"Been a while since I ate something good."
I said as I looked towards the cheese hamburger, fries, and cola that was in front of me.
Duh, I am eating it at home. It's a takeaway.
'Wonder how the burger of another world taste's like...'
I took the first bite.
Taste's normal. No, otherworldly taste.
Since coming to this world I have been busy with all sorts of stuff, I didn't had time to eat or rest properly. Gaining the basic knowledge, trying to find about Noah. Learning the basics of elven, dwarven, beastfolk and vampire language and getting myself acquainted with how the tech works in this world.. Fortunately, I didn't had to learn human language, it was the same as in my world. Unfortunately, I couldn't learn demon language. How could I? There were no resources to.
In my previous world it took me a year to perfectly become fluent in 10 languages but what about now?
It only took me 2 weeks to learn 4 languages!
...Well, basics of 4 languages to not get scammed, but hey, I still did a pretty good of a job.
Noah's intelligence stat is surely a marvel all of it's own.
I am now a genius.
A certified genius.
Bow down to me peasants!
When I achieved this feat, I felt like I was on cloud nine, seventh heaven, or whatever up there is, I was surely there.
But all my happiness came crashing down.
Why?
Well, I will first have to explain other stuff to help you understand the reason for my distress.
Apparently, it's hard to increase intelligence stat after it reaches E. More accurately, your intelligence stat increases alongside other stats when your rank increases but afterward it's simply hard to increase your intelligence stat.
I, like most of the readers, didn't bother much with reading the individual stats of the characters shown in the novel. All I did was to look at their rank.
In other words, I didn't know how incredible Noah's intelligence truly is until now.
I learned about the common sense of this world, somewhat, and I learned something I didn't know.
There's never been any human with a higher intelligence stat than D, not before the age of 20.
And even after the age of 20, the best intelligence stat humans ever got is C. No, not everyone got C, those who got were just geniuses.
What? Isn't intelligence something that should be developing in the initial stages of growth? Well, I don't know. That's how this world works. Maybe, there's a reason somewhere out there though I am not interested in finding it.
About other species?
Dwarves got C+
Elves got C
Vampires got C+
Beastfolk got D+
Demons got C+
You also have to take into account that these species live longer than humans but despite that, the best they have is just C+
Noah is B+!
Add the fact that he is only 16 years old!
Basically, Noah is officially the smartest person in the world! Wait, that means I am the smartest person in the world!
..and if it gets out I am getting done for.
Fortunately, there's no way to look into someone else's status. There exist some artifacts but they only tell the rank of the person, not individual stats rank.
What? Then what is the guarantee about the information that I gathered? What if other species, humanity included are just keeping the best stat they have got a secret?
Sure, there's none.
Anyways, if no one can find about my intelligence stat then what's the problem?
Well, you see I want to become strong and to do so I will have to go into a dungeon, a hidden dungeon, train myself, and whatnot.
But doing all this will lead to pain.
Fighting with a monster? I am definitely going to get cuts and bruises and that level of injury is normal in this world.
But that's not the case for me!
I am a normal teenage high school boy! I come from a peaceful society! Pain isn't something I am used to! I am not interested in getting used to it either!
I have never been even spanked by my parents!
..Okay! Fine! I might have been spanked when I was a newborn chicc... That's not the point!
How the hell will I deal with the pain that comes from fighting monsters?
The answer is simple, I can't.
So then, how am I going to fight?
You see, this world now revolves around mana energy. What is mana? Mana is an energy that came into existence after the great f*ck up by our mad scientist.
What is the use of mana? You mana coat your weapon such as a sword, spear, or whatever to strengthen it. Don't expect a normal scrap of metal to pierce monsters, it will be like a kid hitting a wall...
No, the wall won't break.
Well, mana energy is the same as breathing. Your body absorbs mana from its surroundings, well not instantly. The recovery rate of mana is faster in those with magician class.
If you are low on mana reserves either drink the mana recovery potion or let it recover naturally(it would take a lot of time though).
What happens if you exhaust your mana completely? Well, you go into a state where you feel you are dying.
Regardless, what I want to say is mana revolves around one's body from head to toe.
It is possible to control mana inside of your body. Some people even use the mana-strengthening method.
What's mana strengthening? You control the mana inside your body to strengthen your muscles to increase your strength.
It's something everyone is taught in 2nd semester in school. The school I am talking about is the one I will be attending in the future.
Average person after learning mana strengthening can see the increase in their strength!
Why am I talking about it?
Well, as I said I don't like pain. So I wondered about using the concept of controlling my mana to strengthen my muscles but rather than muscles I will try to control my brain.
Yes, since mana is all around one's body I will use mana in my head and use it to control my brain.
Utter control of my brain. Subconscious to conscious, everything.
If I do that wouldn't I be able to remove the sensation/feeling of pain entirely?
Basically using mana to temper with brain. Brain tempering as I had like to call it.
But I am not arrogant enough to think no one ever thought about this method. Moreover, this method wasn't something used in the novel, so I did some research and I came across an article.
I had to be damned.
According to the article, people did try brain tempering using mana but it ended up being a failure, more accurately people died.
At the end of the day, it was concluded brain tempering is simply impossible.
They did a lot of experiments and research and they got some answers.
Brain tempering using mana for anyone older than 20 is going to kill them. Reasons? It's a delicate process to temper with the brain using mana, a single mistake and you are done.
Also doing brain tempering after the age of 20 when your brain is mostly developed causes problems, since your brain has never done something like this, and the fact that it has mostly developed, messing with it is simply a no-no.
After this, they decided to use kids for experiments.
What? How could they use kids? This is all during the time when humanity was getting fu*ked, they didn't have time to think about morals, and they needed anything that could help them. Humanity's dark past, that's what it was.
They didn't hide this dark past because if they did people might try brain tempering and die. History would simply repeat.
Okay, fine. They did try to hide it but in the end they couldn't keep it a secret.
Anyways, the experiment failed, those kids didn't die but ended with brain damage which was repairable to some degree not completely.
But all is not lost. According to the data the higher the intelligence stat the better the results were.
The brain damage was the lowest among those with higher intelligence stat.
The problem is the highest intelligence stat for someone under the age of 20 is D.
Thus they concluded, that it's impossible to temper your brain using mana because there's no individual with an appropriate intelligence level at the right age.
Theoretically, it's possible, I mean they did find less brain damage in kids with higher intelligence stat. Practically? It's impossible.
As for me? It's clearly possible, the best intelligence stat those guys have to experiment on was D and my intelligence stat is B+.
The difference in our stat is whooping 7 ranks.
Now, we finally come to the reason why I have been troubled with Noah's genius.
What are the chances that some f*cker didn't give up and still experimented? What are the odds of Noah being one of the experiments? A successful one at that?
What are the chances Noah annihilated those f*ckers and erased his records?
According to the guy I asked for information Noah, there's no information about him prior to these past 2 years.
..More than that it would also explain why Noah wasn't mentioned in the novel.
Noah had dark circles in his eyes when I looked in the mirror but ..there's simply no reason for him to have that.
There were no research papers in his room, the books in his room weren't to the level that Noah had to forgo his sleep to study them all.
What I am trying to say is Noah's dying. More accurately, there simply didn't exist a way to reach such intelligence without any side effects.
This would explain why there was no mention of Noah in the novel since he died already but it would also mean that Noah was the only successful experiment because there was no one who got introduced with an absurd level of intelligence except one person... I will think about it when I meet her.
It also explains why my body feels heavy, tired, and exhausted, a slight headache. I initially thought it was because I have been pushing myself but not anymore.
What? It still doesn't explain how I got into the academy.
Why would Noah go and enter into a top academy knowing he is gonna die?
For shits and giggles, of course.
You don't need grand reasons to do some stupid stuff sometimes. Not when you are about to kick the bucket.
I mean, Noah erased his records, his past. Do you get what that means?
Noah entered into top academy. No way in hell those guys didn't try to check into Noah's past. What did they find? Shit.
Now imagine Noah dying and not attending the academy? No way, those higher-ups would let the matter go. In other words, Noah damn well affected some things, things not told in the novel.
In other words, the moment I save my own ass butterfly effect will already be in motion.
Not that I care, it's inevitable. I don't even know if there's someone else like me out there.
To begin with, as things are in this world, it's fated to be doomed, so any change is better than nothing at all.
Back on topic. The main point of all this is to say Noah is gonna die soon enough and that means I am gonna die, which is a problem.
What?
Why do I believe in this theory so much?
Because that's what Noah's diary says! That's what his medical reports say!
I found his diary and read it!
Goodness gracious.
Give me a break.
Haa~
A sigh escaped my lips.
What? Why did I give 20 million to that guy if I had Noah's diary in my hands?
...Well, this diary, every single page in it is written in a damn code!
I didn't wanna go through the pain of decoding it! That's why!
What? Why not ask someone else to decode it for me? No way am I gonna give someone a diary that is coded!
I am not dumb enough to not realize it's a shit not meant to be shared. So, once I was done reading it, I burned it.
And it's not like I gave that guy all that money for nothing. There's another job I asked him to do for me.
I took out the phone to check on something while taking the last sip of my cola.
"Shit!"
I shouted as I fell from my chair, hurting my butt.
A blue screen greeted me that seemed to have emerged out of nowhere.
"Don't pop up like that. I assume you are done with the work?"
[Yes]
Damn. Didn't think it had work.