Late in the evening.
Having finished all my training, I lay on my dormitory bed, pondering how to spend my remaining time.
Just then, a message appeared before my eyes.
[A character you have yet to encounter has taken a strong interest in you.]
[You have earned 500 points as a reward.]
“……What’s this?”
A character I haven’t met yet?
Who could it be?
As I was mulling over the thought, my smart student notebook suddenly chimed with a message alert.
[Senior, is the rumor true?]
It was Choi Seo-yoon.
Out of nowhere, she was asking if the rumor was true.
“What the heck.”
She wouldn’t have sent this message without a reason.
I stared at it in confusion before realization struck me.
“……Shin Young-joon.”
It had to be Shin Young-joon.
That bastard must be going around spreading stories about me getting rejected by Jang Ye.
“Ha……”
To think someone would broadcast another’s pain(?) like this.
There wasn’t a shred of mercy or loyalty in him.
I briefly debated how to respond but quickly brushed the thought away.
Why should I care about what others think of me?
My reputation had already hit rock bottom on the first day of school.
Trying to salvage it now would just be pathetic.
‘Yeah, what does it even matter?’
If their attention was on me, that just meant more points to earn.
“Pfft.”
Maybe I should just spend my time surfing the internet.
As I grabbed my smart student notebook to browse, I suddenly felt discomfort.
The screen was too small, making my eyes and hands ache.
“A laptop would be so much more convenient right now.”
Oh, right.
There was a perfect way to solve this inconvenience.
Without hesitation, I accessed the point shop.
[Activating Unique Trait: ‘Outsider’s Privilege.’]
[Entering the Point Shop.]
[Would you like to check this week’s special discounts?]
“Oh?”
Special discounts?
Oh, yeah. This was a thing.
“Hmm……”
But I wasn’t expecting much.
I had already experienced these discounts a few times in my previous life, and they were usually useless.
For example, a trait that let you dream of whatever you wanted, or one that made you read books faster…… Completely pointless stuff.
‘I’ll check the special discounts later.’
For now, I needed to search first.
[Using the search function.]
[Search results for ‘internet.’]
━━
▶ [Special] Outsider’s Privilege: Smart Device Synchronization (???)]
━━
Oh? This wasn’t what I was expecting.
Should I check it out?
━━
[Outsider’s Privilege: Smart Device Synchronization (???)]
Category: Special
Description: Allows synchronization between the Outsider’s Privilege and a smart device. When used, a synchronized smart device screen will appear in your view. Enables external connection even in areas with no signal.
Price: 8,000 points
━━
“Oh.”
This was actually pretty useful.
It wasn’t just about accessing the internet.
I could sync all my smart devices into one system.
And the ability to stay connected even in places without a signal?
Normally, you couldn’t communicate with the outside world inside towers or dungeons.
But if I bought this, I’d still be able to stay connected.
“This is way better than I expected.”
There was no reason not to buy it.
[You have purchased ‘Outsider’s Privilege: Smart Device Synchronization (???).’]
[Smart features are now active.]
“Nice.”
Time to test it out.
[Activating Unique Trait: ‘Outsider’s Privilege.’]
[Using the synchronized smart device.]
As soon as I activated it, a large screen appeared before my eyes.
It seemed to be around the size of a 21-inch monitor.
[Synchronizing smart devices.]
[Searching for devices……]
[Search complete.]
[Smart Student Notebook and Smartphone detected. Would you like to synchronize?]
‘Synchronize.’
Ding!
[Synchronization successful.]
“Oooh.”
Along with the alert, a blank screen emerged.
It looked like a merged version of my smart student notebook and smartphone backgrounds.
Roughly the size of a 21-inch monitor.
I tapped on the internet icon on the screen.
Instantly, a browser popped up.
Unlike when I used the student notebook, there wasn’t even a second of loading time.
“This is nice. The big screen makes everything so much easier.”
Grinning, I opened the search engine.
━━
[Trending Searches]
- Terror attack at the U.S. Relic Museum
- Sacred relic theft
- Terrorists
……
━━
The headlines were chaotic.
A terror attack at an American museum.
A sacred relic with mysterious powers had been stolen.
[This marks the fourth terror incident this year. With the recent surge in attacks, public anxiety is growing. Some speculate that ‘Jaun,’ the terrorist group disbanded 13 years ago, may be resurfacing.]
Jaun.
A terrorist organization that suddenly appeared 23 years ago and wreaked havoc for a decade until its disbandment 13 years ago.
According to the original story, Jaun’s members were all ranked A or S, making them so powerful that even the World Mage Association struggled to subdue them.
But after a long war with the Association, they lost their leader, and most of their members were wiped out, leading to their collapse.
“Looks like it’s starting.”
To put it simply, the ones responsible for the U.S. museum attack were Jaun.
After hiding for 13 years, Jaun was preparing to reclaim their former glory under a new guise.
Of course, their full-scale terrorist activities wouldn’t begin for another two years. Right now, they were just laying the groundwork.
Stealing sacred relics like this, recruiting underground fight club champions like Liang Liang in the near future—things like that.
[Exiting Smart Device Mode.]
But right now, there was nothing I could do to stop them.
A group made up of A-rank and S-rank monsters?
There was nothing I could do against them at my current level.
The good news was that they wouldn’t be making any moves in Korea anytime soon.
After all, the world’s strongest mage, Chairman Kim Jin-cheol, was here protecting the country.
Even Jaun feared him.
“…That’s not what I should be focusing on right now.”
Starting tomorrow, exams would begin, along with several major incidents.
In particular, two weeks from now, a terror attack would take place right in the middle of Seoul, throwing the city into chaos.
Would things follow the original storyline?
I wasn’t sure, but I needed to keep a close watch.
The early-stage villains were relatively weak, making them the perfect targets to rack up causality points.
“Crazy…”
I cursed under my breath as I looked at the special discount in the point shop that I hadn’t noticed yesterday.
[Special Discount!]
[Intermediate Subspace Pocket (A) is available at a 50% discount.]
[Remaining Discount Period: 5 days]
━━
[Intermediate Subspace Pocket (A)]
Category: Special
Description: Allows you to store items in a subspace. Can hold up to 30kg.
Price: 20,000 (50% discounted price)
━━
“…Damn.”
They were selling a subspace pocket at a 50% discount.
The price was a whopping 20,000 points.
Given how useful a subspace pocket was, this price was practically a steal.
“If I had known this, I wouldn’t have bought the device synchronization yesterday!”
Regret hit me hard.
Right now, I had exactly 8,500 points left.
I was short by a whole 11,500 points.
“Three days…”
Could I really gather that much in time?
If I played the fool and acted like a clown a few times…
“Sigh.”
No, that wasn’t it.
There was a limit to how much I could act like a clown for attention.
If I overdid it now, it might not work as well when I really needed it later. I had to save it for the right moment.
The only saving grace was that the midterm exams started today and lasted for five days, meaning there was a chance to earn a lot of points.
If I used that well, maybe I could make it work.
Midterm exams were simply meant to assess students’ progress.
The scores didn’t have a huge impact, so rankings didn’t fluctuate as much compared to the final exams.
No matter how well I did, breaking into the top 60 was impossible.
Even so, students took these midterms as if their lives depended on them.
The reason was simple.
Starting today, numerous guilds were observing the exams.
Even if midterms didn’t affect overall rankings much, failing to impress guild scouts could put students at a disadvantage when job-hunting after graduation.
[Now, we will begin the second-year basic magic proficiency test.]
The grand auditorium.
It was my first time back here since the public ranking evaluation test on the first day of school.
Standing here brought back fresh memories of when my mana had run out, leaving me humiliated in front of the entire school.
Back then, I had wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear, but now, it was just another memory.
“Hm.”
I glanced around the auditorium.
The audience seats were packed with scouts from various guilds.
I even spotted a few familiar faces.
There were executives from major guilds as well as villains disguised as regular guild scouts.
Just then, the announcer called a name from the podium.
[Second-year Class A, Lee Seo-jun.]
The audience stirred with excitement.
More than half of them were probably here just to see Lee Seo-jun, the so-called prodigy of the century.
“So that’s Lee Seo-jun.”
“Wow, he’s even better-looking in person.”
“They say he’s Chairman Kim Jin-cheol’s disciple. I wonder how strong he is.”
“Hey, don’t even bother recording his score. He’s never gonna join our guild anyway.”
Despite having all these high-profile figures’ attention on him, Lee Seo-jun showed no signs of nervousness as he stepped onto the test stage.
The midterm’s basic magic proficiency test was different from the public ranking evaluation test.
Back then, students simply aimed at a target, and their rankings were determined by their scores.
But starting from the midterms, students had to defeat a mannequin-like monster as quickly as possible.
[Second-year Class A, Lee Seo-jun, begin.]
In front of Lee Seo-jun, a two legged monster known as a “Green Giant” was summoned.
Lee Seo-jun drew his sword from his waist.
At the same time, his blade emitted a bright light.
“…A light attribute?”
“Wait, is that synergy? A high school student using synergy?”
Synergy—the highest-tier technique that allowed a person to use both enhancement and manifestation magic simultaneously.
As soon as Lee Seo-jun’s sword began radiating light-based magic, astonished gasps erupted from the audience.
“They weren’t kidding about him being a prodigy.”
“This is insane. That’s not something a student should be capable of.”
Lee Seo-jun adjusted his grip on the sword and took his stance.
Then, he charged at the monster.
True to his role as the protagonist of this world, Lee Seo-jun’s skills were overwhelming.
With a single strike, he cut down the monster.
The sheer precision and dominance of his technique drew a standing ovation from the audience.
The same happened when it was Yoo Ara’s turn.
The moment she launched a massive fireball at the monster, the guild representatives erupted in astonished cheers.
Time passed, and finally, it was the last turn for the second-years—my turn.
[Second-year Class A, Kim Sun-woo.]
As I stepped onto the test stage, murmurs filled the auditorium once more.
But unlike the reactions to Lee Seo-jun and Yoo Ara, which had been filled with admiration and anticipation, the response to me was mockery and ridicule.
“That’s the guy, right? From the public ranking test.”
“Oh, yeah. The one people accused of getting in through corruption.”
“Pfft. I bet he’ll run out of mana again.”
[254 people feel anticipation toward you.]
[You have received 1,000 points as a reward.]
Already, so many people had expectations of me.
Of course, their “expectations” were probably just them hoping I’d embarrass myself again, like in the public ranking test video.
But this time, things were different.
With my place in the special class, my reputation, and my achievements at stake, I had no intention of playing the clown for their amusement.
[Second-year Class A, Kim Sun-woo, begin.]
Like the others before me, a Green Giant was summoned in front of me.
I gathered mana in my hand.
A glowing magic sphere formed above my palm.
I didn’t bother compressing my mana.
If I used the Heart of the Great Nature, I could easily take it down, but I couldn’t afford to waste it recklessly. Who knew what kind of emergency might arise during the exam period?
For now, I would simply allocate my mana wisely and aim only for the monster’s weak points—points that no one else knew.
I already knew the Green Giant’s weak spots.
Thanks to the Outsider’s Privilege, they were glowing brightly in my vision.
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