Not deciding to waste his time one her any longer, Kezner took out his Grandmaster’s guide as he continued to provoke his thinking. He thought up all the different ways he could go about forging, be it the method and timing in which he hammered the ingots, what he quenched the finished blade with, or what methods to prepare his tools and materials beforehand. Before reading this book, Kezner thought of smithing as just repetitive yet a method of release, be it mentally or physically. He also had to admit, spending almost an entire year hammering away at metals, it had improved his Body Energy by quite a bit.

Arlean, curious at what this scion of the upper-echelons was doing in his free time, glanced at Kezner by the corner of her eye. She knew he was probably under the same treatment as her, being thrown somewhere else as a method of giving him a broader perspective as to how the world worked. Realizing he was just reading a book, it only made her more interested as what was in it that could make him so entranced.

Books had gone out of style as holo-watches could simply be taken anywhere in almost any environment, while books were susceptible to the elements, so they weren’t usually seen around.

As she continued to look without Kezner’s knowledge, she had gotten an epiphany. “What if I were to get on his good side and go out with him? Wouldn’t that make me a future Duchess? This would be a boon for the Family as it would merge with the Duke’s Clan!” Little did this crafty heiress to a small Family know that the person she was trying to court was not only a person of lesser status than her, but the most dense, ignorant, and blunt man alive!

After about fifteen minutes, students had started to trickle into the classroom, amounting to a total of 15 students in the class. A fairly small school meant small class sizes as well, but this was only because the school wasn’t all too good anyways. They were always filled with problem children and misfits, but most of them got filtered into the 5th classes after their sophomore year.

The first bell rang, marking the start of the school day, Kezner would be in for one hell of a ride today.The teacher quickly made his way into the classroom in a clumsy fashion as he almost tripped on himself right when entering the door. Standing behind his desk that was centered at the front of the room, his slightly wrinkled face smiled as he looked over every student and began with, “As some of you may know, I am a new teacher at North Central Highschool, I am Wayne Cayne, but you shall refer to me as Mr.-”

As he said his name, he heard some chuckling, interrupting him from completing his introduction. Looking at one of the chuckling students, he called out his name in a stern fashion, “Mr. Sonoda, can you please tell me what’s so funny?”

“I don’t know old fart, maybe it’s cause your parents gave you such a stupid name. What is this a Dr. Suess book?” The joke had almost the entire class laughing, while Kezner was stuck in his own world while reading. Gareth was one of the top scorers in the 1st class last year and would have gotten into it this year as well, but it was his attitude which stunk. He was infamous in the school for having a really sensitive teacher breakdown in the middle of a class. She later quit with her future unknown.

Poor Mr. Wayne wasn’t warned of Gareth’s infamy but surprisingly didn’t snap at him like every other teacher, if anything, he gave a light aged chuckle and retorted with, “I don’t know what my parents were thinking, but I sure as hell know what your mom was. I was joking around when I told her ‘Gareth’ while we were in bed a few years back.”

The laughing paused as everyone looked at each other’s wide eyed expressions, teacher usually never retorted back with a roast as every student was able to record the incident on their holo-watch. A teacher’s reputation was important, as one viral video gone wrong would end their career. Gareth had nothing else to say but a dark look on his face as he sat down, no teacher had ever spoken like that before, so he didn’t know what else to do.

This not only shut up Gareth but the entire class, you could even hear a pin-drop. “That’s better, now where was I? Ah, yes, you can refer to me as Mr. Cayne, or Mr. C, and I’ll be not only the homeroom teacher, but the math and science teacher as well for this class for the rest of the school year. Any questions before roll call?” It seemed like this wasn’t Mr. Cayne’s first time teaching a class as he went through the motions pretty smoothly.

“Arlean… Ocano? It seems like we have a local celebrity in our midst.”

Whispers filled the room with things such as, “She prettier than the pictures.”’ and “Man, if I could date her, I would be set for life.”

Following normal procedure, Arlean stood up, gave a formal bow, and gave a standard statement that was met with a large applaud.

After Arlean sat down, Mr. Cayne read off the final name on the list, “Erm… Kezner. Is there a Kezner here?”, Mr. Cayne repeated himself once more until he frowned and scanned the classroom, until he pinned down a gray-haired young man reading an old-fashioned book. Putting down the attendance sheet, he walked up to the young man that ignored his calls and slammed his hand on to Kezner’s desk.

Kezner was dragged out of his reading and startled by the sudden bang, and looked up only to find an old man creepily smiling at him. Looking around, he found that all eyes were on him and the first thing that came to mind that he said out loud in his monotone voice, “Uh… excuse me?”

The old man’s mouth started to twitch to the side as he realized that this young man was so enchanted by his reading that he wasn’t paying attention to whatever had been happening in the past ten minutes or so. “So I presume you’re Kezner, correct?

“Yes, sir.”

“Kezner, I would like to ask, can you read off of this book to the entire class?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, why not?”, Mr. Cayne squinted a little as he said this, he didn’t appreciate being refused by a student. He could handle a roast, he had dealt with those clowns before and put them in their places, but it was those that refused to listen to authority that he had a problem with.

“Sir, this is material left behind by my late grandmaster, I won’t reveal it to anyone else.”, Kezner had a solid point. Just like how a Family wouldn’t give away their Foundational Techniques and Martial Arts, a disciple wouldn’t give away their master’s work, as it was seen as taboo and frowned upon.

“I see, do you like to read?” Mr. Cayne was setting up his next punishment by asking this, any answer that Kezner gave now would simply choose his punishment.

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Seeing as how he had no other options to pick from, he might as well answer honestly and hope the punishment was just light, “Yes, sir, I do like reading.”

“Good, I’ll give you the rest of homeroom to read the first chapter of the next period’s textbook, and then you’ll deliver the core theories and discoveries, and the thought process behind them at the start of the next period. Your accuracy will reflect on your marking periods’ grade.” This Mr. Cayne might have thought himself brilliant as the next period was his science class, so they wouldn’t be changing teachers, but little did he expect an anomaly like Kezner.

The rest of the class, except Arlean, looked at him with gazes of pity yet amusement. They always liked seeing someone chewed out by this new teacher, after Gareth’s outburst nobody else dared to breathe too loudly in case it offended Mr. Cayne. It would be embarrassing to have the clumsy old man to roast you in front of your peers, your reputation would diminish in mere seconds.

Shrugging his shoulders, Kezner continued reading the book in his hands as he had already memorized all of the chapters and vocabulary, on top of that, he had already built upon the material with his own thoughts and ideas. To others, however, they all saw it as Kezner giving up, all except Arlean. She understood the importance of doing good while being kicked out to the lesser planets, or else it would seem like the heir couldn’t handle a mere school, let alone a whole Family or Clan, so she knew Kezner had his own tricks up his sleeves.

Looking at this, Mr. Cayne only sighed as he sat behind his desk, facing the students, and mentally prepared himself to give out the first failing grade of the year. Teacher didn’t enjoy failing students, well most of them didn’t, as it showed that they hadn’t been able to completely get their message across to their students. Mr. Cayne could only blame himself for making the consequence too harsh and decided to just throw the wager out of the window next period, after all, the kid was only reading a book, there was no harm in his education by doing so.

Usually homeroom was a class where everyone got situated for the rest of the day, it was usually used for catching up on missed work, doing homework, or just talking and discussing.

The students continued talking and getting to know each other, some were acquainted from the previous year while others were simply compatible from the get-go. Arlean was surrounded by a flock of girls, asking her about god knows what. The boys had already separated themselves into their natural packs, be it the nerds, geeks, jocks, and everything in between. The only person alone was Kezner, who sat next to a window and stayed put in his desk.

The second bell of the day rang throughout the building as everyone in class 5-402 quieted down. Mr. Cayne stood back up as this period was dedicated to science, his class. There were only six classes taught throughout the day, excluding homeroom and lunch. The first was science, which included a variety of subjects throughout the school year, be it chemistry, biology, earth science, robotics, but primarily physics. Physics, be it theoretical or experimental, had covered almost every occupation in modern society.

Tapping the empty wall behind him, a holographic board appeared, apparently connecting to his holo-watch. He started off the class by referring to Kezner’s punishment, “Mr. Kezner, seeing as how you didn’t read the textbook, I will excuse your actions this one time, but don’t expect me to be this lenient again.”

Kezner had already put away his book by the time the bell rang as he was preparing to take up Mr. Cayne’s offer, yes, he didn’t see it as a punishment, but an offer for an easy passing grade. Slowly standing up and clearing his throat, “Sir, I believe it is only natural I comply with your punishment, may I begin?”

Everyone was caught off-guard, including Mr. Cayne and Arlean. She didn’t even see him turn on his holo-watch this entire time. All of the other students looked at Kezner like he was an idiot, “The man pardoned you from failing yet you decide to be this stubborn?! The backdoor to heaven was clearly open yet you broke in through hell’s front door!”

Mr. Cayne, could only sigh out the words, “Begin.”

Taking in a deep breath, Kezner’s Spirit Energy revolved around his brain like it was a spacejet engine and was picking up even more steam as it processed all the information from textbook by accident and coordinated with his mouth to spit it all out as fast as possible while keeping it audible and concise; “The chapter starts off with the discovery of wormholes in space during the 23th Earthern Century as a scientist named Franklin Holland discovered the direct reflection of light in space by empty space. This discovery was found when he observed a phenomena of light doubling from a star for an unknown reason, then reasoned that it was due to the impossible acceleration of light in a field that didn’t exist within the universe, similar to past an event horizon of a black hole.

Though laughed upon by his peers, Holland argued that the optical density of the field was so low, possibly non existent, that it forced the light to refract back to its source. He also claimed that this field lacked any density yet carried infinite momentum, similar to light itself, which is now referred to as the Holland Effect. Wormholes not only carry infinite momentum and lack any density, but they don’t necessarily exist within our fabric of space-time, as it is able to manipulate space-time between two positions using the Void. It is due to wormholes that we are able to transverse star systems and galaxies for about a thousand years.

The Void is seen as the-”

“Alright, alright, alright, no need to move on to the second chapter, you pass this marking period Mr.- err, speaking of which, what’s your last name?” Mr. Cayne didn’t know that he hit on one of Kezner’s soft spots, but Kezner didn’t take it personally as the old man didn’t know anything about him.

“Oh, I don’t have one, sir.” Kezner still answered the old man properly as he didn’t want to cause any turbulence between them.

Everyone was curious and perplexed as to why Kezner only had one name. Family names were looked on with pride and honor, this view was held by the smallest of commoners and by the largest of emperors, so not having a family name was not only rare but was only a handful of cases in government documents throughout the galaxy. Though the 21st century had gone past these social norms, that was one of the most peaceful eras of humanity, even in times like in the Dominion there were constant territorial wars.

Not delving any further as the subject was a little too personal, Mr. Cayne just took his answer and continued on with his class. “All of what student Kezner was correct and even more descriptive than the textbook itself. So let me officially start class, we will not have any syllabi, that takes up too much time and achieves nothing. Let’s start with the first chapter...”

Already knowing everything discussed within the class and more, Kezner just continued reading his Grandmaster’s Guide.

The third bell of the day rang as time passed over this class’s hour as Mr. Cayne stayed put in front of the board as he touched his holo-watch. It was time for math, the most excruciating and agonizing period of the day, every student in the universe would wish to strangle the sadist who came up with this subject.

With a groan everyone pulled up the online quiz given by Mr. Cayne. Who gave a quiz on the first day?! On top of that, this crazy old man skipped over any syllabus, who did that?!

“I’ll give you all 30 minutes to take this quiz to see where you are currently at, any form of cheating will be an automatic failure.” Mr. Cayne appeared to be strict on cheating, seemingly experienced with dealing those who did.

Everyone else could only try their best as Kezner saw this as child’s play as he blitzed through the questions like a swimming competition between a fish and a group of monkeys. After finishing the test, he whipped out his Grandmaster’s Guide and continued his journey in reading.

Mr. Cayne took a sip of the coffee he had in his travel mug as he watched over everyone taking the test. His eyes clicked on to Kezner as he had already finished the test and took out that book again. “Student Kezner, please check over your answers before handing in your test.”

Sadly, the message hadn’t mentally travelled to Kezner as he was once again stuck onto the book. Mr. Cayne, however, had everyone paying attention to Kezner now, was this boring looking, book loving, freak going to pull something off again. Giving off another sigh, Mr. Cayne decided to see how Kezner scored, it couldn’t be that bad, right?

When witnessing his score, Mr. Cayne couldn’t help but choke on his coffee, in the process accidently connecting his holo-watch to the holographic board, making Kezner’s score on the test visible to everyone in class. Everyone couldn’t help but gasp and stare at the unknowing Kezner like a monster, “How the fuck do you score 110%?! The max the AI could possibly grade is 100%! Friend, you can be heaven-defying but can you not show off in front of us, you’re raising the bar too high!”

Quickly disconnecting the board from his holo-watch, Mr. Cayne looked through the method in which Kezner answered all of these questions and almost foamed from the mouth. “Not only did he make the problems harder, these formulas could challenge the top minds of the Dominion!”

Though nobody else saw what Mr. Cayne had, judging from his reaction, it was probably mind-blowing. Everyone now had to look at Kezner in a new light, was he really just an average looking youth or was that just a cover story? Just like how gods would disguise as mortals, scions would sometimes disguise themselves as commoner teenagers just for fun. They all decided to try to get closer to him, worse comes to worse he declines their advances, but if they succeeded in befriending him, they would gain a strong connection.

The 30 minute test ended, and afterwards Mr. Cayne went through each question in a despirited manner as he recalled how Kezner played him at his own game twice today. He didn’t even berate Kezner when he saw him not paying attention, what was the point of making him pay attention when he already understood all of this information? At least he was learning something new through his Grandmaster seeing how invested he was in that book.