"Dad, I'm coming!"

On a hot summer day, a lonely old mud hut was in the middle of a wide piece of fertile land with patches of farmland surrounding it. From a long distance away from the mud, a young man with short black hair was frantically running toward the mud hut with panic and worry in his eyes.

As soon as the young man opened the door of the mud hut, he saw a deathly pale old man in his sixties lying on the floor, covered in a thick set of blankets. Even with the blankets, the old man was constantly shivering from an intense feeling of cold slamming into his bones while all his clothes were soaked in his sweat.

If anyone else saw the old man's state, they would only shake their heads with helplessness. It was obvious that the sickly old man had contracted some type of illness that was wreaking havoc on his fragile body.

It was only a matter of time before he kicked the bucket unless they somehow bought the cure, which wasn't something they could afford, given their current living standards. When the young man saw the sickly old man, the worry on his face deepened as he quickly walked over to the old man and sat next to him.

"Dad, you got to hang on for a few more days. I am in the final stretch of becoming a scholar. Once I pass, I will buy you plenty of medicine to get over your sickness, and I will take you to Jade City just like you dreamed of." The young man said gently as he replaced the old wet towel with a new one.

Even though he had just done a replacement two hours ago, the towel had become hot and lost most of its moistness. Sensing how hot the towel had become, the young man's eyes twitched as he knew his father's sickness was worsening.

This young man was Yoze Thunder, the adopted son of Drew Thunder, an old man whose entire life revolved around the field surrounding them. However, his father and the world would never know he wasn't from this world.

He was just an ordinary young man from Earth who suddenly found himself in a foreign world inside a child's body. Though he was in the body of a child, he had no family, relationships, or anyone to rely on for several years. 

With no idea of how, why, or where he was, he was forced to live a tough life just to survive. If he didn't have his memories as an adult, he didn't know if he could have survived.

Luckily, this old man adopted him and raised him like he was his real biological son. Even though the old man's life was not as good as his past life, it was heaven compared to what he had gone through for the past few years.

To this day, he would have never imagined that he would treat another man as his father. But this old man was the one who helped him escape the horrors of this world. So he was beyond grateful and would do anything to help him.

To help relieve some of his father's burdens, he had helped him with everything he could. However, as his father grew in age, the desire for him to provide his father with a better life grew.

Unfortunately, with no talent to train in martial arts or being a farmer, he had very few ways he could better his father's life. The only path Yoze found that could get them better lives was to follow the intellectual path and become a scholar. 

To achieve this, he had to put his entire focus on learning and following the way of a scholar for the past year to have a shot at this year's scholar exam. This caused him to spend less time helping his father, which made him feel guilty. Still, his father never complained or asked him to find work after he told his father he wanted to become a scholar.

"Dad..." Yoze's heart froze for a second as he saw his father's eyes close before realizing that he had only fallen asleep.

After confirming that his father wouldn't die in his sleep, Yoze quietly replaced the soaked blankets with new ones. Before stepping outside with a heavy heart, even the sunlight touching his skin didn't feel as warm as before.

"It has been 13 years since I came into this world as a child."

As someone who read many books back in the 21 century, Yoze had initially been full of hope for the future. Even as the years passed by, he had the assumption that his modern knowledge would have been enough to create a better life for his father and himself. 

But he realized that it was impossible to use any of his modern knowledge without the technology to back it up. As an average person back on Earth, he didn't have a single clue on how to build any of the machines that made modern society thrive.

Even then, Yoze didn't give up hope and didn't want to live the same farming lifestyle, just enough to survive and nothing else. This realization, instead, only strengthened his resolve to become a scholar.

"Dad, just hang on for a few more days, and I'll get you all the medicine you need to get better." Yoze clenched his fists and planned to go find his friend to study.

[Second Best System]

[Name: Yoze]

[Age: 21 years]

[Talents: None]

[Talent Mark: 1]

Suddenly just as Yoze was about to leave, a strange transparent panel appeared in front of his eyes. It didn't make a noise and seemed to stay in the center of his vision regardless of where he looked.

Knowing what this game-like panel must mean, Yoze felt an electric shock go through his spine as hope swelled in his heart. Yoze's eyes shimmered as he looked at the system panel in front of him and almost cried from happiness.

"Yes! It finally arrived! My cheat for my difficulties." Yoze hopped around with joy before coming to his senses that his father was still sleeping.

"I need to calm down and see what my cheat can do first." After calming himself down and examining the panel, he figured out what it did.

The use of the Second Best System was that it could allow him to copy other people's talents. However, when he copied a talent, he would get a degraded version of it.

According to the system, there are ten grades of talent, and the higher the number, the better. Grade 1 was the lowest and showed the weakest talent possible, with a 20 percent bonus on learning the talents in a particular subject. Every grade past grade 1 until grade 6 would get an additional 20 percent raise from the previous grade.

For example, Grade 2 would have a bonus of 40 percent, and Grade 3 would have a bonus of 60 percent. After Grade five, it no longer followed a linear pattern and was exponential.

From grade 5 to 6, which was going from a 100 percent bonus to 150 percent, there was a difference of 50 percent. This continued until grade 7 when it reached an insane bonus of 200 percent. Above grade 7, the gap between each grade became wider and wider.

From grades 7 to 8, there was a difference of 100 percent, meaning that grade 8 gave a 300 percent bonus. From grade 8 to 9 was a 200 percent bonus meaning that he would get a 500 percent bonus. And from grade 9 to 10, the difference was even wider as grade 10 gave a 1000 percent bonus.

Even though he would only ever get a degraded version of his target's talents, he would still be getting a large boost in his talents. This was especially true for the higher the grade of talent he copied.

"If I can find someone with a grade 10 talent in literature, I would be able to get their same talent but only at grade 9. With that huge boost, I could quickly improve my chances of becoming a scholar."

"Even though I wish this cheat had come earlier, it is enough that I was able to get one. To save my father and improve our lives, I need to pass this examination, so I need to use everything at my disposal."

"This cheat might not guarantee passing this challenge, but as long as I find people with high talent grades, I should be able to easily get a high score in every category." Yoze clenched his fists as he felt the fire of ambition turn into a blaze.

"I already know who I'm going to use it on."

With the scholar exam around the corner, he knew he needed to immediately use his new cheat to get an edge in his studying. So he had to find someone he felt had the highest chance of having a useful talent for the scholar exam.

Luckily, he already knew someone more talented than him and anyone else he knew. With a sense of urgency, Yoze immediately set off to find his target.

After walking for 30 minutes, he arrived at an area where he saw five mud huts. The mud huts all belonged to his target's family, so it didn't take long before he saw a young man with curly black hair and a dirty robe watering a large garden of vegetables.

The young man was so focused on his plants that he didn't realize that Yoze had walked beside him and looked at the garden with some interest. The vegetables in the garden could only be described as perfect, as they were on the way to becoming delicious food.

There wasn't a single brown spot or hole on any of the plants showing the amount of dedication the young man had for this garden that he kept out every single pest from ruining this batch. Seeing that his friend's gardening skills had once again improved, Yoze felt he had made the right choice.

"Evi, how are you doing?" 

The young man jumped up from surprise at the sudden voice that had appeared next to him, but he quickly calmed down after seeing that it was Yoze. Noticing the look of interest in Yoze's eyes, the young man smiled with pride as he felt proud.

"I'm doing very good for myself. Are you here to study together for the Scholar exam? Didn't you say that we would study tomorrow morning since you had to take care of your dad?" Evi said with worry in his eyes.

Even though Evi wasn't close to Yoze's father, he still had heard rumors that he was deathly ill and was on the verge of death. Due to how sick he was, Yoze had even canceled a few of their study sessions, showing that the rumors must have been true.

"Yes, but if I don't study more and pass this examination, I won't be able to afford to buy my father's medicine. With only a week left until the scholar examination, I have to make the most of my time." Seeing that Evi had already given him a reason why he was here, Yoze followed along and didn't deny it.

In any case, what he had said was partially true as he really was here to study for the scholar exam. All he did was omit that he was also here to copy a few of his talented friend's talents.

"Okay, let me finish watering my garden, and we can get started." Hearing Yoze's response, Evi's eyes became stern as he knew the burden that his friend must have been going through.

After Evi finished watering his garden, he and Yoze walked over to one of the smaller huts near the garden. Once they reached the but, Evi went inside to fetch his notes while Yoze patiently waited outside.

"Okay, I got my notes and my textbooks. Let's go to our favorite study spot." Evi said with a smile as he held several thick books alongside a pile of papers between his arms.

Without saying a word to each other, they walked a distance away from the five mud huts and sat next to a smooth stone rock that acted as their study table. With familiarity, Yoze and Evi quickly got into their favorite positions and began to study where they left off in their last study session.

After getting deep into their discussion, Yoze slightly turned his focus toward his real goal of visiting Evi. Even though studying with his friend was nice, Yoze wanted to use this as an excuse to stay near Evi for a long period without arousing suspicion.

Since this was going to be his first time using his cheat, he didn't know how long it would take for his cheat to copy someone's talent or what would happen once he did. With this study session, he would have at least some cover in case copying talents took hours. In any case, this was also an effective use of his time as he could use this study session to shore up some of the topics he needed to be clarified.

"Send out the talent mark." Yoze thought to himself as he secretly glanced at Evi.

[Sending out Talent Mark on target.]

[Name: Evi Rocks]

[Age: 20]

[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 4), Gardening(Grade 2), Networking (Grade 1), Logical Reasoning (Grade 2), Mathematics (Grade 2)]

Yoze silently took a deep breath as he didn't know his friend was learning literature almost twice as fast. With talent in Literature Comprehension that had reached grade 4, Evi was learning and comprehending literature 80 percent faster than most people.

With such a high level of talent, it made sense when it came to anything related to literature. Evi would learn it much faster and deeper than he ever could. Even when they started preparing for the scholar exam at the same time, when it came to literature, he would have to ask for Evi's help constantly to understand the subtleties.

Now that he knew that Evi really was just simply built differently from him, Yoze felt relieved that he had chosen the right person. After reviewing Evi's other talents, he mentally selected Literature Comprehension and waited for something to happen.

[Name: Yoze]

[Age: 21 years]

[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3)]

[Talent Mark: 0 (23:59 hours remaining)]

As soon as Yoze noticed that Literature Comprehension had appeared on his profile, he felt a small explosion erupt in his mind as concepts from texts and stories became clearer. Even all the past discussions about literature he had with Evi became easier to remember and understand.

"This is amazing; I wonder what Evi is going through." Yoze's eyes widened from shock as he hadn't realized that increasing his talent would feel this good.

Invigorated with the discovery that he could finally keep up with Evi in their study session, Yoze returned his focus to purely studying with Evi. By the time the blue sky had turned orange due to the setting sun, Yoze's and Evi's faces glowed as they felt refreshed. 

This single study session was the most effective one by far and one where their knowledge had deepened so much that it was equivalent to two of their previous study sessions. This was mainly because, with Yoze's increased talent in literature, the two of them could bounce off their ideas and reflections without deep explanations.

"It's getting dark, so I'm going to head out." Noticing that it was beginning to get dark, Yoze decided to call it a day and return home to take care of his father.

"See you tomorrow morning," Evi said with a wide smile as he also felt that this study session was the most productive one he had ever had.

After bidding Evi farewell and tasting the fruits of being talented, Yoze hoped to find a few more talented people whose talents he could copy. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone else he knew that had the same level of talent as Evi, so he wouldn't be able to get new talents as easily as he did now.

It also seems that he had to be careful about choosing someone since he would have to wait another 24 hours for his talent mark to recharge, regardless of whether he copied a talent or not. That meant if he found someone that didn't have the talent he needed, he would be left with no other option but to wait.

In any case, he had a week to collect more talents and improve his chances of passing the examination. If he is lucky, he might be able to collect a high-grade talent during the examination.

"My future is looking bright."