03 - What did I do wrong?

"What's up with you Neo?" A chubby boy asked as he faced Neo who had just entered the dorm room.

Neo knew this would happen eventually. As much as he had some of the original Neo's memories from this world, still, his personality was very different from the original Neo.

He knew that eventually people in this world would notice some difference between him and the original Neo, and he needed some way to hide that. He wouldn't tell anyone that he had transmigrated from another world; that would be a secret he would keep until death. So, since this body was that of a teenager, Neo had already figured out the best answer to that.

"I think I've matured, Fatty," Neo responded as he pretended to sigh.

"Matured? What do you mean? Just yesterday we were coming up with a plan to break into the girls' dorm!" Fatty said, a little confused.

"Exactly, I don't have a family to support me in the future, the only money my parents left for me was used to pay for my studies. As I slept, I realized that breaking into the girls' dorm is childish. You know, school life won't be forever. I hope to learn more so I can earn my own money in the future and not go hungry," Neo responded with an air of wisdom.

Hearing Neo's explanation, Fatty was a little confused, as he had never stopped to think about things from that angle. His parents always gave him money, so in his mind it was natural to just receive money from his parents and not worry about anything else, but after Neo spoke, he realized that his friend's reality wasn't as good as his.

"What do you want to do?" Fatty asked curiously.

"I think today will be my last day sleeping here. My dad had a small workshop near the school. I think I'll open the workshop after school and sell some things I develop," Neo replied.

That was his real plan, coming to class in the morning and living in his father's workshop outside of school for the rest of the day. After all, there he would have the freedom to develop more things he had in mind, and start receiving his own money.

"Well buddy, looks like you've really matured..." Fatty sighed. "So as a farewell, how about I buy you a snack in the school cafeteria?"

"Well, there's no way I can refuse, hehe," Neo responded with a smile. He was glad the fat young man was more of a companion than he thought, noticing his friend's concerns and at least offering a little treat.

The cafeteria was packed. While Neo was eating a sandwich with Fatty in the school cafeteria, two girls from his class approached their table, carrying their trays and one of the girls said, "Parker, can we sit down? There are no other tables available."

Neo simply nodded and continued eating, his mind working on several possibilities and thinking about which game he could try to develop first in this world, while Fatty kept his jaw open and straightened his clothes, changing his way of eating from a starving pig to a refined young man.

But while Neo was lost in thought, the same girl interrupted him once more. "Did you study the spell from tomorrow's class?" she asked.

Finally Neo turned to see this girl, and saw that she was really cute. She was probably 16 years old too, like him: long straight black hair, well-groomed white skin, and bright blue eyes.

"What's the spell for tomorrow's class?" Neo asked curiously. He wanted to know what the spells they would learn would be like, to get more ideas.

"No need to pretend you don't know what the spell is. We saw you in the library studying today. We did the same too; tomorrow you won't be the only one who will know about the spell earlier," the girl said as she held her nose up, clearly proud of 'having seen through Neo'.

"Hmm, actually, I was just studying history and geography. Those were two subjects I didn't learn much of before I came to magic school," Neo replied sincerely.

But the girl was still looking at him with a skeptical expression. "Alright, if you want to keep this little drama going I won't expose you, but know that we've both learned the spell from tomorrow's class and even written it in a functional way on our Magic Cards."

"Really? Can I see?" Neo asked.

The two girls stared at each other for a bit, until one of them actually opened her bag and handed Neo a letter to look at. "We're just going to show you this so you realize you won't be alone in class tomorrow. We'll even study this entire thing overnight to get it done mentally, without needing the Card," she said proudly.

Neo was no longer listening to this last part; he was just reading the lines of code and quickly got to understand the concept behind each line and what the purpose of them were.

Based on the 86 lines of code Neo read, it was easy to deduce that this spell was used to produce water, presumably so that he could fill a glass of water and drink it when he felt thirsty. It was a spell that Neo found very useful and practical. He easily managed to optimize this spell to just 21 lines, before the girl took the card back from him.

"Don't look too hard; I won't let you copy this to practice, too. If you've really studied this you can even see that we each managed to optimize 2 lines on our own," the girl said proudly.

Hearing this, Fatty almost choked on the drink he was drinking. "What?! Did you manage to optimize one of the library's spells?!"

Fatty's amazement was a great boost for the ego of these girls, who gave beautiful smiles even wider. "Of course, didn't you know that the spells the school teaches us are poorly optimized on purpose? This is so we can learn to optimize spells ourselves. Of course, if you want, you can use school credits to exchange for better optimized spellbooks, made by the teachers themselves."

"That... Damn… Still, optimizing 4 lines of code... is a lot! We just had our first class yesterday. I heard that the best students of each year can optimize at most 10 lines of a spell on their own," Fatty said, still surprised.

"Hehe, of course. Our goal is to break this record," The girl said with even more confidence.

Neo, on the other hand, wasn't even listening to what they were saying, at that moment he was just holding the empty drink cup he had drunk from earlier and decided to test this new spell they showed him.

Magically, after he imagined the program running mentally, remembering each line of code perfectly, the mana from his outstretched fingertip began to convert to water, gradually causing the previously empty glass to become completely full before Neo commanded the program to stop running.

Both Fatty and the girls were slow to realize what Neo was doing. They were just in an exchange where the girls bragged and Fatty marveled at their intelligence and beauty. But when one of the girls looked at Neo, to see the surprised reaction he must have had on his face as well, she was even more surprised, because in front of her, Neo's arm was clearly outstretched, using the spell she had just shown to him!

"What?! How can you use Liquify Magic without a Card?!" she screamed in amazement.

Her scream caught the attention of her friend and Fatty, who immediately looked at Neo and had the same shocked expression the first girl had.

"You... you... Did you already know about this spell?! Did you ask for my Magic Card so you could mock me?!" The girl screamed angrily as she pointed at Neo.

Neo, on the other hand, was stunned when he saw her reaction. 'What did I do wrong?' he thought.