Matt & Julia

"How much time has passed since I last slept?" Augustus groggily asked, rubbing his eyes as he glanced at screen shown by the system.

"8 hours and 32 minutes? Time barely passed." He stretched his stiff muscles and got up from his bed, making his way to the cultivation room.

"I have around six months left until morning, Sigh." Augustus muttered to himself as he sat down to cultivate.

Six months passed by quickly, his cultivation progress had been impressive this time, thanks to the Qi Gathering Array.

Within six months, he had managed to reach Qi Refinement Level 5, though it's not stated in the system, cultivation has ten levels for each realm.

Usually advancing a single level would have taken him a year in his previous life.

Remembering how useful cultivation is, Augustus regret spending points on the Advance Swordsmanship.

Cultivation not only increase your overall strength, agility, endurance, and your defense capability it also increases your lifespan, which is why cultivating is far more popular than the others.

"I should have saved some points to upgrade the Qi Gathering Array," he thought, regretting his oversight.

Checking his quest system, Augustus try to claim the points from his completed daily quests.

[100 points earned]

[All of the daily quests were completed]

[500 points earned]

Despite the ability to exchange points for Mana Stones, Augustus found himself still 200 points short of the required amount to upgrade the Qi Gathering Array to Level 2. This upgrade promised to enhance his cultivation efficiency by a significant 20%, a boost that he desperately needed.

"I'll need to complete another set of daily quests, next time for the points." he decided, realizing he would have to leave his cultivation spot and return to the original world.

"You're up early, Augustus," his mother said as she hurriedly left the house with his father. "Go and wake up your sister. I've prepared some toast for both of you. I'll leave everything to you, honey. Let's go, Dad."

Augustus nodded and went to his sister's room to rouse her from her sleep. "Time to wake up and take a shower, little sis," he said with a teasing grin, pinching her cheeks lightly.

"Nggh, stop it..." his sister groaned, swatting his hand away.

"Stop..."

Augustus chuckled, knowing his playful antics would eventually get her out of bed.

I couldn't resist pinching my sister's soft cheeks.

"What time is it now?" Anna asked while being pinched by me.

"Almost 7 A.M.,"

"Huh? I'm going to shower now." Anna grabbed her clothes and towel and directly headed to the bathroom.

With that, I also quickly left the room to take a refreshing shower and prepare for school.

"My body got muscular. The effect of Physical Training applies on my original body too."

This is troublesome, though it's normal for someone's body to change overnight which usually because of cultivation breakthrough or training in Dimensional Traveling.

I'll try to avoid question regarding my body if anyone asked it since it's troublesome to come out with explanation or excuses.

After eating breakfast, both of us then left together walking to school as usual.

"Hey brother, did you get taller?" Anna noticed something slightly off with his brother, he definitely got taller than yesterday which is a bit odd.

"You got shorter." Augustus tried to avoid the topic and decided to make her sister mad.

"You're the one who got taller. There's no way someone could get shorter," she retorted, checking her own height with a skeptical gaze.

I chuckled, avoiding her question as I had to keep my martial arts training a secret for now.

While walking, Anna was thinking how his brother got money for training martial arts as the tuition is extremely expensive, even the cheapest one cost 500 dollars a day, far beyond our meager pocket money of 10 dollars a day from our parents.

Anna's suspicion lingered in her eyes, but before she could press further, an unexpected scene is unfolding in front of her eyes.

Augustus spotted Julia at the school entrance and greeted her with enthusiasm.

Julia looked surprised as I called out her name, scanning the surroundings nervously.

"Same time later, okay?" I said to Julia with a smile, ignoring Anna's curious gaze.

"Uh, yes, sure," Julia replied timidly.

Anna, who was observing the scene, was taken aback by her brother's interaction with a girl.

Her imagination started to run wild, thinking that Julia might be renting her brother as boyfriend or something similar.

Unaware of her misunderstanding, I continued to chat with Julia, leaving Anna behind as we walked towards our classroom.

Augustus noticed Julia's hair, which was usually messy, neatly tied up in a bun. "You tied up your hair today," he remarked.

"My mom always complains about my messy hair," Julia explained while rummaging through her bag for notes, which Anna mistakenly thought was an attempt to find money for her brother. "She asked me to tie it up. I usually let it down during class because I hate my hair being tied up."

Looking at Julia who's having a trouble finding the notes, Augustus chuckled. "It's okay, you can give me the notes later."

Julia replied, "Mhm. Okay."

As Anna observed the scene, her suspicions were confirmed. "I didn't know my brother was this flirty," she thought to herself. "My brother scored with a rich girl."

"They both seem quite happy too. I should keep this a secret from mom and dad until my brother introduce her to the family." Anna quietly left them alone and returned to her own class as it was about to start.

Once class began, Augustus and Julia went to their respective classrooms.

During that, as soon as Augustus entered the classroom Matt approached Augustus awkwardly as he felt that his best friend is different than before.

"Hey, August," Matt called out. "Want to go to the internet café later tonight?"

Augustus replied, feeling guilty for rejecting Matt twice in a row, "Sure, but probably after 7 P.M., after I finish studying with Julia."

"Let's play retro games, the one that use keyboard and mouse."

VR games are traumatic experience for me, it felt more like a work than gaming.

"Really? I don't mind, retro. I kind of prefer them anyway, there are some cool new games that have just released."

"Great, you recommend me the games since I haven't played one for a while."

"Oki, Niceee, I don't mind waiting until 7 P.M but can I study with you guys, if you don't mind?" Matt asked eagerly.

"I'm sure Julia won't mind, as long as you're actually trying to study," Augustus said with a smile.

"Okay, let's go~~"

Matt, huh?

We had gone our separate ways after graduation.

I had enrolled in the army, while Matt had gone to college.

Augustus vaguely remembered that Matt had initially wanted to follow him to the army, but ended up choosing a different path. He couldn't recall the exact reason behind it.

"August, you've grown bigger, is it just my imagination or...?" Matt asked, his eyes widening as he took in Augustus's changed physique.

"You're imagining things," Augustus replied, his voice tinged with discomfort.

"Yeah, maybe," Matt nodded, not wanting to press further as he saw Augustus trying to avoid the topic.

The class resumed, and though the lecture was as dull as ever, I forced myself to pay attention. I needed to do well in this subject. Finally, the class ended, and Matt and I made our way to see Julia.

"Hey Julia, my friend wants to study too, do you mind?" Augustus asked.

While at the same time, Matt flashed his signature charming smile at Julia, who was clearly unhappy to see him.

"August you... no, I don't mind, but I'm going home to eat and change my clothes first. I've only prepared one set of notes, so you guys will have to share," Julia said, handing over the notes to Augustus.

She cast a quick glance at Matt, who had joined our study session.

Matt grinned and gave her a friendly wave. "Hello."

"Do you guys know each other?" Augustus asked, suspicion creeping into his mind as he observed their behavior.

"Hm? Didn't you know? We're kind of cousins. Quite distant actually, but our parents are quite close," Matt explained, looking puzzled at Augustus's question.

Augustus seemed taken aback when he heard Matt's answers.

'So that's why Julia sees me as a creep. It must have been Matt's fault, telling her weird things,' I thought, shaking my head and facepalming as I realized the core problem of the situation now.

"I'm going now, my butler is waiting for me," Julia said in a hurry.

"Okay, we'll wait for you at the library," Matt called after her as she left.

"So, shall we head to the library now?" Matt turned to me with a determined look.

"Yeah, we should start on our own first," I replied, matching his resolve, though I was still taken aback by what had just happened, sighing in response.

Both of us walked to the library, and we delved into our studies, answering questions and reviewing notes.

We decided that whenever we came across challenging problems, we would wait for Julia's expertise. but as we studied together, I couldn't help but notice that Matt was performing remarkably well.

It turned out Matt was quite the smart one. I hadn't realized it before, as we had never studied together.

Now I was starting to wonder if he even needed to study, considering how effortlessly he answered most of the questions. He even helped me with some of the trickier ones.

"Do you know the answer for question number 36?" I asked him, trying to hide my surprise.

"Hm? I answered D," Matt replied confidently.

"Oh yeah, I also thought D was the answer as well,"

After a while, Julia arrived. When she saw us happily discussing answers, she couldn't help but tiredly sigh. "I knew this would happen," she said angrily as she quickly strode to our side to prevent more problems from occurring.

"Let me check your answers," Julia said, taking Matt and Augustus's books from them, causing her eyebrows to twitch when she saw everything. "Matt, we're trying to study here, not play guessing games."

"August, you trusted his answers without asking or confirming the facts?" she scolded.

Augustus was speechless, not expecting Matt to be merely guessing the answers.

'Actually... we had discussed some of the questions, and Matt had agreed with everything I said when I confirmed facts with him. Is what I want to say.' Which I didn't say to avoid further scolding.

As Julia continued to scold us, I glared at Matt. It turned out this guy was simply guessing the multiple-choice questions. No wonder he was so fast.

Matt avoided my gaze, whistling as if it wasn't his fault that I trusted him.

With Julia's help, the true discussion resumed. During the discussion, Matt made a lot of mistakes and was scolded frequently.

I was surprised at how differently Julia acted when tutoring Matt. She turned into a whole different person with him.

"How many times do I have to tell you..." Julia started, but Augustus interrupted.

"Um, it's getting late now. We should head back," Augustus noticed Julia's anger and decided to end the study session for her sake.

Julia instantly agreed. "Yeah, you're right. If you have any questions, just ask me tomorrow. But not you, Matt."

"Why not?" Matt, oblivious to Julia's extra effort in tutoring him, asked a stupid question.

"Matt, let's go to the internet café now." Augustus dragged Matt away before Julia could answer.

As he was being dragged away, Matt looked back at Julia and yelled, "Thank you, bye!"

Julia shook her head and smiled. "It's fine. You guys go and have fun."

"Thank you, bye," Matt yelled again as he disappeared with Augustus.