Martin had gone through the first book he had borrowed from the library, and he could feel his head swell from amount of knowledge he had gained.
Martin stayed at the back of his class constantly drowning himself in the ocean of knowledge.
The amount of students in 2F were forty in total and they were stuck together in one class, some of them had gone out to catch fun while the others stayed in the class constantly talking about something unimportant or gossiping about the teachers and professors.
There were even some who were jeering at Martin as he was immersed in his studies.
"Doesn't he know no matter how hard he tries, it's hard for F-graded students to even be promoted." A student was talking to her friend and they both snickered.
Apparently they had all given up hopes when they realised that they couldn't be promoted, they had all been trying since they were in class 1 but the exams were too hard for them.
It required an innate genius, someone of gifted intelligence.
"I even heard that the exams were going to be harder this time, there would be a practical session."
The next student spoke, they just couldn't understand why this boy was trying so hard, they had all accepted their fate.
"I don't even think I can make it, I'll just stick to helping my father in the farmyard. At least my stupid water rune would be in handy. " One of them causing the others to laugh at him.
"At least you have a helpful rune, I don't what to do with my Wind Rune. I can't even create two wind blades." They had switched from mocking Martin to discuss about their future lives.
"Just one? That's terrible. I heard the A students with wind runes were capable of making a cyclone made with wind blades." A girl who had packed up her hair into two pony tails said with her sparkling eyes.
"Damn! You bluffing." The other students refused to believe her no matter how hard she tried to convince them.
"No. I'm telling the truth, I saw it with my own eyes when I sneaked into their practice room." She pouted her lips as she tried to explain herself.
"Even if a professor comes in and tell me this story, I still wouldn't believe. How would someone with the same Wind rune that I have create that??! I should just kill myself at this rate." The boy with a wavy hair who had spoken about his inability to make two wind blades could feel his heart breaking in two.
Wasn't it better to jump off the school roof? No one would actually care about his demise. He was going to die in the hand of a beast one day or he would slowly die at the age of seventy or higher like the rest of the normal humans.
Actually, this girl wasn't lying. There were only fifteen students in the A class and from what Martin had heard, the quantity of the students in a class reduced as the ranks went higher.
The girl immediately left the group in anger when she saw that they were making fun of her and her lies.
They were all around the age of eighteen or going to eighteen and they had thought that they would be able to be mages finally but then due to the sudden rise in economy, the school had brought the preposterous rule that said they had to pass their final exams with an average or above average before they could be allowed to partake in the Awakening.
The Awakening that everyone had always talked about was a method of opening up the meridians in the average human body and this was the same topic that Martin was focusing on as he read his book.
The Awakening was like a jumpstart for the meridian system. Only verified mages could get the permission to supervise an Awakening and their services were very expensive.
The school had no problem dealing with this for the last few years but suddenly economy had spiked up so it was hard to get a verified mage for the awakening.
Martin's goal was never to get through to the awakening, he just wanted to get the benefits that came with going to a higher class, maybe he could find a way to get stronger and leave this forsaken world that only sought after his life.
After going through some pages of the book, he had decided to go through the awakening by himself and he was currently trying to understand the process.
Yes it was dangerous. There was a lot of things that could fuck him up and lead to his second death but he had to go through with it as that was the only way to find out what the large rune on his chest could do.
_Fuck it, I have to still try_
Martin thought as he went through everything that could go wrong during the process.
The meridians are twelve in number and they are passageways or channels that allowed the flow of spiritual energies known as Mana in the body, they are linked to various organ systems of the body.
These passageways are thin and delicate, so the amount of mana that flowed through them needed to be accurately measured.
If the mana was too much for these channels, it could cause them to burst open, crippling the cultivation of the affected person.
Another danger was that if the energies passed were contaminated or unclean, it could affect the flow of mana into the organ systems, and could cause the failure of these organs leading to the death of the mage in question.
_I have two choices… well, one actually. Crippling my cultivation in this world makes me a dead meat already_
Martin thought as his eyes skimmed past the pages of the book.
So either way he was still dead.
He had to find a way to control his energy and allow it pass efficiently through his meridians so he could activate his rune.
The thing was that Martin didn't know if Axton possessed any mana affinity as he had failed two awakenings which was probably due to the lack of sufficient mana and the other was due to a quack awakener.
If that was the case, he would also have to add a way to increase his mana affinity to his list.
_But I have to try it my way first. I, Martin can not be a failure, at least I should have brought some upgrade into this body looking at the good fortune from my last life._
Martin thought but it didn't seem like things worked like that because he should have also been transmigrated into the body of a rich man.
Martin then turned a page and his eyes widened, the page contained different magic tools, and cultivation devices.
There were also ways by which he could strength his meridians.
_Pills? Potions?_
He could actually use something like pills or potions to strengthen his meridians. The prices of these Magic enhancement tools were also listed causing Martin to furrow his brows in amazement.
_What the fuck?! _
_A hundred gold loins_
_Two hundred gold loins_
_Fuck me_
_There has to be a much cheaper item in here_
_The least is fifty gold loins?!! _
_Too fucking expensive!_
At this stage he could only dream of affording them, so he was left with no choice than to just go ahead with the awakening himself and rely on the good fortune and luck from his other life.
He couldn't say luck though, looking at the fact that he got killed by what he loved most–A woman.
The bell rang signalling the end of school, the students of class 2F rushed out, eager to escape from this prison of a school and return back to their comfortable homes.
Martin packed up his bag of books, left the class and stood by the school gate.
"Should I wait for Theo?" He muttered as he stared at the different style of students who were walking out of the school doors.
You could tell their class by the way they carried themselves but sometimes it wasn't always right to judge a book by its cover or a student by his way of dressing.
Martin couldn't find Theo after waiting for a long time, then he slapped his forehead, why was he waiting for Theo in the first place?
They weren't friends to that extent.
Yes, maybe Theo had helped him on some few cases, but they weren't that close that they had to walk home together.
Axton himself didn't know much about Theo when he was alive so why should he give any fuck.
With that thought, Martin turned around.
To think that his house was a far distance from school. He had waited at the school gate too long, and it was seven pm already so there would not be any available buses.
Martin took the lone and empty path back home, not because he wanted to draw danger to himself, he just wanted to test his new body development.
_Sigh, there's nothing at home to eat_
_Well I could just train this body instead_
He had made sure that he didn't do anything that would cause him to overexert his strength and ruin something in the school, he didn't have money to pay for damage fee.
_Tomorrow, I'd leave school early and go shopping_
The alley way was dimly lit, and the light flickered but he could see his path clearly.
Just as he made a turn, he saw three young teenagers leaning on the sides of the alley way and they turned their familiar faces to him and smiled.
_Now what do we have here? _
_Some people never learn anything_
Martin returned the smile to them, at least the heavens had decided to shine a brilliant light on him as it provided three test subjects for his training.
He had to take this seriously, this could be his last chance of getting actual humans as test subjects
"Heys Guys. I didn't know you lived around here also." Martin held a smug smile on his face as he waved to them.
These boys were the bullies he had saved Lance from, they came back just to get beaten by him.
Then suddenly he saw Jin move and his danger senses tingled causing him to move to the right but it was a little too late as a wind blade passed by him and left a cut on his shoulder but it wasn't that deep.
"Excited to see me, are we… ?" Martin glanced at his wounded shoulder, then he felt another wind blade heading for his head but he fully dodged it this time by leaping out of the way.
The bag he had on his back did nothing to deter his movements as he felt as light as a feather.
"We don't have to do this guys. We are better than this."
Martin tried to placate them, he wasn't doing this for himself, he was doing it for them. He still couldn't control his newly gained strength and he didn't want to mistakenly press someone's kid into the ground.
"Shut the heck up you piece of crap, and stand still. Let's get this over with so we can get out of here."
Rob came forward after seeing Jin fail to get rid of the kid.
His rune symbol appeared at the back of his hand and it glowed with a light brown color.
_Earth Rune_
He had Liam's kind of rune and from what Martin had seen before Liam died, the earth rune was pretty dangerous.
Martin understood that the ground he stood on basically served as the weapon of his opponent.
He glanced at the walls, well he didn't need to stand on the ground. There wasn't a rule that stated he could only stand on the ground right?
"Earth Fist!" Rob's voice brought Martin's focus back to him and soon the ground under Martin's feet started to shake.
Seeing this, Martin smiled. It was just like he had thought.
He leapt into the air and straight onto the walls, he applied strength on his fingers and they dug into the wall holding him in place.
The place he had formerly stood had two dents the shape of his feet, and from there a huge rock in shape of a fist arose.
Martin realized that he had underestimated the strength of this three boys as he saw the fist-shaped rock heading for him.
Rob had a good control over his elemental rune.
The Earth fist headed straight towards him and he leapt away from his position landing back on the ground.
"Oh." Martin had the chance to cast a side glance at Rob who was now heaving heavily, it seemed controlling the rock took more energy than actually creating those rocks.
"Can't you stand still and die?!" Rob shouted as he moved his hand and the fist moved with it.
"Die?" Martin thought as he invaded the fist again.
_So this kids had come here to kill him_
Martin couldn't stop himself from laughing causing the boys to stare at him in surprise, why was he laughing? He was meant to be pleading for his life.
Martin's expression immediately changed, he had promised himself to eliminate every threat that stood his way. If he had done that the moment he sensed his father's hostility, he would still be alive and on his way to being the richest man in his world.
Of course killing these kids would be low as he was technically older than them.
Then he had an idea, maybe he could just break a few of their limbs hindering them from completing their cultivation, at least they could die in some beast's hands and not his.
A boy stood by the corner watching all that was happening with a worried look on his face.
Bill didn't like what his friends had forced him to do at all and he wanted to leave immediately, there was something off about this Axton kid that made him want to stay far. Very far.
"Jin, let's stop this." Bill huddled closer to his friend and whispered in his ear as he watched Rob try to harm Martin who was skillfully invading every attack.
"It's too late Bill. I want him dead. He is a threat to us. I don't like him, seeing his face makes my skin crawl. It's better we do this now or live in the shadow of this guy forever." Jin said his voice was dripping with fury and distaste.
The expression on Bill's face gave out the knowledge that he didn't know about this sudden development of plans, he had only thought they wanted to scare Axton a little, now they planned to kill him? He couldn't partake in this.
Jin looked at Axton with intense hate, why couldn't he just die so they could get rid of his body and leave.
He was an orphan so no one would care about his sudden disappearance.
From the moment he had tried to push Axton away and the boy didn't even budge, it had hurt his ego and he had wanted to teach him a lesson but that meddling son of a gun, Theo, had gotten in his way.
Now here was his chance. Axton wouldn't live to see the next morning.