Chapter 5: Study Session
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Throughout the day, I was continuously surprised how much Rosemont differed from a typical school. The administration must be filthy rich. I suppose that’s to be expected given it was an expensive private academy, but until I saw students eating filet mignon or lobster for lunch in the canteen, it hadn’t really set in.
Then there were the elective classes. For Photography, we obviously needed a camera. So they just gave us one. All of us. No renting it out or sharing with other people. Every single student got a $1200 DSLR handed to them like it was nothing.
That wasn’t an outlier either. It didn’t matter which class, club, or activity, they were all decked out with everything they could possibly need. High-quality art supplies, name-brand athletic gear, professional-level musical instruments, you name it. Along with them, there were facilities that we could show up and use whenever, no supervision necessary. Just scan your card and you’re in. CNC machines and 3D-printers for the engineering class, hi-tech gym equipment with biometric readers for the basketball team, a god-damn movie theater for the Film Appreciation Club.
Was this shit normal for rich kids? Because I was feeling seriously out of my depth around here. This was a highschool, right?
Country bumpkin woes aside, my first day of classes went without issues (so long as you discounted bickering with Alicia). I ditched her around lunchtime, but I imagined she’d pop up again any moment. An eerie feeling made me check over my shoulder. I half-expected to see her skulking around a corner following me, but there was no one there.
That wasn’t the first time I’d done that today. It was like a ghost was haunting me with the way I kept jumping at shadows. Alicia was a little unsettling to be honest. The eccentricities of her ‘tsundere’ personality felt strange in real life. She was probably joking about all that killing me stuff, but I’d be looking under my bed tonight and double checking the doorchain just to be safe.
In the afternoon, I managed to strike up a few conversations with classmates. Nothing other than small talk, but it still counted as a win. It might not sound impressive, but any social interaction at all was a step up from the old me. I wasn’t going to become Mr. Popular anytime soon, but at least I hadn’t made a fool of myself yet. Transforming into a confident, outgoing person would be a slow process. I just wasn’t a natural extrovert and that’s all there was to it.
For now, I decided it would be best to focus more on investigating the system. In particular, I wanted to know if raising stats worked the way I hoped. I also wanted a more concrete understanding of what each attribute did.
My current destination was the library. If things worked similarly to the visual novel, I should be able to raise my Intelligence there. In the game, it was as simple as choosing this location from a map and clicking ‘yes’ when a popup asked if you wanted to spend your free time studying. Then the player was shown a simple CG of a sleepy Tatsuya laying over a stack of books. That was it. Two clicks of the mouse and your Intelligence went up +1. It definitely wouldn’t be that easy in real life, but it remained to be seen exactly how it would work or even if it worked at all.
The library was big enough that it needed its own separate building on campus rather than being adjoined to the academy. Upon entering, I was greeted with a majestic sight. Bookshelves stacked up four stories with balconies overlooking the main hall, leaving a vast open space. It was large enough for them to hang the entire fossilized skeleton of a colossal creature overhead. I wasn’t sure what species it was. Some kind of aquatic dinosaur? Maybe a megalodon?
After gaping at the thing for a few moments, my attention was drawn to the person attending a circular reception desk. She was a blonde lady with square-frame glasses resting her head in her hand and idly flipping through a trashy romance novel. The woman appeared as mentally checked out as every other school librarian I’d ever seen despite being in a veritable paradise of books.
When I approached to ask how things worked, she didn’t so much as lift her eyes off what she was reading. Instead, she simply pointed to a sign hung nearby.
Library Rules:
1. No talking.
2. Only three books can be borrowed simultaneously.
3. Books taken out of the library must be returned in two weeks.
4. Late returns or damaged books = A black mark on your record.
5. Three black marks = Book borrowing privileges are revoked.
6. No talking.
Fair enough. I guess I’d just look around on my own.
I started wandering the shelves, not really sure what I was searching for. At some point, I made my way up a spiraling staircase to the second level. There I found a small reading area with a couple couches and tables set about. That was when I finally got another notification chime like I had heard during the entrance ceremony.
[Optional Quest: Study Session - Difficulty: Easy]
[Objective: Read the following books: Art of the Early Renaissance, The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire, An Introduction to Number Theory, Astrophysics for Dummies, … (0/20 Completed)]
[Reward: Intelligence +1]
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What the– You couldn’t be serious. This quest was nothing more than a reading list. There wasn’t even a focus on a particular subject. The system really wanted me to read twenty random textbooks cover-to-cover for a single Intelligence point?
If the key to gaining intelligence was just learning a lot, I could have thought of that on my own! Was there even any advantage to having the system? It was like it was saying, “Want to get smarter? Start studying, dumbass.”
Would doing this really make me smarter? A normal person could only absorb so much information in a short amount of time. When I finished reading those twenty books, would I remember anything from the first few? Even if I did, memorizing trivia and understanding something well enough to actually apply that knowledge were two different things.
I continued to lament my fate for another minute or two before I resolved myself to give it a try. Maybe this would end up being a huge waste of time, but when a magic system in your head promises a reward for your efforts, you can’t help but feel compelled to see what would happen. I just had to know.
Actually, when I stopped and thought about it more, maybe +1 Intelligence was more significant than it sounded. If I assumed that I was somewhere close to average in terms of brainpower, then presumably an Intelligence of 5 represented a normal person. So if it went up to 6, would that mean a 20% increase?
Depending on exactly how the system defined Intelligence, that could be a really big deal. What if my brain could operate 20% more effectively? What kind of benefits would that bring? A better memory? More accurate conclusions? Maybe even faster reflexes? If my brain could compute more in the same amount of time, it would make some sense.
I was getting a little ahead of myself. There was no guarantee the scaling worked like that, it was just a guess. For all I knew, +1 might mean a much smaller change. Still, if that truly was the way of things, reading twenty books was a comparatively small effort for massive returns.
There was only one way to find out. I found the first book on the list, sat my ass in a chair, and started reading with the gusto of a starving man at a buffet. It took about an hour before that tide of motivation tapered off, but even once I was bored to tears, I still kept at it.
I considered trying to read as fast as possible, but decided against it. Somehow, I intuitively felt just skimming the text wouldn’t be enough and the system wouldn’t count it. If it were, I could easily max out my Intelligence in no time at all, assuming there was a cap. It didn’t seem likely things would be so easy, so instead I read at a normal pace and actually tried to remember everything.
It wasn’t easy to maintain focus for such a prolonged period. Perhaps that was the realm of the Willpower stat and I should look into improving it as well. I often found myself slipping into a state of just robotically scanning the words instead of truly absorbing the information. Still, I can honestly say I tried my absolute best. Any time I noticed myself slipping, I would snap out of it and redouble my efforts.
Hours passed without me moving from that spot. I eventually started taking notes as I went. There wasn’t any point to having them, but the act of writing something down made it easier to remember.
The longer I continued, the more I built up mental fatigue. It was basically the same as an intense cramming session for an important final. The only difference was that I was doing it on the first day and there wouldn’t be any exam. That was nice, but it also meant there wasn’t the impending sense of dread that usually accompanied studying to act as a motivator.
Finally, after the sun had long since set, I reached the end of the first book on the list. I suppressed a yawn as I checked the time on my phone: 11:35pm. Luckily, the library never closed or I would be locked in for the night.
Just as I was wondering how to check whether this impromptu cram session was worth it or not, the system decided to pipe up and confirm things for me.
[Analyzing… Retention grade: C]
[Objective: Read the following books… (1/20 Completed)]
Fucking hell, this thing was difficult to please. All that effort for a C… I guess it didn’t matter so long as it counted as a completion. It seemed I was right about needing to do more than just skim as fast as possible.
I expected raising stats to be harder than it was in the game, but I still underestimated how much so. At my current rate, it would take me the better half of a month to gain a single point in one attribute. And this was if I dedicated every spare second outside of class towards it. I had nothing to compare to, but it felt slow.
What if stats could only be raised the way they could in the VN? That would mean once I graduated and couldn’t return to Rosemont, I would be stuck with whatever I had then. It would be a shame, but it was a distinct possibility.
If I squandered my time, I might only gain a handful of attribute points in my three years at school. Granted, no one else got any, so it was still a big advantage. A few points was probably a significant enough upgrade to give me a very successful life… But to hell with that! Why settle for a ‘successful life’ when I had something that could make me a literal demigod?
I needed to find a way to increase my productivity. Grinding was all about maximizing gains per hour. Even just an extra percent or two of efficiency would add up if you spend hundreds of hours doing something. Maybe I could look into mnemonics to help me remember more. Did I only need to remember the information until I finished the book? If so it might be possible to cheat the system somewhat.
I should also consider my build order. Willpower was a good example. If Willpower made it easier to study for long periods, it obviously made sense to gain a few points there first before focusing heavily on Intelligence… However, more Intelligence might make raising Willpower somehow easier too. Being smart made everything easier.
Unfortunately, unlike a game, I couldn’t simply look up the optimal path online. I needed to do all my theorycrafting myself with only partial information. And I couldn’t be too greedy either. This was real life where mistakes had consequences. If I seriously messed up, that was it, no savescumming available.
At least this was a normal world where there wasn’t much danger. I wouldn't need to worry about losing my life as a simple academy student. If I had been transmigrated into a medieval fantasy setting or a sci-fi dystopia, an error of judgment could outright kill me.
I returned the book back to its proper place and collected my things. As I left the building, I noticed the librarian was still at the reception desk. Did she have to stay all night? Now I understood her disinterested attitude a little better. Graveyard shift was a bummer.
A few fallen leaves blew across the footpath. The breeze felt cool against my skin. For once, I was thankful for the long sleeves of my uniform. Spotlights illuminated the sharp peaks of the buildings casting upturned shadows.
After nightfall, the academy gave off a different impression than its usual stoic majesty.