5 Keeping the secret
If the news of his cured eyes were to leak before the exam began, he would be in more trouble than he previously thought.
Thinking about his cured eyes was delightful but on the downside, Jason couldn't read. Once everyone including his teachers would know that his vision had magically returned and that he could now see perfectly well, he would have to sit for a normal written exam like every other student. He wouldn't be granted the AI's assistance anymore that was normally given to children with special needs. Without the AI, he wouldn't know what was written on the holographic screen.
The problem was that Jason couldn't read and write!
He didn't even know a single thing including the alphabet and would have to learn it slowly.
How should he be able to write down theories about the mana outbreak in a highly technical language?
There was no way that Jason would be able to learn how to read and write in a little over 4 days including the important terms.
So Jason made up his mind and decided to continue to let everyone believe that he was still blind by faking it until the exam ended. The slightest blunder would make him write the theoretical exam normally. That would destroy his dream of attending the worst possible high school at the least.
Another thing Jason could do was to ask the Cerus family for help, so he could reveal that his vision had returned without worries. But, he didn't want to do that, as he had already received many favors from the family and he didn't like adding more to his guilt of relying on others.
He would keep his eyesight a secret until he would finish middle school. He planned to reveal the secret when he would enter high school which was still questionable for him.
Many thoughts ran through his mind.
`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 in frustration.
As for resources provided by the high schools, the most important reason for Jason to attend one would be to learn many martial art techniques and battle skills. But, Jason's mood turned gloomy when he thought about the martial art techniques provided by C-grade cities or rather their worst high-schools.
`Is it really worth the effort?`
Jason didn't want to be a laborer as they were exploited and were forced to live a hand-to-mouth existence., As such, his choices in future occupations were limited if he were to finish middle school only before looking for work.
For now, Jason would have to do a few things.
The most important thing was that he had to score 100% in the theoretical questions because he didn't want to have his soul-awakening and pick a soulbond as the last student.
While 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.
The soul awakening was on the same day when one would pick the soulbond. This was the reason it wasn't included in the exam results to decide the order of students in which they would pick a soulbond.
Even with a 100% theoretical score, Jason would be at most in the middle section of the long queue of students but more likely in the lower section to pick a soulbond which annoyed him slightly.
He didn't want to be blind and Jason frowned thinking about the unfair world...
It was good that his eyes were doing fine and they were even something special like his mother had told him. But being able to see again wouldn't instantly solve all of his problems.
Calming down, he continued to walk and his mood changed completely as he looked around. The skyscrapers around the park looked amazing and Jason marveled at almost everything.
Jason decided to return home due to exhaustion because he had been roaming around the city for a long time. On the way home, Jason bought the beginner's book for reading and writing most children would use.
Jason used his old smartphone's AI to guide him as he didn't have someone to read it to him.
The AI was somehow stepping in as a parental figure in imparting education.
Hours passed and Jason's brain grew numb after completely learning how to read and write every single letter. He felt drained and mentally exhausted after learning something that was taught for days in a matter of hours.
It wasn't as easy as he had expected it to be. It would take him some time to fluently read books, write sentences and texts while applying the correct grammar without any misspellings.
Jason was aware of this fact but he was also very happy.
Until a few days ago, he had believed that he would never be able to see and learn how to write as the years passed without him sensing any progress in his eyes.
Jason´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.
Nevertheless, he was happy and gathered more mana to improve his mana core and physique which was more than necessary.
*Next Morning*
Waking up before his alarm, Jason washed up, brushed his teeth, and put on his school uniform.
Taking out his cane and a bandage to cover up his eyes he left the building.
Jason would have to lie about his eyes saying that he hurt them somehow to use the bandage as an aid and a means to keep it under wraps if someone asked.
But nobody really cared about him that much so Jason would just lay low without drawing much attention to himself.
It would make him wonder if someone even asked why he used a bandage to cover his eyes, so he was quite relaxed.
Putting 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.
And surprisingly it worked! Jason couldn't be any happier as a radiant smile appeared on his face.
The bandage was thick enough to cover his golden eyes but also sufficiently thin to see the mana flow.
Jason wanted to know where the mana flow was thicker and where it was thinner to refine the process of gathering mana to some extent.
It would be quite helpful to find some spots where the mana density was thicker as time was running short for Jason to improve his mana core rank.
Taking off, Jason pulled out his cane while he was already wearing the bandage so people at his school would not notice that anything was off.
An hour later Jason arrived at his school and unsurprisingly nobody cared about him.
He entered his classroom like usual and sat down nonchalantly in the first row next to the window.
As he chanced a peek through the bandage around the classroom, Jason noticed the flow of mana around his classmates.
Jason could see the outlines of everyone and he could tell which one of them was stronger in rank and magical power.
However, he couldn't really tell what rank they were, as his eyes only told him the differences in their mana core which indicated the distinction in strength.
There was not a sign, telling him [8th Novice-rank] or something similar.
Most 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.
There were a few stronger and weaker ones but the majority was at the 8th Novice rank. It was the publicly known average for middle-grade graduates on Astrix and some of its surrounding islands.
On average, youths began to sense the mana in their surroundings at the age of 10 while some would be able to sense it at a fairly young age like Jason.
In general, youths with an average mana aptitude required slightly more than four years to increase their mana rank to the Adept rank.
This was mostly because of the rough start everyone had in learning how mana worked, what it could do, and how to handle it carefully, which was difficult for young children.
Unfortunately, some children sensed mana later than their peers, which was most probably an indicator of poor mana compatibility.
There were many reasons why some humans gathered and absorbed mana faster than others. This would enable them to reach higher mana core ranks compared to others at a younger age.
These indicators were mostly divided into two main sections, namely innate talent, and trainable talent.
The main indicator of how good or bad every human's mana gathering and absorption speed was, was their mana control. Humans could be taught to control mana better hence the name, trainable talent. Then came mana sensitivity, which was considered as an innate talent and was almost impossible to improve.
Jason was a negative irregular while the boy next to him was a positive irregular.
His name was Greg Fler he was fourteen years old.
His parents were merchants or more likely beast traders.
They captured beasts for others and owned a decent number of assets and credits.
It was even said that they would soon be appointed as minor nobles for their meritorious deeds.
Comparing his strength with Greg, Jason noticed that Greg's strength and magical power were unrivaled and none of his classmates came close to Greg's prowess.
He was most probably already at the Adept rank and thus the number one prodigy of their middle school.
It was astonishing to see the huge difference between an adept rank mana core and a novice rank mana core.
When middle school had started, Jason had thought that Greg was full of himself, because he had defeated every opponent with a single punch during the practical lessons. But Jason didn't have any animosity with him as Greg had never bullied him.
Instead, Greg seemed to be relatively friendly with him. Also, Jason had never been bullied again since he sat next to Greg in the classes. The fact often made him curious.
`Did Greg intervene?` Was what Jason questioned himself many times during the last few years.
Normally it was said that the strong preyed on the weak, but Greg was a rather nice guy, even if he was a little dim.
His grades weren't that good but also not that bad, he was average in studies.
But, what he lacked in grades, he made up for in other skills. He was like a monster in martial arts because he liked to fight way more than anything else.
Jason wasn't a good sparring partner and thus probably uninteresting for Greg.
Only Jason's grades were envied by Greg, however different from others, Greg didn't bully Jason because of his envy.
Wasn´t it rather childish to envy a blind boy for his theoretical grade when he would fail miserably in every practical exam?
Sometimes, Greg even asked Jason about some difficult things and Jason answered them before ignoring him again.
The school bell rang indicating that the class was about to start, hence every student occupied his/her seat and waited for their teacher to arrive.
Greg noticed Jason´s bandage but he didn't really care about it.
The teacher commenced the lessons as usual.
Nothing special happened during the theoretical lessons and Jason listened carefully while imagining how everything was written.
While the school lessons were divided into theoretical and practical courses, Jason only attended the theoretical lessons. The teachers found it to be pointless to impart practical lessons to him after some time.
The only thing he would do in the initial practical lessons was to run on a treadmill to build up some stamina and listen to the explanations of the martial art technique while paying attention to some tips, and the finest details shared by their teacher.
For Jason, today was a special day. To him, everything was different than usual, because he could see the outlines of the instructor as he demonstrated the different moves based on the martial arts description. Most of the martial arts techniques were used with the support of mana that enhanced certain body parts.
Jason looked at the teacher with rapt attention as the teacher described each stance and pose, committing everything to memory.
He would try some of them at home and he didn't want to make any mistakes during his practice.
Other than this, nothing had changed about Jason's behavior.
While walking home he always scanned the soulbond beasts on the way trying to figure out what the radiating colors indicated, but there were almost no clues.
