To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

The next day, I got to go home, at long last getting to lay down on my own bed in my own room and relax. There was a lot that had to be done and all I had was a year to do it. So I made a list of what had to be accomplished.

1] I have to improve my physique to match the levels of my watcher.

2] I have to learn more close quarters combat techniques, specifically ones that are actually useful in a real fight.

3] I have lay low and not get noticed in school from now on.

4] I have to get better at trying to use my ability to enhance my senses, reflexes and reaction time by trying to find a way to get permanent improvements like my physique instead of the temporary one.

5] Lastly I have to find a way to sense and control my energy outside my body like I can do it inside.

These were lofty goals for a year and the only reason I even considered putting all of them on was to make sure I didn't have any free time to get distracted thinking about Nebula.

The first 2 points, I was planning on exploiting my watcher to get those done. If I could just use my enhanced mode over and over again anytime I had a chance to train with the watcher as the target my growth rate would get a huge spike. At the same time since the skills the watcher had been too far above my level and they were unlikely to come in front of me and let me see them use these skills to help me improve faster. The only solution I had available to me was to go into the enhanced mode with the watcher close by and train using the little bit of the skills I was able to copy while in the enhanced mode. This would be the best use of my time efficiently as I could train using these skills with the level of strength of the watcher allowing me to improve my physique and skills together. Since I would be practising the skills in the enhanced mode, it would allow my better physique, senses, reflexes and reaction time to help learn them faster.

The laying low part was also important, I had to be good enough for people to know I am good but not so good at anything specifically that anyone would give me actual recognition for it. No inter-school or higher level of competition, no scoring the highest in any test for any subject, no recognition for any activity that would even put me in the school newspaper. It was also going to be important that I talk to the Academy guys to get a way to get early admission before the start of next year but keep it silent from anybody except my parents so I could spend more time doing the things that are going to be necessary for me before I graduate High School. All of this would allow me to easily fade away from people's memory, well most people it was unlikely people like Nebula would forget me now.

The last 2 issues were much more complicated, I had a goal but absolutely no I idea how I would go about actually completing the goal. But at least I had a path to tread on for the others. But these could be back burner for now. I could get started with item 3 when school started back up in January and in the meanwhile, my time would be best spent practising with my enhanced mode.

That is what I did for the rest of the time of my vacation till school started back up in 2nd week of January. I did realize a very crucial thing during this time, as long as I was home I seemed to be able to sense the watcher within the radius to activate the enhanced mode. This would mean he stayed either on the roof of our house or in the back garden as these were the only 2 places he could hide.

I made full use of it by training every free minute that was available to me in my bedroom by moving my bed to one corner of the room. This helped me make great progress towards the enhancement of my physique but not as much in terms of skill improvement as I had expected.

Then soon came the first day back to school after the vacations ended where I would have to be in the same classroom as Nebula again, maybe even sit at a desk right next to her as I did before. Things were going to get real now and it was time to get the poker face on.