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nIf the news about his cured eyes came out before the exam began, he would be in more trouble than he previously thought of.

nThinking about his cured eyes was delightful but on the other side Jason couldn't read and once his eyes were exposed and found out that he could see, he had to write a normal written exam like everyone else, without the help of the AI´s saying what's written down on the holographic screen.

nThe problem was that Jason couldn't read and write!

nHe didn't even know a single thing including the alphabet and had to learn it slowly.

nHow should he be able to write down theories about the mana outbreak in a highly technical language?

nThere was no way that Jason was able to learn how to read and write in a little bit more than 4 days including the important terms.

nSo Jason made up his mind and decided to fake being blind until the exam ended or else he had to write the theoretical exam, which would end up with a devastating result, destroying his dream of attending at least the worst possible high-school.

nAnother thing Jason could do was to ask the Cerus family for help, so he could reveal his eyes without worries but he didn't want to do that, as he relied more than enough on this family.

nHe would keep his eyes a secret until he finished middle school and would reveal his eyes when he entered high school which was still questionable for him.

nMany thoughts run through his mind

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n`Will I be able to attend a school? What's the use of attending the worst high-school in a C-grade city? Should I just start working somewhere?` Feeling tormented by his own questions, Jason sighed frustrated.

nAs for resources high-schools provided, the most important reason for Jason would be to learn many martial art techniques and battle skills but thinking about the martial art techniques provided by C-grade cities or rather their worst high-schools, Jason could only frown deeply.

n`Is it really worth the effort?`

nJason didn´t want to be a laborer as they were exploited and earned only enough to stay alive, as such not many occupations could be chosen by him if he only finished middle school.

nFor now, Jason would have to do a few things.

nThe most important thing was that he had to score 100% on the theoretical questions because he didn't want to have his soul-awakening and pick a soulbond as the last student.

nWhile the soul-awakening score was unpredictable, Jason was sure that he would get zero points for combat technique and zero points for his Novice-1 mana core and miserable strength.

nThe soul-awakening was on the same day when one would pick the soulbond which was the reason it wasn´t included in the exam results to decide the order to pick one's soulbond.

nEven with a 100% theoretical score, Jason would be at most in the middle section but more likely in the lower section to pick a soulbond which annoyed him slightly.

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nHe didn´t want to be blind and Jason frowned thinking about the unfair world...

nIt was good that his eyes were doing fine and they were even something special like his mother told him but seeing wouldn´t instantly solve all of his problems.

nCalming down, he continued his walking around and his mood changed completely as the skyscrapers around the park looked amazing and Jason marveled at almost everything.

nGoing back home due to exhaustion Jason bought the beginner book for reading and writing most children would use.

nJason used his old smartphone´s AI to tell him what he should do as Jason didn't have someone to read it to him.

nThe AI was somehow replacing his parents' job of education.

nHours passed and Jason's brain smoked after completely learning how to read and write every letter.

nIt wasn't as easy as he had expected and it would take some time to fluently read books, write sentences and texts while applying the correct grammar without any misspellings.

nJason was aware of this fact but he was also very happy.

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nHe believed that he would never be able to see and learn how to write as the years passed without sensing any progress in his eyes.

nJason´s mother told him that it would only take a few years until his eyes would awaken but she was mistaken as it took almost ten years of utmost effort.

nNevertheless, he was happy and gathered more mana to improve his mana core and physique which was more than necessary.

n*Next Morning*

nWaking up before his alarm, Jason washed up, brushed his teeth, and put on his school uniform.

nTaking out his cane and a bandage to cover up his eyes he left the building.

nJason would have to lie about his eyes saying that he hurt them somehow to use the bandage as an aid and a means of coverage if someone asked.

nBut nobody really cared about him that much so Jason would just play lowkey without drawing much attention on himself.

nIt would wonder him if someone even asked why he used a bandage to cover his eyes, so he was quite relaxed.

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nPutting on the bandage he wanted to test if he could see the mana flow through the thin bandage without revealing his golden eyes through it.

nAnd surprisingly it worked! Jason noticed, causing a radiant smile to appear on his face.

nThe bandage was thick enough to cover his golden eyes but also sufficiently thin to see the mana flow.

nJason wanted to know where the mana flow was thicker and where it was thinner to improve his gathering of mana somehow.

nIt would be quite helpful to find some spots where the mana density was thicker as Jason didn´t have much time left to improve his mana core rank

nTaking off, Jason pulled out his cane while he was already wearing the bandage so people at his school would not notice anything off.

nAn hour later Jason arrived at his school where nobody cared about him.

nHe entered his classroom like every day before and sat down nonchalantly in the first row next to the window.

nLooking through the bandage around the classroom, Jason noticed the flow of mana around his classmates.

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nJason could see the outlines of everyone and he could tell which one of them was stronger in rank and magical power.

nHowever, he couldn´t really tell what rank they were, as his eyes told him only the differences in their mana core which indicated the distinction in strength.

nThere was not a sign, telling him 8th Novice-rank or something like that.

nMost Students in Jason's classroom had the same amount of strength and he knew that most were at the 8th Novice rank so he could allocate the mana core level to a rank.

nThere were a few stronger and weaker ones but the majority was at the 8th Novice rank which was the publicly known average for middle-grade graduates on Astrix and some of its surrounding islands.

nOn average, youths began to sense the mana in their surrounding at the age of 10 while some would be able to sense it at a younger age like Jason.

nYouth with an average mana aptitude required slightly more than four years to increase their mana rank to the Adept rank.

nThis was mostly because of the rough start everyone had to go through by learning how mana worked, what it could do, and how to handle it carefully, which was difficult for young children.

nUnfortunate children started to sense mana later than their peers, which is most probably an indicator of poorer compatibility with mana.

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nThere are many reasons why some humans gathered and absorbed mana faster than others, which would result in them reaching higher mana core ranks compared to their brethren at a younger age.

nThese indicators were mostly divided into two main sections, namely called innate talent and trainable talent.

nThe main indicator for every human´s mana gathering and absorbing speed is their mana control, which is trainable and one´s mana sensitivity, which was considered as an innate talent and almost impossible to improve.

nJason was a negative irregular while a positive irregular was the guy next to him.

nGreg Fler was his name and he was already fourteen years old.

nHis parents were merchants or more likely beast traders.

nThey captured beasts for others and owned a decent number of assets and credits.

nIt was even said that they´ll be appointed as minor nobles for their meritious deeds.

nComparing their strength, Jason noticed that Greg had more than multiple times the amount of strength and magical power compared to his classmates.

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nHe was most probably already at the Adept rank and thus the number one prodigy of their middle school.

nIt was astonishing to see the huge difference from an adept rank mana core to a novice rank mana core.

nWhen middle-school started, Jason thought Greg was a little bit full of himself, as he defeated everyone with a single punch during the practical lessons but Jason didn't have any animosity with him as Greg has never bullied him.

nRather than that Greg seemed to be relatively friendly towards him and since they sat next to each other Jason had never been bullied again which made him curious.

n`Did Greg intervene?` Was what Jason questioned himself many times during the last few years.

nNormally it was said that the strong preyed on the weak, but Greg was a rather nice guy, even if he was a little bit dull.

nHis grades weren't that good but also not that bad.

nBut instead of having good grades, he was like a monster in martial arts because he liked to fight way more than anything else.

nJason wasn't a good sparring partner and thus probably uninteresting for Greg.

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nOnly Jason´s grades were envied by Greg but different from others he didn´t do anything because of his envy.

nWasn´t it rather childish to envy a blind one for his theoretical grade when he would fail miserably in every practical exam?

nSometimes, Greg even asked Jason about some difficult things and Jason answered them before ignoring him again.

nClass started and everyone sat down waiting for their teacher to arrive.

nGreg noticed Jason´s bandage but he didn't really care about it.

nAs the teacher entered the room after the bell rang and lessons started like every weekday.

nNothing special happened during the theoretical lessons and Jason listened carefully while imagining how everything was written.

nWhile the school lessons were divided into theoretical and practical courses. Jason only attended the theoretical lessons because the teachers noticed was useless for him to have practical lessons after some time.

nThe only thing he would do was running on a treadmill to build up some stamina and listening to the explanations of the martial art technique they learned, some tips, and the finest details of them.

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nFor Jason, today, everything was different than usual, because he could see the outlines of the instructor's technical movements according to the martial arts description as most martial arts techniques were used with the support of mana enhancing certain body parts.

nJason scanned the movements and devoured them, memorizing everything he saw.

nHe would try some of them at home and he didn't want to have any flaws during his practice.

nOther than this, nothing changed about Jason's behavior.

nWhile walking home he always scanned the soulbond beasts he saw trying to figure out what the radiating colors indicated but there were almost no clues.

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