"There's no way in hell" Remi said.
Mason looked at her with a confused look on his face.
"I didn't even say anything yet, though?"
Remi scoffed.
"You're clearly here to ask me something, and I'm telling you right now that I won't do it."
Mason didn't say anything and he started making his way towards the dorms.
'There's no opportunities to level up for a month and a half, huh?'
He started thinking about what he would be doing for the next couple of weeks.
'I think I'll start going on a run daily, and do some duelling every day too.'
In reality, Mason knew that duelling with kids his age wouldn't contribute so much.
He was hoping that someone would pop up with the same level of talent that he had, almost forgetting that none of his strength would be there without the System.
He was lost in thought while walking through the hallway so he didn't sense that someone was observing him.
This person wasn't observing him with ill intent, however.
'This is the kid that got first place?' the mysterious observer thought.
'He sure is interesting.'
Mason arrived at his dorm room and entered.
The observer stopped following and left, not wanting to enter Mason's room.
Mason snapped back to reality, and he sat down on his bed.
"Status"
[Opening Status]
...
[Status]
[Name: Mason White]
[Level: 39]
[Physique: None]
[Affinities: Ice, Space]
[Active Skills: Ice Bullet, Ice Wall, Freeze, Ice Domain, Ice Lance, Ice Wave, Ice Armour, Ice Golem, Ice Wind, Distortion of Space]
[Passive Skills: Beast-Hunter]
[Mana: 14250/14250]
[System Points: 7400]
Mason had been thinking if he should slow down his growth, since it would obviously be suspicious if a 15 year old was as strong as the teachers.
He dismissed the idea, however.
He had to be as strong as possible so he could protect himself and the people around him.
Mason started pondering.
'Should I quit school?'
This was something he had been thinking about for quite a while as he wasn't sure if being in school was the right thing for him.
After all, if the teen had more time to hunt in dungeons he would be able to level up much quicker.
This would lead to him earning much more money and becoming stronger, those juicy System Points weren't going to appear by themselves.
In the end, he decided against it.
'I won't quit, but I will definitely push for an early graduation.'
This was his final decision.
If I push for early graduation I will be able to follow classes and strengthen my foundation and information about the world.
There were still a lot of things he didn't know after all, and who knows, maybe the System would someday disappear leaving him to his own devices.
'I'm going to have to study like hell though, such a bother.' Mason sighed.
After finishing thinking about his future plan, Mason started to walk outside towards the training grounds.
At first, he wanted to study. But his own pride could not allow him to 'waste' his time like that so he was going to train his swordsmanship first.
'I'm not procrastinating, I just have better things to do than looking inside of a book.' He thought.
His goal was to try and graduate halfway through next schoolyear.
He had thought about it and with the speed he was currently leveling up it should be very doable to hit level 60-70 by then even if he stayed in school.
Mason yelled out loud: "I still have a lot of time, I totally don't have to worry about anything."
If he knew that the second and third years had to study at least twice the amount the first years had to, he probably would've been laying on the ground with a blank face by now.
He would have to catch up on all of this theoretical knowledge and then also some kind of practical exam and only then would he be able to graduate early.
The academy had made this rule since there had been geniuses before that simply did not have the time to wait until the end of the three years of school since they would simply be better than most of their teachers by then.
By now, Mason had a crowd of people looking at him with a hateful look.
They had been practicing in full focus before some dumbass decided to yell at the top of his lungs scaring the shit out of them.
"You're not the only one here, have some fucking respect for the rest of us!" Somebody in the crowd said.
Mason hurriedly ran toward the corner of the training grounds and started practicing his swordsmanship as his cheeks turned slightly red.
'Why'd I yell it out loud like that?' He regretted his actions.
He started slashing and cutting the dummy he had chosen and forgot about his actions as he entered a state of focus as if he was trained by Miyamoto Musashi himself.
Mason felt had been feeling slightly different when slashing his sword lately, he couldn't quite understand why but he had this feeling he was close to grasping something in the way of the sword.
He hadn't forgotten swordsmanship as he did not want to become worlds most fragile Mage.
Regularly training as well as thinking of his techniques after training had brought him into a deeper understanding.
He kept slashing and cutting for a couple of hours until he was drenched in sweat.
Mason was about to call it quits for the day when he heard a sound.
*Ding*
'Ding?' Mason thought as he didn't expect a System notification in the middle of swinging his sword.
[You have obtained a new skill]
[Basic Sword Mastery]
[Level 1]
[Passive Skill]
[You have knowledge on how to use basic sword techniques with near perfection.]
Mason stared at the notification with a wide grin on his face.
'That's what we like to see baby.'
Mason got down on his knees as he started kowtowing towards the System once again earning him some glances from people.
This time however, he didn't care about that as his day could not get any better anymore.
After getting back up to his feet he started sprinting back home with a smile so big people would think he had just achieved level 300 from some encounter with a hidden master.
'Time to go duel some kids to test this out!' Mason thought