Now knowing what he needed but having no clue where to get it, Xander and Nate set off to buy Xander some of the essentials.
The two went back down the mountain into the city and went on a little money-spending spree.
Xander bought everything he thought he could need for the dorm, several sets of clothes that he could both fight in and wear around casually, and the holy grail: a cell phone.
Xander was shocked at all the things the phone could do; it could text, call, play games, take notes, and all sorts of other cool stuff phones can do.
What did surprise Xander, though, was that cell phones still couldn't reach other planets; hell, they could barely reach other continents. Due to some form of interference from the tower, the ranges of cell phones were relatively small.
Soon they were back to the dorm, and after a nice home-cooked dinner, they were both asleep after a long day.
***
The next morning Xander woke up on cloud nine. It was amazing what a good night's rest on an actual mattress could do for you.
Both he and Nate woke up at the crack of dawn and went down to the cafeteria to get some breakfast.
They walked downstairs, took a couple of turns, and before long, they were in the academy's massive cafeteria.
Once they sat down to eat their food, they both started to have some small talk, and Xander learned what to expect for his first day.
First, he would go to the welcoming ceremony, then the school would put him through some tests: a general knowledge test, a tower knowledge test, and a basic IQ test.
After that, they would send him to have a combat assessment, and then he would go in front of a bunch of mentors to see which one he would end up with.
Before long, they were halfway done with their breakfast, and that's when the Kim twins, Jae-sung and Soo-jin, walked over to Xander's table and sat down.
"Hey Xander, I'm glad we caught you today," Soo-jin said with a smile on her face.
"Hey guys, it's nice to see you again. This is my roommate Nate," Xander said as he introduced his new friend.
After introductions were over, where Nate got to be amazed at the cool story of how they met a couple of days ago, it was time to go their separate ways. Nate, Jae-sung, and Soo-jin each had to go to class, and Xander had a welcoming ceremony to go to.
"Alright Xander, I guess we will see you later or something. I don't guess you've got a phone yet, have you?" Jae-sung asked.
"Actually, I do," Xander said.
After switching contact information, all four kids went their separate ways.
***
It took Xander a little while and a couple of stops asking strangers, but he eventually found himself at the welcoming ceremony held by the principal of the academy.
"Welcome all! We here at the Academy of Lumoria in Astraea look forward to helping you each reach your goals…" A long welcoming speech later, and Xander was on his way to take a couple of tests.
Xander followed the crowd of roughly 15 kids and several teachers, with the principal having taken his leave, down the hall, where they entered a classroom and started the written tests.
The first one was the general knowledge test.
It tested things like English, math, science, and things of that nature.
Xander did horrible on it. Having never been educated, he didn't know a damn thing about nouns and verbs or algebraic equations and graphs.
Everything Xander knew about the world and life in general was taught to him by Austin, who was lucky enough to have gone to school for a couple of years before their mother died, and they became dirt poor, unable to afford to go to school inside the city of Division 97. But it didn't really matter.
Before the test even started, the teachers told them that when these tests were looked at, the education level of the students was looked at with them. So, Xander's test scores, mixed with his zero years in school, would make a lot of sense.
After the general knowledge test, they tested the kids on their tower knowledge, and once again Xander did terrible. But after that was a little IQ test, and while Xander was no Einstein, he had always been smart, so he did really well on the IQ test.
Next, the teachers took the kids over to do a combat assessment.
Each kid would face off against their pick of several teachers, each with a different power. Some used fire, others water. One part of the combat assessment was being able to choose who you would do well against and take advantage of that with your selection.
Xander, being a user of death, didn't think he really had an elemental weakness. He thought back to the fight with the only person who really gave him problems, and it was the ice guy who could break his chains, but he still beat him relatively easily.
He decided to go against the power he had fought against the most: fire.
He was fighting against a half-step F-rank, so he stood no chance, but Xander fought the guy with 100% effort, using every trick he could come up with other than using his mirage trait, not wanting to give his biggest secret away and also thinking the dormant trait wouldn't even work on the F-rank anyway.
After several rounds, Xander's combat assessment was finished, and he was graded.
After waiting several more rounds for all the kids to go, the teachers finally led them back to the place where they held the welcoming ceremony, and waiting for them was a group of about 100 people all standing up on the stage.
One of the teachers walked up to the front of the stage and said, "Now all of you will have a chance to pick a mentor. Each of you will walk up, and the mentors will take a look at your reports on the written test and the combat assessment."
"If multiple mentors want you, you can make your pick of who to choose. If only one wants you, that's your new mentor. If no one wants you, you will be placed in a small lottery where you will be randomly given a mentor that currently has no or very few students."