’I’m gonna ignore the fact that you seem to believe that I would require any of us to do something so redundant as "signing up" for a College I am in charge of as if I didn’t already push through all our names and even put everyone down for scholarships.’ Rolling my eyes, I pushed away from the stone barrier overlooking the courtyard, spun around, and walked 10 feet toward the stairs leading to the first floor.
’I tried to tell him you’d do something like that, Taylor, but your brother refuses to listen to anything I say.’ Appearing beside me wearing a blue miniskirt and baby blue crop top, something very much so out of UHS Dresscode, Xilia quipped while looping her arm through mine and walking as if we were a couple.
And well, from an outsider’s perspective, we were. Xilia, erm, Renni was 100% one of the popular cheerleader types, and as such, was constantly hounded at every twist and turn by teenage boys, so to solve this, at some point during our sophomore year, she began telling everyone we were dating.
And well, it went about as you’d expect, me, the emo guy in great shape, and the preppy cheerleader; it was a mismatched pairing, but after putting down a handful of the annoying football players who came after me because they wanted Xilia, things calmed down.
Still, even after two years, she kept this little game up.
And unfortunately, I was so accustomed to it that I didn’t even bat an eye or cringe at her fake physical affection.
’Is that so? Why do I feel like you only gave him a fraction of the proper information and not the whole story?’ Looking at her as we made our way around the back of the forming crowd, I asked, causing the girl to stick out her tongue.
’Lisssten, if it weren’t for Emilia getting all skittish every time I come around, then we wouldn’t have this problem, but Nooo~ even after all these years, she still acts like im trying to steal her man any time she finds us talking alone.’
’That’s bullshit, and you know it, Xilia!’ Jumping in to defend herself, Emilia snorted while eyeing us from a distance as we made our approach.
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’Half of what you say to us is in riddles that make no sense, or just plain you teasing us!’ She blurted out, causing me to raise an eyebrow, given how humorous it was.’
’Regardless, the fact of the matter is you all should have known better than to assume I’d have you make a spectacle of signing up; I mean, sure, Emilia, you’re the school ace volleyball player, even as a freshman, Brenden is State champion in wrestling as a sophomore, and well, Xilia is the Cheer Captain as a junior.’
’Besides, Emilia, I don’t understand why you are pushing so hard to get in right now. You are the youngest one here, and the only reason you are a freshman right now is because I falsified your documents, making you seem a year older.’ Walking up behind my brother and sister-in-law, I watched as several people I recognized went up to the table and signed up, along with paying the application fee.
That’s right, the Application fee. Although I wouldn’t see much of the 50-dollar charge, given how many people around the country wanted a shot at entering the tower or getting a superpower of their own, it was a no-brainer to charge them a small amount for entrance into the testing process.
And unlike a traditional college, the requirements I had set were vastly different.
For starters, I didn’t give a shit about academic achievements or testing scores; no, the test was broken down into three segments, practical, logical, and physical exams.
The practical exam was a basic survival test; the logical one was on paper and, in all honesty, wasn’t difficult at all, so long as you had common sense. And lastly was the physical exam, which, so long as you didn’t live in your mom’s basement eating Cheetos and Pizza Rolls, was easy to pass.
Run a mile in under 15 minutes, do 30 pushups in a minute, 25 situps, 30 jumping jacks, and, lastly, five pull-ups.
In reality, the testing for the colleges wasn’t that far off from entering the military, except maybe a step or two easier. However, unlike the multiple branches of the military, which offered secondary benefits that would only apply after you were enlisted and had been in a certain amount of time, from the moment you stepped foot on the College Grounds, you’d be receiving many valuable resources.
From potions to gear and other resources, you would be several leagues ahead of people entering the tower without preparations.
And the best part about all of this was that it wasn’t coming out of my pocket…well, in a sense, it was because, unknown to the government, their primary supplier was actually me, heh.
After years of hoarding loot, I was finally clearing out all the trash-tier items that had been clogging up space in our storage facilities and my inventory and getting a hefty chunk of change from good ol Uncle Sam, which would be converted to Ark-Coins; thus the long term money making scheme began.
Since the majority of the resources I had on hand were either Non-Rank or Alpha, I hemorrhaged them without care. Even the weapons I had crafted from the garbage pelts and shitty bones obtained in my few instance runs were bought up in droves.
Not to mention, with over 2000 returners having come back to the past, multiple exchanges had popped up in recent years; thus, I could buy up trash items in droves, convert them into semi-usable equipment and resources, and then flip them for ten times the cost to the government.
It was a long-term scheme I had started back when I realized where things were heading with the emergence of the Towers, and now, it was beginning to bear fruit a decade later.
In the end, each of the 25 Colleges I had established had more than enough resources for several hundred thousand students, and with the school terms being only two years long, I was nearly at the stage where they would become perpetual motion money machines.