Taking a look at who sent it, Arthur was surprised to see that it was Kaede.
"Wait, why am I even surprised? She's the only one who has my number." Sighing while rubbing the back of his head, he opened the message and read it.
{Thanks for yesterday. I hope we can have dinner together again~} (A//N: This '{}' will be for any phone messages or any particular message whether it is a letter or even an announcement.}
"Hmm, how should I respond to this?" Arthur murmured to himself.
Apart from emails sent by magazines that refused him, he never replied to any other message before so this was certainly new to him.
After a while, he simply decided to give a simple reply that would end the conversation without sounding too forceful.
{I also enjoyed it. Of course, we should do that in the future.} He replied before he closed the phone and put it in silent mode.
Even if Kaede responded to that, he couldn't waste time talking to her when he still had too many things to do and his time was short.
"Ugh, my limbs still hurt from yesterday." Groaning under his breath, Arthur quickly opened his homework and started answering the questions to the best of his abilities.
'Damn, I'm really falling behind! I don't even know what half of this stuff means! How did I even reach this grade without repeating a year, it's truly a miracle!' He thought to himself as he also opened his notebooks and started studying all the lessons he hadn't focused on before.
With that, hours passed quietly as Arthur fought a war with his homework. His whole mind was focused on solving all these problems and learning what he hadn't learned before. It obviously turned out to be extremely tough since he was basically clueless about most stuff.
But, Arthur also found out that he could surprisingly understand these concepts faster than he expected. His brain seemed to be awake and ready to work. Mid-studying, he stopped and made himself some breakfast to give himself energy.
Arthur wasn't by any means a bad cook, he did learn basic dishes before he left his parent's house but he never found use for those skills. Well, until now, that is.
He made sure to make it as nutritional as he could using the vegetables and fruits he bought before he continued studying.
By the time he finished around 5% of his homework, it was already noon which meant that he spent almost 5 hours studying using his pen. After that, he made himself lunch and then went down to continue his push-ups and Squats.
Since he was in a good mood that day, his progress was shocking. In a matter of a few hours, Arthur was able to increase the counter on both challenges to 260 which meant that he was able to do 150 push-ups and squats.
It was still far behind what he needed to do but he still felt satisfied with his progress. Looking out his window, Arthur noticed that it was already around dusk so he changed his clothes again and went out for a run to the grocery store.
He didn't forget the small cats that he decided to take care of so he took that opportunity to finish his 6.7 kilometers needed for that day.
By the time he came back home, the counter went from 10 to 13 which meant that…
"Fuck yeah! I finished today's goal for running! Yes!! Yes!!!" He yelled and jumped excitedly.
Never before had Arthur felt this great in his life. He felt satisfied, accomplished, and full of hope and optimism. He felt more than ever, he felt that his life was starting to get back on track.
He started feeling more organized, more energetic, and more in grasp of his situation. This much change in merely 2 days since he acquired his new powers was shocking. But, the truth was, perhaps Arthur wasn't actually a failure of a human being.
What if he simply needed a small push to actually show his potential and iron will? What if this MangaVerse was simply the catalyst that created this new version of Arthur?
The boy didn't know the answer but he was just happy and excited for the future. Inside the shower, he let the cold water run down his exhausted body as he thought about his future.
"I'm doing it… Hah, I'm really doing it. After one month, I might be able to actually become far more capable than I anticipated." He smiled to himself.
After showering, Arthur sat down at his table and started working on his homework again. He didn't push himself to overwork since he was completely tired now. He was just doing some light studying.
Or that was what he intended to do.
[Objectives have been updated.]
Arthur flinched when he saw that notification as he felt a chill run down his spine. He had a bad premonition about this. But, he still opened the objectives menu.
[Objective: (Study Junky): -Write 5k words worth of homework before midnight. (0/5000)
Rewards: +5 Ink Points, +3 Stamina.]
"Are you fucking kidding me? 5k words?! That's absurd! I didn't even write 5k this morning and you expect me to do that before midnight?!" Arthur complained with a desperate look on his face.
Midnight was exactly in 4 hours which meant that he had even less time than what he had that morning. Arthur was seriously thinking of not doing this objective since he considered it to be near impossible if not outright impossible.
However…
'5 Ink points and 3 Stamina points are just too attractive. Especially Stamina, if I get that boost, I will be able to do even more training tomorrow!' He thought to himself.
"Shit… Ugh! I'm a greedy bastard!" Cursing his overflowing greed for points, he clenched his teeth and quickly grabbed the Divine Pen before he jumped into work like a maniac.
His focus and speed increased considerably since he now had something great at stake. If he didn't finish by midnight then he was gonna lose a huge amount of points.
At the 2-hour mark, Arthur was already losing focus because of exhaustion. His limbs screamed at him to stop and just go sleep and his eyes were fighting the urge to close and collapse. However, to fight that, he quickly brewed himself a huge cup of coffee before he chugged it down.
The caffeine he injected into his system kicked his brain awake again and gave him energy out of thin air to continue.
(1147/5000)
…
(2245/5000)
…
(3654/5000)
Exactly three hours and thirty minutes passed since Arthur started this marathon to finish 5000 words worth of homework and he was at around 4156 words written.
'Shit! I won't be able to reach it on time at this rate!' He cursed as he kept peeking at the time while also moving as fast as he could. Every part of his being was completely focused on finishing this task at all costs.
Even though Arthur was already seeing himself failing, he didn't give up at all as he continued writing non-stop. He will only give up when Midnight hits him.
'I need to think of something. There must be a way.' He thought quickly as he looked around him on the table. There wasn't an inch of space on the table that wasn't filled with notebooks, papers, and all kinds of other books that Arthur was required to study.
That's when his eyes fell on something. At the same time, an idea hit him.
"That… could work!"