Upon closer inspection, the Core Seat was even more interesting than Caeden had first thought. The design was unfamiliar to him, but Lily called it a pagoda. The multi-tiered structure was composed entirely of ether crystals set into various patterns, giving the building a rainbow coloration that just barely managed to avoid being murder on the eyes. It was still unbelievably gaudy, but at least Caeden didn't feel like throwing up when he looked at it, which he felt like he should, considering how eye-gougingly vibrant it was.

The front doors were open already, and many students were making their way inside, so the three of them went with the flow. As they passed over the threshold, Caeden felt a force sweep his body until it pinged off the ID card he still had in his hand. When it did, the force vanished.

"I wonder what happens if you try to come in without the card." Caeden looked around the door frame, trying to see if there were any clues as to what had scanned him.

"Nothing good, I'm sure," Lily muttered darkly.

"Wow! This place is swanky!" Erik darted into the open space at the entrance. "Is it just me, or is this room too big?" As he spoke, a hanging crystal that was acting as a light fell, headed right for his head. Erik casually activated his shroud; lines of white light linked the crystal back to its fixture, dragging it back into place.

"Did you just see…" Lily stared open-mouthed.

"Yeah, that happens all the time," Caeden murmured back. "Just ignore it." He turned to Erik. "Yeah, I noticed that too." The ceiling in the room was much higher than the height they had seen outside would indicate.

"Oh!" Lily shook her head, focusing on the conversation as more people entered behind her, looking around like they were. "That's a spacial infusion. I'm sure some of these ether crystals are dedicated to making this floor bigger. The other ones are probably the same."

"Neat." Erik walked toward the back of the room, where a bank of elevators like the one they had used in the Bronze Seat was situated. "How do we know which floor our room is on?"

"If I had to guess…" Caeden walked up and waved his card near the door. Specifically, there was a rectangular section of red crystal with green streaks that he thought might be a sensor. The green lines flashed, and an elevator opened. "Yup, that's a scanner. Reads your ID and takes you to your floor."

"Oh, let me try!" Erik ran up and scanned his. Several other students were now watching them. Caeden assumed they had been trying to figure out the controls as well. The green lines lit up, but the same elevator remained open.

Caeden shrugged and got in, Erik right behind him and Lily following after. "Oh, never mind. Here's the actual controls." Built into the side of the elevator was a panel with a series of buttons. They were all labeled with different locations. There was 'cafeteria', 'gym', 'IP rooms', and many more. Caeden was slightly disappointed the scanner hadn't automatically known what floor they belonged on, but right here was the chance for redemption. Another scanner. He swiped his card, and the doors closed. "Ok, I think this is actually what I meant."

Caeden noticed that a few others had slipped in while he had been figuring out the controls. They were all watching him curiously. Watching right back, Caeden was interested to find a mixed group. Based on the criteria he had observed in the Bronze Seat, this elevator had both islanders and continentals in it, though there was more of the former than the latter.

The door opened, and everyone began silently filing out. Halfway through, though, one of the students who had tagged along tried to exit the elevator, only to jerk to a stop. He reached into his robe and pulled out his ID. It wouldn't move through the doorway. He yanked on it, but it hung in midair, refusing to go any farther.

"I don't think this is your floor," Caeden commented lightly.

The man nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. He stepped back into the elevator. "Just swipe here?" He asked hesitantly.

Caeden nodded and gestured for him to go ahead. Before he did, everyone else attempted to go through, and a couple of others got the same result. Both Erik and Lily got off without issue. The man swiped his card, and the door closed.

Caeden turned to his friends. "Guess we're floormates."

"Yup!" Erik was ecstatic, practically bouncing off the walls. "I've never felt so lucky in my life!"

"Pretty sure your bad luck is more involved with almost dying."

"Not the point!"

This floor had a small area where the elevators let off, with much more reasonable ceilings. Two hallways ran in either direction, with fifty doors, all the exact same except for identifying numbers running from one to fifty. At the end of either hall were bathrooms, split between male and female. Erik ran up and down the hallways, sliding his card past the sensors next to each door until one opened. Caeden and Lily followed at a more sedate pace but repeated the process.

It turned out that behind each door was a small room, barely large enough to lay down on the floor lengthwise. Each had two beds, so everyone would have roommates. Besides that, there were two small closets built into the far wall. That was it. Their rooms were a functional space for sleeping and nothing else. Caeden got the impression they weren't meant to be spending much time here.

In even more surprising news, Erik and Caeden were roommates. Which seemed so coincidental that Caeden immediately became suspicious. Same building, sure. Lily even provided a solid reason for that. Same floor, totally possible, if a little lucky, but there couldn't be that many floors. This one alone held 100 people, and there were four other buildings. Caeden had only seen a couple thousand students at orientation.

Same room? Get out of here. Someone had set them up. Caeden wondered who and why. He shot Lily a look, who read it perfectly, giving him a shrug back. There was no way for them to know. He would just have to accept it and move on for now.

Lily's room was at the opposite end of the hall, and by the looks of it, her possessions had already been moved into her closet. She hadn't brought much, unlike some of her contemporaries, but she had a few sets of casual clothing and some body products like shampoo.

Her roommate's closet was filled with an array of dark clothing in a feminine style. Lots of ripped denim and cutoff shirts. The small shelf over the clothes rack contained a wider variety of jewelry in a similar vein. Caeden was confused, but Lily stated it was a fashion thing, which had been absent from the village Caeden lived in and minimal in Earthstrom. The continents just didn't have a significant variety of clothes.

After settling in, which essentially boiled down to finding their rooms, the three of them decided to see about that cafeteria. It was past midday at this point, and they were all hungry. Caeden and Erik were both hoping they had better variety here than on the War God, which had only supplied them with soup and bread for their entire trip.

So, they made their way back to the elevators and selected the cafeteria. Seconds later, they were in paradise.

They came out in a massive, multistory complex with booths advertising every kind of food imaginable. Every variety and configuration possible. The booths were set in tiers around an atrium filled with dozens of tables. There were many other students already eating, scattered across the room.

The barrage of sights and sounds was overwhelming. Caeden had no idea how this was logistically feasible until he remembered one of the visions from the orientation, which had been a shrouded man literally making a feast out of thin air. They must have a similar shroud, or even the same person, working in the background to make such a vast quantity of food readily available.

The three of them agreed to split up to find what they wanted, then make their way back to a specific table they had picked out. Each of them headed in different directions, having seen something that caught their interest. Caeden had his eyes set on a booth containing falafel, an old favorite of his that he hadn't had since leaving Earthstrom. His mouth was already watering, waiting for that round, crunchy goodness.

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Walking up to the booth, a young man stood on the other side of the counter, ready to take his order. "IP?"

Caeden stared at him blankly.

He snorted. "Call up your shroud sigil and hover over this." He indicated a vaguely familiar device. Calling up his sharp sigil, Caeden remembered. His testing, on the War God! The Inspector had used it the exact same way. IP must stand for invasion pressure, though Caeden was unfamiliar with what the term meant.

The man frowned. "Only 23? That's not high enough, sorry. You need over 100 to eat from this booth."

Caeden was surprised. His last test had only shown 10. It was even written on his ID. What had changed? Still wanting that falafel, Caeden called up Physical Enhancement onto the back of his other hand.

The man's eyes bugged out when Caeden called up a second shroud sigil. "Oh my, 115. Yes, what can I get for you?"

Caeden got a couple of falafel pita bread sandwiches with cherry tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and lots of hot sauce. He was already in heaven, and he hadn't even taken a bite yet. He could smell that rich herby scent coming off his meal, with a bit of zing from the sauce. He had to restrain himself on the way back to the table with that tantalizing scent riding his nostrils.

Once he got there, he found a very unhappy Lily and no Erik. "What's wrong?"

Lily uncrossed her arms and looked up from the bowl of unappetizing porridge she had been glaring at. "My IP is too low. This is the only thing you can get for less than 20."

"Oh, shit." Caeden hadn't even thought about it. He set his falafel on the table regretfully. "C'mon."

"What?" Lily was now glaring at his food.

"I have 115. As long as whatever you want is under that, we're good."

Lily stared at him with a baffled look. "Can you even get food for other people?"

"I don't see why not. There's nothing saying there's a cap on how much you can get. You just have to meet the requirements."

"O-Oh, yeah, that makes sense." She ducked her head. "Thanks."

He shrugged. "No problem. It's not like it costs me anything."

She led him to a booth for sushi. Caeden had never had fish before. The seas around Arturus were too rough for fishing and importing made what little fish there was insanely expensive. It was basically exclusively for shrouded. That said, raw fish on rice with various other toppings did not sound appealing anyway, so he didn't feel like he was missing out.

Caeden walked up to the booth, waved his Physical Enhancement sigil over the scanner, and told the attendant, "I want whatever she orders." Then he stepped back.

Lily proceeded to order a variety, insisting he try a few. Caeden wasn't very enthusiastic, but he agreed to at least give it a try.

They made their way back to the table, seeing Erik had already arrived in the meantime and was stuffing his face with popcorn, of all things. "Is that what you're eating?"

"AH, Augh a OutOgg." Erik said through a mouthful of buttery exploded kernels.

"Maybe swallow and try again, yeah?" Caeden admonished, sitting down, more than ready to dig in.

Erik made a show of swallowing aggressively, which led to him choking on his popcorn. Before Caeden could do anything, Erik took a deep breath, over the bout of choking as fast as it began. "I said, 'no, I got a hot dog."

"Did…did you just choke?" Lily asked, a piece of sushi held in chopsticks halfway to her mouth.

"Hmm? Yeah, I used my shroud to clear my airway. It's honestly pretty easy once you get the hang of it." Erik nodded, smiling.

"But, But-" Lily stammered.

"Just let it go," Caeden advised. "It's really not worth thinking about." That was not the first time he had seen Erik choking on his food. It was a once-a-day kind of thing with him.

For his part, Caeden was taking a big bite out of his falafel sandwich, savoring the crunch and herby flavor of the falafel, accented beautifully by the heat of the sauce, the edge of that heat blunted by the sweet tomatoes. It was exactly as good as he remembered. He took a moment to silently enjoy an old memory that came back to him.

"Good?"

Caeden nodded emphatically, gesturing toward Lily's sushi as he chewed.

"Yes, this is some of the best I've had, actually. I figured the school would have lower quality, but it really isn't." Lily picked one up using her chopsticks and offered it to Caeden. "Try?"

Caeden made a face, which made Lily giggle, but he swallowed down his bite of heaven and readied himself for anything. He was first hit by the texture, a sort of soft squishiness, unlike anything he had ever had. In fact, it was such a novel experience he couldn't even parse the taste. He hadn't noticed any overwhelming flavors; all he remembered after swallowing was the texture.

Lily was softly laughing at him, so he must have been making an interesting expression. "Here." She dipped a piece like the last one in a green sauce. Willing to risk it, Caeden obliged. Immediately, the squishy texture was accompanied by a rich, spicy overtone. Caeden loved it.

"Wow. That stuff is good." He pointed to the sauce. "Not sure about the stuff without it, though."

Lily nodded. "It's a bit different. Sushi is as much about the texture as it is about the taste. Some varieties, like what I gave you, have minimal flavor and are supposed to be eaten with a sauce. Others," she pointed to one that was a square wrapped in a green leafy substance and filled with various vegetables, along with the rice and fish he had already tasted, "are a whole package on their own."

Lily ended up turning the entire experience into a little lesson about sushi as a whole. Caeden let her try his falafel, which she liked, and he ended up having several more types of sushi, with and without the sauce, which was more of a mixed bag. Caeden liked some, but there was one with a different meat that he hated. It was weirdly chewy in a way that didn't agree with him.

Altogether, it was a fun experience. Caeden had never had friends he could just hang out with, so this was a nice change. After they finished eating, they decided to check out some other floors together. The gym was filled with a massive variety of equipment for all kinds of exercises. There was another floor with sparring equipment for weapons training. Yet another floor was a decently sized library. Caeden understood why the rooms were so barren. They were expecting the students to spend more time in these areas, training their bodies and minds.

After they spent several hours wandering around, they decided it was time to head to bed, expecting tomorrow to be a busy day with the beginning of classes. It was only late afternoon, but today had been a long day. Before they could go to bed, Erik insisted they had one more thing to do. Meet Lily's roommate.

"We're roommates." He gestured between himself and Caeden. "We should know her roommate."

"I don't really follow the logic, but I don't care enough to try and change your mind." Lily sighed. The three of them ended up at the door to her room together, where she knocked before swiping her ID.

"Hey," Lily's roommate was inside, lying sideways on one of the beds, reading a book. She stood up as the door opened, staring back at the three of them. Caeden wasn't sure what he was expecting based on the clothing selections in her closet. What he got was a mildly tan woman a few inches shorter than him with chin-length straight black hair, wearing black lipstick, with several piercings in each ear and one through her nose and another in her lip. She had the top section of her robe undone and hanging down around her waist. Instead, her torso was covered by a cutoff shirt.

"I'm Cat. You must be my roommate." She was looking at Lily. "Who are the other two? Were you planning some kind of party?" She wiggled her eyebrows, smirking.

Lily blushed while Erik laughed. "You're fun. I think I like you."

Cat shot him a devilish grin. "I'd eat you alive."

Erik grinned just as widely. "I've survived worse."

Caeden dropped a fist on Erik's head. "Get a room, preferably not either of ours." He turned to Cat. "Hello, I'm Caeden. We're here because this idiot decided he wanted to meet her roommate. Now, we have sleeping to do, come on." Caeden then wrapped an arm through one of Erik's and began dragging him off as Erik went limp, allowing himself to be pulled bodily along the floor.

"Aww, do I have to?" He whined. "We were having fun!"

"Shut up, or I'll find a way to actually feed you to her."

"That's fucking dark, dude."

"Shut up and sleep."