"I'm not a genius."
I felt hopeless. I had been in many desperate situations in my life but none as bad as this one.
'This is stupid! Why wouldn't the exam be about combat? Instead it's about things like history, some weird chemical things and some weird calculations.'
I was cooked. I didn't even know a single one of these questions. I mean, why would I even need to know this stuff?
Who cares about what happened 200 years ago? certainly not me. And why would I need to know this chemical knowledge, it's not like I'll become a potion maker.
'They should make most of these things optional. Most people won't even use this in their entire life.'
This test made me come to one realization. School is useless!!
I dropped my head down on the desk. It was hopeless anyway. I could feel the stares of pity thrown at me by the other students taking the test.
Well at least we know one thing for sure. I'm last place. I got put into last place on the physical exam and I can't even answer any of these questions.
But it shouldn't matter that much. Sure, I may get looked down upon at the start of the year but I should be able to prove myself through the year.
Though it didn't change the fact that it would be hard to make friends like this. People tend to look down on those of a lower rank.
I was slowly getting more and more depressed because of this.
"Life is a pain. Was it really worth it to survive?" I muttered to myself.
But memories of the past month quickly resurfaced, improving my mood. "Of course it was. This is just a mere bump on the road. I will probably rank up in like two weeks. After that it shouldn't take me more than two months to get to F+ rank."
I had noticed this already but my rank-up speed is much faster than most. I could get to the level most of these kids here reached after 6 years.
Of course, I heard that rank-up speed is much slower in the first five years of awakening. It's speed increases alot after some reach the age of 15.
But since I awakened at 16, I never really had that problem. Though it still doesn't change the fact that my rank-up speed seems to be very fast.
Though my rank-up speed was pretty fast, my main aspact would be my combative ability. My skillset is apparently equal to an A rank. My BQ also says that so it must be true.
The reason for this was obviously the pits. When surrounded by constant violence since a young age, you will naturally get used to it. You will adapt to it and will eventually evolve into a greater version of yourself.
Adapt and evolve. As long as you do that, you will survive nearly everything there is. Though sometimes you won't get enough time to do that.
'What should I do now? There is no use in trying to answer any of these questions. I have already read all of them and didn't know the answer to nearly all of them. And the answers I wrote are probably wrong.'
I was contemplating about what to do. Unfortunately, I couldn't leave this room until the end of the test, which was about an hour from now.
What kind of day is this? I just keep waiting for several hours for nothing the entire day. If I didn't know any better, I'd think someone had put a curse on me.
There wasn't really anything I could do. I couldn't even practice my mana control since it wasn't allowed to manipulate mana during the test. And I doubt a S rank teacher would miss my use of mana so that removed doing it sneakily.
'What to do, what to do…?'
After thinking for a couple of minutes, I came to the conclusion that I couldn't do anything. So like any individual with common sense, I decided to just sleep the rest of the test.
"Yawn."
With a yawn, I dropped my head in my arms on my desk. I quickly drifted off to sleep, probably because of the boredom I had to go through the entire day.
Unfortunately, I didn't know that my actions would draw the attention of most of the people around, as well as the teacher's. Most of them threw annoyed gazes at my sleeping body while the teacher didn't look al too happy, shaking her head and writing something on her notebook.
————————————————————
Sylvia's POV:
'Is this guy actually serious? He's shaming us Silverhearts with his pathetic behavior.'
Of course I saw him go to sleep as well. It was pretty hard to miss with that loud yawn he made.
I couldn't stand this guy. I know he isn't smart enough to already be done with this test so the next possible answer was already clear.
'He seriously just gave up? God, why did father adopt him? Now I need to prove my worth even more to show that the Silverheart name isn't just for show.'
Of course, you might wonder why I hate this guy so much.
At first, I didn't hate him. He saved my sister and acted like a pretty nice guy, though he was still a total nut-job.
And seeing his potential, I knew we had to recruit him. He could immensely increase the power of our household in the future. And if he were to go insane then we wouldn't get any of the blame.
It was a total win-win situation.
But father had to go ahead and adopt him. So now, if he were to do anything out of place we would be the ones getting shamed.
Though that's what I said, it wasn't really why I hated him. It's the way father looked at him. He never looked at me like that. With that praise in his eyes!
I tried my whole life to get my father to be impressed with me, for him to think of me like a prodigy. But he never looked at me like he looked at Alan. With me he'd just say good job after my countless hours spent in training. But that was it, he didn't look impressed, in his eyes I was just another talent.
But I could see how much Alan impressed him. My father couldn't shut up for even a single second the day after he adopted him. He kept talking about how great of a monster he adopted, how he had never seen anyone like Alan. He never spoke that way about me.
I had never seen my father excited or impressed by anything or anyone, yet he seemed to have an endless supply of it when it came to Alan.
How is this even fair? Sure, he may have just recently awakened but he already got to F- rank in under a month! And what is this monstrous skill he has. Level 6 martial arts? And on his subclass that is! He wasn't even awakened so how could he reach the level of an A rank before he even awakened. And his battle awareness as well apparantly looking at his BQ.
And what's with his pain tolerance. He barely even reacted to having both his arms broken! Any normal person would scream in pain after something like that happened.
And then you have his psychopathic personality. I remember his eyes when he was about to impale my face, there was no emotion in them. Like he was just getting rid of another bug.
And he has this weird behavior of attacking everyone that's strong in our household. And after they beat the shit out of him, he just laughs and screams how amazing they are.
There is something majorly wrong with him. And yet my father is still impressed with him instead of me?!
I've even seen him skip some of his important meetings to spy on Alan's training.
Why? Why couldn't I ever impress him while Alan could? I spent so much of my life training, studying and training even more just to receive his approval. Yet this random guy shows up and my father is over the moon?!
And not just that, he even ruined everything with Rachel. She was basically the only person I loved after my father. The short moments of time I wasn't training I would spend with her. She was my sunshine. But I couldn't stand seeing her with that guy.
They seemed so close to each other. And he could spend so much more time with her than I could since the only thing he did was train while I also had to study and do some things in the family.
So I went to her and told her to stop hanging out with him. I didn't want that psychopath influencing her in the wrong way. But she just got angry at me and even stopped talking to me altogether.
And it was all his fault! He took everything from me! Everything that was supposed to be rightfully mine.
You couldn't understand the happiness I felt when I eavesdropped him at the physical exam to find iut he couldn't participate.
I was curious about how he would perform knowing that the physical exam would be his only chance at obtaining a decent rank.
But what would you know, I guess the rumors I had been spreading had their use as I could immediately see the disdain on the receptionist's face.
He got screwed. And since that peasant came from the slums, he had no shot at the theory exams. He was guaranteed to be last place.
But even after all of this happened, he still manages to annoy me.
'He knows he's supposed to keep the Silverheart name up. What is he even dreaming about?'
He annoyed me even in failure. But I didn't care for too long. I was going to show my father which of his children he should have been impressed with.
And that would be his real daughter instead of this phony.
————————————————————
'Am I dreaming again?'
Last I remembered was falling asleep on my desk.
But for some reason I was able to think clearly in this dream. Yet again, I was on a swing, with my mom swinging me from behind.
Though I could think clearly, I couldn't move. It was like I was stuck spectating.
"Mom, I have something I need to tell you." I heard my young self say. I couldn't quite remember what this conversation was about so I listened in on it.
"Sure honey, what is it?" Her beautiful voice rang out. Yet it only angered me.
"Why do you look so gloomy whenever we talk about my birthday? Do you not want me to become 10? If it's for you, I'll stay 9."
Ah, so it was this conversation. One day before she left. One day before everything happened. The worst day of my life.
As an answer to the question the young me asked, she laughed a little, perhaps amused by the gibberish I was saying. "Hahaha. Don't worry Al, you don't have to stay 9. It's just that something big will happen on your birthday, something I prefer to prevent."
Something she wants to prevent? I can't remember this part of the conversation. Why is that?
Now that I think about it, she always did look sad whenever my tenth birthday was mentioned. But why? What was supposed to happen back then. All I remember is that dad somehow got crippled and mom looking at me with disdain before leaving.
But why would she look sad if she wanted to leave us?
I also remembered dad's letter. 'Don't hate your mother, it wasn't her fault. Though I cant tell you what happened, know that she loved the both of you more than anything.'
Things he can't talk about. What could those things be? And she loved us? Why would she do that to us if she loved us?
I never really thought much about what my father said in his letter about her, thinking that it was just the ramblings of a foolish man who was in love. But now it seems there really was more to it.
My head started to hurt. The previous reality of my mother being a filthy traitor who abandoned us was breaking down. But I didn't have enough information to create a new one, filling my head with questions.
What happened that day? Where did mom go? What happened to dad? Why my birthday? Does it have something to do with why I awakened this late?
The dream world was already falling apart. It seems that this was where the conversation ended.
I slowly woke up. Getting my head up, my eyes hurt a bit, still getting adjusted to the light. I saw that the test was not done yet. But fortunately, there were only two minutes left for the test.
But I didn't care about any of that. My mind was still on the matter of my mother. I still didn't understand what happened. But I understand now that there is more to it than what I thought before.
So many mysteries. I don't like it. At least when I hated my mother, I had a complete picture of what happened. But now it's just questions.
'There is no use thinking about it. It's not like I can get any answers. I'll try to find her someday. And then, I will have all the answers I need.'
"Alright, time is up. Leave your papers on your desks and quietly leave the classroom." Breaking me out of my thoughts was the teacher's announcement.
I did as he said and left my desk quietly, not wanting to annoy the teacher.
Though there was one thing I didn't notice while leaving the classroom. A gaze boring into the back of my head.
The person in suspect was someone with blue hair and blue ocean like eyes. He had a look of amusement on his face as he inspected Alan, a smile on his face.
"So he's the one with even greater potential than the protagonist. It's unfortunate that he'll get screwed over in a little while, meeting his demise. From what I understood from the novel, he wasn't even really a bad guy, just someone with different ideals."
The guy just looked at Alan for a bit more before shrugging his shoulders.
"Who knows, perhaps I'll help him out. I also didn't like the protagonist too much anyway."
And he followed the rest of the class, leaving the classroom.