Start of THE journey

After I got to my room, I immediately started reading my books.

'There is a certain magic called "Scientific Manipulation", if you wish to be able use it, you must be able to do calculus at the back of your head, know a shit-ton about physics, chemistry, mathematics… essentially you must have an all-rounder knowledge of science, so it was unpopular.' 

'But those who could be able to use it were all withing the top 10000 of their rank, even after "The Last Mana Wave", and was ranked 15th most powerful magic amongst thousands of different magic types.'

As I like to say, all truly good things always come without a price.

There is to 1st ranked magic, Absolute control, though it's price isn't worth it and just the basic conditions are things that I'm unable to complete, though I don't exactly know about them as it was classified information'

I brought out my note book, a pen and started taking notes, bending the corners of the pages that I don't understand and noting down all the important facts.

After 2 hours I was done with the books, it was longer than I thought.

As there was no rush, I took my time in studying, my hope is that I will never need to go to school as the truly competent people, except a vary few, will never teach as their time is simply too valuable for them to teach.

'I remember one time when my friend was asked to teach complete noobs about swords, he refused as he said, I quote, "They asked me to teach them for 3 hours a day for 7 C rank crystals and I refused, as I earn 1 B rank crystal per those 3 hours just raiding"'

'So, they hired this person who got his basics down alright, but didn't succeed in life, for 2 C rank crystals, could've hired my friend, but he asked to be paid 1 B rank and got refused.'

'In his place I would've asked for 1 B rank and 2 C rank crystals, as when he came back after looking at who he would be teaching, he said they were extremely arrogant because they were sons and daughters of big fish in a small pond.'

'Though just from what I heard from the doctor talking about my parents and the recent shouting, I will be sent to a school, hope it will be a one that will have at least a few useful classes, like sculpturing and painting, as I have no time to waste on learning useless things.'

*Shiver* 'Why am I having a bad feeling right now?'

And suddenly I heard my mom's voice

"MARK LOCHEM, COME HERE RIGHT NOW"

"GIVE ME A SEC"

'So that's the source of this omen, I hope it will be interesting at the very least.'

After coming here, my mom immediately asks me the thing I was hoping she wouldn't ask about

"Why did you ask your dad to teach you forging?"

'I need to think of an answer, oh, I bet this won't work, but it is better than nothing'

"Because I'm curious about forging"

"Why?"

"Why not?"

*Sigh* "Deary, you realize that you will have to deal immense amount of heat and pain to become a good smith, right?"

"And"

"And you could always take in easy"

"No, I'm learning about forging, if it means to go to a kindergarten or spend time doing nothing, like in the hospital, then I will answer the same 10 out of 10 times"

"But you will be wasting time that you could use for better things"

"Like what?"

"Socializing and getting to know people?"

"No"

"But being amongs-"

"No"

"An-"

"No"

*Sigh* "I guess you inherited your father's stubbornness"

"And I'm not wasting time, I'm using it better than even some adult"

"Why are you saying that?"

"Because I don't know about the world to give a better answer"

"Ok, but you can only learn it for 1 hour a day, though if you accept my condition, you can learn it for 3 hours"

"I accept"

"Ok, bu-, wait, you accepted my condition without me even me telling it?"

"How bad can it be?"

"The condition is that you must go to kindergarten"

"Ok, now can I go learn forging?"

"No, you will start tomorrow, today is already late, it's almost 10, so you are going to bet"

"Ok"

"I thought that you would argue against this"

"In that book about anatomy, there was an article that wrote about the importance of sleep and how it can help making work more efficient and making body recovery faster, same for the brain"

"Guess buying books did you some good, now we will brush our teeth, and be ready for an intense work session, your father told me about his plan for your training and it will be intense"

"What's the worst that could happen?"

"How did you learn these kinds of questions?"

"How did you learn how to speak?"

"I don't know"

"By listening, the same thing is the answer to your question"

"A brat is teaching me, how humiliating, I'll start learning alongside you about the topics that wish to learn starting from now, how difficult can they be? You have been studying since you were three, but you're still a child so how bad can it be?"

"Okay"

And I'm in my bed and I'm slee-

'Fuck this, system, can you partially seal the 'sleepless' title?'

[Yes, for how long do you wish to seal it, and how much, percentage-wise?]

'Till I'm 16 and start from 90% and slowly lessen it until I'm sixteen, do it with the rest of my title-related skills unless I say otherwise'

[Understood]

The next day I woke up 8 AM and my parents' reactions were quite funny

"Aren't children supposed to sleep longer, honey, you told me about this seminar happening this evening, maybe I should go there?"

"Feel free, I'll cover the expenses, though it's his problem of when he will go to sleep and when he will wake up is his problem"

"How can you be so casual with this! He's a child, he should be sleeping for 10 hours a day at the very least"