I needn’t worry about schooling and instead should study at home. Of course I disagreed with him and such is why I am here now. But for these lesser nobles, that is to say those who aren’t part of their Constellation’s direct lineage, passing could mean the difference between inheriting their house or yielding to a rival faction.”

  Geez, there sure was a whole lotta confusing stuff these kids had to deal with. And all because they came from a rich family! Astra supposed what paw said before was right. Everyone had their own problems.

  “Oh dear, everyone is moving so quickly. Let us hurry before we are trampled into little wool clumps!”

  Astra and Colette continued to exit the rocketship and eventually stepped down onto the lowest base. There, a big crowd of bodies squished against each other and rushed to leave through a narrow door. The two squeezed past one body after another until, at last, the rays of countless sibling suns outside washed over them in all the colors of the rainbow; and thus they took their first steps in this brand new world.

  Outside, the children followed TASA’s guides to the station, where after walking through the glass entrance and a few more sections they were welcomed inside what seemed to be a waiting room filled with snacks, drinks, and poofy chairs to relax in. Apparently there was another group of potential students that arrived before them—the Leos, Sagittari, and Gemini from the planet Aegis—so they had to stand by for a moment until the next rotation was ready.

  For those from super, super influential families though, they were escorted by their respective nations’ own personnel and servants, which unfortunately meant that Colette would have to part with Astra. She was a princess after all, one who upon the moment of entering the room was smothered by the care of the Aries’ stewards. Astra could hardly see her fluffy pink hair amidst the sew of polished suits and dresses.

  “N-now this is most uncalled for!” she yelped, trying in vain to escape her adoring retainers. “Oh dear, please do not coddle me so. Surely I am capable of walking myself to the academy’s entrance, no?”

  Unlike her first bout against her servants, however, this was an argument she couldn’t win. The butlers and mids crossed their arms and refused to move an inch until she agreed to go with them.

  Colette pouted unhappily, but in the end relented and turned to Astra to bid him goodbye.

  “I do apologize for this sudden parting, dearest Astra,” she said with a guilty frown.

  The boy was feeling a bit glum himself, however he didn’t want to worry his new friend nor get in her way, thus he put on a smile and gave her a big wide hug, before stepping back.

  “It’s okay!” he said. “Once we’re both admitted into the academy, we’ll see each other every day anyways.”

  Colette giggled. “Yes, I suppose that is right. We will both pass and that is undoubtedly without question. It must be so, for I can imagine no one more confident than you my first and beloved friend. Until our reunion, au revoir!”

  With that, Colette and her entourage left, leaving Astra alone with the other less influential children. Though compared to him their backgrounds were still nothing to scoff at. He was the only outsider here, a nobody from a place so rural it didn’t even have a name—just a farm out on the periphery. Nonetheless Astra remained undiscouraged. Even if he had a slower start than everybody else, eventually he’d catch up as long as he tried his best.

  After a few minutes, a new group of TASA agents entered the room, and they began to line up the kids into neat rows before taking them outside the building. Astra diligently followed them, while also blatantly ogling the scenery they passed through, for it was all just so new and wondrous and… cool. No matter which direction he looked, there was someplace that glittered, sparkled, or shone in some way. Eventually the kids hopped onto a rowboat that sailed through a river of milky stardust, its path gliding through hundreds of other twisting routes just like it, but in the end they all lead to the same destination. All roads convened near the towering, prismatic gates of Excelsior Academy, where at its base flocked a gathering of surely over tens of thousands.

  Once the boat reached its destination, the TASA agents told him that from here on out this land was Excelsior’s domain, and as such the company wasn’t allowed to progress farther. The kids would have to travel the rest of the distance on foot. Fortunately, the path was pretty straightforward—as in all Astra had to do was go straight and follow the crowd. Near the gate was a reception zone with long clusters of booths operated by the academy’s faculty. Some of them looked like teachers, while others seemed to be current students who volunteered to help. One thing was for certain, though, and it was that each one of them were very powerful. Just glancing at them caused shivers to run down the boy’s spine, for no doubt in their heads a world of knowledge and experiences Astra could only dream about were contained within.

  After waiting for a long while, it was finally Astra’s turn to walk up. At the booth was a young man who couldn’t be more than a few years older than him, yet despite so had thick bulging muscles the size of Astra’s entire skull. He wore only a thin shirt without sleeves and had a chin so chiseled it looked like it could cut someone with the edge.

  “Hm? Haha, is that a fellow Taurus I see?” the man shouted in a voice perhaps a bit too loud for the occasion. “Ah, to be young. I remember when I was still a freshman… which was only five years ago, but time goes quick at Excelsior! Nice to see another bull taking a shot at the entrance exams.”

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  Astra was flustered by the man’s sudden blunt manner of speaking, but in a way it was kind of comforting because it reminded him of the often rough but loving attitude of his family back home. One thing the man got wrong though was that he wasn’t entirely a bull. Astra’s mom and her family came from Capricorn, so he considered himself half bull and half goat. But saying that would probably make the mood awkward so he just went along with it. “Woah, how did you know?”

  “Easy! It’s your muscles. Toned, well-defined, probably built up from doing good ol’ fashioned hard labor. That kind of mettle can only come from someone born on Terra. These noble kids from other planets tend to look down on our kinda lifestyle, see, but if you ask me true strength comes from tradition and the pursuit of honest, simple living.”

  The man suddenly smacked his forehead. “D’oh! I’m getting ahead of myself. The name’s Bovanok. Which family are you from, kid? I try to keep up with what’s going on in Tauramere, but I have so many brothers and cousins popping up all the time that it's hard to keep track, haha! Let me guess, maybe Uncle Bovumile’s illegitimate child? He always struggled with keeping it in his pants around a pretty lady. Those green eyes aren’t common in us bullkin, though… second try: Aunt Esther who married that noble from Capricorn! Is she your mother?”

  Astra shook his head multiple times as the Taurus noble called Bovanok kept firing off random guesses.

  “Dang, none of those were right? I must be losing my touch,” he sighed, cracking his fingers. “So what’s the answer?”

  Astra hesitated for a moment, not wanting to disappoint his fellow countryman, but he also didn’t want to lie if he could help it. Papa Henry said it’s inevitable sometimes that you have to be mindful about certain things and about what should and shouldn’t be mentioned, but that didn’t give a fella a free pass to do it whenever they wanted. Lying too much about big stuff would eventually make you lie about small stuff. And when you start lying about small stuff, it makes it easier to lie about anything. By that point all that’d come flapping out of your lips would be nothing worth saying. That’s why one shouldn’t become too comfortable with it, and try to be truthful when it matters.

  “I’m, um, not a noble,” Astra said. “Just a boy who once lived on a farm and now dares to dream real big dreams, that’s all.”

  Bovanok leaned back and fell silent. His expression was hard to read, neither disappointed nor friendly. Instead he was just confused as if he simply couldn’t comprehend what compelled a commoner to come all the way here so far from home.

  “Just a boy, huh?” he repeated slowly, before taking a deep breath and then planting his hand on Astra’s shoulder. “How’d you get here, kid?”

  “On a rocketship.”

  “It must’ve been expensive, especially if your family’s getting by only on a farmer’s salary.”

  “A nice lady gave me a gift that helped cover the cost, but yeah my dad would’ve had to work for years to make that amount back.”

  “Then you should’ve used that gift to help improve your folks’ business.”

  Bovanok wasn’t quite being hostile, far from it. In his eyes Astra saw a genuine hint of concern, and while the boy appreciated it, regardless it didn’t change the fact that the man was clearly looking down on him.

  “Listen, I know it sounds harsh, but Excelsior isn’t the kind of place you can get into just because you wish for it hard enough. It’s difficult to pass, and it’s difficult to continue staying even if you do. It’s brutal for nobles and the starblessed, much less a commoner with no backing. Sometimes we’ll get applicants from wealthy merchant families, and when that happens… well, I’m not going to say anything. They’re filthy rich and they want to flaunt it, fine by me. But kid, you’re different. And yeah it might sound a bit hypocritical coming from someone like me, but the money you spent on that rocket could’ve changed your life in other ways.”

  Of course the thought had crossed Astra’s mind. He had four months previously to think about it, after all. Whenever he trained. Whenever he looked to the sky. Whenever he’d gaze at his parents and how they toiled to keep their small, humble little farm afloat, the allure of just cashing in the jewel Lady Selene gave would oftentimes entice him. Astra wasn’t stupid. He knew just how crucial money and its value was.

  “You could’ve expanded your family’s farm, hired more people, turned it into a bigger industry. You could’ve bought a van which’d make transporting your goods a lot quicker. Heck, even just buying more long-lasting equipment would help your parents. My point being, kid, is that… sometimes, it’s better to take the safer path, the one you know’s guaranteed to work. Better to tread the road already paved than going off course and suffering because of it.”

  Bovanok snapped his fingers, which caused a piece of paper to suddenly manifest into thin air. Then he took out a pen and began writing on it. Astra couldn’t quite tell what he was doing at first, but when the man finished and laid it flat in the booth, he realized that the slip… was a check. A check for an exorbitant amount of money perhaps even double the amount he spent on the rocket’s ticket.

  “Take it to the central bank at Tauramere,” Bovanok said. “It’s got my seal and official stamp, so you shouldn’t have any trouble cashing it out. Consider it an investment from one man to another. You were brave enough to come here in the first place, so I have no doubt a business of yours will start thriving in no time. Use that money to realize your potential.”

  Astra stared hard at the check, before defiantly pushing it away.

  “Hah, alright. Now listen. I can tell you’re a good, sincere kid—real stubborn just like a proper bull—but that’s why you have to go back. The academy’s test is… you’re not going to get hurt, the Virgo healers will make sure of that, but it’ll be much more than you can handle. Some kids get rejected and have it haunt them for the rest of their life. It’s what happens when you have too much pride, expectations. Rather than going through that, it’d be better to go home and focus on what you can actually accomplish. Trust me. I’m sparing you from a world of pain.”

  Even so, Astra refused.

  He refused, because despite those nights he’d sometimes endure thinking he wasn’t capable enough, or that his plans were foolish, unrealistic, and naive, Astra nonetheless remained strong and held true to his belief that this was right. Maybe one day he’d regret it. But, now wasn’t that day.

  Rather than take the easy path and forever regret what could have been, he’d instead shine bright, fighting to his very last for the sake of his dreams and the people he promised, hand over heart, spellbound in starlight.

  That was his declaration to the universe, regardless whether it supported him back.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Bovanok,” Astra replied with a toothy grin. “I still want to try. Even if it does hurt, then that’s okay. But just because I’m not like you, or a noble, or any of these other kids who’ve had a ton of other opportunities, doesn’t mean that I can’t be allowed to dream.”

  The man covered his face and let free a long, tired sigh, before looking up at Astra as if he were the biggest fool he had ever met. And yet, he could respect that. Bovanok laughed and ripped the check he wrote to shreds.

  “If that’s what you want, then you do your damn best to make it happen,” he said, giving Astra a firm handshake. “But just know that when a man makes a decision, he’s gotta follow through it all the way to the end. I won’t be writing you another check. That was a present for a potential businessman, not a potential student. So here’s my new proposal: pass the test, become my junior, and then I’ll gift you something far more valuable.”

  Astra spoke, curious. “What’ll that be?”

  “My sponsorship.”

  Bovanok turned around and flexed his muscles in a big show, revealing the crest of Taurus planted on his back. “For all eight years you’ll be attending school, I’ll cover the cost… under the condition you come work for me once you graduate. My father’s the king’s brother, that’s to say Bovicus is my uncle. We could use a kid with guts like you in our court. But only if you pass. Got that?”

  Once again, Astra shook his head. “I don’t know, Mister Bovanok. I came here because I wanted to become someone who helps everyone, not just the bulls. My dad said it ain’t good to pick sides right away. I want to decide where I’ll go… only after I graduate.”

  “Shucks, you’re just making me want you as my advisor even more. That’s fine. I’ve got a whole lotta time to convince you afterwards.”

  With each of their intentions clearly declared, Bovanok then grabbed a sticker from beneath the booth and neatly attached it to Astra’s shirt. The words ‘Candidate 24601’ were written on it. “This is your registration number. It’s proof that you’re here to participate in the entrance exam, and also comes with a pre-inscribed safety function that’ll warp you out of the test automatically if you’re ever in danger, or if you want to give up early.”

  Astra confidently nodded. “I’m ready.”

  “Then go get them by the horns, kid. Don’t bother telling me your name. I’ll see it bright and clear once you’re formally inducted.”

  The two exchanged a brief fist bump, before the boy walked forward and made his way past the gate along with the other test takers. Astra had expected to see a view of the school, or at least part of it, but instead there was only a wide empty yard: almost, for at the center was a pulsating wrinkle like the one he saw at the Tower. Those ahead of him didn’t hesitate. They marched stoically within and were transported across space to where no doubt the academy’s entrance exam would finally commence.

  Every second that passed, the line grew shorter, until finally it was his turn to go. Astra took a deep breath. He steadied the pounding of his heart, how his fingers trembled in anticipation, and then… he stepped forward, and allowed the world around him to distort into hazy, vivid blurs.

  When everything returned to normal and his feet landed on solid ground, Astra looked around him, only to be greeted by a bizarre sight.

  He was inside a stadium, a stadium which spanned the entire length of a city.