Xavier saw at least a 1000 people standing in line. When he came near the line, he heard a lot of people talking.
"Finally the yearly recruitment is taking place. I've waited for a few months already. As long as I can get into the academy, I'll be able to secure my future and lead a good life."
"Well that is if you can graduate from the academy. As far as I know the criteria for graduation from the academy is to reach the Martial Grandmaster stage in 10 years. But that's very difficult and out of a thousand, only a few reach that stage."
"Yes. Can you believe it. Even the city lord is at the Martial Lord stage. To read the Grandmaster stage will be very difficult in of itself and to reach it in 10 years, its even more difficult."
When Xavier heard this, he was a little surprised. As far as the information he got from the system, the knew that cultivation began from the foundation stage which had 9 levels and the following were the Master, Grandmaster, Lord, General and finally Martial King which each has 4 stages, the primary, middle, high and peak stages.
When he asked about the further stages, the system said that he didn't have access.
Xavier went to the guys who were talking and asked, "Isn't it a little tough to reach the Grandmaster stage in 10 years and graduate from the academy? Won't most people find it difficult to get a good job then?"
The guy looked at Xavier and said with ridicule, "Looks like you are from a poor family seeing that you are such a noob. I'll tell you, this is the criteria for most academies in cities but since our academy is very new, it has a revised criteria. You can graduate if you reach middle level of master stage within 6 years. But that's considered only a false graduation and you'll only be given a token. But if you do graduate truly, you'll get a medal. That's basically a pass which will settle you for the rest of your life as you'll be talented enough to get a good position in the city."
"Oh, that's achievable then." Said Xavier softly.
The boy heard this and said in disdain," That's achievable? You say it like its easy. Even with this criteria, most people get eliminated because of the yearly exams and also the final exams are even more tough. Out if the thousand who have lined up here, I'd say only about 50 can graduate and even in that only 1 or 2 can graduate truly. Most of these people get employed by the City Lord Castle as they need the strongest to maintain the safety of the city."
"And if you think that you can pass that easily, I'll bow down and call you granddaddy." Said the other guy, his voice laced with disdain.
Xavier didn't mind this as he had spent thousands of years alone and he like the new feeling of talking to strangers. He then asked," Where should I go for the mechanic exam?"
When the 2 heard this, the disdain in their eyes deepened and they told ''So its a trash who wants to join the Mechanic division. I guess it now makes sense that you don't know anything. You're just a poor bumpkin that going to be picking scraps. Go away from here. The trash exams is on the west. There will be a few people who'll be lining there."
Xavier got a little annoyed by this disdainful attitude. 'Even if the department is not that developed, it must not be that bad right.'
[This is the southern most city in the country. Its the most remote city in the whole Sector. And given its remoteness, even after 10000 years, its still like a village. So the regional development is still bad and its mainly due to the being continuous monster attacks, most of the focus is on development of the defense and army. Most of the mechanics are from the other nearby cities. But most of them are rejects as they are not up to standard I'm their own cities and they have come here for some earning.]
'Oh so its like that. Now I can understand why the tech is still a so backward when compared to the capital from 10000 years ago.'
As he thought about the backwardness of the City, he reached the west region of the campus. There were about 50 people in a line. They were not as nearly as well off compared to the people lined up for the Combat department, but still there were around 5 people who looked like they were well off.
Xavier joined the line and finally finished his registration. He went near the crowd and soon a boy near him asked," So what's your reason for joining the Mechanic department? I'm Josh by the way."
"Orphan, poor, need money." Said Xavier in concise. "Oh, the usual then. Most of those who come here are like that."
Just as they were about to continue their conversation, a middle aged man came out and said," Welcome all of you. This year's recruitment shall commence. The test has 2 stages. Theory and practicals. I assume that all of you have at least the basics down since you are joining the department. So get ready. The exams will start in 20 minutes "
When Xavier heard this, his eyes widened,' System, you didn't say anything about basics!'
[Ah! I forgot. I'll send the information about mechanics.] Said the System awkwardly.
Xavier felt very bad about this as he had a premonition that this system was not very reliable.
Xavier soon felt a wave of information coming into his kind. After sorting it through, Xavier was shocked. It contained all the knowledge one needed from rank 1 mechanic to a rank 6 mechanic.
'Oi system, isn't this knowledge a bit too much for me right now.?'
[No. Its just enough. It can't even be compared to the basic course you've finished in the system space. And as you go higher, the technology you learn will become obsolete. The System ordered you to become a mechanic because the host can't attract too much attention too soon as it will be detrimental.]
Xavier nodded as he heard the reason. The knowledge he gained from the system isn't even a hundredth of what he had learned from the practice space and wasn't even a thousandth as difficult.
He soon got into a room with all the others and began writing the exams. As soon as he saw the questions, Xavier began to have a headache. While knew the answers, he wasn't sure how to simplify them and he knew too much and the instructor may not recognise all the answers he and written.
After pondering for a long time, Xavier finally wrote down all the answers as simple as he could and gave the sheet when the time was up.
After that, the middle aged instructor came out and said," Now we will start the practical exams. Before telling you the test, I'll say this first, if you didn't do well in the theory, fret not. If you have good practical knowledge, you'll still be recruited."
"If you do well in the theory but not in the practical, you'll be sent to the R\D department so that you can use your theory applications to help there. If you do well in then practicals only, you'll be appointed to the construction block and you'll learn how to build everything from the smallest omniband to the biggest defense weaponry."
"If you do well in both, you'll be sent to the elite class. You'll be taught by the best of the best and you'll be given the best faculties. But at the same time you'll be under the most pressure. I'll tell you your curriculum after you guys enter the elite class."
"Now for the topic, you have all seen the one thing everyone uses. Its on you from birth to death, yes, its the omniband. There are many generations of omniband. Today, we will give you the last generation of the omniband and some instruments. You should upgrade it and if they are up to the set criteria, you'll pass and get into the elite class. Those who don't reach the criteria but still show good performance will be put into the 2 blocks depending upon your wishes."
"Now go to your stations and start the exams. You'll have 5 hours to finish it."
As soon as the middle aged man said it, all the participants went to the stations with their names and saw an omniband which was a little old fashioned and a black coloured rectangular box which was 4*2*2 feet in dimension.
This black box is called the nanokits. These kits have very high precision and are usually used to make the compact gadgets.
Xavier opened the box and placed the omniband on the sample platform and switched on the seoerator to split the omniband into many parts. These omniband are held together with gigamag forces and each of them are very study. The separator negates these forces in small quantities and helps to split open the devices.
Xavier soon saw many parts including the Nanochip, the circuit and optimiser. As soon as he saw the parts, he frowned.
'These are really inefficient designs. Look at the nanochip patterns for example, they are in a crystal spike array instead of a crystal spiral array. While the spiral array is a little difficult to stabilize, you can use a alloy of carbon and nonium, 2 of the most coomon materials available on the planet to solve it easily. While it difficult for others to fuse these two into an alloy, for me, its very easy. Especially since I know the rune to stabilize the alloy.'
Xavier soon got to work and took out the bars of carbon and nonium and soon melted them in a heatproof ceramic bowl. As soon as he did this, the mixture started boiling showing its instability. But Xavier soon sent a beam of light discreetly from the tip of his fingers into the bowl surface. There was a small microscopic pattern on the bowl which was carved by the light. These runes shone and stabilized the mixture to from the alloy.
He took the mixture into the engraver container and using the controller, altered the spike array into a spiral array by overlaying the patterns on the chip. While this will reduce the performance which can be brought out from the spiral array due to the overlap, it'll still be twice as fast as the old device with twice the processing power.
While this was done, it took Xavier almost the whole time. He just barely made it and assembles the omniband as he breathed a sigh of relief as the buzzer rang.
"Alright, times up. Now well see the result. Bring your omniband up one by one. The criteria for passing will be an optimisation of 3 percent in performance." The middle aged instructor said
"First, it will be Richard Wade."