Max considered it for a second. If people were allowed to team up during the midterms that probably meant it was better to do so than fly solo. If he was going to partner up with anyone, it was definitely going to be with Casey. Plus, she still hadn’t told him exactly what the mid-term exam was going to be. She was probably withholding the exact details until he agreed to partner up with her.

“Alright, I’ll team up with you,” said Max.

“Yay,” she said, clapping her hands. “I knew you would.”

“Alright, now what’s the exam?” asked Max.

“Well, I actually don’t know the exact details...” murmured Casey.

Max’s eye twitched. He went through all that posturing, even agreeing to team up with her, and she didn’t know the exact details of the exam!

“All I know is the exam is going to be a survival test of some kind,” said Casey.

Survival test!?

“And that’s the extent of what you know?” said Max, leaning back in his chair.

He scanned the café once more. There was hardly anyone in here and there certainly weren’t any climbers or student climbers about.

While on the face of it, knowing that the mid-term exam was going to be a survival test didn’t sound like much, but there were many ways they could prepare with that knowledge alone. If they’d been in the dark, they might have spent money buying extra offensive materials, but a test of survival would be different. They needed to go pick up supplies straight away.

“Hello, Earth-to-Max?” said Casey. “What’s going on in there? Share your thoughts? You’re always so serious all the time!”

She then stuck her tongue out and, as if on cue, Toto poked his head out of her pocket and also stuck its tongue out.

Max stood up. “C’mon, we gotta go prepare.”

They headed to Hawker’s Alley and the nearby adjacent streets to pick up some supplies.

The market street was filled as always with the usual seedy group of merchants, criminals, and tower-zone businessmen looking to accomplish something with the help of a little tower magic.

“Everyone’s leering at us,” said Casey. Toto sat perched on her shoulder.

“It’s just the way of the market,” Max explained. “They want to reel you in as a customer.”

“Except now I don’t want to look anywhere,” she said. “I don’t think this is a very good sales strategy if you ask me.”

Casey got noticeably more uncomfortable so Max dragged her to the side near an empty storefront. They needed to think through what kind of supplies they needed.

“It’s a survival test,” said Max. “So what we need to pick up are the most crucial survival utensils.”

“A rope!” said Casey. “A fishing rod!?”

Max shook his head.