Adapting

"Haaa…"

Feeling tired after cleaning the house with the 'claimed-to-be-my-cousin' who called herself Shannon, I leaned back on the sofa. I could feel almost being dragged into the dream world if only her voice didn't reach my mind.

"I've never thought that cleaning would take this much time."

"Sorry," I felt sorry because the reason why it took this long was because of me. No strength, no stamina, no muscle. The worst body ever. The only good thing about me was my look.

"What are you sorry for?" she said. Her hands slowly touched my shoulders.

"Want a massage?"

"... sure."

That felt good, but…

"T-that…"

"Hmm?"

"Can y-you– ack!"

Fvck. "If you keep it like that, I think my bone will break…"

And then she stopped and smiled at me.

"You need to train your body and hone your skills, cousin. You're too weak. At this rate, you won't pass the Octagram Academy's entrance exam next month."

"Octagram Academy?"

It sounded familiar. Where had I heard of that word before?

"Yep. The most prestigious academy with state-of-the-art facilities and technology. You said you wanted to attend that academy from the first time you went through awakening 3 years ago…" she paused for a moment. "... but since that 'day', you'd never use your power anymore."

It was a grief expression at first, but then she smiled as she was looking at me with somewhat a little mischievous eyes.

"Earlier, when we were cleaning the house. You used your observation on me, right?"

"Eek!" I tried to stay calm, but it was out of the blue that she suddenly brought that up right now.

"Looking at your face, I think that's true. So, what is the reason for you to suddenly use your power again?"

"Is there a need for a reason to use some cool power? It'd be a waste to just leave it unused."

"I mean…" she was about to argue, but she leave it with a heavy sigh. "... right, there's no need a reason to use such power…"

She patted my head gently.

"Glad you're back."

She said that but, did she know that her real cousin was actually someone else?

I gave her an awkward smile for two reasons. First, was because I wasn't this Zio Varrez she'd known. And second, I'd never get my head patted like this— It was comforting just as the books I read said.

"Well. Let's leave it here. It's getting late… do you want to have dinner first before you get to bed?"

"Yeah, sure!"

"Alright then… It's been a while since I cook. I hope my skill is still there."

She disappeared behind the kitchen. As I was about to relax on the sofa, her head popped up as if she was peeking.

"Don't forget. Tomorrow. You will exercise and train. You want to get into the academy, right?"

"Yes. Yes. I know," I said, waving my hand lazily.

Although I said that, honestly I didn't know if that very academy was the academy I knew.

"I guess I need to do some data-gathering about this world."

Looking back at the computer in my room, it'd be easy to do that. A world with more advanced technology than the one I knew must have plenty of information spread around the internet.

After dinner, without anything to talk about with Shannon, I immediately entered my room. The light was out so the first thing first was to turn the light on, of course.

The computer to my right was tempting me to use it before I went to bed, and so I did, just like before I came upon this world. I sat and turned on the computer.

"Wow, this guy's got a lot of games on his PC. But, I don't recognize all of these games at all except Yourcraft."

These games were waking up my urge to play them, but I weirdly could hold it off unlike the usual.

"It's not the time to play games!" I said.

"First, data-gathering. Yes. Data-gathering about this world is more important than playing games. And after that is done, then that's the time to play gam–! No, after I have done with data-gathering, it'd be wise to go to sleep. I need to wake up early tomorrow."

After flexing my finger, I started to type on the keyboard as if I was a hacker. 

Tap.tap.tap.tap. Like tap–I meant that.

I started with the most basic keyword, 'Earth'.

"Hmm. So, humanity hasn't moved to another planet and started a colony?" 

Apparently, the world where I was living right now was still a blue and green planet called Earth–yeah our homeworld and not Mars or whichever planet I could mention. A bit disappointed but well, it was the Earth 7 years to the future from my time. A familiar world, easy to adapt–well not really, I hope society at least changed a bit.

The second and third keywords I searched for were 'Awakening' and 'Octagram Academy'.

Shannon mentioned earlier about awakening power or something and Octagram academy. I'd thought I need to start from that first because those were familiar words yet I was not so sure about it.

Multiple sites link were opened at once. But, as I read through it, I felt like it was too shallow of information. Then, one tab–a forum called 'Ascension' I'd opened, it was the one I needed to look for information.

Scrolling and reading dozens, and hundreds of topics posted by other users was sure a tiring one but it didn't fail me.

It took me some hours to digest all of the information shared by the others. And once I'd done with it, I could say that this was the world familiar to me. I meant, it was not because it was the 'normal' Earth but because this Earth was the world of the novel 'The Hero Beyond The Light' that was written by me.

"I can't believe it."

My voice was trembling. I felt thrilled, or maybe excited was the right word to describe my feeling right now.

"Haha. I can't believe that those stories are true. Reincarnation…"

"Hmm… Transmigration to a novel world is the real deal!"

I could laugh and jump like a bunny all I want this late at night if only someone didn't barge into my room and hit me with a pillow.

"It's late at night, why haven't you slept yet?!"

Shannon sighed, trying to smile.

"Sorry. I got excited…"

Her eyebrows were raised, and her facial expression had changed from an annoyed face to a curious face.

"Excited? For what?" she said as her eyes were peeking at the computer screen.

"Uhh… Because I got to attend Octagram Academy…?"

She eyed me for a moment and let out a cute yawn… Was 'cute yawn' even a legit word?

"You would attend to. If you don't practice hard, I doubt you will pass the test. Don't worry thou… *yawn*... you have me as a teacher. Two weeks is more than enough to make you able to pass the exam."

"Heh… So confident. What rank are you in the academy anyway?"

She tilted her head. "Unbelievable…"

"What?"

"Did you loss your memory or are you don't care about everything I told you every time I got back home?"

"I… I just forget about that, okay? You didn't even tell me about that today…"

"Oh, right. I forgot. It's because of your sudden change…" she smiled.

I felt a little nervous every time she mentioned that. Although her smile was a pure concern, her eyes said otherwise.

"By the way, I ranked 33rd in the entrance exam. At the end of the first year, my ranking rose to 19th place. Throughout my second year, I moved up the rankings again and now maintain 7th place in my year's batch."

"7th place?!"

Seventh place; meant that she was in the top 10 students of her year. If I was right, the Octagram Academy gave them–the top 10 students of each batch–a black card, something like a VIP card where they would get treated as a priority, and every item they bought was free… because the academy paid for it. A 7th-place black card would get you around 15 million creds.

For the record, one dollar was equal to 100 creds. So, 15 million creds would be around 150k dollars.

Feeling a soft touch on my skin, I was brought back to the harsh reality.

"You got 7th place at the end of your second year, right?"

She nodded.

"Then, it means that you still don't have the black card with you until the semester starts?"

"Why? Do you need money? Has the money I transferred to you last week run out?"

"Huh?"

Upon hearing that, I immediately grabbed the phone from the computer desk. But, I just remembered that it was not my bank account, I couldn't check the balance on this account because I didn't know the code pin.

"What was my PIN again?"

She took the phone from my hand, her fingers moved as she input the PIN. After that, she returned the phone to me.

When I saw the numbers on my phone screen, I hold my jaw so it didn't get dragged down by the shock.

"5 million creds!"

A whole 50k dollars. If it was the world where I came from, I could buy anything I want at my current age. But, in this world, 5 million creds wasn't that much money. With this much money, I could only get a gear of D-ranked and below. Well, still, for normal people without these awakenings things, that amount of amounts of money was able to cover their life needs for two to four months, which could be more if they had an extremely frugal life.

"Oh? Did you save the money I gave you?" Shannon said as she peeked at my phone.

Did I? Or did this guy save the money? But, I wonder, how much money did he get for every transfer?

Feeling curious, I checked the transfer history and found out that she sent me 50k creds weekly.

"Hmm… Have you never used this money since the first time I gave you pocket money?"

What the hell? REALLY?! HE DIDN'T?!

If it was me I'd already spent all those creds from the moment I got it in my account! Phew… This man I possessed was a crazy guy!

"I guess so… I didn't use it because you'd still buy me things, Shannon."

Shoot! What the hell was I saying out of the blue? I just assumed that she bought me everything although she already gave me an allowance.

But, somehow, I felt like that was the case.

"That's true," she scratched her cheek. "Well. Let's stop the talk here. It's already midnight, just go to sleep. You have a lot of things to catch up on."

I sighed. Both in relief and disbelief.