There were two messages, one from the school and one from the government. After thinking for a while, he decided 'Government first.'
He read through the message that was obviously just copy pasted and had to filter out all the bullshit to find what really mattered. It even said at the beginning "Congratulations on awakening as an [F] rank!"
The basics of it was just stating that since his place of residence was government owned, then he would have to move out soon or pay rent every month. He had 3 years to make a decision as he would be an adult at that time and be fully awakened.
Awakening was a complex process that led to multiple, drastic changes to the body and with modern technology, it usually happened over a 3 to 4 year period. This was to ensure that they received the proper training to best suit their talent and give their bodies ample time to grow with the talent, and not just be randomly assaulted with it at 18.
The rest of the message was just basic information about hunting that would have been useful if there wasn't a whole class for it that he took everyday for the last 8 years.
'Make a team huh, unfortunately that's not gonna work.'
He skimmed through the rest of it before closing it and opening the next. This one was more personalized as a detailed report of the next actions the student had to take were often very different.
The main point of this one was short and to the point, they told him that he shouldn't bother coming back to school the next day. He was effectively expelled, though he didn't know why they were beating around the bush and not just say it directly.
The awakening results of a school every year determined the rank the school was given as well as the amount of funds and materials they were assigned. And he did nothing but sand bag the results, making it worse for everyone else involved.
He fully expected this and only opened it to see if there was the off chance that things would go differently, but he was naturally disappointed. He got up to fix the door and check if the robbers managed to find the money that he always kept in his house as he didn't fully trust the banks.
'Thank God they didn't, though if they searched for a little bit more they would have found it.' Staring at the $600 dollars he saved, if he added it to the $1,400 he had in his bank account, then he was now worth about $2000 dollars.
This measly amount wouldn't go far but they're were somethings that he needed to buy: Firstly a specialized personal communicator, the phone that he was using wouldn't survive any encounters with monsters and was to much of a hassle to use, Secondly he had to buy a few skill books, namely the inventory skill and the analysis skill.
Again, these were the basics that every awakened person needed and would be provided to him if he went to the advanced training that was provided, but as an F rank he didn't have any of these privileges.
Lastly the monster encyclopedia, this wasn't a physical book but was downloaded to your personal communicator and could be used to find the information on monsters that one wasn't familiar with.
Weapons were much too expensive for him, and with the basic training provided by the school, and for a few other reasons, he was very familiar with his fists. With a few well placed hits even some very powerful beasts would go down, everything had a weakness.
He pulled up the awakened auction site, Universal Exchange, and skimmed through it to see the prices of the two books that he needed. Any pride that he may have had about the money he had on hand was immediately squashed.
The inventory skill went for $600 and the analysis skill was $400. He originally planned to use at most $1000 for everything that he needed to buy but wasn't expecting the books to be so much.
'If awakened are given these books for free, then why the hell are they so expensive?'
What he didn't understand is that they were expensive because most people got them for free. If you really needed to pay to get these then you didn't have any other option and had to get it from here. When a monopoly is formed prices naturally go up and with the government only providing them to the schools, there was no one to challenge the absurd prices. Few people had the knowledge of skill book creation and they were taking full advantage of it.
With no other choice he ordered these two as well as the more sturdy version of a personal communicator that was specialized for the awakened, but before he closed it off, he saw a book that was dirt cheap but would be useful for him.
Titled [Basics of Mana sensing and manipulation], this would also be provided if he was still in school but was very cheap compared to the other two books, this was more information than a learnable skill. If one wanted to be a cultivator, mage or simply train a talent this book would be indispensable.
With one being a spatial skill and the other giving one full awareness of the state of their body or equipment at any given time, they were naturally more expensive than some notes.
With the additional book being a modest $50 and the advanced personal communicator setting him back $700 he was left with a quarter of what he wanted to save.
The pc might seem expensive, with a normal one going for $100, but this wasn't the civilian model. It was rated to withstand a blow from a cr. 5 awakened. Even if it was at the center of a few back to back nuclear explosions it would be fine and perfectly functional. That type of capability isn't cheap to make and it was only as cheap as $700 because they are mass produced.
Closing the site, he walked over to a strange device in the corner of the room. This box contained a teleportation formation that served as his mailbox. It was badly damaged but thankfully operational.
He put the money needed in it and with a flash it was gone, and in a few moments his order appeared in a similar manner. On it the three books and the metal ring represented almost all that he was worth, and the pitiful amount was a depressing site.
He put the ring on his left ring finger and it shrunk in size accordingly, these were designed to be a one size fits all solution and grew with its user. He felt a sharp pain followed by a mild headache which symbolized a blood sample being taken and the soul signature tied. Now the ring was practically an extension of his body and soul as it used the collected data to resonate with both.
He simply willed it to start up and lines started glowing on it and an image of a screen hovering in front of him appeared in his mind. Only he could see this as it was projected in his mind and was it blank, save for the date and time as well as his name.
He pulled out his phone and again willed his pc to scan it and transfer the data over to it. Now that he was met with a somewhat familiar interface, he moved over to the Universal Exchange app and downloaded the encyclopedia, which also set him back $50.
Left with only $200, he connected his pc with the light box and placed it in it. With a flash the money was gone and a new metric appeared stating how much he had. This was tied to his pc and there were no banks involved, transactions between awakened almost never involved cash and this feature was reserved for them. This was probably the only privilege he somewhat retained.
To learn skills from skill books, one's body and soul needs to be in the best condition to prevent failures. He couldn't even afford to buy another set if they failed so he didn't even look at them as setting up his pc took a little bit of his blood and dealt minor damage to his soul. Both of these would heal over night so he could wait a few hours to ensure that nothing went wrong.