"I'm alright." Alex replied, looking at the crushed pot beside him. "Let's go to class."
Jonas nodded and the two walked into class. As Alex filed into his seat, Jonas, who sat in front of him, turned around and spoke. "Fatty, what are you planning to do after high school?"
Alex shrugged. "I don't know." He replied. If he went by the usual pattern of novels, at this point the main character would display his chuunibyou syndrome and yell out how he would enter the top university, attract the ridicule of his classmates and then proceed to smash everyone. Alex wasn't a fan of that kind of theatrics. He already had a bad luck field around him now and keeping a low profile was what he felt was appropriate.
"What about you?" Alex asked Jonas.
Jonas shrugged. "Obviously going to try for Warrior Universities. May be even get into New West University if possible."
New West University was the most prestigious warrior school in the third western zone. Unlike on Alex's old earth, there were no countries now - just a single federation. The dimensional storm that opened all the monster zones had caused humanity to unite. There were now five western zones, six eastern zones and seven southern zones along with the two polar zones.
The dimensional storm had rapidly changed the continental structure of Earth and there were several landmasses separated by ocean now than the previous 7 continents. The planet had grown much larger as well for some reason. The reasoning behind these changes weren't known.
Alex lived in West Zone 3, in the Blue Palm Settlement. Blue Palm high was the best school in the settlement and also the one which Alex went to. Each settlement usually had a high school of the same name as the settlement, which would be considered the top school in the settlement.
Alex, despite having no cultivation ended up in the best school in the settlement, only thanks to some prestige of his parents who both worked in the Blue Palm Settlement's defense corps - the division of the army that dealt with monster outbreaks from monster zones into the habitable planet lands.
In class, Alex quietly observed the status of the people in class. There weren't a whole lot of uncommon grade warriors in the class, which wasn't surprising. Geniuses like Alex's sister or Jonas were few in number - most of them from rich upper class group, headed by the leader - a girl named Cathy.
Cathy was Uncommon Grade 5, just like Jonas. However, the most surprising was a totally unassuming person who usually sat at the back of the class. It was a known delinquent and truant who was considered to be a potential failure just like Alex was. Except, when Alex inspected that person, he was inwardly shocked.
[Rowan Rode]
[Uncommon Grade 7]
...
Most of his abilities and skills seemed to be of the fire and wind type. As far as abilities went, they didn't have to be allied with the kind of cultivation art, but having the same attribute usually helped improve the strength of the skills. That Rowan had skills of primarily two attributes suggested his body had two attributes.
This guy was not of some powerful background, at least from Alex's memories. Yet his strength was actually the highest in the grade, perhaps even the highest in the entire settlement.
After class, Alex returned home and began cultivating Crazy Immortal Sutra. The energy vortex began sucking in bad luck causing the uncomfortable tingling that signaled the accumulation of bad luck, but Alex could feel that his body was clearly getting stronger and within a few hours he felt like a balloon that inflated until it popped, leading to a rapid escalation in strength.
Alex went to the bath immediately, as he felt the assembling smell all over his body and the sticky surfaces on himself. He had broken through to Ordinary grade 1 so rapidly, and once again marvelled at the power of his cultivation art.
However, that didn't last long, for he slipped and almost smashed his head as he was about to leave the bathroom, but managed to grasp onto the door handle before he fell, much to his relief. However, it wasn't over, as the door handle broke apart and Alex fell down anyway.l, hurting his body.
Alex thanked his stars that he didn't smash his head because of the momentary grip the door handle provided. Alex felt fearful of the bad luck, though he noticed that each time before his bad luck would suddenly spike to cause a mishap, he would have an intuitive prickling feeling - an early warning system of sorts.
Alex looked at his status and didn't find any major change other than the change in his strength grade. There was no hint of any ability that helped him detect bad luck, but he felt that he did have some sort of sixth sense and wondered if it was a result of the cultivation art or because he was a transmigrator.
After working out in the training room that was usually used by his sister, Alex returned to his room, having gotten accustomed to his strength. He began to look through the light brain to see information about monsters he could potentially hunt and skills he could learn. Now that his health had normalized and he could even learn some martial skills to increase his combat effectiveness.
After perusing through the the network, Alex frowned. As a Ordinary Grade 1 warrior, there was almost no area of the Monster Zone he could hunt in safely because he was too weak. At this stage, the suggest route was to practice marksmanship and use guns to hunt monsters.
Alex thought that learning marksmanship wasn't a bad idea. He could use his light brain to enter the Guns of Glory VR station. Guns of Glory was a training VR station where gun skills could be learned in a competitive environment.
Entering the Guns of Glory landing page, Alex registered himself, and balked at the subscription price of ten thousand star coins. However, one of the perks of being a family in the defense corps was a 90% discount. Thus Alex only had to pay a thousand star coins, which was half of his pocket money. Grumbling about interest rates, inflation and the like for a good minute, Alex finally registered and entered the VR station.
Alex found himself in a blank environment where a recreation of his body was quickly created. Soon a voice boomed around him. "Please calibrate your skill level by going through the beginner test."
Alex accepted the request to tale the test and found himself in an open field with a trainee gun. In front of him, a target dart board with rings appeared at a 10 meter distance.
As the timer ticked from five to zero, Alex picked the trainee pistol hovering beside his virtual reconstruction and began to shoot at the target as instructed.
At a ten meter distance, six bullets were quickly pumped in. The bullets sprayed all over the target board, as Alex felt the force of the recoil hitting him as well as the smell of gunpowder assaulting his senses. He was surprised by the realism of the virtual reality.
"...Test Ended. Calculating proficiency.... Proficiency Level Absolute Noob." The VR assistant spoke calmly, the voice laced with a bit of contempt.
"..." Alex was rendered speechless by the description. It was indeed the first time he had used a gun, so he wasn't surprised by the judgement of his skills, but the contempt of the virtual assistant left him speechless.
"It is strongly recommended that user goes through the tutorial from the very beginning." The assistant added further.
Alex nodded and agreed, immediately beginning the tutorial.
Alex was taken to a room, with a burly looking man in an army costume looked at him with seriousness.
"Welcome to the basic gun tutorial. I will display the basic gait of holding a gun..." The man said as he began to display various motions.
Alex observed the man displaying the proper position in which the gun should be held. However at that moment he was stunned.
[You observed basic gun technique. Your familiarity with the gun has risen. Gun Technique + 1]
"..." Alex was shocked by the update from his system. "Holy crap. Is my goldfinger finally revealing its true ability?" He screamed within his mind as he continued to observe the military man continue to explain the basics of gun usage, handling, reloading and so on.
[You observed basic gun technique. Your familiarity with the gun has risen. Gun Technique + 1]
[You observed basic gun technique. Your familiarity with the gun has risen. Gun Technique + 1]
....
[Gun Technique 10/10]
[Congratulations, You have unlocked skill - Gun Technique (Initiate)]
...
By the time the first tutorial ended, Alex had already activated Basic Gun Technique. Although it was just initiate level, he could feel the gun fit well into his hand and he knew the basics of how to handle a gun at a rather instinctual level.
Without much ado, he entered the second tutorial, which was about shooting.